“It must have been a panic reaction,” Thomas Theisman said slowly, reaching up to the treecat on his shoulder as Springs From Above’s muzzle pressed against the side of his neck. “I didn’t see it coming either, Honor, but that has to have been what it was.”

“I think Admiral Theisman’s right,” High Admiral Judah Yanakov said. He stood beside Admiral Alfedo Yu, technically Honor’s second-in-command of the Protector’s Own but for all practical purposes its actual CO. “It wasn’t even coordinated fire!”

“Was it a panic reaction, though?” Admiral Yu asked softly.

Everyone turned to look at him, and he smiled faintly at Theisman. Once upon a time, Alfredo Yu had been Thomas Theisman’s commanding officer, mentor, and friend. In fact, he’d transmitted his interest in the history the Legislaturalists and the Committee of Public Safety had both, each for its own reasons, done their very best to erase or rewrite, to a very junior Liueutenant Theisman. And it was his own study of that history which had helped lead a much more senior Citizen Admiral Theisman into his ultimate opposition to Rob S. Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just. Of course, that had been twenty T-years ago. A lot had changed in the intervening decades, but the Havenite-turned-Grayson still recognized the look in his old student’s eyes.

“No, it’s not a trick question, Tom,” he said with a crooked smile. “I mean it. Was it a panic reaction?”

“It had to be, Alfredo,” Yanakov said. “That was a classic gone-to-hell desperation launch. They couldn’t possibly have targeted that much fire.”

“Oh, I agree,” Yu replied. “They just flushed the pods at us, threw everything they had right at Lady Harrington’s command in hopes the missiles’ onboard seekers would find something to kill, even without any direction, and that the sheer mass of fire would saturate her defenses. I’ve planned last-ditch, desperation attacks like that of my own.”

“Exactly,” Honor said slowly, her eyes intent as she tasted the emotions behind Yu’s handsome, bony face. Some thought was working its way out in his brain. She could feel it, even though she had no idea what it was. She wasn’t even certain he knew what it was, yet. But she knew Alfredo Yu well, and she respected his instincts.

“We’ve all put together that kind of fire plan,” she continued, waving her right hand in a gesture which took in the assembled flag officers. “Even when you don’t expect to need it, you put it together, just in case. But, Alfredo, you don’t use it when someone’s offering to let you surrender your ships and your people alive. You just don’t.”

“No, you don’t,” Hamish Alexander-Harrington said softly. “But I think that’s Alfredo’s point, Honor.”