Calgary nodded his understanding, and she went on.

  “Admittedly, moving away from Grayson will open the threat window. We have, however, certain technical advantages we believe are unknown to Haven.”

  A stir went through the Graysons, and she felt Truman’s residual unhappiness beside her. What she proposed to describe to the Graysons was still on the Official Secrets List, and Truman had opposed its revelation. On the other hand, even Alice had to admit they didn’t have any choice but to use it, and that meant telling their allies about it.

  “Advantages, Captain?” Garret asked.

  “Yes, Sir. Commander McKeon is our expert on the system, so I’ll let him explain. Commander?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Alistair McKeon faced the Grayson officers. “What Captain Harrington refers to, gentlemen, is a newly developed reconnaissance drone. RDs have always played a role in our defensive doctrine, but like every surveillance system, light-speed data transmission has always limited the range/response time envelope. In essence, the RD can tell us someone’s coming, but if we’re too far out of position, we can’t respond in time.”

  He paused, and several heads nodded.

  “Our R&D people have been working on a new approach, however, and for the first time, we now have a limited FTL transmission capability.”

  “An FTL capability?” Calgary blurted, and he was far from alone in his astonishment, for the human race had sought a way to send messages faster than light for almost two thousand years.

  “Yes, Sir. Its range is too limited for anything other than tactical purposes—our best transmission radius is only about four light-hours at this time—but that’s quite enough to give us a marked advantage.”

  “Excuse me, Commander McKeon,” Admiral Matthews said, “but how does it work? If, that is,” he looked at Honor, “you can tell us without compromising your own security.”

  “We’d rather not go into details, Admiral,” Honor replied. “Less because of security, than because it’s too technical for a quick explanation.”

  “And,” Matthews grinned wryly, “because it’s probably too technical for our people to duplicate even if we understood the explanation.”

  Honor was appalled by his remark, but then a rumble of chuckles came from the other side of the table. She’d been afraid of stepping on sensitive toes by flaunting her ships’ technical superiority, but it seemed Matthews understood his people better than she did. And perhaps it was his way of telling her not to worry.

  “I imagine that’s true, Sir,” she said, smiling with the right side of her mouth, “at least until we bring you up to speed on molycircs and super-dense fusion bottles. Of course,” her smile grew, “once the treaty is signed, I expect your navy is going to get much nastier all around.”

  The Grayson chuckles were even louder this time, tinged with more than an edge of relief. She hoped they didn’t expect a God weapon to come out of her technological bag of tricks, but anything that bolstered their morale at this moment was well worthwhile, and she nodded for Alistair to continue.

  “Basically, Admiral,” he said, “it’s a reversion to old-fashioned Morse code. Our new-generation RDs carry an extra gravity generator which they use to create extremely powerful directional pulses. Since gravitic sensors are FTL, we have effective real-time receipt across their maximum range.”

  “That’s brilliant,” a captain with Office of Shipbuilding insignia murmured. Then he frowned. “And difficult, I’d imagine.”

  “It certainly is,” McKeon said feelingly. “The power requirement is enormous—our people had to develop an entire new generation of fusion plants to pull it off—and that’s only the first problem. Designing a pulse grav generator and packing it into the drone body came next. As you can probably imagine, it uses up a lot more mass than a drive unit, and it was a monster to engineer. And there are certain fundamental limitations on the system. Most importantly, it takes time for the generator to produce each pulse without burning itself out, which places an insurmountable limit on the data transmission speed. At present, we can only manage a pulse repetition rate of about nine-point-five seconds. Obviously, it’s going to take us a while to transmit any complex messages at that rate.”

  “That’s true,” Honor put in, “but what we propose to do is program the onboard computers to respond to the most likely threat parameters with simple three or four-pulse codes. They’ll identify the threat’s basic nature and approach in less than a minute. The drones can follow up with more detailed messages once we’ve started responding.”

