Raz imPar Henders gasped aloud. No one else made a sound.

A pardon? Oxham wondered. But then she saw the Emperor’s logic. The pardon would be announced before it was known that Captain Zai had rejected the blade of error. Zai’s betrayal of tradition would be concealed from the public eye, his survival transformed into an unprecendented act of Imperial kindness. Before now, the Child Empress had always been the one to issue clemencies and commutations. A pardon in the matter of her own death would have a certain propagandistic poetry.

But it wouldn’t be so easy, Nara’s instincts told her. The Risen Emperor wouldn’t allow Zai to be rewarded for his betrayal.

The sovereign nodded to the dead admiral.

The woman moved her pale hands, and the chamber darkened. A system schematic, which they all now recognized as Legis, appeared in synesthesia. The dense swirl of planetary orbital circles (the Legis sun had twenty-one major satellites) shrank, the scale expanding out. A vector marker appeared on the system’s spinward side, out from the terrestrial planets into the vast, slow orbits of the gas giants. The red marker described an approach to the system that passed close to Legis XV.

“Three hours ago,” the admiral said, “the Legis system’s outlying orbital defenses detected a Rix battlecruiser, incoming at about a tenth lightspeed. This vessel is nothing like the assault ship that carried out the first attack. A far more powerful craft, but fortunately far less stealthy: this time we have warning.

“If it attacks Legis XV directly, the orbital defenses should destroy the Rix ship before it can close within a million kilometers.”

“What could it do to Legis from that range?” Oxham asked.

“If the battlecruiser’s intention is to attack, it could damage major population centers, introduce any number of biological weapons, certainly degrade the info- and infrastructure. It all depends on how the vessel has been fitted. But she won’t have the firepower for atmospheric rending, plate destabilization, or mass irradiation. In short, no damage at extinction level.”

Nara Oxham was appalled by the dead woman’s dry appraisal. A few million dead was all. And perhaps a few generations with preindustrial death rates from radiation and disease.

“The Rix ship is decelerating at six gees, quickly enough to match velocities with the planet. But its insertion angle is wrong for a direct attack,” the admiral said. “Its apparent intent is to pass within a few light-minutes of Legis XV. The defenses at that range will be survivable for a ship of its class, and it won’t be close enough to damage the planet extensively.

“And there is another clue to its intent. The Rix vessel appears to be equipped with a very large receiver array. Perhaps a thousand kilometers across.”

“For what purpose?” Henders asked.

The Emperor shifted his weight forward, and the dead warriors looked to him.