"Nonetheless, Your Grace," she said, looking straight at Cromarty, "it is ONI's considered opinion that we're looking at a pattern of deliberately engineered and orchestrated provocations. The timing is too tight, and they're too widespread, to be anything else, and the differences between them are far surpassed by the single thread common to them alclass="underline" each of them has inflicted damage upon or underscored a threat to a star system which has been at the center of at least one confrontation between the Kingdom and the People's Republic over the past four to five years. Assuming that the same people planned and executed all of them—and I think we must—then the only possible suspect is the PRH. Only the Peeps have both the resources to manage something like this and any conceivable motive for provoking us in this fashion."
The brown-haired admiral switched off her wand and resumed her seat while the holo wall glowed behind her. Cromarty studied it with hooded eyes, and silence stretched out for a few seconds before the Prime Minister tugged at an earlobe and sighed.
"Thank you, Admiral Givens." He cocked his head at Caparelli. "Just how serious a threat do these incidents pose, Admiral?"
"Not much of one, in themselves, Your Grace. The loss of life involved is more than just painful, but our casualties might have been for heavier, and our strategic position remains unchanged. In addition, none of the forces we've seen has been powerful enough to pose more than a purely local threat. Admittedly, they could have taken Zuckerman out had they chosen to, but that was far and away the heaviest force they've committed anywhere."
"Then what are they up to?" Baroness Morncreek asked. "What's the point of it all?"
"They're crowding us, Milady," Caparelli said bluntly. "They're deliberately turning up the pressure."
"Then they're playing with fire," William Alexander observed.
"Exactly, Lord Alexander," Givens said. "Both sides have settled down in what we know have to be our final pre-war positions. We've developed 'bunker' mentalities on both sides of the line, and given the tension and suspicion that's provoked, 'playing with fire' is exactly what they're doing."
"But why?" Cromarty asked. "What does it gain for them?"
"Admiral Givens?" Caparelli invited heavily, and Givens sighed.
"I'm afraid, Your Grace, that their current activities indicate ONI's assessment of the Peep political leadership's intentions was fundamentally in error. The consensus of my analysts—and my own personal opinion—was that they had too many domestic problems to consider any sort of foreign adventures. We were wrong, and Commander Hale, our attache on Haven, was right. They're actively seeking a confrontation, possibly as a means to divert Dolist attention from internal concerns to an external enemy."
"Then why the covert nature of the majority of the incidents?" Alexander asked.
"It could be a sort of double-blind, my lord. We know it's them, but if they demand we prove it, we can't. They may want us to accuse them of responsibility while they maintain their innocence for the benefit of their propaganda. That way they can have their cake and eat it, too; they get their incident, but we look like the crisis-mongers."
"Do you think that's all there is to it, Admiral?" Cromarty asked.
"There's too little evidence to know, Sir," Givens said frankly. "All we can do is guess, and guessing about an enemy's intentions is an excellent way to stumble right into a confrontation neither side can back out of."
"What do you recommend we do, then, Admiral Caparelli?"
"We have three main options, Your Grace." Caparelli squared his shoulders and met the Prime Minister's eyes. "The first is to refuse to play their game—whatever it is. Given that they've hit our merchantmen and destroyed two of our warships, plus the damage they've done our allies, I see no option but to strengthen our convoy escorts and patrols. Beyond that, however, we can refuse to react in any way. We can't deny them a confrontation if they really want one, but we can make them come out into the open to get it. If we pursue that option, however, we voluntarily surrender the initiative. If they're willing to commit an overt act of war, our frontier forces will be too light to stop them from hurting us badly wherever they finally do so.
"The second option is to give them the incident they want by formally accusing them of responsibility and warning them that we will hold them accountable for any future aggression. If we follow that route, then my staff and I feel we must simultaneously reinforce the covering forces for our more important and/or exposed bases and allies. Such a redeployment would both underscore the fact that we're serious and constitute a prudent adjustment of our stance to protect ourselves against future frontier violations.
"Third, we can say nothing but carry out the same reinforcement. That leaves the ball in their court. They can still have their confrontation, but we'll be in a position to hurt them badly when they reach for it. In addition, of course, it will protect our own subjects and allies, and any incident which does take place will occur in Alliance space, so they can hardly claim that we went after them."
"I see." Cromarty returned his gaze to the holo wall for a long, silent moment. "And which option do you favor, Admiral?" he asked finally.
"The third, Your Grace." Caparelli didn't hesitate. "As I say, we can't stop them from pushing it if they really want to, but I see no reason to help them do it. If we make our frontier detachments powerful enough, they'd have to commit heavy forces of their own—and quite possibly lack off a full-fledged war—if they decide to keep pushing. That might cause them to back off entirety if this is no more than an effort to divert Dolist attention from domestic complaints. Even if it doesn't have that effect, we'll give our local commanders the strength to stand a fighting chance when they come in."
"I see," the Prime Minister replied, then glanced up the conference table at Admiral White Haven. The earl had sat silent throughout, thoughtful blue eyes studying each speaker in turn. He showed no disposition to speak up now, and Cromarty was fully aware of the awkward position he'd put him in. But he hadn't brought the admiral along for his silence, and he cleared his throat "Which option do you favor, Earl White Haven?"
Caparelli's eyes flashed, and one fist clenched under the table, but he said nothing. He simply turned to look at White Haven.
"I think," the earl said quietly, "that before we recommend any of them, we might ask ourselves exactly why the PRH has chosen this particular pattern of provocations."
"Meaning?" Cromarty prompted.
"Meaning that they could have achieved the same degree of tension without spreading their efforts all up and down the frontier," White Haven replied in the same, quiet voice. "They've hit us—or prodded us, at least—all the way from Minorca to Grendelsbane, but aside from Yeltsin, they haven't hit any of our nodal fleet stations like Hancock, Reevesport, or Talbot. Any of those are more important than some place like Zuckerman or Quentin, yet they've stayed well away from them, again with the exception of Yeltsin, even though they must know how much more sensitive we'd be to any threat to them. Why?"
"Because those are our nodal positions." Caparelli's voice was a bit harsh, but he made himself pull his tone back to normal. "Our mobile forces are enormously stronger in those systems. That's why they got in and out so fast at Yeltsin. They knew that if they'd poked their noses deeper in the way they did at Zuckerman or Candor, we'd have sawed them right off at the ankles."
"Agreed." White Haven nodded. "But what if they did it for another reason? A specific purpose, not simply to minimize their risk?"