War Of Honor

case, but it is.'

'Couldn't we begin considering possibilities while we go about getting that verification?' For a change, New Kiev's question was untainted by her habitual dislike of the military. She was simply considering their options, and Janacek made himself smile at her.

'Certainly I can—and will—put my people to work considering best-case and worse-case scenarios, Marisa. And I'm sure they'll be able to give me detailed proposals for dealing with either of them. The problem is that once a set of proposals has been presented and adopted, it tends to become self-fulfilling. I think that as important as it is for us to formulate the proper response to the new situation, it's equally important that we not go off half cocked and adopt radically new policies of our own before we're certain we're justified to do so.'

'I fully agree that we need to avoid panicking,' High Ridge responded. 'But at the same time, we can't afford to do nothing, Edward. For one thing, I think we can be confident that Alexander and White Haven and their cronies are going to insist—loudly—that this news validates their continual criticism of our naval policies.'

'I know,' Janacek growled in what was very nearly a snarl as the Prime Minister put an unerring finger on a consideration which had occurred to him the instant Jurgensen screened him with the information.

'Well,' High Ridge continued, 'when they do, we have to be ready to respond. I think it's equally important that we demonstrate not only that we're prepared to realistically modify our policies in the light of new information, but also that our existing policies have been basically sound. Which, of course, they have.'

He looked around the conference room, and no one chose to dispute his last sentence.

'I understand.' Janacek sighed, and sat back in his chair.

'I'm afraid that the first thing were going to have to do,' he said, manifestly unhappily, 'is reconsider the present naval budget. I don't want to do it, especially after the amount of grief the Opposition gave us over adopting it in the first place. Worse, I'm not at all convinced at this point that a decision to reconsider it is justified by the actual situation. Unfortunately, we can absolutely count on White Haven, if no one else, to seize upon any excuse to demand that we do so. In light of that, it seems to me that our only real option is to make it clear that we've already done it. If we take the lead ourselves, we can exert more control over the process. And if we present our own suggestions in a reasoned, calm sort of way, we may even be able to make him and his cronies look as hysterical as they actually are.'

And, he added to himself, thank God that maniac Harrington isn't here to add her voice to the chorus!

'What sort of 'reconsideration' did you have in mind, Edward?' New Kiev asked, and despite her obvious intention to avoid confrontations with the First Lord, her tone bristled with automatic defensiveness of her cherished programs for 'building the peace.'

'There's going to be a lot of pressure from the hysterics to begin all sorts of emergency construction programs and major dislocations of existing policies,' Janacek told her. 'People like White Haven won't really care about the facts; they'll be too busy twisting them to their own advantage to justify the policies they wanted to put in place all along. If we want to prevent them from succeeding, then we're going to have to be willing to propose a more rational set of alternatives which will still soothe the inevitable public . . . disquiet. I have no more desire than you do to disrupt our existing budgetary priorities, Marisa, but we're going to have to propose at least some changes.

'Unless the actual situation is much worse than anything Admiral Jurgensen has so far been able to determine suggests, I think we can reasonably reject the most panicky demands. At the very least, however, we're going to have to announce that we're resuming construction on at least some of the incomplete SD(P)s and CLACs. After all, a large part of our current naval spending priorities was based on the fact that those ships are there, waiting to be finished and commissioned if circumstances warranted it. In fact, I think we'll want to reemphasize that point in order to quell any unjustified panic.'

And demonstrate in the process that our policies were sound all along, he did not add aloud.

'Even assuming that Theisman's numbers are accurate, simply completing the ships already under construction will more than offset them.' He continued, then snorted harshly. 'For that matter, just completing the ships under construction at Grendelsbane would match every modern ship of the wall Theisman says they've built!'

His colleagues relaxed visibly at his assurance. He was relieved to see it, but he was also too experienced a politician not to cover his back.

'At the same time,' he cautioned, 'there's going to be a window between the time when we authorize resumption of construction and the time the ships are actually completed. I haven't got detailed projections at this point, but the rough estimate from BuShips is that it will take at least six T-months, more probably eight, to reactivate the building slips and assemble the workforce required. In addition, Mr. Houseman, Admiral Draskovic, and I are going to have to go over the manpower numbers very carefully, since it won't do us any good to build ships we don't have the personnel to crew.'

'Just how wide is this 'window' of yours likely to be, Edward?' Descroix asked.

'It's not my window,' Janacek replied. 'It's a simple physical limitation we're going to have to live with.' He held her eyes levelly for a second or two, then shrugged. 'As I say, it will take around six T-months to get construction back underway. After that, we can assume between another six months and a year to complete each existing hull, depending on how advanced its construction was before we halted it. So the window will be from twelve to eighteen T-months wide.'

There was a sudden, profound silence in the conference room as all of them were brought face to face with the unpalatable numbers. Janacek was hardly surprised, although nothing he'd said should have come as a shock to them. The time lag was an inevitable consequence of their decision to suspend construction in the first place, and he and Houseman had both warned the others about it. They hadn't exactly dwelt on it, of course, but they had mentioned it. It was right there, in black and white, in their initial budgetary analysis, which at least meant no one who felt surprised now could blame them for it.

'That's a wider period of vulnerability than I like,' High Ridge said finally. He did not, Janacek noticed, ask what the Republic of Haven's shipyards might be producing during that same period. That was a point which had exercised a considerable influence on the First Lord's own thought processes over the last day or so, but if no one else was going to bring it up, he certainly had no intention of doing so.

'I don't much care for it myself, Michael,' he said instead. 'Unfortunately, there's not much we can do to narrow it. Not by simply increasing our own forces, that is.'

'What are you suggesting?' Descroix asked.

'I'm not suggesting anything . . . at this point,' Janacek replied. 'But we have to be aware of all of our alternatives, Elaine.'

'And which alternative haven't you already mentioned?' she inquired, gazing at him intensely.

'We could always opt for a preemptive strike on their new ships,' he said flatly.

'That would be an act of war!' New Kiev protested instantly, and Janacek ordered himself not to let his contempt show.

'Yes, it would,' he acknowledged with massive restraint. 'I'd like to point out, however, that legally we're still at war with the Republic of Haven. If you've read the transcript of Theisman's news conference, then you know he made that point himself, when one of the newsies asked him why the Pritchart administration had been so secretive about its own naval budget. He was right, too. So to the best of my knowledge, there's absolutely no domestic or interstellar legal obstacle to our resuming military operations at any time we choose.'

'But we happen to be in the middle of a truce . . . and negotiating to extend that truce into a permanent treaty!' New Kiev pointed out sharply.

She glowered at Janacek, her nonconfrontational attitude clearly in abeyance as her maternal pride in the truce agreement she had negotiated during her own tenure as Foreign Secretary roused.

'I'm fully aware of that, Marisa,' he told her. 'And I'm not proposing any sort of attack at this time. I'm simply enumerating all of our potential responses. Personally, I find the notion of resuming active operations the least appetizing of any of them, but I don't think we can afford to overlook it.'

'Especially not when it's the Havenites, not us, who have seen fit to destabilize the existing military balance,' Descroix put in virtuously. New Kiev turned her attention to the Foreign Secretary, who shrugged. 'They can't reasonably expect us to negotiate in good faith under threat, Marisa!'

None of her colleagues saw any reason to point out that all of them had certainly expected the