“I suppose there’s nothing anyone can do about that possibility,” Chong agreed. “Not that a proper chief of staff wouldn’t be busy reassuring me that they couldn’t possibly have done that.”

“Believe me, Sir. If I’d observed any signs of pre-battle jitters, I’d be reassuring the hell out of you.”

“They’re there,” Chong told him. “I’m just better at concealing them than most.”

“That’s one way to put it, I guess,” Tibolt said with a smile, and Chong chuckled, then glanced at the date/time display.

“Well, we’ll probably be finding out whether or not they’re justified in about forty minutes,” he said.

· · • · ·

“That’s funny.”

“What?” Lieutenant Jack Vojonovic looked up from the solitaire game on his hand comp.

“Did I miss something important on the shipping schedule?” Ensign Eldridge Beale replied, turning his head to look at his training officer.

“What are you talking about?” Vojonovic set the hand comp aside and swiveled his chair to face his own display. “We don’t have anything big on the ship sched until tomorrow, Eldridge. Why? Did you—”

Vojonovic’s question chopped off, and his eyes widened as he stared at the preposterous icons on his display. One or two merchantmen or transports arriving unannounced would have been almost routine. No one ever managed to get everything onto the shipping schedules, however hard they tried. But this was no singleton turning up without warning. It wasn’t even a convoy, and Vojonovic felt his stomach disappearing somewhere south of the soles of his shoes as he saw what had just come over the Grendelsbane alpha wall.

He couldn’t get a count yet. The point sources were too jumbled together. But he didn’t need a count to know there were a hell of a lot more of whoever they were than there was of Admiral Higgins’ task force.

That thought was still racing through his brain as his thumb came down on the big red button.

· · • · ·

“We’re gonna get reamed,” Lieutenant Stevens said flatly, watching the oncoming Peep task force on his tactical display as it swept steadily deeper into Maastricht.

“We’re outnumbered, sure,” Lieutenant Commander Jeffers replied in a distinctly reproving tone. The tac officer turned his head to look at HMS Starcrest’s CO.

“Sorry, Skipper,” he apologized. “It’s just—”

He gestured at the display, and Jeffers nodded grudgingly, because he knew his tac officer had a point.

“It doesn’t look good,” he conceded quietly, leaning towards Stevens to keep their conversation as private as possible on the destroyer’s relatively small bridge. “But at least we’ve got LACs and they don’t.”

“I know,” Stevens said, still apologetically. “But Incubus’ group is at least two squadrons understrength.”

“That bad?” Jeffers knew he hadn’t quite managed to keep the surprise out of his voice and went on quickly. “I mean, I knew they were short a few LACs, but two whole squadrons?”

“At least, Skipper,” Stevens told him. “A buddy of mine is Incubus’ assistant logistics officer. He says Captain Fulbright has been pestering the Admiralty for a couple of months, trying to get his group back up to strength. But—”