“And whatever their base accuracy might be, Your Grace,” Jaruwalski put in, “from everything I’ve seen so far, our ECM is going to degrade their accuracy a lot more than theirs is going to do to us. That’s even assuming that they’ve managed to improve their missile seekers as much as they have their EW capabilities.”

“Well, given that it looks like they have at least twice as many SD(P)s as Admiral McKeon does, that’s probably a good thing,” Honor replied with another smile, and Jaruwalski chuckled in appreciation as Honor turned to Lieutenant Kgari.

“How far are they from Suriago’s point of no return, Theophile?” she asked.

“They’ve been inbound for about two and a half hours at two hundred and seventy gravities, Your Grace. Their base velocity is up to two-six-point-seven thousand KPS. Assuming they maintain heading and acceleration, they’ll hit no return in another eleven-point-five minutes, Your Grace,” her staff astrogator told her.

“Then I suppose it’s about time,” Honor said almost regretfully. “Harper, pass the word to Borderer to stand by to execute Paul Revere in twelve minutes.”

“Aye, aye, Your Grace.”

· · • · ·

Twelve more minutes passed. Second Fleet’s base velocity rose to just over 28,530 KPS and Task Force 34’s velocity reached 19,600 KPS. The range continued to fall, gnawed away by a closing velocity of almost sixteen percent of light-speed. It dropped from fifty-three million kilometers to barely thirty-seven and a half million, and then HMS Werewolf transmitted a brief FTL message to HMS Borderer. The destroyer, almost ten full light-minutes outside the system hyper limit received the transmission, acknowledged receipt, and translated up into hyper… where it sent a second transmission.

Twenty-six seconds later, the Protector’s Own, Grayson Space Navy, made its alpha translation out of hyper, directly behind Second Fleet, and began accelerating furiously in-system in its wake.

· · • · ·

“Hyper footprint!” Commander Marston announced. “Multiple hyper footprints, bearing one-eight-zero, zero-two-niner, range approximately one light-minute!”

Lester Tourville snapped upright in his chair and spun to face the ops officer. Marston stared at his readouts for a few more seconds, then looked up to meet his admiral’s eyes.

“They’re more Manties, Sir,” he said in a tone of disbelief. “Either that… or Graysons.”

“They can’t be,” DeLaney protested almost automatically and waved one hand at the plot. “We’ve got positive IDs on all of Harrington’s ships. They can’t have fooled the RDs at such close range—not even with their EW!”

Tourville’s mind fought to grapple with Marston’s impossible announcement. DeLaney was right. The range to Harrington’s ships was less than two light-minutes. It might have been possible for Manticoran electronic warfare systems to fool shipboard sensors even at that short a range, but Second Fleet’s recon drones had closed to within less than three light-seconds. At that range, they could make visual identification on a superdreadnought or a LAC carrier, and they’d accounted for every single ship Harrington had.

Or, his mind told him coldly, for every ship NavInt said she had, anyway.