At All Costs

"We're ready whenever you are, Ma'am," Cardones told her.

"Unless the yard dogs manage to break something new, I think I'll make the move in about four days," Honor said. "I'll start then, anyway. It's going to take at least a couple of days for Mac to get everything moved and settled back into place, and I need to make another run to Admiralty House this week, anyway. I think I can schedule it to overlap with the move and let Mac get everything arranged while I'm on Manticore."

"That sounds fine to me, Your Grace," Cardones said, and Hirshfield-who, as Imperator's XO, was actually in charge of all such housekeeping details-nodded in agreement.

"Good," Honor turned away from the viewport. "In that case, let's get back over to Yeltsin. We'll just about have time for lunch before the staff meeting if we hurry."

"We're calling the new operation 'Sanskrit,'" Andrea Jaruwalski told the assembled admirals, commodores, and captains in HMS Second Yeltsin's flag briefing room. "'Cutworm,' unfortunately, got leaked to the newsies, and it's been bandied about quite a bit over the last several weeks. Besides, we're going to be adopting an entirely new operational approach, so a new designation makes sense from a lot of perspectives."

She looked around the big compartment, and Honor reached up to gently rub Nimitz's ears while she listened. The next best thing to eight weeks had passed since Task Force 82 limped back into Trevor's Star, and as she'd feared, Eighth Fleet's reinforcement had taken a heavy hit in the wake of the Zanzibar disaster. Despite the fact that there was nothing left, really, to defend in the Zanzibar System, it had been politically impossible to refuse to station a powerful defensive force to keep an eye on the ruins. And Alizon, in particular, had been vociferous about the need to bolster its defenses. It was fortunate that over forty Andermani superdreadnoughts had finally completed their refits to handle Manticoran missile pods and reported for duty. But even with that reinforcement, finding the sheer number of hulls required had been extraordinarily difficult.

Now, though, things were begi

"This, of course," Jaruwalski continued, "is only a preliminary meeting. Her Grace wants us to be sure we're all thinking in the same direction. At the moment, we're pla

One or two of the people sitting at the table looked less than delighted at the timetable's tightness. In fact, Honor sensed several spikes of emotion which verged on consternation, and she couldn't blame the officers who were feeling them.

She looked up at Jaruwalski and made a tiny gesture with her right hand. The operations officer immediately turned to face her, and every other eye followed hers as if by magnetic attraction.

"I realize we're cutting things tight, people," Honor said, when she was sure she had everyone's attention. "That's particularly true for the new ships just joining us. And for those of you who've been with us from the begi

"The problem is that we don't have a lot more time. Intelligence reports indicate the Havenites have been doing a lot of the same things we've been doing. They've been analyzing and considering what happened at Solon and Zanzibar, and they've also been adding new construction to their fleets. Those same reports strongly suggest they're getting ready to uncork a new offensive of their own. It's imperative that we get our punch in first and force them to worry about their rear areas again. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to do any definitive pla

"The ships we need are finally becoming available, and the instant I have sufficient hulls to launch Sanskrit, it goes. I want that clearly understoodt. This operation must proceed as expeditiously as possible. ONI's latest estimate gives the Havenites over five hundred SD(P)s; the Alliance at this moment has less than three hundred. It's quite possible," her brown eyes were very level, "that the fate of the Star Kingdom may depend on our ability to make the Havenites anxious enough about their rear areas to divert heavy forces to protect them."

The compartment was very quiet, but Honor felt a sense of satisfaction as she tasted her subordinates' emotions. Concern still colored several individual mind-glows, but determination predominated, and she nodded.

"Andrea?" she said.

"Thank you, Your Grace."

Jaruwalski also surveyed the officers around the huge conference table, then keyed a holographic star map. It appeared above the conference table, and she tapped keys on her control pad, dropping a cursor into the map. It singled out a star, and Honor felt a fresh stir of surprise.

"Lovat, Ladies and Gentlemen," Jaruwalski said. "The system Admiral White Haven would have taken if High Ridge hadn't swallowed Saint-Just's bait hook, line, and sinker. We're going back there."

"You're confident you can do it with just three battle squadrons?" Admiral Caparelli asked.

"As confident as I can be," Honor replied, a bit more calmly than she actually felt.

She sat in a conference room deep inside Admiralty House, at a conference table surrounded by comfortable chairs, most of them empty at the moment. Honor herself was flanked by Mercedes Brigham on her right and Andrea Jaruwalski on her left. Nimitz lay stretched across the back of her chair, and Andrew LaFollet stood directly behind her.

Caparelli faced her across the table, flanked by Captain Dryslar, his chief of staff, and Patricia Givens. Admiral of the Green Sonja Hemphill was also present, along with Commander ColemanHe

"This isn't going to be like Cutworm," Honor continued. "We're going to do to Lovat what Tourville did to Zanzibar. We're going to strike directly at one of the nodes they strengthened heavily post-Buttercup, and we're going to do it in a way which makes a declaration. Were going to tell them that they really, really don't want to screw around with us."

"That sounds like a very good idea, Your Grace," Admiral Givens said. "My only concern is how badly you may get hurt in the process of attempting to pull it off."