He grinned impudently at her, and she shook her head.
"There will come a time, Alistair McKeon, when lese majesty will come home to haunt you. And if there is any justice in the universe, I'll be there to see it!"
"No doubt. In the meantime, you're still not sharing."
"All right," she conceded. "I was thinking about something—something you brought up earlier, in fact."
"Something I brought up?"
"When you were wondering whether or not the Andies knew the Republic was fooling around out here."
"What about it?" McKeon asked, cocking his head and frowning in thought.
"Well, it's just that if I were the Andies, I wouldn't be very happy about their presence. Especially not given how unhappy the Empire already seems to be about our presence out here."
"Forgive me, My Lady," Yu objected mildly, "but if I were the Andies, I might not be very upset at all by the prospect of having the Republic attack the people I'm already trying to squeeze out of Silesia. Worst-case scenario, either we beat them, or they beat us, and the winner is much weaker than he was before the engagement. Which means the Andies can basically either simply order the 'victor' out of the region, or move in with the virtual certainty that they can take whatever he has left."
"That's all true enough," Honor agreed. "But hasn't it occurred to you, Alfredo, that whatever the Andies are up to in Silesia may be the result of an error on their part."
"What error?" Truman asked. Honor looked at her, and the golden-haired admiral shrugged. "I can think of several errors they could have made. Which one did you have in mind?"
"The same mistake High Ridge and Descroix have been making for years, in a sense," Honor told her. "Maybe they've been assuming the war between us and the Republic was effectively over, as well."
"If they ever thought that in the first place, surely they realized when Theisman announced the existence of his new navy that all bets were off," McKeon protested.
"Maybe not," Honor said. "We keep thinking about how good Andie naval intelligence is, but there are limits in all things. And even if their intelligence people got all the available information straight, it doesn't necessarily follow that the Emperor and his advisors drew the right conclusions."
"With all due respect, why should they care whether or not the war is over?" Truman inquired. "The new management in Nouveau Paris doesn't seem especially interested in conquering the known galaxy, and the Empire is all the way on the far side of the Manticoran Alliance from Haven. Under the circumstances, I don't see Gustav and his advisors considering the Republic much of a threat to the Empire, whatever happens to the Star Kingdom. In fact, they'd probably be just as happy to see us involved in a shooting war with Haven again, because it would prevent us from reinforcing against them out here. For that matter, that's what the mere threat of renewed hostilities with Haven is already doing!"
"I understand all of that," Honor said. "And you may very well be right, Alice. But if Thomas Theisman is prepared to go back to war with the Star Kingdom under any circumstances, or for any reason, then he and Shannon Foraker between them must have done a lot more to equalize our technology advantage than anybody in Jurgensen's ONI is prepared to admit they could have. And if that's the case, then whatever balance of power equation Gustav may have been contemplating is probably pretty badly out of date. And whatever the new management in the Republic might really want, Gustav Anderman is not the sort of ruler to rely on the good intentions of a powerful neighbor. Especially not a powerful neighbor which, up to four or five T-years ago was into the conquest game in a really big way."
"And," Yu observed in a suddenly thoughtful tone, "a powerful neighbor he can't be certain will remain under the present management."
"Exactly," Honor agreed. "Historically, the Andermani haven't been big believers in the value of republican forms of government. They don't like them, and they don't really trust them. They were probably more comfortable with the Legislaturalists than with the Committee of Public Safety, but I wouldn't be very surprised if they were more comfortable with the Committee than they are with the Republic. They regard elective forms of government as dangerously changeable and unpredictable at the best of times."
"So what you're suggesting," McKeon said slowly, "is that if they thought that the Republic was really powerful enough to have a realistic chance of defeating the Star Kingdom, they wouldn't care for it very much."
"The Empire is a great believer in playing the balance of power game as the best long-term way to promote its own security," Honor said. "But if the Republic, which is already so much larger than the Star Kingdom, succeeds in destroying or at least seriously crippling the Manticoran Alliance, there is no balance of power. And the star nation which would suddenly emerge—or reemerge, perhaps—as the premier military power in this entire region would be governed by a system an Andermani monarch would be naturally inclined to distrust and fear."
"And one which had yet to demonstrate that it has the legs to last," Yu agreed.
"You may be onto something," Truman said. "But even if you are, I'm afraid it's too late for your insight to change anything. Whatever Theisman and Pritchart may be up to, Gustav is obviously planning on devouring the choicer bits and pieces of Silesia. And our own brilliant leaders haven't done a thing to seriously dissuade him. Except, of course, for hanging this task force out to dry. It's a bit late in the day to expect the current government to do anything more serious than that, however accurate your analysis may be. Assuming, of course, that anyone in Landing was inclined to listen to anything that came from you or Earl White Haven, anyway."
"Yeah, sure!" McKeon grimaced. "I can just see High Ridge or Descroix changing their foreign policy on the basis of anything you suggested, Honor!"
"I wasn't necessarily thinking about them," Honor said very slowly.
"What?" McKeon set up straight so that he could swivel his chair to face her directly, and his expression could only have been called a scowl. "Just who were you thinking about, then?" he inquired in tones of profound suspicion.
"Come, now, Alistair!" she chided. "If I'm not thinking about anyone on our side, then who else could I be thinking about?"
"And what makes you think Admiral Rabenstrange would believe any message you sent him about this putative 'Second Fleet' we've never even been able to find?" McKeon demanded. "Hell, for that matter what makes you even think he'd read it?!"
"Who said anything about sending him a message?" Honor asked, and suddenly all three of her subordinates were staring at her in disbelief.
"It's what?"
Chien-lu von Rabenstrange looked at his chief of staff in complete and total disbelief.
"According to Perimeter Security, Sir," Kapitan der Sternen Isenhoffer said in the tone of a man who wasn't quite certain he believed his own report, "it's a single Manticoran ship of the wall. She's identified herself as HMS Troubadour, one of their Medusa —class SD(P)s. According to our current Intelligence appreciations, Troubadour is the flagship of their Rear Admiral McKeon."
"And this ship has arrived here at Sachsen all by herself?"
"As nearly as Perimeter Security can tell," Isenhoffer confirmed, and Rabenstrange frowned in thought. Sachsen's passive sensor arrays might not be as exquisitely sensitive as those which protected a system like New Berlin, but they would certainly have detected the transit footprints of any other ships which might have accompanied Troubadour out of hyper.