"Forty minutes sounds rather short," Cavanagh said.

Alvarez snorted. "Try frighteningly short. Especially when you consider that Commodore Dyami wouldn't have meshed in right on top of the bogies. Real-space transit time would have eaten up part of that forty minutes. Maybe even most of it."

The briefing room was deserted when they arrived. Alvarez turned on the displays for them, then left to watch the proceedings with his fellow officers in the main command center. Five minutes later the watchship's recordings began.

It was worse than Cavanagh had expected. Worse than he could even have conceived it to be. To watch the entire task force being cut to ribbons was bad enough. To watch the alien ships coldly and systematically destroying the honeycomb pods afterward was horrifying.

And to know that he was watching the death of his son made him feel physically ill. And very, very old.

The battle and its murderous aftermath seemed to take forever. According to the display chrono, the entire episode took barely fourteen and a half minutes.

The record ended, and the display went off, and for a few minutes none of them spoke. Quinn broke the silence first. "We're in trouble," he said quietly. "Big trouble."

Cavanagh took a deep breath, blinking the sudden moisture out of his eyes. It would have been quick, at least. That was something to hold on to. It would have been quick. "Could the force have been taken by surprise?"

"No." Quinn was positive. "Dyami knew to be ready for combat. That's always the assumption when you contact a new race. Besides, the force was fighting—you could see missiles being launched. They just weren't detonating."

"You know if the Jutland had any Copperhead fighters aboard, Quinn?" Kolchin asked.

"I doubt it," Quinn said, shaking his head. "Most Copperhead units are stationed aboard Nova- and Supernova-class carriers these days, mostly out in Yycroman space. That's what I've heard, anyway. We could ask Anders on the way out."