Therefore, the Enemy must not think the chain was unimportant.
What had the survey flotilla found?
It couldn't be the closed warp point through which the Fleet had entered and left the system. There was no way the Enemy could know of its existence, and even if the Enemy had deduced that it must exist, it would have been impossible for him to locate. And, in any event, the Enemy wasn't proceeding toward the closed warp point, but rather was advancing single-mindedly toward the open one that would take him to the chain's next, even more useless warp junction.
But whatever these Enemies' mysterious objective might be, they would eventually be returning this way, as the survey flotilla had. They could not be allowed to do so unchallenged-especially not when a force this powerful had obligingly thrust itself into a position where it might be cut off by even more powerful forces and utterly destroyed. But the immediately available forces were insufficient to entrap it on its return. Therefore, help must be summoned from elsewhere.
Fortunately, there was a place from which that help could come.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chaff in the Furnace
In the words of the legendary and doubtless apocryphal Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again.
They'd entered Home Hive One just as unobtrusively as they'd once slipped into Home Hive Three, emerging from the closed warp point into Stygian regions where a six light-hour-distant Sol-like sun barely stood out from the starfields. Then they'd formed up and proceeded sunward in a long-prepared order, toward the three Bug-inhabited planets which a chance bit of orbital choreography had placed in a neat row, at a three-way aphelion.
As he gazed into the system-scale holo display, Raymond Prescott found himself wondering if the Bugs believed in astrology. Somehow, he doubted it. But if they did, they were about to get a whole new perspective on planetary alignments as a harbinger of ill luck.
He and Shaaldaar and their staffs had discussed the upcoming operation and its execution in exquisite detail, poring over the survey data Andrew had died to get home. They had a very good notion of the daunting scope of the task which faced them, and the discussion of precisely how to go about it had waxed voluble. Indeed, given the Orion and Gorm traditions of free-wheeling debate-which were considerably more fractious than the TFN normally embraced-the debate had moved beyond free-wheeling to vociferous on more than one occasion.
The overwhelming temptation was to try to repeat what Sixth Fleet had managed to accomplish in Home Hive Three. Hopefully, the "Shiva Option," as the Alliance's strategists had decided to label it, would have the same disorienting effect here that it had had there.
Unfortunately, there'd been two major problems in relying on that strategy. First, the Bugs must have suffered a severe jolt to their confidence in the inviolability of their home hive systems after what had happened to Home Hive Three. At a bare minimum, they'd almost certainly upgraded their sensor nets in the other home hive systems, and it was unlikely that Seventh Fleet would succeed in creeping in quite as close as Sixth Fleet had managed. Given the orbital defenses and the massive mobile force Andrew had detected in Home Hive One, it was very unlikely that Seventh Fleet could land a repeat of that devastating strike without first fighting its way through everything the Bugs could throw at it.
Second, and perhaps even more important, there was no way to be certain that the "Shiva Option" would even work a second time. If what seemed to have happened in Home Hive Three was in fact a universal Bug response to massive "civilian" casualties, then breaking through to directly attack the planetary surface, even at the risk of ignoring the fixed defenses on the way in and of paying for the attack with heavy losses in the strike forces, was the only logical way to go after a home hive system. Unfortunately, there was no way to be certain the effect was universal. Or even that the effect was what everyone thought it had been in the first place, for that matter. Hopefully, one result of Operation Retribution would be to confirm the universality of the effect, but no responsible strategist could plan an attack on this scale on "hopeful." Because if it turned out that the effect wasn't universal, the fixed defenses would use the time consumed by the planetary attack to get their own systems fully on-line and massacre the strike wave as it attempted to withdraw.
In the end, although certainly not without regrets, Prescott had decided that he had no choice but to plan for a conventional assault intended to cripple or destroy the defenses before going after the planetary population centers. He wasn't the only one who regretted the logic which left him no other option, but it was a bit of a toss-up. There were at least as many staffers who were relieved by his decision as there were those who were disappointed by it.
But as Task Force 71 moved in-system, and as the recon fighters and drones probed ahead, thoughts about astrology, bad luck, and the "Shiva Option" all left his mind to make room for a single perplexing question. Where was the bulk of the massive Bug fleet presence his brother had found here?
"It's a trap," Terence Mukerji jittered at an informal staff meeting on the flag bridge. "They knew we were coming, and they're in cloaking ECM, waiting for us. Once they know we're in the system, they'll move in and seal the warp point behind us."
Jacques Bichet cleared his throat.
"There may be some reason for concern, Sir," he said, loudly not adding Even though Mukerji thinks so. "The Bugs do have a history of using cloaked forces to spring surprises, starting with what they did to Commodore Braun," he pointed out, and Prescott turned a carefully noncommittal face to his intelligence officer.
"Amos?"
"I disagree, Sir. It's true that the Bugs have a history of using cloak, but I don't believe they set up an ambush because they knew we were coming. If the Bugs knew that your bro- er, that SF 62 had probed Home Hive One, then they would have put a major fleet presence in AP-5, not just the light forces we encountered."
Bichet looked unconvinced.
"Maybe. But isn't it also possible that they might have decided not to do that in order to lure us deep into the system and trap us there?"
An unspoken frisson ran through the group, for Bichet had summoned up the ghosts of Operation Pesthouse, but Chung stood his ground.
"I don't think so, and not just because I think they would have tried to stop us in AP-5. Everything our scouts have reported so far indicates that the units we can see are at a low state of readiness, like the ones we encountered in Home Hive Three. To me, that suggests the same kind of 'cost-conscious' resource husbanding we've deduced about their defense of that system. And that sort of stance is totally inconsistent with the notion that they're keeping forces as large as SF 62 reported permanently under cloak and at general quarters. The resource demands would simply be too prohibitive, in my opinion. Admiral, I've prepared an estimate-a rough one, necessarily-of what that would cost, if you'd like to see it."
"That won't be necessary, Amos. I can readily imagine it. And I agree with you." Prescott faced the rest of staff. "I don't pretend to know where the heavy fleet elements that were in the system have gone, but I'm entirely satisfied that they're not here now. We'll proceed as planned."