Author's Notes: The nightmare and Shannon's thoughts are from Shannon's POV, because I thought that worked better.

I was watching again, just out of com pickup range as my mentor had accepted the com request from Admiral Harrington again. I knew how every line would go, but could never do anything to stop the Manties's nightmare missile.

"We meet again, Admiral Tourville," she had said, and her soprano voice was cold, like the ice of my homeworld's polar glaciers.

"Admiral Harrington," he had replied. "This is a surprise. I thought you were about eight light-minutes away." And I had thought so too!

He had gazed at her hard eyes, eyes like leveled missile tubes, and waited. The transmission lag for light-speed communications should have been eight minutes—sixteen minutes, for a two-way exchange—at that range, but she spoke again barely fifteen seconds after he finished. I had tried my best to hide my gasp about the FTL tech, with Admiral Harrington's quick response. It has to be an FTL to sub-light system.

"I am. I'm speaking to you over what we call a 'Hermes buoy.' It's an FTL relay with standard sub-light communication capability." The expression she produced was technically a smile, but it was one that belonged on something out of deep, dark oceanic depths. Normally, I'd have perked up at guessing it. When it had happened, so soon after the launch of the nightmare missile, I didn't. This time I knew what was going to happen. When it happened for real, I still had sorta known, even if I wasn't completely prepared. Sadly, I guessed it.

"We have several of them deployed around the system. I simply plugged into the nearest one so that I could speak directly to you," she continued in that same, icy-cold voice. "I'm sure you observed my birds' terminal performance. I'm also sure you understand I have the capability to blow every single one of your remaining ships out of space from my present position. I hope you aren't going to make it necessary for me to do so."

Admiral Tourville had looked at her, and I knew that last statement wasn't really accurate. I knew a part of her—the part behind those frozen eyes, that icy voice—hoped we would make it necessary. But I knew too many people had already died for him to kill still more out of sheer stupidity. And if he wouldn't, I wouldn't.

I know Admiral Tourville won't try to go out in a blaze of glory, as we don't have a chance anymore. The Manties's new nasty nightmare missile must have been deployed more extensively than we thought, and have an even more nightmarish range than we thought, with FTL.

"No, Your Grace," he said quietly. "I won't make it necessary. My ops officer won't either."

Another endless fifteen seconds dragged past. Then—

"I'm glad to hear that," she told him, "however my acceptance of your surrender is contingent upon the surrender of your ships— and their databases—in their present condition. Is that clearly understood, Admiral Tourville?" Oh, shit. Does she know I'm here, and is saying this to mock me on purpose? Or is this just because she can?

After working with him for so long, I could tell that he had hovered on the brink of refusing, of declaring that he would scrub his databases, as was customary, before surrendering a ship. But then he had looked into those icy eyes again, and the temptation vanished.

"It's... understood, Your Grace," he had made himself say, softly, as we sat there tasting the bitter poison of defeat. Defeat made all the more poisonous by how close Beatrice had come to success . . . and how completely it had failed, in the end. This was one of our worst nightmares, and we had taken a huge risk with Apollo deployment estimates. Linda had warned us that she wasn't sure, but we needed to do something to protect Haven. I popped my head barely into the pickup, and she had smiled at me with the same icy smile.

"Good," she said at last, after yet another fifteen-second delay. "Decelerate to zero relative to the system primary. You'll be boarded by prize officers once you do. In the meantime," she smiled again, that same terrifying smile, "my ships will remain here, where we can ... keep an eye on things."

Admiral Harrington had ended the call, and I nudged Admiral Tourville, so we could go talk somewhere unsurveiled, like my quarters.

"I'm going to try to feed the Manties fake numbers about our new tech, to try to make them underestimate it, if you approve, sir."

"There's no need for formalities now, Shannon. Go ahead, I'm sorry for dragging you along, and it's our only hope now." he had said softly, looking broken.

I nodded, before saying, "I left enough notes at Bolthole so they could continue the projects, and I've had a good XO for the past year, so we should be okay on that front. I don't think Duchess Harrington will end up torturing us for Intel, with the databases. Of course, Bolthole and my new tech projects that aren't deployed aren't in the database, so..."

She wakes up, and checks the time. 3:00 AM. I know I won't be able to get back to sleep, unless I work myself to sleep, with how bad this nightmare was. What made it worse, was that it's been less than a month since this happened. And I need to do something with my hands, and twirling my hair isn't it. She gets up quietly, grabs her datapad, and logs in. I also have an idea to get access to the source code…

Author's Notes: The part you recognize isn't mine, but I thought it would work well for this.