It was the first full dress meeting of every single one of Honor’s task group and squadron commanders, and it included an imposing array of rank and experience. It also included a lot of faces she knew very well indeed, beginning with Alistair McKeon and Alice Truman. Then there was Rear Admiral Samuel Webster, commanding the Sixteenth Battle Squadron; Rear Admiral George Astrides, CO of the Ninth Battle Squadron; Alfredo Yu, now a full admiral; Warner Caslet, commanding Yu’s First Battle Squadron; Rear Admiral Harriet Benson-Dessouix, Commanding his First CLAC Squadron; Vice Admiral Mark Brentworth, commanding his Second Battle Squadron; and Rear Admiral Cynthia Gonsalves, commanding his First Battlecruiser Squadron. It was an impressive assembly of talent, backed up by a dozen more admirals she knew less well, beginning with Rear Admiral Anson Hewitt the previous station commander. And behind them were still more people she knew and trusted implicitly. Like Susan Phillips, Yu’s flag captain aboard (embarrassing though Honor still found the name) GSNS Honor Harrington, and Captain Frederick Bagwell, once the operations officer on Honor’s very first battle squadron staff and now Brentworth’s flag captain. Her command team might not be quite the “band of brothers (or sisters)” so beloved of military hagiography, but as she looked at all of those waiting faces and tasted the emotions behind them, she knew it was a better one than most flag officers could ever expect in mundane reality. And at least she’d had time to get to know the ones she hadn’t already known before arriving at Sidemore. A few of them would need closer attention, and some of the others were merely solid. But several of them were very good, indeed, and one or two probably deserved the label of brilliant. And every single one of them, however anxious he or she might be, was prepared to support whatever Honor decided.

But that was the difference between her and them, she thought as she crossed to her chair, nodded for all of them to resume their seats, arranged Nimitz on the back of her own chair, and sat herself. They were prepared to support her decisions; she was the one who had to make them.

“I’m glad we were all in range for a face-to-face meeting, Ladies and Gentlemen,” she told them. “Of course, I would have been even happier if the subject of this meeting had never arisen. Mercedes,” she looked at her chief of staff, “would you please summarize our latest information so we can be certain everyone is on the same page?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Brigham agreed, then paused and cleared her throat before she began in a deliberately dispassionate voice.

“Approximately three hours ago, the Manticoran-flag freighter Chantilly arrived here in Marsh from the Zoraster System. As many of you already knew, we had dispatched Captain Ferrero and the Jessica Epps to Zoraster to intercept a suspected slaver as part of Operation Wilberforce. According to our intelligence sources, the slaver in question was operating in the service of New Hamburg interests but squawking the false transponder code of an Andermani-flag merchie, the Sittich. Captain Ferrero was provided with a complete electronic fingerprint on the real Sittich in order to ensure that she could be positive the ship she stopped was not, in fact, the Andy to whom that code legitimately belonged.