Anger darkened Tsang’s face. How dared this jumped up pretense of a flag officer in her comic opera little system-defense force talk to her that way? Of course she’d sworn to protect and defend the Constitution! Every Solarian officer did that. But the Constitution was what accepted practice made it, not some dead-letter document which hadn’t functioned properly in over six hundred T-years! Holmon-Sanders knew as well as she did that the League would have fallen apart centuries ago if the people truly responsible for governing hadn’t made accommodations with the more absurd provisions of Holmon-Sanders’ precious Constitution!

“I disagree with your…unique interpretation of current constitutional law,” she said flatly. “And I repeat that I intend to pass my command through that terminus.”

“Not without the assistance and cooperation of Terminus Traffic Control, you aren’t,” Holmon-Sanders replied. “I’m sure your staff astrogator will be aware, even if you aren’t, of just how disastrous any effort to make a simultaneous transit through this terminus without Traffic Control’s guidance is going to prove. Do you intend to place armed parties on the control platforms and compel our personnel to coordinate your transit at pulser point?”

“I intend to do whatever it requires, Vice Admiral! And if that means my Marines are forced to take control of your control platforms and ‘compel’ your personnel to do their duty as Solarian citizens, then that’s precisely what I’ll do!”

“And the instant you attempt to do so, the Beowulf System Defense Force will open fire upon you in defense of our citizens.”

Tsang inhaled sharply as the words were finally spoken.

“In that case, Admiral Holmon-Sanders, you will commit an act of treason.”

“In that case, Admiral Tsang, one of us will have committed an act of treason,” Holmon-Sanders replied, and her contemptuous challenge smile was no longer thin.

“And you and the vast majority of the personnel aboard your superdreadnoughts will also be dead,” Tsang said flatly. “You’ll be in my powered missile envelope in approximately nineteen minutes. If at that time you have not stood down and withdrawn your units, I will engage you, and the deaths of your spacers will be on your own head and that of your system government.”

“I take it that’s your final word on the matter?” Holmon-Sanders inquired almost calmly.

“Damned right it is.” Tsang glared at her. “Get out of my way now, Admiral, or I will by God blow every one of your fucking ships out of space!”

“I think not,” another voice said suddenly, and the image on Tsang’s display split as another woman appeared on it, speaking from another command deck.

The blue-eyed newcomer had golden hair…and her skin suit was definitely not Beowulf-issue.

“Vice Admiral Alice Truman, Royal Manticoran Navy,” she identified herself coldly. “You might want to reconsider your belligerence, Fleet Admiral Tsang.”