There was no way to know what had caused the sudden change in the enemy's long-standing defensive deployments, but as Thaariahn had said, the readings themselves were certainly clear enough. Whatever the Bugs were up to, they didn't appear to be wasting any effort on subtlety. They hadn't even attempted to conceal their departure. Indeed, the suddenness with which they'd brought up their drives and the engine-straining speed at which they'd sped off across the star system, had all the earmarks of an emergency departure.

"It would appear that you and CIC are correct, Thaariahn-at least as far as the fact of the Bahgs' starships' departure is concerned," Koraaza said after a moment. "As you say, however, the question of precisely why they have been so obliging as to suddenly withdraw by far the more effective portion of their defensive force is quite another consideration."

"Truth, Sir," the ops officer agreed. "But whatever their motive, it seems they have presented us with the opportunity we have sought. Assuming, that is, that this is not an elaborate effort to bait some sort of trap for us."

"A possibility no one is likely to overlook after what happened to the Humans' Second Fleet," Koraaza acknowledged. "And one which assumes added weight given the fact that our own reinforcements have not yet arrived. By the same token, however, we cannot allow ourselves to worry our way into ineffectiveness. Nothing is ever truly certain in battle . . . except that he who attempts to avoid all risk will never attain decisive victory."

He switched off the pad, laid it aside, reached for his uniform harness, and stood.

"You have done well," he told his ops officer. "I will join the duty watch in CIC until your fresh probe volley returns and its data can be processed. But you, I fear, will have other duties while I await that information."

"Other duties?" Thaariahn cocked both ears, and Koraaza gave a purring chuckle as he buckled his harness.

"Indeed, Claw Thaariahn. I realize it will require some hours of frenzied effort on your part, but I want the Fleet brought to immediate readiness and a complete SBMHAWK bombardment plan ready for implementation the instant I give the command!"

The timing couldn't have been worse.

The Fleet had feared all along that the Enemy would eventually launch an attack through the closed warp point which had allowed the Fleet to destroy two of the Enemy's World's Which Must Be Defended. The Fleet certainly would have done so in his place . . . once it discovered the location of the warp point, and it had long seemed likely the Enemy had done just that. There'd been no way to be certain, but careful analysis had suggested that the one battlecruiser which was known with certainty to have been in position to detect the transit of one of the Fleet's scout cruisers had probably done so . . . and gotten its courier drones off before it could be destroyed.

That possibility had not eased the Fleet's strategic constraints. According to prewar doctrine, the Fleet ought to have assembled a massive shell of orbital fortresses and minefields to cover the open end of the warp line the instant the presence of an enemy beyond it became known. That was especially true for a warp point which simultaneously lay in such close proximity to a System Which Must Be Defended and offered a potential route by which the Enemy might be attacked in turn. The only way to ensure that a closed warp point was never detected was never to use it, but the rich prizes which the Fleet had already gained through its use strongly suggested that still richer ones remained to be gained as soon as the Fleet could revert to offensive operations. Yet there was no way to know when such operations might become feasible without maintaining a scouting presence beyond the warp point, and that meant scout ships had no choice but to make transit on a semi-regular basis.

Under prewar doctrine, the risk of revealing the warp point's location had been more than justified by the opportunity, yet the proximity of a System Which Must Be Defended absolutely mandated that the strongest possible defenses be emplaced. Unfortunately, the massive losses which all components of the Fleet had suffered in its unrelenting battles against the most unpleasantly resilient New Enemies and Old Enemies had forced some compromise decisions. The New Enemies' passive stance in the system beyond the closed warp point had suggested at least a possibility that they would remain passive-that the losses their Worlds Which Must Be Defended had already suffered had driven them completely onto the defensive here, as had been the case on the front on which the New Enemies had initially been contacted at the war's beginning. Moreover, the fact that it was a closed warp point whose location the Fleet was reasonably certain was unknown to the Enemy automatically reduced its place in the hierarchy of threats the Fleet had suddenly found itself forced to confront. But most significantly of all, the Fleet simply could not fortify every threatened point on the lavish scale prewar doctrine had required. There hadn't been sufficient resources for that-not if combat losses were to be replaced and the new starship types and the new gunboats were to be constructed in sufficient numbers-even before the Enemy had successfully destroyed the first World Which Must Be Defended.

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.