"And what do you think about this brainstorm, John?" Filareta demanded rather abruptly, wheeling from his contemplation of his enormous day cabin's smart wall, which currently displayed the central star of the Tasmania System.

"I assume you're referring to Admiral Rajampet's latest missive, Massimo?"

Burrows put an edge of drollness into his tone, but Filareta wasn't in the mood for their usual shared, more or less tolerant contempt for the CNO.

"And just what else did you think I might be referring to?" he asked rather nastily.

"Nothing," Burrows admitted, dropping the effort to defuse the other man's obvious unhappiness. His more sober expression was an unstated apology for his original attempt at humor, and Filareta grunted.

"Well, whatever," he said, waving one hand. "What do you think of it?"

"I haven't had time to fully examine the availability numbers," Burrows replied rather more formally. "Assuming that everyone who's supposed to get here actually does before we hyper out, it looks like we'll probably hit the specified force level. We might even have a few of the wall to spare. So, from the nuts-and-bolts perspective, it looks doable. I don't like how light we're going to be in screening elements, and I wish we had a lot better information than we do at this point on what happened at Spindle, though."

"The screen numbers could worry me less," Filareta said dismissively, waving his hand again. "That point about Spindle, though—that one's well taken. Of course, Sandra Crandall always was too stupid to close the outer hatch first, but still . . . ."

His unhappiness was even more pronounced, and Burrows discovered that he shared it.

"I think there's probably something to the theory that the Manties aren't going to want to go on pushing things, especially assuming ONI's estimate of the damage they took in this attack on their home system is remotely accurate," he offered after a moment. "If the Strategy Board's right about that, turning up with four hundred-plus of the wall ought to inspire them to see reason."

"And if the 'Strategy Board' is wrong about that," Filareta's withering irony made it perfectly clear who he thought had really come up with the notion, "then turning up with four hundred-plus of the wall is going to get a lot of people killed."

"Yes, it is," Burrows agreed. "On the other hand, I have to say I think the estimates about the damage the Manties' system defenses must've suffered are probably pretty well taken." Filareta looked at him sharply, and the chief of staff shrugged. "I'm not saying they've been hammered as completely flat as the ops plan seems to be suggesting, but nobody could get in close enough to inflict that kind of damage inside the limit without fighting his way through a shit pot of their inner system defenses, at least. And if the loss reports for the Battle of Manticore are remotely accurate, they couldn't have had more than a hundred or so wallers of their own left even before this latest attack."

"Which I might find rather more reassuring if they hadn't pinned Crandall's ears back with nothing heavier than cruisers ," Filareta observed rather caustically.

"I know I just said myself that I wish we had more information about what happened at Spindle," Burrows said. "But from the way I read what data we do have, I think what she really ran into was a bunch of missile pods deployed in the system-defense role."

"And your point is?"

"My point is that they were probably system-defense pods —I mean a specialized design specifically optimized for that role. Sure, all they showed us was cruisers, but as you just pointed out, Admiral Crandall never was the sharpest stylus in the box, and Manty stealth systems seem to be better than anyone thought they were. It's entirely possible they managed to get an entire dispersed defensive array emplaced without her spotting it. And the minimum powered envelope estimates I've seen are a hell of a lot higher than the range at which they took out Jean Bart . So I'm inclined to think that what they'd really managed to do was to deploy a specialized area-defense version of their pods, probably with substantially larger missiles to get that extra range. Think of them as . . . oh, old-fashioned mines with three or four normal drives shoved up their asses. It's the only way I can think of that they could've gotten the range, but missiles that big simply wouldn't be practical for shipboard weapons." Burrows shrugged. "Where the hell would you put the magazines?"

Filareta started a quick reply, then paused at Burrows' last question. He thought for a moment or two, then nodded.

"I hadn't really thought about that," he admitted. "If they've gone to missile-dominated combat, then they have to have struck some kind of balance between missile ranges and missile size , don't they? They've got to have enough rounds onboard to do the job."

"Exactly." Burrows grimaced. "I'm willing to concede that even their shipboard weapons will have a substantial range advantage, but it's not going to be as great as the advantage they had over Crandall. And the second point about their being a specialized system-defense variant is that the only 'proof' they polished her off with 'nothing heavier than cruisers' comes from the Manties . If I were they, and what I'd really used was a sophisticated, integrated system-defense weapon—one that probably did have an FTL component—I'd do my best to convince the League I'd done it with a scratch force of light ships, too . . . if I thought I could get away with it. But everything I've seen from our own intelligence and R&D people says that any kind of broadband FTL is going to require humongous platforms. The smallest estimate I've seen suggests that nothing much smaller than a waller could carry the system and a worthwhile weapons load. So since they obviously were using FTL against Crandall, they sure as hell weren't doing it from something as small as a heavy cruiser. To be honest, that—coupled with the size requirements for the missiles themselves—is why I'm convinced it had to be a system-defense set up. Crandall crapped out because they managed to get the dispersed platforms in-system and up and running before she got there."

Filareta nodded slowly, his eyes intent, but there was something else behind those eyes. Burrows could see that, even though he didn't have a clue what else the fleet admiral was turning over in his mind.

"So what you're saying is that whoever"—that "something else" behind Filareta's eyes flickered more strongly for a moment—"blew the piss out of their system infrastructure has to've done it through that same kind of defensive system."

"That's what it sounds like to me," Burrows confirmed. "And to do that, they have to have either crippled the system, or else at least run it out of ammunition. Frankly, it seems more likely that whoever it was had better intel on the Manties than we do and figured out a way to go after the remote platforms, which probably means the Manties' command net has just been shot full of holes. Even if they did it just by running them out of ammunition, though, it seems more than a little unlikely that the Manties will have been able to replace their expended missiles with their industrial structure so trashed. And even assuming that they've been able to replace their expenditures this time around, there's no way in hell they'll be able to take us out and be able to reload again before the next wave arrives."

"I'm sure our ghosts will take great comfort from that fact," Filareta said rather dryly, and Burrows snorted.

"I agree it would be a . . . suboptimal outcome, Sir," he acknowledged. "My point, though, was that the Manties have to be aware of the same facts. So when we turn up so unexpectedly, even if they have the physical capability to repel our attack, I actually think the Strategy Board's right about whether or not they'll have the intestinal fortitude to actually try doing it. And if we point out to them that the next wave's already in the pipeline, and is going to be even more powerful, I think it really is likely they'll recognize the writing on the wall and give it up."