“We certainly owe Pirate’s Bane and her crew an enormous debt for alerting us to the Peeps’ presence,” Mercedes Brigham added.

“Agreed.” Honor nodded. “Which is why I instructed the Fleet repair base here in Sidemore to see to all of her damages gratis. If anyone back at Admiralty House has a problem with that, they can take it up with me.”

Her tone and expression alike suggested that anyone who did fault her decision probably would not enjoy her response.

“In the meantime, however,” she went on briskly, “the question is how we respond to this information.”

“I agree fully,” Alfredo Yu said. “The problem is that we’re still not entirely sure what information we have.”

“Captain Bachfisch’s people did get a few more facts out of Hecate’s database,” Lieutenant Commander Reynolds pointed out.

“But not very many,” Alice Truman objected. Reynolds looked at her, and she shrugged. “We know she was assigned to their ‘Second Fleet,’ ” she said. “But nothing in our intelligence files even shows that fleet’s existence. We have no idea how powerful it is, who’s in command of it, or precisely what its mission out here may be!”

“With all due respect, Dame Alice,” Reynolds replied, “we do know at least a little. For one thing, there’s a fragment of a report which refers to the fact that Hecate was assigned to this Second Fleet’s third task group. If it’s organized into at least three task groups, then it’s obviously a fairly good-sized force. And since Hecate’s survivors are being so intensely uncooperative with us, I think we have to assume that whatever reason it was sent out here for has something directly to do with us. And I’m very much afraid that I can think of only one scenario which would send a large Havenite fleet to an uninhabited star system this close to Marsh in complete secrecy.”

“You’re suggesting that they’re planning to attack us,” Anson Hewitt said flatly.

“I’m suggesting that they may be planning to attack us, Sir,” Reynolds corrected. Then he sighed. “No,” he admitted. “That’s being wishy-washy.” He faced Hewitt squarely. “The truth is, Sir, that I can’t really believe they’d send a heavy force out here under these conditions if they weren’t planning to jump us.”

Silence hovered in the conference room, bleak and bitter as the implications of the intelligence officer’s analysis sank into the brains of officers already confronting the early stages of a shooting war with the Andermani Empire.

“You may well be right, George,” Honor said after several seconds. “On the other hand, there’s one point that confuses me.”

“Only one?” McKeon laughed harshly. “There are dozens of them confusing me right now!”

“Only one main point of confusion,” Honor told him, then let her gaze sweep over the other officers in the compartment. “If all they wanted to do was to attack us, then the logical way for them to proceed would have been to move straight into the attack as soon as they reached Silesia, before some freak accident—like this one—betrayed their presence. But they didn’t do that. Instead, we’ve got this Second Fleet of theirs hiding out in an out of the way star system close enough to use as a jump-off point while one or two of their destroyers play postman back and forth between them and their closest diplomatic mission.”