Echoes Of Honor

Now he grunted irritably as the familiar thought reminded him once more of the People's loss and dragged him back to the present. He glowered at the words on the display in front of him, then snorted and saved and closed the file. His moment of exaltation on the observation deck lay five-plus hours in the past, and it was time he returned to Flag Deck.

"They're coming up on their final course change, Milady," Commander Phillips said quietly, and Honor nodded, never looking away from the plot. Phillips' voice was a bit hoarser than it had been when the Peeps first made translation, and Honor wasn't surprised. The tension had ratcheted steadily higher as the enemy continued blithely in-system, and in an odd sort of way, their very failure to show any suspicion at all only made it worse. It was as if everyone in the control room was holding his or her mental breath, waiting tautly for some indication that all their plans were going into the crapper, and every moment in which that didn't happen simply made the dread that it might that much stronger.

Of course, it isn't all "their" plans; it's all my plans, Honor thought wryly. She felt the dryness in her own mouth, and Nimitz leaned forward against her back, resting his chin on her shoulder and crooning almost subliminally to her. Or perhaps it was subliminal, something sensed over their link and not heard by her ears at all.

She drew a deep breath and made herself stand motionless, the thumb of her single hand hooked into her belt. She didn't really care for that pose—it felt slouched and unprofessional—but she could hardly clasp one hand behind her in her usual "I'm feeling no tension" ma

She shook her head at the other woman, declining to explain her humor. It wouldn't have done much for her image as a calm, cool combat commander. Besides, she wasn't sure how much of it was a tension reaction. Everyone had felt nerves tighten as Sca

Not that we don't have a few surprises of our own, Honor thought more grimly. She glanced at a secondary plot, this one showing the two green icons hiding behind Niflheim, the outermost of Hell's three moons. Krashnark and Bacchante held their positions, concealed from any Peep sensor in the moon's shadow but ready to dash out firing at need. They wouldn't add much to the orbital defenses' sheer weight of fire, but their mobility gave them a tactical value all their own... not to mention what the realization that her people had already seized at least two enemy ships might do to the Peeps' morale.

The convoy from Shilo made its last course alteration, swinging just outside the i

"Any sign of active weapon systems?"

"No, Ma'am," the lieutenant commander at Tactical replied. "And they're powering down the nodes on the freighters."

"Only on the freighters?" Phillips voice started out sharply, but she got control of it by the third word and smoothed it out quickly.

"So far," the tac officer confirmed. "Wait one... We've got node power-down on the cruisers, as well, Commander, but the battle-cruisers are showing standby power readings."

Phillips said something under her breath, then glanced at Honor, who shrugged more calmly than she felt.

"It was always a possibility," she said evenly. "If I were in command up there, I'd probably do the same thing with all my ships, not just the battlecruisers. It's the only way they can hope to execute any radical maneuvers quickly enough to do some good if a mine does come adrift up there. But it won't make much difference against the amount of firepower we can actually hit them with."

"Agreed, Milady," Phillips said, and then gri

"You and me both, Commander," Honor admitted, then drew a deep breath and stepped over to the communications station. She reached down and took the microphone the com officer handed her. The AI-driven "Warden Tresca" Scotty Tremaine and Horace Harkness had built out of the dead Black Leg's file imagery had performed beautifully during the Peeps' approach, but it was time for a more hands-on approach, she thought grimly, then nodded to Phillips.

"All right, Commander. Pass the word to Krashnark and Bacchante to stand by, then prepare to execute Flypaper."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

"That's odd," Citizen Commodore Yang murmured.

Citizen Major General Thornegrave glanced up from his conversation with Voyager's skipper at the sound of her voice. The big transport's CO went right on talking in response to Thornegrave's last question, but the Citizen Major General wasn't listening. He was watching Yang as she leaned over a waterfall display at the tactical station and frowned.

"What is it, Citizen Commodore?" he asked.

"Probably nothing, Sir," Yang replied, eyes still on the display, "but Camp Charon is still hitting us with an awful lot of active sensors, radar and lidar alike."

"Why should they be doing that?" He heard a small, sharp edge in his own voice, yet there was no real concern in it. Just puzzlement that grew as Yang shrugged.

"They were tracking us all the way in, Sir—as a routine security precaution, I assumed. Why they should continue doing it now that we're in orbit is beyond me, however. Oh," she waved one hand in a dismissive gesture, "I suppose they could be ru

"Fire control?" Thornegrave half-rose, but Yang turned and shook her head quickly at him.

"Fire control teams need practice, too, Sir," she reassured him, "and the fact that their sensors are active doesn't mean their weapons have been released. In fact, it's SOP for the weapons not to be enabled in an exercise, so I'm not afraid of anyone shooting us by accident. It's just that the exercise, or whatever it is, is on a much greater scale than I would have antici—"

She broke off as her com officer jerked suddenly upright in her chair. The woman spun towards her CO, then remembered Thornegrave's presence and started towards him, only to freeze half way. She hovered indecisively, training and desire drawing her one way, the formal chain of command and fear of the SS drawing her the other, then shook herself out of her paralysis. She didn't face either of them directly. Instead, she aimed her eyes at an invisible point midway between them.

"Citizen General, I—" She sounded shaken, almost stu