“Not a problem, Ma’am. I imagine you’ve got a whole bunch of ‘details’ to deal with, given the number of hats they’ve got you wearing these days.”

“You’re not wrong there,” she agreed feelingly. “In fact, I’m going to have to make a quick run to Grayson to settle the same sorts of details there. I’m planning on taking the Tankersley, and I hope I’ll be back by the time Werewolf gets out of the slip, but I can’t guarantee it.”

“We’ll survive until you do get back,” he assured her.

“I know. I’ll be bringing Mercedes back from Grayson with me when I come. According to the last update I got from BuPers, Alistair should be arriving at Hephaestus day after tomorrow, before I leave, though. And Captain Jaruwalski is already here in the Star Kingdom. You should meet her tomorrow. I’m hosting a small dinner here at the house, and you’re both invited.” Cardones nodded, and she shrugged. “Alice may be here in time for dinner as well; if not, she’ll be on hand within another day or two, and hopefully, between the four of you, you can handle almost anything that comes up before Mercedes and I get home. If not, just put it on hold. I explained to the Admiralty that my responsibilities as Steadholder Harrington were going to cause some delays in how quickly I could get up and running, so no one should be breathing too hard on the backs of your necks while I’m gone.”

“I’m sure Admiral McKeon and Admiral Truman will be able to deal with any bureaucratic types in your absence, Ma’am,” Cardones agreed.

“And if they can’t, I know who can,” Honor assured him with a chuckle. “Scotty and Sir Horace should be at dinner tonight, as well. So if things get too out of hand, just remember that Harkness has a certain way with computers and sic him on the Admiralty database.”

Chapter Seventeen

“TELL him one more time, Mecia,” Captain Erica Ferrero, commanding officer, HMS Jessica Epps, said. Her voice was cold and flat. “And tell him we won’t ask again.”

“Aye, aye, Ma’am!” Lieutenant Mecia McKee, Jessica Epps’ communications officer replied crisply. She turned back to her panel, pushed an errant strand of long red hair behind her left ear and keyed her microphone.

“Unidentified starship, you are instructed to cut your wedge and stand by to be boarded. I repeat, you are instructed to cut your wedge and stand by to be boarded. If you do not comply, we will employ deadly force. This is your final warning. Jessica Epps, clear.”

The crimson icon on Ferrero’s plot made absolutely no response to her youthful com officer’s warning. It simply continued to flee at its maximum acceleration, which was fairly stupid, the captain reflected. Admittedly, it represented a much smaller starship, which, with equally efficient inertial compensators, ought to have enjoyed an acceleration advantage of at least thirty or forty gravities over a ship of Jessica Epps’ tonnage. Unhappily for whoever commanded that icon, however, it didn’t enjoy equal efficiency, because Jessica Epps mounted the very latest version of the Royal Manticoran Navy’s improved compensator. The suspect vessel’s actual advantage, even at the eighty percent settings which represented the RMN’s normal maximum power load, was barely twenty-one gravities, less than a quarter of a KPS². If Ferrero had chosen to go to maximum military power and run the risk of compensator failure, the advantage would have lain firmly in Jessica Epps’s favor.