Honor had made certain Theisman was present to hear Montoya's report, and the Commander had gone absolutely white as he turned to her in horror.
"Captain Harrington, I swear I didn't know how bad it really was." He'd swallowed harshly. "Please, you have to believe me. I-I knew it was bad, but there wasn't anything I could do, and ... and I didn't know how bad."
His agony had been genuineas had his shame. Madrigal's bosun had confirmed that it was Theisman's missiles which had killed the Admiral. Honor had wanted to hate him for that, wanted to hate him so badly she could taste it, and his anguish had taken even that away from her.
"I believe you, Commander," she'd said wearily, then inhaled deeply. "Are you prepared to testify before a Grayson court on the matters of which you do have personal knowledge? No one will ask you why you `immigrated' to Masada. I have Admiral Matthews' promise on that. But very few of the real Masadans are going to voluntarily testify against Williams and his animals."
"Yes, Ma'am." Theisman's voice had been cold. "Yes, Ma'am, I'll testify. AndI'm sorry, Captain. More sorry than I'll ever be able to tell you."
Now she sat gazing at the stars, and her heart was ice within her, for if Blackbird's data base hadn't mentioned the prisoners, it had held other information. She knew, at last, what she truly faced, and it wasn't a heavy cruiser. Not a heavy cruiser at all.
"Well," she said at last, "at least we know."
"Yes, Ma'am," Alice Truman said quietly. She paused for a moment, and then she asked the question in all their minds. "What do we do now, Ma'am?"
The right side of Honor's mouth quirked without humor, for deep inside she was afraid she knew the answer. She had one damaged heavy cruiser, one damaged destroyer, and one completely crippled light cruiser, and she faced an eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-ton battlecruiser. What was left of Grayson's Navy didn't even count. She might as well shoot their crews herself as commit them against a Sultan class battlecruiser ... and her own ship was no match for one, either. A Sultan carried almost twice her armament, five times her ammunition, and sidewalls far heavier than her own. Despite Fearless's superior electronics, there would be very few survivors if she and Troubadour went toe-to-toe against Thunder of God.
"We do the best we can, Alice," she said softly. She straightened her shoulders and turned from the view port, and her voice was crisper. "It's always possible they'll decide not to push it. They've lost virtually all their Masadan units. That leaves Haven without any sort of cover. This `Thunder of God's skipper will be as well aware of that as we are, and he can't know how soon we expect reinforcements."
"But we know, Ma'am." McKeon's voice was quiet. "The freighters won't even make Manticore for another nine days. Add four days for the Fleet to respond, and" He shrugged.
"I know." Honor looked at Truman. "Apollo's nodes and Warshawski sails are in good shape, Alice. You can cut five days off that response time."
"Yes, Ma'am." Truman's face was desperately unhappy, but there was absolutely nothing she could do to help here.
"Alistair, you and I will have to get our heads together on the way back to Grayson. We're going to have to fight smart, if it comes to it."
"Yes, Ma'am," McKeon said as quietly as Truman, and Honor looked at Admiral Matthews as he cleared his throat.
"Captain, none of us suspected just how heavy the odds against you really are, but your people have already doneand sufferedfar more for us than we had any right to expect. I hope that whoever Thunder of God's captain may be, he'll have the sense, the sanity, to realize the game is lost and pull her out. If he doesn't, however, surely Grayson can survive whatever the Faithful may do until your relief force gets here."
He fell silent, and Honor knew what he was trying to sayand why he couldn't quite say it in so many words. He knew how unlikely her ships were to survive against a Sultan, and the man in him wanted to give her a way out, to find a reason for her to back off and survive. But the admiral in him knew how desperate the Masadans would become when they heard what had happened to Blackbird, their navy, and Principality. Desperate people did irrational things ... and Masada had stated its willingness to nuke Grayson when it wasn't desperate.
Poor as her own chances against a Sultan might be, Fearless and Troubadour were all Grayson had, and if she pulled them out ...
"Perhaps, Admiral," she said quietly. "But if they're insane enough to continue at all at this point, there's no way to predict what they may do. And even if there were, it's my job to protect the planet."
"But you're not Graysons, Captain." Matthews' voice was as quiet as her own, and she shrugged.
"No, we're not. But we've been through a lot with you people, and we owe Masada." She heard a soft growl of agreement in McKeon's throat. "Admiral Courvosier would have expected me to stand by you just as he did, Sir," she went on past a fresh stab of sorrow and guilt. "More importantly, it's what my Queen would expect of meand what I would expect of myself." She shook her head. "We're not going anywhere, Admiral Matthews. If Masada still wants Grayson, they'll have to come through us to get it."
"Yes, Sir. I'm afraid it is confirmed." Captain Yu sat in the Honorable Jacob Lacy's office, and Haven's ambassador to Masada looked just as grim as he did. Unlike most of his diplomatic colleagues, Lacy was a retired naval officer, a fact for which Yu was profoundly grateful.
"Shit," the ambassador muttered now. "Principality, too?"
"All of them, Mr. Ambassador," Yu said harshly. "Tom Theisman squealed a download to Virtue just before Harrington began her final run, and Blackbird Base confirmed the complete destruction of the Masadan fleet before it went off the air. For all practical purposes, Thunder is all that's left, Sir."
Rage clogged his voice and smoldered like lava in the back of his throat as he admitted it. If only Tractor Five hadn't gone down. If only it hadn't turned out even the flux coil was shot. Twelve hours of repairs had turned into twenty, then twenty-five, and then that fat-headed, stupid, incompetent fucker Simonds had cost them another full day and a half with his fits and starts! If it hadn't been so insane, Yu would have sworn the idiot was trying to delay their return to Yeltsin's Star!
And the result had been catastrophe.
"What are Masada's chances now, Captain?" Lacy asked after a moment.
"They'd have better luck putting out Yeltsin's Star by pissing on it, Sir. Oh, I could take Harrington. I'd get hurtStar Knights are nasty customersbut I could take her out. Only it wouldn't do any damned good. She must have sent for help. All her warships were present at Blackbird, but if she sent her freighters away first, she could still have a relief force out here in ten or twelve days. And there will be a relief forceone that'll come in ready to kick ass and take names, Sir. We've destroyed at least one Manticoran ship; from Blackbird's final report, we killed some more Manticorans there, and Harrington undoubtedly has proof Principality was Haven-built. Whatever the Staff and Cabinet may think, the RMN won't take that lying down."