The huge Reserve which had been built up between the last contact with the Old Enemies and the first contact with the New had been gone even before the New Enemies finally determined the location of the closed warp point. Now almost all the new construction starships were also gone. Sixty percent of the shipyards which had built both the Reserve and the new Fleet were gone, as well, and so were the workers, and the foundries, and the asteroid mining ships which had supported them. And so, even with the total resources of the System Which Must Be Defended this Fleet component was assigned to protect, there was no real possibility of erecting the proper fixed defenses. Yet there was also no option but to mount the strongest possible defense here, where the attackers couldn't possibly strike the Worlds Which Must Be Defended and so cripple the starships and fortresses attempting to protect them.
Since the gunboats and suicide craft must be retained in the System Which Must Be Defended, the only real alternative had been to build up the strongest fixed defenses possible-largely by dismantling existing OWPs in the System Which Must Be Defended and transporting them here to be reassembled-and to station the Fleet's main remaining starship strength here to support them while relying upon massive numbers of lighter units to protect the System Which Must Be Defended from the other direction.
Ultimately, there was no way to hold this system against the numbers the Enemy could bring to bear upon it, and the Fleet knew it. Yet what other option did the Fleet have but to try? The actions of the Enemies, Old and New alike, clearly demonstrated that their fleet had adopted precisely the same logic the Fleet had, which at least simplified the Fleet's menu of strategic choices. When the only possible alternative to victory was extinction, surrender and strategic withdrawal were no longer options worthy of consideration.
At least the Fleet had known it enjoyed one enormous advantage, for there was no way for the Enemy to know that the System Which Must Be Defended was simultaneously threatened from two separate directions. Or so the Fleet had believed.
Now that no longer seemed so certain. The sudden introduction of the tiny robotic spies through the warp point had finally resolved any ambiguity over whether or not the Enemy knew its location. It still seemed impossible for there to be any way in which the Enemy could have extrapolated the warp lines which converged in the System Which Must Be Defended, yet the Fleet had been . . . anxious in the wake of the first attack on the System Which Must Be Defended. The original deployment plan hadn't been altered, since no better alternative offered itself, yet the Enemy's habit of launching widespread offensives, now here, now there, had accustomed the Fleet to thinking in terms of attacks carefully timed to strike the Fleet at the most inopportune possible moments. Whether or not the Enemy realized that he had two possible avenues by which to approach the System Which Must Be Defended, the possibility that he might launch separate, near-simultaneous attacks upon it-even by accident-had deepened the Fleet's anxiety.
And now this. The frantic messages from the System Which Must Be Defended left the mobile units no choice. There was no point in maintaining a grip on this unimportant star system if the System Which Must Be Defended was lost, and only the mobile forces here could possibly provide an unshaken force with which to defend the remaining Worlds Which Must Be Defended. And so the starships and their attendant gunboats had begun their high-speed run back to the System Which Must Be Defended . . . just as yet another flight of the Enemy's drones transited the warp point.
The Fleet hesitated almost imperceptibly, torn between the reflex to return to the defense of the warp point and its imperative orders to race to the rescue of the Worlds Which Must Be Defended. But that hesitation was brief, meaningless. The only reason for the Fleet's existence was to protect the Worlds Which Must Be Defended. That was not its primary task; that was its only task, and so the withdrawal continued despite the opportunity the retreat offered to the Enemy beyond the closed warp point.
It was all a matter of timing.
Koraaza'khiniak gazed at the icons in his master plot and felt the eyes of his task force commanders upon him. They weren't physically present in Kinaasha'defarnoo's CIC, yet he knew their attention was intensely focused upon their own duplicate plots and the displays of the com links which joined them to his flag bridge. And as he felt those eyes, he sensed the matching eagerness which blazed behind them.
It is still too early, he made himself think. Lord Talphon's reinforcements are still en route. Their arrival will increase my nominal combat power by at least twenty-five percent, and suddenly that no longer seems such a "minor" consideration! And yet . . . and yet . . .
He very carefully didn't look over his shoulder at the com screens which would have shown him his commanders' faces and expressions. This was his decision, and his alone, and so he would make it alone. And truth to tell, even as he conscientiously considered all of the reasons against attacking, he already knew what that decision would be.
"Your pardon, Great Fang," Thaariahn said quietly, appearing suddenly at his elbow. "The SBMHAWK bombardment plan you requested has been completed."
"It has?" Koraaza never looked away from his plot, but he sensed Thaariahn's ear flick of agreement.
"It has, Sir. Small Fang Kraiisahka has worked out the details and is prepared to deploy the pods at your command."
"I see." Koraaza hid a small smile at Thaariahn's studiously uninflected statement. Kraiisahka'khiniak-ahn was both his most junior and perhaps his most promising task force commander. She was also his daughter-in-law, of whom he was inordinately fond. The Khanate had none of the Federation's official disapproval of nepotism (which, Koraaza had long since concluded, was far more a matter of appearances than substance, even among the inexplicable Humans), yet Kraiisahka had made it respectfully but firmly clear that she intended to win any commands or advancement on her own merits. In general terms, Koraaza agreed with her. Senior command slots were too important to be handed to anyone who hadn't proved his-or her-ability, whoever he or she might happen to be related to. On the other hand, such matters of principle could be taken too far, and so he'd made it quietly clear to Thaariahn that he expected his operations officer to keep a distantly protective eye on her. Since she was senior to the ops officer and possessed a temper even the most charitable would have described as fiery, Thaariahn's assignment had not been an enviable one.
"Show me the details," the great fang said after a moment, and the claw tapped a series of commands into the master plot.
Koraaza watched the icons flash through the projected deployment and launch and grunted in satisfaction. Given the heavy ECM environment into which the SBMHAWKs would be emerging, Kraiisahka had opted for what would almost certainly be proven a massive case of overkill where the orbital fortresses and relatively immobile heavy cruisers were concerned. It would cut deeply into Third Fleet's store of the warp-capable missiles, but he'd amassed huge numbers of them and he heartily approved of her logic. Better to use more than were strictly necessary than to use too few and suffer avoidable losses during the break-in. That was a lesson he'd learned the hard way-and at the cost of far too many lives-when he first retook this system so many years before. Zhaarnak'telmasa had made that point to him at the time he'd planned his original assault, but Koraaza had still been too accustomed to thinking in terms of the Khanate's tight prewar fiscal constraints. The cornucopia of the Human Federation's production capabilities had long since loosened them . . . and the lives he'd paid would have driven him to break them even if they hadn't loosened.