"In most ways, perhaps," Prescott acknowledged. "But as we all know, this is primarily a survey mission, and that means that our survey ships-and their specialists-are less expendable than their escorts. And if something should go wrong on the other side of that warp point, I would prefer to have the very best person available on this side of it to evaluate any courier drones which might come back through it. But even if both those things weren't true-which they are, of course-there are still two other points you haven't addressed."
"There are, Sir?" Snyder regarded him suspiciously when he paused, and Prescott's smile grew.
"Indeed there are, George. First, this sort of operation is sort of a specialty of mine, unfortunately." Snyder's eyes flickered as he, like everyone else around the table, recalled Prescott's nerve-wracking, brilliantly executed mission as Vanessa Murakuma's spy, left behind with Daikyu in Justin when the Bugs forced Fifth Fleet out of the system. "And second," Prescott went on, "there's the fact that I outrank you. So if I decide to poach this little operation for myself, there isn't much you can do about it except say 'Aye, aye, Sir.' "
Snyder's mouth twitched again at the twinkle in Prescott's eyes, but he shook his head once more.
"Even if both of those things are true, Sir, I strongly recommend that you let Sarmatian fly the mission. Concorde's not just the flagship, but a command datalink unit. Her loss would seriously weaken the flotilla's tactical posture if we should encounter any opposition on the way home."
"Now that," Prescott admitted, "is a valid point. But not enough to change my mind. Captain Kolontai and Concorde will make the transit and check things out."
"But, Sir-" Snyder began, respectfully but stubbornly, only to be cut off.
"The decision is made, George," Prescott said firmly. "If this really is an El Dorado, then it's time someone rode boldly looking for it, and those someones are me and my flagship. Understood?"
"Understood, Sir," Snyder sighed.
It had, Andrew Prescott reflected, seemed far more reasonable to claim this particular mission for himself before he actually set out on it.
He sat calm-faced in his command chair, feeling the jagged tension all about him, and watched his displays as Captain Kadya Kolontai conned her ship ever so slowly in-system. Concorde was at general quarters, with every weapon, sensor, and defensive system manned, but all active sensors were on inactive standby as she crept silently through space. With her cloaking ECM engaged, she was doing her very best to imitate a hole in space, with no active emissions to betray her presence, while the exquisitely sensitive cat's whiskers of her passive sensors probed and pried.
The transit into the system had been just as rough as the partial probe data had suggested it would be. They'd had too little information to adjust for the tidal stresses, and Concorde had emerged from transit headed almost directly away from the system primary, which had aimed her stern-always the aspect of a ship most liable to detection under cloak-straight at any sensors which might have been looking her way.
Captain Kolontai had allowed for that, however, and Concorde had come through at dead slow, under minimum power to reduce any betraying drive signature to the lowest possible level. Everyone had breathed an internal sigh of relief as the ship swung her stern away from the inner system, but then she'd begun her alley-cat prowl inward, and the tension had begun to ratchet up once more.
"I have a report from Tracking, Sir." Lieutenant Commander Chau's voice wasn't particularly loud, but it seemed almost shocking in the quiet tension, and Prescott swivelled his command chair to face him and nodded for him to continue.
"Lieutenant Morgenthau says we have enough data now, Sir. It's definitely a Bug system, and a major one at that. The primary's a G3, and it looks as if all three of the innermost planets are habitable. And . . . fully developed."
Prescott suppressed an urge to purse his lips in a silent whistle. If Chau was right, then this system might well be even more heavily populated-and dangerous-than Home Hive Three, and the best estimate was that Ray and his vilkshatha brother had killed over twenty billion Bugs in that system. But it had possessed only two habitable planets. Which meant this one might easily hold as many as thirty or even forty billion Bugs . . . and all the war-making infrastructure that massive population implied. Elation at the size of the prize SF 62 had discovered warred with cold horror at the thought of the defenses any attack might face, and he ordered his face to remain calm.
"What else can you tell me, Ba Hai?" he asked levelly.
"Not a great deal at this range, Sir," the ops officer admitted. "All three of the inner planets are on our side of the primary right now, but we're still an awful long way out. We've got massive energy signatures and neutrinos all over the place, but at this range there's no way to isolate individual sources or targets. We'd have to get a lot closer for anything like that."
"I see." Prescott reached into his pocket and caressed the smooth, well worn bowl of his pipe with a thumb while he thought. He hadn't really needed Chau to tell him they were too far out for details . . . or that they'd have to go closer to learn any more than they already had. But the rules of the game had required him to ask, just as they now required him to make a decision. And that, though he hadn't raised the point with Snyder, was the real reason he'd been determined to take this assignment for himself. The flotilla was his command. Any decisions which had to be made, and the responsibility for the consequences of those decisions, had to be his, and the potential consequences of getting too close to the Bugs loomed before him like a gas giant.
On the one hand, he'd already accomplished everything SF 62 had set out to do, and far more than anyone could reasonably have asked or predicted. If he turned back now, the information he already possessed would hit the Grand Alliance's strategists like a lightning bolt, for the opportunity it presented was literally priceless. But those same strategists would have to plan their response to that opportunity with only the vaguest of operational information. Certainly they wouldn't have anything like the mountains of data they'd been able to assemble for the attack on Home Hive Three, and the consequence would probably be higher casualties. Possibly even total disaster, if they underestimated the opposition too greatly or were unable to get in close and apply Ray's "Shiva Option" before the defenders detected them and swarmed over them.
Andrew Prescott was in a position to do something about that. As far as he knew, no Bug was aware of Concorde's presence, and she had the finest ECM in known space. He'd been able to avoid detection in Justin even after it became obvious the Bugs knew there were human ships about, and these Bugs didn't even know there was anyone around to hunt for. He wasn't about to underestimate the sensitivity of their sensors-not after what had happened to Commodore Braun in the very first human-Bug contact-but the odds against his being picked up coming in down the bearing from an unknown closed warp point were great. And if he did manage to avoid detection and get in close enough for detailed reads on the inner system, and any mobile units or orbital defenses those planets might have . . .
"Ride boldly." That's what you told Snyder was needed, he told himself. And you were right. But how much of this is hubris? You fooled a whole fleet of Bugs once . . . now you want to take on an entire star system? And if you blow it, if you go in close and get picked up . . .