Honor nodded to her ops officer, then turned back to the com.
'You heard, Rafe?'
'Yes, Ma'am. Yolanda's already looking at the preliminaries. So far, it seems to be about what we expected.'
'Then it probably is. But remember, surprise-'
'Is usually what happens when someone misinterprets something he's seen all along,' Cardones finished for her. She closed her mouth, then chuckled.
'I think I may have spent too many years at the Island.'
'No, Ma'am. You've always been a teacher.'
Honor was a little surprised by the flicker of embarrassment she felt at the sincerity in Cardones' tone.
'Well, I had some pretty good teachers of my own,' she said, after a moment. 'Admiral Courvoisier, Captain Bachfisch, Mark Sarnow. I guess once you get stuck in the pattern, it's hard to break.'
'If it's all the same to you, Ma'am, I think we'd all just as soon you didn't try.'
'I'll... bear that in mind, Captain Cardones.'
'Good. And now, if you don't mind, Your Grace, we've both got some tactical information to look over. So,' he grinned broadly at her, 'let's be about it.'
'Tell the Admiral we've got a major hyper translation.'
Commander Ivan deCastro, Rear Admiral Bellefeuille's chief of staff hoped he looked calmer than he felt as he gazed into the display at Commander Ericsson.
'How big is it, Leonardo?' he asked.
'At least thirteen footprints,' Ericsson said grimly. 'It may be fourteen. We're working to refine the numbers.'
'Not good,' deCastro said, and Ericsson snorted.
'I see you subscribe to the theory understatement can be its own form of emphasis.'
'When it's all you've got, you might as well be witty, I suppose.' DeCastro produced a wan smile. Then he squared his shoulders. 'All right, I'll tell her. At least she's got her family dirt-side now, not on the flagship.'
'I know.' For just a moment, Ericsson's expression was haunted. 'Christ, that's got to be hard. Knowing your kids are down there. That they know exactly what's happening.'
'It's a bastard, all right,' deCastro agreed. 'Get me those refined numbers as soon as you can.'
'How big a force did you say?'
Governor Joona Poykkonen's face was gray on Rear Admiral Baptiste Bressand's com. Not that Bressand blamed him a bit. The rear admiral intended to do his best to defend Augusta, but after he had-and after the wreckage had dissipated-Poykkonen was going to have to deal with what the frigging Manties were about to do to his star system.
'Perimeter Tracking makes it four superdreadnoughts, four battlecruisers, and seven heavy and light cruisers,' Bressand repeated. 'It's possible one or more of the superdreadnoughts could be a carrier, but so far the emissions signatures are consistent with Invictus and Medusa-class SD(P)s. If I had to guess, I guess we're up against the same force that hit Hera.'
'Harrington is here?' Poykkonen's face got a little grayer, if that was possible.
'Honor Harrington is not the devil herself,' Bressand said testily. 'So far as I'm aware, she hasn't even made any deals with the devil-assuming the devil exists. Which I don't.'
'I'm sorry, Baptiste.' Poykkonen shook his head like a man trying to shake water out of his ears and managed an apologetic smile. 'It's just, well.... Oh, hell! You know what it is.'
'Yes.' Bressand sighed. 'Yes, Joona, I know what it is.'
'Do you intend to fight her?' Poykkonen asked quietly after a moment.
'I've got some orders around here somewhere that say something about my being the Augusta System's naval commander. If memory serves, they also say something about defending my station against attack.'
'I know they do.' Poykkonen's tone told Bressand his feeble attempt at humor had failed. 'But that doesn't change the fact that you've got one old-style superdreadnought, six battlecruisers, and a couple of hundred LACs. That's not enough to stop her, and you know it.'
'So what do I do, Joona?' Bressand sat back and raised one hand, palm uppermost. 'Do I lie down and play dead? Do I just let her-or whoever's in command over there-waltz right in and blow this system's economy and industrial base to hell? We've got pods on tow, we've got the system defense pods already deployed, and if they don't have any CLACs of their own, then at least they don't have any of those damned Katanas to throw at us. I sent off a dispatch boat to Haven as soon as we realized they were scouting the system. A relief force is probably already on its way. If I can just delay these people until it gets here, we may be able to save at least some of your star system for you, after all.'
'We're thirty light-years from the capital, Baptiste. That's four days' transit for a task force and your message can't reach the Octagon until sometime later today. Do you really think you can stand off a force this size for four frigging days?'
'Probably not,' Bressand said bleakly. 'But that doesn't mean I don't have to try.' The two friends looked at one another for a moment, and then Bressand cleared his throat. 'In case we don't get another chance to talk, Joona, take care of yourself.'
'I will,' the Governor promised softly. 'And if you don't mind, I'm going to ask that God you don't believe in to look after you.'
'They're here, Ma'am,' Commander Alan McGwire said. 'Perimeter Tracking makes it at least six of the wall-some of them might be carriers, of course-ten cruisers, and at least three destroyers.'
Commodore Desiree Carmouche, CO of the 117th Heavy Cruiser Squadron and the Republic of Haven Navy's senior officer in the Fordyce System, looked at her chief of staff and shook her head.
'Bit of overkill there, wouldn't you say?' she observed with ironic bitterness.
'I'm guessing their intelligence appreciation was off,' McGwire replied. 'Up until Thunderbolt, we had a much heavier system defense force stationed here.' He shrugged. 'Without an actual recon before they dropped their damned destroyers and stealthed arrays in on us, they had no way of knowing the system picket had been so reduced.'
'For what I'm sure seemed like a perfectly good goddamned reason at the time,' Carmouche grated. She glared at the plot for several seconds, eyes fiery as she studied the blood-red rash of incoming enemy warships and the seven threadbare green icons of her own understrength squadron, and then her shoulders sagged visibly.
'There's nothing we can do to stop them, Alan,' she said heavily.
'No, Ma'am, there isn't,' he agreed softly. 'Petra's already passed the word to Governor Dahlberg.'
Commander Petra Nielsen was Carmouche's operations officer, and the commodore nodded in understanding and approval.
'I've been on the horn with Captain Watson, myself,' McGwire continued. Captain Diego Watson commanded the Fordyce LAC groups. 'He says his people are prepared to engage.'
'In which case I might as well simply shoot them myself.' Carmouche turned away from the plot at last. 'For Christ's sake, Diego has less than a hundred and fifty Cimeterres! If I commit him against these people, they'll blow him out of space before he even gets into his missile range of them. And just what the hell does he imagine he'd accomplish against superdreadnoughts even if he got into range in the first place?'
'Of course he wouldn't accomplish anything, Ma'am. But what did you expect him to say?'
'That he was ready to go in,' Carmouche sighed, then shook her head wearily. 'And I suppose the rest of our magnificent 'task force' is equally ready to get itself killed for absolutely nothing?'
'They are if you ask them to, Ma'am,' McGwire said softly, and she looked at him sharply. He met her eyes steadily, and after a moment, she nodded.
'It does come down to that, doesn't it?' She inhaled deeply. 'Well, Alan, as it happens, I'm not prepared to get all those people killed pointlessly. Have Communications pass the evacuation order for all of the civilian platforms, as well as the Fleet yard and repair station. If these are the same people who hit us last month, they're probably going to be careful about inflicting civilian casualties. But they might not be the same ones, so let's not take any chances.'
'Aye, Ma'am,' McGwire said formally.
'Then turn the Squadron around. We've got time to get out of the system before the Manties can range on us,
