At All Costs

"I don't know."

Giova

"No," she said after several moments of consideration. "I don't know why, but I don't think so. These people are really here."

"It seems awfully gutsy of them," MacNaughton said, and she shrugged.

"I'm inclined to agree. On the other hand, maybe they think they can get deep enough in to do significant damage and still avoid interception. This is the strongest raiding force they've sent in yet, assuming the outer platforms' analysis is correct. It's possible they figure they've got the firepower to fight their way out past the sort of interception Admiral Giscard managed at Solon."

"If they do, they're wrong, Ma'am," MacNaughton said.

"We think they are, Ewan," Giova

Honor glanced at the date/time display and smiled sadly. If Illescue was on schedule, her daughter would be born in almost exactly eight minutes.

Katherine Allison Miranda Alexander-Hamilton. She sampled the name silently, wishing with all her heart that she were there, watching the miracle of life, tasting her daughter's newborn mind-glow, and not here, orchestrating the deaths of thousands. She inhaled deeply, and sent a thought winging across the light-years.

Happy birthday, baby. I hope God lets me watch you grow up... and that you never have to do something like this.

"Coming up on Point Samar in five minutes, Your Grace," Jaruwalski said.

"Thank you, Andrea."

Honor looked up and checked the time display. Her units had been accelerating towards rendezvous with Forge for thirty-five minutes at a steady 4.81 KPS2 from their relatively low initial velocity. They were up to 11,750 KPS, and they'd traveled just over fourteen million kilometers. They were still seventy-four minutes from turnover for a zero/zero intercept, but the one thing she felt absolutely confident of was that none of the defenders expected her to be making any zero/zero rendezvous with Forge.

Of course, they might be wrong, she thought coldly.

She returned her attention to the tactical plot. The old-style superdreadnoughts, which Jaruwalski had designated Bogey One, were holding their positions in-system, close to Forge, but the forward sensor drones showed that their impeller wedges were up, and their sidewalls were active. The massive LAC force their scouts had reported was also clearly in evidence. Whoever the system commander here in Lovat was, she didn't appear to have opted for the sort of deceptiveness Admiral Bellefeuille had displayed at Chantilly.

But appearances can be... deceiving, Honor reminded herself, with a slight smile. I hope they are, anyway. I'd hate to have wasted all this preparation if this is really all they've got.

She pursed her lips slightly, looking down at the smaller repeater plot deployed from the side of her command chair. Unlike the main plot, it was configured to show the entire system, and her gaze rested on the green sphere which represented the Lovat hyper limit.

"Any time now, Your Grace. If we've got it figured right, at least."She looked up. Mercedes Brigham stood beside her command chair, looking down at the same repeater, and Honor nodded.

"If it were me, I'd figure I had the patsies right about where I wanted them," she agreed. "And by now, their recon platforms have to have gotten a good enough look at us to be sure we're not just drones."

Brigham nodded back, and the two of them watched the plot, waiting.

"Admiral, they're seventy minutes from turnover."

"Very good, Ewan. Send the execute to Tarantula."

"Hyper footprint! We have major hyper footprints directly astern and at system north and system south," Andrea Jaruwalski reported. "Designate these forces Bogey Two, Bogey Three, and Bogey Four! They're accelerating in-system at five-point-zero-eight KPS-squared."

"Very well," Honor said calmly.

She leaned back in her command chair and crossed her legs, stroking the plushy fur between Nimitz's ears.

"Admiral, Admiral Giova

"So," Javier Giscard said softly, "'the Salamander' is back."

He shook his head with more than a trace of sadness. Eloise had tried to hide her despair in her last letter to him, but he knew her too well. When Elizabeth Winton had accepted her offer of the summit, it had been like watching the sun come out. And when whatever the hell had happened on Old Earth and Torch crushed any prospect of a negotiated settlement, it had been like watching a late blizzard bury the frozen blossoms of a murdered spring.

He supposed he couldn't really blame the Manties for leaping to the conclusion that the Republic was behind what had happened. It didn't make sense, in a lot of ways, yet people-and star nations-all too often did things that didn't make sense. But however well he might understand their reasoning, he still had to cope with the consequences of their actions.

And so do they, he thought grimly, watching that outnumbered force go to military power. Not that it was going to do it a great deal of good. Its six superdreadnoughts were thoroughly outgu

"Open fire, Sir?" Selma Thackeray asked, but Giscard shook his head.

"Harrington showed us at Solon what she could do to long-range missile fire," he told the ops officer, "and she's got a lot more defensive platforms than she had then. No. We'll just follow along. We're the beaters; Moriarty is the hunter. Once Giova

"Yes, Sir," Thackeray acknowledged, and Giscard returned his attention to the plot.

They shouldn't have sent you out with so few ships, Your Grace, he told the light code of HMS Imperator.

"All right, Andrea," Honor said, glancing at the time display once more. Twelve minutes had passed since the Havenite ambush force had translated in behind her. "Execute Ozawa."

"Aye, aye, Your Grace!" Jaruwalski said, her voice sparkling with excitement, and tapped a single command into her console.

"There's the execute signal, Ma'am!" Lieutenant Harcourt a

"Understood," Commander Estwicke replied, and looked at her astrogator. "Take us out, Jerome."

"Aye, aye, Skipper," Lieutenant Weismeuller acknowledged, and HMS Ambuscade popped back up into hyper-space.

Weissmuller had plotted his translation with care, and he'd had plenty of time to position his ship perfectly in normal-space before executing it. Ambuscade arrived precisely where she was supposed to be, and her plot suddenly blossomed with the light codes of capital ships.

"Communications, pass the word to Admiral Yanakov," Estwicke said.

"Hyper footprint!"

Javier Giscard's head snapped up at the unanticipated a