"Nor is that the only consideration," she went on. "There's those freighters and transports. If they were here to take apart our shipyards, they would have come in with Force Alpha, but they were detached as part of Zulu. That suggests they were intended to go somewhere else from the outset, and the only place I can think of is Endicott."
"Endicott, My Lady?" Sewell asked, and she nodded again.
"Suppose those ships carry Marines, Allen, or even just a cargo of modern weapons. The Endicott picket doesn't have anything heavier than a battlecruiser; they couldn't stop Zulu from breaking through to Masada, taking out the orbital bases, and landing whatever the transports are carrying. And if the Faithful get their hands on modern weaponry..."
She broke off as Greg Paxton winced in understanding, then went on in a soft, almost regretful tone.
"We don't have a choice, people. If they decide we're too battered to interfere with them, they can do whatever they want outside the reach of Grayson's orbital weapons even if they decide against bombarding the forts from deep space. They can take out our asteroid industry, wreck all the orbital infrastructure in Endicott, turn Masada into a bloodbath... we can't let any of those things happen."
"But how can we stop it, My Lady?" Bagwell asked.
"There's only one way I know." She looked at her com officer. "Howard, contact Magnificent. Find out what her maximum safe acceleration is."
"Aye, aye, My Lady," Lieutenant Commander Brannigan replied, and Honor turned back to Sewell.
"Once we have Captain Edwards' max accel, plot a squadron course to intercept Force Zulu at her best speed, Alien."
"But..." Bagwell started, then drew a deep breath. "My Lady, I understand your logic, but we don't have the firepower for it. Not anymore."
"I think we can at least cripple their battleship element," Honor replied in that same soft voice. "We can do enough damage to make it unlikely they'll take on the light forces we have left here and in Endicott."
"And while we're doing that, My Lady," Bagwell said very, very quietly, "they'll completely destroy this squadron."
Honor regarded him for a moment. The fussy, detail-minded ops officer looked back without personal fear, but she understood the deeper fear in his eyes. More than that, she knew he was right. But sometimes the price which had to be paid was just as fearsome as the people who had to pay it feared it would be, she thought, and held his gaze for another ten seconds, then lowered her eyes to her com screen to Terrible's bridge.
"Captain Yu," she asked with a small, tired smile, "do you concur with Commander Bagwell’s analysis?"
"Yes, My Lady, I do," Yu said, meeting her gaze levelly.
"I see. Tell me, Alfredo, did you ever read Clauzewitz?"
"On War, My Lady?" Yu sounded surprised. She nodded, and he frowned for an instant, then nodded back. "Yes, My Lady, I have."
"Then perhaps you remember the passage in which he said 'War is fought by human beings'?"
He gazed at her for another long moment, his eyes almost as opaque as they'd been the day she discovered he was her new flag captain, and then he nodded a second time.
"Yes, My Lady, I do," he said in a rather different tone.
"Well, it's time to find out if he's still right, Captain. As soon as Commander Sewell has that course for you, get us moving along it."
"Citizen Admiral, the enemy is changing course." Citizen Rear Admiral Theisman held up one hand at his com screen, breaking off an earnest, hurried conversation with Citizen Rear Admiral Chernov, at Megan Hathaway's announcement. He looked sharply at her, and the ops officer studied her console for a moment. Then she raised her head, a puzzled crease between her eyebrows.
"They seem to be settling down on a rough heading of oh-seven-three, oh-oh-eight true, Citizen Admiral. Acceleration approximately two-point-four-five KPS squared, call it two-five-oh gravities."
Theisman frowned, then strode over to Conquerant's master plot and glowered down into its depths. That low an acceleration suggested Harrington’s ships had to be as heavily damaged as he thought they were, but his frown deepened as he watched CIC’s projection of her course stretch out across the plot. It wasn't the head-on intercept she'd sought against TG 14.1, yet her new heading would bring her force across his own line of advance in little more than forty-seven minutes. And the fact that she would cross it rather than come in on a reciprocal meant she'd have far more time, at least twenty-six minutes of it, CIC estimated, in which to engage before he crossed her range envelope.
His eyes hardened, and he bit his lip gently. If she had four healthy superdreadnoughts over there, or even four that were only moderately damaged, supported by nine battlecruisers, his twelve battleships and sixteen battlecruisers were unlikely to last twenty-six minutes against them. But she couldn't have healthy ships, not after the pounding she and Thurston had just given one another! Only if she didn't, then why was she on a heading like that? She wasn't simply accepting battle, she was courting it!
"Punch in a same-plane evasive course change to port at four-seven-oh gees and set for continuous update," he said quietly. His astrogator spoke quietly to CIC, and the plot changed once more. A new course projection speared out from Conquerant's own light code, and Theisman tapped an order of his own into the plot. A broad-based, shaded cone of green blinked alight, spreading out to port, and a digital time display appeared beside it. Conquerant was the apex of the cone, and a three-quarters sphere of amber light stretched out ahead of it. The time display ticked downward, and as it did, the cone shrank and the amber both filled in about it and moved steadily aft. Theisman gazed down at the plot, humming softly under his breath, then turned his head as he felt a presence at his elbow.
"What is it, Citizen Admiral?" Dennis LePic's eyes were calm, and if perspiration beaded his forehead, Thomas Theisman didn't hold that against him.
"Lady Harrington has decided not to wait for us, Sir," the citizen rear admiral said. "She's coming out to meet us."
"Out to meet us?" LePic repeated more sharply. "I thought you said her ships were too damaged to fight us?"
"What I said, Citizen Commissioner, is that I believed them to be too badly damaged to fight us and win, and I still believe that."
"Then why isn't she trying to avoid us?" LePic asked tautly.
"An excellent question," Theisman admitted, then gave a frosty smile. "It's always possible she disagrees with my own evaluation, I suppose."
LePic started to say something, then paused, and his lower lip whitened under the pressure of his teeth as he stared down into the plot. Seconds trickled past, and then he cleared his throat.
"What does this indicate, Citizen Admiral?" He gestured at the green and amber lights and time display, and Theisman chuckled without humor.
"That, Citizen Commissioner, is the space we have to dodge in. If we alter course to any heading which lies within the bounds of the amber zone, we'll pass within missile range of Lady Harrington but remain outside her energy range. If we alter course to stay within the green zone, she'll be unable to bring us to action at all."
"And if we stay within neither of them?"
"Then, Citizen Commissioner, we'll have no choice but to pass through her energy envelope at some point."
"I see." LePic watched the time display tick downward from 12:00 to 11:59 and swallowed.
"If they don't change course in the next twelve minutes, My Lady, they won't change it at all," Mercedes Brigham observed quietly, and Honor nodded without looking up from her own display. Damage reports were still coming in, and they were even worse than Mercedes' original estimate. Their chance of inflicting decisive damage on the Peeps, if it came to that, was already lower than she'd hoped, and it was shrinking steadily. She pinched the bridge of her nose again, harder this time, hoping the self-inflicted pain would somehow pierce her fatigue. There had to be something else she could do, some other way she could turn up the pressure, something... but what?