1

THE SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR
David Weber
[03 Nov 01 - proofed and re-released for #bookz]
"What this country needs is a short, victorious war to stem the tide of
revolution."
V.K. Plehve, Russian Minister of the Interior to General A.N. Kuroparfon,
Minister of
War, 200 Ante-Diaspora (1903 C.E.J, on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War)
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of
the most ancient
and dangerous of human illusions."
Robert Lynd (224-154 Ante-Diaspora)
PROLOGUE
Hereditary President Sidney Harris watched the long cortege wind out of sight
along the Promenade
of the People, then turned his back upon it. The conference rooms two-
hundredth floor height had
transformed the black-draped vehicles into mere beetles crawling harmlessly
along an urban canyon, but
their implications showed only too clearly in the grim faces that looked back
at him.
He crossed to his chair and sat, propping his elbows on the long table and
leaning his chin into his
palms while he rubbed his eyes. Then he straightened.
"All right. I've got to be at the cemetery in an hour, so let's keep this
short." He turned his eyes to
Constance Palmer-Levy, Secretary of Security for the People's Republic of
Haven. "Anything more on
how they got to Walter, Connie?"
"Not specifically, no." Palmer-Levy shrugged. "Walter's bodyguards stopped the
gunman a bit too
permanently. We can't question a dead man, but we've identified him as one
Everett Kanamashi . . . and
what little we have on him suggests he was a fringe member of the CRU."
"Wonderful." Elaine Dumarest, the secretary of war, looked ready to chew
splinters out of the table
edge. She and Walter Frankel had been adversaries for years—inevitably, given
the budgetary-conflicts
between their ministries—but Dumarest was an organized individual. She
preferred a neat and tidy
universe in which to make and execute her own policies, and people like the
Citizens' Rights Union were
high on her list of untidy individuals.
"You think the CRU leadership targeted Walter?" Ron Bergren asked, and Palmer-
Levy frowned.
"We've got our moles as deep into them as we can," she told the secretary of
foreign affairs. "None of
them suggested the leadership was contemplating anything drastic, but there's
been a lot of rank-and-file
anger over Walter's BLS proposals. They're getting more security conscious,
too. I'm seeing signs of a
real cellular organization, so I suppose it's possible their action committee
authorized it without our
finding out."
"I don't like the sound of that, Sid," Bergren murmured, and Harris nodded.
The Citizens' Rights
Union advocated "direct action in the legitimate interest of the people"
                                      2

(meaning a perpetually higher
Dolist standard of living) but normally limited itself to riots, vandalism,
occasional terrorist bombings,
and attacks on lower- level bureaucrats as object lessons. The assassination
of a cabinet minister was a
new and dangerous escalation . . . assuming the CRU had, indeed, authorized
the attack.
"We ought to go in and clean those bastards out," Dumarest growled. "We know
who their leaders
are. Give the names to NavSec and let my Marines take care of them—
permanently."
"Wrong move," Palmer- Levy disagreed. "That kind of suppression would only
make the mob even
less tractable, and at least letting them go on meeting lets us get a read on
what they're up to." "Like this time?" Dumarest asked with awful irony, and
Palmer-Levy flushed.
"If—and I emphasize if—the CRU leadership did plan or authorize Walter's
murder, then I have to
admit we dropped the ball. But as you just pointed out, we've been able to
compile lists of members and
sympathizers. Drive them underground, and we lose that capability. And, as I
said, there's no direct
evidence Kanamashi wasn't acting on his own."
"Yeah, sure." Dumarest snorted.
Palmer-Levy started to answer hotly, but Harris' raised hand stopped her.
Personally, the President
tended to agree with Dumarest, but he could see Palmer- Levy's point as well.
The CRU believed the
Dolists had a God-given right to an ever higher Basic Living Stipend. They
blew up other people
(including their fellow Dolists) to make their point, and it would have done
Harris' heart good to shoot
every one of them. Unfortunately, the Legislaturalist families who ran the
People's Republic had no
choice but to permit organizations like the CRU to exist. Quite aside from the
potential for even greater
violence inherent in any open move against them, they'd been around for so
long, become so deeply
entrenched, that eliminating one would only make room for another, so it made
sense to keep an eye on
the devil they knew rather than rooting it up for a devil they knew nothing
about.
Yet Walter Frankel's assassination was frightening. Dolist violence was almost
legitimized, part of
the power structure which kept the mob satisfied while the Legislaturalists
got on with the business of
running the government. Occasional riots and attacks on expendable portions of
the Republic's
bureaucratic structure had become a sanctioned part of what passed for the
political process, but there
was—or had been—a tacit understanding between the Dolist leaders and the
establishment that excluded
cabinet- level officials and prominent Legislaturalists from the list of
acceptable targets.
"I think," the President said finally, his slow words chosen with care, "that
we have to assume, for the
moment at least, that the CRU did sanction the attack."
                                      3

"I'm afraid I have to agree," Palmer-Levy conceded unhappily. "And, frankly,
I'm almost equally
worried over reports that Rob Pierre is sucking up to the CRU leadership."
"Pierre?" Surprise sharpened the President's voice, and the security chief
nodded eve n less happily.
Robert Stanton Pierre was Haven's most powerful Dolist manager. He not only
controlled almost eight
percent of the total Dolist vote but served as the current speaker of the
Peoples Quorum, the "democratic
caucus" which told the Dolist Mana gers how to vote.
That much power in any non- Legislaturalist's hands was enough to make anyone
nervous, since the
hereditary governing families relied on the People's Quorum to provide the
rubber-stamp "elections"
which legitimized their reign. But Pierre was scary. He'd been born a Dolist
himself and clawed his way
from a childhood on the BLS to his present power with every dirty trick
ambition could conceive of.
Some of them hadn't even occurred to the Legislaturalists themselves, and if
he followed their instructions
because he knew which side his bread was buttered on, he was still a lean and
hungry man.
"Are you certain about Pierre?" Harris demanded after a moment, and Palmer-
Levy shrugged.
"We know he's been in contact with the CRP," she said, and Harris nodded. The
Citizens' Rights
Party was the political wing of the CRU, operating openly within the People's
Quorum and decrying the
"understandable but regrettable extremism to which some citizens have been
forced." It was a threadbare
mask, but accepting it gave the Quorum's managers an often useful pipeline
into the CRUs underground
membership.
"We don't know exactly what they've been talking about," Palmer-Levy went on,
"and his position as
Speaker of the Quorum means he could have any number of legit imate reasons
for meeting with them.
But he seems to be getting awful chummy with some of their delegates."
"In that case, I think we have to look very seriously at the possibility that
he knew the assassination
was coming," Harris said slowly. "I'm not saying he had anything to do with
planning it, but if there was
official CRU involvement, he could have known—or suspected—what they were up
to. And if he did know and didn't tell us, it could have been because he saw a
need to cement his own relationship with
them, even at our expense."
"You really think things are that bad, Sid?" Bergren asked, and the President
shrugged.
"No, not really. But we can live with being overly pessimistic, whereas if the
CRU did okay it—and
if Pierre knew something about it but chose not to tell us—and we assume they
didn't, we could talk
ourselves into a serious domestic policy error."
"Are you suggesting that we abandon Walters BLS proposals?" George De La
Sangliere asked. The
portly, white-haired De La Sangliere had succeeded Frankel as secretary of the
economy . . . not without
                                      4

strenuous efforts to decline the "honor." No one in his right mind wanted to
take responsibility for the
Republic's decrepit fiscal structure, and De La Sangliere's expression was
unhappy as he asked the
question.
"I don't know, George." Harris sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I hate to say it, but I don't really think we can," De La Sangliere replied.
"Not unless we can cut
military spending by at least ten percent."
"Impossible," Dumarest snapped instantly. "Mr. President, you know that's out
of the question! We
have to maintain our fleet strength at current levels—at least—until we deal
with the Manticoran Alliance
once and for all."
De La Sangliere frowned without looking at her while he kept his eyes almost
pleadingly upon his
president, but the hope faded from them at Harris' expression.
"We should have hit them four years ago," Duncan Jessup grunted. The secretary
of public
information was a stocky, perpetually disheveled man who cultivated the public
image of a grumpy but
golden-hearted uncle. Public Information was the official government
spokesman, its main propaganda
pipeline, but it had also wrested the Bureau of Mental Hygiene away from the
Ministry of Public Health
twenty years before. Jessup employed the Mental Hygiene Police with a cold and
ruthless dispatch which
sometimes frightened even Harris, and his personal control of the MHP made him
the most powerful
member of the cabinet, after the President himself.
"We weren't ready," Dumarest protested. "We were overextended digesting our
new acquisitions,
and—"
"And you got too fucking fancy," Jessup interrupted with a rude snort. "First
that screw- up in Basilisk
and then the disaster in Yeltsin and Endicott. All we've done is let them
build their 'alliance' while our
military potential held steady. Are you seriously suggesting we're in a
stronger relative position now than
we were men?"
"That's enough, Duncan," Harris said quietly. Jessup glowered at him for a
moment, then lowered his
eyes, and the President went on more calmly than he felt, 'The entire cabinet
endorsed both operations,
and I'll remind all of you that however spectacular those failures were, most
of our other operations have
succeeded. We may not have prevented the Manticorans from building up their
alliance, but we have
secured countervailing positions. At the same time, I think we all know the
showdown with Manticore is
coming." Heads nodded unhappily, and Harris turned his eyes to Fleet Admiral
Amos Parnell, CNO of the
Peoples' Navy, who sat at Dumarest's elbow. "How do the odds really stack up,
Amos?"
"Not as well as I'd like, Sir," Parnell admitted. "The evidence suggests
Manticore has a considerably
greater technical advantage than anyone thought four years ago. I've
                                      5

personally debriefed the survivors
from the Endicott-Yeltsin operation. None of our people were involved in the
final action there, and we
don't have any hard data to support our analyses of what happened, but it's
pretty clear the Mantles took
out a Saladin-class battle-cruiser with only a heavy cruiser and a destroyer.
Of course, the Masadans
crewing Saladin were hardly up to our standards in terms of training and
experience, but that's still a
disturbing indication of our hardware's relative capabilities. On the basis of
what happened to Saladin and reports of survivors from the earlier actions,
we're estimating that, ton- for-ton, their technical superiority
probably gives their units a twenty to thirty percent edge over our own."
"Surely not that much," Jessup objected, and Parnell shrugged.
"My personal gut feeling is that that's conservative, Mr. Secretary. Let's
face it, their education and
industrial systems are much better than ours, and it's reflected in their R&D
establishment."
The admiral allowed his eyes to angle towards Eric Grossman as he spoke, and
the secretary of
education reddened. The catastrophic consequences of the "democratization of
education" in the People's
Republic were a sore point between his ministry and the ministries of
economics and war alike, and the
exchanges between him and Dumarest since the superiority of Manticore's
technology had become
evident had been acid.
"At any rate," Parnell went on, "Manticore has a definite edge, however
pronounced it may actually
be. On the other hand, we have something like twice their absolute tonnage,
and forty percent of their wall
of battle consists of dreadnoughts. RMN dreadnoughts may be bigger than our
own, but ninety percent of
our wall are superdreadnoughts. Added to that, we've got a lot of combat
experience, and their alliance
partners don't add much to their actual fighting power."
"Then why are we so worried about them?" Jessup demanded.
"Because of astrography," Parnell replied. "The Manties already had the
advantage of the interio r
position; now they've built up a defense in depth. I doubt it's as deep as
they'd like—in fact, it's barely
thirty light-years across at Yeltsin—but now that they've closed the gap at
Hancock, they've got an entire
network of interlocking fortified supply and maintenance bases all along the
frontier. That gives them the
advantages of forward surveillance, and each of those bases is a potential
nexus from which they can raid
our supply lines if we advance against them, as well. Their patrols already
cover every axis of approach,
Mr. Secretary, and it's only going to get worse once the actual shooting
starts. We'll have to fight our way
through them, taking out the bases in our path as we go to protect our flanks
and rear, and that means
they're going to have advance notice of our line of attack and be able to
deploy their strength to meet us
head on."
Jessup grunted and leaned back, lumpy face set in a frown, and Parnell went on
                                      6

levelly.
"At the same time, we've established our own bases to cover theirs, and as the
attacker, we'll hold the
advantage of the initiative. We'll know when and where we actually intend to
strike; they'll have to cover
all the points we might choose to attack, and do it with a numerically
inferior fleet, to boot. I don't think
they can stop us if we commit to an all-out offensive, but they're going to
hurt us worse than anyone else
has."
"Are you saying we should attack them, or not, then?" Harris asked quietly.
Parnell glanced sideways
at the secretary of war, who gestured for him to go ahead and answer, and
cleared his throat.
"Nothing is ever certain in a military campaign, Mr. President. As I've said,
I have serious
reservations about the inferiority of our hardware. At the same time, I feel
we currently have a decisive
quantitative edge, and I suspect the gap in our technical capabilities is only
going to get worse. I'll be
perfectly honest with you, Sir. I don't want to take Manticore on—not because
I think they can defeat us,
but because they can weaken us— but if we have to fight, we should probably do
it as soon as possible."
"And if we do, how should we go about it?" Jessup asked sharply.
"My staff and I have drawn up pla ns, under the overall operational code name
of 'Perseus,' for several
possible approaches. Perseus One envisions the capture of Basilisk as a
preliminary in order to allow us to
attack Manticore directly via the Manticore Wormhole Junction with
simultaneous assaults down the
Basilisk-Manticore and Trevor's Star-Manticore lines. It gives us the best
chance to attain surprise and
win the war in a single blow, but runs the greatest risk of catastrophic
losses if we fail.
"Perseus Two is more conventional. We would assemble our forces at DuQuesne
Base in the Barnett
System, far enough inside the frontier that Manticore couldn't tell what we
were up to. From there, we'd attack southwest against Yeltsin, the thinnest
point in their perimeter. With Yeltsin in our hands, we
would advance directly against Manticore, taking out the bases on our flanks
to protect our rear as we
went. Losses would be higher than a successful Perseus One, but we'd avoid the
risk of the total
destruction of our forces which Perseus One entails.
"Perseus Three is a variant of Perseus Two, directing two prongs from Barnett,
one against Yeltsin
and a second striking northwest, against Hancock. The intention is to present
Manticore with two axes of
threat, forcing them to split their forces aga inst them. There's some risk of
their concentrating their total
strength to defeat one attack in detail, but the odds are against it because
of the risks it would force them
to accept against the other arm of our offensive. In my staffs opinion, our
exposure to that sort of attack
would also be offset by our own ability to dictate the pace of operations by
choosing when to push with
                                      7

either prong.
"Finally, there's Perseus Four. Unlike the others, Four envisions a limited
offensive to weaken the
Alliance rather than take Manticore completely out with one blow. In this
instance, we would attack
northwest once more, toward Hancock Station. There are two possible variants.
One is to reinforce our
forces at Seaford Nine and attack Hancock directly, while the othe r is to
send a separate force out from
Barnett, take Zanzibar, then hook up to the north while our Seaford Nine
forces attack southwest to take
Hancock in a pincer. The immediate objective is to destroy the only major
Manty base in the area and
conquer Zanzibar, Alizon, and Yorik, after which we should offer to negotiate
a ceasefire in place. The
loss of three inhabited star systems—especially in an area only recently added
to the Alliance—would
have to shake the Manties' other alliance partners, and possession of the
region would position us quite
nicely for a later activation of Perseus
One or Three."
"And if Manticore chooses to continue operations rather than accept our peace
terms?" Palmer-Levy
asked. "In that case we could proceed with Perseus Three—unless we've been
hurt far worse than I
expect—or retreat to our pre-war positions and negotiate a ceasefire from
there. The second option would
be far more disadvantageous, but it would still be available if military
operations blow up in our faces."
"And do you have a preference for one of the four attack plans, Amos?" Harris
asked,
"My personal preference is for Perseus Three, if we want a permanent decision,
or for Perseus Four,
which substantially lessens our overall risk, if our objectives are more
limited. Exactly what our actual
objective is, of course, is a political decision, Mr. President."
"I see." Harris pinched the bridge of his nose again, then looked around the
table. "Comments, ladies
and gentlemen?"
"We've got to continue expanding our economic base if we're going to maintain
the Basic Living
Stipend payments," De La Sangliere said heavily, "And if the CRU did take
Walter out, I think we have to
be very cautious about curtailing the BLS."
Harris nodded somberly. Two-thirds of Havens home-world population was now on
the Dole, and
rampant inflation was an economic fact of life. Faced with a treasury which
had been effectively empty
for over a century, desperation had driven Frankel to propose limiting BLS
adjustments to the inflation
rate, maintaining its actual buying power without increase. The carefully
phrased "leaks" Jessup had
arranged to test-flight the idea had provoked riots in virtually every Prole
housing unit, and, two months
later, Kanamashi had put twelve explosive pulser darts into Frankel's chest,
requiring a closed-coffin state
funeral.
                                      8

It was, Harris reflected grimly, one of the less ambiguous "protest votes" on
record, and he
understood the near panic thoughts of actual BLS cuts woke in his cabinet
colleagues.
"Given those considerations," De La Sangliere went on, "we've got to gain
access to the systems
beyond Manticore, especially the Silesian Confederacy. If anyone knows some
way we can grab them off
without fighting Manticore first, I, for one, would be delighted to hear of
it." 'There isn't one." Palmer-Levy looked around the table, daring anyone to
disagree with her flat
assertion. No one did, and Jessup endorsed her comment with a sharp nod.
Bergren looked far more
unhappy than either of his colleagues, but the dapper foreign minister also
nodded unwilling assent.
"Besides," the security minister went on, "a foreign crisis might help cool
off the domestic front, at least
in the short term. It always has before."
'That's true." There was an almost hopeful note in De La Sangliere's voice.
'Traditionally, the People's
Quorum's always accepted a freeze in the BLS for the duration of actual
military operations."
"Of course they have." Dumarest snorted. They know we're fighting for more
slops for their trough!"
Harris winced at her caustic cynicism. It was just as well Elaine was in
charge of the war ministry
and not something with more public exposure, he reflected, but he couldn't
fault her analysis.
"Exactly." Palmer-Levy's smile was cold as she glanced at Parnell. "You say we
may take losses
against the Manticorans, Admiral?" Parnell nodded. "But would operations
against them be extended?"
"I don't see how they could be too extended, Ms. Secretary. Their fleet simply
isn't large enough to
absorb the land of losses we can. Unless they somehow managed to inflict an
incredibly lopsided loss
ratio, it would have to be a fairly short war."
"That's what I thought," Palmer-Levy said in a satisfied tone. "And it might
actually work in our
favor to take a certain number of casualties. I'm sure you could put the right
spin control on it and use the
deaths of our gallant defenders to mobilize public opinion in our time of
crisis, couldn't you, Duncan?"
"I could, indeed." Jessup almost licked his chops—and did rub his hands—at the
prospect of such a
propaganda coup, oblivious to the sudden, angry glitter in Parnell's eyes "In
fact, we can probably build
up a balance of support for future need, if we handle it right. It would
certainly be a far cry from the kind
of growing unrest we're seeing now, anyway."
'There you are, then," Palmer-Levy said. "What we need is a short, victorious
war ... and I think we
all know where we can find one, don't we?'
CHAPTER ONE
Dame Honor Harrington dropped her long, rolled bundle and removed a hat
someone on Old Earth of
two millennia past would have called a fedora. She dried the sweatband with a
                                      9

handkerchief, then sat on
the weatherworn rock outcrop with a sigh of relief, laid the hat beside her,
and looked out over the
magnificent panorama.
Wind cold enough to make her grateful for her leather jacket ruffled sweat-
damp hair that was longer
than it had been before her convalescence. It was still far shorter than
current fashion decreed, but she ran
her fingers through it with a curiously guilty sensuality. She'd worn it
cropped close for helmets and zerogee
for so long she'd forgotten how satisfying its curly, silken weight could
feel.
She lowered her hands and stared out over the endless reaches of the Tannerman
Ocean. Even here, a
thousand meters above its wrink led blue and silver, she smelled salt on the
chill wind. It was a smell she'd
been born to, yet it was perpetually new, as well. Perhaps because she'd spent
so little time on Sphinx in
the twenty-nine T-years since joining the Navy.
She turned her head and looked down, down, down to where she'd begun her
climb. A small splash of
bright green stood out boldly against the red-gold and yellow of autumn-
touched grass, and she twitched
the muscles of her left eye socket in one of the patterns she'd learned in the
endless months of therapy.
There was a moment of disorientation, a sense that she was moving even while
she sat still, and the
green splash was suddenly much larger. She blinked, still not fully accustomed
to the effect, and reminded
herself to get more practice with her new eye. But the thought was distant,
almost absentminded, as the
prosthesis' telescopic function brought the sprawling, green-roofed structure
and the greenhouses
clustered about it into sharp focus. That roof rose in a steep, snow-shedding
peak, for Sphinx lay so far from the GO component of the
Manticore binary system that only an exceptionally active carbon dioxide cycle
made it habitable at all. It
was a cold world, with huge icecaps, a year sixty-three T- months long, and
long, slow seasons. Even here,
barely forty- five degrees below the equator, its natives measured snowfall in
meters, and children born in
autumn—as she herself had been—learned to walk before spring came.
Off-worlders shuddered at the very thought of a Sphinx winter. If pressed,
they might agree that
Manticore-B IV, otherwise known as Gryphon, had more violent weather, but it
was also warmer, and its
year was much shorter. At least whatever happened there was over three times
as quickly, and nothing
could change their considered opinion that anyone who voluntarily lived on
Sphinx year-round had to be
crazy.
Honor smiled at the thought as she studied the stone house where twenty
generations of Harringtons
had been born, but there was an edge of truth in it. Sphinx's climate and
gravity made for sturdy,
independent inhabitants. They might not be crazy, but they were self-
sufficient and stubborn—one might
                                      10

even say obstinate.
Leaves rustled, and she turned her head as a fast-moving blur of cream-and-
gray fur snaked out of the
pseudo- laurel behind her. The six- limbed treecat belonged to the crown oak
and picket wood of lower
elevations, but he was at home here in the Copper Walls, as well. Certainly
he'd spent enough time
wandering their slopes with her as a child to become so.
He scampered across the bare rock, and she braced herself as he leapt into her
lap. He landed with a
solid thump, his nine-plus standard kilos working out at almost twelve and a
half here, and she oofed in
reproach.
He seemed unimpressed and rose on his haunches, bracing his mid- limbs' hand-
paws on her
shoulders to gaze into her face with bright, grass-green eyes. Near-human
intelligence examined her from
those very unhuman eyes, and then he touched her left cheek with a long-
fingered true-hand and gave a
soft sigh of satisfaction when the skin twitched at the contact.
"No, it hasn't stopped working again," she told him, running her own fingers
over his fluffy fur. He
sighed again, this time in unabashed pleasure, and oozed down with a buzzing
purr. He was a limp, heavy
warmth across her thighs, and his own contentment flowed into her. She'd
always known he could sense
her emotions, and she'd wondered, sometimes, if she could truly sense his or
only thought she could. A
year ago he'd finally proven she could, and now she savored his content like
her own as her fingers
stroked his spine.
Stillness gathered about her, perfected rather than marred by the crisp, sharp
breeze, and she let it fill
her as she sat on the rock shelf as she had in childhood, mistress of all she
surveyed, and wondered who
she truly was.
Captain Dame Honor Harrington, Countess Harrington, Knight Commander of the
Order of King
Roger. When she was in uniform, her space-black tunic blazed with ribbons: the
Manticore Cross, the Star
of Grayson, the Distinguished Service Order, the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
with cluster, the bloodred
stripe of the Monarch's Thanks with two clusters, two wound stripes . . . The
list went on and on, and
there'd been a time when she'd craved those medals, those confirmations of
achievement and ability. She
was proud of them even now, but they were no longer the stuff of dreams. She'd
learned too much about
what those bits of ribbon cost.
Nimitz raised his head and kneaded the tips of his claws through her trous ers
to register his discontent
with the direction of her thoughts. She stroked his ears in apology, but she
didn't stop thinking them; they
were the reason she'd spent the last four hours hiking up here to the refuge
of her childhood. Nimitz
studied her for a moment, then sighed in resignation and laid his chin back on
his true-hands and left her
                                      11

to them. She touched the left side of her face and clenched her cheek muscles
under her fingers. It had taken
over eight Sphinxian months—almost a full T- year—of reconstructive surgery
and therapy for her to be
able to do that. Her father was one of Manticore's finest neurosurgeons, yet
the damage the disrupter bolt
had wreaked had taxed even his skill, for Honor was one of the minority of
humans who did not respond
to regeneration therapies.
There was always some loss of function in neural repairs without regen. In her
case, the loss had been
unusually severe and complicated by a stubborn tendency to reject natural
tissue grafts. Two complete
nerve replacements had failed; in the end, they'd been forced to use
artificial nerves with powerful
boosters, and the unending surgery, the repeated failures, and long, agonizing
therapy as she struggled to
master the high-tech substitutes had almost defeated her. Even now there was
an alien, sharp-edged
strangeness to reports from her synthetic nerves. Nothing felt quite right, as
if the implants were an illtuned
sensor array—a sensation the undamaged nerves on the other side of her face
only made worse by
comparison—and she doubted she would ever truly become accustomed to it.
She returned her gaze to the distant house and wondered how much of her
melancholy stemmed from
the months of strain and pain. There'd been no fast, simple way through them,
and she'd wept herself to
sleep more than once as the unnatural fire crackled in her face. There were no
scars to reveal the massive
repairs—no visible ones, anyway—and her face was almost as sensitive, its
muscles almost as responsive,
as they'd ever been. But only almost. She could tell the difference when she
watched herself in a mirror,
see the slight hesitation when the left side of her mouth moved, hear the
occasionally slurred words that
hesitation produced, even as she felt the skewed sensitivity when the wind
kissed her cheek.
And deep inside, where no one else could see, there were other scars.
The dreams were less frequent now, but they remained cold and bitter. Too many
people had died
under her orders ... or because she hadn't been there to keep them alive. And
with those dreams came selfdoubt.
Could she face the challenge of command once more? And even if she could,
should the Fleet trust
her with others' lives?
Nimitz roused again and rose on his haunches once more, bracing his true-hands
against her
shoulders. He stared into her chocolate-brown eyes—one natural, the other born
of advanced composites
and molecular circuitry, and she felt his support and love flow into her.
She scooped him up and buried her wind-chilled face in his soft fur, embracing
its physical warmth
even as she treasured that deeper, more precious inner one, and he purred to
her until she lowered him
once more and drew a deep, deep breath.
She filled her lungs with crisp air, sucking the early fall chill deep until
                                      12

her chest ached with it, and
then she exhaled in one long, endless breath that carried away . . .
something. She couldn't put a name to
that something, yet she felt it go, and something else roused in its place, as
if waking from long sleep.
She'd been planetbound too long. She no longer belonged here on this beloved
mountain, looking
down on the place of her birth through its chilled crystal air. For the first
time in far too long she felt the
call of the stars not as a challenge she feared she could no longer meet but
with the old need to be about it,
and she sensed the change in Nimitz's emotions as he shared her feelings.
"All right, Stinker—you can stop worrying now," she told him, and his purr
turned brisker and
louder. His prehensile tail twitched as he touched her nose with his, and she
laughed as she hugged him
close once more.
It wasn't over. She knew that. But at least she knew where she had to go, what
she had to do, to lay
the nightmares to rest at last.
"Yeah," she told the treecat. "I guess it is about time I stopped feeling
sorry for myself, isn't it?"
Nimitz twitched his tail more strongly in agreement. "And it's time I got back
on a command deck, too,"
she added. "Assuming, of course, that The Powers That Be want me back." This
time there was no fresh
flash of pain at the qualifier, and she smiled in gratitude. "In the
meantime," she said more briskly, "it's also time the two of us got airborne."
She stood, set Nimitz on the rock, and bent over her long bundle. She
unfastened the straps that held
it closed, and alloy clicked as she assembled the tubular frame with deft,
practiced fingers. She and
Nimitz had discovered the wild joy of riding the Copper Walls' glorious winds
before she was twelve Tyears
old, and the 'cat bleeked in encouragement as she stretched the infinitely
tough, gossamer thin fabric
into place.
It took less than half an hour to assemble the hang-glider and double-check
every joint. She slipped
into the harness with the specially modified safety straps for Nimitz, and he
scampered up her back and
clung to her sho ulders as she adjusted them about him. She felt his delight
and anticipation bubbling with
her own exuberance, and her natural eye sparkled as she clipped the harness
leads to the glider and
gripped the hand bar.
"All right, hang on!" she told him, and launched herself over the edge of the
long, lofty drop with a.
whoop of sheer delight.
The sun was a fading rim of red-orange beyond the Copper Walls' peaks as Honor
made the final
turn. She floated like a Sphinx albatross, five kilometers off- shore, and her
eyes slitted with amusement as
she saw the bright splash of light against the deep twilight at the mountains'
feet. The Harrington
homestead's brilliant exterior lights blazed in the darkness, for her steward—
who obviously thought a
                                      13

four-hour hike followed by a three-hour glide was a bit much for a recent
invalid—was taking no chances
with his captain's landing.
She grinned and shook her head fondly. Hang- gliding was a planetary passion
on Sphinx, but Senior
Chief Steward MacGuiness was from the capital world of Manticore. She
suspected that he believed all
Sphinxians (herself included) were more than a bit mad and needed looking
after. He certainly did his
level best to rule her life with an iron hand, and while it would never do to
admit that she enjoyed the way
he fussed over—and at—her, she had to admit (privately) that this time he had
a point. She'd been an
expert glider for over thirty T-years. As such she should have had the sense
to get herself home when she
had good light for the landing, which meant she was going to have to endure
his ever so respectful
reproaches with meek acceptance.
She swept in from the sea, adjusting her weight with finicky precision,
smoothing her angle of
descent, and the ground rushed up toward her with suddenly breathtaking speed.
Then the brilliant light
was right in front of her, her dropping feet reached out, and Nimitz chittered
with delight as she raced
forward, absorbing her velocity with an exultant laugh of her own.
She lost the last of her speed and went down on one knee, resting the glider
frame on the red-gold
grass before the house, and a cold, whiskered nose caressed her right ear as
Nimitz radiated his own
content. She unfastened his safety straps, and the 'cat dropped lightly to the
ground and sat up to watch
her unlatch her own straps and rise, stretching until her shoulders popped and
grinning at him like a
schoolgirl. Then she collapsed the glider with a few practiced motions—not
completely, just into a
halfway convenient burden—and tucked it under her arm as she headed for the
house.
"You left your com home again, Ma'am," a respectful, gently reproving voice
said as she stepped up
onto the glassed- in storm porch.
"Did I?" she asked innocently. "How careless of me. It must have slipped my
mind."
"Of course it did," MacGuiness agreed, and she turned her head to give him a
brilliant smile. He
smiled back, but there was an edge of carefully hidden regret behind his eyes.
Even now the left side of
the Captain's mouth was less expressive and responsive, giving her smile a
lopsided quality that was more
sensed than seen. "The fact that someone might have called you in earlier had
nothing at all to do with it,"
he added, and Honor chuckled.
"Not a thing," she said, crossing the porch to stand the collapsed glider in
the corner. "As it happens, I did try to com you, Ma'am," MacGuiness said
after a moment, his voice more
serious. "A letter from the Admiralty arrived this afternoon."
Honor froze for just one moment, then adjusted the glider's position with
careful precision. The
                                      14

Admiralty used electronic mail for most purposes; official letters were sent
only under very special
circumstances, and she schooled her face into calm and made herself fight down
a sudden surge of
excitement before she turned and raised an eyebrow.
"Where is it?"
"Beside your plate, Ma'am." MacGuiness glanced pointedly at his chrono. "Your
supper's waiting,"
he added, and Honor's mouth quirked in another smile.
"I see," she murmured. "Well, let me get washed up and I'll deal with both of
them, Mac."
"At your convenience, Ma'am," MacGuiness said without a trace of triumph.
Honor forced herself to move without haste as she walked into the dining room
and felt the quiet old
house about her like a shield. She was an only child, and her parents had an
apartment near their medical
offices in Duvalier City, almost five hundred kilometers to the north. They
were seldom "home" except on
weekends, and her birthplace always seemed a bit empty without them. It was
odd. Somehow she always
pictured them here whenever she was away, as if they and the house were a
single, inseparable entity, like
a protecting shadow of her childhood.
MacGuiness was waiting, napkin neatly folded over one forearm, as she slid
into her chair. One of
the perks for a captain of the list was a permanently assigned steward, though
Honor still wasn't entirely
positive how MacGuiness had chosen himself for that duty. It was just one of
those inevitable things, and
he watched over her like a mother hawk, but he had his own ironclad rules.
They included the notion that
nothing short of pitched battle should be allowed to interfere with his
captain's meals, and he cleared his
throat as she reached for the anachronistic, heavily embossed envelope. She
looked up, and he whisked
the cover from a serving dish with pointed emphasis.
"Not this time, Mac," she murmured, breaking the seal, and he sighed and
replaced the cover. Nimitz
contemplated their human antics with a small, amused "bleek" from his place at
the far end of the table,
and the steward replied with a repressive frown.
Honor opened the envelope and slid out two sheets of equally archaic
parchment. They crackled
crisply, and her eyes—organic and cybernetic alike—opened wide as they flicked
over the formal printed
words on the first page. MacGuiness stiffened at her shoulder as she inhaled
sharply, and she read it a
second time, then glanced at the second sheet and looked up to meet his gaze.
"I think," she said slowly, "that it's time to open the good stuff, Mac. How
about a bottle of the
Delacourt '27?"
"The Delacourt, Ma'am?"
"I don't think Dad will mind . . . under the circumstances."
"I see. May I assume, then, that it's good news, Ma'am?"
"You may, indeed." She cleared her throat and stroked the parchment almost
reverently. "It seems,
Mac, that BuMed in its infinite wisdom has decided I'm fit for duty again, and
                                      15

Admiral Cortez has found a
ship for me." She looked up from the orders with a sudden, blinding smile. "In
fact, he's giving me Nike."
The normally unflappable MacGuiness stared back at her, and his jaw dropped.
HMS Nike wasn't just
a battlecruiser. She was the battlecruiser, the fiercely sought after, most
prestigious prize any captain
could covet. There was always a Nike, with a list of battle honors reaching
clear back to Edward
Saganami, the founder of the Royal Manticoran Navy, and the current Nike was
the newest, most
powerful battlecruiser in the Fleet.
Honor laughed out loud and tapped the second sheet of parchment.
"According to this, we go aboard Wednesday," she said, "Ready for a little
space duty again, Mac?" MacGuiness' eyes met hers, and then he shook himself,
and a huge, matching smile lit his own face.
"Yes, Ma'am. I think I can stand that—and this certainly is a night for the
Delacourt!"
CHAPTER TWO
Hie intra-system shuttle settled into the docking buffers of Her Majesty's
Space Station Hephaestus,
and Honor tapped the save key on her memo pad and rose from her seat just
inside the hatch.
Her face gave no hint of her inner excitement as she drew the white beret of a
starship's commander
from under her left epaulet. She grimaced mentally as she adjusted it, for she
hadn't worn it in over a Tyear,
and she hadn't allowed for the way her hair had grown. It was considered bad
luck for an RMN
officer to replace her first white beret, which meant she either had to get
her hair clipped or the beret resized,
she thought, and held out her arms to Nimitz.
The 'cat swarmed up onto her padded shoulder and settled his weight with a
soft bleek, then patted
the soft, white beret with a proprietary air. Honor hid a grin that would
never have suited the probity of a
senior grade captain, and Nimitz snorted in amused tolerance. He knew how much
that symbol meant to
her, and he saw absolutely no reason she shouldn't show it.
For that matter, Honor had to admit there was no real need to assume her
"captain's face" so soon,
since, aside from MacGuiness, no one on the shuttle knew who she was or why
she was here. But she
needed the practice. Even the shuttle felt strange after so long off a command
deck, and few things were
more important than starring a new command off on the right foot. Besides—
She brought her mental babbling to a stern halt and admitted the truth. She
didn't feel just "strange";
she felt worried, and under her joy at getting back into space, butterflies
mated in her midsection. She'd
put in all the simulation hours she'd been allowed between bouts of surgery
and therapy, but that wasn't as
many as she would have liked. Unfortunately, it was hard to argue with your
physician when he was also
your father, and even if Doctor Harrington had allowed all the sim time she
wanted, simulators weren't the
same as reality. Besides, Nike would be her biggest, most powerful ship yet—
                                      16

eight hundred and eighty
thousand tons, with a crew of over two thousand—which was enough to make
anyone nervous after so
long dirt-side, simulators or no.
Yet she knew her long medical leave wasn't the only reason for her anxiety.
Being picked for Nike
was an enormous professional compliment, especially for a captain who'd never
before held battlecruiser
command. Among other things, it was an implicit approval of her performance in
her last command,
whatever her own mixed feelings, and a clear indication the Admiralty was
grooming her for flag rank.
But there was another side to the coin, as well. With opportunity came
responsibility . . . and the chance to
fail.
She inhaled deeply, squaring her shoulders, then touched the three gold stars
embroidered on her
tunic, and deep down inside something laughed at her own reactions. Each of
those stars represented a
previous hyper-capable command, and she'd been through almost exactly the same
internal cycle with
each of them. Oh, there were differences this time, but there were always
differences, and the underlying
truth never changed. There was nothing in the universe she wanted more than
command . . . and nothing
that scared her worse than the thought of failing once she had it.
Nimitz bleeked again, softly, in her ear. The sound was comforting yet
scolding, and she glanced
over at him. A delicate yawn showed needle-sharp white fangs in the lazy,
confident grin of a predator,
and humor narrowed her eyes as she nibbled his ears and started for the hatch
with MacGuiness at her
heels.
The personnel tube deposited them at a slip on the extreme rim of Hephaestus'
hull. The space station
seemed larger every time Honor saw it ... probably because it was. Hephaestus
was the Royal Manticoran
Navy's premiere shipyard, and the Navy's steadily accelerating building
programs were mirrored by an
equally steady growth in the station's size. It was over forty kilometers
long, now—a lumpy, ungainly, immensely productive amalgamation of building and
repair slips, fabrication shops, deep-space foundries,
and living quarters for thousands of workers that never stopped growing.
She glanced through the armorplast wall of the space-dock gallery as she and
MacGuiness headed for
the docking tube, and it took all her will power not to gawk like a middy on
her first deployment, for the
sleek, powerful shape floating in the building slip's mooring tractors cried
out for her to stop dead and
stare hungrily through the armorplast
HMS Nike was all but completed. Yard dogs and their remotes floated about her
and crawled over her
like tiny, furiously laboring ants, and the double-ended, flattened spindle of
her battle steel hull looked
mottled as it awaited its final coating of skin- fused pigment. But the hollow
throats of missile tubes and
the ominous snouts of lasers and grasers crouched in her opened weapon bays,
                                      17

and mechs were already
closing up the plating around her last drive nodes. Another two weeks, Honor
thought, three at the most,
till the acceptance trials. Only twenty T-years ago, the process would have
been far more extended, with
builder's tests followed by pre-acceptance trials before she was turned over
for the Navy's own evaluation,
but there was no time for that now. The tempo of construction was almost
scary, and the reason for the
endless hurry was enough to frighten anyone.
She turned a bend in the gallery and the Marines manning the outboard end of
Nike's docking tube
stiffened and snapped to attention as she crossed to door with a measured
stride. She returned their salutes
and handed her ID to the sergeant in charge, who scrutinized it briefly but
closely before he returned it
with another salute.
'Thank you, Milady," he said crisply, and Honor's upper lip quivered. She was
still getting used to
being a peer of the realm—although, in truth, that wasn't exactly what she
was—but she suppressed the
temptation to smile and accepted her ID folio with a grave nod.
'Thank you, Sergeant," she said and started to step into the tube, then paused
as she saw one hand
twitch towards his communicator. He stiffened into immobility, and this time
she did let herself smile.
"It's all right, Sergeant. Go ahead."
"Uh, yes, Milady." The sergeant blushed, then relaxed and responded with a
slight smile of his own.
Some captains preferred to catch their new crews by surprise, but Honor had
always thought it was rather
pointless—and foolish. Unless an executive officer had managed to completely
alienate her crew, they
were going to flash a warning to her as soon as the new captains back was out
of sight anyway. And there
was no way a crew would leave Nike's exec in the dark.
She grinned at that thought as she crossed the scarlet zero-gee warning stripe
and launched herself
into a graceful free- fall glide.
A full side party waited in the entry port. The side boys came to attention,
electronic bosun's pipes
twittered in archaic ritual, and the spotlessly uniformed commander at the
head of Nike's assembled senior
officers snapped a salute that would have done Saganami Island proud.
Honor returned it with equal formality and felt Nimitz sitting perfectly still
on her shoulder. She'd
worked hard at impressing the need for proper decorum upon him, and she was a
bit relieved to find her
efforts paying off.
He was choosy about familiarity, but he was also demonstrative about greeting
those he admitted to
the select circle of his friends.
"Permission to come aboard, Ma'am?" Honor asked very formally as she lowered
her hand from the
salute.
"Permission granted, Milady," the commander replied in a soft, furry
contralto, and stepped back to
                                      18

clear the entry port.
It was an oddly gracious gesture on a subordinate's part. Not consciously so,
but on an almost
instinctive level, and Honor hid another smile. She stood a good fourteen
centimeters taller than the other woman, but she'd never had the same
presence, the same easy ability to dominate the space about her, and
she doubted she ever would.
The Manticore Colony, Ltd., had drawn its original settlers primarily from Old
Earth's western
hemisphere, and five hundred T-years had gone far towards puree- ing the
original colonists' genetic
heritages. There were exceptions—such as Honor herself, whose emigrant mother
was of almost pure Old
Earth Asian extraction by way of the ancient colony world of Beowulf—but by
and large it was difficult
to estimate anyone's ancestry at a glance.
Her new exec was an exception, however. Through whatever trick of genetics,
Commander The
Honorable Michelle Henke was a throwback to her first Manticoran ancestors
genotype. Her skin was
barely a shade lighter than her space-black uniform, her hair was even curlier
than Honor's . . . and there
was no mistaking the clean-cut, distinctive features of the House of Winton.
Commander Henke said nothing as she escorted Honor up-ship to the bridge. Her
face was admirably
grave, but a twinkle lurked in her eyes, and Honor was relieved to see it. The
last time they'd seen one
another had been over six T- years ago, and Henke had been senior to her at
the time; now she was not
only two full ranks Honor's junior but her executive officer and immediate
subordinate, as well, and
Honor hadn't quite been able to rule out the possibility of resentment over
the change.
They reached the bridge, and Honor looked around appreciatively. Her last ship
had been just as new
as Nike when she assumed command, and she knew how lucky she'd been, even in
the expanding
Manticoran Navy, to win two brand new ships in a row. Yet marvelo us as the
heavy cruiser Fearless had
been, her bridge paled beside Nike's, and the hugely expanded tactical section
made her mouth water.
Battlecruisers were Manticore's ship of choice, ideally suited to the fast,
slashing tactics the Navy had
embraced for over four T-centuries, and she could practically feel her new
commands lethality quivering
about her.
She shook off the moment of almost sensual enjoyment and crossed to the
captain's chair. She started
to shoo Nimitz off her shoulder to the chair's back, then stopped herself.
This was his moment, as well as
hers, and she decided to let him be as she reached out and touched a stud on
the chair arm.
The clear, sharp chimes of an all-hands announcement sounded from every
speaker on the ship, and
com screens blinked alive with her face as she reached into her tunic and
withdrew the stiff parchment.
She looked straight into the pickup, forcing herself not to clear her throat
                                      19

and wondering, with a corner of
her mind, why she felt so nervous. It wasn't as if she'd never done this
before!
She pushed the thought aside and unfolded her orders, the sound of the paper
loud in the stillness, and
began to read in a calm, clear voice.
"'From Admiral Sir Lucien Cortez, Fifth Space Lord, Royal Manticoran Navy, to
Captain Dame
Honor Harrington, Countess Harrington, KCR, MC, SG, DSO, CGM, Royal Manticoran
Navy, Twenty-
First Day, Sixth Month, Year Two Hundred and Eighty-Two After Landing. Madam:
You are hereby
directed and required to proceed aboard Her Majesty's Starship Nike, BC-Four-
One-Three, there to take
upon yourself the duties and responsibilities of commanding officer in the
service of the Crown. Fail not
in this charge at your peril. By order of Lady Francine Maurier, Baroness
Morncreek, First Lord of
Admiralty, Royal Manticoran Navy, for Her Majesty the Queen.'"
She refolded the document slowly and carefully, feeling once more the thrill
of the moment, then
looked at Commander Henke.
"Madam Exec, I assume command," she said.
"Captain," Henke replied formally, "you have command."
'Thank you," Honor said, and looked back at the pickup that connected her to
her so-far anonymous
crew. This is a proud moment for me," she said, and her quiet sincerity
deprived her words of the trite
formality she feared infused them. "Very fe w captains have the honor of
commanding a ship with this
one's battle record. Even fewer are privileged to assume command straight from
the builder's hands, and none of them ever have the opportunity to do both of
those things more than once. As keel plate owners,
we have a great deal to live up to as we build on the tradition entrusted to
our keeping, but I know that
when the time comes for me to pass this ship into another captain's keeping,
he or she will have even
more to live up to than we do now."
She paused, her eyes very level, then smiled almost impishly.
"You're going to feel overworked and underappreciated while we work up,
people, but try to
remember that its all in a good cause. I'm sure I can rely on all of you to
give me your very best. I promise
you'll get my best in return." She nodded at the pickup. "Carry on," she said,
and killed the circuit and
turned back to Henke.
"Welcome aboard, Captain." The commander extended her hand in the traditional
welcoming
handclasp, and Honor gripped it hard.
Thank you, Mike. It's good to be here."
"May I present your senior officers?" Henke asked, and then waved the waiting
officers forward at
Honor's nod.
"Commander Ravicz, Ma'am, our engineer."
"Mr. Ravicz," Honor murmured. The engineer's deep-set eyes were frankly
curious as he nodded
courteously to her, and she shook his hand before glancing back at Henke.
                                      20

"Commander Chandler, our tac officer," her exec said,
"Ms. Chandler." The diminutive tactical officers flaming red head didn't reach
even to Honor's
shoulder, but she had a tough, no-nonsense look to her, and her blue eyes were
as firm as her handshake.
"I believe you know Surgeon Commander Montoya, our doctor," Henke said, and
Honor smiled
hugely as she took Montoya's hand in both of hers.
"Indeed I do! It's good to see you again, Fritz."
"And you, Skipper." Montoya studied the left side of her face for a moment,
then nodded. "Especially
to see you looking so good," he added.
"I had a good doctor—two of them, in fact," Honor said, and gave his hand
another squeeze before
she turned to the next officer on Henke's list.
"Lieutenant Colonel Klein, commanding our Marine detachment," Henke said.
"Colonel." The Marine bobbed a sharp, respectful nod as he took Honor's hand.
His was the sort of
face that revealed very little, but the ribbons on his black tunic were
impressive. Which they ought to be.
Nike carried a full battalion of Marines, and the Admiralty wouldn't have
picked their commander's name
out of a hat.
"Lieutenant Commander Monet, our com officer," Henke continued down the order
of seniority.
"Mr. Monet." The com officer was the antithesis of her new tac officer: a
tall, thin, almost colorless
man with humorless features. His handclasp was firm enough, but almost
mechanical.
"Lieutenant Commander Oselli, our astrogator." Henke's bland voice laid just a
hint of emphasis on
the word "astrogator," and Honors lips twitched, for her own astrogation
skills were less than outstanding.
"Ms. Oselli." Honor shook her astrogator's hand, pleased with what she saw.
Oselli's hair and eyes
were as dark as Honor's own, and her thin, almost foxy features looked both
confident and intelligent.
"And last but not least, Lieutenant Commander Jasper, our logistics officer."
"Mr. Jasper." Honor gave Nike's supply officer a small smile that mingled
conspiracy and sympathy.
"I imagine you and I will be seeing a lot of one another over the next week or
so, Commander. I'll try not
to ask the impossible of you, but you know how captains are." "Yes, Milady,
I'm afraid I do." Amusement colored Jasper's deep baritone. "At the moment, I
know
almost exactly where we are and what we still need. Needless to say, that's
subject to change without
notice until the yard turns us loose."
"Needless to say," Honor agreed, and folded her hands behind her as she
surveyed the entire group.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've got a lot to do, and no doubt I'll get to
know you all in the process. For
now, I'll let you get on with whatever you were doing before my arrival
interrupted, but you're all invited
to dine with me at eighteen hundred, if that will be convenient."
Heads nodded as agreements were murmured, and Honor chuckled mentally. It was
a rare officer
                                      21

who wouldn't find it "convenient" to dine with a new captain on her first day
in command! She nodded a
courteous dismissal, and they began to move away, but she held up a hand as
Henke started to leave.
"Wait a moment, Exec. I'd appreciate it if you could join me in my quarters.
We've got a lot to
discuss."
"Of course, Milady," Henke murmured, and looked across the bridge. "Ms.
Oselli, you have the
watch."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. I have the watch," Oselli responded, and Henke followed
Honor into the intraship
car. The doors slid shut behind them, and the commander's formality vanished
in a face-splitting grin.
"Damn, but it's good to see you again, Honor!" She flung an arm around her
superior and squeezed
tightly, then reached up to Nimitz. The treecat buzzed a happy purr and
extended a true-hand in a
handshake all their own, and she laughed. "Good to see you, too, Stinker.
Still extorting celery out of your
hapless companions?"
Nimitz bleeked smugly and flirted his fluffy tail, and Honor smiled back at
her exec. As a rule, she
disliked easy embraces, and despite her own recent elevation, she was still
uncomfortable with those from
the rarefied heights of the aristocracy, but Mike Henke was a rule unto
herself. She never presumed upon
her family's position as a cadet branch of Manticore's ruling dynasty, yet she
had an unaffected ease with
people and public situations Honor could only envy. They'd been roommates at
Saganami Island for over
three T-years, and Henke had spent hours trying to beat the fundamentals of
multi-dimensional math into
her shy, towering roommate, and even more hours unveiling the mysteries of
etiquette and social
interaction. Honor's yeoman ancestry hadn't prepared her for interaction with
the nobility, and she'd often
wondered if that was one reason the Academy adjutant had paired her with
Henke, but whether it had
been intentional or not, she knew how much Michelle's easy, breezy confidence
had helped her.
"It's good to see you, too, Mike," she said simply, squeezing back briefly,
then straightened as the lift
stopped. Henke grinned at her, then twitched her face into properly formal
lines as the door hissed open
and the two of them walked down the passage to Honor's quarters.
The Marine sentry outside the captain's cabin came to attention at their
approach, immaculate in
green and black. Honor nodded courteously to her, then opened the hatch and
waved Henke through it,
only to pause as she saw her new quarters for the first time.
They were huge, she thought with a touch of awe. Her belongings had come up
the day before, and
MacGuiness was fussing over the treecat-sized life-support module mounted on a
bulkhead. He turned
and started to come to attention as he realized his captain wasn't alone, but
Honor gestured for him to
                                      22

stand easy.
"Mac, meet Commander Henke. Mike, Senior Chief MacGuiness—my keeper." Henke
chuckled, and
MacGuiness shook his head resignedly. "Go on with what you're doing, Mac,"
Honor continued.
"Commander Henke and I are old friends."
"Of course, Ma'am." MacGuiness bent back over the module, and Nimitz leapt
lightly from Honors
shoulder to the modules top to watch him while Honor looked around and shook
her head. Her personal
gear had filled her last set of quarters to the point of crowding; here, it
looked almost spartan. Expensive
carpet covered the decksole, and a huge painting of the original Nike's final
action in the Battle of Carson dominated one bulkhead, faced from across the
cabin by a state portrait of Elizabeth III, Queen of
Manticore. A portrait, Honor noted, which bore a striking resemblance to her
own exec.
"BuShips really spoils its battlecruiser captains, doesn't it?" she murmured.
"Oh, I don't know." Henke looked around and quirked an eyebrow. "I'd say it's
about right for one of
your eminence, Dame Honor."
"Yeah, sure." Honor crossed to the padded seat under a view port and leaned
back, staring out at the
space station's irregular flank. "This," she said, "is going to take some
getting used to."
"I'm sure you'll adjust," Henke replied dryly. She crossed to Honor's desk and
reached out to a heatwarped
golden plaque on the bulkhead. The sailplane etched into its metal had lost a
wing tip, and the
commander reached out to touch it gently. "This happen in Basilisk?" she
asked. "Or Yeltsin?"
"Basilisk." Honor crossed her legs and shook her head. "Just missed Nimitz's
module, too. We were
lucky."
"Sure you were. Skill didn't have a thing to do with it," Henke agreed with
another grin.
"I wouldn't go quite that far," Honor said, surprised by how easily it came
out, "but honesty compels
me to admit that luck did enter into it."
Henke snorted and turned back to the plaque, straightening it carefully, and
Honor smiled at her back.
They hadn't seen one another in far too long, and their relationship had
changed, for their roles were
different, but her earlier concern that the change might make them awkward
with one another seemed as
silly as it had been unfounded now.
The exec gave up on getting the warped plaque to hang square and turned one of
the comfortable
chairs to face the view port. She draped herself across it with a loose-limbed
casualness that was the
antithesis of Honor's economical movement and cocked her head.
"It really is good to see you again—especially looking so fit," she said
quietly. "I'd heard it was a
rough convalescence."
Honor made a small, throwing-away gesture. "It could ha ve been worse. Given
that I lost half my
command, I sometimes think it was actually easier than I deserved," she said,
                                      23

and Nimitz looked up from
the life-support module, ears half- flattened, as bitterness shadowed her
voice despite herself.
"Now how did I know you'd say something like that?" Henke murmured with a
headshake. "Some
people don't change a lot, do they?"
Honor glanced at MacGuiness. "Mac, could you bring us a couple of beers?"
"Of course, Ma'am." The steward gave a last punch at the module keyboard and
vanished into his
pantry, and Nimitz jumped from its top to the couch beside Honor.
"All right, Madam Exec. You might as well give me your version of the pep
talk," she sighed as the
pantry hatch closed, and Henke frowned.
"I don't think a 'pep talk' is exactly what you need, Honor. Maybe a lick or
two of common sense
wouldn't hurt, though." Honor looked up, startled by her friend's suddenly
astringent tone, and Henke
gave her a crooked smile.
"I realize a commander isn't supposed to tell a senior grade captain she's got
her head up her ass! but
blaming yourself for what happened to your people—or to Admiral Courvosier—is
stupid." Honor
winced at Courvosier's name, and Henke's voice softened. "Sorry. I know how
close you were to the
Admiral, but, damn it, Honor, no one could have done better with the
information you had. And didn't
Admiral Courvosier always tell us no officer's performance can be accurately
measured except in terms of
what she knows at the moment she makes her call?'
Her eyes were stern, and Honor's mouth quirked as she remembered other
lectures in a dormitory
room long, long ago. She started to reply, then paused as MacGuiness returned
with their beers. He served both officers,
then withdrew again, and Honor turned her stein in long fingers, staring down
into it. She sighed.
"You're right, Mike. The Admiral would kick my backside up between my ears if
he knew how much
I blame myself for what happened to him, and I know it. Which—" she looked
back up "—doesn't make it
a lot easier to stop doing it. But I'm coping with it. Really."
"Good." Henke raised her beer. "Absent friends," she said softly.
"Absent friends," Honor whispered back. Glass clinked, and both women sipped,
then lowered their
steins almost in unison.
"In case I haven't already mentioned it," Henke went on more briskly,
gesturing at the four gleaming
gold rings on Honor's cuff, "I must say a captain's uniform becomes you."
"Makes me look less like an overgrown horse, you mean," Honor said wryly,
relieved by the change
of mood, and Henke laughed.
"If you only knew how lesser mortals envy your centimeters," she teased. "But
I hope you realize I
expect you to do wonderful things for my career."
"Oh? How's that?"
"Well just look at it. Both your last two execs got their own ships, and from
what I hear, Alistair
McKeon's getting his fourth ring next month. I just got a letter from Alice
                                      24

Truman, too, and she just got
her first heavy cruiser. You think it's just a coincidence they all served
with you? Hell, Honor—I'm not
going to be satisfied with anything less than a cruiser of my own at the end
of this commission!" She
grinned and took another long pull at her beer, then leaned back with an
expansive air.
"And now, Ma'am, before we dive into the kilometers of paperwork we both know
are waiting for us,
I want to hear your side of everything that's happened since the last time I
saw you."
CHAPTER THREE
Rain beat on the double-paned window, and the crackling fire behind Hamish
Alexander, Earl of
White Haven, danced as wind sucked over the chimney top. It was an archaic,
even a barbaric, way to
heat a room, but then, that wasn't the real reason it had been lit. The dreary
chill of an early winter not yet
ready for snow had settled over White Haven, seeping into bones and spirits,
and the bright, popping hiss
of an open fire still worked the ancient magic at need.
The thirteenth earl leaned back in the oversized wooden chair built to the
eleventh earl's special
orders and studied his guest. Sir James Bowie Webster, First Space Lord of the
Manticoran Admiralty,
wore the black and gold of a fleet admiral, but White Haven was in mufti.
"So it's official, is it?"
"Yep." Webster sipped hot coffee, then shrugged. "Can't say he's the man I'd
have chosen, but my
tenure ends in two months."
White Haven gave a little grimace but nodded. It was irritating, to say the
least, when someone with
Webster's talent had to step down as First Space Lord, but given the long
careers the prolong anti-aging
treatments produced, the Navy had long ago developed a policy of rotating its
senior admirals regularly to
keep them current with operational realities.
Webster grinned at his friend's expression, but his eyes were serious as he
continued. "Someone has
to replace. me, and whatever else he may be, Caparelli's got a backbone. That
may be important in the
next year or so."
"A real thick backbone—to match the one in his head," White Haven muttered,
and Webster snorted.
"You still haven't forgiven him for kicking your ass all over the soccer field
at Saganami Island, have
you?" he challenged. "Why should I?" White Haven demanded with a gleam of
humor. "It was a classic example of brute
force over technique, and you know it."
"Besides, it pisses you off to lose."
"And it pisses me off to lose," the earl agreed wryly, then shrugged. "Well,
as you say, he's got guts.
And at least he won't have to put up with Janacek."
"Amen," Webster said fervently. The recently replaced civilian head of the
Navy was very low on
both officers' lists of favorite people.
"But," White Haven went on after a moment, "somehow I don't think you came all
                                      25

the way out here
just to tell me Cromarty and Baroness Morncreek have picked Caparelli,"
"Perceptive as usual." Webster set his cup aside and leaned forward, bracing
his forearms on his
knees. 'The fact is, Lucien Cortez is staying on as Fifth Space Lord, but
Caparelli's going to want to put
his own personnel policies in place, and I'm here to get your input before I
sign a few midnight command
assignments." He waved a hand at White Haven's raised eyebrow. "Oh, it's his
prerogative to make his
own personnel decisions. I certainly wanted the same thing when I took over.
But he's going to be feeling
his way into things for a couple of months. Given the current situation in the
PRH, I want him to have a
solid team in the field during the transition."
"Makes sense," White Haven acknowledged.
"Glad you think so. At any rate, I'm fairly comfortable that I've got all the
round pegs in the round
little holes . . . with a few exceptions."
"Such as?"
"Hancock Stations the most important one. That's why I wanted to talk to you,"
Webster said, and
White Haven grunted in understanding, for he had just returned from an
inspection tour of the Royal
Manticoran Navy's newest and, just possibly, most critical Fleet station.
The Hancock Systems barren red dwarf had absolutely nothing to recommend it
... except its location.
It lay directly to galactic north of Manticore, ideally placed as an advanced
picket for the systems of
Yorik, Zanzibar, and Alizon, all members of the Kingdoms anti-Haven alliance.
Perhaps more to the
point, it was less than ten light- years from the Seaford Nine System, and
Seaford Nine was one of the
People's Republic of Haven's largest frontier bases. Which was very
interesting, since Haven had
absolutely nothing worth protecting within a good fifty light-years of it.
"Leave it to Mark Sarnow," the earl said, and Webster groaned.
"Damn it, I knew you were going to say that! He's too junior, and we both know
it!"
"Junior or not, he's also the man who talked Alizon into signing up with the
Alliance," White Haven
countered, "not to mention having set Hancock up in the first place. And if
you've read my report, you
know what kind of job he's been doing out there."
"I'm not questioning his competence, only his seniority," Webster shot back.
"No one admires the job
he's done more than I do, but now that the yard facilities are coming on- line
we're upgrading the station to
a full task force. That means we need at least a vice admiral out there, and
if I put a rear admiral—and a
rear admiral of the red, at that!—in command, I'll have a mutiny on my hands."
"Then promote him."
"Lucien already bumped him from commodore at least two years early." Webster
shook his head.
"No, forget it, Hamish. Sarnow's good, but he just doesn't have the seniority
for it."
"So who are you thinking of putting in?" White Haven dema nded, then paused
                                      26

with an arrested
expression. "Oh, no, Jim! Not me!"
"No." Webster sighed. "Mind you, there's no one I'd rather have out there, but
even with the upgrade,
it's only a vice admirals slot. Besides, I want you closer to home if the
fecal matter hits the rotary air
impeller. No, I was thinking about Yancey Parks." "Parks?" One of the earl's
mobile eyebrows rose in surprise.
"He's almost as good a strategist as you are, and he's one hell of an
organizer," Webster pointed out.
"Why do you sound like you're trying to convince yourself of that?" White
Haven asked with a small
smile, and Webster snorted.
"I'm not. I'm trying to convince you to agree with me."
"I don't know, Jim. . . ." The earl rose, clasping his hands behind him, to
take a quick tur n around his
study. He gazed out into the wet night for a moment, then wheeled to stare
down at the crackling flames.
"The thing that worries me," he said without turning his head, "is that
Yancey's too much of a
thinker."
"Since when has that been a liability? Weren't you just objecting to Caparelli
because he's not one?"
"Touche," White Haven murmured with a chuckle.
"Not only that, he's been working with BuPlan on the general buildup in the
sector. He knows it
backward and forward, and the first priority has to be getting Hancock fully
operational."
"That's true." The earl frowned down into the fire, then shook his head. "I
don't know, Jim," he
repeated. "There's just something about the idea that . . . bothers me." His
hands fisted and opened behind
him a time or two, then he wheeled to face the First Space Lord. "Maybe it's
just that he doesn't have
enough fire in his belly. I know he's got guts, but he second-guesses himself.
Oh, he's got good strategic
instincts when he listens to them, but sometimes he over-analyzes himself
right into indecision."
"I think an analyst may be exactly what we need," Webster argued, and White
Haven frowned a
moment longer, then snorted.
Tell you what—give him Sarnow as a squadron commander, and I'll give you my
blessings."
"Blackmail!" Webster grumbled around a grin.
"So don't pay. You don't really need my approval, Your Lordship."
"True." Webster rubbed his craggy chin, then gave a sharp nod. "Done!" he said
crisply.
"Good." The earl smiled and sat back down behind his desk before going on in
an unnaturally casual
tone. "By the way, Jim, there was something else I'd like to speak to you
about while you're here."
"Oh?" Webster sipped coffee, regarding his friend levelly over the cup's rim,
then lowered it. "What
might that be? No—let me guess. It wouldn't be your newest protege, Captain
Harrington, would it?"
"I'd hardly call her that," White Haven objected.
"Oh? Then it must have been someone else who's been badgering Lucien and me to
                                      27

get her back into
space," Webster said ironically.
"She was Raoul's protegee, not mine. I simply happen to think she's one hell
of an outstanding
officer."
"Who happens to have gotten herself shot up so badly it's taken a T- year or
so to put her back
together."
"Oh, for God's sake!" White Haven snorted. "I haven't been monitoring her
medical condition, but
I've met the woman. She beat the hell out of a Peep battlecruiser that out-
massed her damn nearly threeto-
one after she'd been wounded! And I also know a bit about traumatic injuries,
thank you." His mouth
tightened, then he shook himself. "If she isn't back at a hundred percent
physically by now, I'll eat my
beret!"
"I can't argue with you there," Webster said pacifically, but behind his calm
eyes he was surprised by
the genuine anger in the earl's voice. "And as you're perfectly well aware,
it's BuMed that's been throwing
up the 'hold' signals. I want her back in space, Lucien wants her back in
space, and you want her back in
space, but they're concerned about the possibility of putting her back too
quickly. They just think she may
need more time." "Get her back up on the horse, Jim," White Haven said
impatiently.
"And if the Commanding Officers Board has a few reservations?'
"Reservations?!" White Haven half rose, and his eyes were dangerous.
"Will you please sit down and quit looking like you want to assault me?"
Webster said with some
asperity. Hie earl blinked, as if only then aware of his own expression, and
twitched his shoulders. The n
he resumed his seat and crossed his legs with a faint smile.
'Thank you," the First Space Lord said. "Look, Hamish, it's the psycho-
babblers who're worried about
her." White Haven started to say something quick and angry, but a raised hand
stopped him. "Just hold
your horses, will you?" Webster waited for his friend to settle back again,
then continued.
"As you know perfectly well, even Lucien and I have to have a damned
compelling case before we
can override BuMed, especially for commanding officers, and Harrington's had a
rough convalescence. I
don't have all the details, but there were some fairly serious complications
with her treatment, and as you
yourself just said, you know better than I do how that can wear someone down!"
He paused, holding the earl's eyes steadily, and White Haven's face tightened.
His own wife had been
a near-total invalid for years, and he bit his lip for a moment before he
nodded.
"All right. From what I can make out, all the complications and therapy had
her pretty low for a
while, but she's bouncing back from that. What worries the psych types is all
the people she lost in
Grayson. Then there's Raoul. He was damned near a second father to her, from
all I can make out, and he
                                      28

died when she wasn't even there. There's a lot of room for pain—and guilt—in
something like that,
Hamish, and she hasn't exactly been forthcoming in discussing it with anyone."
White Haven started to reply, then frowned. Harrington had lost nine hundred
dead, with another
three hundred wounded, stopping the battlecruiser Saladin, and he remembered
the anguish he'd seen in
her face when her defenses crumbled for just one moment.
"What do the evaluations show?" he asked after a moment.
"They're within acceptable limits. But don't forget her treecat," Webster
said, then snorted. "BuMed
certainly hasn't! I got a long, involved memo from Captain Harding about how
that telempathic link can
throw the testing parameters out of kilter."
"But it might also explain why she hasn't cried on the psychs' shoulders,
too," White Haven said
thoughtfully. "And without doubting Hardings sincerity for a moment, you know
the head-shrinkers have
never been happy about their inability to figure out just how that link works.
But even they have to admit
it can be a powerful stabilizing influence, and she's as stubborn as they
come. If she can fight her way
through something on her own, there's no way she's going to ask for help."
"Granted, but BuMed doesn't want to put her in a situation where she has to
make the same sorts of
decisions if she's hanging by her fingernails out of stubbornness. Too many
lives could depend on her
judgment—-and putting her in that sort of crunch situation would be totally
unfair to her, too."
"Agreed." White Haven plucked at his lip, then shook his head. "It's not going
to happen, though.
She's stubborn, yes, but she's not stupid, and I don't think she even knows
how to lie to herself. If she
were in real trouble, she'd tell us. Besides, both her parents are doctors,
aren't they?"
"Yes." Webster's surprise that White Haven knew that showed in his voice. "In
fact, her father's been
in charge of her treatment. Why?"
"Because that means they're probably as aware of the potential for problems as
BuPsych, and if there
were one, they'd push her into getting help. People who raised a daughter like
that don't lie to themselves,
either. And unlike Harding, they've known her—and her relationship with the
'cat—since she was a child,
now haven't they?"
"True," Webster agreed, and White Haven raised an eyebrow as he saw the First
Lords small smile.
"Something funny?" he growled, and Webster shook his head. "No, no. Just go on
with what you were saying."
"There's not a lot more to say. She's an outstanding officer who needs to get
a deck back under her
feet again, and BuMed is full of crap if they think she can't handle it."
White Haven snorted derisively. "If
they're so worried about her, why don't you give her something fairly sedate
to ease back into command?"
"Well, you know, Lucien and I considered that," Webster said slowly, "but we
decided against it."
                                      29

