“I see it, but I didn’t really think you could pull it off, Ma’am,” a quiet voice said, and she looked up to find Warner Caslet standing beside her command chair.

“Between you, me, and the bulkhead, I had a few doubts of my own,” she said quietly, and smiled at him.

“You certainly didn’t act like it,” he told her wryly, then paused and snapped his fingers explosively. Honor blinked as she tasted the bright sunburst of his emotions as he abruptly realized or remembered something.

“What?” she asked, and he looked down at her with a strange expression.

“I just realized something,” he said, “and I certainly hope it’s a good omen.”

“What?” she asked again, a bit more testily, and he gave her an odd smile.

“It’s exactly two years and one day since you were captured, Ma’am,” he said quietly, and both of Honor’s eyebrows flew up. He couldn’t be right! Could he? She gawked at him for a moment, then darted a look at the time/date display. He was right!

She sat very still for a moment, then shook herself and grinned crookedly at him.

“You should be a little cautious about surprising your CO that way just before a battle, Warner!” She shook her head. “I’d actually forgotten the date.”

“Well, you have been a bit busy for the last couple of years,” he pointed out, “and I figure the Committee of Public Safety is going to be more than a little bit put out when it discovers how you’ve been spending your time. But it does seem appropriate somehow to kick some ‘Peep’ butt as an anniversary present.”

“So it does,” she agreed, and he smiled at her again, then turned and headed back for his own station. She watched him go, then gave herself another bemused little shake and looked back at her plot.

You’re so right, Warner, she thought. I do owe these people an “anniversary present”… and if we can take them intact, and if they’re big enough, and have enough life support—

She pushed that thought back into its mental cubbyhole. One thing at a time, girl, she told herself. One thing at a time.

Seth Chernock was a much more experienced interstellar traveler than his colleague Citizen Major General Thornegrave. As a general rule, he rather enjoyed such trips. Unlike many of his fellow StateSec officers, he was a cerebral type, a man who treasured the chance to catch up on his reading, to think and ponder, and he was accustomed to turning what others saw as boredom into profitable—and enjoyable—time in which to do just that.

But there were times he agreed with his colleagues, and this was one of them. Not that he could call the slow, dragging approach to Hades boring, precisely. It was hard to feel bored when the acid of fury and the chill of a fear one couldn’t quite suppress, however hard one tried, gnawed at one’s stomach lining. Besides, this was a time for action, not thought. Thinking was what had alerted him to the problem and brought him here, but what he wanted now was vengeance.