The Shadow of Saganami

particularly noted for their passionate attachment to the concept of fairness.

He glanced at the time display again. Right on schedule. In fact, they might be doing just a bit too well, especially if the Customs agent was going to be as obliging as Clinton thought. Well, that was all right. He could always find some reason to spend an extra few minutes in orbit before heading back out for the hyper limit. Or to accelerate just a tad more slowly than he had on the way in.

Copenhagen wouldn't be leaving on a direct reciprocal of her arrival vector. Instead, she would head away from the system primary almost at right angles to her initial approach. There was no reason anyone should be suspicious, since he'd be filing a flight plan for the Howard System, but it would substantially reduce the total distance the recon drone would be forced to travel to return to the ship which had launched it.

* * *

The recon drone continued upon its unhurried way. Its passive sensors quivered like enormously sensitive cat's whiskers, and evasion programs waited patiently to steer it away from any vessel or sensor platform it detected which might have detected it, in turn. No such threats revealed themselves, and the drone brought its forward progress gradually to halt, fifteen light-seconds from the naval shipyard known as Eroica Station.

The tiny, stealthy spy hovered there in the vast emptiness, imitating-with a remarkable degree of success-a hole in space. Passive sensors, including optical ones, peered incuriously but painstakingly at the bustling activity around the space station. Ships and mobile spacedocks were counted, emission signatures (where available) were meticulously recorded. Moving vessels were scanned most closely of all, and careful note was taken of the two enormous repair ships sharing Eroica Station's solar orbit.

The drone spent fifteen of its twenty-four available minutes in silent, intense activity. Then it turned away, activating its impeller wedge once more, and went creeping off towards its scheduled rendezvous with Copenhagen with nine precious minutes in reserve against unforeseen contingencies.

Had it been capable of such things, it would undoubtedly have felt a deep sense of satisfaction.

But it wasn't, of course.

Chapter Fifty-Four

HMS Hercules departed Flax orbit exactly eight hours and thirty-six minutes after Rear Admiral Khumalo's meeting with the Provisional Government.

It was unlikely that the elderly superdreadnought had ever taken such precipitous leave of a star system in her entire previous career. Captain Victoria Saunders had certainly never expected to do so, and she felt more than a little out of breath at the sheer whirlwind energy which Khumalo and Loretta Shoupe had brought to the task of getting her ship and every other hyper-capable RMN unit in the Spindle System underway.

Saunders stood beside the captain's chair on her command deck, hands folded behind her, and watched the master plot as Hercules , the light cruisers Devastation and Inspired , and the destroyers Victorious , Ironside , and Domino accelerated steadily away from Flax. Ericsson , her sister ship White , and the ammunition ships Petard and Holocaust followed in the warships' wakes, and Khumalo had commandeered five additional dispatch boats. It was, at best, a lopsided and ill-balanced 'squadron,' although Hercules certainly looked impressive as its flagship. Unless, of course, one knew all of the old ship's manifold weaknesses as well as Saunders did.

But she's still a damned superdreadnought, Khumalo's flag captain told herself. And we're still the Queen's Navy. And I will be damned if Augustus Khumalo hasn't actually remembered that.

She shook her head, bemused and, to her own astonishment, proud of her Admiral. She'd skimmed Terekhov's dispatches-she hadn't had time to actually read them-and she couldn't decide whether Terekhov had brilliantly deduced the essentials of a complex plot or whether he was a raving lunatic. But if he was right, if the Republic of Monica really was in bed with the Jessyk Combine-which meant with Manpower-then he was probably also in for the fight of his life.

Which is saying quite a bit, given what he went through at Hyacinth.

In fact, it was possible, perhaps even probable, that if his fears were justified, Aivars Terekhov would be dead long before Hercules and her mismatched consorts ever got to Monica. For that matter, it was possible Khumalo's relief force might find itself destroyed, as well. But whatever happened to Terekhov, or to them, the Admiralty would have been warned, and the Republic of Monica would damned well find out that it should never have screwed with the Star Kingdom of Manticore.

'Excuse me, Ma'am.'

Saunders turned towards the voice. It belonged to Commander Richard Gaunt, her executive officer.

'Yes, Dick?'

'The last of the personnel shuttles will be coming aboard in approximately ninety minutes, Ma'am,' he said.

'Good, Dick. Good!' She smiled. 'Do we have a headcount yet?'

'It looks like the shore patrol managed to round up just about everyone,' he replied. 'At last count we're about six warm bodies short, but for all I know, they could be aboard one of the other ships, given how frantic this entire departure's being.'

'Tell me about it,' she said feelingly, looking at the repeater plot that showed the ungainly gaggle of shuttles and pinnaces streaming after the squadron. It was unheard of for a Queen's ship to pull out so abruptly a sizable percentage of her company had to chase after her this way. But at least Hercules ' acceleration rate was low enough the small craft wouldn't have much trouble overtaking her.

'Ma'am?' Gaunt's voice was much lower, and she looked back at him, one eyebrow arched.

'Do you really think all of this,' he continued, still pitching his voice too low for anyone else to hear, and gesturing at the icons moving steadily across the plot, 'is necessary?'

'I don't have any idea, Dick,' she told him frankly. 'But I did have the chance to look over Terekhov's projected ops schedule. If everything's going the way he projected, his kidnapped Solly freighter got to Monica about sixteen hours ago. Terekhov'll be arriving at his rendezvous-this 'Point Midway' of his-in about another seventy-two hours, and the freighter will meet him there about a week later. Call it ten standard days from now. And if he decides on the basis of its report to move directly on Monica, he can be there in another six days or so. We, on the other hand, can't reach Monica for twenty-five days. So, if he goes ahead, whatever he does is going to be over, one way or the other, at least one full T-week before we can possibly get there.'

'I can't believe he'd really be crazy enough to pull something like that, Ma'am,' Gaunt said, shaking his head. 'He must know we're coming-the glory hound didn't leave us any choice about that! Surely he's not so far gone he won't wait one more week if it means the difference between going in unsupported and arriving with backup.'

Saunders regarded her XO with a slight, rare frown. Gaunt was an efficient executive officer, the sort who always got the details right and developed an almost uncanny ability to anticipate his CO's desires. But he was also a stickler for sometimes petty details, and he had a powerful attachment to doing things by The Book. A certain... narrowness, coupled with an aversion to risk taking. He disliked the 'glory hounds,' a term he used a bit too easily for her taste, and Victoria Saunders had come to question whether or not he had the combination of flexibility and moral courage to wear the white beret of a starship commander. Especially in a war like the present one.

His last comment had just settled the question, and she was guiltily aware that an executive officer was what he would remain. That was what happened when a CO endorsed an officer's evaluation with the fatal words 'Not recommended for independent command.'

'Perhaps you're right,' she said, looking at the man whose career she'd just decided to kill.

He wasn't, of course. But there was no point trying to explain that to someone of his seniority who didn't already understand.