White Haven stiffened, and his friend looked back levelly for several seconds,
then startled him with a
rolling belly laugh. "Oh, hell, Hamish! You're too damned easy!"
"What?" White Haven blinked in confusion, then frowned. "What d'you mean,
'easy'?" he growled,
and Webster shook his head and grinned.
"Put Harrington into something 'sedate'? Lord, she'd be chewing the bulkheads
inside a week!" He
laughed again at the earl's expression and leaned back in his chair. "Sorry,"
he said, not sounding
particularly sorry, "but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to twist your
tail after all the grief you've
given me over her. As a matter of fact, Lucien and I, um, overruled BuMed
while you were out at
Hancock. We figure she's up to snuff whatever the psycho-babblers think, so
we're throwing her right
back into the deep end."
"Deep end?"
"Indeed. We gave her Nike last week."
"Nike?" White Haven sat bolt upright, jaw dropping, then recovered and glared
at his friend. "You
bastard! Why didn't you just tell me?!"
"I told you you're too easy." Webster chuckled. "Got a bit of a God complex
when it comes to faith in
your own judgment, too." He cocked an eyebrow. "What made you assume I didn't
share your opinion of
her?"
"But last month you said—"
"I said we had to go through channels, and we did. Now we've done it. But it
was certainly worth it to
see you hot and bothered."
"I see." White Haven leaned back in his own chair, and his lips quivered. "All
right, so you put one
over on me. Next time it's my turn."
"I await the event with trepidation," Webster said dryly.
"Good, because I'm going to catch you when you least expect it." The earl
tugged at an earlobe for a
moment, then snorted. "But since you're putting her back on a bridge, why not—
"
"You never quit, do you?" Webster demanded. "I've just given her the plum
command slot in the
entire Fleet! What more d'you want from me?"
"Calmly, Jim. Calmly! I was just going to say, why don't you send Nike out to
Hancock Station as
Sarnow's flagship when she commissions?"
Webster started to reply, then stopped with an arrested expression. He played
with his coffee cup for
a moment, and then he began to grin.
"You know, you might just have something there. Lord, won't all our other
junior flag officers just
howl if Sarnow cops Nike!"
"Of course they will, but that wasn't my point. I assume that the fact that
you're giving Harrington
Nike means that despite your 'tail twisting' you share my estimate of her
capabilities?"
"Of course I do. She needs more seasoning before we start talking about flag
rank, but she's definitely
                                      30

on the fast track."
"Well, she could learn a lot from Sarnow, and the two of them'd get along like
a house on fire," White
Haven said. "More than that, frankly, I'd feel a lot better if Parks had a
pair like them to keep him on his
toes." "Um. I think I like it," Webster said slowly. "Of course, Yancey will
have a fit. You know what a
stickler for protocol and proper military courtesy he is. The way Harrington
busted that asshole
Houseman's chops in
Yeltsin is probably going to stick in his craw."
"Let it. It'll be good for him, in the long run."
"All right, Hamish." The First Lord nodded crisply.
"I'll do it. And I only wish I could be there to see Yancey's face when he
finds out!"
CHAPTER FOUR
"All right, Helm, take us to eighty percent," Honor said quietly.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Coming to eighty percent power." Master Chief Coxswain
Constanza's skilled
hands brought up the strength of Nike's impeller wedge, and Honor watched the
command chair repeater
displays as her ship's acceleration rose to the Navy's normal maximum power
settings. Nike charged
towards the outer reaches of Manticore-A's family of planets and asteroids,
the bright star chip of
Manticore-B glaring dead ahead in the visual display, as the drive readings
peaked.
"Eighty percent power, Ma'am," Lieutenant Commander Oselli announced. "Three-
point-niner- fourone-
four KPS squared."
'Thank you, Charlotte." Honor's soprano was coolly courteous, but her
satisfaction was unmistakable.
That was bang on the builder's estimate, and she touched a stud on her chair
arm.
"Engineering, Commander Ravicz," a voice replied instantly.
'This is the Captain, Commander. How does it look down there?"
Ivan Ravicz glanced at the builder's rep at his elbow, and the woman raised a
circled thumb and index
finger in the ancient gesture of approval.
"Looking good, Ma'am," the engineer told his CO. "We're getting a tiny kick in
the telemetry from
Fusion Three, but the drive's dead on the green."
"What sort of kick?"
"Nothing major, Ma'am, just a little bottle fluctuation.
It's well within tolerances, and the power room systems don't even show it.
That's why I think it's in
the telemetry, but I'm keeping an eye on it."
"Good, Ivan. Stand by for our full power run."
"Standing by, Ma'am."
Honor cut the circuit and looked back across at Con-stanza.
"Take us to maximum military power, Helm."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Coming to maximum military power."
There was a hint of suppressed excitement in the helmswoman's voice, and Honor
hid a smile.
Coxswains didn't get many opportunities to really open their ships up—nor, for
that matter, did captains,
since BuShips could be remarkably crabby over "unnecessary and undue strain on
                                      31

the propulsive systems
of Her Majesty's starships"—but there was additional reason for excitement
today.
Constanza adjusted her power settings slowly, eyes intent on her panel while
Honor watched her own
readouts with equal intensity. Her mind always tended to drift to the inertial
compensator at moments like
this. If it failed, Nike's crew would turn instantly into something gruesomely
reminiscent of anchovy
paste, and Honor's ship had been chosen to test BuShips's newest generation
compensator. It was an
adaptation of the Grayson Navy's, which hadn't been calculated to inspire
confidence in all hands, given
that Grayson's general technology lagged a good century behind Manticore's,
but Honor had seen the Graysons' system in action. It had been crudely built
and mass- intensive, yet it had also been undeniably
efficient, and BuShips claimed not only to have exterminated every possible
bug but to have tweaked the
specs even further, as well. Besides, the Navy hadn't had a compensator
failure in over three T-centuries.
Or, at least, not one anyone knew about. Of course, there'd been the
occasional ship lost "to causes
unknown," and since a compensator failure under max accel would leave no
survivors to report it. ...
She put the thought aside as the wedge peaked and Oselli spoke.
"Maximum military power, Captain." The astrogator looked up with an enormous
smile. "Five-onefive-
point- five gravities, Ma'am!"
"Very good!" This time Honor couldn't quite keep her delight out of her voice,
for that was two and a
half percent better than BuShips and the builders had estimated. It might be
three percent less than her last
ship had been capable of, but HMS Fearless had massed only three hundred
thousand tons.
She touched the stud again.
"Engineering, Commander Ravicz."
"The Captain again, Ivan. Everything still green down there?"
"Yes, Ma'am. I wouldn't care to keep her here too long," Honor heard Ravicz's
satisfaction waning
with his professional caution, "but this ship is really built." The builder's
rep grinned at the compliment,
and he smiled back.
"We'll back off shortly," Honor told him, and leaned back in her chair as she
released the stud. "Hold
us at max for another thirty minutes, Helm."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Constanza replied crisply, and Honor felt her bridge crew's
pleasure at their
ship's performance.
She shared it, but her mind was already reaching ahead to the next phase. Once
the sustained full
power trial was out of the way, it would be time to exercise Nike's armament.
That was one reason for
their present course, since the Beta Belt was the Navy's traditional gunnery
exercise area. There'd be a few
less asteroids shortly, she thought cheerfully, and reached up to scratch
Nimitz's chin as he purred on the
back of her chair.
                                      32

James MacGuiness poured cocoa into Honor's mug, and she raised it to sniff the
rich, chocolaty
aroma. The steward watched the crown of her bent head with a hint of anxiety,
then banished the
expression instantly as she straightened.
"Do I detect something new, Mac?"
"As a matter of fact, you do, Ma'am. Try it."
She sipped cautious ly, and her eyebrows rose. She took another, longer sip,
then lowered the mug
with a sigh.
"Delicious! What did you do to it?"
"I added a touch of almond to it, Ma'am. The Bosun tells me it's something of
a favorite on
Gryphon."
"Well, I certainly approve. And be sure you remind me to tell Dad about it
next time I see him, would
you?"
"Of course, Ma'am." MacGuiness tried unsuccessfully to hide his pleasure at
her reaction, then
straightened as the admittance signal chirped and Honor pressed a button.
"Yes?"
"Executive Officer, Ma'am," her sentry announced.
Thank you, Corporal." Honor touched another key to open the hatch, and
Commander Henke stepped
through it.
"You wanted to see me, Ma'am?" "I did, indeed, Mike. Sit down." Henke obeyed,
her "on-duty" manner softening at the welcoming,
informal tone, and Honor glanced up at MacGuiness. 'The Exec is one of those
barbarian coffee-drinkers,
Mac. Could you get her a cup?"
"Of course, Ma'am." MacGuiness vanished, and Henke shook her head at Honor.
"Still sucking up the calories, I see. No wonder you spend so much time
working out!"
"Nonsense," Honor said comfortably. "Some of us have active metabolisms, which
allow us to
indulge our taste for the finer things in life without fear of the
consequences."
"Yeah, sure." Henke snorted.
MacGuiness reappeared with a coffee cup on a gold-rimmed saucer, and the
commanders eyebrows
rose. The cup bore Nike's crest, the winged goddess of victory hurling
thunderbolts from a raised hand,
but the hull number under the crest was BC-09. Which made the cup over two
Manticoran centuries—
almost five hundred T-years—old. It was part of the captain's service from the
second ship of her name
and, as such, reserved for formal occasions.
'To what do I owe the honor?" she asked, and Honor chuckled.
Two things, actually. One, I happen to remember that it's your birthday."
Henke grimaced, and Honor
chuckled again. "Now, now! You're not getting older, just better."
"Maybe. But if I know you, you ratted to the rest of the wardroom about it—
probably through your
faithful minion here—didn't you?" Henke demanded with a wave at MacGuiness.
Honor looked innocent,
and the commander groaned. "Yes, you did. And that means they're waiting to
pounce with that stupid
                                      33

song! Damn it, Honor, you know I've got perfect pitch! Have you ever heard
Ivan Ravicz try to sing?"
She shuddered, and Honor turned a laugh into a hasty cough.
"I'm sure you'll survive," she soothed. "On the other hand, that's only one of
the things I'm
celebrating. We've got our orders, Mike."
"Oh?" Henke straightened in her chair and set her cup aside, levity vanquished
by sudden interest.
"Indeed. Being in all respects ready for deployment, HMS Nike is directed to
Hancock Station, there
to take aboard Rear Admiral of the Red Mark Sarnow as flagship of
Battlecruiser Squadron Five."
"Hancock Station as a squadron flagship—and a newly formed squadron at that,
hey? Well, well,
well," Henke murmured, and her dark eyes gleamed. "Not too shabby. And from
what I hear, Sarnow
should keep things lively."
"If he lives up to his reputation," Honor agreed. "I've never met him, but
I've heard good things about
him. And I know at least one member of his staff quite well."
"Oh? Which one?"
"His communications officer was my com officer in Basilisk. Lieutenant
Commander Webster."
"Webster," Henke repeated thoughtfully. "Would that be Sir James's cousin, or
his grand-nephew?"
"Nephew. He's young, but he doesn't owe his rank to his relatives. I think
you'll like him."
"If he does his job as well as his uncle, I probably will," Henke agreed, then
smiled. "And, speaking
of relatives, I've got one serving in Hancock, too."
"Really?"
"Yes. My cousin—fourth cousin, actually—is the repair base's exec." Henke
cocked her head for a
moment, regarding Honor with a quizzical expression. "As a matter of fact,
you've met him."
"I have?" Honor was surprised. She'd met several of Henke's relatives—mostly
exalted personages
who'd dropped in to visit her on free days at Saganami Island—but she doubted
any of them would be
serving as an orbital bases executive officer.
"Uh-huh. You met him in Basilisk. Captain Paul Tankersley." Honor tried—almost
successfully—to keep her mouth from tightening in repugnance. Not, she told
herself after the instant initial shock, that she had anything against
Tankersley himself. To be honest, she
hardly even remembered him. She tried to recall what he looked like, and
frowned at the image's
vagueness. Short, she thought, but square and solid looking. That was all that
came to mind—that and his
obvious discomfort at the situation he'd found himself in at the time.
"Paul told me about it," Henke said after a moment, breaking into her
thoughts. "Or some of it,
anyway. I think he'd have said more if he hadn't thought it would sound
disloyal to an ex-CO. He's funny
that way, even when the CO in question was Pavel Young."
This time Honor couldn't keep the cold, bleak hatred off her face, and her
hand tightened about her
cocoa mug in poisonous memory.
                                      34

"You know," Henke went on, her voice carefully light, "you never did tell me
what really happened
that night."
"What?" Honor shook her head and blinked.
"I said, you never told me what really happened that night."
"Which night?"
"Oh, don't be silly, Honor! You know perfectly well which night." Henke sighed
as Honor looked at
her without expression. "The night," she explained, "when you beat the holy
living hell out of Mr.
Midshipman Lord Pavel Young. You do remember that night?"
"He fell down the stairs," Honor said almost automatically, and Henke snorted.
"Sure he did. That was why I found you hiding under the covers with Nimitz
ready to go rip
someone's face off!" Honor winced, remembering a time when Nimitz had done
just that, but Henke didn't
seem to notice. "Look, Honor, I know the official story. I also know it's
bullshit, and in case no one's ever
told you, there are all sorts of rumors floating around about it—especially
since Basilisk."
"Rumors?" Honor set her mug down, feeling a sort of distant surprise as she
saw the tremors in her
fingers. "What rumors? I haven't heard anything about them!"
"Of course not. Who's going to breathe a word about them around you? But after
the way he tried to
stab you in the back at Basilisk, there aren't too many people who doubt
them."
Henke leaned back, eyes steady, and Honor shifted uncomfortably under their
weight. She'd done her
level best never to reveal any hint of what had actually happened, and she'd
hoped—more desperately
than realistically, she thought now—that the story had finally died a natural
death.
"All right," Henke said after a moment, "let me tell you what I think
happened. I think the bastard
tried to rape you, and you kicked his balls up between his ears. Yes?"
"I—" Honor stopped and took a sip of cocoa, then sighed. "More or less," she
said at last.
"Well, for God's sake, why didn't you say so at the time?! Lord knows I tried
to get it out of you, and
I'm sure Commandant Hartley did, too!"
"You're right." Honor's soprano was uncharacteristically soft, almost
inaudible, as she stared down
into her mug. "I didn't realize it at the time, but he must have known. Or
guessed. But I was just—" She
broke off and inhaled deeply. "I felt so dirty, Mike. Like he'd soiled me
somehow, just by touching me. I
was . . . ashamed. Besides, he was an earl's son, and I wasn't even pretty.
Who would have believed me?"
"I would have," Henke said quietly, "and so would Hartley. So would anyone who
knew both of you
and heard both sides of the story."
"Oh?" Honors smile was crooked. "You would have believed the Earl of North
Hollow's son tried to
rape a hatchet-faced overgrown horse like me?"
Henke flinched inside at her friends bitter tone but bit her tongue against a
quick reply. She suspected
                                      35

very few people guessed how ugly Honor had thought she was at the Academy.
And, in truth, she had been on the homely side then, but her sharp-planed face
had matured into a clean-cut beauty in the years
since. She wasn't "pretty," and she never would be, Henke thought, but she
also had no idea how other
women envied her unique bone structure and dark, exotically slanted eyes. Her
face had a mobile,
expressive alive-ness, despite the slight stiffness of its left side, and she
didn't even know it. Yet the pain
in her eyes now wasn't for her supposed homeliness. It was for the girl she
had been, not the woman she
was. And, Henke knew, for the way she'd betrayed that girl by not seeking
justice for her.
"Yes," she said softly. "I would have believed yo u. As a matter of fact, that
was pretty much what I
thought had happened at the time. That's why I went to Hartley."
"You went to Hartley?!" Honor's eyes widened, and Henke shrugged
uncomfortably.
"I was worried about you—and I was fairly sure you weren't going to come
forward with the truth.
So, yeah, I told him what I thought happened."
Honor stared at her, and her memory replayed the agonizing scene in the
commandant's office, the
way he'd almost begged her to tell him what had really happened, and she
wished—again—that she had.
"Thank you," she said softly. "You're right. I should have spoken up. They
might've have broken him
if I had . . . but I didn't think about all that then, and it's too late now.
Besides—" she squared her
shoulders and inhaled again "—he finally got his."
"Yes and no," Henke countered gently. "His reputation's shot to hell, and he
knows it, but he's still in
the service. And he's still on active duty."
"Family influence." Honor gave a ghost of a smile, and Henke nodded.
"Family influence. I guess none of us who have it can really help using it,
whether we want to or not.
I mean, everyone knows who we are, and there's always someone who wants us to
owe them a favor, even
if we never asked for it. But North Hollow—" She shook her head distastefully.
"People like him make
me sick. Even if you weren't my friend, I would have loved to see Young
busted. Hell, with a little luck,
he might even have drawn brig time, but—" Henke's mouth quirked "—I forgive
you. It's hard, you
understand, but I guess I'm just naturally big- hearted."
"Gee, thanks," Honor said, relieved by the lightening tone of the
conversation, and Henke grinned.
"Don't mention it. But I think you should know that Paul never did like Young,
and he likes him a lot
less now. As far as I can tell, it's mutual, too. Something about Paul's
helping the brass deliberately
sabotage his refit so Warlock didn't get back to Basilisk in time to keep you
from making him look like
the stupid sack of shit he is."
"What? I never knew that was deliberate!"
"Paul never said it was, but he sure did something Admiral Warner liked. They
pulled him out of
                                      36

Warlock and transferred him to Hephaestus before you were even back from
Basilisk, and he's been
playing yard dog ever since. He's up to captain junior grade now, and Daddy
tells me they're probably
going to sneak him onto the list sometime soon. But don't you dare tell him I
told you that!" Henke said
with a sudden, ferocious frown. "He'd be madder than hell if he thought
someone was pulling strings for
him."
"Is someone?"
"Not as far as I know. Or, at any rate, not any more than they do for anyone
they think is good at his
job. So don't breathe a word to him."
"My lips are sealed. Not that I expect to have much opportunity to exchange
confidences with him."
"No?" Henke cocked her head again, then grinned. "Well, just remember to keep
mum if you do get
the chance," she said. "Now, about those orders—"
CHAPTER FIVE "—so we're on schedule for our construction projects, and the
yard is fully operational for local
repairs," Commander Lord Haskel Abernathy concluded.
The commander shut his memo pad down, and Vice Admiral of the Green Sir Yancey
Parks nodded
in approval.
"Thank you, Hack," he said to his logistics officer, then raised his eyes to
the staff officers and
squadron commanders in the flag briefing room of the super-dreadnought HMS
Gryphon. "And well
done," he went on. "That goes for all of you, and especially for Admiral
Sarnow's people. Between you,
you've put the yard a good month ahead of projections."
Abernathy smiled at the compliment, and Sarnow gave a silent nod. It was a
courteous gesture, yet
Parks felt an instant stir of irritation.
He stepped on it quickly, castigating himself for feeling it at all, but it
was hard. There was always a
certain awkwardness when an officer relieved a junior who stayed on under him,
and Parks resented being
put in such a position. Knowing the situation couldn't be any easier for
Sarnow didn't help much, either.
Parks had been in Hancock for barely a T-month, and the rear admiral would be
more than human if a part
of him weren't gauging Parks' successes against what he might have achieved if
he'd retained command.
To his credit, he'd never let a sign of it show, but that didn't prevent the
new station commander from
feeling challenged by his very presence.
Parks pushed the thought aside and cleared his throat.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen. That brings us up to date on what we're
doing. What do we think the
Peeps are up to, Zeb?"
Commander The Honorable Zebediah Ezekial Rutgers O'Malley, Parks' staff
intelligence officer, was
a tall, rangy man with mournful eyes whom everyone but his admiral knew as
"Zero." He also had a lively
sense of humor (fortunately, given the burden of his initials) and a memory
like a computer, and he didn't
                                      37

even bother to key his memo pad.
"At this moment, Sir, Seaford Nine has been reinforced to two squadrons of
superdreadnoughts, one
dreadnought squadron, and one understrength battle-cruiser squadron, with half
a dozen cruiser squadrons
and three full destroyer flotillas as escorts."
He paused, as if inviting comment, but there was none.
That means, of course, that we've got an edge of about forty percent in ships
of the wall," O'Malley
went on, "and once we have the rest of Admiral Sarnow's squadron on hand,
we'll have sixteen
battlecruisers to their six, though we have reports a third superdreadnought
squadron may be en route to
Admiral Rollins. That would give him the edge, but, according to ONI, he's
sticking with the same basic
activities—drills and maneuvers, never more than a light- year or two out from
Seaford—and there's no
sign of any particular increase in preparedness on his part.
"There is one item in my latest download which concerns me, however." He
raised an eyebrow at his
admiral, and Parks nodded for him to continue.
"Our attache" on Haven has expressed a belief that the assassination of the
Peeps' finance minister
represents a significant increase in domestic instability. His analysis of the
situation—which differs
somewhat from that of ONI's analysts back home—is that the Harris Government
might welcome some
sort of foreign crisis to defuse Dolist tensions."
"Excuse me, Commander," Mark Sarnow's melodious tenor interrupted politely,
"but how, exactly,
does the attache's analysis differ from ONI's?"
"I'd say it was more a matter of degree than of fact, Sir. ONI agrees the
domestic front is giving
Harris and his stooges grief and feels Harris probably wouldn't be heartbroken
by an opportunity to
posture and view with alarm where we're concerned, but their analysts think
his hands are too full for him
to actively seek a confrontation. Commander Hale, our attache, thinks they're
wrong. That the pressure Harris feels might push him into seeking just that as
a diversion from economic problems which are
fundamentally insoluble."
"I see." Sarnow rubbed one thick eyebrow, his dark face intent. "And do you
have any feeling for
which of them is correct?"
"That's always difficult to say without access to the raw data, Sir. Having
said that, I happen to know
Al Hale, and I don't think he's an alarmist. You want my honest opinion?"
O'Malley raised his eyebrows,
and Sarnow nodded. "Under the circumstances, I'd give Al a seventy-thirty
chance of being closer to
right."
"And if they do decide to create an incident," Parks put in, "this region is
certainly a logical place for
them to do it."
Heads nodded around die table. The Basilisk terminus of the Manticore Wormhole
Junction, which
lay another Hundred and sixty light- years to galactic north of Hancock
                                      38

Station, had become of constantly
growing economic importance as the terminus drew ever more colonization and
exploration to itself, but
stars were sparse out here, and there was precious little of intrinsic worth
between Manticore and Basilisk.
Which meant, since the Star Kingdom had never been particularly interested in
expansion for expansion's
sake, that the Navy had developed virtually no bases to cover the region.
That might not have been a problem . . . except that the People's Republic had
already made one try
at seizing Basilisk. If the Peeps tried a second time and succeeded, Manticore
would lose perhaps ten
percent of its total out-system revenue. Worse, Haven already controlled
Trevor's Star, which meant
conquest of Basilisk would give it two termini, raising the specter of direct
invasion of the Manticore
System via the Junction, and leave the Royal Manticoran Navy no choice but to
take it back at any cost.
Getting Basilisk back would be a grim task under any circumstances, but
especially if the Peeps
established a powerful fleet presence to block access from the home system.
Seaford Nine was obviously
the first step in creating that fleet presence, and until Manticore had gotten
Alizon and (especially)
Zanzibar to join the Alliance—and established Hancock Station—there had been
nothing to counter it. As
it was, the local treaty structure remained untested and quite possibly a
little shaky, and Haven was doing
all it could to prevent it from stabilizing. Their activities—including
political recognition of the "patriots"
of the Zanzibar Liberation Front—left Parks an unenviable strategic equation.
Given the disparity in capital ship tonnage and, even more, Manticore's
technical edge, he had an
excellent chance of crushing the Peeps' local forces. Unfortunately, he had
three allies to defend, spread
over a sphere nearly twenty light- years in diameter. As long as both sides
stayed concentrated, he could
handle anything the Peeps dished out. But if he divided his forces to cover
all of his responsibilities and
Haven chose to mass its full strength against a single target, they could
overwhelm the detachment
covering it and smash his units in isolation.
"I think," the admiral said at last into the quiet, "that we have to assume a
worst-case scenario. I also
know Commander Hale, and I've been impressed by his past work. If he's right
and ONI is wrong, we
could find ourselves looking at two particularly dangerous situations. First,
the Peeps may try to engineer
a crisis, even create an incident or two, solely for the consumption of their
propaganda machine. That's
bad enough, given the potential for an incident to get out of hand, but,
frankly, it worries me less than the
second alternative. They could have finally reached the point of being ready
to pull the trigger on a real
war.
"The question, of course"—there was no twinkle in Parks' blue eyes to match
the whimsy of his
                                      39

smile—"is which they're up to. Comments?"
"I'm more inclined to think in terms of provocations and incidents," Admiral
Konstanzakis said after
a moment. The tall, big-boned commander of Superdreadnought Squadron Eight
leaned slightly forward,
looking down the table to meet Parks' eyes, and tapped her index finger on the
folder of hardcopy before
her. "According to these reports, the ZLF's activities are increasing, and if
Haven wants a low-risk, cheap incident, the Liberation Fronts their best bet.
They're already providing the ZLF's raggedy-assed 'fleet'
with sanctuaries. If they decide to back a major terrorist push against the
Caliph's government, as well—"
She shrugged, and Parks nodded.
"Zeb?" he asked.
"It's certainly a possibility, Sir, but getting significant support to
Zanzibar through the Caliph s own
navy and the light forces we've deployed to back them up would be a real
problem. The Caliphate severed
diplomatic relations with the Republic and embargoed Havenite trade when the
Peeps recognized the
ZLF, so they don't have any good covert channels to slip weapons in. If they
try to run them in openly,
they risk kicking off an escalation they can't control." It was the
intelligence officer's turn to shrug.
"Frankly, Sir, there are a dozen places they can engineer a confrontation.
Zanzibar would be the most
dangerous one from our viewpoint, but that very fact might cause them to look
elsewhere, especially if
their objective is to generate lots of noise but not an actual war.
Parks nodded again, then sighed and rubbed his right temple.
"All right, let's put the engineered crisis scenario on hold until we have
some evidence of actual
activities to guide us. Even if there is an incident, the bottom line will be
how we respond to it, and that
brings us right back to our options. What's the most effective thing we can do
with our forces to protect
our allies and insure the security of Hancock itself?"
Silence hovered as he looked around the table. No one spoke for several
seconds, then Konstanzakis
tapped her folder a second time,
"We should at least strengthen the pickets for Zanzibar, Sir. It might not be
a bad idea to split one of
the battlecruiser squadrons into divisions and spread its units across all
three systems. We'd still be
superior to Seaford's current capital ship strength, and, politically
speaking, it would both reassure our
allies and draw a line for the Peeps."
Parks nodded again, though the thought of parceling out battlecruisers in
penny packets which
couldn't possibly face a concentrated attack was hardly appealing.
He started to speak, but Mark Sarnow cleared his throat first.
"I think we should consider a forward deployment, instead, Sir," Parks' junior
squadron commander
said quietly.
"How far forward, Admiral?" The question sounded sharper than Parks had
intended, but Sarnow
seemed unfazed.
                                      40

"Right on the twelve- hour limit from Seaford Nine, Sir," he replied, and feet
shuffled under the table.
"I'm not talking about a permanent presence, but an extended period of
maneuvers out there would almost
have to make Rollins nervous, and we'd still be outside the territorial limit.
He wouldn't have a leg to
stand on if he tried to protest our presence, but if he started anything, we'd
be close enough to keep our
force concentrated and stay with him all the way to his intended target—
whatever it might be."
"I'm not sure that would be a good idea, Sir," Konstanzakis objected. "We've
already got a light
cruiser squadron keeping an eye on the Peeps, and they know it. If we move in
with ships of the wall, we
up the stakes all around. That sort of deployment makes excellent sense if
they're really ready to push the
button, but if all they want is an incident, we'd be giving them a golden
opportunity to find one, territorial
limit or no."
"We've just more or less agreed that if they want an incident we can't stop
them from producing one,
Dame Christa," Sarnow pointed out. "If we sit tight and wait to see what
they're up to, we're only giving
them the advantage of picking their own time and place. But if we pressure
them, instead, they may
decide the game isn't worth the risk. And if they don't see it that way and
decide to push back, we'll be in
position to do something about it. It's unlikely they'd actually attack us if
we stay on their backs, and if
they do, we'll have our full strength massed to cut them off at the knees."
"I'm inclined to agree with Dame Christa," Parks said in a carefully neutral
voice. "There's no point
helping them rattle their sabers at this point, Admiral Sarnow. Of course, if
the situation changes, my
view of the proper response will change with it."
He met Sarnow's eyes, and the rear admiral nodded after only the slightest of
pauses.
"All right. In that case, Admiral Tyrel," Parks went on, looking at his other
battlecruiser commander,
"we'll split your squadron. Put two ships at Yorik and three each at Zanzibar
and Alizon. Captain
Hurston—" he nodded at his operations officer "—will assign appropriate
screening elements."
"Yes, Sir." Tyrel looked unhappy, and Parks didn't blame him. Splitting his
squadron would not only
increase each unit's individual vulnerability but effectively reduce Tyrel
from a squadron CO to a
divisional commander. On the other hand, it would put a senior officer at
Zanzibar, by far the most
ticklish of Parks' responsibilities. And, he admitted to himself, it would
leave Sarnow's battlecruisers,
once they were all assembled, here in Hancock where he could keep an eye on
their aggressive CO.
"I think that concludes our business for the morning, then," he said, rising
to indicate the end of the
conference, and started for the hatch.
It opened as he reached it, and a communications yeoman recoiled as he found
                                      41

himself face-to-face
with his admiral.
"Uh, excuse me, Sir Yancey. I have a priority message for Captain Beasley."
Parks waved the yeoman past him, and his staff com officer took the message
board from him. She
scanned the text, then made an irritated sound through her teeth,
"Problems, Theresa?" Parks asked.
"Perimeter Tracking picked up a new arrival about thirty minutes ago, Sir,"
Beasley said, and glanced
across at Sarnow. "It seems your flagship's arrived, Admiral. Unfortunately,
she's not exactly in fighting
trim."
She handed the message board to the rear admiral, and went on speaking to
Parks.
"Nike's suffered a major engineering casualty, Sir. Her entire after fusion
plant's off- line. According
to her engineer's preliminary survey, there's a fracture clear through the
primary bottle generator housing."
"Something must have gotten past the builder's scans," Sarnow agreed, still
reading the message. 'It
sounds like we're going to have to pull the entire installation."
"Did they suffer any personnel casualties?" Parks demanded.
"No, Sir," Beasley reassured him.
"Well, thank God for that." The admiral sighed, then shook his head with a dry
chuckle. "I'd hate to
be her skipper about now. Imagine reporting for your first deployment with the
Fleet's newest
battlecruiser and having to tell your station commander you're reduced to two-
thirds power!" He shook
his head again. "Who is the unfortunate fellow, anyway?"
"Countess Harrington, Sir," Sarnow said, looking up from the message board.
"Honor Harrington?" Parks asked in surprise. "I thought she was still on
medical leave."
"Not according to this, Sir."
"Well, well." Parks rubbed his chin, then looked back at Beasley. "Alert the
yard to expedite their
detailed survey, Theresa. I don't want that ship out of action any longer than
necessary. If it's going to be
faster to return her to Hephaestus, I want to know it soonest."
"Yes, Sir. I'll get right on it."
'Thank you." Parks rested his hand on Sarnow's shoulder for a moment. "As for
you, Admiral, it
would seem your transfer to your new flagship may be a bit delayed. For the
moment, I'll hold Irresistible
here for you. If Nike has to be sent home, I'm sure the Admiralty will send
you a replacement before I
have to release Irresistible." "Thank you, Sir."
Parks nodded and beckoned for his chief of staff to join him as he left the
briefing room. Commodore
Capra fell in at his right side, and Parks glanced back to be sure they were
out of earshot before he sighed.
"Harrington," he murmured. "Now isn' t that just peachy?"
"She's an outstanding officer, Sir," Capra replied, and Parks' nostrils flared
in a silent snort.
"She's a damned hothead with no self-control is what she is!" Capra said
nothing, and Parks
grimaced. "Oh, I know all about her combat record," he said testily, "but she
                                      42

ought to be kept on a leash!
She did a good job in Basilisk, but she could have been more diplomatic about
it. And that business about
assaulting an envoy in Yeltsin—
He shook his head, and Capra bit his tongue. Unlike Parks, the commodore had
met The Honorable
Reginald Houseman, Ph.D., and he suspected Harrington had let him off far more
easily than he deserved.
But that wasn't a viewpoint he could expect his admiral to share, and the two
of them walked on in silence
until Parks suddenly stopped dead and slapped his forehead.
"Oh, Lord! It was Houseman she attacked, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Great. Just wonderful! And now Houseman's cousin is chief of staff for the
heavy cruiser element of
Sarnow's screen. I can hardly wait for the two of them to meet up!"
Capra nodded without expression, and Parks went on, more to himself than his
companion, as they
stepped into the lift and he punched their destination code.
"Just what we need." He sighed. "Two fire-eaters, one of them flag captain to
the other, and the
makings of an instant feud between her and a cruiser squadrons chief of
staff!" He shook his head wearily.
"Somehow I'm starting to think this is going to be a very long deployment."
CHAPTER SIX
"There, Ma'am," Ivan Ravicz said unhappily. "See it?"
Honor studied the scanner display, then tightened her left eye socket to
switch to microscopic mode.
She bent closer to the housing and grimaced as she finally found it. The tiny,
ruler-straight fracture line
was almost invisible—even her cybernetic eye had trouble spotting it—but it
ran clear across, cutting
diagonally from corner to corner and extending almost down to deck level.
"I see it." She sighed. "How did the builder's scans miss it?"
"Because it wasn't there." Ravicz scratched his nose, deep-set eyes more
mournful than ever, and
gave the generator a disgusted kick. "There's a flaw in the matrix, Skipper.
It looks like good oldfashioned
crystallization to me, even if that isn't supposed to be possible with the new
synth alloys. The
actual fracture probably didn't occur until we went to a normal operational
cycle."
"I see." Honor readjusted her eye to normal vision and straightened, feeling
the gentle pressure of
Nimitz's true-hand on her head as he balanced against her movement.
Like Honor's last ship, Nike had three fusion plants, yet her energy
requirements were huge compared
to a heavy cruiser's. HMS Fearless could have operated on a single plant, but
Nike needed at least two,
which gave her only one backup. She needed Fusion Three back before she could
be considered truly
operational, and from the look of things, getting it back was going to take
far longer than Honor cared to
think about.
Admiral Parks' greeting message had been perfectly correct, but she'd sensed a
coolness behind it,
and, under the circumstances, she would have loved to blame this on
                                      43

Hephaestus' yard dogs. Deprived of
a legitimate human target for his unhappiness, Parks might well decide Nike's
captain ought to have
known it could happen . . . and taken steps to see that it didn't. "Well, in
that case, I suppose we—"
She broke off and turned her head as boots sounded on the deck plates behind
her, and her. lips
tightened ever so slightly as she saw the man at Mike Henke's side. He was
short, the crown of his head
just topping Honor's shoulder, but solid and chunky, and his dark hair, longer
than current fashion
decreed, was drawn back in a neat ponytail under his black beret. His cuffs
bore the same four gold rings
as her own, but his collar carried the four gold pips of a junior grade
captain, not the single planet of a
captain of the list, and Nimitz shifted on her shoulder as he sensed her
sudden spurt of associative
dislike—and her self-recrimination for feeling it.
"Sorry we're late, Ma'am," Henke said formally. "Captain Tankersley was tied
up on another job
when we docked."
"No problem, Mike." Honor's soprano was cooler than she would have preferred,
but she held out her
hand. "Welcome aboard Nike, Captain. I hope you can get her back on-line
quickly fo r us."
"We'll certainly try, Milady."
Tankersley's voice was deeper than she remembered, rumbling about in his
chest, and a trickle of
someone else's feelings oozed into her brain. It was Nimitz, tapping her into
Tankersley's emotions as he'd
learned to do since Yeltsin. She was still far from accustomed to his doing
that, and she reached up to
touch him in a silent injunction to stop. But even as she did, she recognized
the matching discomfort in
the other captain, a sense of awkward regret over the circumstances of their
first meeting.
"Thank you," she said more naturally, and gestured at the scanner. "Commander
Ravicz has just been
showing me the damage. Take a look, Captain."
Tankersley glanced at the display, then looked again, more closely, and pursed
his lips in a silent
whistle.
"All the way across?" He cocked an eyebrow and grimaced at Ravicz's doleful
nod, then smiled
wryly at Honor. 'These new alloys will be wonderful things, Milady—once we
figure out exactly what
we're doing with them."
"Indeed." Honor's lips twitched at his tone, and she tapped the generator. "Am
I right in assuming
we're looking at complete replacement here?"
"I'm afraid so, Ma'am. Oh, I could try a weld, but we're talking a bead a good
twenty meters long just
across the outer face. This stuff's not supposed to break in the first place,
and according to The Book,
patching should only be considered as a last resort. The fracture cuts right
through two of the central loadbearing
brackets and the number two hydrogen feed channel, too, I'm afraid. Odds are
                                      44

we'd have to pull it
anyway, and I'd rather not leave you with a repaired unit that could crap out
again without warning. My
people can try to patch it once we have it in the shop. If they pull it off—
and if it meets specs after the y
do, which I doubt it will—we can put it in stores for later use. In the
meantime, we can get Nike back up
and running with a new housing."
"You have one we can swap out?"
"Oh, yes. We're topped up with spares for almost everything." Tankersley's
pride in his newly
operational base showed, and Honor felt herself thaw even further at his
obvious readiness to tackle the
job.
"How long are we talking, then?" she asked.
"That's the bad news, Milady," Tankersley said more seriously. "You don't have
an access way large
enough to move the spare through, so we're going to have to open up the fusion
room." He put his hands
on his hips and turned slowly, surveying the huge, immaculate compartment, and
his eyes were unhappy.
"If Nike were a smaller ship, we could disable the charges and take out the
emergency panel, but that
won't work here." Honor nodded in understanding. As in most merchantmen,
fusion rooms in destroyers and light
cruisers—and some smaller heavy cruisers—were designed with blow-out bulkheads
to permit them to
jettison malfunctioning reactors as an emergency last resort. But larger
warships couldn't do that, unless
their designers deliberately made their power plants more vulnerable than they
had to. Nike was a
kilometer and a half long, with a maximum beam of over two hundred meters, and
her fusion plants were
buried along the central axis of her hull. That protected them from enemy
fire, but it also meant she
simply had to hope the failsafes worked in the face of battle damage which did
get through to them . . .
and that there was no easy access to them from outside.
"We're going to have to go through the armor and a lot of bulkheads, Milady,
and then we're going to
have to put them all back again," Tankersley went on. "We've got the equipment
for it, but I imagine it's
going to take at least two months—more probably fourteen or fifteen weeks."
"Could Hephaestus knock that time down if we returned to Manticore?" She kept
her tone as neutral
as possible, but if Tankersley took any offense at the question it didn't
show.
"No, Milady. Oh, Hephaestus has an edge in ancillary equipment, but I doubt
they could shave more
than a week off our time, and you'd spend twice that long in transit for the
round trip."
"I was afraid of that." Honor sighed. "Well, it seems we're in your hands. How
soon can we get
started?"
"I'll get my own survey people over here within the hour," Tankersley
promised. "We're still pretty
busy with expansion work, but I think I can juggle my schedules a bit and
                                      45

start clearing away the control
runs by next watch. I've got a tin-can in Slip Two with her after impeller
ring wide open, and my exterior
crews will need another day or so to button her back up. As soon as they're
finished, Nike gets top
priority."
"Outstanding," Honor said. "If I have to turn my ship over to someone,
Captain, I'm glad it's at least
someone who gets right to it."
"Oh, I'll certainly do that, Milady!" Tankersley turned back from his study of
the bulkheads with a
grin. "No mere yard dog wants a starship captain on his neck. Don't worry.
We'll have you back up as
quickly as possible."
Admiral Mark Sarnow looked up and touched a stud as the admittance chime
sounded.
"Yes?"
"Staff Communications Officer, Sir," his sentry announced, and Sarnow nodded
in satisfaction.
"Enter," he said, and smiled as the hatch opened to admit a tall, gangling
redhead in a lieutenant
commander's uniform. "So, Samuel. May I assume you bear word from the repair
base?"
"Yes, Sir." Lieutenant Commander Webster held out a message board. "Captain
Tankersley's
estimate on Nike's repairs, Sir."
"Ah." Sarnow accepted the board and laid it on his desk. "I'll read it later.
Just give me the bad news
first."
"It's not all that bad. Sir." Webster's formal expression turned into a smile
of his own. "The housings
definitely shot, but Captain Tankersley figures they can have a replacement-
in place within fourteen
weeks."
"Fourteen weeks, eh?" Sarnow rubbed his brushy mustache, green eyes
thoughtful. "I hate to have her
down that long, but you're right—it is better than I was afraid of." He leaned
back, still stroking his
moustache, then nodded. "Inform Admiral Parks I think we can allow
Irresistible to depart on schedule,
Samuel."
"Yes, Sir." Webster braced briefly to attention and started to leave, but
Sarnow raised a hand.
"Just a minute, Samuel." The lieutenant commander paused, and the admiral
gestured at a chair.
"Have a seat." "Yes, Sir." Webster sank into the indicated chair, and Sarnow
let his own swivel slowly back and
forth as he frowned down at his desk. Then he looked back up to meet his com
officer's eyes.
"You were in Basilisk with Lady Harrington?" His tone made the question a
statement, and memory
darkened Webster's eyes. One hand rose to his chest, almost by reflex, but he
snatched it back down and
nodded.
"Yes, Sir. I was."
"Tell me a little about her." Sarnow tipped his chair back and watched the
lieutenant commander's
                                      46

face. "Oh, I've read her record, but I don't have any sort of real feel for
her personality."
"I—" Webster paused and cleared his throat at the unexpected question, and
Sarnow waited patiently
while he got; his thoughts in order. RMN personnel were seldom invited to
comment on their seniors—
especially their ex-COs—and, as a rule, the admiral disliked officers who
encouraged people to do so. But
he didn't retract the request. Admiral Parks hadn't actually said anything,
yet his reservations about
Harrington were obvious in the way he hadn't said it.
Honor Harrington had more command combat experience than any two other
officers her age.
Nothing in Sarnow's download of her record seemed to justify any admiral's
being less than delighted to
have a captain of her proven ability under his command, yet Parks obviously
was. Was that because he
knew something Sarnow didn't? Something that wasn't in her official personnel
jacket?
Of course, Parks always had been a nitpicker where military etiquette was
concerned. No one could
deny his competence, but he could be depressingly prim and proper—in fact, he
was a pretty cold damned
fish—and Sarnow had heard the gossip about Harrington. He also knew there were
always stories,
especially about officers who'd achieved what she had; the problem was knowing
which were based in
fact and which in fancy. What worried him were the ones that suggested she was
hotheaded—even
arrogant—and he more than suspected it was those same reports that concerned
Parks, as well.
He could discount a lot of them as the work of those jealous of her
achievements, and the Admiralty
would hardly give any officer they had doubts about command of Nike. But there
was always the specter
of personal influence, and by all accounts, Admiral White Haven had decided to
make Harrington's career
some sort of personal project. Sarnow knew White Haven, if not well, and his
obvious partisanship
probably reflected his own belief that Harrington was every bit as good as her
record indicated. It was an
admiral's job to nurture outstanding junior officers, after all. But, in a
way, White Havens very reputation
for refusing to play the influence game for anyone in the past made his
present efforts on her behalf just
the least bit suspect.
Yet whatever anyone else thought of her, she was now Sarnow's flag captain. He
had to know the
woman behind the stories, not just the "official" record. For that he needed
input from someone who knew
her, and Webster was hardly a typical junior officer. Despite his youth,
Samuel Webster had probably
seen more senior officers, both socially and professionally, than Sarnow had.
He'd also been critically
wounded under Harrington's command, which should counteract any tendency to
idealize her. More than
that, he was bright and observant, and Sarnow trusted his judgment.
                                      47

Webster settled himself deeper in his chair, unaware of Sarnow's thoughts, and
wished his admiral
hadn't asked him. It felt disloyal to discuss Captain Harrington with her
current superior. But he was no
longer her com officer; he was Admiral Sarnow's.
"I'm not certain what you're asking for, Sir," he said finally.
"I know I'm making you uncomfortable, Samuel, but you're the only member of my
staff who's
actually met her, and—" The admiral waved his hand, unwilling to explain the
reason for his concern, and
Webster sighed.
"In that case, Admiral, all I can say is that she's the best," he said
finally. "We had some serious
problems when they banished us to Basilisk, and the Captain— well, she dealt
with them, Sir, and I never
heard her raise her voice once while she did it. You know what Basilisk
Station used to be like, and we weren't exactly the best crew anyone ever gave
a captain, either. Not when we arrived. But, by God,
Admiral, we were when we left!"
Sarnow leaned back, surprised by Webster's vehemence, and the com officer
looked away before he
went on.
"The Captain gets the best out of her people—sometimes more than they ever
guessed they could
give—and I don't really think it's anything she does. It's who she is, Sir.
You trust her. You know she'll
never let you down, and when the shit hits the fan, you know she'll get you
out of it if anyone can. I'm a
com officer, not a tac specialist, but I saw enough in Basilisk to realize how
good she really is. I don't
know if you've been briefed on just how BuShips butchered our armament,
Admiral, but we were so far
out of our league it was pitiful. We all knew that from the start, but the
Captain took us in anyway. The
Peeps smashed us into a wreck, Sir—three-quarters of our people were dead or
wounded, but she kept
right on coming, and somehow she took them out. I don't know if anyone else
could have done it, but she
did."
The lieutenant commanders voice was soft, almost inaudible in the quiet cabin,
and he stared down at
his hands.
"We blamed her for getting us sent to Basilisk when we first arrived. It
wasn't her fault, but that didn't
change the way we felt, and it showed. But by the time it all broke loose, we
would have followed her
into Hell. In fact, I guess that's just about what we did . . . and we'd do it
again."
Webster blushed at his own intensity. "I'm sorry, Sir. I don't know if that's
what you wanted to know,
but—" He shrugged almost helplessly.
He met his admiral's gaze, blue eyes strangely vulnerable, and Sarnow looked
back in silence for a
long, long moment, then nodded.
"Thank you, Samuel," he said quietly. 'That was exactly what I wanted to
know."
Honor worked steadily, frowning in concentration as her fingers moved on her
                                      48

keyboard. She
sometimes thought the Navy was really powered by reports and memos, not fusion
plants. There was
never an end to it, and BuShips was almost worse than BuPers—especially when
one of Her Majesty's
captains was so careless as to break the starship with which the Lords of
Admiralty had entrusted her. Had
some psych type convinced Their Lordships to generate so many forms as a none
too subtle way to punish
such miscreants for their sins?
She finished the final corrections and captain's endorsements to Ravicz's
report, cross-referenced her
own report to Captain Tankersley's, routed copies of all relevant documents to
Admiral Sarnow, Admiral
Parks, and Third Space Lord Danvers, with yet another copy to the attention of
Nike's builders and one for
the inspectors aboard Hephaestus, then dashed her signature with the
electronic stylus and pressed her
thumb to the scan panel with a sigh of relief. From here on out, it was in the
yard dogs' hands, and she, for
one, was profoundly grateful it was.
She leaned back and sipped the cocoa MacGuiness had left at her elbow. It was
fresh and hot, though
she hadn't even noticed his silent passage to deliver it, and she made a
mental note to thank him later.
She sighed again. There was plenty more paperwork where the last lot had come
from, and she was
guiltily aware that she should get straight onto it, but the thought was
unappealing. Part of her wanted to
wander down to Fusion Three to rubberneck, instead, but Captain Tankersley's
people would be less than
delighted to have Nike's skipper hanging over their shoulders. On the other
hand, she could feel herself
developing a serious case of bulkhead fever, complicated by an allergic
reaction to paperwork. Maybe
what she ought to do was take herself off to the gym and spend an hour or so—
Her com chirped, and she pressed the button with something like relief.
"Captain speaking." "Communications, Ma'am," Lieutenant Commander Monet's
voice said. "I have a personal signal for
you from Irresistible. It's Admiral Sarnow."
Honor set her cocoa mug hastily aside and ran her hands through her hair. It
remained far too short to
braid as most female officers did, but its new, longer length made it harder
to keep tidy, and she wished
fervently that she'd had some warning Sarnow might com. She winced as her
hurried, ruthlessly grooming
fingers caught in a snarled curl, then twitched her tunic straight. It was one
of her older, more comfortable
uniforms, a little worn, its braid just a bit frayed, and she dreaded
MacGuiness' reaction when he
discovered she'd greeted her new admiral for the first time wearing something
so disreputable, but there
was no time to change. A brand new flag captain didn't keep her admiral
waiting when he finally got
around to screening her at last.
"Put it through to my terminal, please, George," she said.
"Yes, Ma'am," Monet replied, and Admiral Mark Sarnow replaced the data on her
                                      49

screen. His
complexion was darter than she'd expected, a darkness emphasized by his green
eyes, chestnut hair, and
the pronounced eyebrows, several shades darker than his hair or mustache,
which met in a straight line
above the bridge of his high-arched nose.
"Good evening, Dame Honor. I hope I'm not interrupting?" His tenor voice was
gentler than his
strong-jawed face, almost soft.
"Good evening, Sir. And, no, you're not interrupting. I was just wrestling
with some routine
paperwork."
"Good. I've had a chance to look over the yard report on your fusion plant,
and it seems to confirm
your engineers assessment. I realize you'll be stuck in dock for quite a while
yet, but under the
circumstances, I'd like to release Irresistible to return to Manticore and
shift my flag to Nike as soon as
possible."
"Of course, Sir. At your convenience."
'Thank you." Sarnow's sudden smile gave his face an unexpected, almost boyish
enthusiasm. "We'll
try not to get in your way, Captain, but I want my staff to shake down with
your officers as soon as
possible. And, of course, I need to spend some time getting you involved."
"Yes, Sir." Honor kept her face calm, but she felt an undeniable satisfaction
at his welcoming tone.
Some admirals would have greeted an unknown flag captain with reserve—
especially one who'd
inconvenienced them by arriving with a lamed ship, whether it was her fault or
not.
'Very well, then, Captain. With your permission, we'll come aboard at oh-seven
hundred tomorrow."
"That will be fine, Admiral. If you wish, I'll have my steward contact your
steward and arrange the
transfer of your personal gear."
Thank you. And, in the meantime, I'd like to invite you to join Captain
Parsons, Captain Corell, and
myself for supper aboard Irresistible at seventeen hundred, if that would be
convenient."
"Of course, Sir."
"Good! I'll see you then, Captain," Sarnow said, and cut the connection with a
courteous nod.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"I'm impressed, Dame Honor. This is quite a ship you have here," Admiral
Sarnow said as they
walked down the passage, and Honor smiled.
"I'm a bit pleased with her myself, Sir," she said. "When she isn't broken,
that is."
"I can understand that, but the base crews do excellent work, and I've noticed
that they tend to
consistently overestimate how long a job is likely to take." The admiral's
mustache quivered as he
grinned. "I don't think they've quite realized just how good they are."
'They're certainly the most efficient bunch of yard dogs I've ever dealt
with," Honor agreed, and she
meant it. The task the Hancock Station base staff faced was far more complex
                                      50

than Captain Tankersley's
assessment might have suggested, but they were tearing into it with energy and
efficiency.
The two of them reached the central lift, and she stood aside to let her
senior precede her into it, then
keyed their destination. The short trip passed in comfortable silence, and
Nimitz sat relaxed on her
shoulder, a sure sign he approved of her new squadron CO. She was inclined to
agree with the 'cat. Mark
Sarnow was young for his rank, only eight T-years older than she was, but he
exuded an air of confident
energy.
The lift delivered them to Nike's flag bridge. It was smaller than Honor's
command deck, but just as
magnificent, and the master plot took up almost two-thirds of the deck space
while repeater displays
duplicated the critical readouts of her own bridge crew.
The admiral's staff was waiting, and Captain (Junior Grade) The Honorable
Ernestine Corell, his
chief of staff, looked up from a memo pad with a smile.
"I was about to send out a search party, Sir. You're cutting it awful close
for Admiral Parks'
conference."
Sarnow glanced at his chrono and grimaced. "We've got time, Ernie. Why don't
you and Joe join us in
the briefing room?"
"Of course." Corell and Commander Joseph Cartwright, Sarnow's operations
officer, followed the
admiral toward the briefing room hatch, and Honor paused only to smile at
Samuel Webster before she
joined them.
"Have seats, people," Sarnow invited, waving them into chairs around the
conference table. He pulled
off his beret, unsealed his tunic, and dropped into the chair at the head of
the table; Honor took her own
place, facing him up its length from the far end.
"We don't have time to get too deep into things," the admiral said, "but I
want to hit the high spots for
Dame Honor's benefit before we disappear to Gryphon again." He grimaced again.
"One reason I'll be
glad to get Nike operable again will be the chance to get away from the
station flagship. I seem to be
spending more time there than anywhere else."
Honor said nothing, but Sarnow's edge of exasperation wasn't lost on her, and
she wondered just how
tense things really were between him and the man who'd relieved him.
"And once we are operable, Captain Harrington," he continued, "we're going to
be extremely busy
working up the squadron. I'm afraid the Admiralty hasn't sent us out here on
vacation."
His staff officers chuckled, and Honor smiled at his wry tone as he turned to
Corell.
"What's our status, Ernie?"
"We got an updated ETA on Defiant and Onslaught while you and the Captain were
below decks,
Sir," the tall, delicate-boned chief of staff replied. "We can expect Defiant
within another three days, but
                                      51

Onslaught's been delayed. She won't be here until the twentieth of next
month."
"Wonderful." Sarnow sighed. "Any explanation of why?"
"No, Sir. Just the revised ETA."
"Why am I not surprised? Oh, well. The yard won't be releasing Nike any time
soon, either. Does
Admiral Parks have that information?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good." Sarnow rubbed his chin, eyes narrowed in thought, then looked at
Honor.
"Basically, Dame Honor, what we have here is an entirely new squadron. There
hasn't been a Fifth
Battle Cruiser Squadron since the last major Fleet reorganization, and aside
from Achilles and Cassandra, who transferred in from BatCruRon Fifteen
together, none of our units have any experience as a team.
We'll have to start building from the ground up, and time isn't on our side."
He held Honor's eyes, and she nodded.
"Every flag officer I've ever known," he went on, "had his own ideas on
exactly what he expected
from his flag captain, and I'm no exception. I expect your constant input,
Dame Honor. If you see a
problem, either fix it yourself or bring it to my attention—and if the problem
is me or something I'm
doing, tell me about it. Ernie and Joe do their best to keep me straight, but
there are times I need all the
help I can get. Understood?"
He smiled, but there was steel behind the smile, and Honor nodded again.
"You won't be the squadron's senior captain, but you are its flag captain.
That may lead to problems
when you have to deal with someone who's senior to you, but I expect you to
deal with that—and to
remember you're the flag captain. You're the woman who's going to be sitting
in on staff meetings they
can't get to, the one most familiar with my plans and intentions. I don't plan
on passing any bucks to you,
but I expect you to use your own discretion and initiative to deal with
squadron matters, as well as Nike,
whenever they come within your purview.
"In return for your slavelike devotion to duty," he went on, with another of
his fierce grins, "I will
back you right down the line. If at any time I am displeased with your
actions, I will tell you so before
anyone else hears about it. From your record, I expect you to be a major
asset, especially to a brand new
squadron. Don't do anything to change my mind."
"I'll try not to, Sir," Honor said quietly.
"I'm certain you will—and I expect you to succeed. Now, Joe," Sarnow turned to
his ops officer,
"what do we know about our mission parameters?"
"Not as much as I'd like, Sir," Cartwright said. "With Admiral Tyrel's
squadron detached, we're
obviously going to be Admiral Parks' primary screening unit, but the entire
task forces operational posture
seems to be undergoing a fairly radical reassessment." The bearded commander
shrugged. "All I can tell
you right now is that the Admiral apparently intends to retain us here for the
immediate future."
                                      52

"Could be worse," the admiral said, though he didn't sound especially
convinced of it. "At least it'll
give us time to work up." Cartwright nodded, and Sarnow rubbed his chin again,
then looked back at his
chrono and straightened in his chair.
"All right. Ernie, since Achilles and Cassandra have at least operated
together before, we'll start
building around them. I want you and Joe to get the available squadron set up
for gunnery practice in the
next day or two. Form them in two divisions—Achilles and Cassandra in one,
Invincible, Intolerant, and
Agamemnon in the other—to compete with one another. I'll ride in Invincible.
Please warn Captain
Daumier I'll be coming."
"Yes, Sir." The chief of staff made notes on her memo pad, and Sarnow glanced
at Honor.
"Obviously, we can't take Nike along, Dame Honor, but I'd like you to ride
with me. And don't worry
about your presence bothering Captain Daumier. Invincible's the current holder
of the Queen's Cup, and
she's almost as proud of her ship as you are of Nike. No doubt she'll enjoy
showing you what kind of
gunnery I'll expect my flagship to match." He flashed another grin, and she
smiled in reply.
"When we get back, I'm going to start setting up the squadron command net, so
please have your com
officer sit down with Commander Webster to be certain everything's up and
running before we leave. I'd
like to run through some squadron-level sims ASAP to see where the roughest
spots are."
"Of course, Sir."
"Thank you." The admiral inhaled, pushed himself to his feet, and gathered up
his beret. "I suppose
that's everything for the moment, then. Ernie, Joe—we have an appointment with
the Admiral. Will you
excuse us, Dame Honor?" "Of course," Honor repeated, and Sarnow bustled
through the hatch, staff officers in tow. The energy
level in the compartment dropped dramatically with his departure, and she
smiled as Nimitz sighed on her
shoulder.
But even as she smiled, there was an edge of question deep within her. George
Monet had receipted
the original message setting up the conference aboard Gryphon because Webster
hadn't been aboard yet,
and every other admiral had been instructed to bring his or her flag captain
along. Sarnow had not.
No reason had been given for excluding her, and there might be any number of
causes. Certainly the
fact that her ship was undergoing major repairs could have explained it. But
by the same token, a captain
whose ship was in yard hands had more free time, not less . . . and she was
the only flag captain who
wouldn't be there. Was there some other reason Admiral Parks hadn't invited
her? She couldn't think of
one, but that didn't mean one didn't exist. And if it did, was it something to
do with Sarnow, or did it
reflect on her?
                                      53

She rose, folded her hands behind her, and walked slowly from the conference
room, and her mind
was busy.
The sound of her breathing was loud in the hushed gym as Honor worked grimly
through the reps. Of
all forms of exercise, she was least fond of weight work, yet her
convalescence had taken a lot out of her.
Not enough to worry the BuMed, perhaps, but enough to dismay her. She was
still rebuilding upper-body
muscle, and weights were the fastest way to do it, even if they were mind-
numbing. But once she got her
edge back, she promised herself, releasing the grips with a gasp, she'd find
any number of more enjoyable
ways to keep it.
She touched the storage button, retracting the adjustable resistance cables
silently into the bulkhead,
and ran her hands through her wet hair. Nike had been designed from the keel
out as a flagship, and unlike
any of Honor's previous commands, she had a private gym for a flag officer and
his staff. Honor wasn't
sure she approved of that in principle, but she wasn't about to turn down
Admiral Sarnow's invitation to
use it. It was smaller than the main gym, but its privacy meant she could
adjust the internal gravity to
match that of her homeworld without either inconveniencing others or waiting
until the middle of the
night to get it to herself.
She braced both hands against the small of her back and arched in spine-
popping relaxation as she
turned away from the weight machine, and Nimitz looked up from his usual
comfortable sprawl along the
lower of the uneven parallel bars. He started to get up, but she shook her
head.
"Oh, no you don't, Stinker. It's not time for frisbee yet," she told him, and
he curled back down with a
mournful sigh. She chuckled at him and stepped up onto the diving board, which
was one thing she
unequivocally approved of. Most spacers were perfectly happy "swimming" in a
null- gee tank, but Honor
preferred water, and Nike's designers, in a burst of no doubt misplaced zeal,
had provided a pool for the
admirals use. The water in it formed part of the battlecruiser's consumables
storage system, which
probably explained how the architect had convinced BuShips to buy it, and it
was on the small side, but it
was deep enough for diving.
She took three gliding steps along the board, arced gracefully through the
air, and entered the water
with no more splash than a fish, and Nimitz shuddered fastidiously on his
perch. Humans, he'd long ago
concluded, found pleasure in some very strange activities.
The water was warmer than Honor would have chosen . . . but then again, she
was from Sphinx. She
glided to the bottom, then curled briefly into a ball, straightened, and broke
the surface with a gasp of
delight. She shook her head to toss hair out of her eyes, got her bearings,
and swam strongly over to the
                                      54

ladder. Principle, she decided, was a very fine thing, but there was something
to be said for wallowing in
the decadent privileges of rank, as well.
She grinned and started up the ladder, then paused, waist-deep in the water,
as the hatch opened,
Sarnow's staff was still aboard Gryphon, and she'd expected to have the gym to
herself until their return. The newcomer started through the hatch but stopped
dead when he felt the cranked up pull of the
grav plates. He wore a comfortably worn-looking exercise outfit, and he looked
around quickly, his own
surprise evident, then straightened his spine as he saw her standing in the
water.
"Excuse me, Dame Honor," he said quickly. "I thought the gym would be
unoccupied. I didn't mean
to intrude."
"That's all right, Captain Tankersley." Honor finished climbing out of the
pool. "And you're not
intruding. Come on in."
"Thank you, Ma'am." Tankersley moved further forward to let the hatch close
behind him, then
looked around and whistled silently. "Admiral Sarnow wasn't joking when he
said they'd given him his
own playground, was he?"
"No, he wasn't," Honor agreed. "Just a second, and I'll turn the gravity back
down."
"Don't bother, please. I often turn it up myself—when there's no one around to
scream about it. That's
one reason I was so grateful the Admiral invited me to drop by when I was off
duty."
"It does make people a bit cranky," Honor agreed with a smile.
"Well, I can see their point, but I got into the habit at Saganami Island. I
was on the unarmed combat
team, and Chief MacDougal always had us Manticoran and Gryphon sissies work
out under at least an
extra quarter-gee."
"You were on the team?" Honor asked in surprise. "So was I! Which form did you
train in?"
"The Chiefs favorite," Tankersley said wryly. "Coup de vitesse."
"Have you kept in training?' she demanded.
"Yes, Ma'am. Not as well as I'd like, but I've kept it up."
"Well, well, well," Honor murmured. 'That's very interesting, Captain
Tankersley. It just happens that
I need a sparring partner. Interested?"
"Only if you promise not to hurt me," Tankersley said. Honor's eyebrows rose,
and he grinned. "I've
seen that footage from Grayson, Ma'am."
"Oh." Honor's cheeks heated, and she looked away. "I'd hoped people would
forget about that."
"Good luck, Ma'am. It's not every day a Manticoran officer foils an attempt to
assassinate a friendly
head of state—and on camera, no less."
Honor shrugged uncomfortably. "It was really Nimitz's doing. If he hadn't felt
their emotions and
warned me, we'd all have been dead."
Tankersley nodded more soberly and glanced across the gym at Nimitz, who
returned his gaze with
all the hauteur of a holovid star.
                                      55

"At any rate," Honor went on more briskly, "I still need a sparring partner,
and if you're available . . .
?"
"Of course, Ma'am. I'd be honored."
"Good!" Honor held out her hand and he took it with a smile. She smiled back,
but then she looked
into his eyes and paused. There was something in them she wasn't accustomed to
seeing. She couldn't
quite put her finger on what that something was, but she was suddenly aware of
how wet and clinging her
thin unitard was. She felt her face heating again, and her own eyes fell as
she released his hand with a
sudden sense of awkwardness.
He seemed to feel it, too, for he looked away with a slight air of
embarrassment. Silence hovered
between them for a moment, and then he cleared his throat.
"By the way, Dame Honor," he said, an edge of strain shadowing his voice,
"I've always wanted to
apologize for what happened in Basilisk. I—"
"There's no need to apologize, Captain." "I think there is, Ma'am," Tankersley
disagreed quietly. He looked back into her face, his own
expression serious.
"No, there isn't," she said firmly. "You happened to get caught in an old
feud. You certainly didn't
have anything to do with it, and there wasn't anything you could have done to
prevent it."
"But I've always felt so dirty over it." Tankersley's eyes fell. "You see, I'd
endorsed Captain Young's
request for a refit before we knew anyone else had been assigned there. All
his senior officers had."
Honor stiffened. She'd wondered why Young hadn't been relieved for leaving his
station; now she
knew. He must have learned of her assignment to Basilisk before she had, and
he'd taken steps to cover
himself when he abandoned the picket to her. A captain who arbitrarily pulled
his ship off station for refit
had better have a very compelling hardware problem to justify it. But if all
of his department heads agreed
his ship was in need of general overhaul, The Book authorized him to seek
permission from his station's
senior officer to return to the yard. As long as the senior officer in
question approved, he couldn't be
officially censured for abandoning his station . . . even if it later turned
out the overhaul hadn't been
necessary after all. And since Pavel Young had also been the senior officer on
Basilisk Station, he could
grant his own "request"—and leave Honor alone and unsupported—without ever
quite violating the letter
of the regs.
But his career couldn't have survived it when the station blew up in her face,
family influence or no,
if his officers hadn't signed off on his request as well.
"I see," she said after a moment. She picked up her towel and dried her hair,
then wrapped it around
her neck and draped its ends to cover her breasts. Tankersley stood silent,
spine rigid, still looking away,
and she reached out and touched his shoulder lightly.
                                      56

