7 In Enemy Hands by David Weber

Author:David Weber [Weber, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, High Tech, Harrington; Honor (Fictitious character), Space warfare, Women soldiers, Harrington; Honor (Fictitious character) - Fiction, Space warfare - Fiction, Women soldiers - Fiction
ISBN: 9780671877934
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 1997-07-31T23:00:00+00:00

"Thank you, Commander Metcalf," she said, and the calmness of her voice would have fooled anyone who didn't know her. She stood for another moment, rocking gently on the balls of her feet, then turned back to McKeon. "Captain McKeon," she said formally, "we must assume the enemy has taken the Adler System."

A ripple of shock flowed outward from her. Alistair McKeon's bridge officers were veterans.

Even before CIC reclassified the unknowns as hostile, the same explanation for the lack of a challenge had to have been nibbling at the backs of their brains, however unlikely and however much they would have preferred to deny the possibility, yet hearing their squadron commander actually say it was still a shock.

"But why come after us this way?" Venizelos asked. "The stealth I can understand, at least on the ones ahead of us, but we must've been right on top of Bandit One when we made our alpha translation. He had to see our footprint and get a good mass estimate off our impeller signature, so why wait—what? Over thirty-five minutes?—to start chasing us? Especially if he's a battlecruiser?"

"I don't know, Andy," McKeon said, never taking his eyes from Honor's. "Somebody must have picked up our footprint and warned the bastards in front of us— they certainly don't have the sensor range for it. So maybe that's what Bandit One's been doing: waiting until he was sure his buddies had received his alert."

"Probably," Honor agreed. "Not that an explanation really helps at this point." She crossed to Sarah DuChene's console and touched the astrogator on the shoulder. "Excuse me, Commander. I need to borrow your panel," she said almost absently. DuChene gave her a startled look, then moved out of her way, and Honor slid into the emptied chair.

Her eyes were as intent as her whirring thoughts, and her long fingers flicked over the number pad with crisp assurance. Usually she worked slowly and carefully, double- and even triple-checking her calculations, but now concentration overcame her normal lack of confidence in her mathematical ability and her fingers flew. A series of complex vectors—some red, some green—flashed across DuChene's display in rapid succession, but no one spoke as she worked, despite the ticking seconds.

It's going to be tight. Probably too tight, but there's no other way, is there? she thought, still with that inexplicable inner calm, looking at the results of her efforts. She felt something very different—something harsh and ugly with fear—gibbering on the far side of that calm, but she refused to let it affect her as she gazed at the last of the evasion courses she'd tried.

Had Prince Adrian been operating solo, Honor would already have ordered her to begin accelerating straight "up" from the ecliptic on a course which would have given her an excellent chance—not a certainty, but a chance any bookmaker would have taken—of getting away clean from all of her enemies. But she cruiser wasn't operating solo, which meant that simply running away, however tempting, was an unacceptable option.

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