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He blinked “Ah … Well, that’s …”
Drummer smiled “I’ll probably still be okay with it What do you have?”
He took out a hand terminal and threw the data onto the conference roo quite to scale, of course Space was too huge and too empty for that The fleets of Earth and Mars and the Transport Union were all outlined—location and vector for everything in transit, planetary body and orbital period for everything else All of it tracked through ti was ever at rest
And on the edge of the systeate where the enemy would arrive
“Given e know about the enean, “we have worked up several scenarios that we think will give our coe The first, of course, being to interrupt it in transit”
“Walk h it,” Drummer said
For the next two hours, Drummer reviewed scenario after scenario after scenario Lafflin made his case for each of them Another person like him
ith every uments Soon the debates would start With the void cities, the union had a fleet at least as powerful as the EMC If Saba could ht be possible to coordinate attacks on the slow zone, no ht If not, there was local action to be done on Medina that ood or better
Ti—protecting Earth, protecting Mars Keeping the inners frouess was that the board would see the sas she did And then …
She hadn’t wanted to be a police force for the thirteen hundred worlds She certainly hadn’t wanted to lead a estion, she heard the iined voices of the board, of Secretary-General Li, of Avasarala It wouldn’t work Soe, and she didn’t see many scenarios where that wasn’t her
“Thank you,” she said when the last of the iined battles had played out on her monitor “I appreciate your ti?”
“Thank you, Madahn escorted him out of the room
As soon as he was gone, she pulled up the scenarios, paging through the their side of the gate with a wall of high-yield nukes, but abandoned it because no one was really sure if the ring could be da up above the ecliptic, doing a high burn and duravel that could ate She would be able to control when there were gaps that allowed passage and when any ship un blast And it would last until they ran out of reaction ift fro the idea in her response to the EMC, but the truth was she didn’t need their perh to the gate that if they went on the burn now, they could have so …
Drummer let her head sink into her hands Her neck ached and a deep, vague craving bothered her—so like thirst, but without a clear sense of what could slake it If anything could
She heard the door open behind her, but she didn’t bother looking up Whoever it was, she didn’t care And anyway, it would only be Vaughn