"I see," she repeated, "but what I don't see, Captain, is any reason you
should blame yourself for it."
She felt his shoulder twitch and gave it a tiny squeeze before she removed her
hand. "You couldn't have
known what was coming when you endorsed his request."
"No," he said slowly, then sighed and turned back to her at last. "No, Ma'am,
I didn't know what he
was up to. As a matter of fact, I did know there was bad blood between you. I
didn't know exactly why,"
he added hastily, "and, as I say, I didn't know you were coming when I signed
off on his refit request. But
I should have guessed he was up to something, and it never even occurred to me
to wonder what. I
suppose that's what I really blame myself for. I knew him, and I should have
wondered, but to tell you the
truth, all I wanted was to get away from Basilisk myself."
"Now that," Honor said with a grin that was only slightly forced, "I can
understand! I was none too
pleased to be sent there myself, and you'd already been stuck there for—what?
A T-year?"
"Just about," he replied more naturally, and his mouth twitched in a grin of
its own. "The longest year
of my life, I think."
"I can imagine. But, seriously, I don't blame you or anyone but Young himself,
and you shouldn't
either."
"If you say so, Milady." The broad-shouldered captain surprised her with a
formal bow that should
have made her feel ridiculous as she stood looming a full head taller than him
in her dripping unitard. But
it didn't, somehow.
"Well, then!" she said, "You were on your way to exercise, and I've got to get
back to my paperwork.
When do you think you might be free for a match?"
Tomorrow at twelve hundred would be good." He sounded relieved by the change
of subject. "I've
got a work crew scheduled to start pulling the outer hull plates under Fusion
Three during the first watch,
and I want to be there, but I should be clear by lunch."
"Fine! I'll see you at twelve hundred, then, Captain Tankersley," Honor said
with a nod, and headed
for the showers with Nimitz padding along at her heels. CHAPTER EIGHT
The battlecruiser Invincible accelerated toward her assigned target area.
Captain Marguerite Daumier
sat in her command chair, outwardly relaxed as she led her temporary
division's firing run, but Honor
suspected she was less calm than she looked, for the atmosphere on
Invincible's bridge was prickly with
tension.
She rubbed Nimitz's ears, her own face carefully expressionless, as she stood
at the back of the
bridge, silently comparing Daumier's command crew to her own. Daumier had
commanded Invincible for
over a T- year, and her people worked with a smooth precision Nike's bridge
crew had yet to attain—not
that Honor intended to admit that to a living soul. But whatever Invincible's
internal command team was
                                      57

like, the performance of her division had been sadly substandard.
It wasn't Daumier's fault. Nor, for that matter, was it anyone else's, really.
None of the three ships had
ever worked together before, and there was an undeniable hesitancy to their
coordination. Intolerant had
actually missed a course change and maintained three hundred and eighty
gravities acceleration on her old
heading for over ninety seconds before Captain Trinh realized what had
happened. Honor was just as glad
she hadn't been on his bridge to witness his reaction when he did, and she'd
half expected Sarnow to com
the unfortunate offender for the express purpose of ripping his head off. But
the admiral had only winced
and stood watching the display in silence while Trinh fought to get back into
formation.
That had been the day's most spectacular error, but it certainty hadn't been
the only one. Most of them
might not have been apparent to someone simply watching the exercise, but they
were painfully evident to
the people trying to carry it out. Despite their size, battlecruisers were far
too lightly armed to oppose a
wall of battle ship broadside to broadside. They had to rely on bold, perfect
handling to outmaneuver
larger opponents, and the same qualities were required to catch the smaller
ships which were their rightful
prey, for cruisers and destroyers could pull higher accelerations and were
faster on the helm. Unhappily
for Sarnow's captains, their ability to act and react as a unit was far below
the Navy's usual standards,
however good they might be as individuals.
Except for Achilles and Cassandra, that was, which must make Captain Daumier
even more unhappy,
Honor thought sympathetically. Commodore Isabella Banton's veteran division
had operated as a team for
over two T- years, and it showed as she whipped them around in obedience to
Sarnow's signals. They
moved as if they were a single ship, performing with a precision which
brutally underscored the other
ships' clumsiness. Had it come to an actual fight, Banton's two ships could
probably have whipped
Daumier's three, which couldn't make Daumier a very happy woman just now.
"Entering firing range, Ma'am." Invincible's tac officer sounded a bit tense,
and his spine was taut, as
if he were physically resisting the urge to look over his shoulder at Admiral
Sarnow.
"Pass the word to the division, Com," Daumier said. "Request confirmation of
their readiness."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." The com officer bent over her panel. "All units confirm
readiness, Captain," she
reported after a moment."
"Thank you."
Daumier leaned back, arms folded. There was something almost prayerful in her
attitude, and Honor
tried hard not to smile in sympathy lest someone misinterpret her expression.
She knew Daumier would
have vastly preferred to slave Agamemnon's and Intolerant's weapons to
Invincible's fire control, but that
                                      58

wasn't the purpose of the exercise. Sarnow already knew Daumier's was a crack
gunnery ship; he wanted
to see how the division performed in a high-speed, short-range, short-notice
firing pass without the
squadron tac net, and Honor suspected the answer was going to be not very
well.
"Coming to final firing bearing," the tac officer said. "Beacon search
initiated. Searching . . .
searching . . . contact!" He waited one more moment, eyes glued to his display
as the asteroid-mounted
beacons mimicking hostile warships blinked at him. "Beacon ID confirmed! I
have lock, Captain!" "Fire," Daumier replied sharply, and Invincible's waiting
broadside fired in instant response.
Honors eyes turned almost automatically to the visual display. It was useless
for battle control, but at
such a short range—
A terrible, silent tornado erupted across the displa y as lasers and grasers
tore at the inoffensive
nickel- iron of Hancock's asteroid belt. Some of the smaller asteroids simply
vanished, vaporizing in
explosive spits of fury; others flashed like tiny stars as the beams ripped
into them, and then the first
missiles began to glare like small, dreadful suns, and Honor felt something
almost like awe.
She'd seen more destruction unleashed in a single broadside. Indeed, she'd
unleashed it herself long
ago, as HMS Manticore's tac officer. But Manticore was a super-dreadnought,
huge, slow, and ponderous,
clumsy with her own power and designed to survive the crushing embrace of the
wall of battle. This was
different, somehow. There was a sense of fleetness fused with power, an
awareness of the squadron's
graceful lethality.
Or, she amended with a glance at the tracking display, its potential
lethality, at any rate, for someone
had screwed up big time.
She kept her eyes on the display, carefully not looking at Sarnow, as the
ships completed their firing
pass and CIC analyzed the results. One of the ships—it looked like the
unfortunate Intolerant yet again—
had locked her batteries on the wrong set of target beacons.
Had that been an enemy squadron out there, one of its units would have been
left totally unengaged.
Not only would it have escaped any damage of its own, but its fire control
crews, unhampered by the
threat of incoming fire, would have been free to reply as if they were engaged
in target practice. Which
meant one of Sarnow's ships would nave taken a terrible beating.
Captain Daumier's shoulders tightened, and the silence on the bridge stretched
out endlessly until
Sarnow cleared his throat.
"It would appear we have a problem, Captain," he observed, and Daumier turned
her head to meet his
gaze. "Who was it?" he asked after a moment.
"I'm afraid Intolerant targeted Agamemnon's beacons, Sir." Daumier's level
reply was equally devoid
of apology or any condemnation of Trinh's ship, and Honor gave a mental nod of
                                      59

approval.
"I see." Sarnow folded his hands behind him and walked slowly over to the
tactical section to study
the detailed readouts, then sighed. "I suppose it's still early days. But
we'll have to do better than this,
Captain."
"Yes, Sir."
"Very well. Bring the division about, please, Captain Daumier. Put us at rest
relative to the belt while
Commodore Babcock makes her run. I want to see how her division does."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Plot it, Astro."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." The astrogators voice was as uninflected as his captain's,
but Honor knew neither
of them was looking forward to the Admiral's wordless object lesson.
The squadron and division commanders of BatCruRon Five and its attached
screening elements came
to attention as Admiral Sarnow walked into the briefing room aboard Nike.
Honor followed at his heels
with Captain Corell, and the assembled officers' wariness was like a visible
cloud. It was the first time
Sarnow had gathered them all together, and Commodore Prentis, CO of Division
53, had arrived with
HMS Defiant less than six hours before. He hadn't been around to participate
in the last few days'
exercises, but that was a mixed blessing. He might not have any blots on his
copybook, but it made him
very much the new lad on the block, and he must have realized by now that the
rest of the squadron
expected their admiral to pitch a tantrum over their recent performance.
"Be seated, ladies and gentlemen," Sarnow directed, taking his own chair at
the head of the table
while Honor and Corell sat to his right and left. Most of the others looked
uncomfortably straight ahead of themselves, but an immaculately groomed
commander seated beside Commodore Van Slyke, CO of
Heavy Cruiser Squadron Seventeen, glanced sharply at Honor before he looked
away. He looked vaguely
familiar, though she was certain they'd never met, and she wondered who he
was.
"Well, people," the admiral went on after a moment, "it seems we have our work
cut out for us.
Fortunately—and I use the word advisedly—Admiral Parks isn't going to expect
us to do anything
difficult any time soon."
His tone was light, almost whimsical, but something like an invisible mental
wince ran around the
table, and Captain Trinh flushed.
"I realize no one person can be blamed for our present shortcomings," Sarnow
continued.
"Unfortunately, all of us bear the responsibility for overcoming them. From
this moment, we start with a
clean slate, but everything that happens from here out gets written down.
Understood?"
Heads nodded, and he gave one of his fierce smiles.
"Good! Understand, ladies and gentlemen. I don't look for scapegoats and I
don't hold past mistakes
against people, but I can also be the worst son-of-a-bitch you never want to
meet. And the fact that
                                      60

Admiral Paris is watching every move we make isn't calculated to put me in a
better humor. Any new
squadron has its problems. I know that, and Admiral Parks knows it. The extent
of our sympathy for those
problems, however, will be dictated by the efforts made to overcome them. I'm
sure you won't disappoint
us."
Heads nodded again, a bit more emphatically, and he leaned back.
"In that case, let's begin by examining what went wrong. Captain Corell and
Captain Harrington have
prepared a critique of the recent exercises, and I'm sure we'll all find their
presentation fascinating."
Murmuring voices filled the compartment, and crystal clinked gently as
stewards refilled empty
glasses. Admiral Sarnow's guests stood clumped in small knots or circulated
like slowly swirling water,
and Honor made herself smile and nod whenever the Brownian movement brought
someone into
interaction range.
It wasn't easy, for she disliked social gatherings. She always had, but at
least she'd learned to
counterfeit the air of comfort required of a host.
She plucked a celery stick from a tray of canapes and reached up to hand it to
Nimitz. The cat gave a
soft chitter of delight and clasped the delicacy in a true-hand, balancing
himself on her shoulder with his
four rear limbs while he chewed, and her eyes twinkled as she felt his
epicurean buss. She scratched his
chest idly while she watched MacGuiness move unobtrusively among the
commodores and captains,
watching over Nike's other stewards, and thanked God she had him. And while
she was at it, a prayer or
two of gratitude for her exec might not be amiss. Commander Henke glided about
with the grace of a
Sphinx albatross, and her junior rank was more than offset by her poise. And,
of course, her lineage,
Honor thought with a smile.
Commodore Stephen Van Slyke emerged from the crowd to engage Sarnow in a low-
voiced
conversation. Honor didn't know Van Slyke, but what she'd seen of him looked
good. He was built like a
wrestler—bull-necked, black-haired, and brown-eyed, with eyebrows even heavier
than Sarnow's—but
his movements were quick, and if his comments during the COs' meeting hadn't
been marked by
brilliance, they'd been both pragmatic and to the point.
The same gorgeously- tailored commander who'd looked her way at the conference
table followed in
Van Slyke's wake and paused with an almost pained expression as the two flag
officers stepped aside
without him. He looked about for just a moment, and then his hazel eyes
settled on Honor and narrowed.
She returned his gaze levelly, wondering what his problem was. He was a
slender, wasplike man who
moved with the languid, studied grace a certain segment of the aristocracy
affected—and which Honor
had always disliked. She'd served with officers who were even more languid and
                                      61

drawling, and some of them had been among the sharpest people she'd ever met.
She had no idea why they chose to hide their
competence behind suc h irritating, foppish facades, and she wished they
wouldn't.
The commander continued to look at her—not quite staring, but more fixedly
than was courteous—
then crossed the deck to her.
"Captain Harrington." His voice was cultured, with a polished veneer that
reminded her instantly of
someone, though she couldn't think who.
"Commander." She nodded. "I'm afraid we haven't been introduced," she
continued, "and with so
many new officers to meet, I didn't catch your name."
"Houseman," the commander said flatly. "Arthur Houseman, chief of staff to
Commodore Van Slyke.
I believe you've met my cousin."
Honor felt her smile stiffen, and Nimitz stopped chewing his celery. No wonder
he'd seemed so
familiar. He was shorter than Reginald Houseman, and his complexion was
fairer, but the family
resemblance was pronounced.
"Yes, I have, Commander." Her cool soprano struck his rank with just an edge
of emphasis, and he
flushed faintly at the reminder of he r seniority.
"I thought you had . . . Ma'am." The pause was deliberate, and her lips
tightened. Icicles formed in
her eyes, and she stepped closer to him, pitching her voice too low for anyone
else to hear.
"Understand something now, Commander. I don't like your cousin, and he doesn't
like me, but that
doesn't concern you. Unless, of course, you want it to, and I really don't
think you do." Her smile showed
her teeth, and something like alarm flickered in his eyes. "But regardless of
your personal feelings.
Commander Houseman, you will observe proper military courtesy, not simply to
me but to anyone on my
ship." Houseman's gaze avoided hers, flitting to Sarnow and Van Slyke, and
Honor's smile turned even
colder. "Don't worry, Commander. I won't involve Admiral Sarnow—or Commodore
Van Slyke. But,
then, I don't think it will be necessary, will it?"
His eyes darted angrily back to her, and she held them coldly. Then he
swallowed, and the moment of
confrontation passed.
"Was there anything else, Commander?" she asked softly.
"No, Ma'am."
"Then I'm certain you have somewhere else you need to be," she said. His face
tightened again for
just an instant, but then he nodded curtly and turned away. Nimitz quivered
with anger on Honor's
shoulder, and she reached up to stroke him reassuringly while she watched
Houseman vanish into the
crowd.
She could have handled that better, she told herself, though the man's sheer
arrogance appalled her. A
commander, whatever his family influence—and the Houseman clan, she admitted,
had plenty of that—
                                      62

who picked a quarrel with a captain of the list deserved whatever grief it
bought him, yet she knew her
own response had confirmed his enmity, and she regretted that. There probably
hadn't been much chance
of avoiding it, but she was Sarnow's flag captain. It was part of her job
description to defuse matters that
might hamper the squadron's smooth operation, and she hadn't even tried.
Worse, it hadn't even occurred
to her that she ought to have tried until it was all over.
She sighed silently and listened to Nimitz crunch his celery. One of these
days she was going to have
to learn to control her own temper.
"Penny for your thoughts, Dame Honor," a tenor voice murmured. She looked up
quickly, and
Admiral Sarnow smiled at her. "I was wondering when you and Commander Houseman
would meet. I see
he survived the experience."
Honors cheeks heated at his ironic tone, and his smile turned wry. "Oh, don't
worry about it, Captain. Arthur Houseman is a liberal bigot with an ego
problem. If you
stepped on him, he undoubtedly needed it, and if I'd thought you'd step too
hard, I would have warned you
about him." Honor's blush faded, and he nodded. "Exactly. As I told you, Dame
Honor, you're my flag
captain, and I expect you to act the part. Which includes not taking any crap
from a junior officer who's
also a stuck-up prig and resents your having proved his cousin is a coward.
Unfortunately, he really is
good at his job. That, I imagine, is the reason Commodore Van Slyke tolerates
him, but it's no reason you
have to."
"Thank you, Sir," she said quietly.
"Don't thank me, Captain." He touched her elbow lightly, his eyes twinkling
with curiously mingled
amusement and warning. "When you're right, you're right. When you're not, I'll
cut you off at the knees."
He smiled again, and she felt herself smile back.
CHAPTER NINE
Captain Mark Brentworth surveyed his spacious bridge with intense
satisfaction. The heavy cruiser
Jason Alvarez, the most powerful ship ever built in the Yeltsin System—at
least until the battlecruisers
Courvosier and Yanakov were commissioned next month—was the pride of the
Fleet. She was also all
his, and she'd already won her spurs. The pirates who'd once infested the
region were rapidly becoming a
thing of the past as local Manticoran units and the rapidly expanding Grayson
Navy hunted them down.
Alvarez—and Brentworth—had two independent kills and four assists to their
credit, but prey had gotten
progressively scarcer over the last few months, and, in a way, the captain was
almost grateful for the
boredom of his present assignment. Picket duty just beyond Yeltsin's Star's
hyper limit was unglamorous,
but his people needed the rest after the wearing concentration of pirate-
hunting. Not that he wanted them
to feel too relaxed, he thought with an inner smile.
                                      63

The latest convoy from Manticore was due within six hours, and it ought to
arrive inside Alvarez's
sensor envelope, but he and his exec hadn't mentioned that to the rest of his
crew. It would be interesting
to see how quickly his people detected the convoy's arrival . . . and how
quickly they got to battle stations
until it was positively ID'ed.
In the meantime, however, there were—
"Unidentified hyper footprint at three-point-five light- minutes, Sir!"
"Plot it!" Brentworth snapped, and looked at his exec. "Battle stations, Mr.
Hardesty!"
"Aye, aye, Sir!"
Alarms began to whoop even as the exec replied, and Brentworth looked down at
the displays
deploying about his chair with a frown. If this was the convoy, it was much
earlier than it ought to be. On
the other hand, it seemed improbable anything else would come in this close to
its scheduled ETA.
The captain rubbed the tip of his nose, then turned to his tac officer.
Lieutenant Bordeaux's eyes were
intent as he studied the data. It would be a while yet before his light-speed
sensors picked up anything at
this range, but CIC's analysis of the FTL gravitic readings coalesced before
him while Brentworth
watched.
"It's a singleton, Sir," Bordeaux reported, never looking away from his
display. "Looks like a
freighter. Range six-three-point-one-six million kilometers. Course zero-
zero-three by one-five-niner.
Acceleration two-point- four KPS squared. Present velocity point-zero-four-
eight Gee."
Brentworth started to nod, then snapped upright. The course was right for a
least-time vector to
Grayson, but that velocity was all wrong. The freighter must have been burning
along at a full sixty
percent of light-speed to carry that much vee across the alpha wall. That was
well outside the safe hyper
velocity envelope for a ship with commercial grade anti-rad and particle
shielding, and the physiological stress of a crash translation at that speed
was brutal. For that matter, she must be riding the ragged edge of
compensator burnout to maintain her present acceleration with a freighter's
drive!
No merchant skipper would maneuver like that—not if he had a choice—and the
captain's stomach
tightened. There were supposed to be three freighters, escorted by a pair of
destroyers, but Alvarez saw
only one impeller source. Coupled with the freighter's crash translation and
accel. . . ,
"Astrogation, plot me an intercept course! Communications, get off an
immediate contact report to
Command Central!"
He hardly noticed the taut responses as he waved Hardesty in close beside his
chair. The exec's face
was as worried as his own, and Brentworth forced his voice to remain very
level.
"Who else is out here, Jack? Anyone closer to them than us?"
"No, Sir," Hardesty said quietly, and Brentworth's mouth tightened, for
                                      64

Alvarez was currently at rest
relative to Yeltsin's Star. His ship's acceleration was twice that of the
unknown freighter, but the freighter
was headed almost directly away from her at over 14,000 KPS, and she was far
beyond missile range ... as
anyone following her would also be.
"Where's that course, Astrogation?" he snapped.
"Sir, we can't intercept short of Grayson orbit if she maintains her current
acceleration," the
astrogator replied. "At max accel, we'll take over eighty-eight minutes just
to match velocity with her."
Brentworth's hands clenched on the arms of his chair, and his nostrils flared
as he inhaled sharply.
He'd been afraid of that. The only, real hope for an interception now was that
someone closer to Grayson
had a convergent vector. But the freighter wouldn't be running this hard
unless something was chasing
her, and it was remotely possible he could get into range of that something.
"Put us on her track anyway," he said coldly.
"Aye, aye, Sir. Helm, come zero-one-three degrees to port."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Coming zero-one-three to port."
"Sir, I have a transmission from the freighter!"
"Put it on the main screen."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
A face appeared on the main view screen. It was a woman's face, damp with
sweat and lined with
strain, and her voice was harsh and tight.
"—ayday! Mayday! This is the Manticoran merchant ship Queensland! I am under
attack by
unknown warships! My escort and two other freighters have already been
destroyed! Repeat, I am under
attack by unknown war—"
"Captain! I've got another footprint!" The tactical officers report slashed
across the unknown
woman's frantic message, and Brentworth's eyes snapped back to his repeater. A
new impeller source
burned within it, hard upon the freighters heels. No, there were two—three!—
of them, and the captain
swallowed an agonized groan. These were no merchantmen—not with those power
curves—and they
were streaking in pursuit of the freighter at over five KPS2.
"—any ship," the Manticoran captain's voice spilled from the com. It had taken
over three minutes for
her words to reach Alvarez. They'd been transmitted before she could have seen
her executioners transit
behind her; now they echoed in the back of Brentworth's mind like some curse
from die dead as he
watched the grav signatures of impeller drive missiles spit towards her ship.
"Any ship who can hear us!
This is Captain Uborevich of the Queensland. I am under attack! Repeat, I am
under attack and require
assistance! Any ship who can hear me, please respond!"
Alvarez's com officer stared at his captain almost pleadingly, but Brentworth
said nothing. There was
no point in responding, and every man on the bridge knew it. The missile
specks drove after the freighter, accelerating at almost 90,000 gravities, and
Brentworth
                                      65

watched sickly as they overtook their target. They merged with the freighter's
larger impeller signature . . .
and Queensland vanished from the face of the universe.
"—respond!" Uborevich's voice still called from the com. "Any ship, please
respond! I require assi—
"
Turn it off," Brentworth grated, and the dead woman's voice died in mid-word.
He stared at his
display, watching Queensland's killers arc away, knowing they would recross
the hyper limit and vanish
long before he could bring them into range, and frustration— and hate—burned
in his eyes.
"Readings, Henri?" he asked in a deathly quiet voice, and his tac officer
swallowed.
"Nothing positive, Sir. They're regular warships—they have to be to pull that
accel and fire that many
missiles. I'd guess a light cruiser and a pair of tin-cans, but that's about
all I can tell you."
"Make sure everything you can get goes on the chip. Maybe Intelligence or the
Manties can get more
from an analysis than we can."
"Yes, Sir."
Brentworth sat silently, glaring at his display until the trio of murderers
swept back out across the
limit and disappeared, then leaned back with a weary, defeated sigh.
"Keep us on our intercept, Astro," he said tiredly. "Maybe she at least got
her lifeboats away before
they killed her."
Lieutenant Commander Mudhafer Ben-Fazal yawned and sipped more coffee. The G4
primary of the
Zanzibar System was a brilliant pinprick far behind his light attack craft as
it swept slowly along the edge
of die outermost asteroid belt, and he treasured the coffee's warmth as an
anodyne against the cold
loneliness beyond its hull. He would have preferred to be elsewhere—almost
anywhere elsewhere—but
he hadn't been consulted when his orders were cut.
The leaders of the ZLF had been driven from the soil of their homeworld, yet
they still got infrequent
weapon shipments into their adherents' hands somehow. They were coming from
out-system, and though
whoever supplied them was very careful to remove all identifying marks before
turning them over, the
Peoples Republic of Haven was the only interstellar power which had recognized
the ZLF. Intelligence
was virtually certain the PRH was doing more than merely providing sanctuary
in ports like Mendoza and
Chelsea for the terrorists' decrepit "navy."
But whoever was funding and arming the ZLF, they still had to get the guns and
bombs to Zanzibar,
and Intelligence's best guess was they were using miners for their conduit.
The Zanzibar system was rich
in asteroids, and no one could stop and search every battered work boat. Nor
could they hope to patrol the
belts themselves in any meaningful way, Ben-Fazal thought tiredly. The area
was simply too huge for the
Navy's limited strength to search, but there was always the chance that
                                      66

someone might happen across
something, which explained why al-Nassir was out here, depriving one
Lieutenant Commander Ben-Fazal
of his hard earned leave time.
He chuckled and tipped his chair back as he took another sip of coffee. Al-
Nassir was a child's toy
compared to real warships like the division of Manticoran battlecruisers
orbiting Zanzibar, but her
weapons would more than suffice for any of the ZLF "Navy's" rag-tailed ships.
And, his chuckle faded, it
would be sweet to catch some of the animals whose bombs and "liberation
offensives" had killed and
maimed so many civilians.
"Excuse me, Captain, but I'm getting something on my passive arrays.'*
Ben-Fazal cocked an eyebrow at his tactical officer, and the lieutenant
shrugged.
"It's not much, Sir—just a little radio leakage. Could be a regular
prospectors beacon, but if it is, it's
pretty badly garbled." "Where's it coming from?"
"That cluster at two-seven-three, I think. As I say, it's very faint."
"Well, let's take a look," Ben-Fazal decided. "Bring us to two-seven-three,
Helm."
"Yes, Sir."
The tiny warship altered course, heading for the elusive signal source, and-
the tac officer frowned.
"It really is garbled, Sir," he reported after a moment. "If it's a beacon,
its identifier code's been
completely scrambled. I've never heard anything quite like it. It's almost
like—"
Lieutenant Commander Ben-Fazal never learned what it was almost like. The
lean, lethal shape of a
light cruiser swam into sight, drifting from the clustered asteroids like a
shark from a bed of kelp, and he
had one fleeting instant to realize the signal had been a lure to suck him in
and to recognize the cruiser's
Havenite emissions signature before it blew his ship apart.
"They're definitely crossing the line, Commodore."
Commodore Sarah Longtree nodded acknowledgment of her ops officers report and
hoped she looked
calmer than she felt. Her heavy cruiser squadron was a powerful forma tion,
but not as powerful as the
Peep force coming at her.
"Time to missile range?"
"A good twelve hours yet, Ma'am," the ops officer replied. He scratched his
nose and frowned at his
display. "What I don't understand is why they're making an n-space approach.
They've taken out a dozen
sensor platforms, but even with light-speed limits, they have to know we got
full downloads before they
did—and they're ignoring a dozen others that have them in range right now!
That makes taking the others
out completely pointless, and if they really want to hit us, the logical move
was to get at least to the hyper
limit before they translated down. Why let us see them coming from so far
out?"
"I don't know," Longtree admitted, "but, frankly, that's the least of my
concerns just now. Have we
                                      67

got class IDs on them yet?"
"Perimeter Tracking's still refining the data from our intact platforms,
Ma'am, but the ones they've
already hit got pretty good reads on their lead element, and there are at
least two battlecruisers out there."
"Wonderful." Longtree pushed herself deeper into die cushions of her command
chair and made her
mind step back a bit.
The ops officer was right about the strangeness of their approach. The
Zuckerman System's outer
surveillance platforms had picked them up well short of the twelve-light- hour
territorial limit, and letting
that happen was an outstandingly dumb move on someone's part. If they'd just
stayed in h-space to the
hyper limit, they'd have been on top' of Zuckerman—and Longtree—before she
even knew they were
coming. As it was, she'd had plenty of time to get a courier away to Fleet HQ;
even if they wiped out her
entire squadron, Manticore would know who'd done it. As acts of war went, that
made this one of the
most pointless and stupid on record.
Which wasn't particularly comforting to the people who were going to get
killed in the course of it.
"Update from Perimeter Tracking, Ma'am," her com officer announced suddenly.
"Enemy strength
now estimated at six battlecruisers, eight heavy cruisers, and screening
elements."
"Acknowledged." Longtree bit her lip at the new information and watched them
close. Her own ships
would have stood a better than even chance without the battlecruisers, but
they made the odds impossible.
"Still no reports of any other incursions?"
"No, Ma'am," her ops officer replied. "We're receiving continuous updates from
all other sectors, and
this is the only one." "Thank you." She leaned back again and chewed
delicately on a knuckle. What in Hell's name were
these people up to? Both sides had been so careful to avoid overt violations
of the other's territory for
years—now the Peeps were sailing boldly in, in front of God and everyone to
attack a Fleet base that
wasn't even very important anymore? It made no sense at all!
"Status change!" The commodore's head snapped around, and her ops officer
looked up at her with an
utterly incredulous expression. "They're reversing course, Commodore!"
They're what?!" Longtree couldn't keep the surprise out of her own voice, and
the ops officer
shrugged.
"It doesn't make any more sense than anything else they've done, but they're
doing it, Ma'am.
Perimeter Tracking reports they've altered course by one-eight-zero degrees
and gone to four-zero-zero
gees acceleration. They're heading right back where they came from!"
Longtree sagged about her bones in disbelief . . . and relief. She and her
ships weren't going to die
today after all, and, even more importantly, the war all Manticore dreaded
wasn't going to begin in the
Zuckerman System.
                                      68

Yet even through her relief, her confusion only grew.
Why? What in God's name had it all been about? They had to know they'd been
seen and identified,
and all they'd managed was the destruction of a dozen easily replaced sensor
platforms. So why had they
committed what could be construed as an act of war—especially such a sloppy
one—and then not even
bothered to carry through and attack?
Commodore Longtree didn't know the answer to her question, but she knew that
answer was of vital
importance. For some reason, the People's Republic of Haven had committed a
deliberate violation of
Alliance territory, and if the destruction of sensor platforms was hardly a
life-or-death fight to the finish,
it was still a provocation the Star Kingdom of Manticore couldn't possibly
ignore. There had to have been
a purpose behind it.
But what?
CHAPTER TEN
Honor Harrington floated on her back, one toe hooked under a rung of the
pool's ladder to hold her in
place, and let welcome relaxation soak through her.
The last five weeks had been more than merely hectic. She'd never served as a
flag captain before,
but she'd held squadron command in her own right, and she'd thought she'd
known what to expect.
She'd been wrong. Of course, her "squadron" had been a more or less ad hoc
affair, thrown together
by the Admiralty for a single operation, whereas the Fifth Battlecruiser
Squadron was a permanent
formation. It also dwarfed any force she'd ever commanded, and Admiral
Sarnow's unending drive to
correct its defects accounted for her present weariness.
The fact that she'd had to feel her way into her new role hadn't made things
any more restful, and
she'd been leery, at first, of stepping on Captain Corell's toes. The
relationship between any chief of staff
and flag captain was critical, but the Royal Manticoran Navy drew a clear
distinction between staff and
line responsibility. It was Corell's job to plan, organize, and advise—even to
make policy decisions in
Sarnow's absence—but it was Honor's job, as his flag captain, to serve as
Sarnow's tactical and executive
deputy.
It was also up to her to decide which decisions were hers to make and which
had to be passed to her
admiral and his staff, and in a way, she was almost glad Nike had been
disabled. When the squadron's
operable units weren't engaged on actual maneuvers, they spent at least four
hours a day tied together by
their computers, carrying out simulated maneuvers. From Honor's viewpoint,
that was all to the good.
However wearing, it had given her a chance to discover exactly what Sarnow
expected of her, knowing he was watching every move but without the added
strain of actually throwing seven battlecruisers (now that
Defiant had joined) around in space.
On the whole, however, she was deeply pleased with her new position. Aside
                                      69

from Houseman, she'd
had no problems with any of the admiral's subordinates, despite the occasional
need to act as his hatchet
woman when some outstanding snafu blew up in everyone's faces. And Sarnow
himself was a genuine
pleasure to work with. Serving under him could be exhausting, for he was like
a fusion plant—crackling
with energy and bristling with ideas—and he expected his officers to keep up
with him. Some of his
captains seemed to find that irritating, at least initially, but it was fine
with Honor, who held flag officers
to the high standards Raoul Courvosier had instilled into her.
Mark Sarnow met those standards. He was one of the finest tacticians she'd
ever met, but she'd
known other good tacticians and many of them never learned what was perhaps
the hardest lesson of all:
when to stand back out of the way.
Honor had seen graphic proof of what could happen when an admiral didn't learn
that lesson. HMS
Manticore had been Home Fleets flagship when she served aboard her, and
Manticore's captain, one of
the best Honor had ever served under, had been driven into requesting a
transfer from his prestigious post
by an admiral who'd insisted on controlling every detail to an extent which
had made him little more than
a passenger in his own ship. But once Mark Sarnow had give n an order, he left
it up to Honor to execute
it. They'd only worked together in the sims so far, but his style was already
becoming clear, and he relied
upon her in a partnership that freed him to consider future tactics while she
and his other captains
executed the ones he'd already formulated.
He was also an able administrator, always fully informed yet capable of
delegating with an ease and
confidence Honor could only envy. She'd learned more about squadron command
from him in five weeks
than in her entire previous career, and she knew it.
Of course, there was another side to him, as well. Honor smiled wryly and
stretched in the water. The
admiral radiated charisma, but she wouldn't want to be the person who failed
his standards. He didn't rant
or rave; he simply looked at the sinner with disappointed eyes and spoke
softly, almost gently, as if to
some raw middy he shouldn't have expected to get it right. He wasn't even
sarcastic, but she'd never seen
anyone make the same mistake twice.
Something plopped into the water near her, and she frowned. There was another,
closer plop, and she
opened her eyes . . . just as the third tennis ball hit her squarely in the
midriff
Honor oofed, and her toe lost its anchorage. Her head went under with a
splutter before she could
spin upright and tread water, and a chitter of delight echoed in the gym. She
turned indignantly to face it,
and Nimitz hopped back and forth on his hand-paws and true- feet on the end of
the diving board and
launched a fourth fuzzy sphere at her.
                                      70

The ball splatted into the water in front of her nose, and she shook a fist at
the furry bombardier as he
picked up yet another.
'Throw it and you're bedroom shoes!" she told him. He only chittered and
bounced a ball off the
crown of her head, and she went under again with a fresh splutter as she
snatched at the rebounding
missile. She managed to catch it and kicked her way back to the surface, and
it was Nimitz's turn to oof as
she pegged a quick, straight shot back at him. The ball caught him dead
center, and his oof became a
squeal as he went over the edge of the board and hit the water in a sprawling
splash.
He bobbed to the surface like an Old Earth otter, but treecats were arboreals.
They disliked
swimming, however good at it they were, and Nimitz's disgusted expression
wrung a peal of laughter
from his person. He ignored her unseemly delight and swam quickly to the edge
of the pool, then climbed
out of the water with a bedraggled, splattering flip of his normally fluffy
tail. It was rat-tailed and
dripping, and he sat with a sniff of disdain for her unbecoming snickers,
gathered it in true-hands and
hand-paws, and began to wring it dry. "Serves you right," she chuckled,
swimming to the side with a few brisk strokes, and he gave her a
baleful look as she heaved herself easily over the edge. "Oh, don't worry! You
won't shrink. Here."
She sat on the pool's raised lip and picked up her towel. He took the cue and
hopped up into her lap,
and his disgust quickly gave way to purrs as she dried him.
"There, Stinker. All better now?"
He looked up at her consideringly, then flipped his ears in agreement and
patted her thigh with a truehand,
and she laughed again, more softly, as she gathered up a double armful of
still-damp 'cat and
hugged him.
"Am I interrupting?" a voice asked, and she looked up quickly. Paul Tankersley
stood just inside the
gym hatch, smiling faintly.
"No, not really." She gave Nimitz one last swipe with the towel and shooed him
out of her lap so she
could stand.
"Fell in, did he?"
"Not exactly." Honor gave another chuckle as the 'cat flirted his tail in
fresh disdain and headed for
his perch on the parallel bars. "He decided to play ground attack with tennis
balls, and the dastardly
enemy's return fire shot him down." She pointed at the balls still floating in
the pool, and Tankersley
followed her finger in brief puzzlement, then laughed out loud.
"I never realized treecats could be such devils."
'There's no limit to the deviltry he can get up to." Honor grabbed a fresh
towel to dry her own short
hair. "You ought to see him with a frisbee," she went on through its
enshrouding folds. "There's not
enough room for him to show his true mastery in here, but join us in the main
gym some day when he's at
                                      71

the top of his form. Only don't forget a helmet."
"I'd like to. Mike tells me she still doesn't believe the things he can do
with one of them."
"Neither do I," Honor said darkly. She finished drying her hair, draped the
towel around her neck,
and changed the subject. "How are we coming on Fusion Three? I just got back
from the Admiral's latest
exercise, and I haven't really checked in with Nike yet."
"We're doing better than I thought we would, actually," he told her with a
satisfied air. "Commander
Ravicz's suggestion that we come up from below is going to chop at least a
couple of weeks off my
estimate. We have to cut through more decks, and repairing all the circuit and
service runs we're breaking
is going to be a nightmare, but avoiding the armor's really speeding things
up." He shook his head. "I
know The Book insists on coming in from the side to avoid the control runs,
but that part was written
before the new alloys came in. I imagine we'll see some quiet procedure
changes once BuShips digests
our reports, because this is not only faster, but it's going to let us put
things back together more quickly,
even with the need to rewire."
Honor nodded in agreement. The R&D types' latest armor—a complex ceramic and
metal alloy
unbelievably light for its volume and toughness—was formed in place as part of
the basic hull matrix, not
added on later. That gave it vastly improved integrity against damage but
meant there were no convenient
sections to pull in the event of repairs. On the other hand, armor, however
light, still used mass. No
warship had that to waste, and since a warship's impeller wedge protected it
against fire from above or
below, BuShips' designers armored the inner areas of its top and bottom
lightly or not at all in order to
maximize protection elsewhere.
Nike was no wall of battle ship, but leaving her top and bottom unarmored let
her flanks carry twelve
centimeters of side armor over more critical areas and as much as a meter over
her vitals—like her fusion
rooms. That much battle steel could stand up to a near-miss from a megaton-
range nuke . . . and sneered at
the best efforts of a standard laser cutter. Indeed, getting through it was a
nightmare job even with chemcatalyst
gear.
All of which explained why she'd been delighted by Ravicz's suggestion, and
she was equally, if
quietly, pleased by Tankersley's reaction to it. Yard dogs weren't noted for
responsiveness to
recommendations from shipboard officers. As a rule, they were too concerned
with keeping interfering
busybodies out from underfoot while they got on with their jobs to consider
whether or not a suggestion
had merit, but Tankersley had embraced the idea enthusiastically. He'd praised
Ravicz generously in his
reports, too, and that couldn't hurt the engineer's chance for promotion down
the line.
                                      72

"How did the exercise go?" Tankersley asked after a moment.
"Quite well, actually." Honor frowned thoughtfully. "We're getting the rough
edges smoothed off, at
least, but I don't think Captain Dournet was too pleased when Admiral Sarnow
announced his intention to
form Agamemnon with Nike as the first division."
'Too close to the flag?" Tankersley chuckled, and Honor's frown turned wry as
she shook her head.
"No. I think he's more concerned over the way Nike's missed all die live- fire
exercises. We're doing
well in the sims, but he's afraid we're going to get rusty and make him look
bad once we join the rest of
the squadron."
"Fat chance with you and Mike running things!" Tankersley snorted.
His tone was so sharp Honor glanced at him in surprise. She'd decided weeks
ago that she'd been
utterly unfair to regard Paul Tankersley with reservations simply because he'd
once been Pavel Young's
exec, but he was still a yard dog. A ship was a work project for yard people,
not a living, breathing entity.
Very few of diem ever identified personally with the vessels they worked upon,
yet he sounded almost
angry at the thought that Dournet might have any reservations about Nike.
Or was it because Dournet might have reservations about her captain?
Her face felt suddenly hot at the thought, and she raised her towel to burnish
her almost dry hair. She
and Tankersley had been sparring partners for five weeks now, and she'd come
to regard him as a friend,
as well. It hadn't hurt any that they were surprisingly well matched. She had
the advantage in reach and
reaction speed, but his chunky body was surprisingly powerful, especially for
a native Manticoran. The
capital worlds gravity was barely three-quarters that of Sphinx, and Honor was
accustomed to the
advantage that normally gave her against its denizens, but the first time
she'd taken a liberty with
Tankersley, he'd thrown her clear across the mat.
She'd sat flat on her backside, looking up at him in such astonishment he'd
burst into laughter. She'd
found herself laughing right back at him—and then she'd gotten up and shown
him a little trick she'd
picked up aboard her last command from a Marine sergeant- major with more
experience in the coup than
she and Tankersley had between them. He'd gasped in surprise, then whooped in
shock as he landed bellydown
on the mat with her kneeling on his spine, and the final awkwardness had gone
out of their
relationship from that moment.
But she hadn't realized what might be replacing it, and she examined her own
feelings with care and
no small amount of shock.
"Well, we'll just have to show Captain Dournet he's wrong, won't we?" she said
at last, her tone light,
and lowered the concealing towel as she felt her flush fade. She smiled at
him. "Which, of course, we
can't do until you yard dogs get us put back together."
"Ouch!" He threw up a hand like a fencer acknowledging a hit. "We're doing the
                                      73

best we can, Ma'am.
Honest Cross my heart."
"Well, for a bunch of idle lay-about yard types, you aren't doing too badly,"
she allowed with a grin. "Why, thank you! And while I'm thinking about it, you
wouldn't happen to have time for a little
sparring match with an idle lay-about, would you?" He smiled menacingly, and
she shook her head.
"Sorry. I didn't even check in with Mike when I came back aboard. I just
headed down here to soak,
and now that I've done that, I've got about three megs of paperwork waiting in
my cabin computer."
"Chicken."
"Merely industrious," she assured him. She gave him an airy wave and turned to
leave, but he
reached out and touched her shoulder.
"If you don't have time to spar," he said, his voice suddenly devoid of all
teasing, "would you care to
join me for supper tonight?"
Honor's eyes widened. It was a small thing, barely noticeable, but Nimitz sat
up abruptly on the
parallel bar, and his ears twitched.
"Well, I don't know—" she began almost instinctively, then stopped herself.
She stood there, feeling
awkward and uncertain, and looked into his face intently. She'd gone to some
lengths to convince Nimitz
not to link her to others' emotions without warning, but just this once she
longed for the 'cat's ability to
read the feelings behind Tankersley's expression. For that matter, she wished
she understood her own
feelings, for her normal cool detachment seemed frazzled about the edges.
She'd always avoided anything
that even looked like an intimate relationship with a fellow officer—partly
because it was a professional
complication she could do without, but even more because her experiences in
general had been less than
happy—yet there was something in his eyes and the set of his mouth....
"I'd be delighted to," she heard herself say, and fresh surprise washed
through her as she realized she
meant it.
"Good!" His smile wreathed his eyes in laugh wrinkles, and Honor felt a
strange, answering bubble
of silent laughter deep within her. "May I expect you around eighteen hundred,
then, Lady Harrington?"
"You may, Captain Tankersley." She gave him another smile, then stepped across
to the parallel bars,
scooped Nimitz up, and headed for the dressing rooms.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Admiral of the Green Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord of the Royal
Manticoran Admiralty,
was a barrel-chested man with a weight- lifter's torso grafted onto a
sprinters legs. Although he was going
just a bit to pot these days, the athlete whose bruising, physical style had
run Hamish Alexander's soccer
team into the mud of Hopewell Field—repeatedly—was still recognizable. Yet his
face was taut, the
unabashed swagger which had characterized him as both captain and junior flag
officer in abeyance, for
                                      74

the First Space Lord was a worried man.
He and his fellow officers rose as Allen Summervale, Duke of Cromarty, leader
of the Centrist Party
and Prime Minister to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth III, entered the conference
room. The PM was tall
and slim, like all the Summervales, and, despite prolong, his hair was silver
and his handsome face deeply
lined. Cromarty had spent over fifty T-years in politics and headed
Manticore's government for fifteen of
the last twenty-two, and every one of those years had cut its weight into him.
The Prime Minister waved his uniformed subordinates back into their seats, and
Caparelli's jaw
tightened as he saw who'd walked into the room behind Cromarty. Lady Francine
Maurier, Baroness
Morncreek, had every right to be here as the civilian First Lord of Admiralty.
So did Chancellor of the
Exchequer Lord William Alexander, the Government's second ranking member. But
Alexander's older
brother didn't—officially, at least—and the First Space Lord tried not to
glower as the Earl of White
Haven found a chair of his own.
"Before we begin, Sir Thomas, I'd just like to mention that Earl White Haven
is here at my request,
not his." Cromarty's expressive, whiskey-smooth baritone had always been a
potent political weapon, and his gentle announcement drew Caparelli's eyes to
him. "As you know, he recently completed a survey of
our frontier stations' readiness states for Admiral Webster. Under the
circumstances, I felt his input might
be of value."
"Of course, Your Grace." Caparelli knew he sounded grudging. It wasn't that he
disliked the earl, he
told himself. It was just that, athletics aside, Alexander—or White Haven, as
he now was—had always
had a knack for making him feel he was competing out of his class, and the
earl's succession to his father's
titles, coupled with the prestige of his year-old conquest of the Endicott
System, only made it worse.
"Thank you for your understanding." Cromarty's smile was so winning Caparelli
actually felt much of
his resentment seep away. "And no w, Sir Thomas, may I hear your conclusions?"
"Yes, Sir." Caparelli gestured at Second Space Lord Patricia Givens, head of
the Bureau of Planning,
under whose control the Office of Naval Intelligence fell. "With your
permission, Your Grace, Admiral
Givens will brief us on the high points."
"Certainly." Cromarty nodded and turned his attention to Admiral Givens as she
stood and activated
the holo wall behind her, bringing up an enormous star map of the frontier
between the Manticoran
Alliance and the Peoples Republic of Haven. She stood with her back to the
display, facing the people
around the table, and drew a light wand from her pocket.
"Your Grace, Lady Morncreek, Lord Alexander." She nodded courteously to each
of the civilians and
smiled briefly at White Haven, but she didn't greet him by name. They were old
colleagues and friends,
but Patricia Givens had a strong sense of loyalty. She was on Caparelli's team
                                      75

now, and, despite the Prime
Minister's explanation, the earl was an interloper today.
"As you know, reports are coming in of incidents all up and down our
frontier." She pressed the
remote built into her light wand, and a sparkle of blood-red lights—a
dangerous, irregular line of rubies
that arced around Manticore in a complete half-circle—glittered in the display
behind her.
The first incident reported," Givens went on, turning and using her light wand
to pick out a single red
spark, "was the destruction of Convoy Mike-Golf-Nineteen, here at Yeltsin. It
was not, however, the first
incident to occur. We simply heard about it first because the transit time
from Yeltsin to Manticore was
shorter than for the others. The first known incursion into Alliance territory
actually occurred here—* the
light wand moved southeast from Yeltsin "—at Candor. Nineteen days ago, a
light cruiser squadron,
positively IDed by our sensors as Havenite despite its refusal to respond to
our challenges in any way,
violated the Candor System's territorial limit. Our local mobile forces were
unable to generate an intercept
vector, and the Peeps passed through the outer system, well within missile
range of one of our perimeter
com centers, without firing a shot, then departed, still without a word."
She cleared her throat and moved the wand again, first to the north, and then
back to the southwest of
Yeltsin.
"The same basic pattern was followed here, at Klein Station, and again here,
in the Zuckerman
System." The wand touched each star as it was named. The only substantive
differences between any of
these incursions was that the force employed at Zuckerman was much heavier
than either of the others,
and that it destroyed approximately ninety million dollars worth of remote
sensor platforms as it came
in—after which it, like the others, turned around and withdrew without saying
a word.
There have also been more serious incidents, on the same pattern as the attack
on Mike-Golf-
Nineteen," she continued into the intense quiet, "but in these cases we cannot
definitely assert that the
Peeps were responsible.
In Yeltsin's case, for example, the Grayson cruiser Alvarez got readings on
the raiders. They were
surprisingly good, considering Alvarez's limited tracking time, and our
analysts have studied them
carefully."
She paused and gave a small, almost apologetic shrug. "Unfortunately, we don't
have anything we could take to a court of law. The impeller wedge
signatures were definitely those of a light cruiser and two destroyers, and
their drive's gravitic patterns
match those of Haven-built units, but their other emissions do not match those
of the Peoples Navy. My
own belief, and that of a majority of ONIs analysts, is that they were, in
fact, Peeps who had deliberately
disguised their signatures, but there's no way to prove that, and the Peeps
                                      76

have 'sold' enough ships to
various 'allies' to give us a whole crop of other potential suspects."
Givens paused again, hazel eyes hard, then tilted her head.
"The same is true of the incidents at Ramon, Clearaway, and Quentin. In each
case, we or our allies
lost shipping and lives to the 'raiders' without getting a close enough look
to positively ID the responsible
party. The timing of the raids, coupled with the intelligence work it must
have taken to plan and execute
them so smoothly while denying us any interceptions, certainly suggests
Havenite involvement, but again,
we can't prove it. Just as we can't prove the recent heavy losses among the
Caliphate of Zanzibar's picket
and patrol ships are not the work of the ZLF. For that matter, we can't prove
there's any connection at all
between these episodes—except, of course, for our confirmation of Havenite
involvement at Candor,
Klein Station, and Zuckerman.
"Nonetheless, Your Grace," she said, looking straight at Cromarty, "it is
ONI's considered opinion
that we're looking at a pattern of deliberately engineered and orchestrated
provocations. The timing is too
tight, and they're too widespread, to be anything else, and the differences
between them are far surpassed
by the single thread common to them all: each of them has inflicted damage
upon or underscored a threat
to a star system which has been at the center of at least one confrontation
between the Kingdom and the
People's Republic over the past four to five years. Assuming that the same
people planned and executed
all of them—and I think we must—then the only possible suspect is the PRH.
Only the Peeps have both
the resources to manage something like this and any conceivable motive for
provoking us in this fashion."
The brown-haired admiral switched off her wand and resumed her seat while the
holo wall glowed
behind her. Cromarty studied it with hooded eyes, and silence stretched out
for a few seconds before the
Prime Minister tugged at an earlobe and sighed.
"Thank you, Admiral Givens." He cocked his head at Caparelli. "Just how
serious a threat do these
incidents pose, Admiral?"
"Not much of one, in themselves, Your Grace. The loss of life involved is more
than just painful, but
our casualties might have been for heavier, and our strategic position remains
unchanged. In addition,
none of the forces we've seen has been powerful enough to pose more than a
purely local threat.
Admittedly, they could have taken Zuckerman out had they chosen to, but that
was far and away the
heaviest force they've committed anywhere."
'Then what are they up to?" Baroness Morncreek asked. "What's the point of it
all?"
'They're crowding us, Milady," Caparelli said bluntly. They're deliberately
turning up the pressure."
"Then they're playing with fire," William Alexander observed.
"Exactly, Lord Alexander," Givens said. "Roth sides have settled down in what
                                      77

we know have to be
our final pre-war positions. We've developed 'bunker' mentalities on both
sides of the line, and given the
tension and suspicion that's provoked, 'playing with fire' is exactly what
they're doing."
"Rut why?" Cromarty asked. "What does it gain for them?"
"Admiral Givens?" Caparelli invited heavily, and Givens sighed.
'Tm afraid, Your Grace, that their current activities indicate ONI's
assessment of the Peep political
leadership's intentions was fundamentally in error. The consensus of my
analysts—and my own personal
opinion—was that they had too many domestic problems to consider any sort of
foreign adventures. We
were wrong, and Commander Hale, our attache on Haven, was right. They're
actively seeking a
confrontation, possibly as a means to divert Dolist attention from internal
concerns to an external enemy."
"Then why the covert nature of the majority of the incidents?" Alexander
asked. "It could be a sort of double-blind, my lord. We know it's them, but if
they demand we prove it, we
can't. They may want us to accuse them of responsibility while they maintain
their innocence for the
benefit of their propaganda. That way they can have their cake and eat it,
too; they get their incident, but
we look like the crisis-mongers."
"Do you think that's all there is to it, Admiral?" Cromarty asked.
There's too little evidence to know, Sir," Givens said frankly. "All we can do
is guess, and guessing
about an enemy's intentions is an excellent way to stumble right into a
confrontation neither side can back
out of."
"What do you recommend we do, then, Admiral Caparelli?"
"We have three main options, Your Grace." Caparelli squared his shoulders and
met the Prime
Minister's eyes. "The first is to refuse to play their game—whatever it is.
Given that they've hit our
merchantmen and destroyed two of our warships, plus the damage they've done
our allies, I see no option
but to strengthen our convoy escorts and patrols. Beyond that, however, we can
refuse to react in any way.
We can't deny them a confrontation if they really want one, but we can make
them come out into the open
to get it. If we pursue that option, however, we voluntarily surrender the
initiative. If they're willing to
commit an overt act of war, our frontier forces will be too light to stop them
from hurting us badly
wherever they finally do so.
"The second option is to give them the incident they want by formally accusing
them of responsibility
and warning them that we will hold them accountable for any future aggression.
If we follow that route,
then my staff and I feel we must simultaneously reinforce the covering forces
for our more important
and/or exposed bases and allies. Such a redeployment would both underscore the
fact that we're serious
and constitute a prudent adjustment of our stance to protect ourselves against
future frontier violations.
                                      78

"Third, we can say nothing but carry out the same reinforcement. That leaves
the ball in their court.
They can still have their confrontation, but we'll be in a position to hurt
them badly when they reach for it.
In addition, of course, it will protect our own subjects and allies, and any
incident which does take place
will occur in Alliance space, so they can hardly claim that we went after
them."
"I see." Cromarty returned his gaze to the holo wall for a long, silent
moment. "And which option do
you favor, Admiral?" he asked finally.
"The third, Your Grace." Caparelli didn't hesitate. "As I say, we can't stop
them from pushing it if
they really want to, but I see no reason to help them do it. If we make our
frontier detachments powerful
enough, they'd have to commit heavy forces of their own—and quite possibly
lack off a full- fledged
war—if they decide to keep pushing. That might cause them to back off entirety
if this is no more than an
effort to divert Dolist attention from domestic complaints. Even if it doesn't
have that effect, we'll give our
local commanders the strength to stand a fighting chance when they come in."
"I see," the Prime Minister replied, then glanced up the conference table at
Admiral White Haven.
The earl had sat silent throughout, thoughtful blue eyes studying each speaker
in turn. He showed no
disposition to speak up now, and Cromarty was fully aware of the awkward
position he'd put him in. But
he hadn't brought the admiral along for his silence, and he cleared his throat
"Which option do you favor,
Earl White Haven?"
Caparelli's eyes flashed, and one fist clenched under the table, but he said
nothing. He simply turned
to look at White Haven.
"I think," the earl said quietly, "that before we recommend any of them, we
might ask ourselves
exactly why the PRH has chosen this particular pattern of provocations."
"Meaning?" Cromarty prompted.
"Meaning that they could have achieved the same degree of tension without
spreading their efforts all
up and down the frontier," White Haven replied in the same, quiet voice.
They've hit us—or prodded us,
at least—all the way from Minorca to Grendelsbane, but aside from Yeltsin,
they haven't hit any of our nodal fleet stations like Hancock, Reevesport, or
Talbot. Any of those are more important than someplace
like Zuckerman or Quentin, yet they've stayed well away from them, again with
the exception of Yeltsin,
even though they must know how much more sensitive we'd be to any threat to
them. Why?"
"Because those are our nodal positions." Caparelli's voice was a bit harsh,
but he made himself pull
his tone back to normal. "Our mobile forces are enormously stronger in those
systems. That's why they
got in and out so fast at Yeltsin. They knew that if they'd poked their noses
deeper in the way they did at
Zuckerman or Candor, we'd have sawed them right off at the ankles."
"Agreed." White Haven nodded. "But what if they did it for another reason? A
                                      79

specific purpose, not
simply to minimize their risk?"
"A bait? Something they want us to do in response?' Givens murmured, her eyes
thoughtful as she
turned in her chair to study the holo wall afresh, and White Haven nodded
again.
"Exactly. As Admiral Caparelli says, they've virtually left us no choice but
to reinforce the frontier.
Certainly they have to know that increases their risk in any future incident .
. . but they also know those
reinforcements will have to come from somewhere."
Caparelli grunted unhappily, his own eyes clinging to the display, and felt an
acid burn of agreement
as he realized White Haven might just have a point . . . again.
"You're suggesting that they're trying to pull us into strategic dispersal,"
he said flatly.
"I'm saying that may be what they want. They know we won't reduce our strength
at our major
frontier nodes. That means any meaningful reinforcement has to come from Home
Fleet, and anything we
send to, say, Grendelsbane or Minorca, will be far beyond support range of
Manticore. If someone pushes
the button, it would take them almost as long to get back to the home system
as it would take a Peep task
force to make the same trip—and they couldn't even know to start home until we
got a courier to them
with orders to return."
"But that only makes sense if they really are considering pushing the button."
There was a new note
in Caparelli's voice, a combination of devil's advocate and an unwillingness
to believe Haven might
actually do that after so long. Yet his eyes said the idea did make sense, and
silence hovered once more in
the wake of his words.
"Admiral Givens," Cromarty broke the stillness at length, "is there any
intelligence to support the
possibility Admiral White Haven and Sir Thomas have raised?'
"No, Your Grace. But I'm afraid there isn't anything to dismiss it, either.
There may be some pointers
that are simply buried in the sheer mass of data coming at us, and I'll
certainly try to find them if there are,
but if the Peeps are finally getting ready to attack, none of our sources in
the PRH have picked up on it.
That doesn't mean they aren't doing it—their government's had a lot of
experience in security, and they
thoroughly understand the advantage of surprise after a half-century of
conquest—but there's simply no
way to get inside their heads and know what they're thinking."
The Second Space Lord studied the display a moment longer, then turned back to
face the Prime
Minister.
"Having said that, however, I don't think it's a possibility we can afford to
ignore, Sir," she said
quietly. The first principle of the military analyst is to figure out how the
enemy can hurt you worst with
his known capabilities and then plan to stop him, not hope he won't try it."
"Admiral Givens is right, Your Grace." Part of Caparelli still wanted to
                                      80

glower at White Haven just
for being there, but his own integrity wouldn't let him reject the earl's
analysis. "You can't avoid running
risks, sometimes, where military operations are concerned, but prudence is a
powerful military virtue.
And prudence suggests that you err on the side of pessimism, especially before
the shooting starts."
"Which means what, in terms of deployments?" Baroness Morncreek asked. "I'm
not certain yet, Milady," Caparelli admitted. He looked at White Haven with
opaque eyes. "I
don't think there's much question that, whatever they're up to, at least some
redeployment of our forces to
strengthen the frontier is in order," he said in a toneless voice, and his
shoulders relaxed minutely at
White Haven's firm nod of agreement.
"Even if they are seeking no more than a confrontation short of war," the
First Space Lord continued
more naturally, "we have no choice but to increase the forces that may have to
respond to it. At the same
time, any major dispersion of our wall of battle clearly constitutes an
unwarrantable risk." He paused and
rubbed his right temple for a moment, then shrugged.
"I'll want to do some very careful force analyses before making a formal
recommendation, Your
Grace," he told the Prime Minister. "Despite our buildup, our margin for error
is slim. Their wall of battle
has an advantage of almost fifty percent in hulls, and their tonnage advantage
is even higher, since our
fleet has a much higher percentage of dreadnoughts.
"Most of our ships are bigger and more powerful than theirs on a class-for-
class basis, but their edge
in superdreadnoughts means we not only have less hulls but that our ships of
the wall actually average
smaller. That means each battle squadron we remove from Home Fleet will weaken
us more than
diverting the same number of ships would weaken them, both proportionately and
absolutely."
He shook his head, powerful shoulders hunching as he considered the
unpalatable numbers, then
sighed.
"With your permission, Your Grace, I'd like to ask Admiral White Haven to join
me and Admiral
Givens at Admiralty House." He made the admission with only a trace of his
earlier resentment as his
mind grappled with the problem. "Let the three of us take a very close look at
our commitments, and I'll
try to have a recommendation for you by sometime tomorrow morning."
"That will be more than satisfactory, Sir Thomas," Cromarty told him.
"In the meantime," White Haven said in his quiet voice, "I think it would be a
good idea to send a
formal war warning—and the reasoning behind it—to all our station commanders."
The tension in the room clicked back up at the suggestion, but Caparelli
nodded with another sigh.
"I don't see any option," he agreed. "I don't like the potential to increase
anxieties. A nervous CO is a
lot more likely to make a mistake we'll all regret, but they deserve our
confidence . . . and the warning.
                                      81

The communication lag's always meant we had to trust them to act on their own
initiative, and they can't
do that intelligently without information that's as complete as we can give
them. I'll instruct them to be on
the alert for provocations, as well, and to do their best to hold any
confrontation to a minimum, but we've
got to warn them."
"Agreed—and may God be with us all," the Prime Minister said softly.
CHAPTER TWELVE
'Thank you, Mac. That was delicious—as always," Honor said as the steward
poured the wine.
Commander Henke made a replete sound of agreement from the other side of the
table, and MacGuiness
shrugged with a smile.
"Will you be needing anything else, Ma'am?"
"No, we're fine." He started to gather up the dessert dishes, but she waved a
hand. "Leave them for
"Of course, Ma'am." MacGuiness gave a small half-bow and vanished, and
now, Mac. I'll buzz you."
Honor leaned back with a sigh.
"If he stuffs you like this every night, you're going to start looking like
one of those old pre-space
blimps," Henke warned her, and she chuckled. "Nimitz, maybe." Honor smiled
fondly at the treecat. He lay belly-down, stretched full length along
the perch above her desk with all six limbs dangling, and his soft, buzzing
snores were those of a wellstuffed
'cat at peace with the universe.
"But me get fat?" she went on with a headshake. "Not with Paul throwing me
around the salle! Or
with the Admiral running me ragged, for that matter."
"Amen to that," Henke agreed fervently. Water flowed downhill, and with Honor
so immersed in
squadron activities, an ever mounting flood of paperwork had inundated the
exec. She started to say
something else, then paused with a frown and leaned back in her own chair
while she toyed with the stem
of her wineglass.
"Still, we're making progress," Honor pointed out, "and the yard will have
Nike back up in another
week or so. I think things are actually going to get a bit easier once we can
form the entire squadron in
space with proper division organizations and buckle down to blow the last of
the rust off."
"Um." Henke nodded absently, still looking down into her wine, then raised her
head and cocked an
eyebrow. "And Admiral Parks?'
"What about him?" Honor's tone was guarded, and Henke snorted.
"I happen to know you're the only flag captain in this task force who's never
been invited to a
conference aboard Gryphon. Why don't I think that's a simple oversight?"
"There hasn't been any real reason for him to call me on board," Honor said
uncomfortably, and
Henke's snort was even louder.
"It's odd enough when an admiral doesn't even invite a newly arrived
battlecruiser captain aboard for
a courtesy call, Honor. When that captain is also the flag captain of his
primary screening formation and
                                      82

she isn't invited to a single flagship conference, it goes beyond odd."
"Perhaps." Honor sipped her wine, then sighed and set the glass aside. "No,
not 'perhaps,'" she
admitted. "I thought at first I was in the doghouse over Fusion Three, but
that stopped making sense
weeks ago."
"Exactly. I don't know what his problem is, but it's obvious there is one. And
our people are
beginning to notice. They're not happy that their captain seems to be being
snubbed by their admiral."
"It doesn't reflect on them!" Honor said sharply.
"It's not the reflection on them they're worried about," Henke replied
quietly, and Honor shifted
uncomfortably.
"Well, there's not much I can do about it. He outranks me by a few light-
months, if you recall."
"Have you spoken to Admiral Sarnow about it?"
"No—and I'm not going to, either! If Admiral Parks has some sort of problem
with me, it's my
problem, not the Admiral's."
Henke nodded. Not in agreement, but because she'd already known what Honor
would say.
"In that case, what's on the schedule for tomorrow?" she asked.
"More sims," Honor replied, accepting the change of subject with a small,
grateful smile. "A convoy
exercise. First we get to defend it against 'raiders operating in unknown
strength,' then we get to turn
around and attack it—against a dreadnought division escort."
"Ouch! I hope this 'convoy's' going to be carrying something to make our lumps
worthwhile."
"Ours not to reason why," Honor said solemnly, and Henke chuckled.
"Well, if we're going to be invited to make the supreme sacrifice for Queen
and Kingdom tomorrow,
I'd better emulate Nimitz and get some sleep." She started to rise, but
Honor's raised hand stopped her.
"Something else?" she asked in surprise. "As a matter of fact . . ." Honor
began, but then her voice trailed off. She lowered her eyes to the
linen tablecloth and fidgeted with a fork, and Henke leaned back in her chair
in sudden speculation as her
commanding officer's face turned bright, hot pink.
"You remember when I needed advice back at Saganami Island?" Honor said after
a moment.
"What sort of advice? Multi-dee math?"
"No." Honor's blush darkened. "Personal advice."
Henke managed to keep her eyes from widening and nodded with only a brief
hesitation, and Honor
shrugged.
"Well, I need some more of it. There are some . . . things I never learned,
and now I wish I had."
"What sorts of things?" Henke asked cautiously.
"All sorts!" Honor surprised her yet again with a breathless little laugh and
dropped the fork to fling
up her hands. Her face was still flushed, but it was as if the laugh had
demolished some internal barrier,
and she smiled. "As a matter of fact, I need some help with makeup, Mike."
"Makeup?" The word started to come out sharp with astonishment, but Henke
choked the incredulity
                                      83

out of her voice just in time. And she was thankful she had when she saw the
sparkle in Honors dark eyes.
"I could have asked my mom about it anytime, and she would've been delighted
to teach me. Maybe
that was part of the problem. She would have decided the 'ice maiden' had
finally melted, and God only
knows where that would've ended!" Honor laughed again. "Did I ever tell you
what she wanted to give me
as a graduation present?"
"No, I don't think you did," Henke said, and deep inside she felt a sense of
wonder. For all their
closeness, there'd always been a guarded core to Honor Harrington—one Henke
suspected only Nimitz
had ever managed to breach—and this bright-eyed, almost breathless Honor was a
stranger to her.
"She wanted to buy me an evening with one of the best male 'escorts' in
Landing." Honor shook her
head and chuckled at Henke's expression. "Can't you just see it? A great big,
towering gawk of an ensign
with fuzz for hair out on the town with some glamorous hunk! Lord, I would
have died! And just imagine
what the neighbors would've thought if they'd ever found out!"
Henke began to chuckle herself as she pictured it, for Sphinx was far and away
the most straightlaced
of the Kingdom's planets. Professional, licensed courtesans were a fact of
life on Manticore. It
might not be considered quite the thing to seek their services, but everyone
knew "someone else" who
had. They weren't particularly unusual on Gryphon, either, but they were very
rare birds indeed on
Sphinx. Yet she could easily believe Allison Harrington would have done just
that. Honors mother was an
immigrant from the Sigma Draconis System's Beowulf, and the sexual mores which
prevailed there would
have curled a native born Manticoran's hair, much less a Sphinxian's!
The women faced one another across the table, and their chuckles turned into
full- throated laughter as
each saw the almost fiendish delight in the other's face. But then Honor's
laughter slowly ebbed, and she
leaned back once more with a sigh.
"Sometimes I wish I'd let her go ahead and do it," she said wistfully. "I
could have trusted her to pick
the best for me, and maybe then—"
She broke off and waved her hand, and Henke nodded. She'd known Honor for
almost thirty T-years,
and in all that time, there had never been a man in her life. Never even a
hint of one, which seemed even
odder somehow in light of her easy relationships and often close friendships
with male officers.
And yet, perhaps it wasn't so strange. Honor didn't seem to have any problem
regarding herself as
"one of the guys," but it was painfully obvious she still thought of herself
as the "towering gawk" and
"hatchet-faced horse" of her girlhood. She was wrong, of course, but Henke
understood how little right or
wrong mattered in terms of self-image. Then there'd been Pavel Young, the only
man on Saganami Island
                                      84

ever to express an interest in Ms. Midshipman Harrington—and the man who'd
tried to rape her when she wasn't interested in return. Honor had kept that
whole episode locked inside, but Lord only knew how it
had affected a girl who already thought she was ugly.
Yet Henke suspected there was another reason, as well—one Honor herself wasn't
aware of—and
that reason was Nimitz. Mike Henke remembered the desperately lonely girl
who'd been assigned as her
dorm mate at Saganami Island, but that loneliness had extended only to other
people. Whatever else
happened to her, Honor had always had the assurance—not just the belief, but
the proof—that one
creature in the universe loved her . . . and that creature was an empath.
Henke had known several people
who'd been adopted by treecats, and every one of them seemed to demand more
from personal
relationships. They demanded trust.
Absolute, total trust, and very few human beings were prepared to extend that
to anyone. Henke had
always known that. It was one reason she was so immensely flattered to possess
Honor's friendship, but
she sensed, if only dimly, how that need for trust could cripple anything more
than friendship, for a
treecat's companion knew when another's trust—and trustworthiness—were less
than absolute. In a sense,
the price they paid for their bonds with their 'cats was a certain coolness, a
distance, from other humans.
Especially lovers, with their bottomless capacity to hurt them.
Some of them dealt with it through casual affairs, surface flings
intentionally kept too superficial to
ever get past their guards, but Honor couldn't do that. More importantly, she
wouldn't do it. Despite her
mother, there was too much Sphinxian in her . . . and too much stubborn
integrity.
"Well, the past is past." Honor sighed, breaking the train of the commander's
thoughts. "I can't get it
back or do it over again, but I'm afraid it's left me without some of the
skills other people take for
granted." She touched her face—the left side of her face, Henke noted—and
smiled wryly. "Like
makeup."
"You don't really need it, you know," Henke said gently, and it was true.
She'd never seen Honor
wear even lip gloss, but that didn't detract from her clean cut, knife-edged
attractiveness.
"Lady," Honor disagreed with half-embarrassed, half-laughing vehemence, "this
face needs all the
help it can get!"
"You're wrong, but I won't argue with you about it." Henke cocked her head,
then smiled slightly.
"May I take it you want me to help you repair the, um, deficiencies in your
education?" Honor nodded,
and Henke's eyes gleamed with fond mockery. "Or should I say, the deficiencies
in your arsenal?" she
teased, and chuckled as Honor blushed afresh.
"Whatever," she said with all the dignity she could muster.
"Well . . ." Henke pursed her lips thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Our coloring
                                      85

is just a bit different,
you know."
"Does that matter?"
"Oh, Lord!" Henke moaned, rolling her eyes heavenward at the simple innocence—
and abysmal
ignorance—that question betrayed. Honor looked surprised, and Henke shook her
head.
"Trust me, it matters. On the other hand, Mother always insisted that all her
daughters be well
instructed in the fundamental hunting skills. I think I can probably do a
little something with you, but I'll
have to make a raid on the ship's store, first. Nothing I use would work on
you, that's for sure." She
frowned and ran through a mental checklist of all she'd need, for one thing
was certain; there were no
cosmetics in Honor's medicine cabinet.
"How soon do you want to achieve the desired result?" she asked.
"Within the next week or so?" Honor suggested almost hesitantly, and Henke, to
her credit, managed
not to smile.
"I think we can manage that. Tell you what, this is Thursday—how about I drop
by before supper
next Wednesday and educate you in Drop Dead Gorgeous 101 then?" "Wednesday?"
Honor's blush was back. She looked away, studying the Queen's painting on the
bulkhead, and Henke fought an urge to laugh, for Honor had dined regularly
with Paul Tankersley on
Wednesday nights for over six weeks now. "Wednesday would be good," she agreed
after a moment, and
Henke nodded.
"Done. In the meantime, however—" she rose "—I really do need to get some sack
time for
tomorrow. Meet to discuss the sim at zero-six-thirty?"
That sounds about right." Honor sounded relieved by the return to a
professional topic, but she
dragged her eyes back from Queen Elizabeth's portrait and smiled. "And . . .
thanks, Mike. Thanks a lot."
"Hey! What are friends for?" Henke laughed, then straightened her shoulders
and clicked to a sort of
abbreviated attention. "And on that note, good night, Ma'am."
"Good night, Mike," Honor said, and her smile followed the commander out the
hatch.
"... and I believe that covers just about everything, ladies and gentlemen,"
Sir Yancey Parks said.
"Thank you, and good night."
His assembled squadron commanders stood at his dismissal and departed with
courteous nods. All
but one of them, and Parks' eyebrows rose as Rear Admiral Mark Sarnow retained
his seat.
"Is something on your mind, Admiral?" he asked.
"Yes, Sir, I'm afraid something is," Sarnow said quietly. "I wonder if I might
speak with you a
moment." His eyes flicked to Commodore Capra and Captain Hurston, then back to
Parks. "In private,
Sir."
Parks inhaled sharply and felt the matching surprise in Capra and Hurston.
Sarnow's tone was
diffident and respectful yet firm, and his green eyes were very level. Capra
                                      86

started to say something, but
the admiral raised a hand and stopped him.
"Vincent? Mark? If you'd excuse us for a moment? I'll join you in my chart
room to finish
reexamining those deployment changes when Admiral Sarnow and I are finished."
"Of course, Sir." Capra rose, gathering up the ops officer with his eyes, and
the two of them left. The
hatch sighed shut behind diem, and Parks tilted his chair back and raised one
hand, palm uppermost, at
Sarnow.
"What was it you wished to speak to me about, Admiral?"
"Captain Harrington, Sir," Sarnow replied, and Parks' eyes narrowed.
"What about Captain Harrington? Is there a problem?"
"Not with her, Sir. I'm delighted with her performance. In fact, that's the
reason I asked to speak to
you."
"Oh?"
"Yes, Sir." Sarnow met his CO's gaze with an edge of challenge. "May I ask,
Sir, why Captain
Harrington is the only flag captain never to be invited to a conference aboard
Gryphon?"
Parks leaned further back, his face expressionless, and his fingers drummed on
the arm of his chair.
"Captain Harrington," he said after a moment, "has been fully occupied getting
her ship back on- line
and learning her responsibilities as a flag captain, Admiral. I saw no reason
to take her away from those
more pressing duties to attend routine conferences."
"With all due respect, Sir Yancey, I don't believe that's true," Sarnow said,
and Parks flushed.
"Are you calling me a liar, Admiral Sarnow?" he asked very softly. The younger
man shook his head,
but his eyes never flinched.
"No, Sir. Perhaps I should have said I don't believe her pressing schedule is
the sole reason you've
excluded her from your confidence." Air hissed between Parks' teeth as he
inhaled, and his eyes were as icy as his voice.
"Even assuming that statement to be true, I fail to see precisely how my
relationship with Captain
Harrington concerns you, Admiral."
"She's my flag captain, Sir, and a damned fine one," Sarnow replied in those
same, level tones. "In
the past eleven weeks, she has not only mastered her squadron duties to my
complete—my total—
satisfaction, but done so while simultaneously overseeing major repairs to her
own command. She's
demonstrated an almost uncanny knack for tactical evolutions, earned the
respect of all of my other
captains, and taken a considerable portion of Captain Corell's headaches onto
her own shoulders. More
than that, she's an outstanding officer with a record and depth of experience
any captain could be proud of
and very few can match, but her pointed exclusion from task force conferences
can only be taken as an
indication that you lack confidence in her."
"I have never said or even hinted that I lack confidence in Captain
Harrington," Parks said frigidly.
                                      87

