The messenger nodded slowly. The Council for an Independent Prism had been around for decades, and he’d been one of its adherents almost from its inception. But unlike Dunecki, he’d never been a member of the inner circle. He was confident that the Council trusted his loyalty, or they would never have assigned him to the duties he’d carried out for the movement, but he was also a realist. He’d known that another reason he’d been chosen for his various assignments was that the Council was willing to risk him because, in the final analysis, he was expendable. And because he was expendable—and might end up expended and in enemy hands—his superiors had always been careful to limit the information they shared with him, but he’d been active in the movement long enough to know that it was only in the last four or five years that the CIP had become a serious player even by the somewhat elastic standards of Silesia. What he didn’t know were the ins and outs of how the organization had made the transition from an ineffectual fringe group to one which had managed to seize effective control of half a star system, but he knew Anders Dunecki and his brother Henryk had played a major role in that accomplishment. And although his commitment to the CIP’s ultimate goal was as strong as it had ever been, he was no more a stranger to ambition than anyone else who had committed twenty years of his life to the forcible creation of a new political order.

Now he watched Commodore Dunecki with a carefully blank expression, hoping the time had come for him to learn more. Not merely out of simple curiosity (though he certainly was curious) but because the decision to share that information with him might be an indication that his longtime loyal services were finally about to earn him promotion to a higher and more sensitive level of the movement.

Dunecki gazed back at him impassively. He knew precisely what was going on in the other man’s mind, and he rather wished that he could avoid taking the messenger any further into his confidence. Not that he actively distrusted the man, and certainly not because he faulted the messenger’s obvious hope that he might finally be about to move beyond the thankless and dangerous role of courier. It was simply a matter of habit. After so many years of not letting the left hand know what the right hand was doing as a survival tactic it went against the grain to admit anyone any deeper into his confidence than he absolutely had to.

Unfortunately, like Anders, Henryk was out of the Prism System on operations. Dunecki knew he could have relied upon his brother to convince the Council that Governor Wegener’s apparent change of attitude meant it was time to move to the next planned phase of operations. But in Henryk’s absence, Dunecki was going to require another spokesman to make his case, and the messenger was all that was available.

“Wegener knows about the light cruisers and the frigates,” the commodore said after a moment, “mostly because he and Commodore Nielsen were the ones who sold them to us in the first place.” He watched the messenger’s eyes widen slightly and chuckled. “Oh, I suspect that Nielsen thought he was simply disposing of them to regular pirates, but Wegener knew he was dealing with the CIP from the outset. After all, he was already taking a payoff from us to look the other way while we got ourselves organized in Prism, so there was no reason he shouldn’t make a little more money off us by letting us buy a bunch of ‘obsolescent’ warships if Nielsen was willing to sign off on them for disposal. Of course, Nielsen told his Navy superiors that the ships had gone to the breakers, but I doubt any of them believed that any more than he did. Still, it’s going to be at least a little embarrassing for Nielsen if any of his ‘scrapped’ ships wind up being taken by regular Confed naval units, although I have no doubt he has splendid paperwork to prove that he sold them to ostensibly genuine scrap dealers who have since disappeared after undoubtedly selling the hulls to us nasty rebels.

“But we’re pretty sure neither Wegener nor Nielsen knows about the destroyers, and we know that they don’t know about Annika, Astrid, and Margit. We bought the destroyers in the Tumult Sector, and Annika, Astrid, and Margit came from… somewhere else entirely.”

He paused once more, watching the messenger’s face. The odds were that the other man had already known everything Dunecki had just told him—except, perhaps, for the fact that the newly created Prism Space Navy’s destroyers had come from Tumult—but his expression indicated that he was beginning to see previously unnoted implications in the information.

“The point,” Dunecki went on after a moment, “is that Wegener and Nielsen have probably based their estimates of our strength on the units that they sold us. They may have made some allowance for one or two additional light units, but we’ve been very careful in our discussions with our ‘trusted ally’ the Governor to make it plain that our only ships came from them. We’ve even passed up two or three nice prizes that Wegener had pointed us at because we didn’t have a vessel available to take them.”

“Uh, excuse me, Sir,” the messenger said, “but I know that you and your brother have both taken prizes. Doesn’t that mean that they have to know about Annika and Astrid, at least?”

“No,” Dunecki said. “Henryk and I have taken special precautions. Neither of us has disposed of any of our prizes here in the Confederacy. We have some… friends and associates in the People’s Republic of Haven who’ve agreed to help out their fellow revolutionaries.” The messenger’s eyes narrowed, and the commodore chuckled once more. “Don’t worry about it. The Legislaturalists are about as revolutionary as a hunk of nickel iron, but if it suits their purpose to pretend to support ‘the People’s struggle’ as long as it’s safely outside their own borders and they can make money on it, it suits our purpose just as well to have some place legitimate privateers can dispose of their prizes and repatriate their crews without questions being asked. It’s just a pity that the Peeps aren’t willing to help us out with additional ships and weapons, as well.”

“So Wegener, Nielsen, and the Confed Navy all think that our naval strength is less than half as great as it really is,” the messenger said slowly.

“More like a third,” Dunecki corrected. “The ships they know about are all ex-Confed crap, just like their own units. Of course, they don’t know about the system upgrades or the… technical assistance we’ve had in improving our missile seekers and EW capability, so even the ships they expect us to have are considerably more effective than they could possibly predict.”

“I can see that,” the messenger replied. “But does it really matter in the long run? I mean, with all due respect, Sir, even if we’re in a position to inflict serious losses on Nielsen because they underestimate our strength, he’s got the entire Silesian Navy behind him. You’re probably right when you call them ‘crap,’ but they have an awful lot more ships than we do.”

“Yes, they do. But that’s where the other point you weren’t cleared to hear about comes in.” Dunecki leaned back in his chair and regarded the messenger coolly. “Haven’t you wondered just how we managed to get our hands on like-new destroyers and heavy cruisers? Andermani destroyers and heavy cruisers?”

“Occasionally,” the messenger admitted. “I always assumed we must have found someone like Nielsen in the Empire. I mean, you and your brother both have contacts in the Andy Navy, so—”

“In the IAN? You think there’s someone in the IAN who’d sell first-line warships on the black market?” Almost despite himself, Dunecki laughed uproariously. It took several seconds for him to get his amusement back under control, and he wiped tears of laughter from his eyes as he shook his head at the messenger. “I may have made it clear to captain in the IAN, and Henryk may have been a full commander, but trust me, the Imperial Navy isn’t at all like the Confeds! Even if there were someone interested in stealing ships, there are way too many checkpoints and inspectorates. No,” he shook his head. “Henryk and I did use contacts in the Empire to set it up, but they weren’t with the Navy. Or not directly, anyway.”