David Weber - At All Costs

"That's what's bothering me," Honor said slowly. "They didn't have to come in this way. They could have come in more slowly, left themselves a broader menu of maneuver options. Why did they simply come charging straight in towards Sphinx?"

"They didn't," Brigham pointed out. "They cut the angle on the limit and the zone so they could angle back out if they had to."

"No, Mercedes." Cardones shook his head on Honor's display. "I see what she means. It's the acceleration rate, isn't it, Your Grace?"

"That's exactly what it is," Honor agreed. "They can't have known exactly what was going to happen when they ran into Home Fleet, but they had to have known they'd almost certainly be intercepted well short of the planet and hammered. But by charging in at such a high acceleration when they didn't have to, they built up a vector they couldn't possibly overcome before whatever we brought through from Trevor's Star hit them, as well. That's not like Theisman. He should have left his commander on the spot more freedom of maneuver, should have tried to protect his units from getting caught in this sort of trap."

"Then why didn't he?" Brigham frowned as she followed Honor's logic.

"I thought at first it probably did indicate they were going to try some sort of a two-pronged operation," Honor said. "Go ahead and hit us in Manticore, figuring we'd have to pull off of Trevor's Star to defend the home system, and then hit San Martin when we uncovered it. In that case, they might have hoped to catch us with Third Fleet and Eighth Fleet between two separate offensives, unable to respond adequately to either."

"Now that's an ugly thought, Your Grace," Brigham murmured.

"But that's not like Theisman, either," Honor pointed out. "He understands the KISS principle, and in their initial attacks, 'Operation Thunderbolt,' he planned each of his operations independently of one another. They all tied together into one overall design, but he was careful to avoid any attempt to coordinate widely dispersed fleets or require them to go after objectives in mutual support. The entire offensive was very carefully coordinated, except for the decision to send Tourville all the way to Marsh, but the success of any one operation didn't depend on the success of any other simultaneous operation."

"And hitting both Trevor's Star and Manticore would" Brigham nodded.

"It certainly would," Honor agreed. "And they wouldn't have any way to communicate with one another, so if either attack force screwed up its timing, it might blow the entire operation by alerting us early. It's still possible that that's what they're going to do, which is the main reason I still don't want to lock down the Trevor's Star terminus with a mass transit, but I don't think it's what's coming.

"But if they don't have something like that in mind, I'm at a loss to understand exactly what they're doing. According to ONI's estimate of their current fleet strength, this is a huge percentage of their total wall of battle, and they've rammed it straight into the teeth of our defenses on a vector which makes it impossible for them to avoid action with Third Fleet. That's what I don't like about it. It's stupid... and one thing Thomas Theisman isn't, is stupid."

"Boss, with all due respect," Molly Delaney said, "I think it's time."

"No, do you really?" Lester Tourville replied, his tone so dry that DeLaney looked up in surprise. Then, almost against her will, she chuckled.

It wasn't a very loud chuckle, but it sounded that way on Guerriere's tense, silent flag deck. Heads came up all around the deck, eyes turned towards the chief of staff, and Tourville smiled. He could almost literally feel their astonishment that he could make even the smallest joke at a moment like this. And then he felt that same astonishment breaking at least a little of the taut fear and anxiety which had enveloped all of them as he continued to hold off on Paul Revere, continued to wait. They knew the Beatrice Bravo ops plan as well as he did, and they had to be wondering what the hell he was waiting for.

Which was fair enough. A part of him wondered what he was waiting for, as well.

He looked at the plot. The Manticoran response from Trevor's Star had been accelerating in-system for almost fifty minutes. It's velocity was up to just over eighteen thousand kilometers and it had traveled roughly 27,045,000 kilometers. The range to Second Fleet was falling rapidly towards thirty-three million kilometers, and he was frankly astonished that they hadn't already opened fire. Yet still that nagging little doubt, that voice of instinct, told him to wait.

He looked at a secondary plot, frozen with the last tactical data Oliver Diamato had been able to download before being forced off the Junction. He considered it for two or three seconds, careful to conceal his own mental frown lest it undo the beneficial consequences of DeLaney's chuckle.

You've got to get off the credit piece, Lester, he told himself. You've already waited as long as you can; Molly's right about that. If Eighth Fleet were coming, it should already be here. And you can't justify holding off forever 'just in case' it turns up. Because whether it's coming or not, you can't let the people you know about get any closer.

"All right, Ace," he said in a calm, confident voice. "Send MacArthur the execute signal."

"Captain Higgins! We have the execute signal from Guerriere!"

"Maneuvering," Captain Edward Higgins said almost instantly, his voice sharp, "execute Paul Revere."

"Aye, Sir!" his astrogator replied, and the battlecruiser RHNS Douglas MacArthur, which had never accelerated in-system with the rest of Second Fleet's doomed screen, translated smoothly into hyper.

"I think we're just about ready to open the ball, whether they want to or not," Theodosia Kuzak told Commander Latrell. "How do our firing solutions look?"

"I think the old saying about fish in a barrel comes to mind, Ma'am," Latrell replied.

"Good. In that case-"

"Hyper footprint!" one of Latrell's ratings barked suddenly. "Hyper footprint at four-one-point-seven million kilometers, bearing one-eight-zero by one-seven-six!" He paused a second, then looked up, his face white. "Many point sources, Sir! It looks like at least ninety ships of the wall."

"Oh my God," Mercedes Brigham said softly as the plot abruptly altered. The FTL feed from the recon platforms made what had just happened all too hideously clear.

"You were right, Your Grace," Rafael Cardones said flatly. "They aren't stupid."

Honor didn't reply. She was already turning to the sidebars of her own tactical display. Sixteen of her thirty-two superdreadnoughts were still in Trevor's Star, as were all of Samuel Mikl¢s' carriers and thirty of her battlecruisers. She looked at the numbers for perhaps one heartbeat, then turned back to her staff.

"Mercedes, send a dispatch boat back to Trevor's Star. Inform Admiral Miller that he's in command and that he's to hold all of our battlecruisers there. Tell him he's responsible for covering Trevor's Star until we get back to him. Then instruct Judah to bring Admiral Mikl¢s' carriers and all the rest of the wallers through in a single transit."

Her voice was crisp, calm, despite her own shock, and Brigham looked at her for a moment, then nodded sharply.

"Aye, aye, Your Grace!"

"Theo," she continued, pointing one index finger at Commander Kgari, "start plotting a new micro-jump. We'll go straight from here; no dogleg. I want us at least fifty million kilometers outside these newcomers. Seventy-five to a hundred would be better, but don't shave it any closer than fifty."

Kgari looked at her for a moment, and she tasted his shock. She was allowing him a much larger margin of error than Admiral Kuzak had allowed Third Fleet's units, but she was also requiring him to jump straight from a point inside the RZ to one on its periphery. Safety margin or no, that was extraordinarily risky, given the fact that his start point's coordinates were going to be subject to significant uncertainty, whatever he did.