"Perhaps you've never said so, Sir, but you have certainly, whether
intentionally or unintentionally,
indicated that you do."
Parks' chair snapped upright, and his face tightened. He was clearly furious,
yet there was something
more than simple fury in his eyes as he leaned toward Sarnow.
"Let me make one thing plain, Admiral. I will not tolerate insubordination. Is
that clear?"
"It isn't my intention to be insubordinate, Sir Yancey." Sarnow's normally
melodious tenor was flat,
almost painfully neutral but unflinching. "As the commander of a battlecruiser
squadron attached to your
command, however, it is my duty to support my officers. And if I feel one of
them is being treated
unfairly or unjustly, it's my responsibility to seek an explanation of his or
her treatment."
"I see." Parks pushed himself back in his chair and took a firm grip on his
seething temper. "In that
case, Admiral, I'll be perfectly frank. I wasn't pleased when Captain
Harrington was assigned to this task
force. I have a less than lively faith in her judgment, you see."
"No, Sir, again with all due respect, I don't see how you could form an
opinion of her judgment
without ever even meeting her."
Parks right hand clenched on the conference table, and his eyes were
dangerous.
"Her record clearly demonstrates that she's both hotheaded and impulsive," he
said coldly. "She
personally antagonized Klaus Hauptman, and I need hardly tell you how powerful
the Hauptman Cartel is.
Or how rocky Hauptman's relationship with the Fleet has been for years. Given
the tension with the PRH,
setting him at loggerheads—further at loggerheads, I should say—with Her
Majesty's Navy was a stupid
thing for any officer to do. Then there was her insubordination to Admiral
Hemphill when she addressed
the Weapons Development Board after Basilisk. What she said needed saying,
granted, but it should have
been said in priva te and with at least a modicum of proper military respect.
Certainly she showed gross
misjudgment by using a vital service board to publicly embarrass a flag
officer in the Queens service!
"Not content with that, she assaulted a diplomatic envoy of Her Majesty's
Government in Yeltsin, and
then issued an ultimatum to a friendly head of state. And while no charges
were ever filed, it is a matter of
common knowledge that she had to be physically restrained from murdering POWs
in her custody after
the Battle of Blackbird! However splendid her combat record, that behavior
indicates a clear pattern of
instability. The woman is a loose warhead, Admiral, and I don't want her under
my command!"
Parks made his hands unclench and leaned back, breathing heavily, but Sarnow
refused to retreat a
centimeter.
"I disagree, Sir," he said softly. "Klaus Hauptman went to Basilisk to
browbeat her into abandoning
                                      88

her duty as a Queen's officer. She refused, and her subsequent actions—for
which she received this
Kingdom's second highest award for valor—are the only reason Basilisk does not
now belong to the
People's Republic. As for her appearance before the WDB, she addressed herself
solely to the issues the Board had invited her there to discuss, and did so in
a rational, respectful fashion. If the conclusions of the
Board embarrassed its chairwoman, that certainly wasn't her fault.
"In Yeltsin," Sarnow went on in a voice whose calm fooled neither man, "she
found herself, as Her
Majesty's senior officer, in a near hopeless position. No one could have
realistically blamed her for
obeying Mr. Houseman's illegal order to abandon Grayson to the Masadans—and
Haven. Instead, she
chose to fight, despite the odds. I don't condone her physical attack on him,
but I certainly understand it.
And as for the 'prisoners of war' she allegedly attempted to murder, may I
remind you that the POW in
question was the senior officer of Blackbird Base, who had not simply
permitted but ordered the murder
and mass rape of Manticoran prisoners. Under the circumstances, I would have
shot the bastard—unlike
Captain Harrington, who allowed her allies to talk her out of it so that he
could be legally tried and
sentenced to death. Moreover, the judgment of Her Majesty's Government on her
actions in Yeltsin is
plain. May I remind you that Captain Harrington was not only knighted and
admitted to the peerage as
Countess Harrington but is the only non-Grayson ever to be awarded the Star of
Grayson for heroism?"
"Countess!" Parks snorted. "That was no more than a political gesture to
please the Graysons by
acknowledging all the awards they piled on her!"
"With respect, Sir, it was much more than a 'political gesture,' though I
don't deny it pleased the
Graysons. Of course, if she'd been given the precedence actually due a
steadholder under Grayson Law—
or, for that matter, commensurate with the size of her estates on Grayson or
their probable eventual
income—she wouldn't have been made a countess. She'd be Duchess Harrington."
Parks glared at him but bit his lip in silence, for Sarnow was right and he
knew it. The younger
admiral waited a moment, then continued.
"Finally, Sir, there is no record, anywhere, of her ever acting with less than
total professionalism and
courtesy to any individual who had not offered nearly intolerable provocation
to her. Nor is there any
record of her ever having done one millimeter less than her duty.
"As for your judgment that you don't want her under your command, I can only
say that I am
delighted to have her under mine. And if she remains as my flag captain, then
both her position and her
record require that she be accorded the respect they deserve."
Silence stretched out between them, and Parks felt his anger like slow,
churning lava as he
recognized the ultimatum in Sarnow's eyes. The only way to get rid of
Harrington was to get rid of
                                      89

Sarnow, and he couldn't. He'd known that from the start, given the Admiralty's
decision to assign both of
them here—and, for that matter, to give Harrington Nike. Worse, Sarnow was
just likely to lodge an
official protest if he tried to sack Harrington, and except for her obvious
inability or unwillingness to
restrain her temper, he had no overt justification for doing so—especially
with Sarnow so obviously
poised to write an outstanding fitness report on her for any board of inquiry.
He wanted to snarl at the rear admiral, to relieve him for his insubordination
and send both of them
packing, but he couldn't. And deep inside he knew part of it was his own
temper, his own anger and
frustration. Not just at having to put up with Harrington, but for having put
himself in a position which
allowed this arrogant sprig to lecture him on military propriety . . . and be
right, damn him!
"All right, Admiral Sarnow," he asked after endless minutes of fulminating
silence, "jus t what is it
you want me to do?"
"All I ask, Sir, is that you accord Captain Harrington the same respect and
opportunity for input into
task force operations that you accord every other flag captain under your
command,"
"I see." Parks made his muscles unclench and regarded the rear admiral with a
cold lack of liking,
then inhaled. "Very well, Admiral. I'll give Captain Harrington the
opportunity to prove me wrong about
her. And for both your sakes, I hope she does."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Three of President Harris' bodyguards stepped out of the
elevator to scan the corridor beyond, and he
waited with the patience of long practice. To be born a Legislaturalist—and
especially a Harris—meant
one was surrounded by security people from birth. He'd never lived any other
way, and the only changes
when he inherited the presidency had been the intensity of the effort and who
provided it, for the wellbeing
of the People's Republics presidents was too important to entrust to the
Republic's citizens.
The Presidential Security Force's personnel were mercenaries, hired from the
planet of New Geneva
in regimental strength. New Geneva's soldiers and security personnel were
professional, highly trained,
and noted for their loyalty to their employers. That loyalty was their true
stock in trade, the real reason
governments paid their high fees rather than rely on their own citizenries—and
the fact that they were
regarded as outsiders, both by themselves and by the citizens of the PRH,
neatly eliminated the possibility
that any countervailing source of loyalty might turn the PSF against the
president they were sworn to
guard with their lives.
Unfortunately, it also meant the PSF wasn't especially popular with the PRH's
homegrown military
who believed (correctly) that the New Genevans' presence meant they weren't
quite trusted by their own
government.
                                      90

The head of Harris' personal detachment listened to his earbug until his point
men reported the
corridor secure, then nodded his charge respectfully forward, and a Marine
brigadier saluted as Harris
emerged from the elevator. The brigadier's expression was courteous, but
Harris felt his simmering
subsurface dislike for the PSF people who'd invaded his domain. And, he
supposed, the brigadier had a
point. The towering' black spire of The Octagon, the nerve center of the PRH's
military operations,
seemed an unlikely place for assassins to lurk. On the other hand, Harris
could stand much worse than a
single Marine officer's resentment, and, especially since the Frankel
assassination, the PSF refused to
leave anything to chance. Which didn't mean he needed to rub the man's nose in
it; he reached out in a
greeting handshake as the brigadier lowered his own hand from the salute.
"Welcome, Mr. President," the Marine said a bit stiffly.
"Thank you, Brigadier . . . Simpkins, isn't it?"
"Yes, Sir." Brigadier Simpkins smiled, pleased to be remembered by his head of
state, and Harris
smiled back. As if the PSF would have let him encounter, however casually,
anyone he wasn't thoroughly
briefed upon! But the gesture soothed Simpkins' resentment, and his invitation
for Harris to accompany
him down the corridor seemed much more natural.
"Admiral Parnell is waiting for you, Sir. If you'll come this way?"
"Of course, Brigadier. Lead on."
It was a short trip, and the door at the end didn't look exceptionally
important—aside from the armed
guards who flanked it. One of them opened the door for the President, and the
people already gathered in
the small conference room rose as he walked in.
He stopped his security people at the threshold with a small wave. They gave
him the pained look
they always did when he went anywhere without them, but they obeyed his silent
order with the
resignation of experience. As far as President Harris was concerned, any
secret known to more than one
person was automatically compromised, whether or not the enemy had discovered
it yet, and he intended
to compromise this information as little as possible. That was why there were
only three other people in
the room. The rest of the cabinet would no doubt be peeved when they
discovered they'd been excluded,
but that, too, was something he could live with.
"Mr. President," Admiral Parnell greeted him.
"Amos." Harris shook the CNO's hand, then glanced at his secretaries of war
and foreign affairs.
"Elaine. Ron. Good to see you all." His civilian colleagues returned his nod
of greeting, and he looked
back to Parnell. "My time's short, Amos. My appointments secretary's done a
little creative scheduling to prove I'm somewhere else right now if anyone
asks, but I have to resurface soon to make that stick, so
let's get right to it."
"Of course, Sir." The admiral waved his guests into chairs and stood at the
end of the conference
                                      91

table to face them.
"Actually, Mr. President, I can keep this extremely brief, since I can speak
only in general terms,
anyway. The distances involved mean that getting dispatches back and forth
takes too long for me to try
any sort of detailed coordination from here. That's why I need to relocate to
Barnett."
Harris nodded in understanding. Haven was almost three hundred light-years
from Manticore—and
over a hundred and fifty from its own western border, for that matter. Even
for courier boats, who
routinely rode the risky upper edge of hyper-space's theta band, it would take
something like sixteen days
to get a message oneway between Haven and the Barnett fleet base across the
hundred and twenty-seven
light-years between them.
"I suppose I really just wanted to touch base before you go," he said.
"Of course, Sir." Parnell touched a control panel, and a huge holo map
appeared above the table. Its
volume was dotted with the tiny sparks of color-coded stars and was other
icons, but what drew the eye
were the glaring red pinpricks all along the frontier between the PRH and the
Manticoran Alliance.
"The red data codes indicate the sites of our intended provocations, Mr.
President." He touched
another button, and a few red dots were suddenly circled by green bands.
'These are the systems in which
we have confirmation initial operations have been successfully completed.
We've scheduled follow-up
intrusions in many cases, of course, so even an initial success doesn't
guarantee something still won't go
wrong, but so far things look very good. The time and mo ney we've invested in
the Argus net have paid
off handsomely in the data our planners had to work with when we set things
up. At the moment, we
appear to be almost exactly on schedule, and we've suffered no reported
losses. At the same time, Mr.
President, it's important to remember that somewhere along the line we will
get hurt, however good our
intelligence and planning. That's inevitable, given the scale and scope of our
operations."
"Understood, Amos." Harris studied the holo map, savoring the wide dispersion
of incidents, then
glanced at Ron Bergren. "Do we have any indications they're jumping the way we
want, Ron?"
"Not really, Sid." Bergren gave a small shrug and stroked his mustache. "Our
intelligence conduits
have a lower data transmission speed tha n the Navy's dispatches, not to
mention the fact that it's harder for
spies to get the information we need than it is for an admiral to debrief his
COs. I'm afraid Naval
Intelligence and my own people were essentially correct when they pointed out
that we couldn't count on
independent confirmation, but it does appear the Manticoran media have begun
to twig to the fact that
something is going on. They don't know exactly what, which indicates a fairly
severe government
                                      92

clampdown for someone with their press traditions. Given that and my own
reading of Cromarty and his
government, I'd say we've got a better than even chance that they are. A lot
depends on what their military
recommends."
The foreign secretary raised an eyebrow at Elaine Dumarest, and it was the
secretary of war's turn to
shrug.
"I can only repeat what NavInt said at the outset. Caparelli's replacement of
Webster as their First
Space Lord is a very hopeful sign. From his dossier, he's more of a bull in
the china shop than Webster
was. He's well thought of by his colleagues as a tactician, but he's both less
capable of delegation than
Webster and weaker on the analysis side. That makes him less likely to seek
advice and more prone to
prefer quick, direct solutions, which certainly suggests his recommendations
will follow the general
pattern we're hoping for."
"I'm afraid that's the best we can say at this point, Mr. President," Parnell
said in respectful support of
his superior. "We're showing him a bait we hope he'll take, but no one can
guarantee he will. Left to his
own devices, I'm almost certain of how he'd respond, but he doesn't work in a
vacuum. There's always the possibility that someone—like their Admiral Givens,
who, unfortunately, is very good at her job from all
reports—will see something he didn't and convince him to take note of it. At
the same time, they'll have to
do some of what we want, whoever calls the shots on their side of the fence."
"I was afraid you were all going to insist on qualifiers." Harris' wry smile
took the potential sting
from his words, and he sighed. That's what I hate most about my job. Things
would be so much simpler if
other people would just be nice and predictable all the time!"
His subordinates smiled dutifully, and he looked at his chrono.
"All right, I'm going to have to wrap this up fairly quickly. Amos," he gave
the CNO a level look,
"we're going to rely on you to handle the final timing from Barnett. Give us
all the advance warning you
can so we can tie up the final prep work at this end, but I realize there may
not be time for you to check
with us. That's why I'm authorizing you right now to activate the final phase
when you think the situation
is most ripe. Don't let us down."
"I'll give it everything I've got, Mr. President," Parnell promised.
"I know you will, Amos." Harris moved his eyes to Bergren. "Ron, double-check
everything from
your end. Once the shooting starts, our relations with neutral powers, especia
lly the Solarian League, may
be critical. We can't risk giving the show away, but do all the pump-priming
you can—and once things
actually break, use our ambassadors and attache's to be sure our version of
what's going on reaches the
neutral media before any of their damned correspondents get into the area for
'independent' reports. I'll
bring Jessup into the picture next week so his people at Information can start
putting together the initial
                                      93

releases for your embassy people to hand out."
Bergren nodded, and the President turned to Dumarest.
"You said you were still thinking over whether or not to accompany Amos to
Barnett, Elaine. Have
you made up your mind?"
"Yes." Dumarest plucked at her lower Up and frowned. "My emotions say I should
go, but he doesn't
really need me looking over his shoulder. And if both of us vanish, somebody's
a lot more likely to
wonder where we are and put two and two together. Under the circumstances, I
think I'd better stay
home."
"I was thinking the same thing myself," Harris agreed. "And I can certainly
use you. Sit down with
Jessup and Ron to help them put the right spin on our news releases. I want to
restrict this to the cabinet
level until we launch actual operations, so the release preparation time is
going to be short. The more
thought we can put into giving the writers detailed guidelines and official
data when we dump it on them,
the better."
"Of course, Mr. President."
"Then that's about it, I think. Except—" he turned his eyes back to Parnell "—
for one other point."
"Another point, Mr. President?" Parnell sounded surprised, and Harris laughed
without undue humor.
"It's not really about operations, Amos. It's about Rob Pierre."
"What about Mr. Pierre, Sir?" Parnell didn't quite succeed in keeping his
distaste out of his vo ice, and
Harris laughed again, more naturally.
"He can be a pain in the ass, can't he? Unfortunately, he's got too much
Quorum influence for me to
ignore him—and, I'm sorry to say, he knows it. At the moment, he's badgering
me about several letters to
his son which were returned undelivered by NavSec."
Parnell and Dumarest exchanged speaking glances, but there was a trace of
unwilling sympathy in the
admirals eyes. People, even prominent people, had been known to vanish in the
People's Republic, and
relatives started sweating the instant they heard the word "security." Naval
Security had a better
reputation than most of the PRH's security organs (the Mental Hygiene Police
had far and away the worst), but they were still security. And much though
Parnell personally detested both Rob Pierre and his
son Edward, the elder Pierre's love for his only child was as intense as it
was well known.
But whatever sympathy Parnell might feel, he was still chief of naval
operations, and Pierre the
Younger was still an officer, officially like any other, under his command.
"I hadn't been informed of it, Mr. President," he said after a moment, "but
Admiral Pierre's squadron
is involved in our current operations, and we've clamped down a communications
blackout to maintain
operational security."
"I don't suppose you could make an exception in this case?" Harris asked, but
his tone said he didn't
intend to push it if Parnell turned him down, and the admiral shook his head
                                      94

with a clear conscience.
"I'd really prefer not to, Sir. First, because keeping this operation secret
really is important, but
secondly, if I may be completely honest, because there's already a great deal
of resentment against
Admiral Pierre over his father's blatant use of his influence to further his
career. It's unfortunate, because
while I personally dislike Admiral Pierre, he actually is a very competent
officer, despite a certain
hotheadedness and arrogance. But if I make a special exception in his case,
it's going to cause resentment
among our other officers."
Harris nodded without surprise. Legislaturalists might use influence to
promote their children's
careers, but they were jealous of that prerogative. The President was too much
a part of the system to
condemn it—after all, look what family interest had done for him—but he
considered it a pity that it
worked against even the most competent of outsiders. Still, he would shed no
tears, not even crocodile
ones, for Rob Pierre. The man was exactly what he'd called him: a monumental
pain in the ass. Worse,
Palmer-Levy's moles in the Citizens' Rights Union were picking up more and
more rumbles that he was
buttering both sides of his bread by cozying up to the CRU's leadership. He
was being careful to limit his
contacts to the "legitimate" CRP splinter in the People's Quorum, but the
President rather looked forward,
all things considered, to remorsefully informing him that "operational
security considerations" made it
impossible to meet his requests.
"All right, I'll tell him its no go." Harris rose and extended his hand once
more. "And on that note, I'll
be going. Good luck, Amos. We're depending on you."
"Yes, Sir, Mr. President." Parnell took the proffered hand. "Thank you—both
for the good wishes and
your confidence."
Harris gave his cabinet secretaries another nod and turned back to the door
and his waiting security
people.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Captain Brentworth accepted the message board without leaving his command
chair. It was quiet on
Jason Alvarez's bridge, but there was a tension under the surface, like
silently snarling marsh cats, and he
wondered how much longer it would take the waiting to dull the raw, sharp
edges.
He finished the routine dispatch, fingerprinted his receipt on the scan panel,
and handed it back to the
yeoman with a nod of thanks, then looked automatically into his tactical
display.
Virtually every ship in the Grayson Navy—a small force, by galactic standards,
but infinitely more
powerful than just a year before—formed a huge, tenuous sphere fourteen light-
minutes from Yeltsin's
Star and a hundred and fifteen light- minutes in circumference. Their
Manticore-designed sensors reached
                                      95

out far beyond that, yet their presence was a deception measure.
Manty intelligence was positive the Peeps still hadn't realized that Manticore
had finally found a way
for remotely deployed tactical sensors to transmit messages at FTL speeds.
Their range remained limited
to less than twelve light-hours, but the specially designed generators aboard
the latest Manticoran sensor
platforms and recon drones could produce directional grav pulses. And since
grav waves were faster than
light, so were their transmission speeds across their range. The Grayson Navy
knew about them, for their existence had been Lady Harrington's trump card in
her epic defense of their world, but Manticore and her allies had gone to
enormous lengths to deny the
Peeps any evidence of their existence. Which, in no small part, explained the
Graysons' present
deployment.
By spreading themselves so thin, they virtually guaranteed they would be
unable to intercept any
intruders with more than one or two ships, but their purpose wasn't to
intercept. Their job was to serve as
obvious bird dogs for the heavy Manty battle squadrons behind them. Any Peep
captain who poked his
nose into Yeltsin would see their thin screen well before he saw any
Manticoran ships of the wall, and the
obvious assumption would be that it was the Graysons who'd picked him up and
reported him to their
allies. No doubt he would curse the luck which had placed an RMN battle
squadron or two— purely
fortuitously, undoubtedly as the result of some routine training maneuver—in a
position to generate an
intercept vector once the Graysons warned him.
Brentworth smiled unpleasantly at the thought. The sensor platforms would pick
up any normal space
approach at well over thirty light- hours and relay complete data back to
Command Central by grav pulse,
and with that data, High Admiral Matthews and Admiral D'Orville, the Manty
commander, would preposition
their forces to meet the intruders at a time and place of their own choosing .
. . and in whatever
strength seemed required.
Of course, it was probable the Peeps would break and run the moment they saw
capital ships, and that
far out from Yeltsin they could pop straight into h-space, assuming their
velocity was under .3 c. Still, if
their velocity was higher than that, they'd have to decelerate to a safe
translation speed. Under those
circumstances, they were likely to run into a tiny bit of trouble before they
could hyper out . . . and
wouldn't that just be too bad?
A mere captain wasn't supposed to know about the inner deliberations of his
supreme commanders,
but Brentworth had connections few captains had. He knew Matthews and
D'Orville would deliberately
put together a force heavy enough to leave the Peeps no option but to run . .
. but he also knew that if their
approach vector made evasion impossible, the Alliance admirals intended to
annihilate their entire force.
                                      96

And that was why, after the murder of Convoy MG-19, Captain Mark Brentworth
asked God each
night to send the bastards in at too high a base velocity to hyper out before
the superdreadnoughts caught
them.
"—attle stations! Battle stations! All hands man battle stations! This is not
a drill! Repeat, this is not a
drill!"
The raucous, recorded voice and shrill, atonal alarm filled HMS Star Knight as
her crew thundered to
their stations. Captain Seamus O'Donnell sidestepped quickly to avoid a
missile tech as the woman
disappeared down the access tube to her station, then vaulted into the lift
and punched the button. He was
still sealing his skin suit when the doors opened on the bridge, and his exec
looked up, then scrambled
from the command chair with obvious relief.
O'Donnell dropped into the chair almost before Commander Rogers was clear. He
racked his helmet
by feel and familiarity alone, for his eyes were already busy absorbing the
information on his tactical
repeaters, and his mouth tightened.
Star Knight was the lead ship of the Manticoran Navy's most powerful heavy
cruiser class. At three
hundred thousand tons, she was fit to take on anything smaller than a
battlecruiser, and, under the right
conditions, she might even engage a battlecruiser with a chance of victory. It
had been done, after all.
Once.
But she wasn't the equal of the force coming at her today.
"IDs?" he snapped at his tac officer.
"None definite, Sir, but preliminary signature analysis says they're Peeps."
The tac officer's reply was
tight with anxiety, and O'Donnell grunted an acknowledgment. "No response to
our challenges, Com?"
"No, Sir."
O'Donnell grunted again, and his mind raced. The Poicters System was hardly
crucial in military
terms.
The powerful base built at Talbot had reduced Poicters to little more than a
flank guard for the task
force stationed there, but it was still an inhabited system, with a total
population of almost a billion, and
the Star Kingdom was committed to defend those people. That was why Star
Knight and the other ships of
her squadron were here, but none of her consorts were within light- minutes of
her at the moment.
"Positive ID from CIC, Sir," his tac officer said suddenly. "They're Peeps,
all right. Sultan class."
"Damn," O'Donnell said softly. He tapped on a command chair arm for a moment,
then looked across
at the tac officer. "Enemy vector?"
"They're on an almost exact reciprocal, Sir—one-seven-three zero-one-eight
relative. Their base
velocity is point- zero- four-three cee, and their current acceleration is
four-seven-zero gees. Range onepoint-
three- zero-eight light- minutes. They just popped out of hyper less than two
                                      97

minutes ago, Sir. We
didn't have a clue they were coming."
O'Donnell nodded, silently cursing the luck which had put him in such a
position. Or was it luck? The
squadron had maintained the same patrol schedule for months now. Had the Peeps
slipped a scout into
range to analyze their movements? He hoped not, because if they had, this was
a deliberate interception,
and there was no way Star Knight could face four battlecruisers.
He laid maneuvering cursors on his display and looked for some way out. His
ship was headed
almost straight down their throats at a closing speed of over 33,000 KPS, and
the powered missile
envelope would be close to 19,000,000 kilometers under those conditions. That
meant he'd enter it in less
than two and a half minutes unless he found some way to avoid it. But the
maneuvering computers told
him what he'd already known: there was no way he could. He had little more
than a 50 g acceleration
advantage; even if he turned directly away, it would take him over seventeen
hours to begin pulling away
from them, and he'd overshoot their present position in less than thirteen
minutes, even at max decel. If
they were here to attack, their broadsides would rip his ship apart long
before he did.
"Helm, roll ship and bring us to zero-niner- zero by zero-niner-zero at
maximum acceleration," he
ordered.
"Aye, aye, Sir. Coming to zero-niner-zero zero- niner-zero at five-two-three
gravities acceleration,"
his coxswain responded, and O'Donnell watched his display for the Peeps'
reaction as Star Knight rolled
up on her side, presenting the impenetrable belly of her impeller wedge to
them, and snapped through a
skew turn down and away to starboard. It was a clear bid to avoid action, and
it would work . . . unless the
Peeps chose to split their formation and go in pursuit.
"Com, get a report off to Commodore Weaver," O'Donnell said, his eyes glued to
his display. "Inform
him we have positively identified four Havenite Sultan-class battlecruisers in
violation of Poicters space.
Include our position, tac analysis, and current vectors. Request assistance
and inform him I am attempting
to avoid action."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
O'Donnell nodded absently, still staring at his display, and then his hands
clenched. The glaring dots
of hostile impeller wedges were shifting their vectors—not simply relative to
Star Knight, but to one
another, as well. They were altering course to intercept . . . and splitting
their formation to come at him
from so many angles he could never interpose his wedge against all of them.
"Amend that signal, Com," he said quietly. "Inform Commodore Weaver I do not
expect to be able to
avoid action. Tell him we'll do our best."
Rear Admiral Edward Pierre leaned back in his command chair with a hungry
smile as his four ships
                                      98

swept towards the hyper limit of the Talbot System. He'd heard for years how
good the Manticorans
were—how they had a tradition of victory, how hard they trained,
How good their tactics were, how their analysts and planners were up to every
trick—and it had
always irritated him immensely. He hadn't seen any of their graveyards, and if
they were so damned good,
why was the People's Republic of Haven gobbling up every choice bit of stellar
real estate in sight, not
them? And why were they so damned scared to pull the trigger themselves, if
their superiority was so
great?
Pierre wasn't like the majority of the People's Navy's senior flag officers,
and he both resented the
distinction and took immense pride in it. His father's political power helped
explain Pierre's rapid rise, but
Rob Pierre's fight to claw his way off the Dole as a young man had imbued him
with a burning contempt
for "his" government, and his son had inherited that contempt along with the
benefits of his power. That
was one of the several reasons Admiral Pierre belonged to the Navy's "war now"
faction.
There was an invisible wall in the People's Navy. If you wanted rank above a
rear admiral's, then you
had to be born a Legislaturalist. That alone would have made Pierre hate most
of his superiors—not that
he didn't have other reasons. The Legislaturalist admirals, safe from
competition behind their wall of
privilege, had gotten fat and lazy. They'd had it too good for too long, and
the guts had gone out of them,
until they were afraid to risk their power and wealth and comfort even against
a two- for-a-credit singlesystem
threat like Manticore. Pierre despised them for that, and he'd been delighted
when he was picked
for this mission and the chance to show them how groundless their fears were.
He rechecked the chrono and nodded mentally. His ships were right on schedule,
and for all their
overinflated reputation, the Manticorans were as blind-drunk stupid as a Prole
on BLS day. Pierre didn't
know the details—he wasn't senior enough for that, he thought sourly—but he
knew the People's Navy
had sneaked powered-down scout ships into and through the Manties' outer
systems on ballistic courses
for over two years now, plotting their patrols' movements, and the idiots
didn't even seem aware of the
possibility. If they had been, their patrols wouldn't have followed clockwork
schedules that left them wide
open for the sort of pounce Pierre planned today. For both pounces, actually;
Commodore Yuranovich
and the other half of the squadron should be killing themselves a Manty
cruiser about now.
Just as Pierre intended to do in the next—he checked the chronometer again—two
and a half hours or
so.
Commander Gregory, captain of the light cruiser HMS Athena, stood by his
tactical officer's shoulder
and shook his head at the image on the visual display. The dreadnought
                                      99

Bellerophon was coming up fast
from astern, overtaking Gregory's cruiser as she eased along on another long,
slow leg of her patrol.
Gregory had known Bellerophon was due to rotate home, but he hadn't known she
was leaving today,
and she certainly made an impressive sight to break up the monotony of patrol
duty.
The six-and-a-half-megaton leviathan swam closer and closer, dwarfing the
light cruiser into minnow
insignificance as she rode up five thousand kilometers off Athena's port
quarter. Even a ship her size was
no more than a dot of reflected sunlight to the naked eye at that range, but
the visual display brought her
into needle-sharp focus, and Gregory shook his head again as he watched her
sweep up on Athena's beam.
She out- massed his ship by over sixty to one, and the difference between her
broadside and Athena's was
quite literally inconceivable. The commander wouldn't have traded his lithe,
beautiful ship for a dozen
clumsy dreadnoughts, yet it felt reassuring to see that much firepower and
know it was on his side.
Bellerophon overtook Athena and forged past with a velocity advantage of
twelve thousand KPS on
her way to the hyper limit, and Gregory grinned as he nodded to his com
officer to flash Athena's running
lights in the close-range visual salute starships seldom got a chance to
exchange in deep space. Bellerophon returned it; then she was gone, roaring
ahead under a steady 350 g's acceleration, and the
commander sighed.
"Well, that was exciting," he told his tac officer. Too bad it's the only
excitement we're going to get
today."
"Hyper limit in thirty seconds, Admiral Pierre."
"Thank you." Pierre nodded to acknowledge the information, and die
battlecruiser Selim's GQ alarm
whooped once to warn her crew.
"Hyper transit! I'm reading an unidentified hyper footprint!" Athena's tac
officer snapped. His
surprise showed in his voice, but he was already bent over his panel, working
the contact.
"Where?" Commander Gregory demanded sharply.
"Bearing zero-zero-five, zero-one-one. Range one-eight-zero million Idicks.
Christ, Skipper! It's right
on top of Bellerophon!"
"Contact! Enemy vessel bearing oh- five-three, oh-oh-six, range five-seven-
four thousand
kilometers!"
Pierre jerked in his command chair and twisted toward his ops officer's
sudden, unanticipated report.
They should be eleven light- minutes from their target! What the hell was the
woman talking about?!
"Contact confirmed!" Selim's tac officer called out, and then— "Oh, my God!
It's a dreadnought!"
Disbelief froze the admirals mind. It couldn't be—not way the hell out here!
But he was already
turning back to his own display, and his heart lurched as it showed him CIC's
confirming identification.
                                     100

"Put us back into hyper!"
"We can't translate for another eight minutes, Sir," Selim's white- faced
captain said. The generators
are still cycling."
Pierre stared at the captain, and his mind whirled like a ground- looping air
car. The man's words
seemed to take forever to register, while his ships closed with the enemy at
over forty thousand kilometers
per second, and the admiral swallowed around an icy lump of panic. They were
dead. They were all dead,
unless, just possibly, that dreadnought's crew was as shocked as he was. He
had a clear shot down the
front of her wedge if he could get his ships around to clear their broadsides,
and they couldn't possibly
have been expecting him to appear in their face. If they took long enough
reacting, long enough getting to
battle stations—
"Hard a port!" he barked. "All batteries, fire as you bear!"
"Sweet Jesus, they're Peeps!" Bellerophon's junior tactical officer whispered.
The Book didn't like
enemy reports like that, but Lieutenant Commander Avshari felt no inclination
to criticize. After all, The
Book didn't envision this lunatic sort of situation, either.
The lieutenant commander watched his status boards' green lights turn amber
and red and wished to
hell the Captain would get here. Or the Exec. Or anybody senior to him,
because he didn't have a clue and
he knew it. This was supposed to be a milk run, a good opportunity for junior
watch keepers to get a little
bridge time on their logs, but he was a communications officer, for God's
sake—and one whose Academy
tactical scores had been a disaster, to boot! What the hell was he supposed to
do next?
"Sidewalls active! Starboard energy batteries closed up on computer override,
Sir!" the youthful
lieutenant at Tactical said, and Avshari nodded in relief. That decided which
way to turn, anyway.
"Bring us hard to port, Helm."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Coming hard to port."
The dreadnought began her turn, and fresh alarms whooped even as she swung.
"Incoming fire!" the tac officer snapped, and lasers and grasers ripped at
Bellerophon's suddenly
interposed sidewall. Most of them achieved absolutely nothing as the sidewall
bent and degraded them,
but red lights bloomed on Avshari's damage control display as half a dozen
minor hits splattered her
massive armor, and this time he knew exactly what to do.
"Ms. Wolversham, you are authorized to return fire!" Bellerophon's com officer
barked the order
straight from The Book, and Lieutenant Arlene Wolversham punched the button.
Admiral Pierre swallowed a groan as the dreadnought snapped around and her
sidewall swatted his
broadsides contemptuously aside. He'd never seen a ship that size maneuver so
rapidly and confidently.
She'd taken barely ten seconds to bring her sidewall up and get around—her
captain must have the
instincts and reactions of a cat!
                                     101

He could see his intended prey's impeller signature in his display now,
millions of kilometers astern
of the dreadnought, and realized intuitively what had happened. His
intelligence had been perfect, but he'd
blundered into an unscheduled departure. A stupid, routine transit there'd
been no way to predict. And
now there was no way to evade the consequences.
"All units, roll ship!" he barked, but even as he snapped out the order, he
knew it was futile this deep
into the enemy's missile envelope. Even if his ships rolled up behind their
wedges in time to evade the
dreadnought's beams, it would only delay the inevitable, require her to kill
them with laser heads, instead.
...
And then he realized they weren't going to manage even that much.
HMS Bellerophon's broadside opened fire, and enough energy to shatter a small
moon flashed
through the "gunports" in her starboard sidewall.
A quarter-second la ter, Battlecruiser Divisions 141 and 142 of die Peoples
Navy ceased to exist.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Honor smiled a sleepy little smile into the darkness, listening to the slow,
even breathing behind her,
and her hand crept up to caress the wrist and forearm draped over her ribs. It
was a shy caress, almost an
incredulous one, and amusement at her own sense of wonder deepened her smile.
A soft noise came out of the dark, and her eyes turned unerringly to its
source. The sleeping cabin's
hatch had been closed when she dozed off. Now it stood ajar, and a thin edge
of light leaked through it. It
was dim, barely lightening the blackness, but it was enough. Two green eyes
sparkled at her from the
bedside desk, and she felt the deep, gentle approval behind them.
She touched the wrist again, smile trembling with mingled echoes of present
joy and remembered
pain as old memories stabbed, and, for the first time in years, she let
herself face the things she'd chosen
to suppress for so long.
Being Allison Harrington's daughter had been hard for a girl who knew she was
ugly. Honor loved
her mother and knew her mother loved her. Despite a career at least as
demanding as a naval officer's,
Allison had never been "too busy" to give her daughter warmth and love and
support . . . but she'd also
been petite and beautiful. And there Honor had been, knowing she would never
match her beauty, that she
would always be the out-sized freak, and secretly loathing the part of herself
that couldn't quite forgive
her mother for making her feel her plain-faced gawkiness.
And then there'd been Pavel Young.
Her smile disappeared as she bared her teeth in automatic reflex. Pavel Young,
who'd done his
hateful best to destroy what little illusion of attractiveness she'd somehow
nourished and turn her wistful
dreams of what might have been into something ugly and disgusting. But at
least she'd known he was the
enemy, known his attack had been born of hate and outraged ego, not something
                                     102

she'd somehow deserved. He'd left her feeling dirtied and defiled, but he
hadn't quite finished her off. No, that had been left to a
"friend."
The remembered sorrow and crushing shame of a long-ago afternoon poured
through her. It had been
an agonizing thing, the most deeply hidden secret of an often desperately
unhappy adolescence, for she
hadn't realized until it was too late why Nimitz had taken such a dislike to
Cal Panokulous. Not until she'd
come smilingly, without knocking, into the dorm room of someone she thought
loved her . . . and
overheard the man who'd washed away the foulness of Young's touch chuckling
over the com with an
Academy classmate who knew them both over how "clumsy" she was.
She closed her eyes against the flood of long-denied anguish. Even after all
these years, she'd never
been able to admit how savagely that had wounded her. Not just the betrayal,
but the terrible, cutting blow
to a teen-aged girl who'd already been shamed by a would-be rapist. A girl
whose mother was beautiful
and who knew she was ugly. Who'd been so desperate for someone to prove she
wasn't that she'd ignored
Nimitz's warning only to discover how horribly one human being could wound
another.
Never again. She'd sworn to herself that it would never happen again, just as
she would never let him
know she'd overheard. She'd simply fled, for if she'd confronted him, he would
either have lied and denied
it or laughed and admitted it ... and in either case, she would have killed
him with her bare hands. Yet, in a
way, she'd been almost grateful. He'd warned her what could happen, shown her
that no man would ever
have more than a crude and casual interest in bedding someone as clumsy and
ugly as she, and so she'd
put any thought of its ever happening out of her mind.
She touched that warm, gentle hand again, pressing it to her ribs, absorbing
its warmth like some
pagan charm against devils, and her eyes closed tighter. She'd always known
most men were decent. No
one could be adopted by a 'cat and not know that, but she'd built her walls
anyway. She'd hidden not just a
part of herself but the reason she hid that part, even from the best of them,
for she'd had to. Friends, yes;
friends she would die with or for, but never lovers. Never. She'd cut herself
off from that risk—cut herself
off so completely she'd actually been content, never consciously realizing
what she'd done—because she
couldn't let anyone, especially herself, know how deeply the shamed girl still
hiding within the
determined naval officer had been wounded. Because she couldn't let anyone
guess that one thing, at least,
in the universe hurt so much, frightened her so completely, that she dared not
confront it.
And so she'd gone her own way, cool and disengaged, faintly amused by the
romantic entanglements
she saw about her but totally untouched by them. She'd known it worried her
mother, but her mother was
                                     103

the last person she could ever have discussed it with, and Allison Harrington
didn't know what had
happened to her daughter at Saganami Island. Without that knowledge and with a
set of cultural baggage
so different from that of a typical Sphinxian, there was no way she could have
guessed what Honor chose
not to admit even to herself, and Honor had been glad it was so. She'd
actually been content, in a wistful
sort of way, for she'd had Nimitz, and she'd accepted that she would never
have—or need, or even truly
want—anyone else.
Until now.
Paul Tankersley's slow breathing didn't change, but his hand responded even in
his sleep. It slipped
up her ribs and cupped her breast like a warm, friendly little animal.
Not passionately, only tenderly. His warmth pressed against her spine, his
breath gusted on the back
of her neck, and her fingers clasped his hand against her as her nerves
recalled the smooth, incredible heat
of his skin, the silken fineness of his hair.
She'd wanted to come here tonight, yet she'd been terrified, as well. It
seemed silly now, but the
decorated war hero, the captain whose tunic sparkled with ribbons for valor,
had been afraid, and she'd
agonized over bringing Nimitz. She'd needed the 'cat. Much as she'd trusted
Paul, as much as she'd wanted
him, she'd needed Nimitz's ability to protect her, less against Paul than
against her own fear of still more
betrayal. Her insecurity had shamed her, but she couldn't simply reject it,
even though she'd known how few humans realized how utterly disinterested
'cats were in human sexuality and feared Paul might feel as
if she'd brought a voyeur.
Yet Paul hadn't objected to Nimitz any more than he'd commented on her
cosmetics, though his eyes
had lit at the sight of Mike's efforts. She'd felt his emotions through Nimitz
while they ate, and this time
she'd clung to that awareness rather than discourage the 'cat from linking
them. She'd tasted the pleasant,
somehow tingling edge of his desire, like the smoky lightning of old whiskey,
but there'd been so much
more behind it. Things she had known with absolute certainty no man would ever
feel for her.
Her pulse had calmed—or perhaps simply raced for another reason—and, for the
first time she could
recall, she'd been glad to let someone else take charge. Someone who
understood the mysteries which had
always confused and frightened her. And when the meal was over, she'd actually
grinned when Paul
informed the 'cat that bedroom doors were intended to assure privacy.
That was the moment, she thought now, luxuriating in the comfortable darkness,
when she knew,
absolutely and beyond doubt, that she'd been right about Paul Tankersley, for
Nimitz had simply risen
high on his true- feet with a flirt of his tail to reach the door button. He'd
opened the hatch and walked
unconcernedly out into the main cabin, leaving her alone with Paul in the
clearest possible proof that he
                                     104

trusted this man.
Yet for all that, she'd been stiff and wooden at first. The old inadequacies
had cut too deep, made her
too aware of her ignorance. She was forty-five T-years old, and she didn't
know what to do. Didn't even
know where to begin! The courage it took to reveal that to a man had dwarfed
what it had taken to sail
Fearless into Saladin's broadsides at Yeltsin, but she'd known, somehow, that
if she didn't risk herself
now, she never would.
Even without Nimitz, she'd felt his surprise at her inexperienced responses,
but there'd been none of
Cal Panokulous' shallow adolescent scorn, none of Pavel Young's contempt and
need to punish. There'd
been only wonder and gentleness, slowness and laughter, and after that—
She smiled again, eyes prickling with tears, and lifted his hand in the
darkness. Not very far. Just far
enough to brush a soft kiss across its back before she returned it to her
breast and closed her eyes.
The sharp, musical chime cut through the stillness, and Honor tried to roll
out of bed even as she
reached for her bedside terminal in a captain's sheer spinal reflex. But
something was wrong. She was
tangled up in someone else's limbs, and she wiggled against them for a second
before her eyes popped
back open and her mind snapped into focus with the realization that it wasn't
her com after all.
She blinked, then giggled. Lord! She could just imagine the reaction of Paul's
caller if she'd
answered—especially since pajamas would definitely have been in the way
tonight!
The chime sounded again, and Paul muttered something irritable in his sleep.
He snorted and tried to
snuggle closer to her back, and the com chimed a third time.
Well, one thing was certain. He was a much sounder sleeper than she was. Which
was no doubt worth
knowing, but wouldn't get the ship out of the docking slip.
She jabbed him gently in the ribs as the chime turned into a higher,
continuous buzz. He snorted
again, louder, then rose on one elbow in a rush.
"What—?' He began, then cut himself off as the buzz registered. "Oh, hell!" he
muttered. "I told the
switchboard—"
He shook his head, the ends of his long hair sweeping her bare shoulder like
tickling silk, and shook
himself into full awareness.
"Sony." He pressed a kiss to her shoulder blade, and she wanted to purr like
Nimitz. But then he sat
up quickly. "They wouldn't have put it through unless they thought it was
important," he went on. "And
they'd damned well better be right! When I think of all the time and effort I
put into getting tonight just
right. . . ." His deep voice trailed off suggestively, and she smiled.
"You'd better answer before someone starts on the hatch with a laser cutter,"
she said, and he laughed
and reached across her, accepting the call voice-only without bringing the
video up.
                                     105

"Tankersley," he said.
"Captain, this is Commander Henke," a furry contralto said, and Honor sat up
even more quickly than
he had as the formality of Mike's words and tone registered and she heard
Admiral Sarnow issuing crisp,
rapid orders to his staff behind her exec's voice.
"Yes, Commander?" Paul sounded as surprised as Honor, but he'd picked up on
the formal cue.
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm trying to track down Captain Harrington, Sir. I understand she intended
to dine with you tonight.
Would she still be there by any chance?" Mike asked in that same cool,
professionally impersonal voice—
bless her!
Honor rolled out of bed and began collecting her scattered uniform from the
cabin carpet, blushing in
strangely delighted embarrassment as Paul brought up the cabin lights and
watched her with an
appreciative eye.
"Why, yes," he told his cousin innocently. "In fact, I believe she's getting
ready to leave right now."
Honor paused in just her briefs, one foot inserted into a trouser leg, to make
a rude gesture, and his face
crinkled in delight. "Would you like to speak to her?"
"Yes, please."
It was remarkable how repressive Mike could sound without changing her tone in
any identifiable
way, Honor thought. She pulled her trousers the rest of the way on and sat
before the com, swatting Paul
out of her way with her hip, and a smile quivered on her mouth as he stretched
himself in shameless,
luxurious nakedness and his eyes laughed at her.
"Yes, Mike?" She couldn't quite keep an edge of laughter out of her own voice,
but it vanished with
Henke's next sentence.
"Captain, Admiral Sarnow requested me, with his compliments, to ask you to
return aboard
immediately."
"Of course." Honors eyes narrowed. "Is there a problem?"
"We've just received a general signal from the fleet flagship, Ma'am. All flag
officers and flag
captains are to repair aboard immediately."
Henke was waiting when Honor swam hurriedly out of the repair base docking
tube into Nike's entry
port. MacGuiness stood at the exec's shoulder, a garment bag draped over his
arm, and both of them wore
harried expressions. The rating manning the tube's inboard end started to come
to attention, but Honor
waved for him to stand easy and started for the lift with her quick, long-
legged stride while her
henchpeople scurried after her.
"Admiral Sarnow is holding his pinnace in the forward boat bay," Henke said as
the three of them
stepped aboard the lift. The doors closed, and Honor keyed their destination,
then blinked in surprise as
Henke reached out right behind her and locked the lift between decks.
"I thought you said the Admiral was waiting, Mike!"
                                     106

"I did, but before you go aboard Gryphon—" The exec's hand darted into the
small belt purse under
her tunic for a cleaning tissue, and Honors face turned crimson as Henke
reached out to whisk away the
remnants of eye shadow and lip gloss. The commander didn't even smile, but her
eyes twinkled, and
Honor's own eyes cut sideways to MacGuiness.
The steward wore no expression at all. Or, no, that wasn't quite right. He
looked like a man who was
both insufferably pleased and afraid of what might happen if he admitted it.
Honor captured his gaze and held it for a single, fulminating moment while
Henke worked on her face, and he cleared his throat and
looked away quickly, busying himself with the garment bag.
It opened to reveal Honor's best dress tunic and trousers, and she cocked an
imperious eyebrow at
him.
"Commander Henke said you might require a change, Ma'am. And, of course, I
knew—"
MacGuiness hit the verb just a bit too hard "—you'd want to look your best
tonight."
"I do not need a pair of mother hens! And I'll thank—"
"Hold still!" A ruthless hand gripped her chin, tilting her head to the side,
and the tissue muffled her
voice as it made a final swipe across her lips. Henke cocked her own head to
consider her work, then
nodded. "There! Uniform, Mac?"
"Of course, Ma'am."
Honor gave up and shoved Nimitz into the crook of MacGuiness's elbow, then
shed her undress tunic
even as she toed off her boots. For the first time, she felt an edge of body
consciousness in MacGuiness's
presence, but he seemed unaware of any reason she should be remotely
uncomfortable, and she grinned
wryly to herself. All those years in gyms and dressing rooms, working out with
men, throwing them
around the salle—and being thrown by them—and tonight she was suddenly aware
that she wasn't just
"one of the guys" after all!
She stepped out of her trousers, suppressing an urge to turn her back on
MacGuiness, and accepted
the fresh pair with the gold stripes up their outer seams.
"Oh, damn!" Henke sighed as she sealed the trousers. "There's makeup on your
collar, Honor. Hold
still!"
Honor froze, and Henke's fingers worked busily with the soft roll of her white
blouse's turtleneck.
There!" the exec said again. "Just be careful not to fuss with it and
disarrange anything."
"Yes, Ma'am," Honor murmured meekly, and Henke's lips quivered as she took the
tunic from
MacGuiness' unencumbered hand and helped her into it.
"Get us moving again," Honor went on, pulling her boots back on. She bloused
her trouser legs
properly and sealed the tunic, and the lift began to move once more. She
accepted a comb from
MacGuiness and dragged it through her hair with ruthless dispatch while she
watched the steward stuff
                                     107

her discarded clothing into the garment bag, and laughter glinted in her eyes.
A soft tone warned of their impending arrival, and she jammed the comb into a
pocket and tugged the
hem of her tunic down. Nimitz leapt up onto her shoulder and purred in her ear
while she adjusted her
beret, and there was just time for a quick, approving inspection of her
reflection in the polished hit wall
before the words "BOAT BAY ONE" flashed on the location display.
"Thank you—both of you," she said from the side of her mouth, and stepped
through the door as it
opened.
"Ah, there you are, Dame Honor!" The shadow of tension on Sarnow's dark face
betrayed his own
surprise at their abrupt summons to the flagship, and Honor wondered for a
moment if he was being
sarcastic. But he smiled, and his next words took any possible rebuke out of
his comment. "I'm surprised
you managed to get back aboard so quickly with so little warning."
He nodded towards the open pinnace hatch, and Captain Corell ducked through
it. Honor followed
the chief of staff, and Sarnow was hard on her heels. They settled into their
seats while the flight engineer
closed the hatch, made a quick but thorough visual inspection of the seal, and
spoke into the boom mike
of her com headset.
"Hatch secure," she told the flight deck, and Honor settled Nimitz in her lap
as the departure light
flashed on the cabin's forward bulkhead. The mechanical latches retracted, a
puff of thrusters drifted them clear of the buffers, and then a harder surge
of power—imperceptible through the pinnace's onboard grav
generator—sent them streaking out of the bay like a scalded cat.
Auxiliary thrusters carried the pinnace's impeller safety perimeter clear of
the ship, the pilot lit off his
main drive, and Sarnow gave a tiny sigh of relief as the small craft went
instantly to over two hundred
gravities of acceleration.
Honor glanced across at him, and he smiled and tapped his chrono.
"I always hate being the last to arrive for a conference," he admitted, "but
unless Admiral
Konstanzakis' pilot's figured out how to take a pinnace into hyper, we should
beat her by at least five
minutes. Good work, Captain. I never thought you'd make it back aboard in
time."
"I tried not to let any snow melt under my feet, Sir," she said with a small,
answering smile, and he
chuckled.
"So I noticed." He cocked an eye at his chief of staff, but Captain Corell was
busy consulting a memo
pad in her lap, and he leaned a bit closer to his flag captain and lowered his
voice.
"And may I also say, Lady Harrington," he went on in an admirably grave tone,
"that I've never seen
you look more becoming."
Honor's eyebrows flew up at the totally unexpected—and unprecedented—
compliment, and his smile
turned into a mustache-quivering grin.
"I see supper agreed with you," he said even more softly . . . and winked at
                                     108

her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Honor's own sense of urgency echoed around her as she stepped into the late-
night bustle of HMS
Gryphon. No warship ever truly shuts down, but even spacers tend to retain a
sense of "day" and "night"
as dictated by their clocks. It may not make much difference to the people who
actually have the watch at
any given moment, but it is too easy for the human animal to lose its temporal
place without some sort of
agreed upon referent. And as a general rule, a flagships "day" is defined as
"the Admiral is up." When he
retires, so do most of his staff and its myriad attachments, and the entire
tempo of the flagship seems to
relax with an appreciable breath of gratitude.
But no one was relaxed tonight. Gryphon's boat bays were brilliant with light
and busy with side
parties as flag officer after flag officer arrived aboard, and Honor didn't
envy her boat bay control officer.
Juggling that many small craft was a herculean task, even with the docking
capacity of a
superdreadnought.
She led Captain Corell out the hatch of Nike's pinnace behind Sarnow and hid a
smile, despite her
own tension, as the lieutenant assigned to greet them snapped to attention.
The side party followed her
example, bosun's pipes trilled, Marines saluted—nothing could have been more
punctilious, but the
lieutenants harassed expression suggested another pinnace was coming in right
behind them ... as soon as
their boat got out of the way, that was.
"Welcome aboard, Admiral Sarnow. Lady Harrington. Captain Corell. I'm
Lieutenant Eisenbrei.
Admiral Parks extends his compliments and asks you to follow me to the
briefing room, please."
"Thank you, lieutenant." Sarnow gestured for her to lead the way, and Honor
could almost hear
Eisenbrei's sigh of relief as she shepherded them out of the boat bay gallery.
Another lieutenant tried not
to hover too obviously to one side, and Eisenbrei gave her colleague a nod and
made a small shooing
gesture towards the gallery even as Nike's pinnace undocked. The other
lieutenant vanished at a trot,
Eisenbrei led her charges briskly away, and Honor managed—somehow—not to laugh
as Corell looked
her way and rolled her eyes heavenward.
Gryphon's main briefing room was crowded, despite its size, and heads turned
to glance at the
newcomers as Honor and Corell followed Sarnow through the hatch. There were
dozens of admirals, commodores, and senior captains, all glittering with
braid, and Honor extended a silent but profound
thanks to Henke and MacGuiness as she took in the hectares of dress uniforms
awaiting her.
She brought her cybernetic eye's magnification up slightly, studying the
assembly while they walked
toward it, and she saw her own puzzlement and curiosity on most of those
faces. Most but not all—and
                                     109

those which didn't look puzzled wore masked expressions that looked ominously
like anxiety. Even fear.
Admiral Parks was bent over a holo display with a commodore—probably Commodore
Capra, the
chief of staff, she thought, noting the braided aiguilette hanging from his
left shoulder—but he, too,
looked up at their entry. Looked up and raised a hand, interrupting Capra in
mid-sentence.
His eyes narrowed as he straightened. The distance was too great for anyone
without the advantage of
Honor's enhanced vision to notice it, but those cold, blue eyes clung to her
for just a moment, and the lips
below them tightened. Then Parks moved his gaze to Sarnow, and his mouth
tightened still further before
he made it relax.
Honor snapped her eye back into normal vision and schooled her own face into
careful
nonexpression, but mental warning signals buzzed, and Nimitz shifted uneasily.
That wasn't the way an
admiral looked at someone he was happy to see, and her memory replayed her
week-old supper
conversation with Henke. Parks didn't seem any too pleased with Admiral
Sarnow, either, but he'd looked
at Honor first. Did that mean she was somehow the source of his unhappiness
with the admiral?
Sarnow, at least, seemed unfazed by any potential hostility. He led Honor and
Corell across the deck
to Parks, and his voice was respectful but relaxed when he spoke.
"Admiral Parks."
"Admiral Sarnow." Parks returned the greeting in a tone which sounded just a
bit too normal against
the background of an emergency fleet conference, but he extended his hand.
Sarnow shook it, then
nodded to his subordinates.
"Allow me to introduce Captain Harrington, Sir. I believe you've already met
Captain Corell."
"Yes, I have," Parks replied, nodding at Corell, but his eyes were on Honor,
and she sensed a tiny
hesitation before he extended his hand to her turn. "Welcome aboard Gryphon,
Lady Harrington."
"Thank, you, Sir."
"Please, find your seats," Parks went on, returning his attention to Sarnow.
"I expect Admirals
Konstanzakis and Miazawa momentarily, and I'd like to get started as soon as
they arrive."
"Of course, Sir." Sarnow nodded, but waved his subordinates on toward the huge
conference table
while he paused for a word with an admiral Honor didn't recognize. She and
Corell found the chairs
marked with their names, and Honor glanced around to confirm that no one was
immediately at hand.
"What was that all about, Ernie?" she murmured softly, and Corell mirrored her
own precaution with
a quick glance, then shrugged.
"I don't know," she replied. Honor cocked an eyebrow, and the other captain
shrugged again. "Really,
Honor, I don't know. All I know for sure is that the Admiral was getting upset
                                     110

with Admiral Parks ab—"
She broke off as another officer slid into the chair beside hers, and her
silent eyes begged Honor not
to pursue it.
Honor nodded. This was neither the time nor the place, but if there was a
problem, she intended to
find out what it was. And soon.
At that moment, Admiral Konstanzakis walked—jogged, really—through the hatch
with Admiral
Miazawa. Konstanzakis was barely shorter than Honor, and she was also much
heavier-boned and
stockier. She probably out- massed Honor by at least fifty percent, whereas
Miazawa was barely a hundred
and sixty centimeters tall and couldn't have weighed much more than fifty
kilos. They looked like a
mastiff and a Pekingese, but the sudden increase in background tension as
their peers realized everyone
had now arrived depressed any temptation to humor. Admiral Parks moved to his
own place and watched the late arrivals find their chairs, then rapped
lightly— and superfluously—on the tabletop and cleared his throat.
"Thank you all for coming so promptly, ladies and gentlemen. I apologize for
summoning you on
such short notice. As you've no doubt surmised, I wouldn't have done so
without a most pressing reason.
Vincent?"
He nodded to Commodore Capra, and the chief of staff stood.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've just received an urgent priority dispatch from
the Admiralty." The
tension clicked even higher, and he keyed a message board to life and began to
read,
'To Commanding Officer, Hancock Station, repeated to all station and task
force commanders. From
Admiral Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord. Reports have been received
here of widespread and
apparently orchestrated incidents along the outer arc off the Alliance's
frontline systems. While PRH
involvement cannot be confirmed in all instances, units of the People's Navy
have been positively—
repeat, positively—identified in three incursions into Alliance space at
Candor, Klein Station, and
Zuckerman."
A soft sound ran around the table, a sound of collectively indrawn breath, but
Capra continued
reading in the same level voice.
"At this time, we have no confirmed reports of exchanges of fire between RMN
and PN units, but the
PN force which violated Zuckerman's territorial limit extensively damaged one
quadrant's outer sensor
platforms before withdrawing. In addition, member systems of the Alliance have
suffered both material
and personnel losses in incidents which cannot be attributed to any positively
identified force. To date,
confirmed RMN losses to parties unknown consist of destroyers Turbulent and
Havoc and the complete
destruction of Convoy Mike-Golf-Nineteen."
This time the sound wasn't of indrawn breath. It was a growl, throaty and
ugly, and Admiral Parks'
                                     111

face tightened as he heard it.
"At this moment, ONI is unable to suggest with any confidence a motive which
might lead the
People's Republic to seek a deliberate confrontation," Capra went on.
"Nonetheless, in light of positive
identification of PN involvement at Candor, Klein, and Zuckerman, we see no
alternative but to assume at
least the possibility—repeat, possibility—of PRH responsibility for all such
incidents. Accordingly, you
are instructed to take all reasonable and prudent precautions within your area
of responsibility. You are
cautioned to avoid any actions which might unilaterally escalate or exacerbate
the situation, but your
primary concern must be the security of your command area and the protection
of our allies."
The commodore paused for just a moment, then continued in a flatter, deeper
voice.
"This dispatch is to be considered a war warning. You are authorized and
directed to go to Readiness
State Alpha Two under Rules of Engagement Baker. God bless you all. Signed,
Admiral Sir Thomas
Caparelli, First Space Lord, Royal Manticoran Navy, for Her Majesty the
Queen."
Capra switched off the message board and laid it gently on the conference
table as he sank back into
his chair amid an absolute silence. Alpha Two was only one step short of open
hostilities, and ROE Baker
authorized any squadron commander to open fire, even preemptively, if he
believed his command was
under threat. By repeating those orders to every station commander, Admiral
Caparelli had just formally
put the trigger to the war every RMN officer had feared for decades in the
hands of some junior grade
captain commanding a light cruiser flotilla picketing some nameless star
system in the back of beyond,
and an icy chill danced up and down Honors spine.
She swallowed and felt the cold, hollow fear deep in her belly. Unlike the
majority of the officers at
this table, she'd seen recent, brutal combat. She understood exactly what that
message meant; they didn't.
Not really. They couldn't without her own experience.
"Under the circumstances," Admiral Parks' voice broke the hush, "an immediate
reconsideration of
our own posture and responsibilities is in order. Particularly since at least
some of the incursions by 'unknown forces' almost certainly account for the
Caliphate Navy's losses in Zanzibar." He gazed around
the table, then leaned back and folded his arms with deliberate calm.
"Along with the message Commodore Capra just read, we've received a dispatch
detailing additional
forces which Admiral Caparelli is deploying to Hancock. In addition to
sufficient heavy and light cruisers
to bring all of our screening squadrons and flotillas up to full strength, the
Admiralty is sending us the
Eighteenth Battle Squadron under Admiral Danislav." One or two faces showed a
tinge of relief, and
Parks smiled thinly.
"Unfortunately, it will require time to concentrate' Admiral Danislav's
                                     112

dreadnoughts. Admiral
Caparelli estimates that we cannot expect their arrival here for a minimum of
three weeks.
"At the same time," the admiral went on, ignoring any fresh signs of dismay
among his listeners, "our
light cruisers have continued to picket the Seaford Nine approaches. While our
patrols have reported the
recent arrival of a third superdreadnought squadron there, they have not
reported any major changes in the
PN's deployments operational patterns. Since the only reported incidents in
this region have been the
attacks on Zanzibaran naval units, in the course of which the Peeps—if,
indeed, they're responsible—have
very carefully hidden any sign of complicity, the lack of any activity on
Admiral Rollins' part may
indicate they aren't yet ready for precipitate action in our command area. Or—
" he bared his teeth in a
humorless smile "—those same signs could indicate they plan to launch a major
attack in our area and are
simply being careful to deny us any clue as to their intentions,"
Someone made a sound that was more than a sigh but not quite a groan, and
Parks' grim smile
flickered with a hint of true amusement.
"Come now, ladies and gentlemen! If the answer were easy to guess, anyone
could play." That won
an uneasy mutter of laughter, and he unfolded his arms and propped an elbow on
the conference table.
"Better. Now, we're all aware of the sensitivity of our command area. I'm
certain the Admiralty is, as
well. Unfortunately, we're here, and Their Lordships aren't. Moreover, they're
going to have to cope with
all the other 'sensitive' areas, so I think we must assume that what we have
now, plus BatRon Eighteen,
are all we're going to have if the missile goes up. Assuming that to be the
case, what are our options?"
He raised his eyebrows and scanned his flag officers. There was another moment
of silence, and then
Mark Sarnow raised an index finger in an attention- gathering gesture. Parks'
mouth might have tightened
just a bit, but he nodded to the rear admiral.
"I'd like to renew my suggestion for a forward deployment against Seaford, Sir
Yancey." Sarnow
picked his words—and tone—with care. "While it's true our cruiser pickets
should spot any movement of
their forces out of the system, they'll still have to report to us before we
can act. That probably won't
matter if the Peeps move against Hancock, since our cruisers should get here
first and alert us. But if they
strike at one of our allies in the region, our interception window will be
much narrower. In fact, if they
move against Yorik, we'd have virtually no chance of intercepting them short
of the system."
Parks started to reply, but Ad miral Konstanzakis spoke up first.
"With all due respect, Sir Yancey, I still feel that's the wrong move," she
said bluntly. "Admiral
Caparelli specifically instructed us to avoid any unilateral escalation. I
hardly see what else we could call
                                     113

moving the entire task force to the edge of the Seaford territorial limit!"
"Admiral Caparelli's dispatch took a week to get here, Dame Christa, and the
information on which
it's based is older still." Sarnow turned his head to meet the admirals brown
eyes. "It's entirely possible—
even probable—that the situation has worsened in that time. Under the
circumstances, I believe the need
to adopt 'reasonable and prudent' measures by insuring Admiral Rollins and his
ships can't leave Seaford
without our being able to intercept them outweighs the possibility that our
actions might be seen as
provocative, especially by the people who seem to be pushing the crisis in the
first place."
"But you're talking about blockading Seaford," Admiral Miazawa protested.
"That's not just a
provocation; it's an outright act of war." "I'm not suggesting a blockade."
Sarnow kept his mellow tenor reasonable, but a certain undeniable
edge crept into it. "What I am suggesting, Sir, is that we concentrate our
force in company with the
pickets already watching the system, not that we interfere with their
movements in any way. But the
unpalatable fact is that once a fleet goes into hyper, we can only guess where
it's going to come out again.
In my opinion, the only way to be positive that we can deliver our entire wall
of battle, concentrated and
ready for action at need, is to keep it in such close proximity to their wall
that they can't possibly elude
us."
"Calmly, ladies and gentlemen." Admiral Parks held Sarnow's eyes for a moment,
then continued.
"Admiral Sarnow has made an excellent point. So, unfortunately, ha ve Admiral
Konstanzakis and
Admiral Miazawa, which illustrates the impossibility of forming detailed plans
in the absence of concrete
information. By the same token, however, our out-system sensor platforms have
detected no sign that the
Peeps have been picketing Hancock, so it would seem Admiral Rollins doesn't
have such information on
MS—and the fact that they can't see our main force sitting on their doorstep
leaves Rollins ignorant of our
dispositions. In which case, he's probably playing the same sort of guessing
game I am."
He smiled another wintry smile, and Konstanzakis snorted in wry agreement.
"If we adopt your forward deployment, Admiral Sarnow, we'll have the advantage
of knowing
exactly what their force at Seaford Nine may do and being in position to
engage it at a time of our choice.
That's a major plus. On the debit side, Admiral Konstanzakis is correct about
the potential for escalation.
Perhaps even more importantly, concentrating to watch the force we know about
would leave nothing
here to protect Hancock—or any of our allies in the region—should the Peeps
run in a second force. If all
of our ships of the wall are tied down watching Seaford Nine, they could snap
up any or all of our allies
with relatively light forces, in which case Seaford would have become a magnet
to suck us out of position
                                     114

at the critical moment. Correct?"
"The possibility would certainly exist, Sir," Sarnow conceded. "But if the
Peeps committed weak
forces to such an operation, they'd face almost certain destruction if they
were intercepted. If they pay the
kind of attention to Murphy's Law I'd expect of someone with their experience,
I strongly doubt they'll try
for finesse or fancy coordination across that many light- years."
"So you believe that if they move in this region at all, they'll do so in
force from Seaford."
"More or less, Sir. I won't deny that they might choose to do otherwise, but
if they do, I believe
they'll commit a force which in their opinion would be sufficient to take us
on in its own right. Under
those circumstances, I feel it would still be better to cover our allies with
light pickets while we
concentrate off Seaford. If word of an attack elsewhere comes in, we should
then move in and crush the
Seaford force before responding to any other threats. In the long run, the
crucial objective must be to
eliminate or whittle down their overall tonnage advantage by bringing them to
action on terms most
advantageous to us as quickly and decisively as possible."
"You sound like we're already at war, Admiral!" Miazawa snapped.
"For all we know, Sir, by now we are," Sarnow replied, and Miazawa's nostrils
flared.
"That will be all, gentlemen," Parks said softly. He regarded both men for
some seconds, then sighed
and rubbed his forehead.
"In many ways, Admiral Sarnow, I would actually prefer to adopt your
proposal." He sounded as if
the admission surprised him, but then he shook his head. "Unfortunately, I
believe the suggestion that we
avoid further escalation also has merit. And unlike you, I can't quite free
myself of the suspicion that,
Murphy's Law or no, they might be attempting to suck us out of position to
strike with light forces behind
us. Moreover, my first and foremost responsibility is to protect the civilian
populations and territorial
integrity of our allies. For all of those reasons, I'm afraid the idea of a
forward deployment is out of the
question." Sarnow's mouth tightened briefly, but then he nodded and leaned
back in his chair. Admiral Parks
gazed at him a moment longer, then let his eyes trail across Honors face
before he continued.
"At the moment, and barring any further reinforcement of Seaford Nine, we have
at least parity with
the known enemy forces in our area. As Admiral Sarnow points out, however, a
sudden lunge against
Vorik could slip past us unintercepted, which would make our margin of
superiority moot. An attack
against Alizon or Zanzibar, on the other hand, would have to move almost
directly across us here, giving
us an excellent opportunity to intercept it short of its objective.
"Accordingly," he drew a deep breath and committed himself, "I intend to
dispatch Admiral
Konstanzakis' and Admiral Miazawa's superdreadnought squadrons and Admiral
                                     115

