"With your permission, Sir, I'll hand this over to Karl-Heinz and Hai-shwun, anyway."

Admiral Karl-Heinz Thimбr commanded the Solarian League Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence, and Admiral Cheng Hai-shwun commanded the Office of Operational Analysis. OpAn was the biggest of ONI's divisions, which made Cheng Thimбr's senior deputy . . . and also the person who should have seen this coming.

"Of course," Rajampet agreed, waving one hand brusquely. Then his mouth tightened. "Don't hand it over until I've had a chance to talk to Karl-Heinz first, though. Someone's got to tell him about Karlotte, and I guess it's up to me."

"Yes, Sir," Kingsford said quietly, and gave himself a mental kick for forgetting Rear Admiral Karlotte Thimбr, Byng's chief of staff, was—had been—Karl-Heinz's first cousin.

"Actually, getting them started on this is probably a damned good idea, even if we're not going to get much in the way of hard data out of it. I want the best evaluation OpAn can give me on these new missiles of theirs. I don't expect miracles, but see what you can get out of them."

"Yes, Sir."

"And while they're working on that, you and I are going to sit down and look at our deployment posture. I know the entire Manty navy's a fart in a wind storm compared to Battle Fleet, but I don't want us suffering any avoidable casualties because of overconfidence. Kolokoltsov has a point, damn him, about the difference in missile ranges. We're going to need a hammer they won't be able to stop when we go after their home system."

"When we go after their home system?" Kingsford stressed the adverb, and Rajampet barked a grating laugh.