At All Costs

"But if they aren't prepared to bombard the planet and the orbital defenses open fire, they may go ahead and return it," Kuzak responded. "As you've just pointed out, they've been hammered hard. If Sphinx starts punching missiles at them, they're likely to shoot back in self-defense. On the other hand, if the planet doesn't fire on them, they're probably going to reserve their fire for us, since we're obviously a much greater threat. Under the circumstances, I think it's worth risking letting them have one launch against the defenses, now that they're all on-line."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"No change in their dispositions, Your Grace," Andrea Jaruwalski reported, and Honor frowned.

"What is it, Your Grace?" a voice asked, and she looked up at her com display. Rafe Cardones looked back at her from it.

"What's what, Rafe?"

"That frown," her flag captain said. "I've seen it before. What's bothering you?"

"Besides the fact that somewhere around a million people have already been killed this fine afternoon, you mean?"

Cardones winced slightly, but he also shook his head.

"That's not what I meant, Ma'am, and you know it."

"Yes, I suppose I do," she agreed.

She reached up to stroke Nimitz's ears, and the 'cat pressed back against her hand, purr buzzing as his mind-glow caressed hers in reply. She treasured that small moment of unqualified support and love, clinging to its warmth against her cold, bleak awareness of so much death and devastation. Then she looked back at Cardones.

"I just can't escape the feeling that there's a shoe somewhere we haven't seen yet," she said slowly. "I know there's not a vector available to them which would let them avoid both Sphinx's envelope and Admiral Kuzak's. Under those circumstances, I guess it's not too surprising they're simply holding their course. What else can they do?"

"Not much, Your Grace," Mercedes Brigham said, when Honor paused. "From where I sit, it looks like they're screwed. The bastards hurt us badly enough, first, but they're in too deep to get out now."

"That's what's bothering me," Honor said slowly. "They didn't have to come in this way. They could have come in more slowly, left themselves a broader menu of maneuver options. Why did they simply come charging straight in towards Sphinx?"

"They didn't," Brigham pointed out. "They cut the angle on the limit and the zone so they could angle back out if they had to."

"No, Mercedes." Cardones shook his head on Honor's display. "I see what she means. It's the acceleration rate, isn't it, Your Grace?"

"That's exactly what it is," Honor agreed. "They can't have known exactly what was going to happen when they ran into Home Fleet, but they had to have known they'd almost certainly be intercepted well short of the planet and hammered. But by charging in at such a high acceleration when they didn't have to, they built up a vector they couldn't possibly overcome before whatever we brought through from Trevor's Star hit them, as well. That's not like Theisman. He should have left his commander on the spot more freedom of maneuver, should have tried to protect his units from getting caught in this sort of trap."

"Then why didn't he?" Brigham frowned as she followed Honor's logic.

"I thought at first it probably did indicate they were going to try some sort of a two-pronged operation," Honor said. "Go ahead and hit us in Manticore, figuring we'd have to pull off of Trevor's Star to defend the home system, and then hit San Martin when we uncovered it. In that case, they might have hoped to catch us with Third Fleet and Eighth Fleet between two separate offensives, unable to respond adequately to either."

"Now that's an ugly thought, Your Grace," Brigham murmured.

"But that's not like Theisman, either," Honor pointed out. "He understands the KISS principle, and in their initial attacks, 'Operation Thunderbolt,' he pla

"And hitting both Trevor's Star and Manticore would" Brigham nodded.

"It certainly would," Honor agreed. "And they wouldn't have any way to communicate with one another, so if either attack force screwed up its timing, it might blow the entire operation by alerting us early. It's still possible that that's what they're going to do, which is the main reason I still don't want to lock down the Trevor's Star terminus with a mass transit, but I don't think it's what's coming.

"But if they don't have something like that in mind, I'm at a loss to understand exactly what they're doing. According to ONI's estimate of their current fleet strength, this is a huge percentage of their total wall of battle, and they've rammed it straight into the teeth of our defenses on a vector which makes it impossible for them to avoid action with Third Fleet. That's what I don't like about it. It's stupid... and one thing Thomas Theisman isn't, is stupid."

"Boss, with all due respect," Molly Delaney said, "I think it's time."

"No, do you really?" Lester Tourville replied, his tone so dry that DeLaney looked up in surprise. Then, almost against her will, she chuckled.

It wasn't a very loud chuckle, but it sounded that way on Guerriere's tense, silent flag deck. Heads came up all around the deck, eyes turned towards the chief of staff, and Tourville smiled. He could almost literally feel their astonishment that he could make even the smallest joke at a moment like this. And then he felt that same astonishment breaking at least a little of the taut fear and anxiety which had enveloped all of them as he continued to hold off on Paul Revere, continued to wait. They knew the Beatrice Bravo ops plan as well as he did, and they had to be wondering what the hell he was waiting for.

Which was fair enough. A part of him wondered what he was waiting for, as well.

He looked at the plot. The Manticoran response from Trevor's Star had been accelerating in-system for almost fifty minutes. It's velocity was up to just over eighteen thousand kilometers and it had traveled roughly 27,045,000 kilometers. The range to Second Fleet was falling rapidly towards thirty-three million kilometers, and he was frankly astonished that they hadn't already opened fire. Yet still that nagging little doubt, that voice of instinct, told him to wait.

He looked at a secondary plot, frozen with the last tactical data Oliver Diamato had been able to download before being forced off the Junction. He considered it for two or three seconds, careful to conceal his own mental frown lest it undo the beneficial consequences of DeLaney's chuckle.

You've got to get off the credit piece, Lester, he told himself. You've already waited as long as you can; Molly's right about that. If Eighth Fleet were coming, it should already be here. And you can't justify holding off forever 'just in case' it turns up. Because whether it's coming or not, you can't let the people you know about get any closer.

"All right, Ace," he said in a calm, confident voice. "Send MacArthur the execute signal."

"Captain Higgins! We have the execute signal from Guerriere!"

"Maneuvering," Captain Edward Higgins said almost instantly, his voice sharp, "execute Paul Revere."

"Aye, Sir!" his astrogator replied, and the battlecruiser RHNS Douglas MacArthur, which had never accelerated in-system with the rest of Second Fleet's doomed screen, translated smoothly into hyper.