She had not, Honor noticed, said anything about the extent to which the Admiralty’s intelligence estimates might be off.

“I’d have to concur with Captain Jaruwalski, Your Grace,” Reynolds offered. “We could both be wrong, but I don’t think we are. Not that far wrong.”

“But the possibility that they had LaFroye under observation that close without her ever seeing them isn’t all that much more palatable,” Commander Orndorff pointed out.

“No, it isn’t,” Honor agreed with fairly massive understatement. She considered the implications for several silent seconds, then shook herself and returned her attention to Ackenheil and Zahn.

“I think we’re going to have to accept, tentatively, at least, that one of your two hypotheses is correct, Commander. What happened after you failed to relocate her?”

“I ordered Commander Zahn to continue search operations,” Ackenheil said before Zahn could reply. “I authorized the use of additional Ghost Rider drones, and I ordered a course change to take us towards the Andy’s last known position.”

“And?” Honor asked when he paused.

“And if the Andies had really planned on starting anything, Your Grace,” Ackenheil said with unflinching honesty, “they probably would have blown my ship right out of space. And it would have been my fault, not Commander Zahn’s.”

“In what way?”

“Well, Your Grace, it’s obvious in retrospect that the Andy made a depressingly accurate estimate of what I was likely to do. He was waiting for us. Still in stealth, and well on our side of where I estimated he could have gotten to in the elapsed time. The first thing that I knew, was when he locked us up.”

“Locked you up.” Honor repeated, and Ackenheil nodded.

“Yes, Your Grace. He didn’t just have us on active sensors; he had us locked up with his fire control radar and lidar, and he kept us that way for over thirty seconds.”

“I see.” Honor sat back in her chair and exchanged another glance with McKeon and Yu. Then she gave her head a little toss, as if to clear her brain, and turned back to Ackenheil.

“And afterward?”

“And afterward, he just shut down his targeting systems and completely ignored us,” Ackenheil replied. His voice was level, but Honor tasted the remembered echoes of white-hot rage. “I hailed him five times, Your Grace. He never responded once, never even identified himself.”

· · • · ·

“What the hell are those idiots playing at?” Alistair McKeon demanded rhetorically.

Captain Ackenheil and Lieutenant Commander Zahn had left the flagship to return to LaFroye. Honor had assured them both of her confidence in them, and that assurance had been genuine. It might not have been if Ackenheil had tried to minimize how completely the Andy battlecruiser had surprised him, but Honor had been surprised enough times herself to realize how easily it could have happened. And one thing she could be sure of was that if it was humanly possible, Jason Ackenheil would never let it happen again.

Which didn’t make the fact that it could have happened once any more reassuring.