Cirocco spread her clock-face map on the rickety table. A Captain held a lantern over it as she drew in two more Xs.
“The Cronus and Metis wings of the Gaean Air Force are wiped out. That means this whole half of the wheel, with us right in the middle, no longer contains any enemy air power. The nearest threat to us is all the way over here, in Hyperion. Bellinzona is still threatened by the Thea Wing. Now, if you were Gaea, what would you do?”
General Two studied the layout, and spoke.
“She must know by now that one of our groups outmatches one of hers.”
“But I don’t think she knows our total strength,” Cirocco said.
“Good. That might make her wait. An attack on Bellinzona from Thea is a possibility. But you say her main objective is the army.”
“It is.”
“Then . . . we’ll get a good deal of warning if the Hyperion Wing takes flight. You said our spies in Hyperion are excellent.”
“They are.”
“If I were her,” General Eight said, “I would start massing my planes. Shift the Hyperion group into the empty base in Mnemosyne, for instance, if that base is still usable.”
“It isn’t.”
“All right. And the Hyperion couldn’t make it to the Cronus base without being attacked by our Air Force. So I‘d tell them to sit tight. I’d move the Thea wing to the base in Metis. Iapetus is out of the question, for the same reason as Cronus. How many buzz bombs can use one base?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Hm. Well, if more than one wing can land at one base, I’d start moving those more remote ones in closer. Phoebe, Crius, Tethys, into Metis and Hyperion. We don’t know the range, either, do we?”
“No. I suspect we’re at the outer limits of the Hyperion group’s range. But we’ll get closer. I thought she might launch them at us now, while we’re still recovering, and move Rhea up to take their place. But I think what she’ll do right now . . . is nothing. So far, I’ve been right.” She pointed at the map again. “We have to defend the army, the city . . . and the base in Mnemosyne. The base in Iapetus is expendable—in fact, I’ve given orders to blow it up if they try to take it.”
“Why would they try that?”
“Because they’re going to be hungry. I propose a surprise attack. If it works, it might give us total air superiority.”
She watched the effect of that magical phrase. In large army engagements for two centuries, those words had been the key to victory.
Naturally, they wanted to know how she planned to do it. She told them.