Flag In Exile

Honor felt her lips tighten. She gazed at Bagwell for a moment, then nodded and looked at Mercedes Brigham.

'What's our status, Mercedes?'

'Not good, Milady,' Mercedes said frankly. 'Glorious is gone, and the Gift's accel is less than a hundred gees, right on point-nine-six KPS squared. Magnificent can make about two fifty gees; Terrible and Courageous have impeller damage of their own, but they're both good for about three sixty. I wouldn't push them harder than that with so many shot-up nodes unbalancing their wedges, Milady.' Honor nodded, and Mercedes rocked back in her chair. 'Furious's drive is actually in the best shape, but she took a real pounding in that last exchange. She's lost half her energy weapons and three-quarters of her missile tubes, and Captain Gates says his starboard sidewall is 'iffy.'' Her lips twitched at Gates' choice of adjective, then she shrugged. 'For all intents and purposes, Milady, Terrible and Courageous are all we've got, and neither of them is what I'd call healthy.'

'Analysis, Fred?' Honor asked, switching her gaze back to Bagwell.

'My Lady, they can take us,' he said flatly. 'They're faster, they're undamaged, and they've got the force advantage. We can probably destroy six or seven of their battleships; the other four or five will destroy us while we're doing it, and that assumes we can get to energy range. We've lost so many tubes a missile engagement would be suicide.'

'Recommendation?'

'We'll have to avoid action, My Lady.' Bagwell didn't like saying that, yet he seemed surprised she even had to ask. 'If we fall back to Grayson orbit now, they don't have the firepower to take us and the forts.'

'I see.' Honor turned her chair back to her console, hiding her face from her staff, and let her own desperate weariness and fear show for just a minute. Nimitz unhooked himself from his safety harness and slid down into her lap, then rose on his true-feet and turned to press his muzzle against her cheek. He purred to her, and she slipped an arm around him and hugged him close while she wondered who was in command of those Peep ships. Who'd kept his wits about himself well enough to realize what Bagwell had just so succinctly summed up? What officer had watched the brutal destruction of twice his own strength, yet had the courage to realize he could still reverse the verdict and win?

She bit her own lip and forced her exhausted brain to work. She could avoid action, but only if she started immediately, and even then she couldn't save Manticore's Gift. The battered SD lacked the acceleration to evade the incoming Peeps, so Honor would have no choice but to write her off. She might have to abandon Magnificent, as well, but Fred was right about Terrible, Courageous, and Furious. They could still avoid the enemy and reach the cover of the forts, and that would save half the squadron.

Yet would it? Would it save them? If that Peep CO was confident enough to come back in at all, he wouldn't give up. He could still retreat to the outer system, still send missiles in on ballistic courses. For that matter...

She inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders, then turned back to face her staff.

'I'm afraid that won't work, Fred,' she said, and the ops officer stared at her. 'If we break off, we lose the Gift and, probably, Magnificent. That's bad enough. But if we fall back, then whoever's in command out there will know, not just suspect, but know, we can't fight him. If he wants to, he can carry out a long-range cee-fractional bombardment of Grayson, and we can't stop him. I don't think he'd be crazy enough to go for the planet itself, but he could take out the forts, the shipyards... the farms.'

She saw the stark understanding on the faces of her Grayson staff of what losing two-thirds of their world's food sources would mean, and nodded.

'Nor is that the only consideration,' she went on. 'There's those freighters and transports. If they were here to take apart our shipyards, they would have come in with Force Alpha, but they were detached as part of Zulu. That suggests they were intended to go somewhere else from the outset, and the only place I can think of is Endicott.'

'Endicott, My Lady?' Sewell asked, and she nodded again.

'Suppose those ships carry Marines, Allen, or even just a cargo of modern weapons. The Endicott picket doesn't have anything heavier than a battlecruiser; they couldn't stop Zulu from breaking through to Masada, taking out the orbital bases, and landing whatever the transports are carrying. And if the Faithful get their hands on modern weaponry...'

She broke off as Greg Paxton winced in understanding, then went on in a soft, almost regretful tone.

'We don't have a choice, people. If they decide we're too battered to interfere with them, they can do whatever they want outside the reach of Grayson's orbital weapons even if they decide against bombarding the forts from deep space. They can take out our asteroid industry, wreck all the orbital infrastructure in Endicott, turn Masada into a bloodbath... we can't let any of those things happen.'

'But how can we stop it, My Lady?' Bagwell asked.

'There's only one way I know.' She looked at her com officer. 'Howard, contact Magnificent. Find out what her maximum safe acceleration is.'

'Aye, aye, My Lady,' Lieutenant Commander Brannigan replied, and Honor turned back to Sewell.

'Once we have Captain Edwards' max accel, plot a squadron course to intercept Force Zulu at her best speed, Alien.'

'But...' Bagwell started, then drew a deep breath. 'My Lady, I understand your logic, but we don't have the firepower for it. Not anymore.'

'I think we can at least cripple their battleship element,' Honor replied in that same soft voice. 'We can do enough damage to make it unlikely they'll take on the light forces we have left here and in Endicott.'

'And while we're doing that, My Lady,' Bagwell said very, very quietly, 'they'll completely destroy this squadron.'

Honor regarded him for a moment. The fussy, detail-minded ops officer looked back without personal fear, but she understood the deeper fear in his eyes. More than that, she knew he was right. But sometimes the price which had to be paid was just as fearsome as the people who had to pay it feared it would be, she thought, and held his gaze for another ten seconds, then lowered her eyes to her com screen to Terrible's bridge.

'Captain Yu,' she asked with a small, tired smile, 'do you concur with Commander Bagwell’s analysis?'

'Yes, My Lady, I do,' Yu said, meeting her gaze levelly.

'I see. Tell me, Alfredo, did you ever read Clauzewitz?'

'On War, My Lady?' Yu sounded surprised. She nodded, and he frowned for an instant, then nodded back. 'Yes, My Lady, I have.'

'Then perhaps you remember the passage in which he said 'War is fought by human beings'?'

He gazed at her for another long moment, his eyes almost as opaque as they'd been the day she discovered he was her new flag captain, and then he nodded a second time.

'Yes, My Lady, I do,' he said in a rather different tone.

'Well, it's time to find out if he's still right, Captain. As soon as Commander Sewell has that course for you, get us moving along it.'

'Citizen Admiral, the enemy is changing course.' Citizen Rear Admiral Theisman held up one hand at his com screen, breaking off an earnest, hurried conversation with Citizen Rear Admiral Chernov, at Megan Hathaway's announcement. He looked sharply at her, and the ops officer studied her console for a moment. Then she raised her head, a puzzled crease between her eyebrows.

'They seem to be settling down on a rough heading of oh-seven-three, oh-oh-eight true, Citizen Admiral. Acceleration approximately two-point-four-five KPS squared, call it two-five-oh gravities.'

Theisman frowned, then strode over to Conquerant's master plot and glowered down into its depths. That low an acceleration suggested Harrington’s ships had to be as heavily damaged as he