“Alter course one-two-zero to starboard,” he said. “Maximum military power for the SDs. Shift formation to Mike-Delta-Three and prepare to launch LACs.”

Acknowledgments came back to him, and he could almost taste the sense of relief that flooded through his staff as they heard a trusted voice giving crisp, clear orders. It was, he thought bitterly, a reaction that was going to be repeated over and over again on the ships of his fleet. Repeated because he had taught his people that they could trust him. Because they had faith in him.

But this time, that faith was going to be disappointed. Even on his new course, his units were going to continue to slide into the arms of Harrington’s Manticoran units. His new vector would start generating lateral separation quickly, and it was the fastest possible course back to the system’s hyper limit. But it wouldn’t kill velocity quickly enough to prevent the range between him and the Manties from closing by at least another thirty light-seconds. And by the time he could kill an appreciable fraction of his closing velocity, the Graysons would be on a direct course for the point at which he would hit the hyper limit out-bound. If he could maintain his present acceleration, they wouldn’t—quite—catch him from their much lower base velocity, but they’d sure as hell overrun any cripples who fell behind. And the entire time he was trying to run away, they were going to be pounding him with a hurricane of missile fire precisely to produce as many cripples as they possible could. Not to mention LAC strikes.

Which meant that his fleet, and his people, were about to be destroyed.

· · • · ·

“So, they do have CLACs,” Honor said quietly as the display blossomed with hundreds upon hundreds of fresh impeller signatures.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Jaruwalski confirmed. The ops officer stood beside Lieutenant Commander Reynolds where they’d been studying the latest reports from the system surveillance platforms. Now she turned to face Honor and gestured at the LAC drives blazing in the plot.

“It looks like at least eight of their ‘superdreadnoughts’ are actually CLACs, Your Grace,” she said. “That makes them a hell of a lot bigger than anything we have, and it looks like each of their groups is at least a third again the size of a Covington’s. CIC estimates that they have right on two thousand of them.”

“Then they’re screwed,” Rafe Cardones said confidently from Honor’s com screen. “Two thousand gives them less than two hundred more than we have,” he went on, lumping the Manticoran and Grayson LAC groups together. “I can’t believe they could possibly have managed to improve their tech enough to keep us from tearing them apart when we’re that close to parity with them numerically.”

“You’re probably right,” Honor replied. “But let’s not get overconfident. ONI never even guessed they had CLACs, so we don’t have any meter stick at all for evaluating their LAC effectiveness.”

“You’re right, Your Grace,” Cardones admitted.