Truman nodded again as he confirmed her figures. Of course, if the Peeps decided to, they could simply maintain a constant acceleration, in which case they would cross the base’s orbital shell in only eighty-three minutes. They’d be well “ahead” of the base at the time if they stuck with their current heading, but they’d have plenty of time to adjust their course for a missile pass.

But whichever option they pursued, they would certainly remain on their current heading at their current acceleration at least to the turnover for the zero/zero approach, and that gave her forty-five minutes with which to work. She turned to look down at her plot again, then looked at her helmsman.

“Bring us to zero-one-zero zero-seven-eight at three-zero-zero gravities,” she said.

“Aye, aye, Ma’am. Zero-one-zero zero-seven-eight at three hundred gravities,” the helmsman replied, and Truman punched a com stud.

“LAC Control, COLAC speaking,” Harmon’s voice responded instantly.

“We’re going to get a live-fire test of your birds after all, Jackie,” Truman said with a tight smile. “Are they prepping?”

“Yes, Ma’am! We’re loading the mags with war shots now. We’ll be ready to launch in four minutes.”

“Um.” Truman punched a fresh set of assumptions into her plot and scowled. It would stretch the range envelope still further and require a higher acceleration from the LACs than she really liked, EW or no EW, but it would be possible. Probably.

“All right,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

“Here come the Manties, Citizen Admiral,” Citizen Commander Morris called out, and Jane Kellet looked up quickly. She’d known the defenders would have the precious advantage of near real-time data on her command thanks to their FTL sensor net, but her own gravitics were quite capable of picking up impeller signatures at this range. Now she saw them on her plot, coming at her, and her eyebrows rose at the data codes beside their icons.

“Are you certain about those class IDs, Olivia?” she asked her tac officer.

“CIC’s confidence is high, Citizen Admiral,” Citizen Commander Morris replied. “We see no evidence that they’re trying to spoof us, nor are they running under stealth. Of course, with that much power to their wedges, even Manty stealth systems would be pushed to the max. Our best count makes it five superdreadnoughts and eleven battlecruisers with eight light cruisers or destroyers screening them.”

“And they’re accelerating at four hundred and thirty-five gravities?”

“Aye, Ma’am. CIC makes it… four-point-two-six KPS squared. That’s why their signatures are so clear.”

“I see.” Kellet leaned back in her command chair, stroking her chin, and Citizen Commissioner Penevski looked a question at her.

“I’m a bit surprised by their tactics, Citizen Commissioner,” Kellet admitted. “Given their acceleration, they must have cut their pod strength to the bone. Everything they’ve got has to be inside their wedges, and that means we can’t be looking at more than a hundred pods or so.”

“Why would they do that?” Penevski asked.

“That’s what I don’t quite understand,” Kellet said. “Unless…” She tapped some numbers into her plot and frowned at the vectors the display obediently generated. “Well, I suppose that could be it,” she said finally.