Tolliver's dreadnoughts
to Yorik. That will preposition twenty-four ships of the wall to cover our
most vulnerable responsibility in
the event that someone does slip past us, and will also protect Yorik against
an attack by lighter forces
inserted into the area for that purpose.
"Admiral Kostmeyer," he turned to the CO of Battle Squadron Nine, "you'll take
your dreadnoughts
to Zarizibar. I'm not comfortable about die losses the Caliph's units have
been taking, and with so much of
our strength at Yorik, they'll be the next most exposed target."
Kostmeyer nodded, not entirely happily, and Parks smiled thinly.
"I won't leave you quite alone out at the end of your limb, Admiral. I intend
to recall and reassemble
Admiral Tyrel's battlecruisers and send them all to join you there as quickly
as possible. Deploy your
sensor platforms and use those battlecruisers to patrol as aggressively as you
like. If an attack comes at
you in overwhelming force, yield the system but remain concentrated and in
contact with them if at all
possible until the remainder of the task force can come to your assistance."
"Yield the system, Sir?" Kostmeyer couldn't quite keep the surprise out of her
voice, and Parks
smiled frostily.
"It's our responsibility to protect Zanzibar, Admiral, and we will. But, as
Admiral Sarnow says, we
must engage them as a coherent whole, and moving back in to retake the system
with our full strength
would probably result in less actual damage to its people and infrastructure
than would a desperate but
unsuccessful defense of it."
Honor chewed the inside of her lip and reached up to stroke Nimitz's ears. She
could not but respect
the moral courage it took for any commander to order one of his admirals to
voluntarily surrender an
allied star system to the enemy. Even if Parks was correct and his
concentrated forces sufficed to take it
back undamaged, his actions would provoke a furor, and the consequences to his
career could be
catastrophic. But resolution or no, the idea of splitting their forces in the
face of potential attack appalled
her. All her instincts insisted that Sarnow was right and Parks was wrong
about the best way to bring the
enemy to action, but perhaps even more frighteningly, that disposed of all
thirty-two of Hancock Station's
ships of the wall. In fact, it disposed of everything . . . except
Battlecruiser Squadron Five.
"In the meantime," Parks continued evenly, as if he'd heard her thoughts,
"you, Admiral Sarnow, will
remain here in Hancock with your squadron as the core of a light task group.
Your function will be to
cover this base against attack, but, even more importantly, Hancock will
continue to function as the
linchpin of our entire deployment I'll leave detailed orders for Admiral
Danislav, but for your planning
information, I intend to hold his battle squadron here, as well. The two of
you will be well placed as our
                                     116

central information relay and to cover Alizon against direct attack, and I'll
detach another light cruiser
flotilla to thicken up our Seaford pickets. That should enable them both to
retain sufficient strength to
shadow the enemy as a precaution against deception course changes and to alert
you in time for you to
move to reinforce Admiral Kostmeyer should Haven attack Zanzibar. I realize
Admiral Kostmeyer will be
much more poorly placed to come to your assistance, but so long as Admiral
Rollins doesn't know we've
pulled any substantial forces out of Hancock, he'll have to scout the system
before committing himself to
attack it, and that should alert us in time to bring one or both of die
detached forces back to Hancock." He paused, watching Sarnow's face, then went
on quietly.
"I realize I'm leaving you exposed here, Admiral. Even after Admiral
Danislav's arrival, you'll be
heavily outnumbered if Admiral Rollins' units slip by us before we can
redeploy to cover you, and I'd
prefer not to put you in that kind of position. But I don't think I can avoid
risking you. The overriding
function of this base is to protect our allies and maintain control of this
general area. If we lose Zanzibar,
Alizon, and Yorik, Hancock will be effectively isolated and cut off from
relief, in which case it loses both
its value and its viability, anyway."
"I understand, Sir." Sarnow's clipped voice was free of rancor, yet Honor
noted that he hadn't said he
agreed with Parks.
"Very well, then." Parks pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at his
staff ops officer. "All right,
Mark, let's look at the nuts and bolts."
"Yes, Sir. First, Admiral, I think we have to consider how best to distribute
our available screening
units between Admiral Kostmeyer and the rest of our wall. After that—"
Captain Hurston went on speaking in crisp, professional tones, but Honor
hardly noticed. She sat
back in her chair, hearing the details and recording them for future reference
but not really listening to
them, and she felt Captain Corell's matching stiffness beside her.
Paris was making a mistake. For the best of reasons and not without the
support of logic, but a
mistake. She felt it, sensed it the same way she sensed the sudden fusion of a
complicated tactical problem
into a single, coherent unity.
She could be wrong. In fact, she hoped—prayed—that she was. But it didn't feel
that way. And, she
wondered, just how much of Admiral Parks' final decision was based on logic
and how much on the
desire, conscious or unconscious, to leave Admiral Mark Sarnow and his
bothersome flag captain safely
on a back burner, unable to upset his peace of mind?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The faces in Nike's briefing room were unhappy, and Honor leaned back in her
chair as Commander
Houseman unburdened himself.
"... realize the gravity of the situation, Admiral Sar-ow, but surely Sir
                                     117

Yancey must realize we can't
possibly hold this system against an attack in force! We don't begin to have
the firepower, and—"
'That's enough, Commander." There was no expression at all in Mark Sarnow's
voice, but Houseman
closed his mouth with a snap, and the admiral bestowed a wintry smile upon the
assembled commodores,
captains, and staff officers of what was about to become Task Group Hancock
001.
"I asked for your frank opinions, ladies and gentlemen, and I want them. But
let us stick to the
relevant, if you please. Whether or not our orders are the best possible ones
is beside the point. Our
concern has to be making them work. Correct?"
"Absolutely, Sir." Commodore Van Slyke gave his chief of staff a rare public
look of disapproval and
nodded emphatically.
"Good." Sarnow ignored Houseman's flush and looked at Commodore Banton, his
senior divisional
commander. "Have you and Commander Turner completed that study Ernie and I
discussed with you
Monday, Isabella?"
"Just about, Sir, and it looks like Captain Corell and Dame Honor are right.
The sims say it should
work, anyway, but we've got to nail down exactly what fire control
modifications will be required, and the
availability numbers are still up in the air. I'm afraid Gryphon has other
things on her mind than our data
requests just now." Banton allowed herself a smile that matched her admiral's,
and one or two people
actually chuckled. "At the moment, Sir, I'd have to say that, unless Admiral
Parks changes his mind and takes them with
him, there should be enough pods to pull it off. I gave Captain Corell our
latest figures when we came
aboard this evening, and Commander Turner is working out the software changes
now."
Sarnow glanced at Corell, who nodded in confirmation. A few people—notably
Commander
Houseman—looked skeptical, but Honor felt a trickle of satisfaction. The
concept might be a tactical
antique, yet its very outdatedness should keep the Peeps from expecting it in
the first place.
A parasite pod was nothing more than a drone slaved to the fire control of the
ship towing it astern on
a tractor. Each pod mounted several, usually a half-dozen or so, single-shot
missile launchers similar to
those LACs used. The idea was simple—to link the pod with the ship's internal
tubes and launch a greater
number of birds in a single salvo in order to saturate an opponent's defenses—
but they hadn't been used in
a fleet engagement for eighty T- years because advances in antimissile
defenses had rendered them
ineffective.
The old pods' launchers had lacked the powerful mass-drivers which gave
warships' missiles their
initial impetus. That, in turn, gave them a lower initial velocity, and since
their missiles had exactly the
                                     118

same drives as any other missile, they couldn't make up the velocity
differential unless the ship-launched
birds were stepped down to less than optimal power settings. If you didn't
step your shipboard missiles
down, you lost much of the saturation effect because the velocity discrepancy
effectively split your launch
into two separate salvos. Yet if you did step them down, the slower speed of
your entire launch not only
gave the enemy more time to evade and adjust his ECM, but also gave his active
defenses extra tracking
and engagement time.
It was the tracking time that was the real killer, for point defense had
improved enormously over the
last century. Neither LAC launchers nor the old-style pods had been able to
overcome the advantage it
now held (which was one reason the Admiralty had stopped all new LAC
construction twenty Manticoran
years ago). Moreover, the RMN's data on the People's Navy's point defense,
available in no small part
thanks to Captain Dame Honor Harrington, indicated that the Peeps' missile
defenses, while poorer than
Manticore's, were still more than sufficient to eat old-style pod salvos for
breakfast.
But the Weapons Development Board, not without opposition from its then head,
Lady Sonja
Hemphill, had resurrected the pods and given them a new and heavier punch.
Hemphill rejected the entire
concept as "retrograde," but her successor at the WDB had pushed the project
energetically and Honor
couldn't quite see the logic behind Hemphill's objections. Given her vocal
advocacy of material-based
tactics, Honor would have expected her to embrace the pods with enthusiasm . .
. unless it was simply that
something inside the admiral equated "old" weapon systems with "inherently
inferior" ones.
As far as Honor was concerned, an idea's age didn't necessarily invalidate it—
especially not with the
new launchers, whose development Hemphill herself had overseen. Of course,
Hemphill hadn't intended
them to be used in something as ancient as pods. She'd been looking for a way
to make LACs effective
once more as part of the tactical approach her critics called the "Sonja
Swarm." The new launchers were
far more expensive than traditional LAC launchers, which was the official core
of Hemphill's opposition
to "wasting" them in pods, but expense hadn't bothered her where the LACs were
concerned. Building one
with the new launchers pushed its price tag up to about a quarter of a
destroyer's, especially with the fire
control upgrade needed to take full advantage of the launchers' capabilities,
yet Hemphill had lobbied
hard for the resumption of LAC construction, and she'd succeeded.
Like most of her jeune ecole fellows, she still regarded LACs as expendable,
single-salvo assets
(which didn't endear her to their crews), but at least she'd seen the virtue
in increasing their effectiveness
while they lasted. The fact that it also gave them a better chance of survival
                                     119

was probably immaterial to
her thinking, but that was all right with Honor. She didn't care why Horrible
Hemphill did something, on
the rare occasions when it was the right something. And however loudly the
cost effectiveness analysts
might complain, Honor had a pretty shrewd notion how LAC skippers felt about
the notion of living
through an engagement. But the point at hand was that the same improvements
could be applied to parasite pods, and, despite
Hemphill's objections, they had been. Of course, the new pods—with ten tubes
each, not six—were
intended for ships of the wall, which had plenty of redundant fire control to
manage them, not
battlecruisers. But it sounded like Turner was finding the answer to that, and
their missiles were actually
heavier than the standard ship-to-ship birds. With the new lightweight mass-
drivers BuShips had
perfected, their performance could equal or even exceed that of normal, ship-
launched missiles, and their
warheads were more destructive to boot. The pods were clumsy, of course, and
towing them did
unfortunate things to a warship's inertial compensator field, which held down
maximum accelerations by
twenty-five percent or so. They were also vulnerable to proximity soft kills,
since they carried neither
sidewalls nor radiation shielding of their own, but if they got their shots
off before they were killed, that
hardly mattered.
"Good, Isabella," Sarnow's voice recalled Honor to the conversation at hand.
"If we can get him to
leave them here, we can put at least five on tow behind each of our
battlecruisers—six, for the newer
ships. Even the heavy cruisers can manage two or three," He smiled thinly. "It
may not help in a long
engagement, but our initial salvos should make anyone on the other side wonder
if they've run into
dreadnoughts instead of battlecruisers!"
Unpleasant smiles were shared about the table, but Houseman wasn't quite
finished, though he was
careful about his tone when he spoke up again.
"No doubt you're correct, Admiral, but it's the idea of a long engagement that
worries me. With the
repair base to protect, we won't be able to mount a real mobile defense—they
can always pin us down by
going straight for the base—and once the pods are exhausted, your
battlecruisers are going to find
themselves hard-pressed by ships of the wall, Sir."
Honor's eyes narrowed as she examined Houseman's face. It took nerve for a
commander to keep
arguing after two different flag officers, one his own immediate CO, had just
more or less told him to shut
up. What bothered her was where Houseman's nerve came from. Was it the courage
of his convictions, or
was it arrogance? The fact that she disliked the man made it hard to be
objective, and she warned herself
to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Sarnow seemed less charitably inclined.
                                     120

"I realize that, Mr. Houseman," he replied. "But at the possible expense of
boring you, let me repeat
that the purpose of this conference is to solve our problems, not simply to
recapitulate them."
Houseman seemed to shrink into himself, hunching down in his chair with a
total lack of expression
as Van Slyke gave him an even colder glance, and someone cleared his throat.
"Admiral Sarnow?"
"Yes, Commodore Prentis?"
"We do have one other major advantage, Sir," Battle-cruiser Division 53's CO
pointed out. "All our
sensor platforms have the new FTL systems, and with Nike and Achilles to
coordinate—"
The commodore shrugged, and Sarnow nodded sharply. Nike was one of the first
ships built with the
new grav pulse technology from the keel out, but Achilles had received the
same system in her last refit,
and their pulse transmitters gave both battlecruisers the ability to send FTL
messages to any ship with
gravitic sensors. They had to shut down their own wedge s long enough to
complete any transmission,
since no sensor could pick message pulses out of the background "noise" of a
warship's drive signature,
but they would give Sarnow a command and control "reach" the Peeps couldn't
hope to match.
"Jack has an excellent point, Admiral, if you'll pardon my saying so." This
time Van Slyke didn't
even glance at Houseman as he spoke—which suggested there was going to be a
lively discussion when
they returned to Van Slyke's flagship. "If we can't match them toe-to-toe,
we'll just have to use our
footwork to make up the difference." "Agreed." Sarnow leaned back and rubbed
his mustache. "Do any other advantages we've got—or
that we can create—spring to mind?"
Honor cleared her throat quietly, and Sarnow cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Yes, Dame Honor?"
"One thing that's occurred to me, Sir, is those Erebus-class minelayers. Do we
know what Admiral
Parks intends to do with them?'
"Ernie?" Sarnow passed the question to his chief of staff, and Captain Corell
ran one fine-boned hand
through her hair while she scrolled through data on her memo pad. She reached
the end and looked up
with a headshake.
"There's nothing in the flagship's current download, Sir. Of course, we
haven't received their finalized
dump yet. They're still thinking things over, just like us."
"It might be a good idea to ask about them, Sir," Honor suggested, and Sarnow
nodded in agreement.
The minelayers weren't officially assigned to Hancock—they'd simply been
passing through on their way
to Reevesport when Parks read Admiral Caparelli's dispatch and short-stopped
them. It was probably little
more than an instinctive reaction, but if he could be convinced to hold them
here indefinitely . . .
"Assuming we can get Admiral Parks to steal them for us, how were you thinking
of using them,
                                     121

Captain?" Commodore Banton asked. "I suppose we could mine the approaches to
the base, but how
effective would it really be? Surely the Peeps would be watching for mines
when they finally closed on
the base."
The objection made sense, since the mines were simply old-fashioned bomb-
pumped lasers. They
were cheap but good for only a single shot each, and their accuracy was less
than outstanding, which
made them most effective when employed en masse against ships moving at low
velocities. That meant
they were usually emplaced for area coverage of relatively immobile targets
like wormhole junctions,
planets, or orbital bases . . . where, as Banton had just pointed out, the
Peeps would expect to see them.
But putting them where the Peeps expected wasn't what Honor had in mind.
"Actually, Ma'am, I've been looking at the drive specs on the layers, and we
might be able to use
them more advantageously than that."
"Oh?" Banton cocked her head—consideringly, not in challenge—and Honor nodded.
"Yes, Ma'am. The Erebus-class ships are fast—almost as fast as a
battlecruiser—and they're
configured for rapid, mass mine emplacement. If we could make the Peeps think
they are battlecruisers
and operate them with the rest of our force, then float the mines out in the
Peeps' path. . ."
She let her voice trail off suggestively, and Banton gave a sudden, fierce
snort of laughter.
"I like it, Admiral!" she told Sarnow. "It's sneaky as hell, and it might just
work."
"Assuming the Peeps don't shoot at them and give the show away," Commodore
Prentis observed.
"Minelayers don't have much in the way of point defense, and their sidewalls
aren't much, either. You'd
be asking their captains to run an awful risk, Dame Honor."
"We could cover them fairly well against missile attack by tying them into our
divisional tac nets,
Sir," Honor countered. "There are only five of them. We could include one in
each divisions net and hook
the odd man out into Nike's and Agamemnon's net. The Peeps won't be able to
tell exactly where our
defensive fire is coming from, so they shouldn't be able to ID them at any
extended range. And for us to
make the mines work, we'd have to use them before we got to beam range,
anyway."
"And if they spot the mines?" Prentis was thinking aloud, not arguing, and
Honor allowed herself a
small shrug.
'Their fire control's a hundred percent passive, Sir. They don't have active
emission signatures, and
they're mighty small radar targets. I doubt the Peeps could spot them at much
more than a million klicks,
especially if they're busy chasing us." Prentis nodded with growing
enthusiasm, and Sarnow gestured to Corell.
"Make a note of Dame Honor's suggestion, Ernie. I'll float the idea to Sir
Yancey; you get hold of
Commodore Capra. Bug the hell out of him if you have to, but I want
                                     122

authorization to use those ships in
the event of an attack on Hancock."
"Yes, Sir." Corell tapped at her memo pad, and the admiral tilted his chair
back and swiveled slowly
from side to side.
"All right. Let's assume we can steal the minelayers from Reevesport and that
we can talk Admiral
Parks into leaving us enough parasite pods for at least the opening
broadsides. I don't see any option but
to hold our main striking power in a central position—right here with the
base, probably—to allow us to
respond to a threat from any direction. At the same time, I want to go on
concealing the existence of our
pulse transmitter technology. I'm sure—" he allowed himself a wry smile "—
Their Lordships would
appreciate it if we can manage it, at any rate. But that means we've got to
give the Peeps something they
can see to explain how we can know where they are. We're not going to have as
many light units as I'd
like for that, but I think we're going to have to split them up as pickets."
Heads nodded, and he let his chair snap back upright.
"Commodore Van Slyke, your squadron's our next heaviest tactical unit, so
we'll have to keep you
concentrated with the battlecruisers. Ernie," he turned to his chief of staff
once more, "I want you and Joe
to figure the most economical way to use the light cruisers and tin-cans for
perimeter coverage."
"Yes, Sir. We'll do our best, but there's no way we can get complete coverage
with so few units for a
sphere that size."
"I know. Do your best, and concentrate on the most likely approach vectors
from Seaford. Even if we
don't have anyone in position to 'spot' them the minute they arrive, we may be
able to maneuver someone
into position using the pulse transmitters."
Corell nodded and punched more notes into her pad, and the admiral smiled at
his subordinates.
"I'm beginning to feel a little better about this," he announced. "Not a lot,
you understand, but a little.
Now I want you to make me feel even better by suggesting the best possible way
to use the tactical
resources we hope to have available. The floor is open, ladies and gentlemen."
It was quiet on Nike's flag bridge. Twenty-six hours of frantic conferences
and frenzied staff work
had translated intentions into reality, and now Vice Admiral Sir Yancey Parks'
forces moved to execute
his orders.
No one seemed inclined to casual conversation as Admiral Sarnow and his staff
watched the massive
dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts form up in their loose cruising formations,
each ship well clear of
her sisters' impeller wedges. The flag deck holo sphere blazed with the
crawling fire of their light codes as
their drives came on- line, and far flung necklaces of light cruisers and
destroyers glowed ahead of them
and on either flank, sensors probing the endless dark as they guarded their
massive charges. The stronger
                                     123

drive signatures of heavy cruisers, still infinitely lighter than the ships of
the wall, formed closer, tighter
necklaces about each squadron, and the whole, enormous formation began to
move, like a newborn
constellation crawling across the sphere.
It was impressive, Honor thought, standing at Sarnow's elbow and staring down
into the display with
him. Very impressive. But all that ponderous firepower was headed away from
them, and Battlecruiser
Squadron Five's handful of emission sources seemed shrunken and forlorn as
they were left to defend
Hancock Station alone. She felt the chill of abandonment in her heart, and
took herself sternly to task for
it.
"Well, there they go," Captain Corell said quietly, and Commander Cartwright
grunted agreement
beside her.
"At least he left us the pods and the minelayers," the ops officer remarked
after a moment, and it was
Sarnow's turn to grunt. The admiral brooded down on the sphere for a long,
silent minute, then sighed. "Yes, he left them, Joe, but I don't know how much
good they're going to do." He turned his back on
the display, the gesture somehow deliberate and almost defiant, and looked at
Honor. His mustache
twitched as he smiled, but his face looked wearier and far more worn than
she'd ever seen it before.
"I'm not knocking your input, Honor," he said quietly, and she nodded. He
didn't omit the honorific
"Dame" often. Whenever he did, she listened very carefully, for she'd learned
it meant he was speaking to
his tactical alter ego, not simply his flag captain.
'That was a brilliant idea about the minelayers," he went on, "and you and
Ernie were right to suggest
we might be able to modify our fire control to handle the pods, too. But even
though Houseman may be
an asshole—hell, even though he is an asshole—he was right, too. We may dazzle
them with our
footwork at the start, even get in a few good licks they don't expect. But if
they bring in ships of the wall
and keep coming, we're dead meat."
"We could always abandon the system, Sir," Cartwright suggested wryiy. "After
all, if Admiral Parks
is willing to give up Zanzibar, he shouldn't have much room to complain if we
make an, um, tactical
withdrawal from Hancock."
"Mutinous sentiments if ever I heard them, Joe." Sarnow smiled again, tiredly,
and shook his head.
"And I'm afraid it's just not on. The Admiral overlooked a couple of points,
you see—like how we
evacuate the base personnel if we withdraw."
A deeper, colder chill touched Honor's heart, for that was a thought she'd
tried hard not to consider.
The ongoing expansion of Hancock's facilities had swelled the station's work
force enormously, and the
ungainly repair base was home to almost eleven thousand men and women. The
squadron and its
screening units might squeeze sixty or seventy percent of them aboard—assuming
                                     124

none of the ships were
lost or badly damaged in action first—but only at the expense of ruinously
overloading their
environmental services. And even if they did, thirty or forty percent of the
yard dogs would simply have
to be left behind. And she knew one officer who would insist that it was his
duty to remain if any of his
people did.
"He did sort of miss out on that one, didn't he?" Captain Corell murmured, and
this time Sarnow
chuckled. It wasn't a very pleasant sound, but there was a germ of true humor
in it, and Honor felt
strangely moved after the confident front he'd projected at the squadron
meeting.
"I noticed that," he agreed, and stretched his arms in an enormous yawn. "On
the other hand, he had a
point about the relative value of Hancock. If we lose all our allies in the
area, there's not much need for a
base here. More to the point, there's no way we could hold it if they set up
strong blocking positions to cut
us off from the rear and come at us full bore. Besides, he has to balance the
possible loss of thirty or forty
thousand Manticorans in Hancock against the risk to billions of civilians in
the inhabited systems we're
here to defend." He shook his head. "No, I can't fault that part of his
reasoning. It's cold, I grant you, but
sometimes an admiral has to be cold."
"But he could have avoided it, Sir." Deferential stubbornness edged Corell's
voice, and Sarnow
looked her way.
"Now, now, Ernie. I'm his most junior admiral. It's easy for the low man on
the totem pole to urge an
aggressive response—after all, it's not his head that'll roll if his CO takes
his advice and screws up. And
Dame Christa was right about the potential for a collision neither side really
wants."
"Maybe. But what would you have done in his place?" Cartwright challenged.
"Unfair supposition. I'm not in his place. I'd like to think I'd have taken my
own advice if I were, but I
can't be sure of it. Heavy lies the head that wears a vice admirals beret,
Joe."
"Nice evasive action, Sir," Cartwright said sourly, and Sarnow shrugged.
"Part of the job description, Joe. Part of the job description." He yawned
again and waved a weary
hand at Corell. "I need some rack time, Ernie. You and Dame Honor mind the
store for me for a few
hours, okay? I'll have my steward haul me out in time for that conference on
defensive exercises." "Certainly, Sir," Corell said, and Honor seconded her
with a nod.
The admiral walked from the bridge without the usual springy energy Honor
associated with him, and
his three subordinates exchanged glances.
"There," Captain The Honorable Ernestine Corell said softly, "goes a man who
just got royally
screwed by his own CO."
Vice Admiral Parks stood watching his display as his detachments' vectors
began to diverge, and his
                                     125

face was grim. He didn't like what he'd just done. If the Peeps came at Sarnow
before Danislav arrived—
He suppressed the thought with a mental shudder. The nagging possibility that
Sarnow had been
right, that he'd persuaded himself into less than the optimal response,
worried at him, but there were too
many imponderables, too many variables. And Sarnow was too damned aggressive.
Parks allowed
himself a small snort. No wonder the rear admiral got along so well with
Harrington! Well, at least if he
had to delegate a possible fight to the death to one of his squadrons, he'd
just picked the one with the
command team best suited to the task.
Not that he expected it to help him sleep any better if it turned out he'd
been wrong.
"Admiral Kostmeyer will hit the hyper limit on her vector in another twenty
minutes, Sir. We'll hit it
seventy-three minutes after she does."
Parks glanced up at his chief of staff's report. Capra looked even more
exhausted than the admiral felt
after dealing with the tidal wave of last- minute details. His dark eyes were
rimmed with red, but he was
freshly shaved and his uniform looked as if he'd donned it ten minutes before.
"Tell me," Parks said softly. "Do you think I made the right call?"
"Frankly, Sir?"
"Always, Vincent."
"In that case, Sir, I have to say that ... I don't know. I just don't know."
The commodore's own
weariness showed in his headshake. "If the Peeps do run forces in behind
Hancock to take out Yeltsin,
Zanzibar, and Alizon, we'd have a hell of a time kicking them back out with
Seaford threatening our rear.
But by the same token, we've surrendered the initiative. We're reacting, not
pushing them." He shrugged.
"Maybe if we knew more about what's going on elsewhere we'd be in a better
position to judge, but I have
to tell you, Sir, I'm not happy about stripping Hancock so clean."
"Neither am I." Parks turned away from the master display and sank into his
command chair with a
sigh. "But worst case, Rollins is still going to have to assume we're
concentrated here until he scouts
Hancock and learns positively that we're not, and he's been mighty slack about
that for months. He can't
move his main force out to support his scouting elements without our pickets
picking up on it, and if he
sends them out unsupported, Sarnow may just be able to pick them off before
they get close enough to
confirm that we aren't there. Even if he can't, they'll take at least three T-
days each way to make the run
and report back, then another three or four days for Rollins to move. We can
be back from Yorik in just
over three—seven from the minute one of our pickets hypers out of Seaford
space to tell us his fleet is
moving."
"Eight, Sir," Capra corrected quietly. "They'll have to shadow him long enough
to confirm he isn't
headed for Yorik before we can move."
                                     126

"All right, eight." Parks shook his head wearily. "If Sarnow can just keep
them occupied for four days
..."
His voice trailed off, and he met his chief of staffs gaze almost pleadingly.
Four days. It didn't sound
like all that much—unless you were a squadron of battlecruisers up against
four squadrons of ships of the
wall. "It's my decision," Parks said at last. "Maybe it is the wrong one. I
hope not, but right or wrong, I've
got to live with it. And at least the Peeps don't know what we're up to yet.
If Danislav expedites his
movement and gets here before they figure it out, he and Sarnow will have a
fair chance."
"And at least they'll have the capacity to lift the construction workers out
if they have to run," Capra
said in that same quiet voice.
"And lift the workers out if they have to run," Parks agreed, and closed his
eyes with a sigh.
The massive squadrons vanished into the trackless wastes of hyper-space, and
in their wake, a frail
handful of battlecruisers took up the task they'd just abandoned.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Admiral Parnell gazed out a view port as his shuttle touched down at DuQuesne
Central, the main
landing facility for the PRH's third largest naval base. The sprawling
military facility named for the
master architect of the Republic's march to empire was the primary—indeed, the
only real—industry of
Enki, the Barnett Systems single habitable planet. Well over a million Marines
and navy personnel were
permanently stationed on Enki, and the system seethed with warships of every
size, all guarded by
massive fixed fortifications.
Parnell had studied those warships from the bridge of the heavy cruiser which
delivered him to
Barnett, and he'd been impressed. Yet that wasn't all he'd been, for he
recognized the risk he was
committing his navy to accept, and he didn't like it.
As he'd told President Harris months ago, he didn't really want to take
Manticore on at all. Unlike
Havens other victims, the Star Kingdom had had both the time and the
leadership to prepare. Despite the
confused pacifism of some of its politicians, its people were generally united
behind their stiff- necked,
almost obsessively determined queen, its wealth had let it amass a frightening
amount of firepower, and
the sheer breadth of its alliance system faced the People's Navy with a whole
new dimension of threat.
Unlike Haven's past, single-system conquests, there was no quick, clean way to
take the Alliance out,
short of a direct thrust to its heart, and driving clear to Manticore without
protecting the Fleets flanks and
rear invited catastrophe.
No, if they wanted the Star Kingdom, they had to fight for it. And, as the
very first step, they had to
break its frontier defenses and annihilate a sizable chunk of its navy in the
process.
                                     127

The admiral climbed out of his seat as the landing gear engaged. He scooped up
his briefcase, nodded
to the security team which accompanied him everywhere, and made his way down
the shuttle ramp with a
smile that hid his inner apprehension.
DuQuesne Base's huge war room was even more lavishly appointed than Central
Planning back home
in the Octagon, and Parnell's staff stood in a silent arc behind him as he
studied the status boards. It was a
habit of his to absorb the raw data for himself. He knew it irked some of his
staffers, but he didn't do it
because he distrusted their competence. If he hadn't trusted them, they
wouldn't be here in the first place,
but even the best people made mistakes. He'd caught more than a few of them in
his time, and while he
knew he couldn't possibly assimilate that much detail, he'd trained himself
over the decades to absorb a
general overview.
The confirmed reports on Manty naval deployments were scantier than he'd hoped
fo r, but what there
were of them looked hopeful. There were signs of movement all along the
frontier, and Operation Argus
had done better than he'd ever expected when the notion was first proposed to
him. Argus was hardly a
speedy way to amass information, but the data it did bring in was surprisingly
detailed, and that insight
into normal Manty ops patterns was all that had made this entire operation
workable. Besides, he
admitted, Argus made him feel better. Manticore's persistently better hardware
had begun to assume
Sisyphean proportions for Parnell, and it pleased him to see the Manties'
faith in their technological
superiority boomeranging on them. He noted with satisfaction the arrival of
fresh Manticoran forces in Zuckerman, Dorcas, and Minette,
and other reports indicated that the RMN had substantially reinforced its
escort and frontier patrol forces.
That was good. Every ship committed to any of those areas was one less he'd
have to worry about when
the war actually opened.
He was less pleased by the information from Seaford Nine. The sheer spatial
volume of the cursed
Alliance meant it was out of date, of course, but it was also unfortunately
vague. Well, Rollins knew how
critical the situation was; undoubtedly he was working to refine his data even
now, assuming he hadn't
already done so.
The CNO let his eyes run down ONI's latest estimates (guesstimates, he
corrected himself wryly) of
the current strength of Manticore's Home Fleet. There was no possible way to
confirm the accuracy of
that, but it wasn't really vital at this moment, anyway.
He turned to the tally boards listing the planned first and second phase
incursions and the results so
far reported, and, for the first time since entering the command center, he
frowned and glanced over his
shoulder.
"Commodore Perot."
                                     128

"Sir?" His chief of staff replied.
"What went wrong in Talbot?" Parnell asked, and Perot grimaced.
"We don't know, Sir. The Manties haven't said a word about it, but Admiral
Pierres ships must have
run into some sort of trap."
"Something nasty enough to get all of them?' Parnell murmured, half to
himself, and Perot nodded
even less happily.
"Must have been, Sir."
"But how in hell could they have pulled it off?" Parnell rubbed his chin and
frowned at the bland
"UNKNOWN" glowing beside the names of four of the PN's best battlecruisers.
"He should have been
able to avoid anything he couldn't fight. Could they have known when and where
he was coming in?"
The possibility can't be completely ruled out, Sir, but even Admiral Pierre
didn't know his objective
until he opened his sealed orders. And the Poicters side of the operation went
off without a hitch.
Commodore Yuranovich nailed a Star Knight-class cruiser right where he
expected to find her. As you
can see," Perot pointed at the information displayed below the names of the
ships committed to the
Poicters raid, "he took more damage than we'd hoped—I'm afraid Barbarossa and
Sinjar are going to be
in yard hands for some time—but there was no sign they'd suspected anything.
Since both halves of the
mission were covered by exactly the same security, our best guess is that they
didn't know Pierre was
coming, either."
"You're putting it down to coincidence, then," Parnell said flatly, and Perot
gave a tiny shrug.
"At the moment, there's nothing else we can put it down to, Sir. We're due for
another Argus dump
from Talbot late next week, and we should get at least some information then.
The birds cover die area
where the interception was supposed to take place, anyway."
"Um." Parnell rubbed his chin harder. "Any response from Manticore over the
Star Knight?"
"Not in so many words, but they've closed the Junction to our shipping,
ejected all our diplomatic
courier boats from Alliance space without any formal explanation, and begun
shadowing and harassing
our convoys moving through Alliance territory. There was an incident in Casca,
but we're not sure who
started it. Casca may be officially nonaligned, but they've always leaned a
bit towards Manticore, and
some of my analysts think our Phase One operations may have pushed the Cascans
themselves into
pressing the panic button and asking for Manticoran protection. Our local CO
exchanged long-range fire
with a Manty cruiser squadron, then hauled ass." Perot shrugged again. "Hard
to blame him, Sir. He didn't
have anything heavier than a destroyer, and they would've eaten him for lunch
if he'd stood and fought." Parnell's nod was calmer than he felt. The
situation was heating up, and Manticore was starting to
push back, but they weren't lodging any formal diplomatic protests. That could
                                     129

be good or bad. It might
mean they knew exactly what was happening and chose to keep silent in order to
keep him in the dark
about their response till they had it in position. But it could just as well
indicate they didn't know what
was going on ... or just how much crap was about to fall on top of them. If
they'd simply decided the
incidents and provocations might be the start of some larger operation, they
could be holding their
protests until they figured out what that operation was.
In either case, they'd obviously decided protests would serve no purpose, and
the way their forces
were pushing back across die board, not just in a few local instances,
certainly argued that new orders had
gone out to their station commanders. And his fragmentary reports on their
ship movements suggested
they were also repositioning their units to support whatever those orders
were. Now if they'd just do
enough of that. . . .
His eyes returned to the total lack of new data from Seaford Nine, and he
grimaced.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen," he said finally, turning to regard his
staff, let's get down to it."
He led the way to the conference room, followed by his subordinates, and
Commodore Perot began
the detailed brief. Parnell listened closely, nodding occasionally, and deep
inside he felt the moment of
final decision rushing closer with every heartbeat.
On the face of it, the possibility of locating and attacking someone else's
commerce in hyper
shouldn't even exist. Maximum reliable scanner range is barely twenty light-
minutes, hyper-space is vast,
and even knowing a convoys planned arrival and departure times shouldn't help
much.
But appearances can be deceiving. To be sure, hyper-space is vast, yet
virtually all its traffic moves
down the highways of its grav waves, drawing both its power and absurdly high
acceleration from its
Warshawski sails. There are only so many efficient grav wave connections from
one star system to
another, and the optimum points of interchange are known to most navies. So
are the points which must
be avoided because of high levels of grav turbulence. If a raider knows a
given ship's schedule, he doesn't
really need its route. He can work through the same astro tables as his
target's skipper and project its
probable course closely enough to intercept it.
For those not blessed with such foreknowledge, there are still ways. Merchant
skippers, for example,
vastly prefer to ride a grav wave clear through their final hyper translation.
Power costs are lower, and
riding the wave through the hyper wall reduces both the structural and
physiological stresses. Which
means raiders often lurk at points where inbound grav waves intersect a star's
hyper limit, waiting for prey
to amble up to them.
And, if all else fails, there is always the blind chance method. Ships are at
                                     130

their most vulnerable at
and shortly after they translate back into normal space. Their base velocities
are low, their sensor systems
are still sorting out the sudden influx of n-space information, and for at
least ten minutes or so, while their
hyper generators recycle, they can't even dodge back into hyper and run away
if something comes at
them. A translation right on the system ecliptic is the norm, if not the
inviolable rule, so a patient raider
might put his ship into a solar orbit right on the hyper limit, run his power
(and emissions) down to
minimum levels, and simply wait until some fat and unwary freighter translates
within his interception
envelope. With no emissions to betray it, something as tiny as a warship is
extremely difficult to spot, and
many an unfortunate merchant skipper's first intimation of trouble has been
the arrival of the leading
missile salvo.
But the heavy cruiser PNS Sword and her consorts had no need for such hit-or-
miss hunting
techniques, Captain Theisman thought. Thanks to ONI's spies, Commodore
Reichman knew her prey's
exact schedule. In fact, Theisman's tac officer had spotted the five-ship
convoy and its escort hours ago as
Sword's squadron lay doggo in a handy "bubble" in the local grav wave, letting
them pass without being
spotted in return before emerging in pursuit. Theisman didn't like his present
mission, partly because he disliked both Commodore Annette
Reichman and her proposed tactics. Given his druthers, he would have moved to
catch the convoy six
light- years further along, when it would have to transition between grav
waves under impeller drive.
Reichman had decided differently—and stupidly, in his opinion—yet that
explained only a part of his
dislike. He was also a naval officer, with a naval officers innate instinct to
protect merchantmen, and the
fact that two of the squadron's targets weren't really freighters at all only
made it worse. But he'd been
asked to do a lot of things he didn't like in his career, and if he had to do
it, he might as well do it right . . .
assuming Reichman would let him,
He stood on Sword's command deck, studying his plot, and frowned silently
while he awaited the
commodores next order. The Manties were good, as he could attest from painful
personal experience, yet
Reichman seemed confident. Possibly more confident than the situation merited.
True, the convoy escort
consisted of only two light cruisers and a trio of tin-cans, but hyper-space
combat wasn't like an n-space
engagement. Much of a heavier ship's normal defensive advantage was negated
here, and Reichman's
unconcern over her squadron's increased vulnerability worried Theisman.
Still, the tactical situation was developing much as the commodore had
predicted. With so few ships,
the escort commander had opted to sweep ahead of the merchies against the
greater danger of a head-on
interception while only a single escort watched their rear to cover what
                                     131

should have been the vector of
minimum threat. Only Reichman didn't need a head-on intercept. The maximum
safe velocity in hyper for
any merchantman was barely .5 c. That translated to an effective normal-space
velocity of many hundreds
of times light-speed, but all that mattered were relative speeds, and their
better particle and radiation
shielding let Reichman's ships attain a velocity twenty percent greater than
that. Which meant that she
was currently overtaking the convoy at just under thirty thousand KPS and that
the trailing destroyer
ought to see them just . . . about . . . now.
Lieutenant Commander MacAllister jerked upright in his command chair as threat
sources sparkled
suddenly in his plot. His destroyer's sensors should have read them sooner,
even under the conditions of
hyper-space, but the count was tentative, and the identifying data codes
shifted and flowed as he watched
them. Someone back there had some pretty decent electronic warfare
capabilities, and they were using
them.
His eyes darted to the vector readouts, and he swallowed a curse. They were
barely three hundred
million klicks back. At their closing speed, they'd overtake the convoy in
under three hours, and there was
no way in hell merchantmen could outrun them.
He swore softly, rubbing his palms up and down the chair arms. Whoever was
sneaking up on them
had to have military- grade shielding to generate that much overtake velocity,
so they had to be warships.
A fact, he thought grimly, their EW activity had already confirmed. Just as
that activity confirmed their
hostile intent. But who were they? Were there more of them back there than he
could see yet? And how
powerful were they?
There was only one way to find out.
"Battle stations," MacAllister told his tactical officer grimly, and alarms
began to whoop as he turned
to his com officer. "Ruth, get a signal off to Captain Zilwicki. Tell her we
have bogies coming up from
astern—append Tactical's present data—and that I'm turning for a positive ID."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Helm, bring us around one-eight-zero degrees. Maximum deceleration."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Manny," MacAllister looked at his astrogator, "I want a turnover that puts us
back at our present
closure rate at ten light- minutes. We may not be able to fingerprint them
from there, but we can sure as
hell figure out what size they are. "Yes, Sir." The astrogator bent over his
console just as MacAllister's vacsuited exec appeared on the
bridge with the lieutenant commander's skin suit slung over her shoulder. He
smiled at her in grim thanks
and nodded to the display as he took the suit.
"It seems we're invited to a party, Marge." He started for his minuscule
briefing room to change.
"Hold the fort while I get suited up."
The tin-can's coming back at us, Sir," Theisman's tac officer reported, and
                                     132

the captain glanced at
Reichman, The commodore didn't even blink. No doubt she'd expected it, just as
Theisman had. In fact,
he'd expected it sooner, and he felt a dull sense of sympathy for the crew of
that ship.
"Well, they see us, Ma'am," he said after a moment "Any orders?"
"No. I doubt he'll come all the way into range before he gets an accurate read
on us, but we can hope.
Besides," the commodore smiled without humor, "it's not like the bastards can
get away from us, now is
it?"
"No, Ma'am," Theisman said softly, "I don't suppose it is."
HMS Hotspur decelerated towards the bogies at over 51 KPS as her Warshawski
sails channeled the
grav wave's power. Nineteen minutes later, she flipped end for end,
accelerating away from them until
their overtake speed had dropped once more to thirty thousand KPS at a range
of just under a hundred and
fifty-eight million kilometers, and Lieutenant Commander MacAllisters face
tightened as Hotspur's
sensors penetrated their ECM at last.
"Get another message off to the Old Lady, Ruth," he said very quietly. 'Tell
her we have six Peep
heavy cruisers—they look like Scimitars. I estimate they'll enter range of the
convoy in—" he glanced
back down at his plot "—two hours and thirty-six minutes."
Captain Helen Zilwicld's face was stone as she listened to MacAllister's
analysis of the threat thirteen
and a half light- minutes behind her tiny squadron. Six of them to her five,
and ail of them bigger and far
more heavily armed. Even the technical edge her ships might have exploited in
normal space would
hardly matter here, for it paid its biggest dividends in missile engagements,
and missiles were useless
within a grav wave. No impeller drive could function there; the wave's
powerful gravitational forces
would burn it out instantly. Which meant any missile vaporized the second its
drive kicked in—and that
none of her ships had the protection of their own impeller wedges ... or
sidewalls.
She didn't even consider the possibility of breaking free of the wave. It
would have restored her
sidewalls and let her use her missiles, but her charges were four light- hours
into the wave. They'd need
eight hours to get clear, and they didn't have eight hours.
She felt her bridge crew's tension, smelled their fear like her own, but no
one said a word, and she
closed her eyes in anguish. Two of her huge, clumsy ships were combination
freighter-transports, bound
for Grendelsbane Station with vitally needed machine tools, shipyard mechs and
remotes . . . and over six
thousand priceless civilian and Navy technicians and their families.
Including Captain (Junior Grade) Anton Zilwicki and their daughter.
She tried not to think about that. She couldn't afford to. Not if she was
going to do anything to save
them. But there was only one thing she could do, and she felt a terrible stab
of guilt as she looked up at
                                     133

her officers at last.
"General message to all units, Com." Her voice sounded rusty and strained in
her own ears. "Message
begins: From CO escort to all ships. We have detected six warships, apparently
Havenite heavy cruisers,
closing from astern. Present range one-three-point-six light- minutes, closing
velocity three- zero thousand
KPS. On present course, they will overtake us in two hours and fourteen
minutes." She drew a deep
breath, staring down into her display. 'In view of Admiralty warnings, I must
assume their intention is to
attack. All escorts will form on me and turn to engage the enemy. The convoy
will scatter and proceed
independently. Zilwicki clear."
"Recorded, Ma'am." The com officer's voice was flat. Transmit." The word came
out fogged with tears, and the captain cleared her throat harshly. "Helm,
prepare to bring us around."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
She kept her eyes on the display, trying not to think of the two most
important people in her universe
or how they would react to her last cold, official message, and someone
touched her shoulder. She looked
up, blinking to clear her vision. It was her exec.
"Tell them you love them, Helen," he said very softly, and she clenched her
fists in agony.
"I can't," she whispered. "Not when none of the rest of you can tell your—"
Her voice broke, and his hand tightened painfully on her shoulder.
"Don't be stupid!" His voice was harsh, almost fierce. There's not a soul on
this ship who doesn't
know your family's over there—or who thinks for one minute they're the only
reason you're doing this!
Now get on the com and tell them you love them, goddamn it!"
He shook her in her command chair, and she ripped her eyes from his, staring
almost desperately at
the other officers and ratings on her bridge, pleading for their forgiveness.
But there was no need to plead. She saw it in their eyes, read it in their
faces, and she drew a deep
breath.
"Helm," her voice was suddenly clear, "bring us about. Jeff," she looked at
the com officer, "please
get me a personal link to Carnarvon. I'll take it in my briefing room."
"Yes, Ma'am," the com officer said gently, and Helen Zilwicki pushed herself
out of her chair and
walked to the hatch with her head high.
Thomas Theisman's jaw clenched as the drive sources came back toward him in
attack formation. He
folded his hands tightly behind his back and made himself look at Commodore
Reichman without
expression. She'd been so sure the Manty commander would order the entire
convoy, escorts and
merchantmen alike, to scatter. After all, she'd pointed out, the grav wave
would strip them of the longrange
missile advantage, which might have given them the chance to achieve anything
worthwhile. That
was the whole reason for intercepting here rather than between waves, as
Theisman had suggested. No
commander would throw his ships away for nothing when scattering meant at
                                     134

least four of his ten ships
would survive.
Thomas Theisman had known better, but Annette Reichman had never fought
Manticorans before.
And because Theisman had lost when he fought them, she'd ignored his warnings
with barely veiled
patronization.
"Orders, Ma'am?" he asked now, and Reichman swallowed.
"We'll take them head-on," she said after a moment. As if she had a choice,
The isman thought in
disgust.
"Yes, Ma'am. Do you wish to change our formation?" He kept his tone as neutral
as possible, but her
nostrils flared.
"No!" she snapped.
Theisman raised his eyes over her shoulder. His cold glance sent her staff and
his own bridge officers
sidling out of earshot, and he leaned toward her and spoke quietly.
"Commodore, if you fight a conventional closing engagement with your chase
armaments, they're
going to turn to open their broadsides and give us everything they've got at
optimum range."
"Nonsense! That would be suicide!" Reichman snapped. "We'll tear them apart if
they come out from
behind their sails!" "Ma'am," he spoke softly, as if to a child, "we out- mass
those ships seven to one, and they have to
close to energy range. They know what that means as well as we do. So they'll
do the only thing they can.
They'll open their broadsides to bring every beam they can to bear, and
they'll go for our forward alpha
nodes. If they take out even one, our own foresail will go down, and this deep
into a grav wave—"
He didn't have to complete the sentence. With no forward sail to balance her
after sail, it was
impossible for any starship to maneuver in a grav wave. They would be trapped
on the same vector, at the
same velocity. They couldn't even drop out of hyper, because they couldn't
control their translation
attitude until and unless they could make repairs, and even the tiniest patch
of turbulence would tear them
apart. Which meant the loss of a single sail would cost Reichman at least two
ships, because any ship
which lost a sail would have to be towed clear of the wave on a consort's
tractors.
"But—" She stopped and swallowed again. "What do you recommend, Captain?" she
asked after a
moment.
"That we do the same thing. We'll get hurt, probably lose a few ships, but
it'll actually reduce our
sails' exposure and give us far heavier broadsides and a better chance to take
them out before they gut our
sails."
He met her gaze levelly, strangling the desire to scream at her that he'd told
her this would happen,
and her eyes fell.
"Very well, Captain Theisman," she said. "Make it so."
Anton Zilwicki sat on the padded decksole, eyes closed, arms tight around the
                                     135

four- year-old girl
weeping into his tunic. She was too young to understand it all, but she
understood enough, he thought
emptily as he listened to the voices behind him: the voices of Carnarvon's
taut-faced bridge officers,
clustered around the huge transport's main display.
"My God," the exec whispered. "Look at that!" There goes another one," someone
else said harshly.
"Was that one of the cruisers?"
"No, I think it was another can, and—"
"Look—look! That was one of the Peep bastards! And there goes another one!"
"Oh, Jesus! That was a cruiser!" someone groaned, and Zilwicki closed his eyes
tighter, fighting his
own tears for his daughters sake. He knew Carnarvon was piling on every scrap
of drive power she had,
running madly away from her sisters, seeking the elus ive safety of dispersal.
If two of the Peeps were
gone, then at least one merchantman would live . . . but which one?
"My God, she got another one!" a voice gasped, and his arms tightened about
his child.
"What about that one?" someone asked.
"No, he's still there. It's just his sail, but that should—Oh, God!"
The voices cut off with knifelike suddenness, and his heart twisted within
him. He knew what that
silence meant, and he raised his head slowly. Most of the officers looked
away, but not Carnarvon's
skipper. Tears ran down the woman's face, yet she met his gaze without
flinching.
"She's gone," she said softly. "They all are. But she killed three of them
first, and at least one
survivor's lost a sail. I ... don't think they'll continue the pursuit with
just one ship, even if she's
undamaged. Not with a cripple to tow clear."
Zilwicki nodded, and wondered vaguely how the universe could hold so much
pain. His shoulders
began to shake as his own tears came at last, and his daughter threw her arms
around his neck and clung
tightly.
"W-what's happening, Daddy?' she whispered. "Are . . . are the Peeps gonna
hurt Mommy? Are they
gonna get us?" "Shssssh, Helen," he got out through his tears. He pressed his
cheek into her hair, smelling the fresh,
little- girl smell of her, and closed his eyes once more as he rocked her
gently.
"The Peeps won't get us, baby," he whispered. "We're safe now." He drew a
ragged breath. "Mommy
made it safe."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nike altered course for home, and Mike Henke hid a grin as she glanced across
the bridge at her
captain. Honor seldom displayed satisfaction with her own efforts, especially
on the bridge. Satisfaction
with the performance of her officers and crew, yes; yet her own competence was
something to be taken
for granted. But today she leaned back against her command chair's contoured
cushions, legs crossed, and
a small smile played about her lips while Nimitz preened shamelessly on the
                                     136

chair's back.
Henke chuckled and looked over to Tactical to bestow a wink of triumph on Eve
Chandler. The
diminutive redhead grinned back and raised her clasped hands over her head,
and Henke heard someone
else snort with laughter behind her.
Well, they had every excuse to be insufferably pleased with themselves—and
their captain, Henke
reflected. The squadron had worked hard in the week since Vice Admiral Parks'
departure. Its steadily
developing snap and precision had actually brought smiles of approval from
Admiral Sarnow, and Nike's
escape from the repair slip couldn't have come at a better time.
Henke wasn't the only one of Honor's officers who'd heard about Captain
Doumet's concern that the
flagship's enforced inactivity might have made her rusty enough to embarrass
his own Agamemnon, but
she'd been better placed than most to do something about it. Honor had been
too submerged in squadron
affairs to take on Nike's day-to-day training efforts. Besides, that sort of
ongoing activity was really the
exec's responsibility, and all the long, grueling simulator hours Henke had
inflicted on Nike's crew had
paid off handsomely in yesterday's maneuvers. Nike hadn't embarrassed
Agamemnon. In point of fact,
Doumet's ship had had all she could handle just to stay in shouting distance
of her division mate, and
Henke looked forward to her next meeting with Agamemnon's exec.
Nike had turned in the best gunnery performance of the exercise, as well,
outshooting Captain
Daumier's Invincible by a clear eight percent, much to the disgust of
Daumier's crew, but that hadn't been
the best part. No, Henke thought with a lazy smile, the best part had come
when Admiral Sarnow divided
his small task group in half for war games.
Commodore Banton had commanded the squadrons second and third divisions and
their screen while
Sarnow commanded the first and fourth, but that was only for the record. In
fact, Sarnow had informed
Honor five minutes into the exercise that both he and Captain Rubenstein,
Division 54s senior officer, had
just become casualties and that she was in command.
That was all the warning she'd gotten, but it was obvious she'd been thinking
ahead, for her own
orders had come without any hesitation at all. She'd used the FTL sensor
platforms to locate Bantons
ships, split her own force into two two-ship divisions, accelerated to
intercept velocity, then killed he r
drives and gone to the electronic and gravitic equivalent of "silent running."
But she hadn't stopped there,
for she'd known Banton's Achilles had the same ability to spot and track her.
And since Honor knew the
commodore had plotted her base course before she closed down her emissions,
she'd launched electronic
warfare drones, programmed to mimic her battlecruisers' drives, on a course
designed with malice
aforethought to draw Banton into a position of her choice.
                                     137

The commodore had taken the bait—partly, perhaps, because she didn't expect
anyone to use up EW
drones (at eight million dollars a pop) in an exercise—and altered course to
intercept them. By the time
she realized what was really going on, Honor had brought both her own
divisions slashing in on purely
ballistic courses, wedges and sidewall down to the very last instant and still
operating separately in blatant
disregard of conventional tactical wisdom. She'd hit Banton's surprised
formation from widely divergent bearings, and her unorthodox approach had used
Banton's more traditional formation against her,
pounding her lead ships with fire from two directions, confusing her point
defense, and using her own
lead division to block the return fire of her rearmost ships for almost two
full minutes. And, just to make
it even better, she'd had Commander Chandler reprogram their screens
antimissile decoys so that the
heavy cruisers suddenly looked like battlecruisers.
The decoys had come on- line at the worst possible moment for Banton's tac
officer. With no running
plot on Honor's "invisible" ships until their drives suddenly came back up,
he'd had to sort out who was
who before he engaged, and the decoys had confused him just long enough for
Nike, Agamemnon,
Onslaught, and Invincible to "MI" Banton's flagship and "cripple" her division
mate Cassandra with no
damage of their own. Defiant and Intolerant had done their best after that—
indeed, Captain Trinh's stellar
performance had gone far to redeem his earlier problems—but they'd never had a
chance. The final score
had shown the complete destruction of Banton's force, moderate damage to
Agamemnon and Invincible,
and a mere two laser hits on Nike. Onslaught had escaped completely unscathed
and even recovered all but two of the EW drones Honor had used. The drones
would require overhaul before they could be
reused, but their recovery had saved the Navy something like forty-eight
million dollars, and Henke
suspected Rubenstein's crew was going to do even more gloating than her own
people.
Admiral Sarnow hadn't said a word, but his grin when he ambled onto Nike's
bridge for the closing
phase of the "battle" had been eloquent. Besides, Commodore Banton was a fair-
minded woman. She
knew she and her people had been had, and she'd commed her personal
congratulations to Honor even
before the computers finished calculating the final damage estimates.
A most satisfactory two days, taken all together, Henke decided. A whole week
had passed without
incident since Admiral Parks disappeared over the hyper limit, which had
produced a deep sense of relief
but hadn't lessened the squadron's determination to disprove any reservations
Parks might entertain about
their admiral and his flag captain . . . and the last couple of days'
successes looked like an excellent first
step.
Of course, she thought smugly, it had been an even better step for some than
for others. Eve Chandler
                                     138

was already licking her chops in anticipation of her next conversation with
Invincible's tac officer.
Queen's Cup for gunnery, indeed! And Ivan Ravicz was as happy as a treecat
with his own celery patch.
His new fusion plant had performed flawlessly, and Agamemnon had been pushed
to the limit matching
the acceleration of Nike's superbly tuned drive. Even George Monet had been
seen to crack a smile or
two, and that constituted an historic first for the com officer.
Besides, Commodore Banton had already promised that her ships' companies were
buying the beer.
Honor noted the gleam in Henke's eyes and smiled fondly as her exec turned
back to her own panel.
Mike had a right to be pleased. It was her training programs which had kept
Nike in such top-notch
fighting trim, after all.
But there was more to it than training alone. Exercises and simulations could
do many things, but
they couldn't provide that indefinable something more that separated a crack
crew from one that was
simply good. Nike had that something more. Perhaps it came from the mysterious
esprit de corps which
always seemed to infuse the ships of her name, the sense that they had a
special tradition to maintain. Or
perhaps it came from somewhere else entirely. Honor didn't know, but she'd
felt it crackling about her like
latent lightning, begging her to use it, and she had. She hadn't even thought
about her maneuvers—not on
a conscious level; they'd simply come to her with a smooth, flawless
precision. Her people had executed
them the same way, and they had every right to feel pleased with themselves.
It helped that Commodore Banton was a good sort, of course. Honor could think
of several flag
officers who would have reacted far less cheerfully to the drubbing Banton had
just taken, especially
when they discovered they'd been beaten not by their admiral but by his flag
captain. But she suspected
Banton shared her own suspicions about the Admiral's motive for declaring
himself a casualty. Honor
might be his flag captain, yet she was also junior to six of the seven other
battlecruiser captains under his command, and it was the first chance she'd
had to show her stuff anywhere but in the simulators. Sarnow
had deliberately stepped aside to let her win her spurs in the squadron's
eyes, and she wanted to preen like
Nimitz at how well it had gone.
In fact, she thought, leaning back to steeple her fingers under her pointed
chin, "preen" was exactly
what she intended to be doing very shortly . . . among other things. It was
Wednesday, and die squadron
was going to rendezvous with the repair base well before supper. She intended
to arrive in Paul's quarters
with a bottle of her father's precious Delacourt and find out just what his
laughing hints about hot oil
rubdowns were all about.
The corners of her mouth quirked at the thought, her right cheek dimpled, and
she felt her face
heating up, and she didn't care at all.
                                     139

"Captain, I'm picking up a hyper footprint at two- zero-six," Commander
Chandler announced. "One
drive source, range six-point-niner- five light- minutes. It's too heavy for a
courier boat, Ma'am."
Honor looked at the tac officer in faint surprise, but Chandler didn't notice
as she queried her
computers and worked the contact. Several seconds passed, and then she
straightened with a satisfied nod.
"Definitely a Manticoran drive pattern, Ma'am. Looks like a heavy cruiser. I
won't know for sure till
the light-speed sensors have her."
"Understood. Keep an eye on her, Eve."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
A cruiser, hmmm? Honor leaned back in her chair once more. One cruiser
wouldn't make much
difference, but Van Slyke would be happy to see her. She would bring his
squadron up to full strength at
last, and the rest of the task group would probably see her as a harbinger of
the far more powerful
reinforcements they'd been promised. Besides, she'd probably have dispatches
on board, and even the
tiniest scrap of fresh information would be a vast relief.
She reached up and drew Nimitz down into her lap, rubbing his ears and
considering the com
conference the Admiral had scheduled for tomorrow morning. There were several
points she wanted to
make—not least how lucky she'd been to get away with that EW drone trick—and
she slid further down
in the chair as she considered the best (and most tactful) way to express
them.
Several minutes ticked away, and the quiet, orderly routine of her bridge
murmured to her like some
soothing mantra. Her mind toyed with phrases and sentences, maneuvering them
with a sort of languid,
catlike pleasure. Yet her dreamy eyes were deceptive. The soft chime of an
incoming signal from the com
section brought her instantly back to full awareness, and her gaze moved to
Lieutenant Commander
Monet's narrow back.
The com officer depressed a button and listened to his earbug for a moment,
and Honor's eyes
narrowed when his shoulders twitched. If she hadn't known what an utterly
reliable, totally humorless sort
he was, she might actually have thought he was chuckling.
He pressed another sequence of buttons, then swiveled his chair to face her.
His face was admirably
grave, but his brown eyes twinkled slightly as he cleared his throat.
"Burst transmission for you, Captain." He paused just a moment. "It's from
Captain Tankersley,
Ma'am."
Faint, pink heat tingled along Honors cheekbones. Did every member of her crew
know about her . . .
relationship with Paul?! It was none of their business, even if they did, darn
it! It wasn't as if there were
anything shady or underhanded about it—Paul was a yard dog, so even the
prohibition against affairs with
officers in the same chain of command didn't come into it!
                                     140

