"We can worry about the amount of wreckage later," Prescott decided. "What matters right now is whether or not we killed enough of them to continue to the next phase of the assault. Jacques? Anna?"
"We're within parameters, Sir . . . barely," Mandagalla said after a moment. She and Bichet exchanged glances. "We've done much better against the fortresses than we anticipated, and there are open assault lanes in the minefields. On the other hand, there seem to have been substantially stronger reserve forces in the system than we expected. Before they pulled back out, Shaaldaar's people picked up two more waves of incoming gunboats, each of them considerably more powerful than the CSP was. They also detected the approach of a Bug fleet built around at least twenty-five monitors. And although Jacques is right about the numbers of fortresses we've already taken out, the seventy or so survivors appear to be pretty much intact. They were putting out plenty of fire when Shaaldaar's gunboats pulled out, anyway."
"And we don't have enough reserve SBMHAWKs to take them out with a second wave," Prescott thought aloud.
"Doesn't look that way, Sir," Bichet agreed.
"On the other hand, Raaymmonnd," Zhaarnak put in from the com screen at Prescott's elbow, "we seem to have earned a high return on the investment we made with the first wave."
"Agreed." Prescott nodded firmly. "I'm just not certain that the return was high enough for our purposes."
"Sir," Bichet said diffidently, "if we move quickly, we'll have more than enough time to get the entire fleet through the minefield lanes before the main Bug force can get into shipboard weapons range of the warp point. We'll take some heavy fire from the surviving fortresses, and at least one gunboat strike will reach us before we get completely clear of the mines, but we can do it."
"And in deep space, we can match our speed and maneuverability and our advantage in fighters against their numbers," Zhaarnak observed.
"We could," Prescott agreed. "But would we be justified in doing that?" He held up one hand before Zhaarnak could reply. "I don't doubt that we can get through the mines before they hit us, Zhaarnak. I'm just questioning whether or not we can justify risking heavy losses-or even, conceivably, the complete loss of Sixth Fleet? I'd be more than willing to fight the mobile units, if it weren't for the fortresses-or the fortresses, if it weren't for the mobile units. But I don't think we have the reserve strength to justify taking both of them on when we don't have to."
"I dislike the thought of allowing any of them to escape," Zhaarnak grumbled. "Especially when the SBMHAWKs and Shaaldaar's farshatok have already achieved such an enormous success! Such opportunities should not be wasted."
"I hate not following up on an opportunity the Gorm paid such a price to buy for us," Prescott agreed. "And I'd prefer to finish them off, myself. The only problem I have is that I'm not sure they'd be the ones who got finished!"
"There is that," Zhaarnak admitted with the ghost of a purring chuckle. Then he inhaled deeply. "I am always impressed by your ability to maintain your strategic equilibrium, Raaymmonnd. And, as always, you are correct once more. This is not Telmasa or Shanak. Desperate chances may be justified under desperate circumstances, but even the Bahg forces which the gunboats detected are insufficient to threaten our grip on Zephrain . . . unless we advance too rashly and allow them to whittle down our own strength before they counterattack."
"My own thought, exactly." Prescott nodded. "What we've already accomplished represents a major victory, and I feel confident that we've forestalled any thoughts the Bugs might have entertained of launching another offensive against Zephrain." He shrugged. "We structured this entire operation from the beginning so that we could shut it down at any moment of our choice, right up to the instant we actually made transit into Home Hive Three and committed to action with their main forces. I'd say this is a time to count our winnings and walk away from the table."
"My heart may not be fully in it," Zhaarnak sighed, "but my brain agrees with you. Very well. We shall satisfy ourselves with the 'mere' destruction of a hundred and fifty fortresses, their entire CSP, sixty heavy cruisers, and several hundred patterns of mines."
He bared his fangs in a lazy carnivore's smile and chuckled once again, this time more loudly.
"A modest little victory," he observed, "but our own."
Three standard weeks later, they were in Prescott's office on Xanadu, staring at each other. Prescott let the sheet of hardcopy flutter down onto the desktop.
"I dislike being had," he finally said through lips that were an immobile straight line of anger.
"That is a trifle strong, Raaymmonnd."
"The hell it is! You've read this report. One of our RD2s actually caught them in the act of emplacing the buoy and observed what happened when they activated it! Presto! A new fortress!"
"I suppose," Zhaarnak philosophized, "that it was inevitable that they would develop third-generation ECM buoys. We ourselves have had them for some time."
"And never deployed them because there was no percentage in revealing the system's existence to them," Prescott agreed. "After all, it isn't nearly as useful to us as it is to them. The great advantage of something that can spoof sensors into thinking it's any class of ship-or fortress-is that it can dilute the effect of mass SBMHAWK attacks. And they don't have SBMHAWKs!"
"Truth," Zhaarnak agreed with a dry humor and an outward control that would have fooled most humans. "On the other hand, we now possess empirical proof that our own ECM3 buoys should function just as well as their developers predicted if the Bahgs ever do develop the SBMHAWK."
Prescott gave a furious snort and scowled ferociously down at the hardcopy report, and Zhaarnak joined his own scowl to his vilkshatha brother's. Uaaria and Amos Chung had delivered the latest bad news less than an hour before this meeting. Now that the analysts knew what to look for in their probe data, they'd been able to amass a more complete statistical picture, and the current estimates were that no more than ninety of the fortresses Sixth Fleet had attacked-and none of their supporting heavy cruisers-had been real. All of the others had been artificially generated sensor ghosts.
"Remember how puzzled we were by the shortage of wreckage?" Prescott said after a long, fulminating moment. His voice was less harsh than it had been, for he'd reached the stage where he was once again capable of wryness.
"Indeed . . . even though we did destroy a full third of the real fortresses."
The Orion spent a moment in silent, brooding contemplation of the number of SBMHAWKs that had been wasted. Thanks to the enormous productivity of the heavily industrialized Human Corporate Worlds, the expenditure was only an inconvenience, not a disaster. Still, it would require months to ship replacement missile pods to Zephrain, and while Sixth Fleet waited for them, any fresh offensive would be out of the question. He found that he . . . disliked the notion of having been so thoroughly taken in by something like the Arachnids, and he felt his claws creep ever so slightly out of their sheathes. Then he shook himself out of the mood.
"If anyone was had, in your human idiom, Raaymmonnd," he said, "it was me. I was in command for the operation."
"I was sucked in just as far as you were," Prescott reminded him. "If you'll recall, you took the course of action you did on my advice."