But at the moment, local astrography was less important than the bright red icon blinking in the display to indicate a hostile impeller signature, and she watched the red bead tracking down the white vector projection that intersected Hell’s orbit.

“So far, everything seems to be just where it ought to be,” Benson said while Honor absorbed the plot’s details. “They’ve been in-system for twenty-one minutes now, and their arrival message crossed our challenge—we received it… nine minutes and twenty-one seconds ago,” she said, checking the time chop on a hardcopy message slip. “They should have received ours fifteen seconds after that, and they’re still following straight down the least-time profile for a zero/zero intercept. Assuming they continue to do so, they’ll make turnover in another hundred and thirteen minutes.”

“Good,” Honor murmured. She gazed at the plot a moment longer, then turned and walked over to stand behind Commander Phillips and Scotty Tremaine at the main com console. Horace Harkness sat to one side with two other electronics techs to assist him. Harkness himself was watching two displays simultaneously, and he spoke to Tremaine without looking away.

“I think we can lighten up on ’Citizen Commander Ragman’s’ mood in the next transmission, Sir,” he said, forgetting his normal “lower deck” dialect as he concentrated.

“Sounds good to me, Chief,” Tremaine replied, and Harkness grunted. He watched the display a moment later, then glanced at one of his assistants.

“See if this lousy excuse for an AI can get her to smile just a little, but don’t get carried away. Throw her up on Three here for me to look at ASAP.”

“I’m on it, Senior Chief,” the assistant said, and Honor looked at Benson again.

“What is she?” she asked.

“According to her initial transmission, she’s a StateSec heavy cruiser—the Krashnark—headed in with a fresh shipment of prisoners,” Benson replied, looking down at the hardcopy. “I didn’t recognize the name, but I found it in their Ship List data base. Krashnark is one of their new Mars-class CAs. From what I could find on their capabilities, they look like nasty customers.”

“They are that,” Honor agreed softly, remembering a deadly ambush, and the right corner of her mouth smiled slightly. She was going to enjoy getting a little of her own back from a Mars-class… and the fact that this ship belonged to the SS would only make it sweeter.

But slowly, she reminded herself. Let’s not get cocky and blow this, Honor!

“Commander Phillips, has Krashnark ever visited Hell before?” she asked.

“No, Ma’am,” Phillips answered promptly. “I ran a data search as soon as we had the name. Neither she, nor her captain—a Citizen Captain Pangborn—nor her com officer have ever been to Cerberus before this visit. I can’t vouch for her other officers, but everyone who’s been identified in their com traffic is a first-timer.”

“Excellent,” Honor murmured. “And very promptly done. Thank you, Commander.”

“You’re welcome, Admiral,” Phillips replied without a trace of her earlier resentment, and Honor smiled down at her before she looked back at Benson.