"Got it!" Pampas crowed suddenly. "There they go, Skipper. Breakers have closed, and the nodes are back up to standby."
He grinned up at Sandler. "We did it, Ma'am."
"We did indeed," she agreed, some of the lines smoothing out of her face as she clapped Pampas on the shoulder. "Well done, Georgio."
"So what are we waiting for?" McLeod asked. "They're moving away from us right now. We could bring up the wedge and make a run for the inner system, and they'd have to decelerate before they could even think about coming after us."
"No," Sandler said, an odd note to her voice. "No, leave the wedge down."
"But we might at least be able to distract them," Cardones put in. A number on his display caught his eye as it changed— "Uh-oh."
"What?" Damana asked.
"The raider's also flipped over and started decelerating," Cardones told him.
"ETA?"
Cardones was running the numbers. "Looks like they'll reach here pretty much together," he said. "They're trying to box Fearless between them."
"They're going to succeed, too," Damana agreed, eying his captain. "This changes things, Skipper. Even if Fearless can handle a gutted battlecruiser, adding a light cruiser's tubes to the mix stacks the odds the other way."
"Again, what do you want me to do about it?" Sandler asked.
"As Captain McLeod suggests, we could run for it," Damana said. "If we can draw the Peep far enough out of position, it would give Fearless a chance to take out the raider first instead of having to face both of them together."
"Unless the Peep decides we're not worth bothering with," Sandler pointed out. "She might just let us go, in which case we'll have done it for nothing."
"So?" Cardones said. "I mean, what have we got to lose by trying?"
"What have we got to lose?" Sandler demanded. "We have everything to lose."
She looked back and forth between Cardones and Damana. "Don't you see? Either of you? We now have the counter to their wedge-killer; but they don't know we have it. If they leave here without finding that out, who knows how much time and money Haven will waste building these things and putting them aboard their ships?"
Cardones stared at her in disbelief. "You mean you'd let Fearless die for that?"
"People die all the time in war, Mr. Cardones," Sandler said tartly. "If it makes you feel any better, they won't have died for nothing."
"Yes, they will," Cardones shot back. "The Peeps aren't going to just recall all their ships to base and load these things aboard them. They'll keep on testing; and sooner or later, they're bound to run into a merchie with the breakers installed."
A sudden cold wave washed over him. "Or weren't you going to tell anyone outside ONI about this?" he breathed. "Were you just going to let merchies continue to get slaughtered?"
"I'm not going to debate it with you, Lieutenant," Sandler said icily. "You have your orders. The wedge stays down." Deliberately, she turned her back on him. "Georgio, let's see the self-diagnostics on those junction points."
Cardones turned back to his displays, his stomach churning with anger, an odd sense of loss digging an empty spot into his soul. He'd been wrong. Elayne Sandler was nothing at all like Honor Harrington. Captain Harrington would never, ever sacrifice people for nothing this way. When she put people at risk it was for duty or defense, not for some stupid psychological game played by dark-minded men and women in dark-minded rooms. That was what she had done at Basilisk... and it was what she was about to do right now.
And Fearless, and all aboard her, would die.
There was no doubt about that. None at all. Sandler and Damana might be right about the limited combat capabilities of the battlecruiser, and Fearless could certainly take the light cruiser now coming in from behind her.
But she couldn't take on both at the same time. Not and survive.
He had to do something. Fearless was his ship, and Honor Harrington his captain. He had to do something.
He stared at the display... and like a row of dominoes toppling in sequence, the answer came.
Maybe. It would mean disobeying Sandler's direct order, of course, and that would mean the end of his career.
But what was a career for, anyway?
Seated at the helm beside him, Damana was staring straight forward, his own expression a mask. Taking a deep breath, Cardones reached over to his board—
And before Damana could stop him, he activated the wedge.
"What in the world?" Koln said, his forehead wrinkling in surprise.
"What?" Dominick demanded, swiveling his command chair to face him.
"One of the merchies, Sir," Koln said, glancing at Charles before returning his frown to the displays. "The Dorado. Her wedge has come up again."
"What?" Dominick growled, and shifted his own frown to Charles. "What's going on?"
"What do you mean, what's going on?" Charles countered, filling his voice and expression with casual unconcern even as his heart sank a few centimeters within him. "Your crew missed, that's what's going on."
"Impossible," Koln insisted. "The wedge was down."
"Because you caught a corner of it," Charles explained patiently. "You caused enough of a surge to confuse the software, but not enough to actually fry the junction points. I've mentioned this possibility to you before."
He held his breath as Dominick frowned slightly, clearly trying to remember. Charles had mentioned no such thing, of course, because he'd just now made it up. But he'd thrown so much technobabble at the commodore over the past few months that the other hopefully wouldn't remember this one way or the other.
Apparently, he didn't. "Fine," Dominick grunted. "So what do we do about it?"
"Obviously, you hit her again," Charles said. "Try to make it a clean shot this time."
Dominick grunted again and shifted his attention back to the helmsman. "What's she doing?"
"Heading away at full acceleration," the helmsman said. "Looks like she's making for the inner system."
"Mr. Koln?" Dominick invited.
"There are four other ships we haven't hit yet," Koln reminded him. "Given our current position and vector, it would make more sense to cripple them first, then go back for the Dorado."
Dominick stroked his chin. "Will that give us enough time to get back into position before Fearless arrives?"
"No problem," Koln assured him. "The Dorado is hardly going to outpace us."
"Good," Dominick rumbled. "I wouldn't want Captain Vaccares to have to face Fearless alone. We deserve some of the satisfaction of pounding Harrington to dust."
"Just be sure you don't kill everyone aboard," Charles warned. As if that was actually going to happen now. "Remember that part of the plan is to leave survivors who will testify they saw the People's Republic and a disguised Andermani warship working together."
"Don't worry, we'll leave a few," Dominick said, settling back comfortably into his chair. "Carry on, Mr. Koln."
"Yes, Sir." Koln returned to his skeet shooting.
Charles heaved a silent sigh of regret. So the Manties had figured it out already. Too bad—he'd hoped he could get his hands on some of Jansci's really high-tech cargo before the house of cards came tumbling down. Some genuine, useful hardware would have made his next run that much more believable and profitable.
Still, such was the way of the game. And he was hardly going to leave this one empty-handed.