"And I'm firmly convinced that the operation's next phase will bring it even closer," MacGregor declared. Sanders' report had, of course, also included Prescott's daring plan for a two-pronged offensive by himself and Zhaarnak.
"So you have no inclination to disapprove Fang Presssscott's plan?"
"Of course not! Quite aside from the fact that Prescott's achievements put him in a special class, the Federation has always had a tradition of giving its admirals wide latitude in fighting wars on the frontier."
"If it didn't," LeBlanc interjected, "there probably wouldn't be a Federation by now. Nobody can micro-manage military operations across interstellar distances, as much as certain politicians wish they could." And some senior admirals, he added mentally, but decided no useful purpose would be served by voicing the thought.
"That's not to say there aren't causes for concern in Sanders' report," MacGregor cautioned. "One is the condition of Task Force 71's strikegroups. Superficially, they look good: Fang Zhaarnak took enough replacements out there to fill all the carrier capacity Prescott has left. But those replacement pilots are green, while Prescott's suffered heavy losses among his more senior people. He's got lieutenants commanding entire squadrons of newbies!"
"I am sure he took those matters into account when assessing his task force's ability to carry out the operation." Kthaara sounded serene.
"A more fundamental worry is the Bugs' tactics, as Prescott's people have observed them," LeBlanc put in. "Especially the number of gunboats and assault shuttles employed in the kamikaze role. It appears that the Bugs have hit on the most cost-effective approach to system defense, given their total disregard for the lives of their own personnel."
"But," MacGregor protested, "it requires vast numbers. I thought you agreed with Captain Chung and Small Claw Uaaria that the Bugs are beginning to feel the economic pinch."
"I do, Sir. But that doesn't mean they can't continue to produce lots of kamikazes. Lots and lots of kamikazes. By a conservative estimate, they can turn out almost fifty squadrons of gunboats for the price of a single Awesome-class monitor! Not to mention the fact that it takes almost three years to build a replacement monitor and only about two months to build a replacement gunboat. From every perspective, that makes them a much more readily replenished combat resource. And while assault shuttles are a little more expensive than that, they can be built even more rapidly than gunboats, and they're also more lethal in the suicide role. That's especially true when they're being used in the large numbers Prescott has faced-the 'Bughouse Swarm,' as Captain Chung's dubbed it."
"And," Kthaara continued, "Fang Presssscott's experience with this tactic over the last few months has enabled him to devise counter-tactics, has it not? Cub Saaanderzzz' report indicates as much."
"Well . . . yes." MacGregor paid out the admission as grudgingly as stereotype held that her ancestors had paid out shillings. LeBlanc nodded in cautious agreement.
"Very well. In view of all these factors, and of the gradually widening technological gap between us and Bugs, I think it is time for us to rise above our engrained skepticism and consider the possibility that we may have reason to be confident of ultimate victory."
Silence descended once again. Neither of the humans had wished to tempt fate by uttering those particular words. But now the famously unsuperstitious Kthaara had done it for them, and there was something almost frightening about his daring.
"I believe you're right, Sir," LeBlanc ventured. "I also believe we have a long way to go . . . and that the price will be high." Once again the green spark representing Zephrain caught his eye, and he thought of who might be part of that price. "Horribly high."
"I had no wish to imply otherwise, Ahhdmiraaaal LeBlaaanc. In the words of one of the two or three politicians in Human history for whom my old vilkshatha brother had any respect, this is not the beginning of the end. It is, at most, the end of the beginning."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Familiar Space
From El Dorado, Raymond Prescott cautiously probed Home Hive One with recon drones. They confirmed that the Bugs hadn't located the closed warp point-and, indeed, had evidently given up trying to find it, for all their starships were gone. All that marred the system's lifelessness were the thirty-five immobile fortresses, attended by forty-two heavy cruisers, that guarded each of the five open warp points.
Only when he'd assured himself of that did Prescott lead his smaller but battle-hardened task force back into the system where they'd fought so hard before. And, in the absence of any data as to where the open warp points led, he'd picked one of them at random to begin his work of destruction.
None of the warp point defense forces individually possessed the power to seriously inconvenience him. So he smothered that first one under an avalanche of firepower, sent recon drones to peer at what lay on the far side of the warp point, and then moved on to the next one.
They'd repeated the process there, and were still just outside the second warp point's newly acquired nimbus of debris, when Amos Chung approached Prescott on the flag bridge.
"Ah, Amos, have you analyzed the RD2s' findings?" Prescott was as courteous as everyone expected of him, but there was no concealing his impatience to have done with this warp point and proceed to the third one.
"Yes, Sir. The star at the other end of the warp line is a blue giant."
"Hmmm." The relationship between the warp phenomenon and gravity was still imperfectly understood. But it was a fact that massive stars were more likely to have warp points, and to have them in greater numbers, than were less massive ones. (Nobody had been traveling the warp network long enough to answer the interesting question of what happened to those warp points when such a star attained its not too remote destiny and went supernova.) Thus, blue giants were less rare in the universe familiar to spacefarers than they were in the universe at large, where they constituted only a small fraction of one percent of all stars. And this was no astrophysical research expedition.
"No planets, of course," Prescott thought aloud. There never were.
"No, Sir."
"Very well, then. I think we can-" The spook's tightly controlled expression brought Prescott to halt. "Is there something else you want to tell me about that star?"
"Yes, Sir. As you know, the computer's programmed to automatically check these RD2 readings against all the systems in its database-which means all the systems the members of the Grand Alliance have on file. It's a rather simple job for a computer, despite the sheer number of such systems."
"No doubt."
"Now, no two stars are really identical, even if they belong to the same spectral class. Each one has a uniquely individual-"
"I'm not altogether unacquainted with these matters, Amos."
"Uh . . . of course not, Sir. Well, Sir, the point is . . . it's Pesthouse, Sir!"
A moment of dead silence passed. When Prescott finally spoke, he didn't waste air by asking Chung if he was sure.
"Are you aware of the implications of what you've just said, Amos?" he asked instead, very carefully.
"I believe so, Sir." Chung sounded more assured now that he'd finally blurted it out. He handed Prescott a datachip. "In fact, I've taken the liberty of preparing a flat-screen representation of those implications."