  “I see.” Matthews nodded quickly. “And with that kind of advance warning, we can position ourselves to cut them off short of optimum launch range against the planet.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Honor nodded to him, then looked at Admiral Garret. “More than that, Admiral, we’ll have time to build an intercept vector that lets us stay with them instead of finding ourselves with a base velocity so low as to give us only a limited engagement time before they break past us.”

  “I understand, Captain.” Garret plucked at his lip, then nodded. “I understand,” he repeated, and she was relieved at the absence of acrimony in his tone. “If I’d realized you had this capability, I would have approached the entire problem differ—" He stopped himself and smiled crookedly. “Of course, if I’d bothered to ask you, I might have known about it sooner, mightn’t I?”

  Honor saw amazement on more than one Grayson face, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they’d just heard him say, and she wondered how to respond, but then he shrugged and smiled more naturally.

  “Well, Captain, they say there’s no fool like an old fool. Do Manticorans use that expression?”

  “Not to senior officers, Sir,” Honor said demurely, and Garret startled her by bursting into laughter. His guffaws reminded her of a neighing horse, but no one could have doubted their genuineness. He couldn’t get a word out through them, though he pointed a finger at her and tried hard, and she felt herself grinning lopsidedly back at him.

  “Point taken, Captain,” he gasped at last, and there were smiles on other faces on his side of the table. “Point taken, indeed.” He settled himself in his chair and nodded. “Do you have any other ideas, Captain Harrington?”

  “Well, Sir, as you know, we’ve evacuated our own noncombatants aboard our freighters.” Garret nodded, and Honor shrugged. “Commander Truman’s report included an urgent request for reinforcements. I’m certain that request will be granted, but those are slow ships, Sir. I’d have preferred to send one of my warships, but I can’t spare Apollo if we may be facing two modern cruisers, and Troubadour’s node damage would restrict her to impeller drive. More, she couldn’t get much above the gamma band without reliable Warshawski sails. If one of your hyper-capable ships could be sent—?”

  She paused, for Garret and Matthews were both shaking their heads. Matthews glanced at Garret, and his superior nodded for him to explain.

  “We can do it, Captain, but our hyper technology is much cruder than yours. Our ships are restricted to the middle gamma bands, and our Warshawski sails won’t let us pull anywhere near as much accel from a given grav wave. I doubt we could cut more than a day or so off your freighters’ time. Under the circumstances, I think we’ll be better employed keeping what’s left of the Masadan Navy off your back while you deal with the Havenites.”

  Honor glanced at Truman and McKeon. Truman gave her a small nod, and McKeon simply shrugged. None of them had realized Grayson hyper capability was that limited, but Matthews was right. The small time saving would be much less useful than the support of another warship here, especially since it was unlikely the Masadans would delay their attack more than another few hours.

  “I think you’re right, Admiral Matthews,” she agreed. “In that case, I’m afraid all we can do is get our mobile units ready for action and deploy the RDs. Unless—"

  Someone knocked on the conference room door, then opened it to admit the chatter of printers, and Honor’s eyebrows rose. The newcomer was a white-haired man in the uniform of a Security general, not a naval officer.

  “Councilman Clinkscales!” Garret exclaimed. He and his staff stood quickly, and the Manticorans followed them. “What can I do for, you, Sir?”

  “Sorry to interrupt you, gentlemen . . . ladies.” Clinkscales paused, his fierce old eyes examining Honor and Alice Truman with frank but wary curiosity. He advanced and held out his hand rather abruptly. “Captain Harrington.” She took his hand, and he squeezed hard, as if he were determined to reject the least suggestion that he was concerned about feminine frailty.

  “Councilman Clinkscales,” she murmured, squeezing back with equal strength, and his mouth twitched into a wintry smile.

  “I wanted to thank you,” he said abruptly. “Grayson owes you a tremendous debt—and so do I.” He was clearly uncomfortable saying that, but his determination to get it out was obvious.

  “I just happened to be there, Sir. And it was actually Nimitz who saved the day. If he hadn’t reacted so quickly—" She shrugged.

  “True.” Clinkscales gave a quick bark of laughter. “Wonder if he’d be willing to join Palace Security?”

