"Agreed. The only problem is that regs are going to require that either he or Senior Chief Fanning be reassigned out of Nike."
"Unless we get the Admiral to sign off on letting us hang onto him 'in the interests of the Service,'" Honor mused. "After all, he's about the best gravitic tech I've ever seen, and we do have the pulse transmitter to worry about. That's been his baby from the outset, so�"
She broke off with a grimace as her terminal chimed.
"'Scuse me a minute, Mike," she said, and swung her chair back upright. She punched the acceptance key, and her terminal flicked to life with Evelyn Chandlers face. Honor took one look at her expression and stiffened.
"Yes, Eve?"
"The outer sensor net's just reported a hyper footprint, Ma'am�a big one, about thirty-five light-minutes out from the primary. It's right on the mark for a least-time approach from Seaford."
"I see." Honor felt Henke's sudden tension and was astounded by how calm her own voice sounded. "How big is 'big,' Eve?"
"We're still getting the preliminary readings, Ma'am. At the moment, it looks like thirty to forty capital ships, plus escorts," Chandler said flatly, and Honor's mouth firmed.
"Does Flag Plot have your data?"
"Yes, Ma'am. CIC is feeding it to them now, but�"
A brilliant scarlet override icon flashed in the corner of Honors screen, and her raised hand halted the tac officer in mid-sentence.
"This is probably the Admiral now, Eve. Don't go away."
She accepted the emergency call and straightened her shoulders as Mark Sarnow's face replaced Chandler's. His heavy eyebrows were tight, his mouth grim under his mustache, and Honor made herself smile a welcome even though she knew he saw the tension in her own expression.
"Good morning, Sir. I assume you've seen the scanner data?"
"I have, indeed."
"I've just been discussing it with Commander Chandler, Sir. May I bring her back into the circuit?"
"Certainly!" Sarnow agreed, and the screen flickered as Honor brought Chandler into a three-way conference. A moment later, a second flicker split Honor's screen into fifths, not halves, as Captain Corell, Commander Cartwright, and Lieutenant Southman, Sarnow's intelligence officer, plugged into the same circuit.
"All right. Exactly what do we know?" Sarnow's clipped voice was brisk but clear. Chandler cleared her throat, and Honor nodded to her.
"We're getting fairly decent information now, Sir," the tac officer reported. "At the moment, we're calling it thirty-five capital ships. The count's less positive on their screening elements, but CIC's current projection makes it�" Chandler glanced to the side to double-check her display "�roughly seventy destroyers and cruisers. Our best call on the capital ships is twenty-two superdreadnoughts, seven dreadnoughts, and six battlecruisers." Chandler met Sarnow's eyes with a grim expression, and Lieutenant Southman pursed his lips in a silent whistle.
"What, Casper?" the admiral asked, and the lieutenant shrugged.
"That's damned close to everything he's got, Sir. He can't have left more than a couple of ships of the wall home�assuming, of course, that this is Admiral Rollins."
"Assuming," Corell half-snorted, and Southman's taut mouth twitched in an almost-smile.
"I think we can surmise it is, Ma'am," he acknowledged, "but my point is that our worst-case estimate only gives him thirty-seven capital ships, and some of them almost have to be down for refit. So unless he's been heavily reinforced, he must've stripped Seaford down to the fixed fortifications. And surely our pickets would have reported it if he had been reinforced."
"Oh, really?" Cartwright growled. The ops officer's expression was as grim as his tone. "The point that springs to my mind is where the hell our pickets are. They should've gotten here hours ago�at least�to warn us Rollins was moving out!"
"They may have gotten too close, Joe," Honor said quietly. Cartwright's eyes flicked to her, and she raised a hand at the screen. "Our picket commanders know their responsibilities. The only thing that could've prevented them from warning us would be for the Peeps to figure out some way to intercept them, and the most likely way for them to get caught would be to shadow Rollins' main body too closely. I don't see any other way the Peeps could've picked them off, and even if there were one, it wouldn't change Casper's point. This really does look like everything Rollins has, which�"
"Which suggests it's no probe," Admiral Sarnow agreed with a sharp nod. "He wouldn't be here in such strength or leave Seaford uncovered unless he had a decisive operation in mind�and he wouldn't think he could get away with it if he hadn't figured out we've left Hancock uncovered."
"But how could he, Sir?" Corell half-protested, and Sarnow shrugged.
"It might be any of a number of things. The first that comes to mind is that he probed one of the other systems and spotted units that should have been here somewhere else. But right now how he tumbled to it matters less than what he's likely to do about it. And what we're going to do about him." Sarnow's green eyes switched back to Chandler. "Do we have a projected vector for them, Commander?"
"Not yet, Sir. They made a very low-velocity transit, and they've been sitting more or less at rest relative to the primary ever since."
"At that range?" The admiral's eyebrows arched, and he and Honor regarded one another with surprised speculation. No shipboard sensor could see Hancock's inner system from that range, so what were the Peeps waiting for? Assuming they didn't know about the FTL sensor net, they should have started building the highest velocity they could before light-speed transmissions from the out-system sensor platforms warned the defenders of their arrival.
"Yes, Sir. I�" Chandler broke off as a buzzer sounded. She dropped her gaze to her display again, then looked back up at the admiral. "They're moving now, Sir. Looks like they're splitting into two elements and sending the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers in ahead. That could change, but at the moment they're opening a definite gap between them, though both groups are coming in at low acceleration. Their lead element looks like about two KPS squared�call it two-zero-four gees�and the SDs are trailing at about half that."
"Two KPS squared." Sarnow's voice and frown were thoughtful.
"Not very daring of them, Sir," Corell observed dryly. "It's not like we're going to be able to stop them."
"Their intelligence may not be definite," Cartwright suggested. "If they only think they've got the edge, they might not want to get in too deep until they're positive they can carry through."
"Maybe. But all we can do is guess," Sarnow pointed out. "What's their course, Commander?"
"Commander Oselli's working it up now, Sir. It looks like they're heading to intercept the repair base." Someone said something behind Chandler, and she nodded. "Confirmed, Sir. Assuming they hold their present acceleration and heading with turnover for the lead element in about five and a half hours, the DNs and BCs will be just about at rest relative to the base at range zero in ten hours and forty minutes."
"I see." Sarnow leaned back, green eyes narrow while his thoughts raced. "All right, let's assume for the moment that Joe's right. They're not certain about their data. Maybe they even think it's some kind of trap. Their lead element can pull a higher accel than their SDs, so that would make them the logical ships to use as a probe. And, of course, they've got more than enough firepower to deal with us if, in fact, we are unsupported." He shrugged. "It's the cautious approach, but I'm afraid that doesn't help us a lot."