And if we can build ships like that, surely we also have the capability to complete the Revolution, he’d thought, gazing in awe at the spectacle. But then he’d felt a cold chill as the unsought counter-argument trickled through his brain: Unless someone equally capable—like the goddamned Manties—manages to stop us.

It was at such moments that he most missed Cordelia Ransom. Unlike ninety-nine-point-nine percent of his personnel, Prestwick Thornegrave knew what had really happened to Ransom right here in this system. In his personal opinion, PubIn had been wise to announce that she—and Tepes—had been lost in action while acting as the Committee’s personal representative at the front. It had been no more than true—aside from the minor issues of where and how the ship had been destroyed—and it had given her the status she had so richly earned as one of the Revolution’s most revered martyrs. Her loss had still been a savage blow to the New Order, and Thornegrave rather regretted the fact that the delay in announcing her death had required State Security to lie to the survivors of so many of its own personnel—by omission, at least—by concealing Tepes’ loss. But the Committee had clearly recognized that admitting the Manties and their lackeys had killed her after she ordered that aristocratic, elitist murderess Harrington’s execution would have hurt the People’s morale—and boosted the Manties’—more than her later, more traditionally heroic “official” death.

Now he grunted irritably as the familiar thought reminded him once more of the People’s loss and dragged him back to the present. He glowered at the words on the display in front of him, then snorted and saved and closed the file. His moment of exaltation on the observation deck lay five-plus hours in the past, and it was time he returned to Flag Deck.

“They’re coming up on their final course change, Milady,” Commander Phillips said quietly, and Honor nodded, never looking away from the plot. Phillips’ voice was a bit hoarser than it had been when the Peeps first made translation, and Honor wasn’t surprised. The tension had ratcheted steadily higher as the enemy continued blithely in-system, and in an odd sort of way, their very failure to show any suspicion at all only made it worse. It was as if everyone in the control room was holding his or her mental breath, waiting tautly for some indication that all their plans were going into the crapper, and every moment in which that didn’t happen simply made the dread that it might that much stronger.

Of course, it isn’t all “their” plans; it’s all my plans, Honor thought wryly. She felt the dryness in her own mouth, and Nimitz leaned forward against her back, resting his chin on her shoulder and crooning almost subliminally to her. Or perhaps it was subliminal, something sensed over their link and not heard by her ears at all.

She drew a deep breath and made herself stand motionless, the thumb of her single hand hooked into her belt. She didn’t really care for that pose—it felt slouched and unprofessional—but she could hardly clasp one hand behind her in her usual “I’m feeling no tension” mannerism. The thought wrung a genuine chuckle out of her, and she saw Phillips turn towards her in surprise.