  “I’m afraid not, Sir.” The undamaged side of Honor’s mouth smiled, and she realized that he, alone of everyone she’d met since the attack, seemed unembarrassed by the condition of her face. Apparently once he decided someone was a real officer, he expected them to bear their battle scars the same way he would have, and she discovered that she actually liked this old dinosaur.

  “Pity,” he said, then looked at Garret. “As I say, I’m sorry to interrupt, but my people’ve got one of the Maccabean resource ship pilots, and he’s singing like a bird.”

  “He is?” Garret’s eyes sharpened, and Honor felt a matching interest.

  “He is,” Clinkscales said grimly. “He doesn’t know shi—" He stopped and looked at Honor and Truman, and Honor forced herself not to smile again.

  “He doesn’t know anything about the Havenite ships’ actual classes,” the councilman corrected himself, “but he does know that Masada’s put in an advanced base in this system.”

  “In Yeltsin?” Garret sounded shocked, and Clinkscales shrugged.

  “That’s what he says. He’s never seen it, and according to his friends who have, it wasn’t easy to build. But he does know where it is, and he says their ‘biggest ship,’ whatever it is, may be in Endicott right now.”

  “It may?” Honor leaned towards him. “Did he say why?”

  “Something about towing their LACs over here,” Clinkscales said, and Honor’s eye widened in surprise. She’d never heard of anyone trying that! Which didn’t mean it was impossible. And it certainly explained how they’d gotten them here. But if they had modern ships, why were they wasting time bringing over something as crude as Masadan LACs in the first place?

  “How positive is he that she’s gone?” she asked, shaking off the irrelevant questions. “And does he know when she’s due back?”

  “He knows she was due to leave,” Clinkscales said. “He doesn’t know if she’s still gone, but it occurred to me that her absence might explain why they haven’t already attacked, and if it does, their continued lack of activity could be an indication that she hasn’t gotten back yet.”

  “It could be, Sir,” she murmured. She glanced at Truman and McKeon. “On the other hand, we’ve been in-system for almost twenty-six hours. Even if she left just before we arrived, she should have had time to get back by now. Unless . . .” She rubbed the numb side of her face, then looked back at Truman. “Any idea what their transit time might be towing LACs, Alice?”

  “I don’t think there’s any way to know without actually trying it ourselves. No one else ever did it, as far as I know. In fact, I don’t think they could have, if Yeltsin and Endicott were any further apart. As for how fast they can make the passage, they’d probably have to take it pretty easy, but as for how easy—" Truman shrugged.

  “A lot would depend on what they’re using as a tug, Skipper,” McKeon offered. “The mass ratio would be fairly critical, I’d think. And they’d have to use something with enough tractor capacity to completely zone a LAC, too.”

  Honor nodded, still rubbing her dead cheek, then shrugged. “Either way, just knowing where to find them should be a major plus. Assuming the information is reliable.”

  She looked at Clinkscales, and the hard gleam in the Security commander’s eye was almost frightening.

  “Oh, it’s reliable, Captain,” he assured her in a chilling tone. “They’ve put in a base on Blackbird—that’s one of Uriel’s moons,” he added for Honor’s benefit, and she nodded. That made sense. Uriel—Yeltsin VI—was a gas giant larger than Sol’s Jupiter, with an orbital radius of almost fifty-one light-minutes, which put it well beyond sensor range of anything Grayson had.

  “What sort of basing facilities do they have?” Admiral Matthews asked sharply, and Clinkscales shrugged.

  “That I don’t know, Admiral, and neither does he. Not in any detail.” The councilman produced an old-fashioned audio tape. “I brought along everything he could tell us in case your people could make a better estimate from it. All he could tell us for sure is that ‘Maccabeus’—" the old man refused to use Jared Mayhew’s name “—diverted some of our own construction ships with Maccabean crews to help them build it. His wasn’t among them, unfortunately, but he heard one of the other captains commenting on the fact that they’ve put in modern sensors. They may have a few Havenite heavy weapons, as well, though he’s not sure about that.”