But even as she prepared to glower at the com officer, her own sense of the
ridiculous came to her
rescue. Of course they knew—even Admiral Sarnow knew! She'd never realized her
nonexistent love life
was so widely noticed, but if she'd wanted to keep a low profile she should
have thought of it sooner. And the twinkle in Monet's eyes wasn't the smutty
thing it could have been. In fact, she realized as she sensed
the same gentle amusement from the rest of her silent bridge crew, he actually
seemed pleased for her.
"Ah, switch it to my screen," she said, suddenly realizing she'd been silent
just a bit too long.
"It's a private signal, Ma'am." Monet's voice was so bland Honors mouth
twitched in response. She
shoved herself up out of her chair, cradling Nimitz in her arms and fighting
her rebellious dimple.
"In that case, I'll take it on my briefing room terminal."
"Of course, Ma'am. I'll switch it over."
"Thank you," Honor said with all the dignity she could muster, and crossed to
the briefing room
hatch.
It slid open for her, and as she stepped through it, she suddenly wondered why
Paul was screening
her at all. Nike would reach the base in another thirty minutes or so, but the
transmission lag at this range
was still something like seventeen seconds. That ruled out any practical real-
time conversation, so why
hadn't he waited another fifteen minutes to avoid it?
An eyebrow arched in speculation, and she deposited Nimitz on the briefing
room table as she sat in
the captains chair at its head and keyed the terminal. The screen flashed a
ready signal, and then Paul's
face appeared.
"Hi, Honor. Sorry to disturb you, but I thought you'd better know." Her
eyebrows knitted in a frown
as his grim expression registered. "We just got an arrival signal from a heavy
cruiser," his recorded voice
continued, men paused. "It's Warlock, Honor," he said, and she went rigid in
her chair.
Paul looked out of the screen as if he could see her reaction, and there was
compassion in his eyes—
and warning—as his image nodded.
"Young's still in command," he said softly, "and he's still senior to you.
Watch yourself, okay?"
PNS Napoleon drifted through blackness, far from the dim beacon of the
system's red dwarf primary.
The light cruiser's drive was down, her active sensors dead, and her captain
sat tensely on her bridge as
she coasted along her silent course, well inside the orbit of Hancock's frozen
outermost planet. He could
see two different Manty destroyers' impeller signatures in his display, but
the nearest was over twelve
light-minutes from Napoleon, and he had absolutely no intention of attracting
its attention.
Commander Ogilve hadn't thought much of Operation Argus when he was first
briefed for it. The
whole idea had struck him as an excellent way to start a war and get his ship
fried in the process, yet it
                                     141

had worked out far better than he'd expected. It was horribly time-consuming,
and the fact that none of the
ships involved had been caught yet didn't mean none of them ever would be, but
it only had to go on
working for a little longer. Just long enough for Admiral Rollins to receive
the data he needed . . . and for
PNS Napoleon to get the hell out of Hancock in one piece.
"Coming up on the first relay, Sir." His com officer sounded as unhappy as
Ogilve felt, and the
commander took pains to exude calm as he withdrew his gaze from the display
and nodded in response.
Wouldn't do to let the troops know their captain was as scared as they were,
he thought dryly.
"Prepare to initiate data dump," he said.
"Yes, Sir."
The bridge was silent as the com officer brought his communication lasers up
from standby. Any sort
of emission was extremely dangerous under the circumstances, but the relay's
position had been plotted
with painstaking care. The people who'd planned Operation Argus had known the
perimeters of all
Manticoran star systems were guarded by sensor platforms whose reach and
sensitivity the People's
Republic couldn't match, but no surveillance net could cover everything. Their
deployment patterns and
plans had taken that into consideration, and—so far, at least—they'd been
right on the money. Ogilve snorted at his own choice of cliche, for Argus had
cost billions. The heavily stealthed sensor
platforms had been inserted from over two light- months out, coasting in out
of the silence of interstellar
space with all power locked down to absolute minimum. They'd slid through the
Manties' sensors like any
other bits of space debris, and the tiny trickle of power which had braked
them and aligned them in their
final, carefully chosen positions had been so small as to be utterly
indetectable at anything over a few
thousand kilometers.
In point of fact, getting the platforms in had been the easy part. Laymen
tended to forget just how
huge—and empty—any given star system was. Even the largest star-ship was less
than a mote on such a
scale; as long as it radiated no betraying energy signature to attract
attention it might as well be invisible,
and the sensor arrays were tinier still and equipped with the best stealth
systems Haven could produce. Or,
Ogilve amended, in this case buy clandestinely from the Solarian League. The
biggest risk came from the
low-powered, hair-thin lasers that tied them to the central storage relays,
but even there the risk had been
reduced to absolute minimum.
The platforms communicated only via ultra high-speed burst transmissions. Even
if someone strayed
into their path, it would require an enormous stroke of bad luck for him to
realize he'd heard something,
and the platforms' programming restricted them from sending if their sensors
picked up anything in a
position to intercept their messages.
                                     142

No, there was very little chance of the Manties tumbling to the tiny robotic
spies—it was the mailmen
who collected their data who had to sweat. Because small as it might be, a
starship was larger than any
sensor array, and harvesting that information meant a ship had to radiate,
however stealthily.
"Light beam standing by, Sir. Coming up on transmission point in ... nineteen
seconds."
"Initiate when we reach the bearing."
"Aye, Sir. Standing by." The seconds ticked past, and then the com officer
licked his lips. "Initiating
now. Sir."
Ogilve tensed, and his eyes returned to his display with unseemly haste. He
watched the Manty
destroyers with painful intensity, but they continued along their blissfully
unobservant way, and then—
"Dump completed, Sir!" The com officer didn't quite wipe his brow as he killed
the laser, and Ogilve
smiled despite his own tension.
"Well done, Jamie." He rubbed his hands and grinned at his tac officer. "Well,
Ms. Austell, shall we
see what we've caught?"
"An excellent idea, Sir." The tac officer returned his grin, then began
querying the data dump.
Several minutes passed in silence, for the last Argus collection had been a
month and a ha lf earlier. That
left a great deal of information to sort through, but then she stiffened and
looked up sharply.
"I've got something very interesting here, Sir."
The suppressed excitement in her voice drew Ogilve out of his chair without
conscious thought. He
crossed the bridge in a few, quick strides and leaned over her shoulder as she
tapped keys. Her display
flickered for a moment, then settled, and a date and time readout glowed in
one corner.
Ogirve sucked in sharply as the data before him registered. A score of heavy
capital ships—no, more
than that. By God, there were over thirty of the bastards! Jesus, it was the
Mantles' entire wall of battle!
He stared at the display, holding his breath, unable to believe what he was
seeing as the massive fleet
movement played itself out. The time scale was enormously compressed, and the
incredible mass of
impeller signatures slid across the star system at breakneck speed.
It had to be some sort of maneuver. That was the only thing it could be.
Ogilve told himself that over
and over, like some sort of mental incantation against the disappointment that
had to come.
But it didn't come. The stupendous dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts went
right on moving,
sweeping out from Hancock until they hit the hyper limit. And then they
vanished. Every goddamned one of them simply vanished, and Ogilve straightened
with slow, almost painful caution.
"Did they come back, Midge?" he half-whispered, and the tac officer shook her
head, eyes huge.
"Would this sector's platforms necessarily have spotted them if they had come
back?" the commander
                                     143

pressed.
"Not automatically, Sir. The Manties could have come back on a course outside
their search
envelope. But unless they knew about the sensors and deliberately set this up
to fake us out, they would've
come back in from any maneuvers on roughly reciprocal headings. If they'd done
that, the platforms
would have seen them . . . and they've been gone for over a week, Sir."
Ogilve nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was incredible. The idea
that the Manties would
conduct some sort of exercise that took them away from Hancock at a time of
such tension was ridiculous
on the face of it. But impossible as it seemed, they'd done something even
stupider. They'd pulled out
entirely. Hancock Station was wide open!
He drew another deep breath and looked at his astrogator.
"How soon can we get the hell out of here?"
"Without our hyper footprint being detected?'
"Of course without being detected!"
"Um." The astrogators fingers flew as he worked through the problem. "On this
vector, niner- fourpoint-
eight hours to clear known Manty sensor arrays, Sir."
"Damn," Ogilve whispered. He rubbed his hands up and down the seams of his
trousers and forced
his impatience back under control. This was too important to risk blowing. He
was going to have to wait.
To make himself sit on it for another four days before he could head home with
the unbelievable news.
But once they reached Seaford—
"All right," he said crisply. "I want a complete shutdown. Nothing goes out
from this ship. Jamie,
abort the remainder of the data dumps. Midge, I want you to damned well live
up here with your passive
sensors. If anything even looks like it could be coming our way, I want to
know it. This data just paid the
entire cost of this operation from day one, and we're getting it home if we
have to hyper out of here right
under some Manty's nose!"
"But what about operational security, Sir?" his exec protested.
"I'm not going to call any attention to us," Ogilve said tightly. "But this is
too important to risk losing,
so if it looks like they may be going to spot us, we're out of here, and the
hell with the rest of Operation
Argus. This is exactly what Admiral Rollins has been waiting for, and we, by
God, are going to tell him
about it!"
CHAPTER TWENTY
Honor nodded to her Marine sentry and stepped through her cabin hatch without
a word. Her face
showed no emotion at all, but Nimitz was tense on her shoulder, and
MacGuiness' welcoming smile
congealed into nonexpression the moment he saw her.
"Good evening, Ma'am," he said.
She turned her head at the sound of his voice, and her eyes flickered, as if
only now noting his
presence. He watched her lips tighten for just an instant, but then she drew a
deep breath and smiled at
                                     144

him. To someone who didn't know her, that smile might have looked almost
natural.
"Good evening, Mac." She crossed to her desk and dropped her beret on it, then
ran her hands
through her hair, looking away from him for a moment, before she moved Nimitz
from her shoulder to his
padded perch, sat in her chair, and swiveled back to face the steward. "I've
got to finish my report on the maneuvers," she said. "Screen my calls while I
deal with it, will
you? Put anything from Commander Henke, Admiral Sarnow or his staff, or any of
the other skippers
through, but ask anyone else if the Exec can handle it."
"Of course, Ma'am." MacGuiness hid his concern at the unusual order, and she
smiled again,
gratefully, at his neutral tone.
Thank you." She booted her terminal, and he cleared his throat.
"Would you like a cup of cocoa, Ma'am?"
"No, thank you," she said without raising her eyes from the screen. MacGuiness
looked at the crown
of her head, then exchanged silent glances with Nimitz. The 'cat's body
language radiated his own tension,
but he flicked his ears and turned his head, pointing his muzzle at the hatch
to the captain's pantry, and the
steward relaxed slightly. He nodded back and withdrew like a puff of breeze.
Honor continued to stare at the characters on her screen until she heard the
hatch close behind him,
then shut her eyes and covered them with her hands. She hadn't missed the
silent exchange between
MacGuiness and Nimitz. A part of her hunkered petulantly down deep inside,
resenting it, but most of her
was intensely grateful.
She lowered her hands and tipped her chair back with a sigh. Nimitz crooned to
her from his perch,
and she looked up at him with a weary, bittersweet smile.
"I know," she said quietly.
He hopped down onto her desk and sat upright, holding her dark eyes with his
grass-green gaze, and
she reached out to caress his soft cream and gray fur. Her fingers were light,
barely brushing him, but he
didn't push her for more energetic petting, and she felt his concern reaching
out to her.
For as long as Nimitz had been with her, Honor had always known he did
something to help her
through spasms of anger or depression, yet she'd never been able to figure out
what it was. As far as she
knew, no one who'd been adopted by a 'cat had ever been able to do so, but the
strange intensification of
their link since Grayson was at work now. She felt his touch, like a loving
mental hand reaching deep
inside her to soothe the raw edges of her emotions. He wasn't taking them
away. Perhaps that was beyond
his ability—or perhaps he knew how she would have resented it. Perhaps it was
even simpler than that,
something which would have been against his own principles. She didn't know,
but she closed her eyes
once more, hands gentle on his fur while his equally gentle caress comforted
her inner hurt.
                                     145

It was bitterly unfair. She'd been so happy, despite the tension of the
Havenite crisis, and now this. It
was as if Young had known how well things were going and deliberately gotten
himself sent here just to
ruin them. She wanted to scream and break things, to storm and rage at a
universe that let things like this
happen.
But the universe wasn't really unfair, she thought, and her mouth quirked. It
just didn't give much of a
damn one way or the other.
A strong, delicate true- hand touched her right cheek like a feather, and her
eyes reopened. Nimitz
crooned to her again, and her smile turned real. She drew him into her arms,
hugging him to her breasts,
feeling his relief as her inner pain ebbed.
"Thanks," she said softly, burying her face in his furry warmth. He bleeked
gently to her, and she
gave him another, tighter hug, then lifted him back to his perch. "Okay,
Stinker. I'm on top of it, now." He
flipped his tail in agreement, and her smile became a grin. "And the truth is,
I do have to finish that report
before I can run off to supper. So you just sit up there and keep an eye on
me, right?"
He nodded and arranged himself comfortably, watching over her while she began
scrolling through
the paragraphs she'd already written.
Minutes passed, then a half hour, and there was no sound except the hum of
Honor's terminal and the
soft brush of fingers on a keyboard. She was so deep into her work she hardly
noticed the soft com chime. It sounded again, and she made a face and opened a
window to accept the call at her workstation. The
lines of her report vanished, and MacGuiness' face replaced them.
"Sorry to disturb you, Ma'am," he said formally, "but the Admiral is
screening."
Thank you, Mac." Honor straightened and brushed her fingers through her hair
once more. It might
be a good idea to let it grow long enough to braid, she thought absently, and
keyed an "ACCEPT" code.
"Good evening, Honor." Admiral Sarnow's tenor was a bit deeper than usual, and
she suppressed an
ironic smile. She'd wondered if he'd heard the stories about her and Young.
"Good evening, Sir. What can I do for you?"
"I've been working my way through the dispatches Warlock delivered." He
watched her face as he
named Young's ship, but her eyes didn't even flicker, and he gave a sort of
subliminal nod, more felt than
seen, at the confirmation that she'd already known.
"There are several items we're going to have to cover in our squadron
conference," he went on in a
neutral tone, "but before that, I need to welcome Captain Young to the task
group."
Honor nodded. The thought of inviting Young aboard her ship sickened her, but
she'd known it was
coming. Mark Sarnow would never pull a Sir Yancey Parks and freeze any captain
out. Not until that
captain had given him some specific reason to do so.
"I understand, Sir," she said after a moment. "Has Warlock rendezvoused with
                                     146

the base yet?"
"Yes, she has."
"Then I'll see to the invitation, Sir," she said flatly.
Sarnow started to open his mouth, then closed it. She saw the temptation to
send the request through
his own communication channels in his eyes and willed him not to make the
offer.
'Thank you, Honor. I appreciate it," he said after a moment.
"No problem, Sir," she lied, and the words of her report returned as she cut
the link.
She gazed at the report sightlessly for some seconds, then sighed. She'd
finished it anyway, she told
herself, and saved it to memory. She spent a few minutes routing copies to
Sarnow and Ernestine Corell,
knowing as she did that she was simply delaying the inevitable, then keyed a
com combination. An instant
later, the screen lit with Mike Henke's face.
"Bridge, Exec speaking," the commander began, then smiled. "Hello, Skipper.
What can I do for
you?"
"Please have George contact the repair base, Mike. Ask them to relay a message
to the heavy cruiser
Warlock." Honor saw Henke's eyes widen and continued in the same, flat voice.
"She's just arrived as part
of our reinforcements. Please extend my and Admiral Sarnow's compliments to
her captain—" the
courteous formula was bitter on her tongue "—and invite him to repair on board
immediately to confer
with the Admiral."
"Yes, Ma'am," Henke said quietly.
"After George passes the message, inform the Bosun we're going to need a side
party. And as soon as
you hear back from Warlock, let me know when we can expect him aboard."
"Yes, Ma'am. Would you like me to greet him, Ma'am?"
"That won't be necessary, Mike. Just let me know when he's getting here."
"Of course, Ma'am. I'll get right on it."
"Thank you," Honor said, and cut the circuit.
Captain Lord Pavel Young stood stiff and silent in the repair base personnel
capsule, watching the
position display flicker as the capsule hurtled through the tube. He wore his
best mess dress uniform,
complete with the ornate golden sash and anachronistic dress sword, and his
reflection looked back at him
from the polished capsule wall. He studied himself silently, eyes bitter
despite his gorgeous appearance. Skillful (and expensive)
tailoring deemphasized the steady thickening of his middle without quite
becoming nonregulation, just as
his neatly trimmed beard disguised his double chin. His appearance was
satisfyingly perfect, but it took
every gram of over-stressed self-control not to snarl at his reflected image.
The gall of the bitch. The sheer gall of her! Her "compliments," indeed! Yes,
and oh-so- incidentally
linked with Admiral Sarnow's!
This time he did snarl, but he rammed his self-control back into place and
banished the expression
even while his nerves tingled and spasmed with hatred. Honor Harrington. Lady
Harrington. The common
                                     147

born slut who'd ruined his career—and now the task group flag captain.
His teeth ground together as he remembered. He hadn't thought much of her the
first time he saw her
at Saganami Island. She'd been a full form behind him, which should have put
her beneath his notice even
if she'd been more than some dirt-grubber from Sphinx. And she'd been plain-
faced and unsophisticated
with her almost shaven hair and beak of a nose, as well. Hardly worth a second
look, and certainly not up
to his usual standards. But there'd been something about the way she moved,
something in the grace of
her carriage, which had piqued his interest.
He'd watched her after that. She'd been the pet of the Academy, of course, her
and her damned
treecat. Oh, she'd pretended she didn't know how the instructors made her
their favorite or how everyone
fawned over her filthy little beast, but he'd seen it. Even Chief MacDougal,
that lout of a phys ed
instructor, had doted on her, and Mr. Midshipman Lord Young's interest had
grown until he finally made
it known.
And the baseborn bitch had turned him down. She'd snubbed him—snubbed him!—in
front of his
friends. She'd tried to make it seem she didn't know what she was doing, but
she had, and when he'd
started to put her in her place with a few well-chosen words, that bastard
MacDougal had appeared out of
nowhere and put him on report for "harassing" her!
No one had turned him down, not since his father's yacht pilot when he was
sixteen T- years old, and
he'd fixed her ass the next time he caught her alone. Yes, and his father had
seen to it she kept her mouth
shut about it, too. It should have been the same with Harrington, but it
hadn't. Oh, no, not with
Harrington.
A low, harsh, hating sound quivered deep in his throat as he remembered his
humiliation. He'd
planned it so carefully. He'd spent days timing her schedule, until he learned
about those private late-night
exercise sessions of hers. She liked to turn the grav plates up, and she could
have the gym to herself that
late, and he'd smiled as he realized he could catch her alone in the showers.
He'd even taken the
precaution of slipping cotanine into the celery one of her friends kept
feeding to her damned treecat. He
hadn't got enough into it to kill the little monster, damn it, but it had made
him so sleepy she'd left him in
her dorm room.
It had been perfect. He'd caught her actually in the shower, naked, and seen
the shock and shame in
her eyes. He'd savored her panic as he stalked her through the spray, watching
her back away while her
hands tried ridiculously to cover herself, already tasting his revenge . . .
but then something changed. The
panic in her eyes had turned into something else when he reached for her to
throw her up against the
shower wall, and her slippery-wet skin had twisted out of his grasp.
                                     148

He'd been surprised by her strength as she broke his grip. That was his first
thought. And then he'd
whooped in anguish as the heel of her right hand slammed into his belly. He'd
doubled up, retching with
hurt, and her knee had driven up into his crotch like a battering ram.
He'd screamed. Sweat beaded his forehead as he remembered the shame of that
moment, the searing
agony in his groin and, behind it, the sick, terrible humiliation of defeat.
But just stopping him hadn't been
enough for the bitch. Her savage, unfair blow had surprised and paralyzed him,
and she'd followed
through with brutal efficiency. An elbow had smashed his lips to paste. The
edge of a chopping hand had broken his nose. Another
crushing blow snapped his collarbone, and her knee ripped up again—this time
into his face—as he went
down. She'd snapped off two incisors at the gum- line, broken six of his ribs,
and left him sobbing in
bloody- mouthed agony and terror under the pounding shower as she snatched up
her clothing and fled.
God only knew how he'd gotten to the infirmary. He couldn't even remember
staggering out of the
gym or how he'd run into Reardon and Cavendish, but they'd put some sort of
story together. Not enough
for anyone to believe, but enough, coupled with his name, to deflect official
retribution. Or most of it,
anyway. That sanctimonious prig Hartley had still dragged him into his office
and made him apologize—
apologize!—to the bitch in front of him and the Adjutant.
They'd had to settle for reprimanding him for the "harassment" episode. Young
didn't doubt the slut
had spilled her guts, but no one had dared do anything about it. Not with no
more than her word against
that of the Earl of North Hollow's son. But he'd still had to "apologize" to
her. And infinitely worse, he'd
been afraid of her. He'd tasted his own terror that she might hurt him again,
and he'd hated her for that
even more than for the beating itself.
He bared his teeth viciously at his reflection. He'd done his best to get her
after that, used all his
family's influence to destroy her career the way she deserved. But the bitch
always had too many friends,
like that asshole Courvosier. Of course, Young had always understood that
relationship. He'd never been
able to prove it, despite the time and money he'd invested in the effort, but
he'd known she was spreading
for Courvosier. It was the only explanation for the way the old bastard had
watched over her career, and—
his smile turned ugly with triumph—at least Courvosier had finally gotten his.
Too bad the Masadans
hadn't gotten their hands on Harrington, too!
He shook himself free of that sweet daydream and back to the drear reality of
his repeated failures to
deal with her once and for all. He and his father had managed to throw out
enough roadblocks to slow her
promotions, but the slut had a way of being there whenever the shit hit the
fan, and somehow she always
got the credit. Like the power room disaster when she'd been tac office on
                                     149

Manticore. She'd gotten the
CGM and Monarch's Thanks for pulling three worthless ratings out of that one,
then gotten herself
mentioned in dispatches for rescuing assholes too stupid to get out of the way
when the Attica Avalanche
hit Gryphon in 275. Every goddamned time he turned around, there was
Harrington, with everyone telling
him how wonderful she was.
He'd thought he finally had her in Basilisk, but then she stumbled over the
Peep attempt to seize the
system. Blind fucking luck again, but did it matter? Hell, no! She got all the
kudos, and he got officially
censured for "failing to properly assess the threat to his assigned station"!
And while she went off to fresh
glory in Yeltsin, those motherless bastards at the Admiralty had shuffled him
off into oblivion escorting
convoys to the Silesian Confederacy, running routine grav wave surveys to
update BuAstro's charts—
every scut job they could think of. In fact, he'd been due to take still
another convoy to Silesia when the
growing crisis forced the Admiralty to pull Warlock at the last minute to
reinforce Hancock.
And now this. She was flag captain. He was going to have to take the conniving
bitch's orders, and he
couldn't even use his superior birth to put her in her place. She actually
took social precedence, as well!
He might be heir to one of the Kingdom's oldest earldoms, but she was a
"countess" in her own right. The
newest parvenu in the peerage, perhaps, but a countess.
The flicker of the location display slowed as the tube capsule neared its
destination, and he
managed—somehow—to get the snarl off his face. Four years. Four long, endless
T- years he'd endured
his shame, the humiliating smirks of his inferiors as he toiled under the
Admiralty's displeasure over
Basilisk. He owed the bitch for that, too, and someday, somehow, he'd see to
it that she paid in full. But
for now, he had to endure one more humiliation and pretend nothing had ever
happened between them.
The doors slid open, and he drew a deep breath as he stepped out into the
spacedock gallery. Fresh,
bitter hatred glittered briefly in his eyes as he saw the magnificent ship
floating in the dock. HMS Nike, pride of the Fleet. She should have been his,
not Harrington's, but the bitch had taken that away from him,
as well.
He settled his sword on his hip and walked stiffly towards the Marine sentries
at Nike's boarding
tube.
Honor stood with the side party in the entry port, waiting while Young swam
the tube, and her palms
were damp. Sick loathing boiled in her belly, and she wanted to dry her hands.
But she didn't. She simply
stood there, face calm, shoulder feeling unnaturally light and oddly
vulnerable without Nimitz's warm
weight. She hadn't even considered bringing the 'cat to this meeting.
Young appeared around the final bend, sliding through the tube's zero-gee, and
her mouth tightened
                                     150

almost imperceptibly as she saw his mess uniform. Just like him to overdress,
she thought scornfully. He
always had to impress lesser beings with his family's power and wealth.
He reached the scarlet warning line and grasped the grab bar to swing across
the interface into Nike's
internal gravity, and the scabbard of his sword caught between his legs. He
stumbled awkwardly, almost
falling, even as the bosuns pipe's shrilled and the wooden- faced side party
snapped to attention, and
Honor's eyes glowed with brief, vicious pleasure as his face went scarlet in
humiliation. But he got
himself back on balance, and she'd banished satisfaction from her expression,
if not her emotions, by the
time he'd settled the sword properly back into place.
He saluted her, his face still red, and she didn't need Nimitz to feel his
hatred. He might be senior to
her, but he was visiting her ship, and she knew exactly how bitter that had to
taste to him as she returned
die salute.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" The tenor voice, so like and yet so
unlike Admiral Sarnow's,
was utterly without inflection.
"Permission granted, Captain," she replied with equal formality, and he
stepped through the entry
port hatch. "If you'll come with me, Captain, the Admiral is waiting for you
in his briefing room."
Young nodded a curt acknowledgment and followed her into the lift. He stood on
the opposite side of
the car, back to the wall, while she punched their destination into the panel,
and silence hung between
them like poison.
He watched her, savoring his hate like some rare vintage, its bitter bouquet
touched with a sweet, hot
promise that his day would come. She seemed unaware of his gaze, standing
completely at ease with her
hands clasped behind her while she watched the location display and ignored
him, and his hand tightened
on the hilt of his sword like a claw.
The plain-faced slut he remembered from Saganami Island had vanished, and he
realized he hated the
tall, beautiful woman who'd replaced her even more than he'd hated that self-
conscious girl. The
understated elegance of artfully applied cosmetics emphasized her beauty, and
even through his hatred
and the residual fear of finding himself within her physical reach, he felt
the tug of desire. The hunger to
have her and reduce her to one more notch on his bedpost to put her in her
place forever.
The lift stopped, the door opened, and her graceful wave gestured him out. He
accompanied her down
the passage to the flag briefing room, and Admiral Sarnow looked up as they
stepped into the
compartment.
"Captain Young, Sir," Harrington said quietly, and he came to attention.
Sarnow looked at him for a long, silent moment, then rose from his chair.
Young met his gaze
expressionlessly, but something about the admiral's green eyes warned him that
                                     151

this was yet another of the
flag officers who sided with the bitch. Was she putting out for him on the
side, too?
"Captain." Sarnow nodded, and Young's jaw clenched behind the cover of his
beard at the omission
of his peerage title.
"Admiral," he replied in an equally toneless voice. "I imagine you've got a
lot to tell me about the situation as seen from Manticore," Sarnow went on,
"and I'm eager to hear it. Be seated, please."
Young slid into the chair, adjusting his sword carefully. It was awkward, but
it also gave him a flicker
of superiority as he compared his own sartorial splendor to the plain undress
uniform the admiral wore.
Sarnow glanced at him, then looked back at Harrington.
"I understand you have a previous engagement aboard the base, Dame Honor."
Young's jaw clenched
tighter as he used her title. "Captain Young and I will undoubtedly be tied up
here for some time, so I
won't keep you. Don't forget the com conference." Something like a small smile
touched his lips. "It won't
be necessary for you to return aboard if that will be inconvenient. Feel free
to use a com aboard the base,
if you like."
"Thank you, Sir." Harrington braced to attention, then glanced at Young. "Good
evening, Captain,"
she said emotionlessly, and vanished.
"And now, Captain Young—" Sarnow sat back down and leaned back in his chair "—
to business.
You brought me a dispatch from Admiral Caparelli, and he says you and he
discussed the situation at
some length before he sent you out. So suppose you start by letting me hear
exactly what His Lordship
had to say."
"Of course, Admiral." Young leaned back and crossed his legs. "First of all
..."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Robert Stanton Pierre eased the small, nondescript air car out of the main
traffic pattern and turned
his flight computer over to Hoskins Tower's approach control. He sat back in
his seat, looking out and
down at the twinkling oceans and mountains of light which were Nouveau Paris,
capital city of the
People's Republic, and his face wore the grim, harsh expression he did not
allow himself in daylight.
There wasn't much traffic this late at night. In a way, Pie rre wished there
were; he could have used
the rush and flow of other vehicles to hide his own. But his official schedule
was too busy for him to slip
away during the day, especially with Palmer-Levy's Security goons watching him
like hawks.
Of course, they weren't very bright hawks. His tight mouth twitched wryly,
despite the pain locked
deep within him. If you showed them what they expected to see, you could count
on them to see it—and
to stop looking for anything else. That was why he'd made sure they kne w
about his meetings with the
CRP. The Citizens' Rights Party had been part of the system for so long its
                                     152

leadership, with a very few
exceptions, couldn't find its ass with both hands, an incapacity which reduced
it to little more than a
convenient blind for his real activities. Not that the CRP wouldn't prove
useful if—when—the time came.
It just wouldn't be the CRP Palmer-Levy (or, for that matter, most of the
present CRP's leaders) knew
anything about.
Approach control nudged his air car closer to the pinnacle of the tower, and
he turned his attention
fully to it.
Hoskins Tower was just over four hundred stories tall and a kilometer in
diameter—a huge, hollow
hexagon of steel and ceramacrete, dotted with air traffic access points and
thrusting up from the greenery
so far below. There'd been a time when Nouveau Paris' towers, each a small
city in its own right, were its
pride, but Hoskins Tower's supposedly near- indestructible ceramacrete was
already beginning to crack
and scale after barely thirty years. Seen close at hand, the tower's skin was
leprous with slap-dash patches
and repairs, and though it wasn't evident from the outside, Pierre knew its
upper twenty-three floors had
been closed off and abandoned over five T-years ago because of massive
plumbing failures. Hoskins was
still on the waiting list for repair crews who, probably, would get around to
its pipes someday. Assuming,
of course, that the bureaucrats didn't end up diverting them to some more
urgent "emergency" (like repairs
to President Harris' swimming pool) ... or that the repair crews didn't decide
life would be easier on the
Dole and simply quit. Pierre didn't like Hoskins Tower. It reminded him of too
many things from his own past, and the fact
that even a Dolist Manager with his clout hadn't been able to get its plumbing
fixed infuriated him. But
this was "his" district of the capital. He controlled the votes of the people
who lived in Hoskins, and it was
to him they looked for their share of the welfare system's spoils. That made
him a very important man to
them—and gave him a security screen here that even Palmer-Levy couldn't match
... or breach.
Pierre's lips curled back from his teeth as approach control inserted him into
the tower's hollow top
and his air car began drifting down the patchily lit bore. Despite the
physical youth prolong conferred, he
was ninety-one T-years old, and he remembered other days. Days when he'd
fought his way off the Dole,
before the rot had set so deep. There'd been a time when Hoskins Towers
plumbing would have been
fixed within days—when the discovery that the bureaucrats in charge of its
construction had used
substandard materials and evaded building codes throughout the massive
structure in order to pocket
enormous profits would have led to indictments and prison time. Now, no one
even cared.
He punched an inconspicuous button, and the air car withdrew itself from
approach control's grip, it
                                     153

was illegal—and supposedly impossible—to do that, but like everything else in
the Peoples Republic,
there were ways around that for anyone with the money to buy them and the will
to use them.
He slid the air car sideways, sidling up to an abandoned apartment on the
three hundred and ninetythird
floor, and settled it onto a terrace. Hie terrace hadn't been designed for
such landings, but that was
why the air car was so small and light.
It was time, Pierre thought as he powered down the systems, for someone to fix
Hoskins Tower.
Among other things.
Wallace Canning raised his head, the movement quick and nervous. Heels clacked
sharply on the
bare floor, echoing and resounding down the hollow, empty corridors until it
seemed an entire, unseen
legion was converging upon him, but he'd been to plenty of meetings like this
over the last three years, if
not any under quite such outre conditions. He was no longer prone to panic,
and his pulse trickled back to
normal as his ears sorted out the single pair of feet at the heart of the
murmuring echoes and a patch of
light appeared.
He leaned back against the wall, watching the patch become a beam that swung
from side to side as
the walker picked his way down the steps from the mezzanine. Halfway down, the
beam flicked up,
pinning Canning to the wall while he screwed up his eyes against its
intensity. It held on him for an
instant, the n swiveled back down to the bits and pieces of fallen ceiling
littering the stairs. It reached their
bottom at last and crossed to Canning, and then Rob Pierre shifted the light
to his left hand and extended
his right.
"Good to see you, Wallace," Pierre said, and Canning nodded with a smile that
was no longer forced.
"Good to see you, too, Sir," he said. There'd been a time when saying "Sir" to
a Prole, even one who
was also a Dolist Manager, would have choked him. But those days were gone,
for Wallace Canning had
fallen from grace. His diplomatic career had ended in humiliation and failure,
and not even his
Legislaturalist family had been able to save him from the consequences. Worse,
they hadn't even tried.
Canning had become an object lesson, a warning fo r those who failed. They'd
stripped him of place
and position, banished him into Prole housing like Hoskins Tower and into the
monthly lines that
gathered for their Basic Living Stipend checks. They'd turned him into a
Dolist, but not like other Dolists.
His accent and speech patterns, even the way he walked or looked at others,
all singled him out as
"different" in the eyes of his new fellows. Rejected by everyone he'd ever
known, he'd found himself
shunned by those whose equal he'd become, and it had seemed hate and self-pity
were all that was left to
him.
                                     154

"Have the others arrived?" Pierre asked. 'Yes, Sir. Once I looked the site
over, I decided to use the tennis court instead of the main concourse
because the court doesn't have any skylights and I only had to black out two
sections of windows."
"Good, Wallace." Pierre nodded and clapped the younger man on the shoulder.
Quite a few of the socalled
"leaders" Pierre was about to meet with tonight would have dithered for hours
over something as
simple as moving the meeting site a distance of forty or fifty meters. Canning
had simply gone ahead and
done it. It was a small thing, perhaps, but leadership and initiative were
always made up of small things.
Canning turned to lead the way, but the hand on his shoulder stopped him. He
turned back to Pierre,
and not even the strange shadows across the other man's bottom- lit face could
hide his concern.
"Are you certain you're ready for this, Wallace?" His voice was soft, almost
gentle, but there was
urgency in it. "I can't completely guarantee all these people are exactly what
they seem."
"I trust your judgment, Sir." It was hard for Canning to say that, and even
harder to mean it, but it
was also true. There were many points upon which he still differed with this
man, but he trusted him
implicitly, and he made himself grin. "After all, I know you caught at least
one InSec plant. I'd like to
think that means you caught both of them."
"I'm afraid there's only one way to find out," Pierre sighed, and laid his arm
across the ex-
Legislaturalist's shoulders. "Oh, well! Let's go do it."
Canning nodded and swept aside the thick sheet of fabric which had been hung
across an out-sized
arch. The arch gave access to a short, broad passage between turnstiles and
ticket-taker's windows, and
Pierre followed his guide down it to the matching fabric barrier hung at its
far end.
Canning thrust it aside in turn, and the politician switched off his handlight
as they stepped into dim
illumination. Their feet were loud on die bare floor, and the air smelled of
musty disuse and abandonment.
It was as if the building were the corpse of some mighty tree, rotting from
the inside out, but the wan
glow of widely spaced light tubes guided them across the back of the echoing
concourse, past the
basketball court and swimming pools thick in dust, to the central element of
the long-dead sports
complex.
Canning pushed another draped cloth barrier aside, and Pierre blinked. Clearly
Canning had managed
to replace most of the overhead lights that had been scavenged by tenants
since the tennis court was
abandoned, and the result of his labors was al1 Pierre could have wished. The
blacked-out windows
confined the light, hiding it from any outside eye, but it transformed the
spacious tennis court into an
illuminated stage. There was a powerful symbolism in meeting in this decaying
monument to
                                     155

mismanagement and corruption, but Canning's work crew had created a pocket of
light and order in its
midst. They'd even swept and mopped, dusted the spectators' seats and cleared
away the cobwebs, and
there was an equally powerful symbolism in that. Despite the risk every person
in this chamber ran, there
was no aura of furtive concealment, none of the paranoiac stealthiness with
which other clandestine
groups met.
To be sure, he reflected as they walked down a seat aisle to the level of the
court, paranoia and stealth
had their places, especially in an operation like this, but decisive moments
required their own
psychologies. If he brought this off tonight, it would be worth every risk he
and Canning had run to
establish the setting and mood to make that possible.
And if he didn't bring it off, of course, he and Canning would probably
"disappear" very shortly.
He reached the court itself and crossed to the small table Canning had set up
at its center. Seventyodd
men and women looked back at him from the rows of seats facing it, and each
face carried its own,
unique blend of anxiety and excitement. The twelve people in the front row
looked particularly tense, for
they were the sole members of the CRPs eighty-person Central Committee whom
he'd trusted enough to
invite. Pierre seated himself in the waiting chair, Canning standing behind
him, and folded his hands on the
table-top. He sat silently, letting his eyes move slowly over all those faces,
pausing briefly on each of
them, until he reached the very end. Then he cleared his throat.
Thank you for coming." His voice echoed in the huge chamber, and he smiled
wryly. "I realize this
isn't the most convenient possible spot, and I also recognize the risk in
gathering all of us together in one
place, yet I felt it was necessary. Some of you have never met before, but I
assure you that I have met
with each of the people you do not know. If I didn't trust them, they wouldn't
be here. Of course, my
judgment could be at fault, but—"
He shrugged, and one or two members of his audience managed to smile. But then
he leaned forward,
and all temptation to levity faded as his face hardened.
The reason I invited you here tonight is simple. The time has come for us to
stop talking about
change and begin making it happen."
A soft sigh of indrawn breath answered him, and he nodded slowly.
"Each of us has his or her own reasons for being here. I warn you all now that
not all of your fellows
are motivated by altruism or principle—quite frankly, those qualities make
poor revolutionaries." One or
two people flinched at his choice of noun, and he smiled frostily. "To succeed
at something like this
requires an intense personal commitment. Principle is all very well, but
something more is needed, and
I've selected you because each of you has that something more. Whether it's
personal outrage, anger over
                                     156

something done to you or yours, or simple ambition matters far less than that
you have the strength of
your motivation and the wit to make it effective. I believe all of you do."
He leaned back, hands still on the table, and let silence linger for a moment.
When he spoke again,
his voice was cold and harsh.
"For the record, ladies and gentlemen, I won't pretend I felt noble or
altruistic when I began my
contacts with the CRP and CRU. Quite the contrary, in fact. I was looking to
protect my own power base,
and why shouldn't I have? I've spent sixty years securing my present position
in the Quorum. It was only
natural for me to look to my flanks, and I did.
"But that wasn't my entire motive. Anyone with eyes can see the PRH is in
trouble. Our economy
might as well not exist, our productivity's fallen steadily for over two T-
centuries—we exist only as a
parasite, drawing our sustenance from the star systems our 'government'
conquers to fill the treasury. Yet
the bigger we become, the more ramshackle we grow. The Legislaturalists are
riddled by factions, each
protecting its own little piece of turf, and the Navy is equally politicized.
Our so-called 'leaders' are
fighting over the choicest cuts of the pie while the Republic's infrastructure
rots out from under them—
like this very tower around us—and no one seems to care. Or, at least, no one
seems to know how to stop
it."
He fell silent, letting them listen to his words, then resumed in a quieter
but somehow sharper voice.
"I'm older than most of you. I remember times when the government was
accountable, at least to the
People's Quorum. Now it isn't. I'm considered a power within the Quorum, and I
tell you that it's become
nothing more than a rubber stamp. We do what we're told, when we're told. In
return, we get our own
piece of the pie, and because we do, we let the Legislaturalists make plans
and formulate policies shaped
by their interests, not ours. Plans which are leading the entire Republic
straight into disaster."
"Disaster, Mr. Pierre?"
He looked up at the question. It came from a petite, golden-haired woman in
the first row of chairs.
She wore the gaudy clothing of a Dolist, but there was something subtly less
baroque than usual about its
cut, and her face bore none of the exaggerated face paint currently in vogue.
"Disaster, Ms. Ransom," Pierre repeated quietly. "Look around you. As long as
the government keeps
the BLS ahead of inflation, people are happy, but look at the underlying
structure. Buildings crumble, the
utilities are less and less reliable, our education system is a shambles, gang
violence is a daily fact of life in the Prole towers—and still the money goes
to the BLS, public entertainments . . . and Internal Security.
It goes into keeping us all fat and happy and the Legislaturalists in power,
not into reinvestment and
repair.
"But even aside from the civilian economy, look at the military. The Navy
                                     157

sucks up an enormous
percentage of our total budget, and the admirals are just as corrupt and self-
seeking as our political lords
and masters. Worse, they're incompetent."
The last sentence came out harsh and grating, and several people looked at one
another as his hands
fisted. But Ransom wasn't quite done.
"Are you suggesting that the solution is to dismantle the entire system?" she
asked, and he snorted.
"We can't," he said, and sensed a wave of relaxation in his audience. "No one
can. This system took
over two centuries to evolve. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't possibly
disassemble it overnight. The
BLS is a fact of life; it must remain one for the foreseeable future. The need
to loot other planets—and
let's be honest; that's precisely what we do—to keep something in the treasury
will be with us for decades,
whatever changes we initiate in our economy. If we try pulling out too many
bricks too quickly, the whole
structure will come crashing down on us. This planet can't even feed itself
without outside food sources!
What do you think would happen if we suddenly found ourselves without the
foreign exchange to buy that
food?"
Silence answered him, and he nodded grimly.
"Exactly. Those of us who want radical reform had better understand right now
that accomplishing it
is going to be a long and difficult task. And those of us who are less
interested in reform and more in
power—and there are people like that in this room right now," he added with a
thin smile, "had better
understand that without at least some reform, there won't be anything to hold
power in within another ten
years. Reformers need power to act; power-seekers need reform to survive.
Remember that, all of you.
The time to fight over policy decisions will come after the Legislaturalists
are toppled, not before. Is that
understood?"
He swept them wit h cold eyes, and nodding murmurs of agreement came back to
him.
"Very well." He pinched the bridge of his nose, then went on speaking past his
raised hand. "No
doubt you're all wondering why I called you together to say these things to
you now. Well," he lowered
his hand, and his eyes were hard, "there's a reason. All of you have heard
reports about incidents between
us and the Manties, right?" Heads nodded once more, and he snorted bitterly.
"Of course you have. Public
Information is playing them for all they're worth, drumming up a sense of
crisis to keep people quiet. But
what Information isn't telling you is that the Manties aren't responsible for
them. We're deliberately
orchestrating those incidents as the preliminary to an all-out attack on the
Manticoran Alliance."
Someone gasped aloud, and Pierre nodded again,.
"That's right, they're finally going to do it—after letting the Manties get
stronger and stronger, dig in
                                     158

deeper and deeper. This isn't going to be like any of our other 'wars.' The
Manties are too tough for that,
and frankly, our own admirals are too gutless and incompetent." Pain wrenched
at his expression, but he
smoothed it back out and leaned over the table.
"The idiots in the Octagon have put together a "campaign' and sold it to the
cabinet. I don't have all
the details, but even if it were the best plan ever written, I wouldn't trust
our Navy to execute it. Not
against someone as good as the Manties. And I do know that they've already had
several disasters in the
early phases—disasters they're concealing even from the Quorum."
He gazed grimly at his audience, and his voice was more than harsh when he
resumed. It was ugly
with hate, and his eyes blazed.
"Among those disasters was one that concerned me personally. My son and half
his squadron were
destroyed—annihilated—carrying out one of their 'minor provocations.' They
were thrown away, wasted for no return at all, and the bastards refuse even to
acknowledge that anything happened to them! If I
didn't have my own sources in the military—"
He chopped himself off and glared down at the fists clenched on the table
before him, and the room
was deathly silent.
"So there you have my motive, ladies and gentlemen," he said finally, the
depths of his voice cold
and still.
"The last thing needed to push me from planning and thinking into action. But
however personal my
reasons may be, they've neither invalidated anything I've said nor pushed me
into a wild, reckless
adventure. I want the bastards who killed my son for nothing to pay, and for
that to happen, I have to
succeed. Which means you all have to succeed with me. Are you interested?"
He raised his eyes to his listeners, watching their expressions as his
challenge hit them. He saw their
fear and anxiety—and their temptation—and knew he had them.
"Very well," he said softly, pushing the pain out of his voice. "Between us,
and coupled with my
other contacts, including those I've mentioned in the military, we have the
ability to bring it off. Not
immediately. We need the proper conditions, the right sequence of events, but
they're coming. I can feel
them coming. And when they do, we have an ace in the hole."
"An ace in the hole?" someone said, and Pierre snorted a laugh.
"Several of them, actually, but I had one particular ace in mind." He nodded
to Canning, still standing
at his shoulder. "Those of you who didn't know Mr. Canning before tonight have
all met him. now. What
you don't know about him—and what he's agreed to let me tell you—is that he
works for Constance
Palmer-Levy as a spy for Internal Security."
A dozen people exploded to their feet in a sudden, babbling tumult of shock.
Two people actually
bolted for the exit, but Pierre's voice cracked across the confusion like a
whip.
"Sit back down!" His sheer, cold authority stunned them back into stillness,
                                     159

and he glowered at them
in the sudden hush.
"Do you think Wallace would've agreed to let me tell you if he meant to betray
us? For that matter,
do you think InSec wouldn't have been waiting when we arrived? For God's sake,
he made all the
arrangements for tonight!"
He held them with his glare, radiating contempt for their doubts, without
mentioning that letting
Canning make the arrangements had been his own final test of the ex-
Legislaturalist's reliability.
The people who'd risen resumed their seats, and the two who'd bolted returned
sheepishly to the
others. Pierre waited until they were all seated once more, then nodded.
"Better. Of course he was inserted into the CRP as a mole. Can you blame him
for agreeing to be?
They took everything away from him, disgraced and humiliated him, then offered
him a way to get it ail
back, and why should he have felt any loyalty to you? You were the enemy,
weren't you? Traitors and
troublemakers out to destroy the world he was raised in!
"But they hadn't counted on what might happen once he was in place." He looked
up at Canning,
seeing his tension and the hard set of his jaw. "He knew exactly how he was
being manipulated, and they
hadn't left him any reason to be loyal to them, either.
"So he listened and reported like a good little spy, but even while he did, he
thought about what he
was reporting—and who he was reporting it to. Not one of the people whose help
he'd had a right to
expect had lifted a finger for him. How do you think that made him feel about
the system?"
Everyone was staring at Canning, and the ex-diplomat raised his chin,
returning their gaze with fiery
eyes.
"And then, one night, he saw me meet with two CRU cell leaders, and he didn't
report it. I know he
didn't report it, because I saw what he did report." He smiled thinly as one
or two people looked at him in surprise. "Oh, yes. Wallace isn't my only InSec
contact. So when he decided to tell me who—and what—
he was, I knew he was telling the truth, at least about his relationship with
InSec.
'That was over three T- years ago, ladies and gentlemen. In all that time,
I've never caught him in a lie
or a deception. Of course he knew he was being tested. No doubt if he had been
a plant, he would have
gone to great lengths to maintain his cover from me, but he couldn't have done
it this long. Not with the
prizes I've offered over the years to tempt him into betraying me. Like all of
us, he has his own motives,
but I have complete faith in him, and he's a large part of what can make this
work."
"How?" someone asked, and Pierre shrugged.
"He's gotten deeper and closer to me and my contacts with the CRP than any
other spy Palmer-Levy
ever planted on me. As of last month, he's actually become one of my staff
aides. They know he has the
                                     160

inside track on my actions, and we've been very careful to see to it that
anything he reports to them is
accurate. Of course," the thin smile flashed again, "they don't realize quite
how much he doesn't report."
Someone laughed in sudden understanding, and Pierre nodded.
"Precisely. They have so much faith in him that they've made him their primary
information source
on me, and he's telling them precisely what I want them to hear. Not everyone
who works for InSec is an
idiot, and maintaining our own security will be as important as ever, but we
have an invaluable resource
here—and one with intimate personal knowledge of our 'governments' internal
workings, as well. Now do
you see why I called him an ace in the hole?"
A soft murmur of assent answered him. He let it fade, then leaned over the
table once more, and his
voice was soft.
"All right, it's time to commit ourselves. War with Manticore is coming.
There's no way we could
stop it even if we wanted to, but if the Navy continues to screw up, it's
going to turn into a disaster. And
disasters, ladies and gentlemen, are a revolution's opportunities. But if
we're going to take advantage of
them, we have to mobilize and plan now. Among you, and with the addition of my
military and security
contacts, you represent all the elements we need for success—if you all commit
yourself to work with me
from this moment on and mean it."
He reached into his jacket and extracted a sheet of paper. He unfolded it and
looked at them with
cold, challenging eyes.
"This is an oath to do just that, ladies and gentlemen." He held it up,
letting them see the few neatly
printed lines—and the two signatures beneath them—and bared his teeth.
"Wallace and I have already signed it," he said quietly. "If InSec gets hold
of this, he and I are dead
men, but it proves our commitment. Now it's time for you to prove yours." He
laid the sheet of paper on
the table and uncapped a stylus. "Once you sign this, there's no backing out.
I have every reason to keep it
safely concealed, and I assure you I will. But if one of us betrays the
others—if one of us even screws up
and accidentally leads InSec to us—it will be found. But by the same token,
each of us will know we all
know that. That we are committed to see it through to the end." '
He laid the stylus on the document and leaned back, watching them silently.
Sweat beaded more than
one pale face, and the silence stretched out intolerably, but then a chair
scraped on the bare floor.
Cordelia Ransom was the first to walk to the table and sign.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Honor lay face-down and sighed into the pillow as strong, skillful fingers
kneaded her shoulders and
worked down the hollow of her spine. She'd enjoyed her share of rundowns and
massages over the years,
but Paul was one of the most skilled masseurs she'd ever encountered . . .
even if his touch was a bit
                                     161

unprofessional. She giggled at the thought, then arched with a soft, throaty
purr as those delicious fingers dipped
under to caress her breasts. Definitely unprofessional, she thought
blissfully, luxuriating in his touch, and
breath puffed on the back of her neck just before his lips touched.
"Feeling a bit better, are we?" he murmured, digging his thumbs gently into
the small of her back
while his fingers spanned and massaged her waist.
"Ummmmmm, lots better," she sighed, then chuckled deep in her throat. "You're
really an awful
person, Paul Tankersley."
"Awful?" he repeated in injured tones, and she nodded.
"Awful. Just look at the way you distract me from my duty."
"Ah, yes," he whispered, sliding his hands down over her hips and bending to
kiss her spine. "Sweet
distraction, that knits up the raveled sleeve of care."
"I don't think you've got that quite right," she said, turning on her back and
reaching up her arms to
him. "On the other hand, who cares?"
"Well, now." Paul poured fresh wine and handed her a glass, then lounged back
beside her. She
angled forward for him to slide his arm around her, then leaned back into his
embrace. He might be
shorter than she, but a lot of her height was in her legs, and at moments like
this he was exactly the right
height.
"Well, what?" she asked.
"Well, do you want to talk about a certain pain in the ass captain?"
She turned her head, eyes darkening, but his understanding smile softened the
sudden, stab of
resurgent tension. She started to open her mouth, then paused as Nimitz hopped
up onto the foot of the
bed.
"I see someone else wants to put in his two cents worth," Paul said dryly. He
hadn't ejected Nimitz
from his bedroom since that first night, and Honor often wondered if he'd done
it the first time more for
himself or for her. Whatever his reason had been, he'd come further faster in
accepting the 'cat for who he
was than most people ever managed. Now he simply nodded to the newcomer, then
grinned as Nimitz
stalked delicately up Honor's sheet-covered body to sprawl across both their
laps.
"Hedonist!" he accused, and chuckled as the 'cat bleeked in contented
agreement. Then his smile
faded and he looked back at Honor. "As I was saying before a certain party
intervened, are you ready to
talk about it?"
"What's to talk about?" Honor lowered her gaze to her fingers and plucked at
the edge of the sheet.
"He's here. I'm here. Somehow I have to put up with him." She shrugged. "If I
have to, I will."
"So cut and dried!" he chided, and she looked back up with a wan smile.
"Maybe not entirely. But—" She shrugged again, and Paul frowned.
"Honor, does he still scare you?" he asked very gently.
She flushed, but she didn't look away, and Nimitz's purr of support vibrated
into her lap.
                                     162

"I don't—" she began, then sighed. "Yes, I suppose he does," she admitted,
still plucking at the sheet.
"Not of what he might try to do this time, so much as what he reminds me of, I
guess. I had nightmares
about him for years, and every time I think of him, it all comes back.
Besides," she lowered her eyes at
last, "it frightens me to know I hate anyone as much as I hate him."
"That's more or less what I thought." His arm tightened, easing her head down
on his shoulder, and
his voice rumbled in her ear. "On the other hand, you might want to think
about how he feels right now."
"I really don't care how he feels!" she said tartly, and he laughed.
"Oh, but you should! Honor, Pavel Young has to be one of the most miserable
officers in the Fleet
right now—and it's your fault." She sat up straight, sheet slipping down to
cover Nimitz, and turned to stare at him in surprise.
"Believe it, Honor. Look at it. His career's been frozen since Basilisk, while
your careers taken off
like a missile. He's been off escorting merchantmen in the back of beyond or
updating star charts, but
you've been at the center of the action. Worse, everyone in the Fleet knows
what he tried to do to you—
and the way you shoved his face down in it. And where does he find himself
now? Attached to a task
group that you're flag captain of!" He shook his head wryly. "I can't think of
anything he'd find more
humiliating."
"Well, yes, but—"
"But me no buts." He covered her mouth with his fingers. "Besides, there's
another side to it. Don't
you realize what a coward he is?"
"Coward?"
"Absolutely. Honor, I was his exec for damned near two T-years. You get to
know someone in that
long, and Pavel Young is a toad. He enjoys all the perquisites of his rank,
but he'd never in a million years
risk his career like you risked yours in Basilisk. And if he'd been in
Yeltsin, he would've set a new hyper
speed record pulling out. In short, my sweet, he's got the moral—and physical—
courage of a beetle, and
you beat the hell out of him when you were only nineteen T- years old. Believe
me, his worst nightmare is
finding himself in arm's reach of you for a repeat performance!"
Honor realized her mouth was hanging open and snapped it shut, and he laughed
again at her
expression. She stared into his eyes, trying to see how much of what he'd just
said he really meant and
how much was intended only to comfort her, and her expression slowly eased as
she realized it was all
true. He might be wrong, but he wasn't just saying it to make her feel better.
She snuggled back down against him, grappling with a vision of Pavel Young
she'd never before
entertained, and Paul left her to it. She studied the hideous memory of that
night in the showers from a
different perspective, and this time she saw the fear—the terror—under his
hatred as she took him down.
And she remembered other things, as well. Remembered Pavel Young avoiding
                                     163

contact sports, the way he
backed down on the rare occasions when one of his social equals challenged his
petty cruelties. . . .
It had never occurred to her that Young might be frightened of her. She'd
certainly never been
frightened of him after that night. Not in a physical sense, anyway. But if he
was . . .
"You may be right," she said wonderingly.
"Of course I am. I'm always right," he said with studied pomposity, then oofed
as a finger rammed
into his ribs. "Maybe I should be scared of you, you violent woman!" he
gasped, rubbing the injured spot,
and grinned as she laughed. 'That's better. Just remember that every time he
has to look at you or take an
order from the flagship he's going to be remembering what you did to him—and
what happened when he
tried to backstab you. Someone once said the best revenge is living well, so
enjoy it."
"I'll try," she said seriously, then sighed. "But the truth is that knowing
he's unhappy doesn't really
make me much happier to have him around."
"There'd be something wrong with you if it did," he said, equally seriously,
then bounced his hips to
tumble Nimitz off the edge of the bed. The 'cat twisted agilely in midair to
hit the floor on all six feet with
a solid thud, and Paul's eyes laughed at Honor. In the meantime, if you're
looking for something that that
make you feel happier, I'm game if you are," he purred.
"I believe we're all here now, so let' s get started." Mark Sarnow nodded from
the com screen at his
assembled captains and flag officers. The terminal in Paul's quarters was too
small to display all the others
at anything like a normal image size, but it was big enough for Honor to tell
who was who. The admiral's
screen, of course, was big enough to show him every detail, and she was happy
her uniform hadn't gotten
rumpled last night. "The first item, of course, is a critique of yesterday's
exercise," Sarnow went on. "An exercise which,
I might note in passing, seemed to go better for some of us than for others."
His cheerful tone took the
potential sting from his words, and Commodore Banton grinned wryly.
"What you mean, Sir, is that some of us got taken to the cleaners," she
replied. Her eyes moved to
Honor's image, and she shook her head. That was some major league sneakiness,
Dame Honor. You
suckered me completely."
"I was lucky, Ma'am."
"Lucky!" Banton snorted, then shrugged "Well, I suppose you were, but some
people seem to make
their own luck. Mind you, I intend to pin your ears back next time, but don't
sell yourself short."
Two or three other voices murmured agreement, and Honor's face heated.
"I agree with Commodore Banton's assessment," Sarnow said firmly, "which
brings me to one of the
points I wanted to raise. We're already planning to use the parasite pods to
thicken up our missile salvos.
What if we used the EW drones in the same way Dame Honor did, as well?"
                                     164

"You mean to sneak into missile range on a powered-down intercept while they
look the other way?"
Commodore Prentis said with a thoughtful frown. "Be a bit risky against a real
wall of battle, wouldn't it,
Sir? If they picked up our fire control before we let fly—"
"Hold it, Jack," Banton cut in. The Admiral may be onto something. Even if
they do spot us, at
optimum missile range we'd have two or three minutes to bring our impellers
up. If we hold them at
maximum readiness, we can get them up in ninety seconds. Sidewall, too—and
we'd still get our launch
off."
"True," Captain Rubenstein said, "but there's still—"
The debate was off and running, and Honor sat back, content to listen to the
others. Personally, she
liked the idea, at least as one possible option. Too much would depend on the
actual tactical situation to
lay detailed plans in advance, but she certainty approved of the way Sarnow
involved his officers in his
skull sessions. If his captains knew how he thought ahead of time, they were
far more likely to react
quickly rather than wait for detailed orders.
The discussion moved on to finer details of the maneuvers and ended with an
update from Ernestine
Corell and Commander Turner on the fire control modifications for the parasite
pods. Things were
looking good all around, Honor decided. There was still an undertone of
anxiety, for the task group was
only too well aware of how naked it was out here by itself, but it was taking
its cue from Sarnow's
battlecruiser skippers and digging in to do something about its situation.
"... that just about ties everything up, then," Sarnow said finally. "Captain
Corell will have those new
targeting patterns to all of you by lunch, and I'd like to go over the final
version of the parasite firing
codes with you and Commander Turner, Isabella. Can you screen me at, oh,
thirteen hundred?"
"Of course, Sir."
"In that case, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Go have your breakfasts."
Faces smiled at him as
people prepared to cut the circuit, but Honor paused, Her finger already on
the key, as he looked straight
at her
"Hold on just a moment, Dame Honor," he requested, and she sat back, eyes
curious, as the other
faces disappeared. Then they were alone, and she raised an eyebrow.
"Was there something special, Sir?"
"Yes, Honor, there was." He leaned back and brushed a finger over his
mustache, then sighed. "I
thought you should know that there's been a change in Commodore Van Slyke's
chain of command."
'Indeed, Sir?" She managed to hang onto her natural tone.
"Yes. Captain Young is senior to any of his other COs. That makes him Van
Slyke's second in
command." "I see," Honor said quietly.
"I thought you would." Sarnow frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "I'm not
entirely happy about
                                     165

it, but there's no way to change it. I'm afraid, however, that it may involve
us in helping Van Slyke bring
him up to speed, and I wanted you to hear about it from me."
"Thank you, Sir. I appreciate that."
"Yes." Sarnow shrugged again, then straightened. "Well, so much for the unp
leasant news. Will you
join me for lunch? Bring Commander Henke with you, and we'll make it a working
meal."
"Of course, Sir. We'll be there."
"Good." Sarnow nodded to her and killed the circuit, and she leaned back and
gathered Nimitz in her
arms.
"Time for breakfast before you go?" Paul called from the tiny attached dining
cabin, and she shook
herself.
"Always," she told him, "and I hope you've got some celery for a certain furry
bandit."
Pavel Young stepped through the tube from his cutter into HMS Crusader's boat
bay. Crusader was
older and smaller than his own Warlock, but even Young could find nothing to
fault in the sharpness of
the side party or the spotlessness of the boat bay gallery, and he nodded
approvingly, for a neat ship was
an efficient ship.
"Welcome aboard, Lord Young. I'm Commander Lovat, the Exec. The Commodore
asked me to
escort you to his briefing room."
"Of course, Commander." Young took in the slender commander's intricately-
braided chestnut hair
and attractively curved figure and ga ve her a gracious smile. He wouldn't
mind having her for his exec,
and he let his eyes linger unobtrusively on her hips and nicely filled
trousers as he followed her to the lift.
Lovat led him to the flag briefing room without conversation and pressed the
hatch admittance key
for him.
"Here we are, Sir." Her voice was pleasant but cool, and Young gave her an
even more gracious
smile as the hatch opened.
"Thank you, Commander. I hope we meet again." He brushed against her as he
stepped past her into
the briefing room, then paused as he saw not the commodore but another
commander with the aiguilette
of a staff officer.
"Good morning, Lord Young," the commander said. "I'm Arthur Houseman,
Commodore Van
Slyke's chief of staff. I'm afraid the Commodore ran into a last-minute delay
after you were already in
transit. He asked me to assure you that he'll be here as soon as he can and to
make you welcome until he
arrives."
"I see." Young advanced across the compartment and took one of the chairs at
the table with a
suppressed frown. It always irritated him to be fobbed off with some junior
officer, but he supposed it
wasn't really Houseman's fault. "Please, sit down, Commander," he said,
indicating another chair, and
                                     166

Houseman sat.
Young leaned back, considering the staff officer from under lowered lids.
Houseman. One of the
Waldsheim Housemans from New Bavaria, no doubt—he had the look. Young curled a
mental lip in
contempt. The Housemans were notorious for their extreme Liberal politics,
always whining about "the
little man" and "social responsibility." Which, Young had noticed, didn't
prevent any of them from
enjoying every advantage their own lofty birth and wealth provided. It only
gave them a smug sense of
complacency when they looked down their noses at other people who did the same
things without
mouthing pious platitudes to proclaim their own worthiness. "I imagine you
didn't get much notice when they sent you out here, Sir," Houseman said in the
tone
of one making polite conversation.
"No, I didn't." Young shrugged. "But when the Admiralty cuts you urgent
priority orders, you don't
complain. You just execute them."
"So I've noticed. But at least your arrival spared you what the rest of us had
to endure yesterday, Sir."
"Yesterday?" Young cocked his head, and Houseman smiled humorlessry.
"We were part of Commodore Banton's screening element," he explained. Young
still looked blank,
and the commanders smile turned even more sour. "Crusader got wiped out along
with her battlecruisers
when our gallant flag captain pulled her little surprise, Sir."
Young sat very still, mental antennae quivering at Houseman's acid tone. He
wondered if the
commander realized how much he'd just given away, and another corner of his
mind wondered why
Houseman hated Harrington.
And then it clicked. Houseman.
"No," he leaned casually back, crossing his legs, "I missed the exercise. Of
course, I've known
Captain Harrington a long time. Since the Academy, in fact."
"You have, Sir?" The lack of surprise in Houseman's voice suggested his
earlier revelation had been
intentional, and his next words confirmed it. I've only known her for a few
months, myself. Of course,
I've heard about her. One does hear things, you know, Sir."
"I do indeed." Young showed his teeth in an almost-smile. 1 understand she's
made quite a name for
herself in the last few years." He shrugged. "She always was . . . determined,
one might say. I always
thought she was a bit hot-tempered, myself, but I don't suppose that's a
drawback in combat. Not as long
as you don't lose your head, of course."
"I agree, Sir. On the other hand, I'm not certain 'hot-tempered' is exactly
the way I'd describe the flag
captain. It's too . . . too mild, if you see what I mean."
"Perhaps it is." Young bared his teeth again. It wasn't quite the thing to
encourage an officer to
criticize one of his superiors, but Houseman wasn't just any officer. He was
chief of staff to a commodore
Harrington would have to deal with on a regular basis, and Van Slyke would
                                     167

have to be superhuman not
to be influenced by his chief of staff's opinion of the flag captain.
"Actually, you may have a point, Commander," he said, settling in for a long—
and profitable—
conversation. "I remember back at Saganami Island she had a tendency to push
people. Always within the
letter of the regs, of course, but I always thought ..."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A quiet signal chirped through the eye-soothing dimness of the Central War
Room, known to its
inhabitants as "the Pit." Admiral Caparelli raised his head to check the
master display at the far end of the
Pit for the new incident's location, then punched up the details on his
terminal, and his eyes flicked over
the data.
"Bad?" Admiral Givens asked quietly across the smaller quadrant plot holo, and
he shrugged.
"More irritating than serious—I think. Another in-and-out at Talbot. Of
course—" he smiled without
mirth "—the report is eleven days old. Tidings may have gotten a bit more than
'irritating' since."
"Urn." Givens pursed her lips and brooded down at the holo between them. Her
eyes were focused on
something only she could see, and Caparelli waited patiently for her to hunt
down whatever it was.
Several seconds passed, then a full minute, while he listened to the Pit's
quiet background sounds before
she shook herself and looked back across the tiny stars at him.
"A thought, I take it?" "More of a general observation, really."
"Well, don't sit on it till it hatches, Pat."
"Yes, Sir." She gave him a fleeting smile, then turned serious. The thing that
just occurred to me—
something that's been occurring to me for several days now—is that the Peeps
are being too cute for their
own good."
"Ah?" Caparelli tilted his chair back and raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"I think they're trying for too fine a degree of coordination." Givens waved
at the display. 'They've
been turning the pressure up for weeks now. At first it was just 'mystery'
raiders we couldn't positively ID,
and when we knew they were Peeps, there was no combat. Then they started
actively harassing our
patrols. Now they're pouncing on convoys and system pickets with hunt-and-kill
tactics. But every time
they do something to up the ante, it starts at one point, then ripples out
north and south."
"Indicating what?"
"Indicating that each increase in pressure is the result of a specific
authorization from some central
command node. Look at the timing, Sir." She reached into the holo, running her
fingers up and down the
frontier. "If you assume each fresh escalation was authorized from someplace
fifty or sixty light- years
inside the Peep border—like Barnett, for example—the delay in the incidents to
either side of the first
incident in the new pattern is just about right for the difference in the
flight times to those points from
                                     168

