And that was going to happen. She made herself face it. Sarnow would do his best, but not even his best was going to change Paul's fate. Even if the task group succeeded in drawing the Peeps' lead element after it and away from the base, they could only delay the inevitable. Oh, Danislav might get here in time, but no one was stupid enough to count on that... and even if he did, his own ships would be hopelessly outnumbered.
No, they weren't going to save the base, but at least the Admiral had ordered Paul's CO to surrender once the enemy reached energy range. The thought of losing him to a POW camp—especially a Peep POW camp—was heartbreaking, but he'd be alive. That was the important thing, she told herself. He'd be alive.
She allowed herself one more moment of silent anguish, then put all thought of Paul Tankersley into a cupboard in her brain and closed the door upon it as lovingly and gently as she'd closed Nimitz's life-support module. Her face smoothed, and she touched another com stud.
"Flag Bridge, Chief of Staff."
"This is the Captain, Ernie. Please inform the Admiral that I'm on the bridge awaiting his orders."
Rear Admiral Genevieve Chin watched her display on PNS New Boston's flag bridge and tried not to fidget. It wasn't nerves, she told herself. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. The fact that she'd been tapped to lead the first real assault on the enemy despite her relative lack of seniority would be a tremendous feather in her cap, and aside from the pair of tin-cans hovering stubbornly just beyond her missile envelope, there wasn't a sign of the Manties. Of course, those spying destroyers meant the defending CO was getting excellent information on her, wherever he was hiding, but she wasn't too concerned. EW or no, there was no way he was going to sneak into range under power without her seeing him. And unless he'd been in exactly the right position when the first light-speed reports of her arrival came in, there was no way he'd have time to get into an attack position—not, at least, one that wasn't suicidal—without coming in under power.
Yet despite her own reasoning, she felt undeniably tense. She was almost to turnover, so where were the bastards? They should have shown up by now... unless they'd decided to abandon Hancock without offering battle.
Assuming her information on their strength was accurate, that would certainly be a rational move, yet it would also be completely at odds with her own assessment of the Manticoran Navy. Edward Saganami had set the RMN's standards in his final engagement when he died defending a convoy against five-to-one odds. His inheritors had proven themselves worthy of their founder over the centuries, and that sort of tradition wasn't built in a moment; somehow she couldn't picture any Manticoran admiral letting it be torn down without a fight.
No, he was out there somewhere, and he was up to something. She couldn't see him, but she didn't have to see him to know that.
"Drive shutdown in five minutes," Oselli reported.
"Thank you, Charlotte." Honor looked down at the screen, which now showed Mark Sarnow's face, and started to open her mouth.
"I heard," he said, and his expression was less tense than it had been before. In fact, it was almost relaxed, as if he, too, were relieved that the moment was approaching. And, she thought dryly, that they'd gotten this far without being spotted. The Peep dreadnoughts had made turnover twenty-eight minutes ago, and they'd hardly be continuing their deceleration if they knew the enemy was now directly ahead of them.
"Yes, Sir. Any orders?"
"None, thank you."
"Very well, Sir."
She leaned back again, resting her elbows on the arms of her command chair, and looked back at the plot. Six and a quarter hours had passed since the Peeps' arrival; now the crimson data codes of enemy ships of the wall plowed up their wake, decelerating steadily but still overtaking at over twenty thousand KPS, and the fact that that was exactly what Hancock's defenders wanted them to do didn't make it any less unnerving.
"Argus is reporting something, Sir."
Rollins stopped pacing to dart a quick look at Captain Holcombe. The chief of staff was bent over Captain Santiago's shoulder, watching the ops officer's display, and the admiral made himself wait without comment while the data coalesced.
"Five ships, Sir," Holcombe said finally. "Acceleration about four-point-niner KPS squared. They're on the far side of the inner system, headed directly away from the Manty base—and Admiral Chin—toward the hyper limit." He glanced at a time readout. "Transmission lag is about thirty-three minutes from the platforms that picked them up, Sir."
"IDs?"
"They're pretty big, Sir," Santiago replied. "Pulling that accel, they're probably battlecruisers, but there's no way to confirm that."
"Escorts?"
"No sign of any, Sir."
"I see." Rollins stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets and resumed his pacing. Five probable battlecruisers headed away. It made sense, especially if the defenders had been completely surprised. They couldn't possibly have crammed the base's entire personnel aboard that few ships, but if they'd had to respond to an emergency and organize an evacuation on the fly to get out what they could, the timing was about right. Only where were their escorts?
He frowned and paced a bit faster. Argus had spotted quite a few destroyers and cruisers clustered to cover the most likely approaches from Seaford, not to mention the tin-cans clinging to Chin's flanks. It was possible the Manties had deployed all their light units as pickets, which, in turn, would explain the absence of any screen for the battlecruisers, but even so—
"Ed, signal New Boston," he said. "Inform Admiral Chin that Argus confirms the departure of five enemy units, possibly battlecruisers. Give her their vectors and emphasize that our IDs are only tentative."
"Aye, Sir. Shall I instruct her to go in pursuit?"
"Hell no!" Rollins snorted. "There's no way she could overtake, and if they're up to something sneaky there's no reason to do what they want."
"Yes, Sir."
"Coming up on shutdown... now," Oselli said, and Chief Constanza killed Nike's drive in instant response.
"Rotate," Honor said quietly. "George, confirm the same order to the rest of the task group."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Monet spoke into his pickup, for the task group com net emanated from his panel now, just as Chandler's controlled the tactical net. Admiral Sarnow's com section was tied into Nike's gravities, reading direct from the FTL sensor platforms and feeding the data to CIC.
"Rotating now, Ma'am," Chief Constanza murmured, and her hands gentled the battlecruiser through an end-for-end turn that left her bows-on to the oncoming Peeps. It wasn't a very quick maneuver, for with her wedge down Nike maneuvered like a pig—a lazy pig—on attitude thrusters alone. The parasite pods trailing astern didn't help, either, yet they were also the reason for the turn. Nike's stealth systems could do a lot to hide her from the enemy, but the tractor-towed pods extended beyond their effective coverage. The only way to hide them was to put them in the ship's shadow.
"All units rotated, Ma'am," Monet announced at length.
"Thank you." Honor looked down at her link to the flag bridge, and Sarnow nodded to her.
"And now," he said quietly, "we wait."
"Another message from the flagship, Ma'am," Chin's com officer said. The admiral quirked an eyebrow at him. "Argus reports the impeller sources departing the base are still holding vector for the hyper limit."
"Thank you."