In Enemy Hands

'You can't refuse.' Honors voice was gentler. 'He's the captain of this ship.'

'And I, My Lady, am your armsman,' LaFollet replied, and this time he smiled.

Honor gazed at him a moment longer, then shook her head. 'Remind me to have a long discussion with you when we get home, Major,' she told him.

'Of course, My Lady,' he said politely, and she smiled one of her crooked smiles. Then she pointed a long index finger at Venizelos.

'As for you, Commander, on your way!' she said, and to his own surprise, Venizelos chuckled. He, too, looked at LaFollet for a moment, and then he nodded and stepped into the lift. The doors closed behind him, and Honor turned, gave McKeon another of those smiles that combined intransigence and apology.

'Convoy translation in six minutes,' Geraldine Metcalf announced into the silence.

'They'll enter the bag in another fourteen minutes, Citizen Captain,' Citizen Lieutenant Allworth observed, and Helen Zachary nodded.

'You know, Skipper,' Citizen Commander Luchner said, 'there's something odd about this bird.'

'Odd? What do you mean, Fred?'

'I'm not sure,' the exec said slowly. He rubbed his upper lip with the side of an index finger for a moment, frowning in thought. 'It's just that I can't figure out why he's made all his maneuvers in the same plane. I mean, if I were him, I'd have been looking for the least-time course out of here the instant I realized someone was waiting for me.'

'What are you trying to say, Citizen Commander?' People's Commissioner Kuttner demanded.

'I'm not sure,' Luchner repeated, hiding a flash of annoyance at Kuttner’s intrusion into his conversation with his captain. The commissioners tense, almost accusatory tone didn't help things a bit, the exec reflected, fighting to avoid the feeling that he had to defend himself against it.

'I believe what the Citizen Exec is pointing out, Sir,' Zachary intervened, 'is that the evasive action the enemy's initiated wasn't the most effective one available. Of course, it's entirely possible that whoever's in command over there simply made a less than optimum decision; that sort of thing can happen in any navy, after all. But it's part of Citizen Commander Luchner’s duties to consider whether or not there could be some other reason for it, one which would make sense to us, too, if we only knew what it was.'

'With all due respect, Citizen Captain,' Kuttner said impatiently, 'I don't see any mystery. He's detected the units pursuing him, but as you yourself pointed out to me, he doesn't know we're here, which means he's running for what he thinks is open space.'

'Perhaps so,' Zachary replied politely, 'but it's never wise to get too locked into a single possible explanation, Sir.' She was a bit surprised at herself. She'd entered the conversation only to divert Kuttner from Luchner and protect her exec; now she felt an odd compulsion to continue the argument, and she wasn't certain whether it arose simply out of her irritation at Kuttner's smug assurance or if Luchner’s question had roused some instinctive suspicion of her own. 'She may not know we're here, Citizen Commissioner,' she went on, 'but her course changes certainly make it clear that she's known Nuada was there from the beginning. In fact, I think it's most likely that she picked Nuada up before she realized anyone else was waiting for her.'

'And?' Kuttner demanded impatiently when she paused.

'And her present course makes it impossible for her to avoid engaging Nuada... the ship she must have the best fix on,' Zachary said slowly. She turned to Luchner and her eyes darkened. 'That's it, isn't it, Fred?' she said. 'That's what's bothering you. Why choose a course that gives the one ship she has to know about a shot at her?'

'Yes, Citizen Captain.' Luchner's own eyes lit with sudden understanding. 'That's exactly what it is! If he'd simply made a ninety degree alteration in any plane, or even turned at right angles in the same plane, he'd have scooted back out across the limit before Nuada could possibly catch him. He'd have avoided all of us, unless he happened to stumble over a ship lying doggo like we were. But as it is...'

'As it is, she's drawn the pursuit of the only ship who could have interdicted the volume in which she made her alpha translation,' Zachary said flatly. Kuttner swiveled his head back and forth between the officers, his expression baffled, and Zachary leaned back with a sigh. 'That's a very clever captain over there,' she said. 'Aside from the fact that she doesn't know we're out here, she's done everything exactly right.'

'Would you mind explaining what you're talking about?' Kuttner snapped, and Zachary turned her head to look at him.

'If the Citizen Commander and I are correct, Sir, it's very simple. You see...'

'Hyper footprint!' Citizen Lieutenant Allworth barked. 'Multiple hyper footprints bearing one-oh-six by oh- oh-three!'

GNS Jason Alvarez led Convoy JNMTC-76 back into n-space. Ship after ship emerged from hyper, each in turn spangling the emptiness with brilliant azure fire as Warshawski sails hundreds of kilometers in diameter bled transit energy. No sensor array within forty light-minutes could have missed that massive signature, and on the flag bridge of PNS Count Tilly, Lester Tourville swore with vile intensity as CIC reported.

Nor was he alone. Every Peep skipper in the Adler System realized what Prince Adrian had done, and their sulfurous reactions to the enormity of the prize they'd been sucked away from mirrored their admiral's. Aside from Nuada herself, and, of course, the hidden Katana, every ship which had been pursuing Prince Adrian swerved away to go after the convoy. Not because they had any realistic hope of intercepting it, but simply because they couldn't see that huge, glittering opportunity and not pursue it.

Captain Thomas Greentree stood at Lieutenant Commander Terracelli's shoulder, looking down at the tac officers larger, more detailed plot. It would take a few minutes for Alvarez's sensors to sort things out, but in the meantime...

'Sir!' Greentree's turned quickly at his com officer's sudden, uncharacteristic exclamation. He started to open his mouth, but Lieutenant Chavez went right on speaking. 'We're picking up a Flash Priority transmission from Lady Harrington, Sir!'

'Flash Priority?' Greentree repeated. 'What does it say?'

'I don't know yet, Sir. It's FTL and it's still coming in. I...'

Chavez broke off, his eyes going wide, and Greentree made himself clamp his mouth shut. There was no point badgering the com officer with questions he couldn't answer yet, and despite many improvements over the crude original systems, the FTL com's one real drawback remained its slow data transmission rate. It could shoot pulses across light-minutes virtually instantaneously, but the time required to generate each pulse meant a simple declarative sentence could take as much as two full minutes to transmit. Which, of course, was why code groups were used. It was almost like a revision to the ancient wet-navy days of signal flags, when a flag could stand for a single letter of the alphabet or an entire sentence from the fleets code book, and...

'Orders from the Flag, Captain,' Chavez said, and Greentree felt his jaw clench as he noted the com officer's shaken tone and jerked his head for him to continue.

'The convoy is to reenter hyper and return to Clairmont immediately,' Chavez said, and now his voice was flat and utterly toneless. 'You are to assume command, Sir... and inform Admiral Sorbanne at Clairmont that the enemy has taken the Adler System.'

'I'm to assume command?' Greentree heard his own voice asking the question before he could stop it, and Chavez nodded.

'Yes, Sir. And return to Clairmont with the convoy. Immediately.'

'But what about Lady Harrington?' Terracelli blurted. Greentree turned to glare at him, but his heart wasn't in it, for the tac officer's question burned in his own mind.

'I...' Chavez paused and looked back down at his display where more clusters of alphanumeric characters