Barnett."
She withdrew her hand and frowned at the display, worrying her lower lip
between her teeth.
"So they're coordinating from a central node," Caparelli agreed. "But we
figured that all along, Pat. In
fact, we're doing the same thing. So how does that constitute 'too cute for
their own good'?"
"We're not doing the same thing, Sir. We're channeling information and
authorizing general
deployments, but we're trusting local COs to use their own judgments because
of the com lag. It looks to
me like the Peeps are authorizing each successive wave of activity from
Barnett, which implies a two-way
command and control link, not just information flow. They're waiting until
they hear back, then sending
out orders to begin the next stage, then waiting for fresh reports before
authorizing the next step. They're
playing brontosaurus—that's why this whole thing seems to be building up so
ponderously."
"Urn," It was Caparelli's turn to stare into the holo. Givens' theory was
certainly one explanation for
the Peeps' increasing heavy-handedness. What had started out as a series of
lightning pinpricks was
becoming a chain of steadily heavier blows spaced out over longer periods of
time. It felt undeniably
clumsier, but then again, any strategist would try to build in cutouts: points
at which he could abort the
operation if he had to. It was quite possible Pat was right, that the
coordination for this phase was
emanating from Barnett, but it didn't follow that the same pattern would apply
after they actually pulled
the trigger. Once you were committed, there was no more point in cutouts; it
was all or nothing, and if
you had a clue as to what you were doing, you went for the most flexib le
possible command
arrangements.
If you had a clue.
He turned his chair slowly from side to side, then raised his eyes once more
to Givens.
"You're suggesting they may continue to operate this way once the shooting
starts in earnest?"
"I don't know. Its possible, given their past operational patterns. Remember,
Sir, we're the first multisystem
opponent they've gone after. All their previous ops plans have involved
closely controlled
converging thrusts on relatively small targets, spatially speaking, and even
the best staffs get into habits of
thought. They may have overlooked some of the implications of the difference
in scale.
"But my real point is that whatever they plan to do after the shooting starts,
they're running under
tight central control in the opening game. They have to have a detailed ops
plan for when they finally
move in strength, and after studying their previous campaigns, I'm willing to
bet this one involves some careful—and cumbersome—timing constraints. Even if
I'm wrong about that, at the moment they're going
to react and respond to anything we do on the basis and within the limitations
                                     169

of that two-way traffic flow
to Barnett."
"Assuming they haven't sent out orders for the next phase even as we sit
here."
"Assuming that," Givens agreed. "But if they haven't reached that point yet,
it could be useful to
consider inserting information we'd like them to have into that command loop."
"Such as?"
"I don't know," Givens admitted. "I just hate the thought of losing any
opportunity to throw them off
stride. The worst thing we could do is let them steamroller us on their
timetable. I'd like to shake them up,
draw them off balance."
Caparelli nodded and joined her in pondering the holo afresh.
His eyes flitted automatically back to the three most worrisome points:
Yeltsin, Hancock Station, and
the Talbot-Poicters area. Although the pace and violence of Haven's war of
nerves had increased steadily,
Manticore had held its own in actual encounters to date. The loss of Star
Knight with all hands was more
than offset, albeit fortuitously, by Bellerophon's destruction of two entire
Peep battlecruiser divisions in
Talbot. By the same token, the tragic loss of Captain Zilwicki's entire
squadron had not only earned her
the Parliamentary Medal of Valor, the Kingdom's highest award for heroism, but
saved every ship in the
convoy under her protection . . . and cost the People's Navy almost twice her
own ships' combined
tonnage. Other Peep attacks had been more successful, of course, for they had
the advantage of the
initiative. And, he conceded unhappily, they also seemed to have fiendishly
good intelligence on
supposedly secure star systems. But by and large, their successes were
outweighed, in the cold, brutal
logic of war, by their less numerous but more spectacular failures.
Unfortunately, that didn't mean their operation as a whole was failing.
Although his redeployments to
face the threat had been much less drastic than he'd originally envisioned,
there was still a general shift
and flow of task forces and squadrons all throughout the volume of the
Alliance. That left him feeling off
balance and defensive- minded, driven into passive reaction, not initiation,
and some of his local
commanders seemed similarly afflicted. They were making decisions which looked
more than a little
questionable from his own vantage point, at any rate.
He tapped his fingertips on his console, and his frown deepened. Talbot-
Poicters worried him
because there'd been so much Peep activity in the area. Both star systems were
exposed, and the incidents
within them could simply be classic probing missions. Reconnaissances in force
which happened to run
into local pickets—or over them, he thought grimly—in the course of pre-attack
scouting missions.
Except that their timing argued that the Peeps already had detailed
intelligence.
Yeltsin and Hancock, on the other hand, worried him because there'd been no
                                     170

action in their areas,
other than the original convoy raid in Yeltsin and the Caliph's mystery losses
in Zanzibar. Perhaps it was
because he viewed them as his most vulnerable points, but the lack of activity
around either star made him
wonder why the Peeps didn't want him worrying about them.
Added to which, Admiral Parks' decision to uncover Hancock was enough to give
any First Space
Lord ulcers. He understood Parks' reasoning, but he wasn't at all certain he
shared it. In fact, he'd gone so
far as to draft a dispatch ordering Parks back to Hancock only to file it
unsent and settle for ordering
Admiral Danislav to expedite his own movements. The RMN tradition was that the
Admiralty didn't
override the man on the spot unless it had very specific intelligence that he
didn't have . . . and the one
thing Sir Thomas Caparelli currently had in abundance was a lack of specific
intelligence.
They're going to do it, Pat," he murmured, eyes still fixed on the-display.
"They're really going to do
it."
It was the first time either of them had said so in so many words, but Givens
only nodded.
"Yes, Sir, they are," she agreed, her voice equally soft. There has got to be
some way to pull them off balance," the First Space Lord muttered, drumming
his
fingers harder on the console. "Some way to turn this thing around so it bites
them on the ass."
Givens gnawed her lower lip a moment longer, then drew a deep breath and
reached back into the
display. She cupped her palm around Yeltsin's Star, and Caparelli's eyes
narrowed as he raised his head to
look at her.
"I believe there may be, Sir," she said quietly.
"Let me be certain I understand this correctly, Sir Thomas." The Duke of
Cromarty's voice was very
quiet. "You're suggesting that we deliberately entice the PRH into attacking
Yeltsin's Star?"
"Yes, Sir." Caparelli met the Prime Minister's gaze levelly.
"And your reasoning for this is?" Cromarty prompted.
"In essence, Sir, we hope to set a trap for the Peeps." Caparelli cleared his
throat and activated a
small-scale holo display of the Yeltsin System in the high-security conference
room just off Cromarty's
office.
"At present, Yeltsin's Star represents our most powerful concentration short
of Home Fleet itself,
Your Grace," he explained. "We've taken pains to keep our exact strength in
the system a secret. Given
the intelligence the Peeps seem to have on our routine movements elsewhere,
it's quite possible they know
much more about Yeltsin than we'd like, but Admiral Givens' plan offers us at
least the possibility of
turning that around on them."
He manipulated controls, and the tiny star system above the table was suddenly
lit by tinier flecks of
bright green light.
                                     171

The Graysons have spent the last year fortifying their system with our
assistance, Your Grace. We're
still a long, long way from completing our plans, but as you can see, we've
made considerable progress
and Grayson itself is well covered by orbital forts. They're small, by our
standards, because they're left
over from the Grayson-Masada cold war, but there are a lot of them, and
they've been heavily refitted and
rearmed. In addition, the Grayson Navy itself must now be considered
equivalent to at least a heavy task
group of our own Navy—a truly enormous accomplishment for a seventeen-month
effort from their
beginning tech base—and Admiral D'Orville's Second Fleet is an extremely
powerful formation. All in
all, Sir, this system has turned into an excellent place for an attacker to
break his teeth."
"But it also happens to belong to a sovereign ally of the Star Kingdom,
Admiral." Concern and more
than a hint of disapproval tinged Cromarty's voice. "You're suggesting that we
deliberately draw the
enemy into attacking one of our friends—without consulting them."
"I fully realize the implications of my suggestion, Your Grace, but I'm afraid
we've reached a point at
which we don't have time for consultations. If Admiral Givens is correct—and I
think she is—the Peeps
are counting down against a timetable they may have spent years perfecting. We
have our own defensive
plans, but allowing them to begin a war on their terms, at a time of their
choice, against a target of their
choice, is extremely dangerous. If at all possible, we need to draw them into
a false start or, at least, into
attacking a target of our choice. But to do that, Your Grace, we have to get
the information we want them
to have into their ha nds in time for them to rethink their operations and
send out new orders from their
central command node before their scheduled 'X' hour.
"The key to the plan is one of Admiral Givens' communication officers at
BuPlan. The Havenite
ambassador's gone to great pains to suborn him. He's been working for them for
almost two T-years now,
but what they don't know—we hope—is that he's actually working for Admiral
Givens. To date, his
reports have been one hundred percent accurate, but he's reported only
information which couldn't hurt us
or which we were reasonably certain the Peeps could obtain by other means.
"What we propose is to use him to inform the Peeps, through Ambassador Gowan,
that the activity
around Talbot Station has concerned us so deeply that we're transferring
several of D'Orville's battle squadrons there as reinforcements. We'll be
sending replacements to Yeltsin, of course, but not for two or
three weeks. At the same time as he passes the information off to Gowan, we'll
send the same instructions
to Admiral D'Orville through regular channels. As far as anyone will know, it
will be an absolutely
genuine order . . . but the same courier boat will carry separate orders under
a diplomatic cover instructing
Admiral D'Orville to disregard the redeployment instructions. If the Peeps
                                     172

have sources in our
communications sections that we don't know about, they may pick up the
'official' orders as confirmation
of our double agents report.
"If our present analysis of Peep operations is accurate, they're probably
coordinating from their base
in the Barnett System. If we can get this false information to Barnett quickly
enough, whoever's in
command there will have a window to hit Yeltsin before our 'replacements'
arrive. Only when he does,
he'll find out none of D'Orville's ships ever left."
"I understand that, Sir Thomas, but what if he hits Yeltsin hard enough to
take the system despite
Admiral D'Orville's strength? Bad enough that we're asking our allies to take
the brunt of the first blow,
but what u that blow is heavy enough to conquer them despite all we can do?"
Caparelli leaned back in his chair, his face like stone. He was silent for
several seconds. When he
spoke again, his voice was heavy.
"Your Grace, they're going to attack us. Neither I nor any member of my staff
doubts that, and when
they do, Yeltsin will be a primary target. It has to be, given the shallowness
of our frontier at that point. I
realize the risk I'm suggesting we expose the Graysons to, but it's my opinion
that drawing the Peeps into
attacking us there on our terms is our most effective option. In a best-case
scenario, they'll underestimate
D'Orville's strength and attack in insufficient force, in which case officers
like D'Orville and High
Admiral Matthews will hand them their heads. And even if we lose D'Orville's
entire fleet and Yeltsin,
we'll hurt them very, very badly, and a prompt counterattack from Manticore
should retake the system
with an overall loss rate which will be heavily in our favor."
"I see." Cromarty rubbed his chin, eyes dark, then drew a deep breath. "How
quickly do you need a
decision, Sir Thomas?"
"Frankly, Your Grace, the sooner the better. We don't know that we still have
enough time to bring
this off— assuming it works at all—before they launch an attack elsewhere. If
we do have time, we don't
have a lot of it."
"I see," the duke repeated. "Very well, Admiral. I'll give you my decision,
one way or the other, as
quickly as possible."
"Thank you, Your Grace."
Caparelli withdrew from the conference room, and the Prime Minister leaned his
elbows on the table
and propped his chin in his cupped palms while he stared at the holo for long,
silent moments. His was a
politician's well- trained face, yet his expression mirrored his internal
struggle, and, at last, he reached for
his com terminal and pressed a key.
"Yes, Your Grace?" a voice asked.
"I need a high-security scrambled link to Admiral White Havens flagship,
Janet," he said quietly.
Hamish Alexander paced back and forth across his briefing room aboard HMS
                                     173

Sphinx, hands folded
behind him, and scowled as he listened to the Prime Minister's voice from the
com.
"... and that's about the size of it, Hamish. What do you think?"
"I think, Allen, that you shouldn't be asking me that," the Earl of White
Haven said testily. "You're
undercutting Caparelli's authority by asking me to second-guess him.
Especially by ignoring official
channels to go behind his back this way!"
"I realize that. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on one's viewpoint—
you're my best source
for a second opinion. I've known you and Willie for years. If I can't ask you,
who can I ask?" "You're putting me in a hell of a spot," White Haven muttered.
"And if Caparelli finds out about it, I
wouldn't blame him for resigning."
"A risk I'm willing to take." Cromarty's voice hardened. "What he's proposing
comes very close to
betraying an ally, Hamish, and you happen to be not only a respected
strategist but the officer who
conquered Endicott and finalized our alliance with Grayson. You know the
people involved, not just the
military situation. So give me an opinion, one way or the other."
White Haven clenched his teeth, then sighed and stopped pacing. He recognized
an order, however
distasteful, when he heard one.
"All right, Allen." He sank into a chair in front of the terminal and thought
deeply for a few moments,
then shrugged. "I think he's right," he said, and smiled crookedly at
Cromarty's obvious surprise.
"Would you care to elaborate?' the duke asked after a moment.
"Or, put another way, why am I backing a man I don't like?" White Haven's
smile grew broader, and
he waved a hand. "If it works, it does exactly what Caparelli says it will—
let's us call the opening shot
and, probably, hit them with a much heavier force than they're expecting. He's
also right that they're going
to hit Yeltsin anyway, and this gives us our best chance to hold the system.
At the very least, we should
tear a real hole in their attack force, and that makes it exactly the sort of
battle we need to fight. One that
gives us an excellent chance at an outright victory—which would be of
incalculable psychological
importance at the outset of a war—and inflicts severe losses on them even if
we lose. As for the Graysons,
they're tough people. Alien. They knew they were making themselves targets the
day they signed up with
us, and they still thought it was worth it."
"But doing it without even warning them. ..." Cromarty's voice trailed off,
but his acute unhappiness
was evident.
"I know," White Haven murmured, then paused.,
"You know," he went on after a moment, "I've just had a couple of thoughts.
First, you might want to
suggest to Caparelli that there's a way to make his strategy even more
effective." Cromarty looked a
question, and the admiral shrugged. "I kno w I've opposed dispersing Home
Fleet, but suppose that at the
                                     174

same time as we leak the information that we're stripping Yeltsin's Star we
actually pull three or four
squadrons out of Home Fleet and send them in to reinforce D'Orville. If the
Peeps think we pulled, say,
four squadrons out of Yeltsin when in fact we've just put four additional
squadrons into the system, then-
force estimate is going to be very badly off."
"And if they're watching Home Fleet? I'm no admiral, but even I know it's not
too hard for even
merchantmen to track impeller drives for a force of that magnitude. And it's
virtually certain that at least
some of our 'neutral' merchant traffic is actively spying for Haven."
"True, but we can set it up as a training exercise for, say, two squadrons,
and cut the other two
official orders for Grendelsbane, then do the same sort of trick Caparelli's
already talking about for
D'Orville. Not even the admirals involved would know where they were actually
headed until they opened
their sealed orders after going into hyper, and any taps the Peeps have on us
would show them departing
on the proper headings for their official orders. You might even ask Pat
Givens whether she thinks a
reference to their movements could be added to her leak without making the
bait too obvious."
"Um." Cromarty frowned at the other end of the com link, his eyes thoughtful.
Clearly the idea of
reinforcing Yeltsin appealed to him, and he pondered it for several seconds,
then nodded. "All right, I
think I should suggest it. But you said you had "a couple of thoughts.' What's
the other one?"
"Unless I'm mistaken, Michael Mayhew's right here on Manticore. I know he's
enrolled for graduate
work at King's College—has he left because of the crisis?"
The Prime Minister stiffened, then shook his head, and White Haven shrugged.
"In that case, you've
got access to Protector Benjamin's heir, effectively the crown prince of
Grayson. It wouldn't be the same
as talking to their head of state, but it would certainly be the next best
thing." "... so I'm sure you can see why I asked you to visit me, Lord
Mayhew," the Duke of Cromarty said
quietly. "My senior officers all agree that this represents our best strategic
option, but it necessarily means
exposing your homeworld to enormous risk. And because of the time pressures
involved, there is quite
literally no time to discuss it with Protector Benjamin."
Michael Mayhew nodded. He looked (and was) absurdly young for a graduate
student, even on
Manticore. In fact, he was young enough his body could still accept the
original, first-generation prolong
treatments, something which had been unavailable to Grayson's isolated people
before they joined the
Alliance. Now Cromarty watched that youthful face frown in thought and
wondered if Grayson was ready
for the longevity its children were about to inherit.
"I see the problem, Sir," Mayhew said at last. He exchanged glances with the
Grayson ambassador
and shrugged. "I don't see that we have a lot of choice, Andrew."
                                     175

"I wish we could speak directly to the Protector about it," the ambassador
worried, and Mayhew
shrugged again.
"I do, too, but I think I know what he'd say." He turned back to Cromarty, and
his young eyes were
level. "Your Grace, my brother knew what he was getting into when he chose to
ally with Manticore
rather than be digested by Haven—or, worse yet, Masada. We've always known
that when the showdown
finally came we'd be caught in the middle, so if we're going to be attacked
anyway, anything that
improves our chances of winning has to be worth trying. Besides," he finished
simply, a flash of genuine
warmth lighting those steady eyes, "we owe you."
"So you think we should go ahead?"
"I do. In fact, as Steadholder Mayhew and heir to the Protectorship, I
formally request that you do so,
Mr. Prime Minister."
"I don't believe it," Sir Thomas Caparelli murmured. He folded the short,
terse, handwritten directive,
and slid it back into the envelope with the bright yellow and black security
flashes. He dropped them both
into the disposal slot on his desk, then looked up at Patricia Givens. "Less
than five hours, and we've got
the go-ahead."
"We do?" Even Givens sounded surprised, and Caparelli snorted a laugh.
"More than that, he's directed us to up the stakes." He slid a sketched out
deployment order across the
desk to her and tipped back his chair as she scanned it
"Four squadrons?" Givens murmured, absently twisting a lock of brown hair
around an index finger.
"That's quite a diversion."
"You can say that again—and all superdreadnoughts." Caparelli smiled a bit
sourly. That's twenty-six
percent of Home Fleets superdreadnoughts. If we get hit here while they're out
there—" He broke off and
waved both hands in a throwaway gesture, and Givens pursed her lips.
"Maybe, Sir. Then again, maybe not. It won't exactly leave us uncovered, and
if the Peeps buy our
fake redeployments, they'll run into over sixty superdreadnoughts they think
are somewhere else."
"I know." Caparelli frowned a moment longer, then nodded. "All right, let's
get this set up. And I
guess we'd better send along a flag officer with the seniority for that big a
reinforcement."
"Who did you have in mind, Sir?"
"Who else?" Caparelli's sour smile was back. "It'll almost have to be White
Haven, won't it?"
"White Haven?" Givens couldn't quite hide her surprise. Not only did she know
Caparelli and White
Haven disliked one another, but White Haven was currently second in command of
Home Fleet, as well. "White Haven," Caparelli repeated. "I know it'll make a
hole in Webster's command structure, but so
will the squadrons we're taking away from him. And White Haven not only has
the seniority and the
savvy to command them, he's also our most popular officer—after Harrington—in
Grayson eyes."
                                     176

'True, Sir. But he's senior to Admiral D'Orville, as well. That means he'll
supersede the man on the
spot when he arrives. Will that cause problems?"
"I don't think so." Caparelli thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No,
I'm certain it won't. He
and D'Orville have been friends for years, and they both know how critical the
situation is. Besides—" the
First Space Lord bared his teeth in a mirthless smile "—there ought to be
plenty of crap to fall on both of
them, even if this works."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Admiral Parnell entered the DuQuesne war room briskly despite the late hour.
No one looking at him
would have thought he'd had less than three hours sleep, but Parnell himself
was naggingly aware of his
fatigue. He considered—again—taking a stim tab, but if he did that he'd never
get back to sleep again.
Better to see what hot coffee could accomplish first.
Commodore Perot was already there, and he turned quickly, a message board
tucked under his arm, at
his boss's approach.
This better be important, Russell." Parnell's tone was only half joking, and
Perot nodded.
"I know, Sir. I wouldn't have bothered you if I didn't think it was." Perot's
voice was calm, but he
tilted his head to one side, inviting the admiral into one of the high-
security briefing rooms, and surprise
raised Parnell's eyebrows before he could stop them.
Perot closed the door behind them, shutting out the war room's background
murmur, and punched a
complicated security code into the message board before pressing his thumb to
the scanner. The display
blinked obediently to life, and he passed it to the admiral without a word.
Parnell frowned at the diplomatic corps header, then glanced at the text and
stiffened. He sank into a
chair, running his eyes slowly back over the terse sentences, and felt the
rags of weariness blowing away
from his brain.
"My God, Sir. They've done it," Perot said softly.
"Maybe," Parnell said more warily, but his own exultation warred with his
caution. He laid the
message board on the desk and rubbed his temple. "How reliable is this source
of Ambassador Gowan's?"
"No intelligence source can ever be absolutely guaranteed, Sir, but everything
this one's ever given us
has panned out, and—"
"Which could mean they know all about him and they've been setting us up for
the big one," Parnell
interrupted dryly.
'That's always the problem with spies, Sir," Perot agreed. 'In this case,
however, we have some
additional intelligence to support him." Parnell raised an eyebrow, and Perot
shrugged. "If you scroll to
the next page of the Ambassadors dispatch, you'll see that both of the Home
Fleet detachments mentioned
in his source's initial report departed almost exactly on the schedule he gave
us, and their headings
                                     177

matched his version of their orders. Gowan had a day or two to work his other
contacts, too, and some of
the personnel involved were fairly loose- lipped. Three of his people—two
restaurant workers and a
barber, all on Hephaestus—report overhearing customers complaining about being
ordered clear out to
Grendelsbane."
"What sort of customers?" Parnell asked intently.
"Enlisted and noncom, Sir—not officers. And they were all regular patrons."
Perot shook his head.
They certainly weren't ringers brought in for the occasion, so unless we want
to assume Gowan's entire network's been broken and Manty intelligence knew
exactly who to have gossip in front of who—" The
chief of staff broke off with a shrug.
"Um." Parnell stared back down at the message board, wanting to believe and
fighting his own
desires. If only they'd been able to extend the Argus net to Yeltsin! But
there hadn't been enough time to
set it up—even assuming the seething deep-space activity in Yeltsin hadn't
ruled it out. The Graysons
seemed intent on smelting down every asteroid in the system for their orbital
and planetary projects, and
ONI had decided they were too likely to stumble over one of the sensor
platforms, however heavily
stealthed, and blow the entire Argus operation. Which meant he didn't have the
same look into Yeltsin.
Maybe that was his problem. He'd gotten used to more detailed intelligence
than he had any right to
expect.
"Anything from Rollins?" he asked.
"No, Sir." Perot glanced at the time and date display on the wall and made a
face. The Argus ships
can't maintain a guaranteed schedule, but if they're running as close as they
usually do, he should have
gotten the latest dump from Hancock no later than yesterday."
"Which means seventeen more days before we get it," Parnell grunted.
He leaned back, nibbling on his lower lip. Seventeen days was far too long to
wait. Barnett was a
hundred and forty-six light-years from Yeltsin, a three-week trip for
superdreadnoughts, and his window
was barely twenty-six days wide. He couldn't possibly delay his decision until
he had Rollins' report, and,
by the same token, if he went, he'd have to go in without Admiral Ruiz's three
battle squadrons, still en
route to Barnett. He could substitute the two squadrons his original
deployment plan had assigned to
reinforce Seaford, then send all of Ruiz's to Seaford to replace them . . .
but if Ruiz was delayed, Rollins
might come up painfully short against his objective.
He nibbled harder. The master plan envisioned hitting Yeltsin in overwhelming
force for the express
purpose of isolating and destroying any Manty units stationed there as the
first step in demoralizing and
grinding away the RMN. If Caparelli really had pulled four squadrons out, then
the size of the prize had
been cut roughly in half, assuming their original estimates of the Yeltsin
deployment were accurate, and
                                     178

he hated to give up the extra kills. On the other hand, the morale effect
might be even greater, since a
smaller force might well be completely annihilated without any substantial
Havenite losses. And a part of
him would actually prefer to go in against relatively weaker opposition until
he'd had a chance to evaluate
the technical differential firsthand.
Available combat reports indicated it was at least as bad as he'd feared,
possibly even worse, which
made it tempting to stack the numerical odds as heavily in his favor as he
could until he knew for certain.
The worst part was that it would mean reshuffling the entire operation on very
short notice. His own
forces and those at Seaford had been intended to act in concert, moving
simultaneously in accordance
with final attack orders issued from Barnett. If he moved now, the war would
begin the instant he entered
Yeltsin space, and he was too ignorant of the situation in the Seaford-Hancock
area to be certain Rollins
had sufficient superiority—even with Ruiz—to carry out his part of the plan.
He sighed and rubbed his temple again. This was the entire reason he'd moved
his HQ to DuQuesne
Base in the first place, he told himself—and also the reason President Harris
had authorized him to use his
own judgment for the final timing. But he'd expected a more gradual buildup,
not this last minute,
lightning-bolt change in the data available to him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then inhaled sharply and let his chair snap
upright.
"We'll go for it," he said crisply.
"Yes, Sir." Suppressed excitement quivered in Perot's voice, but he, too, was
a professional. "And
Admiral Rollins, Sir?"
"Get a courier boat to him. Send two, in case something happens to one of
them. Tell him we'll be
departing with our full available strength within forty-eight hours." "Our
full strength, Sir?"
"Less Admiral Coatsworth's Seaford task group," Parnell amended. He plucked at
his chin, then
nodded. "If they've pulled that much out, we don't need to raid the Seaford
detachment to take them at
better than two-to-one odds. On the other hand, we don't know the exact
situation in Rollins' sector. He
may need more muscle than we originally assumed, so tell him the originally
assigned elements will
depart from Barnett to join him within eight days or as soon as Admiral Ruiz
arrives, whichever is sooner.
I'll leave orders attaching Ruiz to Coatsworth—that'll thicken up Rollins'
order of battle, just in case."
"Yes, Sir." Perot was punching notes into his memo pad at a furious rate.
"As soon as you get those dispatches off, dig out Base Ops. I'll give them
forty-eight hours if I have
to, but don't tell them that. If at all possible, I want to be ready to roll
within twenty- four. Make sure they
copy all of our Yeltsin simulations to each battle squadron. I want to run
them backwards and forwards on
our way to the target."
                                     179

"Yes, Sir."
"And be sure to specifically instruct Admiral Coatsworth to send a courier to
Rollins before he
actually departs. I know he'll do it anyway, but make it official. Rollins has
to know his schedule—and
whether or not Ruiz is with him—to coordinate his own movements, and we can't
afford any screw-ups
when we're changing plans on the fly this way."
"Yes, Sir."
"After that, we'll have to inform the President. I'll record the dispatch
while you start everything else
in motion, and I'D need another courier to get it back to Haven."
This time Perot merely nodded, fingers still tapping notes into his memo pad,
and the admiral smiled
thinly.
"I suppose I ought to think up some dramatic, quotable phrase for Public
Information and the history
books, but I'm damned if any of them come to mind. Besides, admitting the
truth wouldn't sound too
good."
"The truth, Sir?"
"The truth, Russell, is that now the moment's here, I'm scared shitless.
Somehow I don't think even
Public Information could turn that into good copy."
"Maybe not, Sir ... but it certainly sums up my feelings nicely. On the other
hand—"
"On the other hand, we've got them by the short and curlies, assuming our
data's reliable," Parnell
agreed. He shook himself and stood. "Well, even if it isn't, we should see
them in time to hyper the hell
out. In any case, we've got to go find out one way or the other."
CHAPTER TWENTT-FIVE
The small, nondescript man in Robert Pierre's office didn't look like an ogre.
Oscar Saint-Just was a
mild- mannered man who neither raised his voice, drank, nor swore. He had a
wife and two lovely
children, and he dressed like some low- level bureaucrat.
He was also First Undersecretary for Internal Security, Constance Palmer-
Levy's second in
command, and his mild voice had sent more people than even he could count into
oblivion.
"I take it no one knows you're here?" Pierre leaned back behind his desk,
raising his eyebrows in
questio n as he waved at an empty chair.
"You should have more faith in me, Rob," Saint-Just said reprovingly.
"At this particular moment, my faith in people runs a poor second to my
growing paranoia." Pierre's
tone was dry, but an edge of humor flickered deep within it, and Saint-Just
smiled. "Understandable, understandable," he murmured. He settled back and
crossed his legs. "May I
assume you invited me over to tell me things are more or less on schedule?"
"Considerably more than less. Commodore Danton's come through with the weapons
and the shuttles
right on schedule."
"Excellent!" Saint-Just allowed himself to smile, then cocked his head to one
side. "And the
manpower to use them?"
                                     180

"Cordelia Ransom's picked the CRU cells we need and cut them out of the normal
CRU loop. She's
got them running sims now, but I don't intend to release any actual hardware
until we're closer to
moving."
"And does Ransom understand the need for the, ah, cleanup details? Her InSec
dossier suggests she's
genuinely committed, Rob. Are we going to have to clean her up, too?"
"No." Pierre shook his head, and his own mouth tightened in distaste for the
essentials of his own
plan. "She understands how it has to work, and, as you say, she's committed.
She's willing to make
sacrifices to bring this off, but I suspect we're going to have to give her
the Treasury afterward."
"I can live with that," Saint-Just observed.
"So can I—at least as long as she really does understand the need for
gradualism, and I think she
does."
If you're satisfied, I'm satisfied" Saint-Just rubbed his upper lip
thoughtfully. "And Constance?"
"That part of the plan is ready to go right now— thanks, again, to Cordelia."
Pierre smiled. "She
didn't have to work around anyone to bring it off, either. The CRU's Central
Action Committee jumped at
the thought of it, crisis or no crisis. I'm afraid Constance hasn't made
herself as popular with them as she
could have since Frankel's assassination,"
"Neither have I," Saint-Just said quietly. "I do trust they won't try for a
double-header in an excess of
enthusiasm?"
"If I thought there was any chance of that, I would've intervened personally."
Pierre shook his head.
"No, Cordelia's stressing the need to give 'InSec's storm-troopers'—that's
you, Oscar—'time to reflect on
the People's object lesson.' She's really quite good at agit-prop, you know.
Perhaps we can convince her to
take Public Information instead of the Treasury."
"I'll leave the political maneuvers up to you. Security and tactics I
understand, politics—" Saint-Just
shrugged and raised his hands, palms up, and Pierre bared his teeth.
"Politics, as practiced in the People's Republic, are about to change quite
drastically, Oscar. For the
foreseeable future, I think you may understand the new rules much better than
President Harris ever
would have."
Kevin Usher slithered quietly across the roof of Rochelle Tower, trying not to
wince as the rest of his
team followed him. The imagery of his low- light goggles gave the tower's top
a shimmery surrealism, but
he'd trained with them long enough to be comfortable with that. It was the
ungodly—and unavoidable—
racket of the rest of his team that worried him.
He circled the last ventilator head and peered out at the open stretch between
him and the edge of the
tower. Wind flapped his clothing, and that was another cause for worry. Their
primary escape plan called
for a counter-grav free- fall leap off the tower roof, and with this much wind
                                     181

to blow them back into the
tower as they fell… He pushed the thought aside and eased his sidearm out of
its holster. The Peoples
Marines had trained him well during his conscripted term of service, and the
pulser felt comforting and
familiar in his hand as he looked for the InSec man watching this particular
roof. He didn't particularly
like this part, but the CRU couldn't afford any witnesses to this operation.
There. Ushers enhanced vision found his target, and he went down on one knee,
leveling the longbarreled
military weapon across his forearm in textbook style. He acquired the sight
picture exactly as his
instructors had trained him ten years before, and his finger tightened on the
stud.
A five-shot burst of nonexplosive darts tore through the InSec man in a spray
of blood. He didn't
even have time to scream, and Usher grunted in satisfaction as he glided
further out onto the roof, head
swiveling from side to side and pulser poised in a two-handed combat grip.
Their briefing had insisted
there was only the one guard, but Usher had seen too many operations blow up
from faulty intelligence to
take that for granted.
Only this time it seemed the briefing was correct, and he waved the others
forward while he stepped
to the edge of the roof to che ck the sight line. Perfect, he thought, and
turned to watch the rest of the team
set up.
Two of the Viper crew knelt on the roof, and spike-guns thudded with brief,
pneumatic violence as
they secured the launcher's feet, Two others lifted the tube and guidance unit
onto the tripod, and the crew
chiefs hands were busy with her data pad as she ran the self-test sequence on
the first bird. She cocked her
head as a minor malfunction light flickered, then put the missile aside and
nodded in satisfaction as the
backup bird passed its tests.
Usher turned back to his own responsibilities, waving his three- man security
team into its perimeter
positions. He beckoned the spotter over beside him and pointed at the tower on
the far side of the green
belt.
"Make sure you' ve got the right bay," he said quietly, and the woman nodded.
She keyed up the
schematic on her own goggles and moved her head carefully, aligning its
outlines with the outline of the
tower until the position pipper blinked directly atop an air traffic access
point.
"Got it," she murmured. "Checked and confirmed"
"Then get comfortable. She's supposed to be along in the next ten minutes, but
she may be delayed."
The woman nodded again and settled down, laying the riflelike laser designator
across the roof
parapet and making herself comfortable.
Usher gave the Viper crew another look. They were ready, and far enough back
from the roof edge to
be invisible from any cursory examination. The only real worry now was an
                                     182

overflight, and that shouldn't
happen if their data on the air sweeps was as accurate as the rest of their
brief.
If.
He made a quiet circuit of his perimeter, then found a nook out of the direct
force of the wind that
still gave him a complete field of view and settled down to wait.
"I suppose that's about everything, then—unless you can think of something
else we need to look at,
Oscar?"
Saint-Just shook his head, and Constance Palmer- Levy stood. Her staff
followed suit with obvious
relief. Few of them shared her taste for late-night strategy sessions, but
people didn't argue when the head
of InSec asked them to stay late.
"I'll drop by Statistics and light a fire under them about that correlation of
CRU activities before I
leave," Saint-Just told her. "I think you may be onto something there. Won't
hurt to be sure, anyway."
"Good." Palmer-Levy stretched and yawned, then grinned wryly. "I think I may
have stayed up a bit
late even for me," she confessed.
"Then go home and get some sleep," Saint-Just advised.
"I will." Palmer-Levy turned away and waved her personal aide after her. The
two of them stepped
out of the conference room, gathering up her security detail as they went, and
headed for the elevators. The elevator deposited the Security chief and her
bodyguards in the air car garage on the tower's
four-hundredth floor. A tech team swarmed over her limo, completing the
routine check for unpleasant
surprises, and Palmer-Levy waited patiently for them to complete their task.
Memories of Walter Frankel
were far too vivid for her to begr udge the time it took.
"All clear, Ma'am," the senior tech said finally, scrawling his name on the
signature pad of a memo
board. "You're ready to fly."
"Thank you;" she said, and led the way aboard.
The air car looked like a luxury civilian limo and boasted the internal
fittings to match, but it was
fast, heavily armored, and equipped with a sophisticated sensor suite based on
the Marines' forward
reconnaissance vehicles, and its pilot was a decorated combat veteran. Palmer-
Levy smiled at him as she
settled into her seat, and he nodded back respectfully, waiting until the
hatch closed before bringing up his
turbines and counter-grav. The limousine lifted without even a curtsy, and he
sent it gliding along the
ramp toward the outer access point.
"Mark!" the spotter's whisper crackled over her com, and Usher and his team
tensed in readiness. The
spotter shifted position, aligning the passive sights of her designator on the
nose of the limousine sliding
out of the access point, and tension crackled silently across the roof.
"Painting—now!" she snapped, and squeezed the stud.
An alarm shrieked, and Palmer-Levy's pilot twitched in his seat. One eye
dropped to the lurid light on
his EW panel, and his face paled.
                                     183

"We're being lased!" he barked.
The launching charge lit the tower roof like lightning as it spat the Viper
missile from the tube. Its
tiny impeller drive kicked in almost instantly, accelerating it at over two
thousand gravities even as its
sensors picked up the glare of reflected laser light from the air car below
and in front of it, and its nose
dipped.
The pilot twisted the controls in a frantic evasion maneuver, but the Viper
had an optical lock now,
and his speed was too low to generate a miss. He did his best, but it was too
late for his best to be enough.
Constance Palmer-Levy had one fleeting instant to realize what was happening,
and then the edge of
the Viper's impeller wedge struck.
The air car tore apart in a hurricane of splintered composites. Its hydrogen
reservoirs exploded in
balls of brilliant blue flame, and the commander of Internal Security and her
bodyguards cascaded down
across Nouveau Paris in a grisly rain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"Thank God."
Commander Ogilve relaxed at last as PNS Napoleon dropped out of hyper and the
primary of the
Seaford Nine System blazed ahead of her. Realistically, they'd been away and
free from the instant they
went into hyper, but his sleep had been haunted by nightmares of some disaster
that would prevent him
from delivering his data.
He glanced at his com officer.
"Record a most immediate to Admiral Rollins' personal attention, Jamie.
Message begins: Sir, my
latest Argus dump confirms total—repeat, total—withdrawal of Manticoran wall
of battle from Hancock.
Analysis of data suggests maximum remaining force in Hancock consists of one
battlecruiser squadron
and screening elements. Napoleon is en route to rendezvous with your flagship,
ETA—" he glanced at his
display "—two-point-two hours, with complete data dump. Ogilve clear. Message
ends, Jamie." "Aye, Sir."
Ogilve nodded and leaned back, letting himself feel his weariness at last even
as he envisioned the
hive of activity his signal was about to kick off aboard Admiral Rollins'
flagship. A footstep sounded
beside his chair, and he looked up at his exec.
"Somehow I don't think this is going to hurt our careers, Sir," the exec
murmured.
"No, I don't imagine it will," Ogilve agreed unsmilingly. His exec came of
prominent Legislaturalist
stock, and the commander didn't like him a bit. Worse, he didn't trust his
competence. But it sometimes
seemed the political game was the only one that counted in the Peoples Navy,
and if that meant
Commander Ogilve had to carry his exec on his back, then Commander Ogilve had
better just have strong
back muscles.
And, he thought sourly as the exec moved back to his own station, if he did
                                     184

get promotion out of this,
maybe it would mean a new assignment that got him away from at least one
incompetent asshole.
Admiral Yuri Rollins shook his head, still suffering the lingering aftereffe
cts of numb disbelief, as the
Argus dump's images played themselves out in his flagships main holo sphere
for the third time.
"I can't believe it," he muttered. "Why in hell would Parks do something this
stupid? It's got to be a
trap."
"With all due respect, Sir, I don't see how it can be," Captain Holcombe
disagreed. "For it to be a
trap, they'd have to know about Argus, and there's no way they can."
"Nothing is impossible, Captain," Rear Admiral Chin said frostily, and
Rollins' chief of staff flushed
at her tone.
"I didn't mean to say that they couldn't possibly have detected the birds,
Ma'am," he replied a bit
stiffly. "What I meant was that if they knew about them, they would certainly
have taken them out by
now."
"Indeed? Suppose they know about them and choose subtlety over brute force?
Why destroy them if
they can use them to lie to us?'
"Unlikely," Rollins said, almost against his will. "Whatever tactical
advantage deceiving us in
Hancock might offer would be more than outweighed by the strategic dama ge
they're suffering in other
systems. No," he shook his head, "they'd never let the net stay up if they
knew it was there,"
"And if Admiral Parks is the only one to have noticed the platforms?" Chin
asked. "If he's only just
become aware of them, he might have chosen to use them in his own case while
dispatching couriers to
the commanders of other stations to alert them to the danger."
"Possible, but again, unlikely." Rollins turned away from the display and
thrust his hands into his
tunic pockets. "If he knows about them at all, then presumably he also knows
they cover the entire system
periphery. That means he can't sneak back in to set any sort of ambush without
being picked up.
Somehow I don't think he'd deliberately risk letting us in unopposed on the
off chance that he could
intercept us from some distant position."
"I suppose not." Chin folded her arms and looked accusingly into the sphere.
"In that case, though, I
have to wonder what he thinks he's up to."
"I think it's another indication he doesn't know about Argus, Ma'am," Captain
Holcombe offered. She
raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. "If he's not in Hancock, he almost
has to be picketing the
Alliance systems in the area. Assuming that to be the case, I believe he
uncovered Hancock precisely
because he feels we cant know he's done it. After all, one of Argus' primary
objectives was to cut down
normal scouting ops to make Manty commanders overconfident in hopes they'd
make mistakes just like
                                     185

this." "True." Chin pursed her lips a moment, then nodded. "I suppose it just
seems too convenient for him
to suddenly do exactly what we want him to."
"But do we want him to?" Rollins said, and both his subordinates turned to him
in surprise.
"Certainly this offers us a perfect opportunity to smash Hancock, but it also
means any attack would close
on so much empty space, as far as warships are concerned. Battlecruisers?
Piffle!" He took a hand from a
pocket to wave it dismissively, then stuffed it back in place. "We wanted
battle squadrons, and they're
somewhere else now. Besides, how long do you think Parks is going to stay
wherever he is? Their
Admiralty won't let him leave Hancock uncovered for long, whatever he wants to
do, so if we're going to
take advantage of his absence, we have to move now."
"Without confirming with Admiral Parnell?" Chin's question was a statement,
and Rollins nodded.
"Exactly. We're eighteen days' message time from Barnett, even by courier
boat. That's thirty-six
days for a two-way message. If we wait that long, they're bound to reinforce
Hancock."
"Can we wait until the scheduled deadline, Sir?" Chin asked, and Rollins
frowned. Officially, only he
and his staff were supposed to know the timetable, but he'd invited Chin here,
despite her status as his
most junior battle squadron commander, because he respected her judgment And
if he wanted her input,
she had to know the extent of his problems.
"I don't think so," he said finally. "Assuming Admiral Parnell doesn't
postpone, we're supposed to
move in another thirty-one days."
Chin nodded, her face showing no sign of triumph at finally learning the date
the war was supposed
to begin.
"In that case, of course, you're right, Sir. We can't wait that long if we
want to hit them before they
come to their senses."
"I said from the beginning this whole thing was over-centralized," Holcombe
muttered, "tanking ops
schedules that tightly with this much distance between operating areas is—"
"Is what we're stuck with," Rollins said a bit sharply. His chief of staff
closed his mouth with a snap,
and Rollins shrugged. "As a matter of fact, I tend to agree with you, Ed, but
we're stuck with the way
things are."
"So what do you plan to do, Sir?" Chin asked.
"I don't know." Rollins sighed. "I suppose it comes down to which is more
important—Hancock's
facilities, or its task force."
He lowered himself into a chair and stretched his legs out before him while he
frowned up at the
deckhead and considered his options.
The original plan had given good promise of success against Hancock. Admiral
Coatsworth's arrival
from Barnett would increase his own "official" strength by over fifty percent,
and the Manties wouldn't
                                     186

even know Coatsworth was coming until he hit Zanzibar in their rear. With
Coatsworth behind them and
the Seaford task force in front of them, they'd be caught in a vise.
But if Hancock was empty, the entire ops plan went straight out the lock.
There was no telling where
the Manties were, or in what strength—not, at least, until the other Argus
collectors reported in. Still,
Hancock was the only Manty repair facility in this sector. If he was going to
have to hunt for them
anyway, depriving them of anywhere to repair damages would be an invaluable
first step.
He drew a deep breath and straightened, and Holcombe and Chin turned toward
him at the movement
"We'll do it," Rollins said simply. Holcombe nodded in approval, and Chin
looked relieved that
someone else had had to make the call.
"Shall we wait until we hear from the other. Argus nets, Sir?" Holcombe asked.
Chin said nothing,
but she shook her head in instant, instinctive disagreement, and Rollins
agreed with her. "No." He thrust himself up out of the chair. "Waiting would
burn another six or seven days, and if
we're going to de this, we don't have the time to spare."
"Yes, Sir."
The admiral paced briefly back and forth, thinking hard, then nodded.
"I want the task force ready to move out within twenty-four hours, Ed. Send a
courier to Barnett to
advise Admiral Parnell of our intentions. It should still get there before
Coatsworth pulls out, so instruct
him to rendezvous with us at Hancock. We'll consolidate our forces and then
move on Zanzibar together.
After that, we can hook up to take out Yorik or Alizon. By that time, we'll
probably have picked up
enough additional intel to know where Parks went and how he's deployed."
"Yes, Sir."
"Admiral Chin, I'll want your squadron to probe Hancock as we go in." Chin
nodded, but her surprise
showed, for her dreadnoughts were less powerful than the other battle
squadrons.
"I haven't lost my senses, Admiral," Rollins said dryly. "Your ships are
lighter, but they should be
more than adequate to deal with battlecruisers, and if we're not going to get
anything bigger, I at least
want to nail as many of them as possible before they run. Besides, if there is
something nasty waiting for
us, you can pull a higher acceleration than superdreadnoughts."
In short, he thought, they could get the hell out of it faster than anything
else he had, and he saw
understanding in Chin's eyes as she nodded.
"And Admiral West's battlecruisers, Sir?' she asked.
"We'll attach them to you, but don't let him get too far ahead of you. His
squadron's understrength to
start with—I don't want him tangling with Manties at three-to-two odds while
you're too far astern to
assist."
"Understood, Sir."
"Good." Rollins shoved his hands back into his pockets and rocked on his
heels, staring down into the
                                     187

holo sphere, and his eyes were hard.
"Very well," he said at last, "let's get moving. We've got a lot of details to
settle before we pull out."
The three officers turned and strode from the compartment, leaving the display
alive behind them,
and the empty, quiet image of the Hancock System glowed silently in its
depths.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"Still nothing."
Sir Yancey Parks took another quick turn about his flag bridge, and his staff
busied themselves with
routine tasks that happened to keep them out of his path. All but Commodore
Capra, who watched his
admiral with a painstaking lack of expression.
"I hate this kind of waiting for the other shoe," Parks fumed.
"Perhaps that's why they're doing it, Sir." Capra's voice was quiet, and Parks
snorted.
"Of course it is! Unfortunately, that doesn't make it any less effective."
Parks stopped pacing and
turned to glare down at the holo sphere. CIC had switched to astrography mode,
showing the sparse stars
of his command area and the most recent data on friendly and enemy
dispositions, and the admiral jabbed
an angry chin at the bland light dot of Seaford Nine.
"That bastard over there knows exactly what he plans to do," he said, pitching
his voice for
Commodore Capra's ears alone. "He knows when he plans to make his move, what
he plans to do, and
how he plans to bring it off, and all I know is that I don't know any of those
things."
He fell silent again, chewing his lip while acid churned in his stomach. War
games and training
exercises, he was discovering, were one thing, with nothing more at stake than
one's reputation and career. Actual operations were something else again—life
and death, not simply for you, but for your
crews and, quite possibly, your kingdom, as well.
It was an unpleasant discovery . . . and one which made him doubt his own
competence.
He sighed and made his muscles relax by a sheer act of will, then turned to
look Capra squarely in the
eye.
"Was Sarnow right?" He voiced his own thoughts, and the commodore shrugged
uncomfortably.
"You know my view, Sir. I've never been comfortable about leaving Hancock so
weak, but whether
our posture should be aggressive or defensive—" He shrugged again, almost
helplessly. "I just don't
know, Sir. I suppose the waiting is getting to me, too."
"But you're starting to think he was right, aren't you?" Parks pressed. The
commodore looked away,
then drew a deep breath and nodded.
Parks' mouth twitched, and he turned his back on the sphere, folding his hands
behind him.
"If anyone needs me, I'll be in my quarters, Vincent," he said quietly, and
walked slowly from the
flag bridge.
PNS Alexander coasted silently through the outer reache s of the Yorik system
                                     188

on another Argus run.
It should have been routine, given the light forces the Manties normally
maintained here, but Alexander's
tactical display was a blaze of crimson impeller sources, and her captain
stood peering down at it in
consternation.
"What the hell is all this, Leo?" Commander Trent asked her tac officer.
"I don't have the least idea, Ma'am," the tac officer replied frankly. "It
looks like a task force picket
shell, but what it's doing here beats me. Its more like something I'd expect
to see at Hancock."
"Me, too." Trent's tone was sour, and she looked across at Lieutenant
Commander Raven. Her exec
was officer of the watch, seated in the command chair at the center of the
bridge, but his attention was n
his captain rather tha n his displays.
"What do you think, Yasir?" she asked, and he twitched his shoulders at the
question.
"I think I'd like to abort the pickup, Ma'am," he replied in the careful tone
of someone who knew
what could happen to both their careers if they did. "There's too much traffic
out here, and they're
operating mighty aggressively. All it takes is one of them in the wrong place,
and—"
He grimaced, and Trent nodded. Raven had a point. But the presence of so many
Manty ships argued
that something unusual was happening in Yorik, which made the Argus data even
more important. That,
she knew, would be the verdict of any court of inquiry, anyway:
She propped one shoulder against the tac display's. hood and closed her eyes
in thought. The risk to
Alexander herself was minimal; they were still outside the hyper limit, and
they could bring their wedge
on- line in barely two minutes. The hyper generators would take a little
longer—the trace signature from a
standby translation field was simply too powerful to damp out—but Alexander
could still be out of here
long before anything got close enough to hurt her. No, the risk was to the
Argus net itself. If they were
picked up, the Manties were bound to wonder why a PN light cruiser would be
skulking around way out
here. And if something started them actively looking, not even the sensor
arrays' Solarian-built stealth
systems could hide them forever.
"We'll continue the operation," she said finally. "We can't bring the wedge up
without risking
detection, anyway, so we're committed to the run in. But I want our sensor
people on their toes. If there's
even a hint of anyone in the area when we reach the transmission point, we'll
pass up the data dump."
Commander Tribeca lounged comfortably in his command chair and chortled
mentally while he
watched the displays and thumbed his nose at Captain Sir Roland T Edwards.
HMS Arrowhead and the two other destroyers from her division were cast in the
role of aggressors
for this particular exercise, and, at the moment, Arrowhead and Attack were
busy pretending to be holes in
                                     189

space and watching the rest of the flotilla look for them. Every system was
powered down to a bare trickle
while his passive sensors tracked the other nine destroyers and the light
cruiser bumbling along astern of
them in the role of a "merchantman." Another couple of hours should bring the
whole "convoy" within
missile range, and, at the moment, every one of those destroyers was looking
in exactly the wrong
direction. There were going to be some red faces at the exercise debrief, he
thought complacently.
Of course, it was always possible one of the other cans would double back and
look in his direction,
but even if they did, they were unlikely to spot him. If he was picked up, he
was going to have to go for a
high-accel run in and hope he got lucky, yet that was a worst-case scenario,
and it didn't look like
happening. Captain Edwards had obviously decided Tribeca was outside him—not
without a little help
from Tribeca. Ambush, the third destroyer of Tribeca's division, was somewhere
out there, where she'd
deliberately leaked a carefully designed scrap of divisional com chatter, and
Edwards thought he had a fix
on the division's general location.
Tribeca gave a silent snicker at the thought. Edwards was such a pompous ass.
It would never occur
to him that anyone could out-sneak him, and—
"Excuse me, Skipper, but I just picked up something odd. It— There it is
again."
"What?" Tribeca spun his chair toward his tactical officer and frowned. There
what is, Becky?"
"I don't know, Sir. It's like ..." Her voice trailed off and she shook her
head, then looked at the com
officer. "Hal, sweep zero-eight- zero to one-two-zero. I think it's a com
laser."
"On it," the com officer replied, and Tribeca's frown deepened.
"A com laser? From who?"
'That's just it, Skip." The tac officers fingers redirected her own passive
sensors as she replied. "I
don't see anything. If it's a com laser, it's awful low power, and I'm just
catching a trickle now and then."
"It's intermittent?" Tribeca's brow furrowed, and the tac officer nodded
"I've got it, too, Sir," the com officer said. ''Zero-eight-eight." He frowned
and adjusted a rheostat
carefully. "It's a com laser, all right. We're just catching the fringe of it.
If I had to guess, I'd say there's a
glitch in the sender's tracking systems. Not much of one—the beam's only
kicking a little—but enough to
swing it intermittently our way. It's scrambled, too ... and I don't recognize
the scramble code."
"What?" Tribeca shoved himself out of his chair and moved quickly to the tac
station. "You don't see
anything out there, Becky?"
"No, Sir. Whatever it is, it's running silent and too far out to find on
passives. Should I go active?"
"Wait." Tribeca rubbed an eyebrow furiously, the exercise forgotten. Arrowhead
was over ten lightminutes
from the nearest senior officer. If he passed the buck, he'd give whoever was
                                     190

on the other end of
that laser at least twenty minutes to coast out of active sensor range while
he awaited orders, and he had
no idea what the bogey's vector might be. But he did know the bogey wasn't
Manticoran—not if Hal
couldn't ID its scramble code.
He dropped back into his command chair and depressed a stud.
"Engineering, Lieutenant Riceman," a voice said.
"Rice, this is the Captain. We're about to go to battle stations." He heard
someone inhale sharply on
the bridge and ignored it. "Forget the exercise. How quick can you bring the
wedge up for real?"
"Eighty seconds and you're hot, Skipper," Riceman said flatly, and Tribeca
nodded. "Get ready, then," he said, and looked back at the tac officer. "I
want you to take us to battle stations
on my command, Becky, but leave fire control and sensors on standby. Whatever
this is, it's in range for a
com laser. It could also be in energy weapon range, so I don't want any active
emissions until the wedge
and sidewall come up. Got it?'
"Yes, Sir. What about Attack, Sir? She'll be a sitting duck without her wedge
if someone takes a shot
at her."
"Agreed, but if whoever's out there knew we were here, they wouldn't have been
transmitting in the
first place, so I don't think they've got us on passive, either. If I'm right,
they'll be too busy looking at our
big, noisy emissions signature to notice Attack before she figures out
something's going on and gets her
own wedge up. Just the same, Hal," he looked at the com officer, "lay a laser
on her and order her to
action stations as soon as our wedge goes up."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"All right, then, Becky. Battle stations!"
"Contact!" Alexander's tac officer shouted. "I have an impeller wedge, bearing
one-three-six by ohniner-
two!" He slapped keys on his console. "Manty destroyer at eighteen million
klicks, Captain!"
"Shit!" Commander Trent slammed a fist into the arm of her command chair.
"Battle stations, but do
not go active! Confirm!"
"Do not go active, aye." The tac officer confirmed the order even as Yasir
Raven's thumb jammed
down on the battle stations alarm. Staying in passive meant the cruiser
couldn't bring up her impeller
wedge or sidewalls, but it was still remotely possible that they hadn't been
detected, and—
"Radar pulse!" Tactical snapped through the yowl of the alarm. 'They've got
us, Ma'am!" He paused,
then, "Second drive source detected! Two destroyers at eighteen million
klicks!"
Trent bit back another curse. At that range and on that bearing, there was
only one reason for a Manty
to suddenly light off his drive. Damn the luck! What the hell had they been
doing lying doggo in just the
right place for her com beam to hit them?!
"Vector change," Tactical announced in a taut voice. They're coming to an
                                     191

intercept course, Ma'am.
Acceleration five-two-oh gravities."
"Bring the wedge up." Trent turned to her astrogator. "Plot your translation,
Jackie, and execute a
random vector change the minute we cross the wall. I want us out of here the
instant the generators spin
up."
"Aye, Ma'am. Feeding the plot now."
"Impellers nominal, Captain!"
"Helm, turn us away from them. Come to one-two- five level and roll port."
"Aye, Ma'am. Coming to one-two- five level and rolling port."
Trent turned back to her display, glaring at the brilliant dots of the
Manticoran destroyers. Barely a
light- minute, right in her goddamned lap. They were too far out to engage
her—even assuming they were
confident enough of their ID to class her as definitely hostile—but the damage
was done.
She made herself lean back, mouth tight, and drummed on the chair arms. There
was going to be hell
to pay for this, and whatever else came of it, all the shit in the galaxy was
about to come down squarely
on her head.
"She's gone active," Tribeca's tac officer reported, her voice almost dreamy
with intensity. "Looks
like a Conqueror-class light cruiser, Sir, She's altering vector away from
us." "Any chance of engaging her?" There was more hope than expectation in
Tribeca's voice, and she
shook her head.
"Sony, Sir, no joy. She's way outside our missile envelope, and she's rolling
to bring up her belly
bands."
"Damn," the commander murmured. He watched his own display, ignoring the
confused questions
rattling over the com from Attack's skipper, while the Peep cruiser spun still
further away from him. She
was piling on the accel, too, and this far out—
The impeller source vanished in the sparkle of a hyper footprint, and he
grunted. So much for
catching her.
"Cut the accel, Helm." He shoved himself more firmly into his cushioned chair
while his brain raced.
"Hal, get off a contact report to Captain Edwards with all of Becky's data.
Repeat it to Admiral Parks."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The bridge lift hissed open to admit his vacsuited exec. The execs skin suit
looked out of place on the
bridge, for there'd been no time for the duty watch to suit up, and Tribeca
grinned scurry as he saw his
own suit over the exec's arm.
"Thanks, Fred, but I think it's all over."
"What's all over?" the exec demanded in exasperation. "I hope you realize we
just blew off the whole
exercise, Skipper!"
"I know, I know." Tribeca stood and crossed back over to the tac station to
watch the entire bizarre
incident replay itself. "What do you think that was all about, Becky?"
"Well," the tac officer leaned back and scratched her nose, "the one thing I
                                     192

can tell you for sure. Sir,
is that she was way too far out to pick up anything from the inner system on
shipboard sensors. Add that
to the fact that she was hitting something with a com laser, and—" She
shrugged.
"But how in hell could they have—?" Tribeca shook his head. He couldn't quite
believe the Peeps had
some sort of stealth system RMN sensors couldn't penetrate, but as Becky said,
that cruiser had been
lasing something. And since his own sensors still didn't show anything for
that something to have been,
the empirical evidence said they did have a stealth capability far better than
ONI had ever guessed.
"Helm," he said, still staring down at the tactical display, "put us back
where we were when we
picked up the first trickle, then come to zero-eight-eight. Take it slow, I
don't want to overrun anything."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Reversing course now."
"Good." He put his hand lightly on the tac officer's shoulder. "If there
really is something out here,
it's going to be harder than hell to spot, Becky. Don't make any assumptions
about Peep systems
capabilities. Pretend it's something of ours that doesn't want to be found,
then find it."
"Aye, aye, Skipper. If it's there, I'll find it," she promised, and he
squeezed her shoulder.
"Skipper, will you please tell me what's going on?" his exec pleaded, and
Tribeca grinned, despite his
tension, as the voice of Attack's skipper, still squawking over the com,
echoed the question. Then the grin
faded.
"Come on into the briefing room, Fred." He sighed. "I might as well explain it
to you and
Commander Fargo at the same time."
"My God." Admiral Parks shook his head, staring at the message on his screen.
"I wouldn't have
believed it if I hadn't seen it. How in hell did Peeps pull this off,
Vincent?"
"I don't know, Sir." Capra pushed to his feet and prowled restlessly around
the briefing room. "Oh, I
can think of enough different ways to get the platforms into position; I just
can't imagine how they came
up with the stealth systems to hide them from us after they did it." "I'd say
Commander Tribeca's probably on the right track, Admiral," Zero O'Malley said.
The
intelligence officer scrolled back up to the pertinent portion of Tribeca's
message and tapped it with a
stylus. "We can't be sure till he gets back here with the relay and we tear it
apart, but his preliminary
description of it certainly suggests the fusion of more than one outfit's
tech, and God knows there's
enough Havenite trade with the Solarian League."
"But the League's embargoed military technology to both of us," Parks pointed
out, and O'Malley
nodded. Getting that embargo in place had been one of the Star Kingdom's more
effective diplomatic
moves, for it certainly favored Manticore's generally superior tech base over
                                     193

Haven's. It had also been
hard to achieve, and only Manticore's control of the League's traffic through
the Sigma Draconis terminus
of the Manticore Worm Hole Junction had given the Foreign Office the clout to
bring it off.
"Agreed, Sir, but I'm not suggesting this was an authorized technology
transfer. The League's
organized on an awful loose, consensual basis, and some of its member planets
resent how hard we
pushed for the embargo. It's possible one of them, or even a rogue defense
contractor or a bribable League
Navy officer, would be willing to violate it."
"Zero may be right, Sir," Captain Hurston put in, "but I don't think how they
did it is as important just
now as they fact that they have done it." The ops officer ran a hand through
his hair, and his voice was
worried. "And, of course, there's the question of where else they've done it.
Yorik isn't anywhere near as
critical as other Alliance systems, which suggests that it wouldn't have had
overriding priority. Which, in
turn, suggests—"
"That they've done it all along the frontier," Parks finished grimly, and
Hurston nodded.
The admiral tipped his chair back and scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his
hands, wishing he could
believe Hurston was wrong. But he couldn't. If the Peeps had bugged Yorik with
their damned invisible
sensor platforms, then they'd done it elsewhere, as well
He clenched his jaw and swore silently. Manticore had gotten too confident of
its technical edge,
refused to contemplate the possibility that the Peeps, equally aware of the
differential, might take steps to
redress it. And he himself had been as blind as anyone else.
"This changes everything," he said finally. "Our—my— belief that Admiral
Rollins couldn't know
we'd pulled out of Hancock no longer applies. Which," he forced himself to
make the admission in a level
voice, "means Admiral Sarnow was right all along."
He drew a breath and shook himself, then popped his chair upright, lowered his
hands, and spoke
crisply.
"All right, people. I screwed up, and it's time to try to fix it. Mark," he
looked at Hurston, "I want you
to tear every one of our contingency plans apart. Crank in the assumption that
the Peeps have been
watching our deployments all along the frontier for at least the last six
months and find any spots in the
plan that need adjustment in light of that capability. Zeb," he turned to the
intelligence officer, "I want
you to take charge of the relay Tribeca's bringing in. Strip it completely.
Find out all you can about it—
not just how it works, but anything you can tell me about the components and
who made the damned
thing initially. And see to it that Tribeca knows I intend to commend him
strongly for his initiative."
The intelligence officer nodded, and Parks turned to Captain Beasley.
"Theresa, set up a com conference for—" he glanced at the chrono "—zero nine
                                     194

hundred. I want all
squadron commanders, their staffs, and flag captains tied in. Then get courier
boats off to Hancock,
Zanzibar, and the Admiralty. Inform all of them of our findings, and instruct
Admiral Kostmeyer to move
immediately from Zanzibar to rendezvous with us at Hancock. See to it that
Admiral Sarnow gets an
information copy of our dispatch to her, as well."
"Yes, Sir."
"Vincent," Parks swung back to his chief of staff, "I want you to work with
Mark on his planning
review, but first give me a new deployment here. Assume we'll be leaving a
destroyer flotilla and a light cruiser squadron to patrol the system . . . and
find the rest of these damned sensor platforms. If the Peeps
have been watching us all along, the absolute first priority is to get
ourselves concentrated again, so draw
up the preliminary orders to get us underway as soon as my conference with the
squadron COs is over."
"Yes, Sir."
"Very well." Parks laid his hands on the table and squared his shoulders.
"Let's get started, then. And
let's just hope to God we're in time."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Honor closed the message file on her screen, tipped back her chair, and sipped
her cocoa with a sense
of mingled relief and regret. Yesterday's unexpected arrival of the light
cruiser Anubis with dispatches
from Admiral Danislav had brought Admiral Sarnow (and his flag captain) up to
date on the latest
information available to the Admiralty, and that information was downright
frightening. There was no
longer any doubt, in the Admiralty's view, that the PRH intended to launch an
all-out attack . . . soon.
Honor agreed, and that agreement left her more worried than ever by Parks'
dispersal. But at least
Danislav had also confirmed that his dreadnought squadron, reinforced by an
extra division the Admiralty
had scared up, would arrive in a maximum of seventy-two hours. Unfortunately,
Danislav had a
reputation as an unimaginative, though determined, tactician . . . and he was
senior to Sarnow.
She grimaced at the thought. Even with his ten dreadnoughts, Danislav was
going to be far too weak
to hold the system against serious attack. He'd need all the imagination he
could find, and she hoped he'd
have the sense to recognize Sarnows capabilities and rely upon them.
Unlike Parks.
She grimaced again and rolled another sip of cocoa over her tongue. Nimitz
made a soft sound, and
she smiled as he yawned, twitched his ears, and stretched along his perch,
curling his tail in an oddly
disdainful gesture to express his own opinion of Parks.
"My sentiments exactly," she told him with a chuckle. Much though she
respected Nimitz's
intelligence, she entertained no illusions about his ability to judge an
admirals fitness for command.
Except, of course, when his judgment matched hers.
                                     195

She grinned at herself, then let her chair swing in a gentle arc, and her grin
faded. The last few days
had carried their own undertone of strain for her as Pavel Young settled in
among the task force's officers.
She'd been able to avoid much direct contact with him, but simply knowing he
was there cast a pall over
her spirits that even Paul and Mike had trouble lifting. At least she hadn't
had to put up with him outside
the bounds of formal conferences, though, and she was guiltily aware that
Sarnow had handled Young's
necessary background briefs through his staff channels, not her. Ernie Corell
had been stuck with most of
them, and while the chief of staff had been careful about her choice of words,
her tone whenever she
mentioned Young spoke volumes about her own opinion of him.
Honor frowned and rubbed the tip of her nose, wondering (far from the first
time) how someone like
Young had survived so long in the Queens service. She'd seen Corell's reaction
to him mirrored in too
many other officers, many of them male, to believe her own opinion of him was
unique.
She sighed and tipped her chair further back. In light of her troubles with
him, she'd researched his
background more carefully than she cared to admit, and what she'd found
appalled her. She'd always
known a certain segment of the aristocracy (not all of them conservatives, by
a long mark) believed the
rules didn't apply to them, that they were above the constraints lesser beings
had to accept, but the Young
family was outstanding even among the scum element of the nobility. From all
reports, Pavel's father, the
current Earl of North Hollow, was as bad as Pavel himself . . . and the record
suggested his grandfather
might actually have been worse! Three entire generations of the same family
had gone their self-centered
way, as if determined to single- handedly prove the depths to which "nobility"
could sink, and somehow
they'd gotten away with it. Wealth, birth, and political influence, she
thought sourly. Power they took so completely for granted
that the responsibilities which went with it had no bearing on their lives.
Power they abused with a casual
lack of concern that sickened her. That it revolted the majority of their
peers, as well, did little to protect
less eminent persons from them, and sometimes that made her wonder about her
entire society. Yet even
at her most depressed, a stubborn part of her insisted that the very reason
they stood out so disgustingly
was because they were the exceptions, not the rule.
She twitched her shoulders and took herself to task. Why Young acted as he did
and how he got away
with it were less important than the consequences, and one thing had become
clear to her. Paul was right;
Young was afraid of her. It showed in his eyes, now that she knew to look for
it, on the rare occasions
when he found himself within her reach, and she was a little ashamed by her
intense satisfaction at that
discovery. Not even the fact that he and Houseman obviously were doing their
                                     196

best to alienate
Commodore Van Slyke from her could impair her grim pleasure—though it might
have, she conceded
honestly, if Van Slyke had been willing to pay them the least attention.
She smiled again, bleakly, and turned back to her terminal as thoughts of the
commodore returned her
attention to important things. She brought up a display of the system and the
task group's current
dispositions and felt herself nodding in slow satisfaction as she studied it.
Admiral Sarnow had rethought his deployments in the last week or so, and the
task group was no
longer clustered tightly about the base. He'd left the minelayers there, for
he'd evolved a plan for their use
that was both subtler and safer than the one Honor had envisioned, but he'd
moved his battlecruisers and
heavy cruisers to the far side of the primary from the base to cover the most
probable approach vectors
from Seaford Nine.
There was an element of risk in that, Honor acknowledged. If the bad guys came
at them from the
opposite direction, they might find themselves badly placed to meet the
threat, but they were close enough
in that they should have time to intercept short of the base. It would be
tight on the least favorable
approach, since towing the pods slowed them to a max accel of less than 359
gees, and the interception
would come at a dangerously low range, yet the edge their FTL sensor
capability gave them should make
it possible. On the other hand, it was unlikely Admiral Rollins would get too
tricky. If he believed he had
the strength to take the system, he'd feel no real need for sneakiness; if he
doubted that he could do it, then
he'd have every reason for caution and conservatism in any attack he might
launch.
She nodded again, then looked up at the admittance signal's chime. She checked
her chrono, and her
eyebrows rose as she pressed the stud. She hadn't realized it was quite so
late in the morning.
"Yes?" she said.
"Executive Officer, Ma'am," her Marine sentry announced.
Thank you, Corporal. Come on in, Exec."
The hatch slid open almost instantly, and Mike Henke grinned at her.
"Ready for the weekly reports, Ma'am?" Henke took the memo pad from under her
arm and waved it,
and Honor groaned.
"As ready as I ever am." She sighed, and pointed to a chair across from her
desk. 'Take a seat and le t's
see how quickly we can get through them this time."
"All right, then." Henke nodded and tapped a note into her memo pad. "That
takes care of the
hardware side of the engineering department. Now—" she scanned a fresh screen
of data "—about those
promotions. Chief Manton is definitely due for senior chief, but if we bump
him up we'll be over
establishment in electronics."
"Um." Honor tapped a finger gently on her crossed knee as she leaned back in
her chair. The captain
                                     197

of a Queen's ship had broad power to authorize enlisted and noncom promotions,
as long as she stayed
within the establishment laid down by BuPers for her command. If a promotion
exceeded her
establishment, she was required to return the "overly senior" personnel to
Admiralty control for reassignment as soon as possible. It was a pain in the
posterior, but Honor knew it was also intended to
prevent captains from showing too much favoritism.
"His efficiency report is top drawer, Mike," she said at last. "And Lord knows
he's done an
outstanding job ever since we commissioned. I don't want to lose him, but I
don't want to hold him back,
either. Besides, we'll still be over establishment whenever he gets his
rocker, even if we wait until BuPers
acts, and he'll spend another ten months in grade, easy. If we bump him now,
at least we can get him the
salary and seniority he deserves."
"Agreed. The only problem is that regs are going to require that either he or
Senior Chief Fanning be
reassigned out of Nike"
"Unless we get the Admiral to sign off on letting us hang onto him 'in the
interests of the Service,'"
Honor mused. "After all, he's about the best gravitic tech I've ever seen, and
we do have the pulse
transmitter to worry about. That's been his baby from the outset, so—"
She broke off with a grimace as her terminal chimed.
"'Scuse me a minute, Mike," she said, and swung her chair back upright. She
punched the acceptance
key, and her terminal flicked to life with Evelyn Chandlers face. Honor took
one look at her expression
and stiffened.
"Yes, Eve?"
"The outer sensor net's just reported a hyper footprint, Ma'am—a big one,
about thirty-five lightminutes
out from the primary. It's right on the mark for a least-time approach from
Seaford."
"I see." Honor felt Henke's sudden tension and was astounded by how calm her
own voice sounded.
"How big is 'big,' Eve?"
"We're still getting the preliminary readings, Ma'am. At the moment, it looks
like thirty to forty
capital ships, plus escorts," Chandler said flatly, and Honor's mouth firmed.
"Does Flag Plot have your data?"
"Yes, Ma'am. CIC is feeding it to them now, but—"
A brilliant scarlet override icon flashed in the corner of Honors screen, and
her raised hand halted the
tac officer in mid-sentence.
"This is probably the Admiral now, Eve. Don't go away."
She accepted the emergency call and straightened her shoulders as Mark
Sarnow's face replaced
Chandler's. His heavy eyebrows were tight, his mouth grim under his mustache,
and Honor made herself
smile a welcome even though she knew he saw the tension in her own expression.
"Good morning, Sir. I assume you've seen the scanner data?"
"I have, indeed."
"I've just been discussing it with Commander Chandler, Sir. May I bring her
back into the circuit?"
                                     198

