“According to our sources,” Reynolds put in for Honor’s benefit, “Governor Heyerdahl may have a private arrangement with the Brennan System’s domestic criminal element. So far as we can tell, it seems to be mainly fairly small-scale smuggling, not any sort of accommodation with hijackers or pirates… or slavers. LaFroye was tasked with tracking any ‘black’ shipping movements, mostly to confirm that smuggling is all Heyerdahl is up to.”

“Understood.” Honor nodded. If smuggling was all Heyerdahl was involved in, then he was a paragon of law-abiding virtue compared to most Silesian system governors. “Continue, Commander, please.”

“Yes, Your Grace. As I say, we’d been on station for five days when our FTL recon platforms picked up the arrival of an Andermani battlecruiser. She wasn’t squawking any transponder code, but we got a hard ID on her emissions signature from one of the platforms. Then we lost her completely.”

“Lost her,” Honor repeated.

“Yes, Your Grace. She just dropped right off the platforms’ passives.”

“What was the range to the closest platform?” Honor asked intently.

“Under eight light-minutes,” Zahn replied, and Honor’s eyes narrowed. She glanced expressionlessly at McKeon and Yu, and both of them returned her look with an equal absence of expression. Then all three of them returned their attention to Zahn.

“We were surprised to lose her at such a short range,” the tac officer continued. “Our latest intelligence update had emphasized that their stealth systems had been substantially improved, but nothing in the briefing had suggested that much improvement. So as soon as we lost her, the Captain ordered me to find her again. Since the main recon platforms were fixed, I deployed a standard shell of Ghost Rider drones to blanket the volume around her last known locus with mobile platforms.” The Sidemorian grimaced. “We didn’t find her.”

“How long did it take your drones to reach the locus, Commander?” Yu asked.

“Approximately sixty-two minutes, Sir,” Zahn replied. “Given her observed velocity at the time we lost her and Intelligence’s latest estimate on her probable maximum acceleration, she ought to have been within five-point-one light-minutes of her last observed position. She wasn’t.”

“Are you certain?” Honor asked. “She wasn’t just coasting ballistic?”

“I think that’s exactly what she was doing, Your Grace,” Zahn replied. “But she wasn’t doing it within five light-minutes of the last place we’d seen her. My drones covered that volume like a fine-toothed comb. If she’d been there, we would have found her.”

“I see.” Honor’s voice was merely thoughtful, but inwardly she was impressed by the lieutenant commander’s certitude. Young Zahn might be a bit nervous about finding herself face-to-face with so much seniority, but her confidence in her own competence was impressive. And, judging from the taste of Ackenheil’s approving, almost paternal attitude towards her, that confidence was probably justified.

“So what do you think happened?” she asked after a moment.

“I think our estimates of their compensator efficiency are still low, Your Grace,” Zahn told her. “And I think they may have a better feel for the capabilities of our standard surveillance systems than I’d like. I don’t think they have an equally good feel for Ghost Rider’s capabilities, but to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t like to make any bets even on that.