David Weber - At All Costs

"Molly," Houellebecq said, reaching out to shake Captain DeLaney's hand in turn. "I see you managed to get the Admiral back home again, after all."

"It wasn't easy to drag him away from Nouveau Paris' nightlife," DeLaney replied, with a smile which looked almost natural, and Houellebecq returned it before switching her attention back to Tourville.

"Everyone's waiting in the briefing room, as you requested, Admiral."

"In that case," Tourville said heartily, "let's get down to it."

"Of course, Sir. After you." Houellebecq stepped back half a pace and waved one hand at the lifts.

"Be seated," Tourville said briskly before the assembled staffers and flag officers could climb more than halfway to their feet. They settled back obediently, and he strode to his own place at the head of the table. He seated himself, followed by Houellebecq and DeLaney, and gazed out over their assembled faces.

"Our next meeting is going to be just a bit larger than this one," he said after a moment. "We're going to be rather substantially reinforced over the next week or so."

"Reinforced, Sir?" Rear Admiral Janice Scarlotti asked.

Scarlotti was a short, sturdy, no-nonsense brunette, and Tourville felt the corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile. She'd obviously heard the same rumors as everyone else. Unlike his other officers, however, she'd never heard of tact, and she'd plainly been waiting to pounce.

"Yes, Janice," he said patiently. "Reinforced. As in additional ships assigned to our order of battle."

"I gathered that, Sir," Scarlotti replied, apparently completely oblivious to his irony. Personally, Tourville suspected she was fullyy aware of it. She was much too smart and competent to be as totally socially clueless as she chose to appear. Of course, there had been the old Shannon Foraker....

"What I was wondering," Scarlotti continued, "is exactly what sort of reinforcements we're going to receive?"

"According to the Octagon's latest numbers, we're going to be reinforced to a total strength of something over three hundred of the wall," Tourville said calmly.

More than one of the officers around the table sat back in his or her chair as the number hit them squarely between the eyes. Even Scarlotti blinked, and Tourville smiled thinly.

"I'm well aware of the sorts of rumors which have been circulating around the fleet," he said. "Some of them have been so wild as to be outright ridiculous. For example, the one that says we're going to launch a direct attack on the Manticoran home system in response to Lovat. The very idea is preposterous."

Several people nodded, and he smiled toothily under his brushy mustache as saw relief in a few of the expressions.

"I was completely confident of that when Admiral Theisman invited Captain DeLaney and me down to the Octagon to brief us on something called Operation Beatrice, of course," he continued. "It was a very interesting conversation. He and Admiral Marquette and Admiral Trenis laid Beatrice out with remarkable clarity.

"Now Captain DeLaney and I are going to brief you on it."

"Well, that wasn't too bad, I hope?" Elizabeth Winton asked with a smile as she and Honor stepped into the Admiralty House conference room.

"Not too bad," Honor agreed.

"I did think about hanging some more medals on you," Elizabeth continued lightly as William Alexander and his older brother, Sir Thomas Caparelli, and Patricia Givens followed the two of them into the room. "I decided to settle for another Monarch's Thanks, instead. How many is that for you? A couple of dozen now?"

"Not quite," Honor said dryly.

Spencer Hawke, Tobias Stimson, and Colonel Shemais followed Givens. Hawke and Stimson positioned themselves behind their principals; Shemais took the place waiting for her at the conference table as Elizabeth's intelligence liaison.

It wasn't, Honor thought as the various treecats settled down in their people's laps or chair backs and the door closed, leaving Joshua Atkins, Clifford McGraw, and three troopers from the Queen's Own on guard in the hallway outside, as if there wasn't enough security in place without requiring the colonel's personal involvement.

The other participants in the meeting waited until Elizabeth and Honor were seated, then found their own seats.

"First," Caparelli said as they all turned their attention to him, "I'd like to add my own thanks-and that of everyone at Admiralty House-for a job very well done, Your Grace."

"We tried," Honor said.

"Quite successfully," Caparelli observed. "We're still analyzing your after-action report, but it's already obvious you hurt them much worse than they've hurt us anywhere since their opening offensive. The amount of damage you did, coupled with the demonstrated efficacy of Apollo and Mistletoe, has to have knocked them back on their heels."

"I'd like to think so," Honor said when he paused, inviting comment. "In fact, I'm inclined to think it has. I'd feel more comfortable about that if I didn't know how tough-minded Thomas Theisman is, though." She shook her head. "He was bad enough as a destroyer skipper at Blackbird; nothing I've seen indicates that he's turned into any more of a pushover since."

"Agreed." Caparelli nodded vigorously. "On the other hand, Pat and I have discussed this at some length with her analysts. Pat?"

"No one in my shop, with the possible exception of one or two very junior officers who haven't yet learned the limits of their own mortality, is prepared to make any unqualified predictions at this point, Your Grace," Givens said. "The consensus, however, is that Apollo's effectiveness, in particular, has to have come as a significant shock to their systems. In fact, it was more effective in action than we expected, even after your exercises, and it came at them completely cold. Given the way Sanskrit has to resonate with what happened to them in Buttercup," she nodded at Hamish, "they've got to be wondering if we're prepared to do the same thing to them all over again."

"I don't doubt that," Honor replied. "And don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to say the analysts are wrong. I'd just like everyone to remember that Thomas Theisman wasn't prepared to roll over and play dead when we introduced the missile pod, and they didn't have it. And when we introduced the SD(P) and MDM, he and Shannon Foraker simply sat down and came up with effective responses to both of them."

"We're remembering that," Caparelli assured her. "I assure you, no one in this building is ever likely to take Admiral Theisman lightly again."

"I'm glad to hear it," she said. "I wish, though, that we could at least find this 'Bolthole' of theirs. I know it's not likely to be as critical to their building capacity as it was, and it's got to be becoming steadily less so as the units under the construction in their other yards progress. But that seems to be where Admiral Foraker and her little brain trust are working on their various new weapons and doctrines, and that makes it a target well worth hitting any time."

"We all agree, Your Grace," Givens told her feelingly. "Unfortunately, we still haven't found it. Which leads me to suspect that our fundamental assumptions were in error."

"How?" Honor asked curiously.

"We assumed it was located in a Peep star system," Givens said simply, and Honor blinked.

"We assumed that for two reasons," Givens continued. "First, because it has to have a certain level of industrial capacity, which suggests a certain level of population to support it, which, in turn, suggests that it has to be an established star system. Second, we assumed that because we were too intellectually lazy to consider anything else."

"You're still being too hard on yourself, Pat," Caparelli put in, and Givens shrugged.