The transit into the system had been just as rough as the partial probe data had suggested it would be. They'd had too little information to adjust for the tidal stresses, and Concorde had emerged from transit headed almost directly away from the system primary, which had aimed her stern-always the aspect of a ship most liable to detection under cloak-straight at any sensors which might have been looking her way.
Captain Kolontai had allowed for that, however, and Concorde had come through at dead slow, under minimum power to reduce any betraying drive signature to the lowest possible level. Everyone had breathed an internal sigh of relief as the ship swung her stern away from the inner system, but then she'd begun her alley-cat prowl inward, and the tension had begun to ratchet up once more.
"I have a report from Tracking, Sir." Lieutenant Commander Chau's voice wasn't particularly loud, but it seemed almost shocking in the quiet tension, and Prescott swivelled his command chair to face him and nodded for him to continue.
"Lieutenant Morgenthau says we have enough data now, Sir. It's definitely a Bug system, and a major one at that. The primary's a G3, and it looks as if all three of the innermost planets are habitable. And . . . fully developed."
Prescott suppressed an urge to purse his lips in a silent whistle. If Chau was right, then this system might well be even more heavily populated-and dangerous-than Home Hive Three, and the best estimate was that Ray and his vilkshatha brother had killed over twenty billion Bugs in that system. But it had possessed only two habitable planets. Which meant this one might easily hold as many as thirty or even forty billion Bugs . . . and all the war-making infrastructure that massive population implied. Elation at the size of the prize SF 62 had discovered warred with cold horror at the thought of the defenses any attack might face, and he ordered his face to remain calm.
"What else can you tell me, Ba Hai?" he asked levelly.
"Not a great deal at this range, Sir," the ops officer admitted. "All three of the inner planets are on our side of the primary right now, but we're still an awful long way out. We've got massive energy signatures and neutrinos all over the place, but at this range there's no way to isolate individual sources or targets. We'd have to get a lot closer for anything like that."
"I see." Prescott reached into his pocket and caressed the smooth, well worn bowl of his pipe with a thumb while he thought. He hadn't really needed Chau to tell him they were too far out for details . . . or that they'd have to go closer to learn any more than they already had. But the rules of the game had required him to ask, just as they now required him to make a decision. And that, though he hadn't raised the point with Snyder, was the real reason he'd been determined to take this assignment for himself. The flotilla was his command. Any decisions which had to be made, and the responsibility for the consequences of those decisions, had to be his, and the potential consequences of getting too close to the Bugs loomed before him like a gas giant.
On the one hand, he'd already accomplished everything SF 62 had set out to do, and far more than anyone could reasonably have asked or predicted. If he turned back now, the information he already possessed would hit the Grand Alliance's strategists like a lightning bolt, for the opportunity it presented was literally priceless. But those same strategists would have to plan their response to that opportunity with only the vaguest of operational information. Certainly they wouldn't have anything like the mountains of data they'd been able to assemble for the attack on Home Hive Three, and the consequence would probably be higher casualties. Possibly even total disaster, if they underestimated the opposition too greatly or were unable to get in close and apply Ray's "Shiva Option" before the defenders detected them and swarmed over them.
Andrew Prescott was in a position to do something about that. As far as he knew, no Bug was aware of Concorde's presence, and she had the finest ECM in known space. He'd been able to avoid detection in Justin even after it became obvious the Bugs knew there were human ships about, and these Bugs didn't even know there was anyone around to hunt for. He wasn't about to underestimate the sensitivity of their sensors-not after what had happened to Commodore Braun in the very first human-Bug contact-but the odds against his being picked up coming in down the bearing from an unknown closed warp point were great. And if he did manage to avoid detection and get in close enough for detailed reads on the inner system, and any mobile units or orbital defenses those planets might have . . .
"Ride boldly." That's what you told Snyder was needed, he told himself. And you were right. But how much of this is hubris? You fooled a whole fleet of Bugs once . . . now you want to take on an entire star system? And if you blow it, if you go in close and get picked up . . .
He sat motionless, no sign of his inner debate showing in his expression as he weighed opportunity against risk, the value of better information against the danger of losing strategic surprise. Time seemed to crawl for him as he pondered the options, but less than one minute actually passed before he nodded to himself and looked down at the armrest com screen tied into Concorde's command deck. Captain Kolontai looked back at him from it, and he smiled at the sharp question in her dark blue eyes.
"Send a drone back to Captain Snyder, Kadya," he told her. "Append all our current data, and inform him that I intend to head further in-system for a closer look at the defenses. He's to give us one standard week. If we aren't back by then, he's to assume command and return to L-169 at his best speed."
"Yes, Sir," Kolontai said, and Andrew suppressed a chuckle, born as much of tension as of amusement, for her tone told him she'd anticipated exactly those orders from the outset.
Am I really that predictable? he wondered, then decided he didn't really want to know.
CHAPTER NINE: We Do Our Job
"The last probe flight is back, Sir. Or part of it, anyway."
Captain George Snyder paused in his restless prowl of TFNS Sarmatian's command deck and looked at his exec. Lieutenant Commander Harris didn't notice the sharpness of her captain's gaze. Her attention was on her display, and Snyder saw her mouth tighten.
"No changes according to the preliminary run, Sir," she said, looking up at last. "We may turn up something when we fine-tooth it, but until then-"
She shrugged apologetically, and Snyder nodded. It was hard to keep the gesture courteous and not simply curt, but Sonja Harris had been his XO for over a year. Before that, she'd been his astrogator for almost twenty months, and she deserved better than to have her head bitten off just because her CO was feeling antsy.
And he was feeling antsy, Snyder admitted as he turned back to the visual display and resumed his pacing. He really shouldn't be doing that, either, since it advertised his impatience and concern to all eyes, but he couldn't help it, and he glared at the cool, barren class M star burning at the heart of the lifeless system they'd dubbed El Dorado.
Five days. Prescott had been gone for five full days, and the tension was getting to the entire flotilla, not just George Snyder. In theory, the continued probe flights might give them some clue of what was happening, but the odds of that were infinitesimal. Unless something had happened to cause a truly massive Bug redeployment in this direction (like the pursuit of a retreating TFN battlecruiser), or unless Concorde's cloaking systems hiccuped at exactly the right point in her return, no probe was going to see anything from this far out. Which meant that, for all anyone knew, Concorde had been destroyed with all hands days ago. Or she could be minutes away from returning to El Dorado, coasting towards them under cloak, invisible to their transit-addled probes. Or she could be fighting a desperate running battle against hopeless odds even as he paced Sarmatian's bridge. Or-