"Unlikely, Ma'am," Cardones pointed out. "The Confed Detachment was about ready to ship out against the Psyche secessionists when we came through, and unless there's actually a convoy in-system, the biggest thing the Andies'll have available will be a tin can or two."
"I know. That's why I was going to bypass until this new information came to light. Now we might as well check, since we'll have to stop long enough to drop fresh dispatches for the squadron with our embassy. I'll send Alice orders to continue her operations but to switch to Andy or Confed transponder codes and be darned sure she stays covert on any interception until she's positive what she's dealing with.
"At the same time," she went on, leaning back once more, "I'll send dispatches to Gregor and the Admiralty. If Giscard is operating out here, we need more than Q-ships, and we need it fast. I don't know where Admiral Caparelli will find the extra units, but he's simply going to have to come up with them from somewhere."
"And the attack on Warnecke?"
"We'll carry through on that with or without Andy support," Honor said crisply. "Going after raiders at the source is the best way to cut down on their operations, and this is the first base we've been able to ID. More to the point, Warnecke's a lot more dangerous than the average freelancer. We need to take him out, hard, as quickly as possible."
"And afterward, Ma'am?"
"Afterward, I think we'll have a look at the Rift. We can look after ourselves better than any merchant ship, if we have to, but what I'd like to do is just cruise through the area, using an Andy transponder setting, I think, while we see if we can pick up any sign of a picket line. They won't expect military-grade sensors aboard a merchie, and if they have orders to assist Andy shipping, they should leave us alone if they think that's what we are. We should be able to cross the area fairly safely, and if we get a sniff of lurking warships, it should confirm our hypothesis for higher command authority."
"What do we do in the short term if we pick them up, Ma'am?"
"One thing we don't do is engage them," Honor said firmly. "If they're operating with battlecruisers, they'll be a lot faster than us. And they can take us out eventually even in the Rift where we can use our pods and even if we get lucky against the first one or two ships. And if they've put together a picket line, somebody's going to notice if we start punching out their neighbors." She shook her head. "The Admiralty never intended us to take on capital ships, and I don't have any desire to rewrite our orders in that regard. Maybe with Fearless or Nike I'd feel more aggressive; with Wayfarer, I feel a very strong desire to be as inoffensive as possible where a Peep squadron is concerned."
"Um." Cardones considered that for all of two seconds, then grinned. "I can live with that approach, Ma'am," he said cheerfully.
Chapter TWENTY-NINE
"All right, people." Honor looked levelly around her bridge, then at the split-screen com which held the faces of Harold Tschu and Jacquelyn Harmon, and wished the IAN’s Sachsen commander had had someone to send along. But the best Commodore Blohm could promise was to organize a proper squadron with a ground combat echelon within three months, which left the situation squarely up to her in the meantime.
"Let's do this right the first time, shall we?" she went on. "Is Engineering ready, Harry?"
"Yes, Ma'am. I guarantee it'll be spectacular, Skipper."
"Just so long as it's only spectacular. Let's not lose an alpha node for real."
"No sweat, Ma'am."
"Good. Your people are fully briefed, Jackie?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Commander Harmon said from Peter's command deck, and her dark eyes glittered.
"Good." Honor turned in her chair and glanced at her irregular guests. Warner Caslet and Denis Jourdain lacked proper chairs with shock frames, but they wore their skinsuits as they stood beside the main plot. Wayfarers green bead tracked steadily across that plot, coming up on the Marsh Systems alpha wall, and she nodded to Caslet as the Peep glanced over his shoulder at her. Then she drew a deep breath. "In that case, let's be about it," she said calmly.
Admiral Rayna Sherman, who'd once been something approaching a real admiral in something which could almost be mistaken for a navy, braced against her ongoing despair as the lift stopped. By the time it opened and she stepped out onto her command deck, her face was utterly expressionless. The watch acknowledged her arrival respectfully but without the spit and polish of a regular navy crew, and she hid a familiar flash of sourness as she nodded back.
She crossed to the plot and glanced into it, but nothing had changed, of course, and she continued to her command chair while her flagship continued its slow, monotonous sweep. It was ridiculous. Her own President Warnecke (and wasn't that a modest name), Willis, Hendrickson, and Jarmon (named for the three systems of the Chalice, which anyone but an idiot knew they'd never see again) represented a full third of Andre Warnecke’s "navy." They were also its most powerful units, and keeping them here was a complete misuse of their potential. Sherman had long since realized just how stupid she'd been to sign on with Warnecke in the first place. But if she was stuck here, and she was; people Warnecke suspected of planning to desert died messily, and the Confederacy's government had already condemned her to death, which left her nowhere to run anyway, she would have preferred to at least operate effectively. The squadron had been designed to cruise as a squadron, and with the heavy cruisers' support to take out convoy escorts, the lighter units could have cut a swath through Silesian space. Especially now that the Manties had cut their local forces to the bone. And the whole point in coming to Marsh had been that no one else ever came here. Their base's primary defense was its isolation, and if anyone ever did figure out where they were and came calling, her four cruisers were unlikely to stop them.
Besides, if Sherman had been there to ride herd on him, "Commodore" Arner and his pigs would have been denied their favorite form of entertainment. Most of Andre Warnecke's original female followers had bailed out once he showed his true colors, and Sherman understood exactly why she and the majority of his remaining female personnel had been transferred to the ships which never left Marsh.
She grimaced internally, careful to keep it from reaching her face. At least being stuck here is better than watching someone like Arner at work, she thought grimly. Arner's squadron should already have hit the convoy to Posnan, and knowing how he would have allowed his crews to amuse themselves sickened Sherman. How did it come to this? she wondered yet again. I actually believed in this once, thought it would actually make a change for the better in the Chalice. Now I just don't see any way out of it... and "the Leader" is getting crazier every day. It was bad enough before they chased us out of the Chalice, but now, She shivered. He may actually believe he'll go back someday, but I doubt it. I think he's just pissed off with the universe. He wants to get even by hurting as many people as he can... and I'm stuck right in the middle of it.
She closed her eyes. You can't think about that, she told herself sternly. He may be crazy, but that only makes him more dangerous. If he even thinks you're going "unreliable" on him...