"You know," Michelle said, "I wonder just how close these people are willing to come before they pull the trigger?"

"Well, they must know we've loaded our battlecruiser pods with Mark 16s," Stackpole pointed out, turning to look over his shoulder at her. "I can't believe they'd be interested in coming into our range!"

"I certainly wouldn't be, in their place," Michelle agreed. "Still, their hard numbers on the Mark 16's performance have to be a little iffy. Oh," she waved one hand in the air before her, "I know we've used them before, but the only time they've ever seen them used at maximum powered range was right here, in Fire Plan Gamma, and that had that ballistic component right in the middle of it. It's remotely possible Bogey Two hasn't had the benefit of a full tactical analysis yet."

"You're suggesting they might just come into our range, after all, Ma'am?" Stackpole sounded like a junior officer doing his best not to sound overtly dubious.

"It's possible, I suppose," Michelle said. Then she snorted. "On the other hand, it's entirely possible I'm grasping at straws, too!"

"Well, Ma'am," Stackpole said, "I hate to rain on your parade, but I can think of at least one damned good reason for them to be doing what they're doing." She cocked an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. "If I were them, and if I did have a pretty good idea what our maximum powered envelope was, I wouldn't be in any hurry. I'd want to get as close as I could and still stay outside our envelope before I fired. Of course, if we want to start engaging them at longer ranges, with a ballistic component in the flight, they'll probably shoot back pretty damned fast."

"I know," Michelle said.

She smiled thinly, then tipped back in her command chair. It was remarkable, actually, she mused. Whatever the Peeps were up to, she was going to die sometime in the next hour or so, and yet she felt oddly calm. She hadn't resigned herself to death, didn't want to die—perhaps, deep down inside, some survival center simply refuse to accept the possibility, even now—and yet her forebrain knew it was going to happen. And despite that, her mind was clear, with a sort of bittersweet serenity. There were a lot of things she'd meant to do that she'd never have the chance to get around to now, and she felt a deep surge of regret for that. And, for that matter, she felt an even deeper, darker regret for the other men and women trapped aboard Ajax with her. Yet this was a possible ending she'd accepted the day she entered the Academy, the day she swore her oath as an officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy. She couldn't pretend she hadn't known it might come, and if she had to die, she could not have done it in better company than with the crew of HMS Ajax.

She considered the men and women who'd escaped aboard the battlecruiser's remaining operational life pods, wondered what they were thinking as they awaited rescue by their enemies. There'd been a time when the Manticoran Navy had been none too sure Havenite ships would bother with search-and-rescue after a battle, yet despite the sneak attack with which the Republic had opened this war, no one on either side had ever doubted that the victor in any engagement would do her very best to rescue as many survivors from both sides as possible.

So we've made some progress, at least, she told herself sardonically. Then she gave herself a mental shake. The last thing she should be doing at a moment like this was feeling anything except gratitude that the people Commander Horn had gotten off Ajax were going to survive!

We really have come a long way since Basilisk Station and First Hancock, she told herself. In fact—

"John." She let her command chair snap back upright and turned it to face the tac officer.

"Yes, Ma'am?" Something about her tone brought his own chair around to face her squarely, and his eyes narrowed.

"These people just finished borrowing Her Grace's tactics from Sidemore, right?"

"That's one way to put it," Stackpole agreed, his eyes narrowing further.

"Well, in that case," Michelle said with a razor-like smile, "I think it just might be time for us to borrow her tactics from Hancock Station. Why don't you and I kick this idea around with Commander Horn for a couple of minutes? After all," her smile grew thinner yet, "it's not like any of us have anything better to do, is it?"

"I like it, Your Grace," Alexandra Horn said grimly from Michelle's com screen.

"According to our best figures from here," Michelle said, "we've got roughly three hundred pods still on the rails."

"Three hundred and six, Admiral," Commander Dwayne Harrison, who had become Ajax's tactical officer in the same instant Horn had become the battlecruiser's captain, said from behind Horn.

"Just over fifteen minutes to roll all of them, then."

"Yes, Ma'am," Horn agreed. "Use their tractors to limpet them to the hull until we're ready to drop all of them in a single clutch?"

"Exactly. And if we're going to do this, we'd better get started pretty quick," Michelle said.

"Agreed." Horn frowned for a moment, then grimaced. "I've got too much else on my plate right now, Admiral. I think this is something for you and Commander Stackpole to work out with Dwayne while I concentrate on pushing the repair parties."

"I agree, Alex." Michelle nodded firmly, even though she knew Horn was as well aware as she was that all the repairs in the world weren't going to make much difference. Master Chief MaGuire and her repair parties were still fighting to get at least one boat bay cleared, but the bosun's last estimate was that she'd need at least another hour, and probably at least a little longer. It was . . . unlikely, to say the least, that Ajax was going to have that hour.

"Very well, Ma'am." Horn nodded back. "Clear," she said, and Harrison's face replaced hers on both Michelle's and Stackpole's com screens.

The grim pursuit was coming to its inevitable conclusion, Michelle thought. Her belly was like a lump of congealed iron, and she felt almost lightheaded. Fear was a huge part of it, of course—she wasn't insane, after all. And yet excitement, anticipation, gripped her almost as tightly as the fear.

If it's the final shot I'm ever going to get, at least it's going to be a doozy, she told herself tautly. And it looks like I'm actually going to get to see it fired, after all. Hard to believe.

It had become only too evident over the last forty-seven minutes that Stackpole's assessment of the Peep commander's intentions had been accurate. That was how long it had been since Bogey Two had entered its own extreme missile range of Ajax, but the enemy was clearly in no hurry to pull the trigger.

And rightly so, Michelle thought. The Peeps had every advantage there was—numbers, acceleration rate, firepower, counter-missile launchers and laser clusters, and missile range—and they were using them ruthlessly. She was a bit surprised, to be honest, that the enemy had managed to resist the temptation to start firing sooner, but she understood the logic perfectly. As Stackpole had suggested, the Peeps would close to a range at which they remained just outside the powered envelope of Ajax's Mark 16s, then open fire. Or, perhaps, call upon Ajax to surrender, since the situation would have become hopeless. There would have been just about zero probability of even Manticoran missiles getting through Bogey Two's defenses in salvos the size a single Agamemnon could throw and control at any range, but with the need for them to incorporate at least a brief ballistic phase in their approach, the probability would shrink still further. And no matter how good Ajax's missile defenses might be, she was still only a single battlecruiser, and she would be thirty million kilometers inside Bogey Two's maximum range. Light-speed communication lags would be far lower, which would improve both the enemy's fire control and its ability to compensate for Manticore's superior EW.