“I realize I’m technically in the wrong about this, Captain,” she said in that same, soothing tone, “but I’m sure Her Majesty’s Resident Commissioner will be able to provide any assistance you require. In the meantime, we’re a little too busy to stop. Good-bye, Captain.”

She switched off the com, killing the lieutenant’s protest in mid splutter, and leaned back in her chair.

“My, that was a little sloppy of me, wasn’t it?” she murmured.

Her crew gawked at her for just a second, and then a chorus of relieved laughter ran around the bridge. She smiled, but when she looked up at McKeon, his face was grim, and there was no humor in his eyes.

“You stopped the courier, Skipper,” he said quietly, under cover of the others’ laughter, “but what about the freighter?”

“I’ll stop her, too,” Honor said. “Any way I have to.”

“But why, Ma’am? You said you understood what’s going on, but I’ll be damned if I do!”

“Sirius’s departure was the last piece I needed.” Honor spoke so softly he had to lean forward to hear her. “I know where she’s going, you see.”

“What?!” McKeon started, then grabbed for his self-control and looked around the bridge. A dozen pairs of eyes were locked on him and his captain, but they whipped back to their own instruments under the impact of his fiery gray glare. Then he returned his own questioning gaze to Honor.

“Somewhere out here, Alistair, probably within only a few hours’ hyper flight, there’s a Havenite battle squadron. Maybe even a full task force. Sirius is headed for a rendezvous with them.”

McKeon’s face went white, and his eyes widened.

“It’s the only answer that makes sense,” she said. “The drugs and guns on the planet were intended to produce a native attack on the enclaves. It was supposed to come as a complete surprise and produce a bloodbath as the Medusans slaughtered off-worlders right and left—including, as you yourself pointed out, their own merchant factors in those northern trade enclaves. In fact,” she spoke more slowly, lips tightening and eyes hardening in sudden surmise, “I’ll lay odds Sirius is officially assigned to one of those enclaves by the Havenite government.” She nodded to herself. “That would make this just about perfect, wouldn’t it?”

“How, Ma’am?” McKeon was out of his depth, and he knew it.

“They’re trying a coup de main to seize the planet,” Honor said flatly. “Sirius’s master is ‘fleeing in panic’ from the native insurrection. In the course of his flight, he’ll ‘just happen’ to encounter a Peep squadron or task force in the area on ‘routine maneuvers.’ Naturally, he’ll spill out his story to the Havenite commander, who, horrified and overcome with a sense of urgency and the need to save off-worlder lives, will immediately proceed to Medusa with his entire force to put down the native uprising.” She stared into McKeon’s eyes and saw the dawning understanding.

“And once he’s done that,” she finished very softly, “he’ll proclaim Haven’s possession of the entire system on the grounds that Manticore has demonstrated its total inability to maintain order and public safety on the planet’s surface.”