In Enemy Hands

Chapter Fourteen

"All right, Commander. What's so damned urgent?"

Vice Admiral of the Red Dame Madeleine Sorba

Well, Dame Madeleine had plenty of excuses for her desk's untidiness... and any fretting she happened to be doing, Jessica Dorcett reminded herself. As the senior officer on Clairmont Station, Sorba

"I'm sorry to interrupt your schedule, Ma'am," the commander said now. She ignored the admiral's gestured invitation to take a seat of her own, choosing to remain standing at parade rest instead, and saw Sorba

"What report?" Some of the irritation faded from Sorba

"Admiral, we've lost Adler," she said, and Sorba

"How?" she asked harshly, and the commander shook her head.

"I don't have all the details, Windsong was too far out for good tactical imagery, but I'm afraid the bare bones were pretty clear. We screwed up, Ma'am, and whoever pla

"Explain." Sorba

"Commodore Yeargin had too few sensor platforms for complete coverage, Ma'am, so she placed what she did have to cover the most obvious approach vectors. Then she put her main force into Samovar orbit... and aside from detaching my destroyer division to cover the main asteroid processing node, she posted no pickets at all." Despite iron self-control, Sorba

"Peeps came in ballistic?" Sorba

"Yes, Ma'am. They must have. Either that, or their stealth systems have achieved a much higher degree of improvement than ONI's been projecting. Even on the course they followed, they should have passed close enough to at least one of our sensor platforms for active impellers to've been detected."

"They came in powered down all the way to attack range?" Sorba

"Yes, Ma'am. And I'm afraid that isn't all." Sorba

"Shit." The soft, whispered expletive was almost a prayer, and Sorba

"I'm not certain, Ma'am. As I say, we were too far out for really good scans, but my best estimate is four battlecruisers, six to eight heavy cruisers, and half a dozen light cruisers. My tac officer and I saw no destroyers, but I can't guarantee there weren't any."

Sorba

"How bad were Commodore Yeargin's losses?" she asked after a moment.

"Ma'am, I..." Dorcett stopped and swallowed. "I'm sorry, Admiral. I must have been... unclear." She inhaled, then went on very flatly. "Aside from my division, the task group’s losses were total, Dame Madeleine. I'm... the senior surviving officer."

Sorba

Madeleine Sorba

But what Yeargin had been thinking was immaterial now. Rightly or wrongly, the future was going to condemn her even more harshly than Sorba

Pain twisted deep inside her at the thought of all the dead, but then another thought hit her, and her eyes dropped back into intent focus.

"If you're the surviving SO, then who's picketing the system, Commander?"

"No one, Ma'am. I only had three ships: Windsong, Rondeau, and Balladeer. Under the circumstances, I judged that my immediate duty was to use all three of them to spread the word as quickly as possible, so I brought Windsong here and sent the other two to Quest and Treadway."

"I see." Something in the vice admirals almost mechanical reply gripped Dorcett's attention by the throat, and her hands clenched behind her. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but she knew she'd failed when Sorba