Mercedes and George Reynolds, Honor knew, both suspected that this was one more provocation, this time on a grand scale. A sort of interstellar game of chicken between task forces. Jaruwalski disagreed. She didn’t know who these people were, but she was firmly convinced they weren’t Andies. There was entirely too much potential for someone to panic and start shooting if those were Andermani warships out there, and nothing anyone had reported, including Thomas Bachfisch, suggested that the Andermani could possibly be able to overcome such unfavorable numerical odds. If Honor’s staff was aware of that, then surely the Andermani were, as well, and risking that much tonnage and the personnel required to crew those ships just to “send a message” was a far cry from risking a single cruiser here or there. And whatever else the Andies might be, it struck her as extremely unlikely that any senior Andermani officer could be crazy enough to take such a chance. She’d been polite about it, but she’d also made her disagreement with both the chief of staff and the staff spook clear, and Honor smiled ever so slightly at the thought. Then she glanced at the time and date display on the bulkhead, and beckoned to Timothy Meares.

“Yes, Your Grace?” the youthful flag lieutenant said quietly as he stopped beside her command chair.

“I think it’s about time, Tim,” she told him, equally quietly.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, and walked casually across the bridge towards Lieutenant Harper Brantley, Honor’s staff communications officer.

She watched him go, then turned her head as she tasted a sudden spike in Mercedes Brigham’s emotions. Her chief of staff was gazing at her in intent speculation. Speculation that became something else when Honor grinned cheerfully at her. Brigham’s eyes narrowed, then snapped from Honor to Meares and Brantley, and Honor felt Nimitz’s delighted amusement. Which was only to be expected from someone whose treecat name was “Laughs Brightly,” she reflected.

Brigham looked back at Honor and opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again and shook her head severely at her admiral, instead.

None of the other staffers had noticed the silent exchange. They were all far too intent on their own duties to pay any attention to Meares’ movements or the chief of staff’s expression. Nor did they notice when the flag lieutenant bent over Brantley’s shoulder to whisper quietly in his ear.

The com officer’s head popped up, and he looked incredulously at Meares for just a moment, then darted a half-accusing, half-amused looked at his admiral before he bent back over his console. He murmured something into his hush mike, then leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

Nothing at all happened for perhaps ninety seconds, and then quite a lot of things happened in rapid succession.

The incoming bogeys suddenly and simultaneously made turnover over ten minutes early, and as they did their icons began to multiply in the plot. Dozens—scores—of additional light codes appeared, spreading outward like captive constellations, and Honor tasted her staffers’ consternation as they recognized what they were seeing. It was a sight they’d seen scores of times over the past three or four T-years; it was just that they’d never seen anyone else lunching full deckloads of LACs.