Brigham sat without speaking for almost two minutes, obviously considering what Honor had just said, then looked at her admiral.
"And do you agree with the 'new school of thought', Your Grace?"
"I think it's a rational, fresh approach to the problem. And I think that if the Republic is willing to accept and respect the future neutrality of current members of the Alliance, it would be very much in our interest to pursue the possibility. My biggest reservation is whether or not the Republic will accept anything of the sort, though."
"They've been trying to split the Alliance for decades," Brigham pointed out.
"Yes, they have. But one thing Eloise Pritchart and Thomas Theisman obviously aren't is stupid, which means they're as well aware as we are of how the strategic and operational realities have changed. So, if I were they, I'd be very tempted to reject any easy out for our allies. I'd insist on their surrender, rather than simply allowing them to say they're tired of playing and want to go home."
"Or," Brigham said slowly, "you might agree to allow them to become neutral, when what you really intend to do is sweep them right up as soon as we withdraw our units and leave them on their own."
"That's certainly one possibility. And given the Pritchart Administration's apparent track record in interstellar diplomacy, quite a few people opposed to the idea are making the same point. Personally, I think that if Pritchart officially agreed to accept their neutrality, she'd almost have to stand by her word precisely because of the dispute over what happened to our diplomatic correspondence before the shooting started again. I've said as much, not without evoking quite a bit of incredulity. It's not a point on which the Government at large and I, or even my new brother-in-law and I, seem to be in close agreement." She grimaced. "Fortunately, perhaps, it's a decision I don't have to make."
"But it is going to affect our stance here, isn't it? That's why you brought it up."
"Yes, it is. As things stand now, we're being forced to make even heavier commitments to Alizon and the other secondary systems because of what happened at Zanzibar. Which means, of course, that finding replacements and reinforcements for Eighth Fleet just got even harder. And given what we blundered into in Solon, Admiralty House is insistent that we have to be reinforced before we resume offensive operations. We can't afford another hammering like the one Giscard gave us."
"So it's confirmed that it was Giscard?"
"The news came in just before my shuttle left. He's been officially voted the thanks of the Republic's Congress for his successful defense of Solon. And Tourville got the same thing for hammering Zanzibar."
"That's good to know," Brigham said thoughtfully. Honor looked at her, and the chief of staff shrugged. "It always makes me feel better, somehow, to be able to put a face on the enemy, Your Grace."
"Does it?" Honor shook her head. "It helps me when I consider their probable actions or reactions, but I really think I'd rather not know the people on the other side. It's easier to kill strangers."
"Don't fool yourself, Your Grace," Brigham said quietly. "I've known you a long time now. The fact that they're strangers doesn't make you feel any better about killing them."
Honor looked at her again, more sharply, and her chief of staff looked back levelly. And she was right, Honor thought.
"At any rate," she continued, her tone conceding the point, "we can't afford to let them do that to us again for several reasons. The losses themselves are painful enough, but we've got to regain the momentum, and we're not going to be able to do that if they keep bloodying our nose. So the decision's been taken that even though it's important to get back onto the offensive as quickly as we can, we're not going to do it until we've been able to reinforce Eighth Fleet significantly. Which means turning up additional modern wallers, among other things."
"Which is going to take how long?" Brigham asked anxiously.
"At least another six to eight weeks. That's why I said Imperator's repair time wasn't going to set us back badly."
"New wallers sound good, but I hate the thought of giving them that much free time, Your Grace." Brigham's expression was worried. "They've got to be tempted to follow up their success against Zanzibar, and if we take the pressure off of them for a couple of months...."
She let her voice trail off, and Honor nodded.
"I made the same point to Admiral Caparelli and the Strategy Board. And I also made a suggestion about how we might alleviate some of the worse consequences of having to effectively stand down Eighth Fleet's offensive for that long."
"What sort of suggestion, Your Grace?" Brigham regarded her narrowly.
"We're going to try to keep them looking over their shoulders. Beginning next week-about the time we'd be doing it anyway, if we were following the cycle we established in Cutworm Two and Three-our destroyers are going to start scouting half a dozen of their systems. They'll do exactly what they've been doing as the preliminary for each of our earlier attacks. Except, of course, that there won't be any attacks."
"That's... deliciously nasty, Your Grace," Brigham said admiringly. "They'll have to assume we do plan to attack and react accordingly."
"Initially, at least. I suspect they're smart enough to wonder if that isn't exactly what we're doing, since they know they've hurt us badly. But I think you're right; they're going to have to honor the threat, at least the first time we do it to them. After that, they could change their minds."
"So if we do it to them two or three times while we aren't ready to attack," Brigham said, "get them accustomed to the idea that our scouts are just part of a strategy of bluffs, then when we are ready to attack-"
"Then hopefully, scouting the systems will actually give us a bit of an edge of surprise, since they'll know we aren't really going to hit them," Honor agreed. "And if we do it right, we may be able to convince them to do an al-Bakr and tip their hands on their current defensive thinking and deployments."
"I like it," Brigham said. "Obviously, I'd prefer not to have to suspend operations, but if we have to, let's make it work for us as much as we can."
"That's more or less what I was thinking. So why don't you and I spend some time thinking about which systems we'd like to make them most nervous about?
"Your Grace?"
Honor and Spencer Hawke broke immediately, stepping back towards opposite sides of the mat. They fell into rest positions, then Honor bowed and Hawke returned the courtesy before she turned towards James MacGuiness.
"Yes, Mac?"
MacGuiness stood just inside the gymnasium hatch. Like Honor's original flagship, HMS Second Yeltsin was an Invictus-class superdreadnought. Honor had transferred her flag to her while Imperator was undergoing repairs, but although she and her staff been aboard Second Yeltsin for almost two weeks now, ever since her return from Manticore, the ship still didn't feel like "home."
Still, it wasn't exactly like camping out in a hut in the woods, either. Second Yeltsin, like Imperator, had been built as a flagship from the keel out, and several of her amenities reflected her flagship status, including the small, well-equipped private "flag gym" one deck down from the admiral's personal quarters. Honor had preferred to use the main gymnasium aboard Imperator, where she could take the pulse of the flagship's crew's morale and attitudes, but since Simon Mattingly's and Timothy Mears' deaths, Andrew LaFollet had put his foot down firmly. He simply could not guarantee her security with so many people so close together, and his feelings-and concern-had been so strong that this time Honor had offered barely token resistance. Even now, she could taste her personal armsman's focused attention as he stood behind MacGuiness, of all people, tautly wary of any sudden move on the other man's part.