The Honor of the Qween

giant larger than Sol's Jupiter, with an orbital radius of almost fifty-one light-minutes, which put it well beyond sensor range of anything Grayson had.

'What sort of basing facilities do they have?' Admiral Matthews asked sharply, and Clinkscales shrugged.

'That I don't know, Admiral, and neither does he. Not in any detail.' The councilman produced an old- fashioned audio tape. 'I brought along everything he could tell us in case your people could make a better estimate from it. All he could tell us for sure is that `Maccabeus'—' the old man refused to use Jared Mayhew's name '— diverted some of our own construction ships with Maccabean crews to help them build it. His wasn't among them, unfortunately, but he heard one of the other captains commenting on the fact that they've put in modern sensors. They may have a few Havenite heavy weapons, as well, though he's not sure about that.'

'Damn,' someone muttered from the Grayson side of the table, and the right side of Honor's face tightened.

'I don't think they could have turned Blackbird into any kind of real fortress,' Matthews said quickly. 'Not unless they can generate a sidewall bubble around a moon eight thousand kilometers in diameter.' He looked questioningly at Honor, and she shook her head.

'No, Sir. Not even Manticore can work miracles yet,' she said dryly.

'Then whatever they've got was probably designed to stop us. They certainly haven't put up any orbital platforms. They took a risk just setting up a moon-side base, because we conduct periodic exercises in the area. Maccabeus—' like Clinkscales, Matthews refused to use Mayhew's name '—had access to our schedules, so he could have warned them when to lie low, but they couldn't have counted on hiding orbital installations from us.'

Honor nodded again, following his logic.

'And fixed defenses would be far more vulnerable than my ships.' She spoke more rapidly, and her words slurred badly, but no one seemed to notice.

'Exactly. And if there's a chance most of their Havenite firepower is elsewhere—' Matthews suggested.

Honor looked at him for a moment and realized she was rubbing her face much harder. She made herself stop before she further damaged the insensitive skin, then nodded decisively.

'Absolutely, Admiral. How soon can your units be ready to move out?'

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

'Skipper?'

Thomas Theisman jerked awake, and his executive officer stepped back quickly as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the couch.

'What?' he asked thickly, rubbing at sleep-crusted eyes. 'Is it the Captain?'

'No, Sir,' Lieutenant Hillyard said unhappily, 'but we're picking up an awful lot of impeller signatures headed this way.'

'This way? Towards Uriel?'

'Slap bang towards Blackbird, Skipper.' Hillyard met his eyes with an anxious grimace.

'Oh, fuck.' Theisman shoved himself erect and wished he'd never left the People's Republic. 'What kind of signatures? Harrington's?'

'No, Sir.'

'I'm in no mood for bad jokes, Al!'

'I'm not kidding, Skipper. We don't see her anywhere.'

'Damn it, there's no way the Graysons would come after us alone! Harrington has to be out there!'

'If she is, we haven't seen her yet, Sir.'

'Goddamn it.' Theisman massaged his face, trying to knead some life back into his brain. Captain Yu was forty hours overdue, the reports coming up from moon-side were enough to turn a man's stomach, and now this shit.

'All right.' He straightened with a spine-cracking pop and picked up his cap. 'Let's get to the bridge and see what's going on, Al.'

'Yes, Sir.' The exec followed him from the cabin. 'We only picked them up about five minutes ago,' he went on. 'We've been getting some funny readings from in-system, some kind of discrete gravity pulses.' Theisman looked at him, and Hillyard shrugged. 'Can't make anything out of them, Skipper. They're scattered all over the place, and they don't seem to be doing anything, but trying to run them down had our sensors looking the wrong way. They may have been decelerating for as much as thirty minutes before we picked them up.'

'Um.' Theisman rubbed his chin, and Hillyard looked at his profile.

'Skipper,' he said hesitantly, 'tell me if I'm out of line, but have you heard anything about what's happening ground-side?'

'You are out of line!' The lieutenant recoiled, and Theisman grimaced. 'Sorry, Al. And, yes, I've heard, but—' He slammed a fist explosively into the bulkhead beside him, then jerked to a stop and swung to face his exec.

'There's not a goddamned thing I can do, Al. If it was up to me, I'd shoot every one of the sons-of- bitches—but don't you breathe a word of that, even to our people!' He held Hillyard's eyes fiercely until the exec nodded choppily, then rubbed his face again.

'Jesus, I hate this stinking job! The Captain never figured on this, Al. I know how he'd feel about it, and I made my own position as clear to Franks as I can, but I can't queer the deal for the Captain when I don't know how he'd handle it. Besides,' he smiled crookedly, 'we don't have any Marines.'

'Yes, Sir.' Hillyard looked down at the deck, and his mouth worked. 'It just makes me feel so ... dirty.'

'You and me both, Al. You and me both.' Theisman sighed. He started back down the passage, and Hillyard had to half-trot to keep up with him. 'When I get home—if I get home—' Theisman muttered savagely, 'I'm gonna find whatever Staff puke thought this one up. I don't care who the bastard is, he's dog shit when I find him. I didn't sign up for this kind of garbage, and rank won't help the son-of-a-bitch in a dark alley!' He broke off and looked sidelong at Hillyard. 'You didn't hear that, Lieutenant,' he said crisply.

'Of course not, Sir.' Hillyard took another few steps and looked back up at his commander. 'Want a little help in that alley, Skipper?'

* * *

She missed Nimitz. The back of her command chair seemed empty and incomplete without him, but Nimitz was tucked away in his life-support module. He hadn't been any happier at being parted than she was, yet he'd been there before, and he'd settled down without demur when she sealed him in. Now she put the lonely feeling out of her mind and studied her plot.

A solid wedge of LACs led her ship, its corners anchored by Grayson's three surviving starships, while Troubadour and Apollo were tucked in tight on Fearless's port and starboard quarters. It was scarcely an orthodox formation, especially since it put the best sensor suites behind the less capable Grayson units, but if it worked the way it was supposed to ...

She heard a soft sound and looked up to see Commander Brentworth playing with his helmet beside her chair. His bulky vac gear marked him as a stranger among her bridge crew's skin suits, and, unlike everyone else, he had nothing to do but stand there and worry.

He felt her eye and looked down, and she smiled her lopsided smile.

'Feeling out of place, Mark?' she asked quietly, and he gave her a sheepish nod. 'Don't worry about it. We're glad you're aboard.'