The rest of MacNaughton's sentence was slashed off by the sudden jangle of alarms as a massive hyper footprint exploded onto the plot.
"Well done, Theo," Honor Alexander-Harrington said.
Lieutenant Commander Kgari had dropped TF 81, Eighth Fleet's leading task force, into normal-space barely forty thousand kilometers outside the Lovat System's hyper limit. That was extraordinarily precise astrogation, and Kgari smiled in appreciation of her well deserved praise.
Honor smiled back, but her true attention was focused on the huge flag bridge tactical display. She watched alertly, waiting for CIC to post any major changes, but the only differences from Skirmisher's last upload were insignificant.
Not that it's going to stay that way if we've got things figured right, she reminded herself.
"All right," she said. "Harper, pass the execute command."
"Aye, aye, Your Grace," Lieutenant Brantley acknowledged, and the eight CLACs of Alice Truman's reinforced carrier squadron launched almost nine hundred LACs as Alistair McKeon's BatRon 61 headed in-system, screened by fifteen Manticoran and Grayson BC(P)s and HMS Nike under the overall command of Rear Admiral Erasmus Miller. Michelle Henke would have had the command, except that the terms of her parole precluded her from serving against the Republic. So she'd been sent to Talbott, where Honor knew she would prove enormously useful, and Michael Oversteegan, promoted to Rear Admiral, had been given her squadron. But much as Honor approved of Oversteegan's demonstrated capability, he was junior to Miller. And the Grayson rear admiral was more than merely competent in his own right, she reminded herself.
Winston Bradhsaw's and Charise Fanaafi"s twelve heavy cruisers, eight of them Saganami-C-class ships, backed Miller up, and six light cruisers under the command of Commodore George Ullman, who'd replaced Commodore Moreau when she died aboard HMS Buckler at Solon, thickened the screen.
It was a powerful force, by any measure, although Honor was fully aware that it was grossly outnumbered and outgunned by the system's defenders.
Just as it was supposed to be.
"Admiral Truman reports all LAC wings away, Your Grace," Andrea Jaruwalski announced.
"Very good. Instruct her to hyper out to the Alpha rendezvous."
"Aye, aye, Your Grace."
Honor watched the carriers' icons disappear, then settled herself into her command chair, a skinsuited Nimitz in her lap, and watched her thirty starships accelerate steadily in-system.
"Do you think this is another Suarez, Ma'am?" MacNaughton asked tensely as he watched the oncoming icons move steadily across the plot.
"I don't know."
Giovanni's own eyes were slitted in concentration, and he noticed she was wrapping a single lock of hair around her right index finger. It was a mannerism he'd grown accustomed to over the last three T-years, and he waited respectfully.
"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," Giovanni corrected. "Although, if they've got the sense God gave a Legislaturalist, at least they'll stay out of our inner-system missile envelope!"
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 Giovanni's platforms confirm that one of the superdreadnoughts matches the emissions signature of the ship that got away at Solon," Marius Gozzi said.
"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.