"Wonderful." Longtree pushed herself deeper into the cushions of her command chair and made her mind step back a bit.
The ops officer was right about the strangeness of their approach. The Zuckerman System's outer surveillance platforms had picked them up well short of the twelve-light-hour territorial limit, and letting that happen was an outstandingly dumb move on someone's part. If they'd just stayed in h-space to the hyper limit, they'd have been on top' of Zuckermanand Longtreebefore she even knew they were coming. As it was, she'd had plenty of time to get a courier away to Fleet HQ; even if they wiped out her entire squadron, Manticore would know who'd done it. As acts of war went, that made this one of the most pointless and stupid on record.
Which wasn't particularly comforting to the people who were going to get killed in the course of it.
"Update from Perimeter Tracking, Ma'am," her com officer announced suddenly. "Enemy strength now estimated at six battlecruisers, eight heavy cruisers, and screening elements."
"Acknowledged." Longtree bit her lip at the new information and watched them close. Her own ships would have stood a better than even chance without the battlecruisers, but they made the odds impossible.
"Still no reports of any other incursions?"
"No, Ma'am," her ops officer replied. "We're receiving continuous updates from all other sectors, and this is the only one."
"Thank you." She leaned back again and chewed delicately on a knuckle. What in Hell's name were these people up to? Both sides had been so careful to avoid overt violations of the other's territory for yearsnow the Peeps were sailing boldly in, in front of God and everyone to attack a Fleet base that wasn't even very important anymore? It made no sense at all!
"Status change!" The commodore's head snapped around, and her ops officer looked up at her with an utterly incredulous expression. "They're reversing course, Commodore!"
"They're what?!" Longtree couldn't keep the surprise out of her own voice, and the ops officer shrugged.
"It doesn't make any more sense than anything else they've done, but they're doing it, Ma'am. Perimeter Tracking reports they've altered course by one-eight-zero degrees and gone to four-zero-zero gees acceleration. They're heading right back where they came from!"
Longtree sagged about her bones in disbelief... and relief. She and her ships weren't going to die today after all, and, even more importantly, the war all Manticore dreaded wasn't going to begin in the Zuckerman System.
Yet even through her relief, her confusion only grew.
Why? What in God's name had it all been about? They had to know they'd been seen and identified, and all they'd managed was the destruction of a dozen easily replaced sensor platforms. So why had they committed what could be construed as an act of warespecially such a sloppy oneand then not even bothered to carry through and attack?
Commodore Longtree didn't know the answer to her question, but she knew that answer was of vital importance. For some reason, the People's Republic of Haven had committed a deliberate violation of Alliance territory, and if the destruction of sensor platforms was hardly a life-or-death fight to the finish, it was still a provocation the Star Kingdom of Manticore couldn't possibly ignore. There had to have been a purpose behind it.
But what?
CHAPTER TEN
Honor Harrington floated on her back, one toe hooked under a rung of the pool's ladder to hold her in place, and let welcome relaxation soak through her.
The last five weeks had been more than merely hectic. She'd never served as a flag captain before, but she'd held squadron command in her own right, and she'd thought she'd known what to expect.
She'd been wrong. Of course, her "squadron" had been a more or less ad hoc affair, thrown together by the Admiralty for a single operation, whereas the Fifth Battlecruiser Squadron was a permanent formation. It also dwarfed any force she'd ever commanded, and Admiral Sarnow's unending drive to correct its defects accounted for her present weariness.
The fact that she'd had to feel her way into her new role hadn't made things any more restful, and she'd been leery, at first, of stepping on Captain Corell's toes. The relationship between any chief of staff and flag captain was critical, but the Royal Manticoran Navy drew a clear distinction between staff and line responsibility. It was Corell's job to plan, organize, and adviseeven to make policy decisions in Sarnow's absencebut it was Honor's job, as his flag captain, to serve as Sarnow's tactical and executive deputy.
It was also up to her to decide which decisions were hers to make and which had to be passed to her admiral and his staff, and in a way, she was almost glad Nike had been disabled. When the squadron's operable units weren't engaged on actual maneuvers, they spent at least four hours a day tied together by their computers, carrying out simulated maneuvers. From Honor's viewpoint, that was all to the good. However wearing, it had given her a chance to discover exactly what Sarnow expected of her, knowing he was watching every move but without the added strain of actually throwing seven battlecruisers (now that Defiant had joined) around in space.
On the whole, however, she was deeply pleased with her new position. Aside from Houseman, she'd had no problems with any of the admiral's subordinates, despite the occasional need to act as his hatchet woman when some outstanding snafu blew up in everyone's faces. And Sarnow himself was a genuine pleasure to work with. Serving under him could be exhausting, for he was like a fusion plantcrackling with energy and bristling with ideasand he expected his officers to keep up with him. Some of his captains seemed to find that irritating, at least initially, but it was fine with Honor, who held flag officers to the high standards Raoul Courvosier had instilled into her.
Mark Sarnow met those standards. He was one of the finest tacticians she'd ever met, but she'd known other good tacticians and many of them never learned what was perhaps the hardest lesson of alclass="underline" when to stand back out of the way.
Honor had seen graphic proof of what could happen when an admiral didn't learn that lesson. HMS Manticore had been Home Fleets flagship when she served aboard her, and Manticore's captain, one of the best Honor had ever served under, had been driven into requesting a transfer from his prestigious post by an admiral who'd insisted on controlling every detail to an extent which had made him little more than a passenger in his own ship. But once Mark Sarnow had given an order, he left it up to Honor to execute it. They'd only worked together in the sims so far, but his style was already becoming clear, and he relied upon her in a partnership that freed him to consider future tactics while she and his other captains executed the ones he'd already formulated.
He was also an able administrator, always fully informed yet capable of delegating with an ease and confidence Honor could only envy. She'd learned more about squadron command from him in five weeks than in her entire previous career, and she knew it.
Of course, there was another side to him, as well. Honor smiled wryly and stretched in the water. The admiral radiated charisma, but she wouldn't want to be the person who failed his standards. He didn't rant or rave; he simply looked at the sinner with disappointed eyes and spoke softly, almost gently, as if to some raw middy he shouldn't have expected to get it right. He wasn't even sarcastic, but she'd never seen anyone make the same mistake twice.
Something plopped into the water near her, and she frowned. There was another, closer plop, and she opened her eyes... just as the third tennis ball hit her squarely in the midriff.