  “Damn,” someone muttered from the Grayson side of the table, and the right side of Honor’s face tightened.

  “I don’t think they could have turned Blackbird into any kind of real fortress,” Matthews said quickly. “Not unless they can generate a sidewall bubble around a moon eight thousand kilometers in diameter.” He looked questioningly at Honor, and she shook her head.

  “No, Sir. Not even Manticore can work miracles yet,” she said dryly.

  “Then whatever they’ve got was probably designed to stop us. They certainly haven’t put up any orbital platforms. They took a risk just setting up a moon-side base, because we conduct periodic exercises in the area. Maccabeus—" like Clinkscales, Matthews refused to use Mayhew’s name “—had access to our schedules, so he could have warned them when to lie low, but they couldn’t have counted on hiding orbital installations from us.”

  Honor nodded again, following his logic.

  “And fixed defenses would be far more vulnerable than my ships.” She spoke more rapidly, and her words slurred badly, but no one seemed to notice.

  “Exactly. And if there’s a chance most of their Havenite firepower is elsewhere—" Matthews suggested.

  Honor looked at him for a moment and realized she was rubbing her face much harder. She made herself stop before she further damaged the insensitive skin, then nodded decisively.

  “Absolutely, Admiral. How soon can your units be ready to move out?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Skipper?”

  Thomas Theisman jerked awake, and his executive officer stepped back quickly as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the couch.

  “What?” he asked thickly, rubbing at sleep-crusted eyes. “Is it the Captain?”

  “No, Sir,” Lieutenant Hillyard said unhappily, “but we’re picking up an awful lot of impeller signatures headed this way.”

  “This way? Towards Uriel?”

  “Slap bang towards Blackbird, Skipper.” Hillyard met his eyes with an anxious grimace.

  “Oh, fuck.” Theisman shoved himself erect and wished he’d never left the People’s Republic. “What kind of signatures? Harrington’s?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “I’m in no mood for bad jokes, Al!”

  “I’m not kidding, Skipper. We don’t see her anywhere.”

  “Damn it, there’s no way the Graysons would come after us alone! Harrington has to be out there!”

  “If she is, we haven’t seen her yet, Sir.”

  “Goddamn it.” Theisman massaged his face, trying to knead some life back into his brain. Captain Yu was forty hours overdue, the reports coming up from moon-side were enough to turn a man’s stomach, and now this shit.

  “All right.” He straightened with a spine-cracking pop and picked up his cap. “Let’s get to the bridge and see what’s going on, Al.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The exec followed him from the cabin. “We only picked them up about five minutes ago,” he went on. “We’ve been getting some funny readings from in-system, some kind of discrete gravity pulses.” Theisman looked at him, and Hillyard shrugged. “Can’t make anything out of them, Skipper. They’re scattered all over the place, and they don’t seem to be doing anything, but trying to run them down had our sensors looking the wrong way. They may have been decelerating for as much as thirty minutes before we picked them up.”

  “Um.” Theisman rubbed his chin, and Hillyard looked at his profile.

  “Skipper,” he said hesitantly, “tell me if I’m out of line, but have you heard anything about what’s happening ground-side?”

  “You are out of line!” The lieutenant recoiled, and Theisman grimaced. “Sorry, Al. And, yes, I’ve heard, but—" He slammed a fist explosively into the bulkhead beside him, then jerked to a stop and swung to face his exec.

  “There’s not a goddamned thing I can do, Al. If it was up to me, I’d shoot every one of the sons-of-bitches—but don’t you breathe a word of that, even to our people!” He held Hillyard’s eyes fiercely until the exec nodded choppily, then rubbed his face again.

  “Jesus, I hate this stinking job! The Captain never figured on this, Al. I know how he’d feel about it, and I made my own position as clear to Franks as I can, but I can’t queer the deal for the Captain when I don’t know how he’d handle it. Besides,” he smiled crookedly, “we don’t have any Marines.”