"It's like old home week here," she whispered, "pilots, a couple of maintenance officers like myself, ship's computer officers, there's even a commodore of a destroyer group over there in the corner."

"I'd like to get started," Tolwyn announced and he motioned for the new arrivals to grab some chairs.

Tolwyn turned away for a moment and extended his hands to the fire, rubbing them, silhouetted by the flames and Jason felt a flash memory of the hangar deck of Tarawa on fire. He closed his eyes and pushed the thought aside, knowing that it'd be back again tonight, one of the worst of the recurring nightmares.

"To start with the old familiar line. I guess you're wondering why I invited you all here tonight."

The group laughed politely.

"We heard about your stockpile of Scotch," Ian quipped.

"Afterwards, Hunter, but business first."

The group settled down.

"It has been four weeks since the formal armistice agreement between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi Empire. Starting tomorrow, the peace commission starts its meetings to extend the armistice into a permanent settlement.

"All of us, especially we who fought so hard, and for so long, prayed daily for peace; for only one who fights can truly know how precious peace really is."

He lowered his head for a moment.

"And all of us know what the price might be if this peace proves to be an illusion, which I have feared from the beginning that it really is.

"What I'm about to share with you is level double-A classified information. Though we are no longer in the military I will invoke a military regulation regarding this information which is that the revealing of double-A-level classified information in time of war is a capital offense.

"We are not —" he paused" — officially at war, but I think that the level of classification conveys just how sensitive this material is. If this is something you feel might be over your head, Johnston will be happy to lift you back to London and you'll be back in town in time to catch the evening shows. If you stay, however, I expect a commitment from you to follow through on what I'm going to ask you to do. I called you here because I trust all of you. I'm asking in turn that you trust me and agree to this beforehand."

He waited for a minute and no one stirred.

"Fine, then we understand each other."

He picked up a small hand controller off the fireplace mantlepiece and clicked it. On a side wall a holo projection box hummed to life.

"The figures you see up there were only known at the highest level in the military and in the civilian government on the day the armistice was reached and, according to counter intelligence, were also revealed to the Kilrathi through an as yet unidentified mole."

He waited for that bit of information to sink in and then continued.

"As you can see, it shows actual fleet strength. The numbers in black are ships that were actively on line, the blue numbers were ships in for repair or maintenance and the green numbers new ships projected to join the fleet within the year.

He waited for a moment and then clicked the button again.

"The figures on the right side of the screen show the Kilrathi fleet size according to the highest level of intelligence and believe me it cost a hell of a lot of lives to get this information."

Jason scanned the figures. He knew the situation was bad, but he had no idea that the margin between Kilrathi and Confederation carriers was as large as indicated. He looked over at Tolwyn and realized yet again just how much the man risked when he took the Concordia a deep into Kilrathi territory to pull him out. The figures, however, for light craft, especially frigate class and transports were far better, with the Confederation having a significant lead in heavy transport capability.

A low murmur of voices filled the room as the group commented on the figures.

"Now I should add here, that in terms of quality, our technology in fighter craft was showing some significant edges, though they still had it over us in terms of sheer numbers and in firepower, which we offset with maneuverability and the ability to take more punishment, especially with our new upgrades which were just coming on line with the Broadswords and Sabre D class.

"But these are the key figures that I want you to take a hard look at."

He snapped the controller again, and columns of figures in red appeared alongside the Kilrathi column.

"Damn, look at that," Ian whispered, and Jason could only nod in reply.

"As you can see," Tolwyn announced, "from the day of the armistice and for roughly twelve months afterwards not one new fleet carrier was going to come on line for the Empire. Beyond that, it appears as if a significant portion of their carrier fleet needed to be pulled off line for major overhauls and refitting."

He paused for a moment

"This crippling of their carrier construction is thanks in part to a rather neat job by one of those present here tonight," and Jason nodded a thanks, but wanted to say that it wasn't him, but rather the nearly four hundred Marine raiders who gave their lives destroying the construction yards on Kilrah's moon that made the difference.

"Six carriers nearing completion were destroyed in the Tarawa raid and even more importantly their key personnel and construction equipment went up as well. Intelligence later ascertained that a high level design and engineering team was visiting the moon on the day the raid hit, wiping out some of their top brains. Tarawa also showed us a viable tactic for getting at the Kilrathi. You might recall that CVEs Enigma and Khorsan were reported lost, but no details were ever revealed for security reasons. The truth is that both light carriers were sent on deep penetration raids on carrier construction sites located in the Za'kathag region, killing three heavy carriers that were still being fitted out. Seven more construction sites were destroyed by other means that I'm not at liberty to discuss and in fact I'm not even supposed to know."

He turned away for a moment and reaching over to a wood bin he tossed another log on the fire and then looked back at the group.

"In other words, we had a window of opportunity which was starting to kick in and would have lasted for roughly six months to a year. For a brief period we would have, for the first time in the war, reached front line parity in terms of carrier strength and then the numbers would turn against us yet again. We might have been able to push them to the wall, though, during that time."

He sighed with frustration and lowered his head for a moment.

"Sir? '

He looked back up.

"Go ahead, Ian."

"Just how reliable are these figures?"

"I can t really tell you how we got them, but they're hard core. But now for the tough part, the classified information that only a handful really know about.

We suspect that the Kilrathi went for this armistice for two reasons, the first the operational concerns created by their crisis in transport capability, the destruction of heavy ship yards and the stand down of at least half their carriers for refit. If that alone was their reason behind the armistice, it would be bad enough. There is, however, the second issue."

He paused a moment for effect and the room was deadly still, except for the crackling of the fire.

"We have reason to believe that approximately five years ago the Kilrathi started the secret assembly of a major construction yard outside of their Empire's territory and at this site they are building an entire new class of ships. If this is true, we can expect that when the fleet is completed, it might be used to launch a preemptive and smashing blow to end the war in their favor. The key question concerning this is if indeed this fleet is real. If it is real and nearing completion, do the Kilrathi intend to use it to launch a preemptive strike while we stand down due to the armistice?"