David Weber - At All Costs

She paused and reached for the glass sitting at the corner of her blotter. Andrea Jaruwalski quickly topped it off with ice water from a carafe, and Honor smiled her thanks before she sipped. Then she set the glass down and looked back up at Caparelli, Givens, and Hemphill.

"We ran a few other ops, similar in nature but without the electronic warfare platforms. In two cases, we drew no response at all, which leads us to suspect that in those two cases there were picket forces hiding in hyper which never got called in because they never saw a threat. In most of the others, the arrival of our scout units was the signal for courier boats to translate out, and fairly hefty response forces turned up within anywhere from forty-eight hours to four days. So, it looks like they've adopted a nodal strategy, in addition to staking out the systems they believe we're most likely to attack.

"By picking Lovat, we believe we'll be striking directly at one of those nodal forces. If we can punch it out when we hit, there shouldn't be anything else close enough to be called in on us for at least seventy-two hours, if our analysis of their previous operations is accurate. In addition, since we'll be scouting a heavily defended system, and we've established a pattern of sending diversionary scouts into systems we have no intention of attacking, we believe they'll be skeptical about our intentions. Even if they aren't, there's no reason for them to call in additional reinforcements before we actually hit them.

"And this time around, especially since we know what to look for in their system defense control net, we ought to be able to neutralize it with Mistletoe before they ever get a chance to use it. In which case, it will be our wallers and our LACs against theirs, in a standup fight without the sort of missile launch which hammed us at Solon."

"So you're confident you can neutralize their system defense command and control systems?" Givens asked, but her attention was more than half on Hemphill, and Honor smiled.

"Admiral Hemphill and I haven't always been on the same page," she began, and Hemphill actually chuckled.

"You might say that, Your Grace," she said, "if you're given to understatement. I seem to recall a rather passionate debriefing you gave the Weapons Development Board after that little affair in Basilisk."

"I was younger then, Admiral," Honor said almost demurely. "And I was mildly irritated, at the time."

"And rightly so," Hemphill said with a nod. She shook her head. "I don't believe I've ever had the opportunity to actually tell you this, Your Grace, but I always envisioned Fearless as a testbed. I never expected her to be committed to combat, especially not totally unsupported. The fact that you managed to win was an impressive testimony to your tactical ability. And the fact that you were-'mildly irritated,' I believe you said-was certainly understandable. Besides," she chuckled again, "having watched your track record over the last few years, I'm inclined to doubt you've mellowed all that much since."

"Not mellowed," Honor said with another smile. "Just gained a greater sense of... diplomacy."

This time Caparelli and Givens joined Hemphill's laughter, and Caparelli tipped his chair back.

"I believe you are about to respond to Pat's question, Your Grace?" he said.

"Yes, I was," Honor agreed, turning her attention back to Admiral Givens. "What I was about to say, Pat, is that this time around, I'm convinced Admiral Hemphill's new wrinkles will do the job. I'd hoped to keep her new toys tucked away against a rainy day, without letting the Havenites know they exist until we really, really needed them. Unfortunately, 'really, really need them' is a pretty good description of where we are right now. At any rate, we've quietly tested the new hardware in exercises at Trevor's Star, and it's performed to specs. Obviously, that's not the same as using it operationally, but the exercise results look very good. In fact, they look much better than the original projections. We're really still just beginning to appreciate all the tactical possibilities, but even what we've already worked out is going to give whoever gets in our way at Lovat fits."

She smiled again, and this time there was no amusement at all in her expression.

"As a matter of fact," Admiral Lady Dame Honor Alexander-Harrington said softly, "I'm rather looking forward to the opportunity."

"Well, that went pretty well, I thought, Your Grace."

Andrea Jaruwalski was trying very hard not to preen in satisfaction, and Honor smothered a smile. Jaruwalski, Brigham, Rafe Cardones, and Yolanda Harriman had joined her for dinner, and now they all sat back from the table, nursing after-dinner coffee-or cocoa, as the case might be.

"I suppose you could say that," Honor said slowly, pursing her lips with a dubious expression. "Of course, there were a few little glitches."

"There always are," Brigham pointed out. "Personally, Your Grace, I found myself wondering just who programmed the simulation to throw that extra squadron of superdreadnoughts at us."

She gave Honor an intensely speculative look, which Honor returned with one of total innocence. The chief of staff transferred her speculation to Commander Harriman, who suddenly seemed to find the bottom of her coffee cup extraordinarily interesting.

"It occurred to me, while I was wondering," Brigham continued, "that whoever might have decided to do it-and, I trust you'll note, I name no names-would have needed a minion somewhere in the flagship. Preferably, someone with access to the tactical computers. Of course, once that ignoble suspicion occurred to me, I womanfully put it behind me as one unworthy of our open and forthright command staff."

"Mac!" Honor called through the pantry hatch.

"Yes, Your Grace?"

"Bring me my hip-waders, would you? It's getting deep in here."

"Of course, Your Grace," MacGuiness replied with perfect aplomb. "Would you like your snorkel mask, as well?"

"I don't think it's going to get quite that deep," Honor said as her guests laughed.

"Very good, Your Grace," MacGuiness said as he stepped back out of the pantry and set a second serving of peach cobbler in front of Honor. She smiled her thanks and picked up her dessert fork again.

"Your Grace," Brigham said wistfully, watching Honor dig in, "there are times when I positively hate you and that metabolism of yours."

She patted her own reasonably flat stomach and shook her head sadly.

"You should try the downside of it sometime, Mercedes," Honor told her. "You may envy the way it lets me pander to my sweet tooth, but try waking up with the sort of middle-of-the-night munchies I got as, say, a twelve-year-old." She shuddered. "Trust me, as an adolescent, I seemed to spend all my time shoveling in food, not just half of it."

She felt a sudden jab of darker emotion from behind her and glanced over her shoulder.

Andrew LaFollet stood inside the dining cabin hatch. Before the attempt on Honor's life, he would have been content to stand his post outside the hatch, given the guest list. These days, that was out of the question as far as he was concerned, and she recognized the somberness radiating from him. He was remembering PNS Tepes and her own half-starved gauntness when he, Jamie Candless, and Robert Whitman broke her out of a StateSec holding cell.

She caught his eye long enough to smile gently at him, and he smiled back, shaking off his mood. Then she turned back to her guests, none of whom had picked up on that particular bit of byplay.

"Actually, Andrea, getting back to your original comment, I have to agree. Things did seem to go quite well, over all. I was especially pleased with the way Mistletoe worked."

"I was, too, Your Grace," Cardones said. "At the same time, I can't help worrying a little bit about the simulation's parameters. If it turns out Mistletoe doesn't work as well in practice-or, even worse, gets picked up early-we could be in a world of hurt against another missile attack like the one they threw at us at Solon."