Echoes Of Honor

"Got something else interesting here, Gerry."

She turned, pulled back out of her thoughts by Lethridge's voice, and raised an eyebrow. His tone was very different this time, and his expression could have indicated excitement, trepidation, anticipation, or a combination of all three.

"What is it?" she asked, walking back across the control room towards him.

"The computers just finished decoding the next message in the queue," he told her, "and it looks like we're about to have company."

"Company?" her voice was sharper, and he gave her a tight smile.

"Company," he confirmed. "The Peeps have hit the Alliance again. This time they took back Seabring, and it looks like they're going to try to hold it. They're pla

"And?" Metcalf encouraged when he paused.

"And StateSec has decided to temporarily 'rehabilitate' some of the politicals here on Hell. They're pla

"Transports?" Metcalf straightened, eyes bright. "Hey, that's great! Exactly what we need!"

"Sure," Eethridge agreed grimly. "Except that they're not coming alone."

"What do you mean?" Metcalf's brows furrowed as his tone registered.

"I said they were pla

"You mean we've got two divisions of SS goons headed here?" Metcalf asked very carefully.

"That's exactly what I mean," Lethridge said flatly. "And they'll be arriving with an escort of StateSec battlecruisers and heavy cruisers."

"Sweet Jesus," Metcalf murmured prayerfully.

"I hope He's listening," Lethridge told her with a mirthless smile, "because we're going to need Him. According to the alert message, we can expect them within three weeks. And with that many senior SS officers all in one place, somehow I don't think they'd settle for long-range virtual handshakes with our cyberspace version of Brigadier Tresca even if they didn't expect us to be ready to hand seventy thousand slave laborers over to them!"

Chapter Forty-Four

"That's a lot of firepower, Honor," Harriet Benson observed soberly.

"And a lot of chances for something to go wrong if even one unit doesn't do what we expect her to."

"Agreed," Honor said.

She sat with her i

Too much manpower tied up in crewing ships that size? Honor wondered. Could be, I suppose. Or it might just be that someone on the Committee of Public Safety recognized the insanity implicit in allowing the head of its "security forces" to assemble an actual battle fleet that answered only to him. Not that it matters right this minute.

"Harry's right, Ma'am," Warner Caslet said quietly. "The Warlords are big ships—at least as big as your Reliant class. I know you didn't get to see a lot of Tepes, but I did, and she was more heavily armed on a ton-for-ton basis than your ships are. Of course, their systems aren't as capable as yours, so they need the extra brute firepower to equalize the odds, but they're still bad medicine."

"I don't doubt it," Honor replied, "and I know Harry is right about the sheer number of hulls confronting us with more possible things to go wrong. But I think you're both missing the point. For the initial grab, at least, it wouldn't matter whether they were sending in superdreadnoughts or destroyers or how many of them there are. If they follow SOP, the entire force—escorts and transports alike— will stay together and come in close enough for our orbital weapons to get the drop on them. In that case, we can take out anything we have to, so the worst result from our viewpoint will be that we blow a ship away rather than taking her intact. But if even a single destroyer doesn't follow SOP and come in that close, all she has to do is run away and get help and we're all dead."

She shrugged, and Alistair McKeon nodded. He looked like a man sucking sour persimmons, but he wasn't alone in that. No one at the conference table looked particularly cheerful... except, perhaps, Honor.

I really do feel cheerful, too, she thought with some surprise. Because I'm as confident as I try to pretend? Or is it because I'm just grateful to have the other shoe drop at last?

Of course, she reminded herself, it wasn't really "the" other shoe. It was simply the first shoe—or the third, if she wanted to count Krashnark and Bacchante as the first two—and there were likely to be others before this was all over.

"On a brighter note," she went on, "look at all the perso

"Was there anything in the message about why they're ru

"No," Honor replied. "My best guess is that they expect to pick up some more warm bodies further down the line to Seabring. But what matters most to us right now is that we can grab off the perso