The Honor of the Qween

zero minutes. Our base velocity would be five-six-six-six-seven KPS. He'd be right here—about four-niner-five million klicks from Yeltsin and one-point-three billion klicks short of Grayson on his present track. Our vectors would merge two-point-three million klicks short of Grayson five-point-two-five hours after that. Of course, that assumes accelerations remain unchanged.'

Honor nodded at the qualification. If anything in this universe was certain, it was that Saladin's acceleration wouldn't remain unchanged once she saw Fearless and Troubadour.

'And if we go around Yeltsin on a straight reciprocal of his course?'

'Just a second, Ma'am.' DuMorne crunched more numbers, and a second possible vector appeared on his display. 'Going at him that way, he'd pick us up approximately one-point-five billion klicks out of Grayson orbit in two-five-zero minutes. Closing velocity would be one-four-one-four-niner-seven KPS, and vectors would intercept four-eight minutes after detection.'

'Thank you.' Honor folded her hands and walked across to her command chair while she contemplated her options.

The one thing she absolutely couldn't do was sit here and let the enemy come at her. With that much time to build her velocity advantage, Saladin would have every edge there was for the opening missile engagement, and she could overfly Grayson—and Honor's ships—with relative impunity.

To prevent that, Honor could meet her head-on by simply reversing the battlecruiser's course. Saladin couldn't evade her if she did, but their closing velocity would be high, severely limiting engagement time. They would cross the powered missile envelope in little more than four minutes, and energy range in barely seven seconds. Saladin would have to accept action, but her captain could count on its being a very short one.

Alternatively, Honor could shape her own, tighter parabola inside Saladin's. The battlecruiser would still have the higher base velocity when she detected Fearless and Troubadour, but they'd be on convergent courses, and Honor's ships would be inside her. Her ships would have less distance to travel, and the battlecruiser would be unable to cut inside them even if she stopped stooging along and went to maximum power on her wedge.

The drawback was that it would be a converging engagement, a broadside duel in which the battlecruiser's heavier missile batteries, bigger magazines, and tougher sidewalls could be used to best advantage. The very length of the engagement would give her more time to pound Fearless and Troubadour apart ... but it would also give them more time to hurt her.

In essence, her choices were to go for a short, sharp closing engagement and hope she got lucky and Saladin didn't, or else go for a battering match.

Of course, she did have one major advantage, and she smiled hungrily at the thought, for it was the same one Saladin had enjoyed when Masada killed the Admiral; she knew where the enemy was and what he was doing, and he didn't know what she was up to.

She played with her projected course briefly, varying DuMorne's numbers on her command chair maneuvering repeater, then sighed. If Saladin had come in a bit more slowly or on a course with a broader chord, she might have had enough time to accelerate onto a converging course, then go ballistic to sneak into range with her own drives down. But Saladin hadn't, and she didn't.

And when she came right down to it, she couldn't risk the head-on interception, either. If that ship was irrational enough to press an attack now, then she had to assume its captain truly was crazy enough to nuke Grayson. That meant she couldn't engage hoping for a lucky hit when her failure to get it would let Saladin past her. It had to be the convergent approach.

She leaned back, rubbing the numb side of her face for a moment, and considered the way Saladin had chosen to come in. That was a cautious captain out there. Indeed, she was surprised to see such timidity, especially given that any attack on Grayson had to be an act of desperation. If the People's Navy had amassed one thing over fifty T-years of conquest, it was experience, but this fellow showed no sign of it. He certainly wasn't a bit like Theisman—not that she intended to complain about that!

But the point was that if she presented a cautious captain with a situation in which his only options were a fight to the death short of the planet or to break off, especially if she did it in a way which proved she'd been watching him when he'd believed it was impossible, he might just flinch. And if she got him to break away to rethink, it would use up hours of time ... and every hour he spent dithering would bring the relief from Manticore one hour closer.

Of course, it was also possible he might decide he'd given sneakiness his best shot and do what she would have done from the beginning—go straight for Fearless and dare her to do her worst before he blew her out of space.

She closed her good eye, the living side of her face calm and still, and made her decision.

'Com, get me Admiral Matthews.'

'Aye, aye, Ma'am.'

Matthews looked anxious on Honor's screen, for Troubadour's gravitic sensors had been feeding the drone data to his own plot aboard Covington, as well, but he met her gaze levelly.

'Good afternoon, Sir.' Honor formed her words with care, making herself sound cool and confident, as the rules of the game required.

'Captain,' Matthews replied.

'I'm taking Fearless and Troubadour out to meet Saladin on a convergent course,' Honor told him without further preamble. 'The cautious way she's coming in may mean this is mainly a probe. If so, she may break off when she realizes we can intercept her.'

She paused, and Matthews nodded, but she could see his mind working behind his eyes and knew he didn't believe it was only a probe, either.

'In the meantime,' she went on after a moment, 'there's always the chance Masada has more of its own hyper-capable ships left than we think, so Covington,Glory, and your LACs are going to have to watch the back door.'

'Understood, Captain,' Matthews said quietly, and Honor heard the unspoken addition. If Saladin did get past Fearless and Troubadour, they might at least take a big enough piece out of her for the Grayson ships to have a chance against her.

Might.

'We'll be on our way, then, Sir. Good luck.'

'And to you, Captain Harrington. Go with God and our prayers.'

Honor nodded and cut the circuit, then looked at DuMorne.

'Update your first course for the helm and get us under way, Steve,' she said quietly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

'Sir, we're picking up another of those gravity pulses.'

'Where?' Sword of the Faithful Simonds leaned over his tactical officer's shoulder, and Lieutenant Ash pointed at a blur on his display.

'There, Sir.' Ash made painstaking adjustments, then shrugged. 'It was only a single pulse this time. I don't know ... it could be a ghost, Sir. I've never actually operated the recon drones solo.'

'Um.' Simonds grunted acknowledgment and resumed his restless prowl. He knew he should be sitting in Thunder of God's command chair, radiating confidence as his ship slunk deeper into the