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hereby advised that, by order of the Royal Manticoran Navy, this terminus is closed to all Solarian warships and Solarian-registered merchant traffic,” Arredondo continued. “Be aware that the Royal Manticoran Navy has issued instructions to Astro Control to inform all incoming shipping that vessels approaching this terminus are required to activate their transponders immediately upon receipt of this transmission. In addition, all Solarian vessels are prohibited from approaching within one light-minute of the terminus. The Star Empire of Manticore has declared this volume of space a prohibited zone and will act in accordance with international laws governing such zones. Arredondo, clear.”
    “Well, that’s certainly clear enough, Sir,” Steven Gilmore, Pyun’s chief of staff said almost whimsically. “Arrogant, maybe, but clear.”
    “And not exactly a surprise,” Pyun agreed. “Interesting that Idaho’s telling us the Terminus is closed ‘by order of the Royal Manticoran Navy’ rather than on its own authority, though, isn’t it?” He smiled humorlessly. “There probably isn’t anything Idaho could’ve done to keep the Manties from closing the terminus, whatever their own feelings might be. But this way they get to hide behind the Star Empire—‘Look what they made us do!’—without officially doing anything to piss us off.”
    His eyes strayed to the single green light-bead of the Zambezi Treasure , the freighter Floyd had ordered his division to escort through the terminus, and wondered how Captain McKenzie had reacted to the transmission. He doubted, somehow, that McKenzie was any happier about it than he was.
    Not that the Manties are likely to start right out shooting at him if push comes to shove , the rear admiral reflected.
    “Any sign they’ve reinforced their picket, Josette?” he asked his operations officer, and Captain Josette Steinberg shook her head.
    “No, Sir. I can’t speak to what they might have lying doggo with its impellers down, but judging from the signatures we can see, it’s still just the three cruisers and four of those big-assed destroyers of theirs.”
    “Seven-to-six odds, their favor,” Gilmore observed. “In hulls, anyway. Of course, the tonnage ratio’s in our favor.”
    Pyun nodded. His six battlecruisers were all Indefatigable -class ships, rather than Battle Fleet’s newer Nevadas , but their combined mass was still over five million tons, whereas the Manty picket couldn’t mass much over two million, despite the fact that the Manticoran “destroyers” were larger than most SLN light cruisers. By any traditional measure, his force advantage ought to be overwhelming.
    One of the nagging little problems with traditions, however, was that they were subject to change.
    I wonder how many missile pods they have? he thought. Whatever Floyd thinks, they have to have some. I mean, Idaho’s barely seventy light-years from their home system! No matter how much damage they’ve taken, they’ve got to have scraped up at least some additional firepower if they’re going to count on only seven ships to cover the entire terminus .
    He would have been a lot happier if he’d had better information on what had happened in the Spindle System last month. He was sure the official version was on its way to Genovese from Old Terra, but Genovese was twenty light-years further from Sol than Zunker. It took the better part of a T-month for anything from Old Terra to reach Genovese, as opposed to the one week of hyper travel between Zunker and Genovese, so at the moment all he—and Commissioner Floyd—had to go on were the reports which had come through from Idaho. Which meant all they really knew was what the Manties had told them. Well, what the Manties had told them and the fact that someone—and not , apparently, the SLN—had kicked the ever-loving hell out of the Manty home system shortly after whatever they’d done to Admiral Crandall at Spindle. Assuming, of