"Certainly!" Sarnow agreed, and the screen flickered as Honor brought Chandler
into a three-way
conference. A moment later, a second flicker split Honor's screen into fifths,
not halves, as Captain Corell,
Commander Cartwright, and Lieutenant Southman, Sarnow's intelligence officer,
plugged into the same
circuit.
"All right. Exactly what do we know?" Sarnow's clipped voice was brisk but
clear. Chandler cleared
her throat, and Honor nodded to her.
"We're getting fairly decent information now, Sir," the tac officer reported.
"At the moment, we're
calling it thirty- five capital ships. The count's less positive on their
screening elements, but CIC's current
projection makes it—" Chandler glanced to the side to double-check her display
"—roughly seventy
destroyers and cruisers. Our best call on the capital ships is twenty-two
superdreadnoughts, seven dreadnoughts, and six battlecruisers." Chandler met
Sarnow's eyes with a grim expression, and Lieutenant
Southman pursed his lips in a silent whistle.
"What, Casper?" the admiral asked, and the lieutenant shrugged.
"That's damned close to everything he's got, Sir. He can't have left more than
a couple of ships of the
wall home—assuming, of course, that this is Admiral Rollins."
"Assuming," Corell half-snorted, and Southman's taut mouth twitched in an
almost-smile.
"I think we can surmise it is, Ma'am," he acknowledged, "but my point is that
our worst-case estimate
only gives him thirty-seven capital ships, and some of them almost have to be
down for refit. So unless
he's been heavily reinforced, he must've stripped Seaford down to the fixed
fortifications. And surely our
pickets would have reported it if he had been reinforced."
"Oh, really?" Cartwright growled. The ops officer's expression was as grim as
his tone. "The point
that springs to my mind is where the hell our pickets are. They should've
gotten here hours ago—at
least—to warn us Rollins was moving out!"
They may have gotten too close, Joe," Honor said quietly. Cartwright's eyes
flicked to her, and she
raised a hand at the screen. "Our picket commanders know their
responsibilities. The only thing that
could've prevented them from warning us would be for the Peeps to figure out
some way to intercept
them, and the most likely way for them to get caught would be to shadow
Rollins' main body too closely.
I don't see any other way the Peeps could've picked them off, and even if
there were one, it wouldn't
change Casper's point. This really does look like everything Rollins has,
which—"
"Which suggests it's no probe," Admiral Sarnow agreed with a sharp nod. "He
wouldn't be here in
such strength or leave Seaford uncovered unless he had a decisive operation in
mind—and he wouldn't
think he could get away with it if he hadn't figured out we've left Hancock
uncovered."
"But how could he, Sir?" Corell half-protested, and Sarnow shrugged.
                                     199

"It might be any of a number of things. The first that comes to mind is that
he probed one of the other
systems and spotted units that should have been here somewhere else. But right
now how he tumbled to it
matters less than what he's likely to do about it. And what we're going to do
about him." Sarnow's green
eyes switched back to Chandler. "Do we have a projected vector for them,
Commander?"
"Not yet, Sir. They made a very low-velocity transit, and they've been sitting
more or less at rest
relative to the primary ever since."
"At that range?" The admiral's eyebrows arched, and he and Honor regarded one
another with
surprised speculation. No shipboard sensor could see Hancock's inner system
from that range, so what
were the Peeps waiting for? Assuming they didn't know about the FTL sensor
net, they should have
started building the highest velocity they could before light-speed
transmissions from the out-system
sensor platforms warned the defenders of their arrival.
"Yes, Sir. I—" Chandler broke off as a buzzer sounded. She dropped her gaze to
her display again,
then looked back up at the admiral. 'They're moving now, Sir. Looks like
they're splitting into two
elements and sending the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers in ahead. That could
change, but at the moment
they're opening a definite gap between them, though both groups are coming in
at low acceleration. Their
lead element looks like about two KPS squared—call it two-zero-four gees—and
the SDs are trailing at
about half that."
'Two KPS squared." Sarnow's voice and frown were thoughtful.
"Not very daring of them, Sir," Corell observed dryly. "It's not like we're
going to be able to stop
them."
"Their intelligence may not be definite," Cartwright suggested. "If they only
think they've got the
edge, they might not want to get in too deep until they're positive they can
carry through."
"Maybe. But all we can do is guess," Sarnow pointed out. "What's their course,
Commander?" "Commander Oselli's working it up now, Sir. It looks like they're
heading to intercept the repair
base." Someone said something behind Chandler, and she nodded. "Confirmed,
Sir. Assuming they hold
their present acceleration and heading with turnover for the lead element in
about five and a half hours,
the DNs and BCs will be just about at rest relative to the base at range zero
in ten hours and forty
minutes."
"I see." Sarnow leaned back, green eyes narrow while his thoughts raced. "All
right, let's assume for
the moment that Joe's right. They're not certain about their data. Maybe they
even think it's some kind of
trap. Their lead element can pull a higher accel than their SDs, so that would
make them the logical ships
to use as a probe. And, of course, they've got more than enough firepower to
deal with us if, in fact, we
                                     200

are unsupported." He shrugged. "It's the cautious approach, but I'm afraid
that doesn't help us a lot."
Heads nodded, and Honor heard the soft tapping of his invisible fingers as
they drummed on his
console.
"At least their accel gives us time." He raised his voice. "Commander Oselli?"
"Yes, Sir?" Charlotte Oselli's reply came faint but clear from beyond the
range of Chandler's visual
pickup.
"Unless something changes, we're looking at an ideal opening for Sucker Punch,
Commander. Please
plot our course on that assumptio n and get back to me as soon as you've got
it."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
Sarnow rubbed his mustache for a minute, then looked back at Honor.
"I'll have Samuel pass the preliminary orders to the minelayers over the pulse
transmitter, Honor.
Once we've got everyone in motion, we'll shift to the regular command net and
run it through your com
channels."
"Yes, Sir"
Sarnow turned to look over his shoulder.
"You heard, Samuel?" Honor couldn't hear Webster's acknowledgment, but Sarnow
nodded. "Good.
As soon as Commander Oselli completes her calculations, I'll give them their
base course and coordinates
for their field."
"Now," he went on, turning back to the screen, "once they get moving on that—"
"Excuse me, Sir," Oselli's voice interrupted, "but I've got our vector. I
assume you want to hold our
signatures to a minimum?"
"You assume correctly, assuming we can still make it into position."
"It'll be a little tighter than optimum, Sir," Honor's astrogator said, "but
we can make it. If we get
underway within ten minutes, we can match courses at one- four-one- zero-eight
KPS in three hours and
five-two minutes. They'll be approximately three- five minutes past turnover
at a velocity of three-fourtwo-
seven-eight KPS."
"Range at course merge?"
"Just over six-point-five light- minutes, Sir. Call it one-zero-zero-point-
niner million klicks. We'll be
about two-zero-three million from the base at that point."
"I see." Sarnow's expression had tightened as Oselli spoke. Honor kept her own
face blank, but she
could almost read his thoughts. Six and a half light- minutes was ONl's best
estimate for the PNS's
detection range against a low-powered impeller wedge covered by Manticoran EW
systems. But it was
only an estimate, and if they were picked up sooner than that . . .
"Assume we maneuver as suggested, Commander Chandler. When do we hit the
powered missile
envelope?" "Almost exactly two hours after course merge, Sir." Chandler's
instant response indicated she'd
already worked the numbers. Sarnow's mouth twitched in a quick smile, and the
tac officer went on
speaking. "Assuming they maintain their projected vector—and that we aren't
                                     201

detected early, of course—
we'll be right on a hundred million klicks from the base when the range hits
seven million. That should
put them over half a million klicks inside our envelope."
"I see." Sarnow rubbed his mustache again, then nodded. "All right, let's do
it. Samuel, inform the
minelayers' senior officer that I want his field laid ninety-eight million
klicks out. And—" the admiral's
green eyes slipped, almost against their will, toward Honor "—further inform
him that he is to execute
Carry Out as soon as he's done that."
"Aye, aye, Sir." This time Webster's response was audible over the com, and
Honor caught Sarnow's
gaze and nodded slightly, acknowledging the sense of his orders. Operation
Carry Out would remove all
the noncombatants the minelayers could cram aboard from the base. It would
only be about fifty percent
of the total base personnel—and wouldn't include Paul Tankersley—but there was
no point pretending
they had any other option. Eight battlecruisers couldn't possibly stop the
firepower accelerating toward
them.
"Very well, ladies and gentlemen. I believe that takes care of the
preliminaries," Sarnow said, and
bared his teeth at the pickup. "Now let's see just how much we can hurt these
bastards."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Admiral Yuri Rollins paced slowly up and down his flag bridge as PNS Barnett
moved ponderously
in-system. His hands were back in his tunic pockets in his favorite thinking
posture, and he clamped an
unlit pipe between his teeth. That pipe was one of his few real affectations—
smoking had only recently
become fashionable once more among Haven's Legislaturalists—but he found it
comforting at the
moment.
So far, things had gone exactly as planned. They'd been shadowed, as expected,
from the moment
they pulled out of Seaford, but the three light cruisers watching over his
force had gotten just a bit too
confident. Commander Ogilve and five of his squadron mates had left ten hours
before the rest of the
fleet, and, unlike the Mantles, they'd already known what course Rollins
intended to follow. The Mantles
had known they were safely outside Rollins' range until Napoleon and her
consorts suddenly appeared
behind them, pinning them against the task force. It had been a massacre; in
fact, the first of them had
been destroyed without getting off a single answering broadside.
Their destruction had been a satisfying start to the operation, though Rollins
didn't deceive himself
about what the other Manticoran pickets had been doing. They'd hypered out in
all directions almost the
instant his own ships crossed the alpha wall. By now, they must be arriving
wherever Parks had taken his
ships, and that meant the Manty admiral would be in motion shortly. Parks
might not have exact
                                     202

intelligence on his enemies' course, but an attack on his main forward base
had to be high on his threat
list. Under the circumstances, Rollins had to assume Parks was already en
route, with a probable ETA of
no more than seventy-two to eighty- four hours.
Which should still be more than adequate, for one thing was certain: the delay
to query the Argus
net's latest data had confirmed that Parks wasn't here now. The platforms
didn't have the reach to see
anything within ten light- minutes or so of the primary, but they would
certainly have noted anything that
came in far enough out to clear Hancock's hyper limit, and nothing heavier
than a cruiser had.
He paused in his pacing to gaze into the master displa y. As planned, his own
force lagged well astern
of Admiral Chin. In fact, he intended to halt his ships eleven light- minutes
from Hancock, right on the
hyper limit, for he had no intention of miring his sluggish superdreadnoughts
any deeper than he had to.
Chin's task group would more than suffice to eliminate any Manty
battlecruisers—and their base—and if it turned out after all that this was
some sort of subtle trap, he refused to let it close upon the core of his
task force's true figuring power.
He nodded to himself and resumed his measured pacing.
Honor finished sealing her skin suit and looked down at Nimitz.
"Time to go, Stinker," she said softly, and the 'cat rose to pat her knee with
a gentle true- hand. She
thrust her gloves under her harness and scooped him up, hugging him for a long
moment before she put
him carefully into the life-support module. He made his own check of his
surroundings, then curled down
in the soft nest. Both of them hated being separated at times like this, but
it was something they were
getting used to.
Honor gave his ears a last caress, inhaled sharply, and closed the door behind
him. She doublechecked
the seals and failsafes, then picked up her helmet and left the cabin without
a backward glance.
The quiet efficiency of Nike's command deck enfolded her as she stepped out of
the bridge lift. She
crossed to her command chair and sat, racking her helmet, and pressed the
button to deploy her displays
from their storage positions. They surrounded her in a nest of information
flow, and she reached back to
double-check her waiting shock frame by feel while her eyes flicked over the
silent screens of data,
Nike and her squadron mates accelerated at a steady .986 gees, screened by Van
Slyke's heavy
cruisers and the ten light cruisers Cartwright and Ernie Corell had exempted
from their picket
deployments. The task group seemed to crawl at such a low accel, yet there
were limits to even the best
electronic warfare capabilities. While the RMN's stealth systems were highly
efficient against active
sensors like radar, the only effective way to limit detection range against an
impeller wedge was to reduce
its power.
                                     203

But slow or not, Sarnow's main striking force was exactly on Charlotte
Oselli's course towards its
massive foes, and the Peeps were, indeed, maintaining the separation Eve had
noticed. That was good—as
good, at least, as they had any right to hope for against such a tremendous
weight of metal. Operation
Sucker Punch wasn't predicated on any ridiculous assumption that
battlecruisers could stop ships of the
wall, nor was it without serious risks, but it offered a definite chance to
bleed the enemy—especially
when the enemy was obliging enough to come in split up this way. And it was
remotely possible they
could delay the Peeps long enough for Danislav to arrive.
Remotely.
She completed her scan of the displays and leaned back to cross her legs and
radiate die calm it was
her job to display. She looted around the bridge and noted with satisfaction
that none of her people were
watching her. They had their eyes where they belonged—on their own displays.
She touched a com stud.
"Auxiliary Control, Commander Henke," a furry contralto answered.
'This is the Captain. I'm on the bridge."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. You're on the bridge, and you have the con."
"Thank you, Mike. I'll see you later."
"Yes, Ma'am. You owe me a beer, anyway."
"I always owe you a beer," Honor complained. "I think there's something wrong
with your
bookkeeping." Henke chuckled, and Honor shook her head. "Clear," she said, and
released the stud.
She would have preferred, in a way, to have Mike on the bridge with her, but
unlike any of her earlier
ships, Nike was big enough for a duplicate command deck at the far end of her
core hull. Known
informally as Coventry, Auxiliary Control was manned by a complete backup of
her own bridge crew
under Henke's supervision. It was a chilling thought in some ways, but knowing
someone she trusted was
waiting to look after her ship for her eased her mind more than she'd once
expected it could. She settled herself more comfortably in her own chair and
checked the plot. The minelayers had
already completed their part of the initial operation and started back for the
base, and she wished with all
her heart that Paul were among the people they were about to pick up. But he
wasn't, and at least the base
wasn't totally helpless. It mounted no offensive weapons, but it was fitted
with generators for a spherical
sidewall "bubble" almost as strong as Nike's own, and its active antimissile
defenses were excellent.
They'd been unable to adapt its defensive fire control to handle parasite
pods, so it still had no offensive
punch, but it could protect itself quite well—until, at least, some Peep
capital ship got into beam range.
And that was going to happen. She made herself face it. Sarnow would do his
best, but not even his
best was going to change Paul's fate. Even if the task group succeeded in
drawing the Peeps' lead element
after it and away from the base, they could only delay the inevitable. Oh,
                                     204

Danislav might get here in time,
but no one was stupid enough to count on that . . . and even if he did, his
own ships would be hopelessly
outnumbered.
No, they weren't going to save the base, but at least the Admiral had ordered
Paul's CO to surrender
once the enemy reached energy range. The thought of losing him to a POW camp—
especially a Peep
POW camp—was heartbreaking, but he'd be alive. That was the important thing,
she told herself. He'd be
alive.
She allowed herself one more moment of silent anguish, then put all thought of
Paul Tankersley into
a cupboard in her brain and closed the door upon it as lovingly and gently as
she'd closed Nimitz's lifesupport
module. Her face smoothed, and she touched another com stud.
"Flag Bridge, Chief of Staff."
This is the Captain, Ernie. Please inform the Admiral that I'm on the bridge
awaiting his orders."
Rear Admiral Genevieve Chin watched her display on PNS New Boston's flag
bridge and tried not to
fidget. It wasn't nerves, she told herself. Not in the traditional sense,
anyway. The fact that she'd been
tapped to lead the first real assault on the enemy despite her relative lack
of seniority would be a
tremendous feather in her cap, and aside from the pair of tin-cans hovering
stubbornly just beyond her
missile envelope, there wasn't a sign of the Manties. Of course, those spying
destroyers meant the
defending CO was getting excellent information on her, wherever he was hiding,
but she wasn't too
concerned. EW or no, there was no way he was going to sneak into range under
power without her seeing
him. And unless he'd been in exactly the right position when the first light-
speed reports of her arrival
came in, there was no way he'd have time to get into an attack position—not,
at least, one that wasn't
suicidal—without coming in under power.
Yet despite her own reasoning, she felt undeniably tense. She was almost to
turnover, so where were
the bastards? They should have shown up by now... unless they'd decided to
abandon Hancock without
offering battle.
Assuming her information on their strength was accurate, that would certainly
be a rational move, yet
it would also be completely at odds with her own assessment of the Manticoran
Navy. Edward Saganami
had set the RMN's standards in his final engagement when he died defending a
convoy against five-to-one
odds. His inheritors had proven themselves worthy of their founder over the
centuries, and that sort of
tradition wasn't built in a moment; somehow she couldn't picture any
Manticoran admiral letting it be torn
down without a fight
No, he was out there somewhere, and he was up to something. She couldn't see
him, but she didn't
have to see him to know that.
                                     205

"Drive shutdown in five minutes," Oselli reported.
"Thank you, Charlotte." Honor looked down at the screen, which now showed Mark
Sarnow's face,
and started to open her mouth. "I heard," he said, and his expression was less
tense than it had been before. In fact, it was almost
relaxed, as if he, too, were relieved that the moment was approaching. And,
she thought dryly, that they'd
gotten this far without being spotted. The Peep dreadnoughts had made turnover
twenty-eight minutes
ago, and they'd hardly be continuing their deceleration if they knew the enemy
was now directly ahead of
them.
"Yes, Sir. Any orders?"
"None, thank you."
"Very well, Sir."
She leaned back again, resting her elbows on the arms of her command chair,
and looked back at the
plot. Six and a quarter hours had passed since the Peeps' arrival; now the
crimson data codes of enemy
ships of the wall plowed up their wake, decelerating steadily but still
overtaking at over twenty thousand
KPS, and the fact that that was exactly what Hancock's defenders wanted them
to do didn't make it any
less unnerving.
"Argus is reporting something, Sir."
Rollins stopped pacing to dart a quick look at Captain Holcombe. The chief of
staff was bent over
Captain Santiago's shoulder, watching the ops officer's display, and the
admiral made himself wait
without comment while the data coalesced.
"Five ships, Sir," Holcombe said finally. "Acceleration about four-point-niner
KPS squared. They're
on the far side of the inner system, headed directly away from the Manty base—
and Admiral Chin—
toward the hyper limit." He glanced at a time readout. "Transmission lag is
about thirty-three minutes
from the platforms that picked them up, Sir."
"IDs?"
"They're pretty big, Sir," Santiago replied. "Pulling that accel, they're
probably battlecruisers, but
there's no way to confirm that."
"Escorts?"
"No sign of any, Sir."
"I see." Rollins stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets and resumed his
pacing. Five probable
battlecruisers headed away. It made sense, especially if the defenders had
been completely surprised.
They couldn't possibly have crammed the base's entire personnel aboard that
few ships, but if they'd had
to respond to an emergenc y and organize an evacuation on the fly to get out
what they could, the timing
was about right. Only where were their escorts?
He frowned and paced a bit faster. Argus had spotted quite a few destroyers
and cruisers clustered to
cover the most likely approaches from Seaford, not to mention the tin-cans
clinging to Chin's flanks. It
was possible the Manties had deployed all their light units as pickets, which,
                                     206

in turn, would explain the
absence of any screen for the battlecruisers, but even so—
"Ed, signal New Boston," he said. "Inform Admiral Chin that Argus confirms the
departure of five
enemy units, possibly battlecruisers. Give her their vectors and emphasize
that our IDs are only tentative."
"Aye, Sir. Shall I instruct her to go in pursuit?"
"Hell no!" Rollins snorted. "There's no way she could overtake, and if they're
up to something sneaky
there's no reason to do what they want."
"Yes, Sir."
"Coming up on shutdown . . . now," Oselli said, and Chief Constanza killed
Nike's drive in instant
response. "Rotate," Honor said quietly. "George, confirm the same order to the
rest of the task group."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Monet spoke into his pickup, for the task group com net
emanated from his panel
now, just as Chandler's controlled the tactical net. Admiral Sarnow's com
section was tied into Nike's
gravities, reading direct from the FTL sensor platforms and feeding the data
to CIC.
"Rotating now, Ma'am," Chief Constanza murmured, and her hands gentled the
battlecruiser through
an end- for-end turn that left her bows-on to the oncoming Peeps. It wasn't a
very quick maneuver, for
with her wedge down Nike maneuvered like a pig—a lazy pig—on attitude
thrusters alone. The parasite
pods trailing astern didn't help, either, yet they were also the reason for
the turn. Nike's stealth systems
could do a lot to hide her from the enemy, but the tractor-towed pods extended
beyond their effective
coverage. The only way to hide them was to put them in the ship's shadow.
"All units rotated, Ma'am," Monet announced at length.
'Thank you." Honor looked down at her link to the flag bridge, and Sarnow
nodded to her.
"And now," he said quietly, "we wait."
"Another message from the flagship, Ma'am," Chin's com officer said. The
admiral quirked an
eyebrow at him. "Argus reports the impeller sources departing the base are
still holding vector for the
hyper limit."
"Thank you."
Chin exchanged glances with her chief of staff and ops officer. Commander
Klim's frown was as
intent as her own, but Commander DeSoto seemed unconcerned. Which didn' t mean
much. The ops
officer was a good, sound technician, but he lacked the chief of staff's
imagination.
She scooted down in her command chair and crossed her ankles as she leaned
back to think. She no
longer felt any inclination to fidget, as if the appearance of those drive
signatures on the far side of the
base had erased some of her tension, yet a nagging little spike of doubt
jabbed at her mind.
They almost had to be battlecruisers to pull that accel, and they'd been doing
it too long for them to
be EW drones. Yet she'd been too convinced the Manties would try something
                                     207

before tamely surrendering
a base they'd spent so much time, money, and effort building to accept it
without reservation.
"Range to their base?" she asked DeSoto.
"Coming down on one-oh-eight million kilometers, Ma'am."
"Range to base is now one-zero-one million kilometers, Sir," Honor told Mark
Sarnow, and the
admiral nodded.
"Stand by to rotate and engage." His tenor's slight harshness was the only
sign of the last two hour's
nerve-wracking strain, and Honor's respect for him clicked up another notch.
The dreadnoughts had
closed the range by more than ninety-three million kilometers, and their
velocity remained almost fifty-six
hundred KPS higher than his own. If they went in pursuit at maximum power now,
they could force him
into energy range, despite his higher accel. She knew all about the ploys he
hoped would slow them
down, for she'd helped him devise them, but she also knew what would happen if
his stratagems failed.
There were too many enemy ships back there for merely scattering to save his
battlecruisers if they
pressed a resolute pursuit, and he'd deliberately accepted that to maximize
the one truly heavy blow he
could deliver. It required either immense moral courage or a total lack of
imagination to do something like
that.
She looked back at her plot and let her thoughts turn to the missile pods.
Nike's redesigned inertial
compensator and more powerful impellers let her tow a total of seven of them;
Achilles, Agamemnon, and
Cassandra could manage six each, but the older, Redoubtable-class ships could
tow only five. "Only"
five. The right corner of her mouth twitched at the thought. Tension wound
tighter and tighter at Honor's core, the first red claws of anticipation
ripping at her
professional calm as the kilometers oozed away, and then Mark Sarnow spoke
from the screen at her right
knee.
"Very well, Dame Honor," he said very formally. "Execute!"
CHAPTER THIRTY
"Contact!"
Admiral Chin jerked upright in he r chair. DeSoto was bent intently over his
display, and she frowned
as seconds leaked away with no more information.
"I'm not sure what it is, Ma'am," he said finally. "I'm picking up some very
small radar targets at
about seven million klicks. They're not under power, and they're too small to
be warships, even LACs, but
they're almost exactly on our base course. We're overtaking them at about
five- five-niner-four KPS,
and—Jesus Christ!"
Admiral Mark Sarnow's task group had completed its turn, presenting it s
broadsides to the oncoming
enemy, and the missile pods streamed astern like lumpy, ungainly tails.
"Stand by," Honor murmured. No active sensors were live, but they'd had
literally hours to refine the
                                     208

data from their passive systems, and she felt her lips trying to draw back
from her teeth.
The tactical net's hair-thin lasers linked the task group into a single, vast
entity, and data codes
flashed as each division of battlecruisers and cruisers confirmed acquisition
of its assigned target. She
waited two more heartbeats, then—
"Engage!" she snapped, and Task Group Hancock 001 belched fire.
Nike and Agamemnon alone spat a hundred and seventy-eight missiles at the
Peeps, almost five times
the broadside of a Sphinxx-class superdreadnought. The other divisions of her
squadron had fewer birds,
but even Van Slyke's cruiser divisions had twice a Bellerophon-class
dreadnought's broadside. Nine
hundred missiles erupted into Admiral Chin's teeth, and every ship's drive
came on line in the same
instant. They swerved back onto their original heading, redlining their
acceleration, and deployed decoys
and jammers to cover themselves as they raced ahead down the Havenites' base
course at 4.93 KPS2.
For one terrible moment, Genevieve Chin's mind froze.
Two superdreadnought squadrons couldn't have spawned that massive salvo, and
the Manties only
had battlecruisers! It was impossible!
But it was also happening, and forty years of training wrenched her brain back
to life.
"Starboard ninety! All units roll ship!" she snapped, and her fist pounded the
arm of her command
chair as her ships began to turn. It was going to be close, for dreadnoughts
were slow on the helm, and she
cursed the precious seconds her own stunned surprise had lost her.
A hurricane of missiles tore down on Havenite ships whose startled missile
defense officers had been
slow to start their plots. There'd been no one on their sensors to run plots
on, and they weren't clairvoyant.
Countermissiles began to fire, sporadically at first, then in greater and
greater numbers. Dreadnoughts
were lavishly equipped with active defenses, but the Manties had targeted the
full fury of their fire on just
four dreadnoughts and the same number of battlecruisers . . . and almost a
third of the incoming missiles
carried neither laser heads nor nukes. They were fitted instead with the best
ECM emitters and electronic
penaids Manticore could build, and they played hell with Havenite tracking
systems. Missile impeller
signatures split apart and recombined with insane abandon, jammers scrambled
defensive radar, and
sheer, howling electronic noise attacked squadron tactical nets that hadn't
had the least idea they were
about to be assailed. Half of them went down—only for seconds, perhaps, before
they recovered, but for
those seconds Admiral Chin's ships found themselves suddenly alone in the path
of the storm. They were forced back into local control, and without
centralized direction, two and even three ships attacked some
missiles . . . while no one at all engaged others.
Countermissiles and laser clusters tore dozens— scores—of them apart, but
nothing could have
                                     209

stopped them all, and Chin dung to her command chair as her massive flagship
heaved in agony. Laser
heads stabbed at New Boston with x-ray stilettos, people and alloy blew apart
and vaporized under their
deadly impact, and those were the light hits, the ones that had to get through
sidewalls and radiation
shielding first.
Nouveau Paris, Chin's lead dreadnought, was slow-getting around, and over a
dozen missiles
detonated almost dead ahead of her. Lethal clusters of lasers ripped straight
down the wide-open throat of
her wedge, and Chin stared at the visual display in sick horror as she blew
apart. One instant she was six
megatons of capital ship; the next she was an expanding ball of fire.
The battlecruisers Walid and Sulieman died with her, and other ships took hit
after hit. The
dreadnought Waldensville staggered as her forward impeller ring was blown
apart, and the battlecruiser
Malik careened out of formation as her wedge went down completely. A heavy
cruiser division tried to
cover her against Manticoran sensors with their own wedges, but with neither
wedge nor sidewalls, Malik
was doomed. Even as Chin watched, her crew took to their escape pods, fleeing
their helpless ship before
the Manties localized her despite her screen and blew her apart.
Waldensville's impeller damage had cut
her maximum acceleration in half, the dreadnought Kaplan had lost a quarter of
her port broadside, her
sister ship Havensport was almost as badly damaged, and the battlecruiser Alp
Arslan trailed atmosphere
and debris.
Yet her surviving ships were around at last, presenting their full broadsides
to the enemy, and their
issiles raced after the Manticorans. It was a feeble response to the massive
salvo which had ravaged her
command, yet she watched the outgoing missile traces with hungry eyes. The
Manties were running
straight away from her, giving her birds ideal, up-the-kilt shots, but her
hand fisted in rage as decoys
sucked her fire wide and countermissiles and lasers knocked down the birds
that held lock. Unlike her, the
enemy had known they'd be taking fire, and their active defenses were
frighteningly effective.
A fresh salvo of Manticoran missiles scorched in on Malik. There were only a
few dozen of them this
time, yet the battlecruiser was a sitting target. Her cruiser screen did its
best to stop them, but at least ten
got through, and they weren't even laser heads. Megaton-range fireballs
enveloped Malik in a star-bright
boil; when it cleared, another eight hundred and fifty thousand tons of
warship had been wiped away, and
Chin swore with silent, bitter venom.
A dreadnought and three battlecruisers—all of them Sultans—gone just like
that. The enemy's
targeting had been as deadly as the sheer weight of his fire, and she'd walked
straight into it. She made
herself accept that, then looked back at the plot, and her teeth showed as she
                                     210

digested the data. She didn't
know how battlecruisers had pumped so many missiles at he r, but they'd
exposed themselves to do it.
Despite their higher accelerations, she had more than enough overtake
advantage to bring them into beam
range, and no battlecruiser could stand up to a dreadnought's energy armament.
"Bring us back around," she grated.
"Aye, Ma'am." DeSoto sounded sick and shaken, but he was regaining his
balance, and her wounded
command swung back to pursue its tormentors. Then—
"Fresh contact, Admiral. Correction—multiple contacts, bearing one-seven-niner
by oh-oh-eight,
range one-oh-six-point- niner million klicks!"
New light codes appeared in her command chairs tactical repeater, and her jaw
clenched.
Superdreadnoughts. Sixteen of them—two full battle squadrons—coming at her
from the "helpless" repair
base at 4.3 KPS2
"Reverse course. Maximum deceleration!" Honor's eyes blazed as the
"superdreadnoughts" headed toward the Peeps. The repair base might not
be armed, but its gravitic sensors had watched the savagery of the initial
exchange, and its traffic control
systems had sufficed to activate the preprogrammed electronic warfare drones
Sarnow had left in orbit
with it. Now the drones raced outward, and the Peeps had no choice but to go
to maximum power in the
other direction in the faint hope of escaping the "capital ships" lunging to
complete their destruction.
Admiral Chin sat motionless for long, silent seconds. A minute passed, then
two. Three. Her ships'
drives fought desperately to slow their headlong charge toward the Manty
superdreadnoughts, but the
range fell inexorably and the admiral's eyes burned with frustrated rage as
the battlecruisers sped away
from her. The missile exchange continued, no less ferocious despite the drop
in volume as both sides
turned their broadsides away from one another, but the Manties' superior
missiles and—especially—
defensive EW let them more than hold their own. Worse, they were ignoring
everyone else to pound
doggedly at Waldensville, whose damaged drive, unable to match her consorts'
decel, lagged further and
further astern—closer and closer to the battlecruisers—as Chin's ships fled
the superdreadnoughts.
She stared down at her tactical repeater, then shoved herself out of her chair
with a muffled curse and
stamped across to the master plot. DeSoto and Klim exchanged unhappy looks as
she abandoned the
protection of her shock frame and left her helmet racked, but neither dared
protest as she glared down into
the holo.
"Confirm ID on those SDs!" she snapped.
"Ma'am?" Surprise startled DeSoto into the question, but the ops officer
cleared his throat quickly
when Chin turned her glare upon him. "Uh, CIC's confidence is high, Ma'am," he
said hurriedly, glancing
back down at his own display. "Emissions and impeller strength both conform to
                                     211

data base's threat files on
Sphinx-class super-dreadnoughts across the board-"
Hie admiral made an ugly sound deep in her throat. She folded her hands
tightly behind her, and her
staff sat silent in the face of her anger as she rocked up and down on her
toes. The master plot confirmed
the ops officers report, but now that her instant, instinctive reaction had
passed, her own tactical sense
warred with the data. It didn't make sense. If battlecruisers could pump that
many missiles at her—and she
was beginning to suspect how they'd done it—surely ships of the wall could
have laid down even more
fire! Two squadrons of super-dreadnoughts could have annihilated her entire
force and come close to
evening the odds against Rollins' total task force in a single blow, and if
the Manties could get
battlecruisers into range undetected, there was no reason they couldn't have
done the same thing with
SDs.
And if those were superdreadnoughts, why were the battlecruisers still
running? They were
accelerating away from her at almost five KPS2; combined with her own
deceleration, that produced a
cumulative vector change of 9.45 KPS . Of course, no battlecruiser wanted to
get any closer to a
dreadnought than it had to, but their heading also meant they could reply to
her ships' after chase
armament only with their stem chasers. True, their fire was hammering
Waldensville with ever mounting
damage, but they could have turned to open their broadsides and quadrupled the
weight of their fire, and
with SDs coming to their assistance, Chin couldn't possibly have risked
slowing her escape efforts by
turning to reply in kind.
Her furious rocking motion slowed and her eyes narrowed as another thought
chased itself through
her mind. If those were SDs, why hadn't the Argus net detected their return to
the system?
She glanced at the chrono. Seven minutes since course change. Her velocity had
fallen by nineteen
hundred KPS and the battlecruisers' had climbed by over two thousand. She'd
already lost the chance to
bring them into energy range, but if she turned back to pursue them once more,
she could hold them in her
powered missile range for more than an hour. Except that doing so would also
doom her ships by
matching them against those SDs. Unless . . .
A trio of Havenite missiles found a gap in the task group's hard-pressed
defenses and charged down
on HMS Crusader. The heavy cruiser's decoys and laser clusters did their best,
but the Peeps' fire was too heavy. There were too many threat sources, and the
tac net's computers released her systems to selfdefense
a fraction of a second too late.
The laser heads detonated at less than 13,000 kilometers, and they were
capital ship missiles. Their
lasers burned through her sidewall as if it didn't exist. Battle steel
shattered and vaporized, and a failsafe
                                     212

circuit took a microsecond too long to function.
Commodore Stephen Van Slyke's flagship vanished in the eye-tearing flare of a
failing fusion bottle,
and Captain Lord Pavel Young suddenly inherited command of Heavy Cruiser
Squadron Seventeen.
Admiral Chin barely noticed Crusader's destruction. One heavy cruiser either
way hardly mattered
against the scale of the engagement ... or the threat sweeping towards her
from the Manty base. If it was a
threat.
She bit her lip. If those weren't SDs, then they were the best EW drones she'd
ever seen, and instinct
seemed a frail thing matched against the cold, hard reality of her sensors,
but . . .
She inhaled deeply without turning from the display.
"Bring us back around." Her voice was cold and hard. "Pursuit vector, maximum
acceleration."
"Admiral Chin is reversing course, Sir!"
Admiral Rollins twitched as Captain Holcombes report penetrated his sick
despair at the trap he'd
stumbled into. He twisted in his chair, double-checking his own plot in sheer
disbelief, then slumped back
and watched Chin's impeller signatures complete their suicidal swing.
"Orders, Sir?" Holcombe asked tautly, and Roilins could only shrug his
helplessness. He was over
two hundred million kilometers astern of Chin. Any order of his would take
over twelve minutes to reach
her, and her vector would merge with the Manty SDs' in less than fifty. Her
chance of escaping them was
already minute; if she accelerated towards them for twelve more minutes, it
wouldn't even exist.
"What good would it do?" he asked in a voice of quiet bitterness. "We can't
call her off in time, and
we couldn't get close enough to help even if she kept running straight towards
us. She's on her own."
"They didn't buy it, Sir," Honor said quietly.
"Not completely, no," Sarnow agreed from her com screen. There was no surprise
in his voice—not
really. They'd both hoped the Peeps might break off their attack when they saw
the "superdreadnoughts,"
yet it had never been more than a hope. "But they know they've been kissed.
And they did slow down
enough to keep us out of beam range."
Honor nodded silently, and her eyes moved back to her plot and the growing
sidebar list of damaged
ships. Commodore Prentis' Defiant had taken impeller damage, though it wasn' t
critical yet, and
Onslaught had also been hit. All her weapons remained in action, but her
gravitic sensors had been
knocked out, and her communications had been damaged seriously enough for
Captain Rubenstein to pass
control of his division's tactical net to Invincible. The cruisers Magus and
Circe had taken two hits each,
as well, but Crusader was their only total loss.
A corner of her brain was appalled that she could apply the word "only" to the
deaths of nine hundred
men and women, but it was the appropriate one, for their casualties were
                                     213

minuscule beside those Sarnow
had wreaked in reply. She knew it, yet another corner of her mind still railed
at her admiral; for all of his
brilliance and audacity he had failed to stop the enemy. They'd hurt the
Peeps, but they hadn't saved the
base—and Paul—after all.
She stamped a mental foot on her resentment, shamed by its total unfairness,
and made herself
consider the situation coldly. At least the second Peep element was holding
position right on the hyper
limit. The contest was still between them and the battered force on their
heels, and the glittering icon of
the hastily laid minefield blinked in her plot, a bare three million
kilometers ahead. Not even Nike's sensors could see the mines clearly, despite
knowing where they were, and the Peeps should have even
poorer luck against their low-signature materials.
"Our time to minefield is two-point-niner-six minutes, Ma'am," Charlotte
Oselli said, as if the
astrogator had read her mind. "The Peeps should enter attack range in . . .
seven-point- five-three minutes."
Honor nodded in acknowledgment, never looking up from her plot. Now if only
the mines didn't
make a mistake where the task group's IFF was concerned.
"You're right, Ma'am. They've got to be drones."
Genevieve Chin gave Commander Klim a sharp nod and turned from the master
display. She stalked
back to her command chair and sank into it, locking her shock frame with slow
deliberation, then looked
at DeSoto.
"Lay in new firing orders. They're concentrating on Waldensville; let's give
them a little of their own
medicine. Pick two BCs and hit them with everything we've got."
"Aye, Ma'am!" Matching hunger sharpened DeSoto's reply, and Chin smiled a thin
smile. They'd
been suckered and they'd taken their lumps; now it was time to hand out a few
in reply.
The sudden shift in fire patterns took Samov's missile defense officers by
surprise, and the first,
concentrated salvo blew a hole through their countermissiles, sweeping into
attack range of Defiant and
Achilles. Defiant took only three hits, none critical, but a dozen lasers
lashed at the open rear of Achilles'
impeller wedge, and damage alarms screamed as five of them blasted deep into
her hull.
"We've lost Graser One-Six and Laser One-Eight, Sir. Five casualties in Radar
Eleven. Missile Five-
Two's down, but damage control is on it."
"Acknowledged." Captain Oscar Weldon didn't even look up at his exec's report.
He only looked at
the flag bridge com screen and saw the same awareness in Commodore Banton s
eyes. It had been only a
matter of time until the Peeps concentrated their fire; now they knew who
their targets would be.
Achilles shuddered as another salvo flailed at her, and the battlecruiser
writhed into a fresh evasion
pattern while two light cruisers closed in tighter on either flank to add
their weight to her defense.
                                     214

"Crossing minefield attack perimeter—now!" Charlotte Oselli snapped, and
Honors eyes darted to
Eve Chandler's back. The tac officer said nothing for a second, but then a
green light flashed on her
boards and her taut shoulders relaxed imperceptibly.
"IFF transponders challenged and accepted, Skipper! We're in clean."
She glanced back over her shoulder, and Honor raised one hand in the ancient
thumbs-up gesture.
Identification friend or foe circuits could always screw up, especially when
ships had taken battle damage
that could knock out their onboard transponders or change their emission
signatures radically. But the
minefield had recognized them; it wouldn't kill their own wounded ships, and,
almost more important
still, would not reveal its position to the enemy in the process.
Chandler managed a tight answering grin, but then she whipped back around to
her display as fresh
damage signals shrilled over the task group tactical net. Her grin vanished,
and her lips drew back in a
snarl.
'They're concentrating on Achilles and Defiant, Ma'am," Eve Chandler said, and
Honor bit her lip,
wondering how the Peeps had identified the two divisional flagships.
"Enemy time to minefield?"
"Five-point-two-two minutes, Ma'am."
"That's better," Admiral Chin murmured. According to the emissions signatures,
DeSoto had picked
himself a Redoubtable and a Homer-class battlecruiser. The older Redoubtables
were on the small side,
but the Homers were every bit as powerful as Havens later and somewhat larger
Sultans. She watched a
fresh salvo claw at Achilles' heels, and her smile was thin and cold.
A Homer would make a nice down payment on the revenge Genevieve Chin intended
to collect
"Three minutes to minefield attack range." Lieutenant Commander Oselli's voice
was flat and taut.
Honor didn't even bother to nod. Her eyes were glued to the plot as missiles
lashed back and forth
between the warring ships. The Peep formation had overtaken and passed the
crippled dreadnought they'd
been pounding, hiding her from Eve Chandler's fire control behind their massed
impeller wedges, and the
task group shifted to a fresh target. They were getting good hits—a far higher
percentage of them than the
Peeps—but the enemy was sending in two missiles for every one of theirs, and
all of them were targeted
on Achilles or Defiant. Defiant seemed to be holding her own, but Banton's
flagship had taken at least a
dozen hits and lost most of her chase armament. Worse, she'd lost two beta
nodes, and the strength of her
wedge was falling. She could still match the task group's acceleration, but if
she kept taking hits—
"Two minutes to minefield attack range."
Commander DeSoto stiffened as a faint radar return flickered in his display.
Adrenaline flared as he
remembered the last time his radar had picked something up, and he stabbed a
key, interrogating his data
                                     215

base threat files. The computers considered dispassionately, then blinked an
obedient reply.
"Minefield dead ahead!" he shouted.
"Roll starboard!" Admiral Chin barked instantly, and her task group swerved
once more in the face of
a fresh threat.
"They've seen them, Sir," Joseph Cartwright said, and Sarnow grimaced.
He'd hoped they'd come even closer—maybe even straight into the mines' attack—
before they
spotted them, but the Peeps had gotten a lot sharper since their initial
surprise. He watched them slew
sideways, and eyes of hard, green flint narrowed as new vector analyses
blinked on his plot.
"They see them, but they're not going to avoid them," he said grimly.
The Havenite task group slid into range of the clustered mines like an out-of-
control ground car or a
ground-looping air car. Chin's lightning- fast response had blunted the
threat, yet her velocity was far too
high to sidestep it completely. Her ships were up on their sides relative to
the field, presenting the bellies
of their wedges as they came in, but the people who'd laid that field had
known their business. They'd also
known the exact vector on which Admiral Sarnow intended to suck her into it,
and the mines were a disk
perpendicular to her line of approach, stacked as "high" as they were "deep."
Space erupted in a wall of light as the bomb-pumped laser platforms spewed
concentrated fury at
Chin's ships. Thousands of laser beams, each more powerful than any missile
laser head could generate,
stabbed and tore at their prey. The vast majority wasted themselves harmlessly
against her interposed
impeller bands, but there were too many of them and they had too much spread
for the wedges to intercept
them all.
New Boston shuddered as fresh wounds cratered her massive armor and wiped away
weapons and
their crews. Three beta nodes and an alpha node went with them, and her flag
bridge displays flickered as
Fusion Four went into emergency shutdown, but her other power plants took the
load and damage control
and medical parties charged into her wrecked compartments. New Boston was
hurt, but she was still a
fighting force as she cleared the attack zone.
Other ships weren't. Alp Arslan broke in half and vomited flame as her number
two fusion plants
containment bottle failed, and the heavy cruisers Scimitar, Drusus, and
Khopesh vanished in matching
fireballs, their weaker sidewalls and radiation shielding no match for the
fury that could rip straight through a dreadnought's defenses. Half a dozen
destroyers joined them, and Waldensville, already lamed
and crippled, reeled out of the holocaust as a dying hulk.
Genevieve Chin listened to the torrent of loss and damage reports, and her
face was hard, hating
stone. Again. They'd suckered her again! But how, damn it?! There was no way a
minefield should be
sitting way the hell out here, and she was the one who'd picked her approach
vector! The Manties had
                                     216

matched her course, not lured her onto one of their choosing, so how in hell
could they have known
exactly where to put their field?
The last of her battered ships—the ones that survived—streamed out of the
attack and rolled back
down to engage the enemy once more, and her mouth was a knife-thin line as she
absorbed her losses. She
was down to only two battle-cruisers, both old Tiger-class ships and both
damaged, and five
dreadnoughts, all damaged to greater or lesser degree. Kaplan's armament had
been almost completely
gutted, and Merston had lost half her energy weapons and a third of her
starboard sidewall. New Boston,
Havensport, and Macrea's Tor were hurt less badly, but the lighter ships of
her screen had been
devastated. Barely half of them remained combat effective, and God only knew
what else the goddamned
Manties had waiting for her!
She opened her mouth to order the pursuit broken off, then froze as the data
on her plot changed once
more.
A fierce, harsh sound of exultation filled Nike's bridge, and Honors eyes
glittered. They were
hopelessly outgunned by the ships behind them, but they'd already destroyed
more than twice their own
total tonnage! If Parks had left even a single battle squadron to support
them, they could have annihilated
the Peeps' lead element, maybe even saved the entire system, but the task
group had nothing to reproach
itself for. And maybe, just maybe, their fresh losses would finally convince
the Peeps to break off after
all.
Then the dreadnoughts rolled back down. Only four of them remained combat
effective, but their
course change had brought their full broadsides to bear, the range had fallen
to little more than five
million kilometers, they'd had time to absorb and adjust to the task groups
defensive EW patterns, and
their furious, humiliated gunners had blood in their eyes.
Two hundred and fifty-eight missiles erupted from the battered dreadnoughts
and their surviving
escorts, and twenty-two of them broke through everything the task group could
throw at them.
HMS Defiant staggered sideways under the stunning body blow. Her port sidewall
vanished, and half
her after impeller ring vaporized. Two of her three fusion plants went into
emergency shutdown, and she
rolled over on her back, trailing air and shattered plating. There was no one
left alive on her bridge, but
her executive officer took one look at his displays in Auxiliary Control and
knew she was done. The heel
of his hand slammed down on a red button, and abandon ship alarms screamed
over every speaker and
suit com aboard her.
Barely a sixth of Defiant's crew escaped before the followup salvo killed her,
but she was luckier
than Achilles, and Honor's face went white as Commodore Isabella Banton's
                                     217

flagship blew up with all
hands.
"Yes!"
DeSoto's shout was swallowed in the hungry bray of triumph from Admiral Chins
other officers as
the Manticoran battlecruisers died, and her eyes flamed. She swallowed the
impulse to break off and
threw her ops officer a savage grin.
"Coming up on Point Delta." Charlotte Osellis soft voice broke the stunned
silence, and Honor had her expression back under
control as she looked down at her com screen. Admiral Sarnow had to be as
shaken as she was by the loss
of his two senior division commanders and a quarter of his squadron, but he
met her eyes levelly.
"Course change, Sir?" she asked.
"Bring the task group fifteen degrees to starboard," Sarnow replied, and Honor
heard someone inhale
sharply.
They'd planned to alter course at Point Delta all along, for the mines had
been their last trump card.
With no more tricks to play, their sole chance to buy the base—and Admiral
Danislav—a few more hours
lay in convincing the Peeps to alter their own vector away from it to pursue
the task group. But fifteen
degrees was the sharpest alteration they'd discussed. It would let the enemy
cut inside them, hold them in
missile range longer.
She knew what Sarnow was thinking, for the same thought had occurred to her.
Coupled with what
had just happened, that big a course change would make the temptation to
pursue them almost irresistible.
His decision was a cold, calculated bid to offer the chance to destroy his
entire squadron as bait to win the
base time that probably wouldn't matter anyway.
Dame Honor Harrington looked back into her admiral's eyes and nodded.
"Aye, aye, Sir," she said softly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
"They're altering course, Ma'am. It's not just an evasion maneuver; their base
vector's coming fifteen
degrees to starboard."
"I see." Admiral Chin's smile was a hungry wolf's. Those "SDs" had to be
drones; if they'd been real
ships of die wall, the battlecruisers would never have stopped running to meet
them. And the course
change itself, with its obvious invitation to pursuit, meant only one thing.
The Manties had just run out of
tricks. They wanted her to chase them in order to keep her out of energy range
of their base because they
damned well couldn't stop her any other way.
She knew what they were up to. They'd suck her well clear of the base, then
scatter. They'd lose the
advantage of their massed point defense when they did, but the range would be
opening again by then.
Only her dreadnoughts would have the weight of fire to get through their
individua l defenses, and she
could only fire at a few of them.
She was tempted to ignore them, but the base wasn't going anywhere, and she
                                     218

might just get lucky.
The Manties had lost a quarter of their battlecruisers and one heavy cruiser,
and other ships were hurting.
If they were willing to let her chase them, she was willing to accept the
invitation in hopes of killing a few
more of them before they scattered.
"They're taking the bait, Ma'am."
"I see it, Eve." Honor rubbed the tip of her nose and wondered if she were
really pleased. The
dreadnoughts' fire had eased as their swing back onto a pursuit vector
restricted them once more to their
chase armament, but their fire control was adapting to the task group's EW.
Their targeting remained less
effective than Sarnow's, but their warheads were far more powerful and,
despite their losses, they still had
the edge in launchers. Especially, a grim mental voice told her, now that
Defiant and Achilles were gone.
Nike twisted around, leading her squadron through yet another evasion
maneuver, and Honor bit her
lip as fresh salvos of missiles tore down on Agamemnon and Cassandra. The
damaged heavy cruiser
Circe cut across Cassandra's stem as the screen conformed to the battle-
cruisers' movements, and six of
the birds targeted on Captain Quintan's ship lost lock. They picked up the
cruiser, instead, and their sudden swerve to pursue her took them clear of the
counter missiles racing to meet them. Circe's laser
clusters stopped two of them; the other four got through . . . and shattered
the cruiser like a toy.
"Formation Reno, Com—get those cruisers in tighter!"
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Formation Reno." George Monet's flat voice sounded
incongruously calm as he
acknowledged and passed the order, and only then did Honor glance at her flag
bridge com screen. She'd
given the order without thinking about Sarnow, intent only on bringing the
escorts in closer to the
battlecruisers for mutual support. But Sarnow only nodded in agreement, then
turned his head as
Cartwright spoke.
"The Peep SDs are starting to move, Sir," the ops officer said. "They're
heading for the base."
"Admiral Rollins is moving in, Ma'am," Commander Klim announced.
Admiral Chin merely nodded. It was about time he figured out what those "SDs"
were and got his ass
in gear, she thought sourly. Not that it would nave changed what had already
happened to her, but a little
psychological support might have been nice.
Of course, it probably meant the Manties would scatter sooner. There'd be no
point in their taking any
more lumps once they realized Rollins was moving on the base behind her own
ships.
HMS Agamemnon never even saw the missile coming. It rolled up from astern,
slicing through a
narrow sensor gap where a previous hit had blinded her radar, and detonated
just off her port quarter.
For a moment the damage seemed minor; then her entire after half exploded. The
mangled stub of her
forward hull lurched to the side, and then it, too, blew up, and her consorts
                                     219

raced away from the fading
clouds of gas and heat which had once been a battlecruiser and her crew.
Mark Sarnow's face was bleak and hard. The Peeps' steadily growing accuracy
already exceeded his
projections, and the task group was still fifteen minutes short of its planned
scatter point.
His people had performed superbly—but eight thousand of them had died doing
it, and the Peep SDs
were coming. There was no point throwing away more lives to protect a base he
couldn't save anyway.
He looked at his com screen and saw the same, bitter thought in Honor
Harrington's brown eyes. She
knew the scatter order was coming, and he opened his mouth to give it.
"Sir! Admiral Sarnow!"
His head snapped around in surprise, for the voice was Lieutenant Commander
Samuel Webster's.
He'd almost forgotten Webster's presence, but the com officer was pointing at
his display—the one tied
into the FTL sensor net.
Commander Francis DeSoto bared his teeth as the third Manty battlecruiser
died. He didn't need
Admiral Chin's orders to look for a replacement target, and he searched his
display hungrily. Another
Homer. That was what he wanted—but then he stiffened as an icon suddenly
changed. Agamemnon's
destruction and a shift in the Manticoran formation had opened a hole in the
maze of mutually interfering
impeller signatures, and New Boston's computers got their first clear look at
HMS Nike.
The updated plot blinked at DeSoto again, and his eyes glittered. That ship
was five percent larger
than a Homer, and that made her one of the new Reliant-class ships.
"It is Admiral Danislav, Sir!" Joseph Cartwright's confirmation of Webster's
report was jubilant, and
Sarnow fought his own elation. The enormous hyper footprint was well beyond
Nike's onboard sensor
range, but there was no question of who it was. The ten dreadnoughts at the
formation's core burned sharp
and clear, and Danislav must already be querying the sensor net.
The admiral made himself sit still and silent, watching the plot Webster was
feeding from the sensor
platforms' FTL transmissions. Danislavs ships held their arrival vector for
ten seconds, then twenty, coasting without acceleration at the bare 8,000 KPS
of their translation into normal space, and then the
plot blinked. Danislav's heading changed, his ships went to an acceleration of
four hundred and thirty
gravities, and a new vector curled out across the display.
Numbers flashed with CIC's analysis. Twenty-six minutes. That was how much
longer the Peeps had
to keep chasing Sarnow to reach the point of no return. Just twenty-six
minutes and they couldn't possibly
escape Danislav's oncoming dreadnoughts.
He turned back to his com to give Captain Harrington the news.
Twenty- four missiles sped toward the task group. Five of them lost lock over
a million kilometers out
as jammers blinded their sensors. Another three locked onto decoys. Two of
them couldn't see their
                                     220

primary target and shifted to the secondary, arcing away to strike at the
heavy cruiser Warrior, and
countermissiles smashed six more of them to bits.
Eight of them broke through the outer defense zone and bore in, weaving and
bobbing while their
own ECM parried and thrust with the systems trying to kill them. They were
outclassed . . . but they were
also closing at fifty- five thousand KPS. Laser clusters killed one of them,
then two more. A fourth. The
surviving quartet made their final course correction, two more of them blew
apart, and then the last pair of
missiles detonated.
HMS Nike heaved and twisted as x-ray daggers sank deep into her armored flank.
Laser Seven and
Graser Five exploded into wreckage. Radar Five went with them, along with
Communications Two,
Missile Thirteen and Fourteen, Damage Control Three, Boat Bay Two, and ninety-
three men and women.
A secondary explosion boiled up out of Com Two and Damage Control Three.
Incandescent gas and
flying chunks of battle steel erupted into CIC from below, gutting it and
killing or wounding twenty-six
more people. Fire and smoke filled the compartment, and the massive concussion
smashed across it and
into its after bulkhead—the one that separated it from Nike's flag bridge.
The ruptured bulkhead spat out splinters with deadly velocity. One of them
tore Admiral Sarnow's
yeoman in half. A second killed three of Joseph Cartwright's ratings. Another
shrieked across the flag
bridge and decapitated Casper Southman, then ricocheted into Ernestine Corells
console. It missed the
chief of staff by centimeters, and she lurched back from her shattered
displays in horror, coughing and
choking on smoke as the man beside her vanished in an explosion of blood.
And a fourth deadly splinter ripped into the back of Admiral Mark Sarnow's
command chair.
It sheared through the chair, spinning end- for-end like a white-hot buzz-saw.
The impact snapped the
admirals shock frame and hurled him forward, but the splinter caught him in
midair. It severed his right
leg just above the knee and mangled his left calf, chunks of the chair itself
blasted into his back, and his
ribcage shattered like a wicker basket as he impacted on the master plot and
bounced back like a broken
doll.
Samuel Webster flung himself toward his admiral while slamming blast doors
chopped off the
cyclone of escaping air. Sarnow's skin suit had already inflated emergency
tourniquets on either thigh, and
his scream was a faint, thready exhalation as Webster moved him gentry to
check his life-sign monitors.
The admiral stared up at his com officer, fighting the searing agony. "Don't
scatter!" he gasped with
all his failing strength, and his hand plucked at Webster's arm like a fevered
child's. "Tell them not to
scatter!"
Webster's face was white as Sarnow's terrible injuries registered, and his
                                     221

fingers darted across the
skin suit's med panel. Blessed relief spread through the admiral, deadening
the pain. Unconsciousness
beckoned, but he fought it as he had the pain, clinging to awareness, as
Ernestine Corell appeared beside
him.
"Don't scatter!" he gasped again, and Corell looked at Webster. "What did he
say?" she demanded, and Webster shrugged helplessly.
"I don't know, Ma'am." Grief clogged his voice, and he touched Sarnow's
shoulder gently. "I can't
make it out."
Corell leaned closer, and Sarnow tried again, desperate to get the order out,
but the blackness took
him first.
Damage reports flooded into Nike's bridge, and Honor heard herself
acknowledging them—calm and
controlled, like a stranger—while her shocked eyes clung to the blank screen
by her right knee.
She tore her gaze from it and looked at her own tactical repeater. CIC was
gone, but Tactical's fire
control systems had taken over the plot. She saw the cruisers Sorcerer and
Merlin racing into new
positions, taking up station on Nike's flanks to support her point defense as
the task group recognized the Peeps' new target, and her flying thoughts were
clear and cold.
She knew what Sarnow had been about to say. She'd been his tactical alter ego
too long not to know .
. . but he hadn't said it.
Command passed with the admiral. She knew that, too, yet there were no flag
officers left. Captain
Rubenstein was senior officer now, but Onslaught's gravities were gone, her
com section heavily
damaged; she could neither receive the sensor platforms' transmissions nor
pass orders effectively . . . and
Rubenstein didn't know Danislav had arrived or what the admiral had intended.
She felt George Monet watching her, knew he was waiting for her order to
inform Rubenstein he was
in command, and said nothing.
The task group raced onward, flailed by the Havenites' fire, and its return
fire grew weaker and more
sporadic as laser heads blew away missile tubes and clawed at sidewalk and
hulls. The range was opening
again, but slowly, and it had dropped to less than three million kilometers
first. Mark Sarnow's captains
clung grimly to their courses, knowing they'd done all they'd set out to do
and waiting for the flagship's
order to scatter.
Captain Pavel Young sat white- faced and sweating in his command chair.
Warlock was untouched,
one of the few ships which could say that, and her gravities had picked up the
same information as Nike's.
He knew the relief force had arrived, and terror gnawed at his vitals as he
waited for his ship's unnatural
exemption to end.
He stared at the flagships cursor, tasting blood from a bitten lip as direct
hits and near misses lashed
at her, their savagery made somehow more terrible by the quiet of Warlock's
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bridge. But even through his
near-panic a corner of his brain exulted, for Van Slyke's death had given him
squadron command at last,
and command experience in a battle like this, however it had come his way,
would wash away the
Basilisk fiasco's stigma at last!
They reached the prearranged scatter point, end he tensed to order a radical
course change at the
flagships command. But no command came. They passed the invisible dot in
space, still charging
forward, still on course . . . still writhing under the enemy's fire, and his
eyes widened in disbelief.
He stared at Nike's data code desperately, almost beseechingly. What the hell
was wrong with
Sarnow? There was no more need for this! The Peeps would spot Danislav's
dreadnoughts within twenty
minutes—thirty- five at the most! Surely he knew they'd break off the action
then anyway. Why wasn't he
letting them save themselves?!
And then Warlock's immunity ended. The missile wasn't even meant for her, but
her port decoy
sucked it away from Invincible. It detonated at twenty- four thousand
kilometers, blasting through her
sidewall to blot away Laser Four and rip Magazine Two open to space, and panic
roared through Pavel
Young's soul on the wail of damage alarms.
"Squadron orders!" His tenors shrill, raw edges turned every head on his
bridge in shock. "All ships
scatter! Repeat, all ships scatter!" Honor Harrington stared at her display as
Heavy Cruiser Squadron Seventeen peeled away. It was too
soon. They needed another twelve minutes—just twelve more minutes—to insure
their pursuers'
destruction!
Five of the heavy cruisers swerved away as she watched. Only Merlin held her
course, glued to Nike's
flank like a limpet, her laser clusters firing in desperate defense of the
flagship.
"Contact Warlock!" she snapped. "Get those ships back in position!"
Pavel Young stared at his com officer.
"Orders, Sir?" His exec's voice was harsh, and Young wrenched his wild eyes
back to his plot. The
Peeps were ignoring his fleeing ships to hammer savagely at the battlecruisers
exposed by his defection.
"Orders, Sir?!" the exec half-shouted, and Captain Lord Pavel Young clenched
his jaw in silence. He
couldn't go back into that horror. He couldn't!
"No response from Warlock, Ma'am." Nike shook to yet another hit, and Monet's
voice quivered with
sympathetic vibration, but his stunned surprise at the heavy cruiser's silence
came through clearly.
Honor's head whipped up, and Monet flinched back from her expression.
"Give me a direct link to Captain Young!"
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Monet jabbed keys, and the blank screen at Honor's knee
filled with Pavel
Young's face. Sweat streaked his cheeks and ran into his beard, and his eyes
were a hunted animal's,
"Get back into formation, Captain!" Young only stared at her, his mouth
                                     223

working soundlessly. "Get
back into formation, damn you!"
The screen went dead as Young killed the circuit. For one stunned second, she
couldn't believe it, and
in that second a fresh salvo of laser heads slammed at Nike's defenses. Her
ship heaved and shuddered,
frantic damage control reports crackled all around her, and she wrenched her
eyes from the com screen to
George Monet.
"General signal to all heavy cruisers. Return to formation at once. Repeat,
return to formation at
once!"
Puzzlement furrowed Admiral Chin's forehead as she watched the Manties'
antics. Her fire must have
taken out their flagship's communications, she decided. That was the only
explanation for their sudden,
ragged confusion. Their heavy cruisers dispersed before her eyes, taking
themselves out of the antimissile
net, and her missiles thundered down on the battlecruisers' weakened defenses.
One of them staggered,
belching air and debris, but she hauled back onto course and continued to run.
Another salvo scorched in,
ripping at them, maiming and tearing, and Chin smiled, sensing the kills to
come—then snarled as four of
the fleeing cruisers suddenly reversed course.
Only one of them continued its flight, and her fire control ignored it to
concentrate on the ones who
stood to fight.
Honor Harrington spared one last, hating glance for the single data code that
continued to streak away
from her formation. Cassandra had been savagely mauled when Young broke away.
Her entire port
sidewall was down, leaving her naked and vulnerable, but the other cruisers
slotted back into the net, and
Honor snapped fresh orders. Intolerant and Invincible dropped back between
Cassandra and her enemies,
shielding her with their own interposed sidewalls while her crew worked
frantically at repairs.
They had nine minutes to get that sidewall back up.
Admiral Yuri Rollins jerked around in his command chair to stare at Captain
Holcombe. The chief of
staff was white, and Rollins felt the blood drain from his own face as
Holcombe's report registered. He vaulted from his chair and half-ran to the
master plot, staring into it in disbelief as the Argus
sensors updated the imagery. It had taken over fifteen minutes for the sensor
platforms to relay the data to
him, and the Manticoran dreadnoughts were already up to twelve thousand KPS.
A blood-red line extended itself from the newly arrived ships, racing out
towards Chin's battered
squadron, and the admiral's blood turned to ice as CIC's projection flashed
before him. Chin would be
trapped, unable to evade the threat, in less than ten minutes . . . and it
would take any warning from him
thirteen minutes to reach her.
"Reverse course—maximum military power!" he snapped, and turned away as
startled responses
came back to him. He walked heavily back to his chair and lowered himself into
                                     224

it.
Those fresh ships of the wall weren't enough to stop him—but they could maul
him badly before he
destroyed them. Nor could he be certain no more were coming . . . and their
sudden arrival, coupled with
the ambushes through which the Manty battlecruisers had led Chin, argued that
they weren't.
It had been a trap after all, he thought dully. He didn't know how they'd
managed it. Perhaps they'd
had a relay ship waiting out beyond the hyper limit, ready to summon
reinforcements at the opportune
moment. He didn't know, and it didn't matter. He had to break back out across
the hyper limit before
anyone else turned up—and his course reversal was the only warning he could
give Chin. Her gravities
would pick it up ... and she might even figure out why he'd done it in time.
"Admiral Rollins has gone to maximum decel, Ma'am." Commander Klim sounded
puzzled, and
Admiral Chin frowned in surprise. She craned her neck to see the master plot,
and her own puzzlement
grew.
A light blinked in Honor's display at last as the dispassionate computers
confirmed it: her pursuers
could no longer escape the retribution of Danislav's reinforced squadron,
whatever they did.
She tried to feel exultant, but Mark Sarnow and his people had paid too high a
price for that.
"Status on Cassandra's sidewall?"
"Still down, Skipper. She's lost five beta nodes, as well; her max accel's
down to four-point-six KPS
squared."
Honor inhaled deeply. With the pounding the Peeps had taken, their accel was
low enough Cassandra
could still draw away from them, but she'd never live to get out of range. Not
without her sidewall.
"Bring her up on our starboard side. Tuck her in as tight as you can and
reduce our accel to match
hers.
Instruct her to maintain station on us—then order the rest of the task group
to scatter."
Admiral Chin's frown deepened as the Manty task group unraveled. There was no
mistake about it
this time; each ship spun away from its fellows, scattering far and wide in
what was clearly a carefully
planned maneuver.
All but two of them. One pair of battlecruisers clung together, so tight her
sensors could hardly
distinguish one from the other, and she nodded. The closer one was the
Reliant-class ship, and she was
obviously covering a damaged consort, which made the two of them her logical
target. But even as she
thought that she continued to stare at the decelerating impeller sources of
Rollins' superdreadnoughts.
Now why would they be doing that, unless—
The battered Havenite dreadnoughts slowed abruptly, and Honor bared her teeth.
They'd figured it
out at last. She didn't know how, but they knew . . , only they didn't know it
                                     225

was already too late. The dreadnoughts completed their turn, decelerating as
hard as they could, and she pictured the scene
on their flagship's bridge. Their CO couldn't know what bearing the threat was
coming from. Until her
own sensors picked up Danislav's ships she could only decelerate back the way
she'd come, and every
second of deceleration increased Nike's relative velocity by nine KPS. Which
made it time to make the
Peeps' targeting problems a little worse.
"Execute Shell Game," she said.
Eve Chandler punched commands into her panel, and eight EW drones erupted away
from the two
battlecruisers. They scattered in four different directions, each pair tucked
in tight, mimicking the
signatures of their mother ships, and Nike and Cassandra altered course
sharply to charge off on yet a
fifth vector.
The sudden multiplication of targets did exactly what Honor had intended.
Unable to be certain
which were the real ships, the Peep commander chose not to waste her
ammunition on might-have-beens .
. . especially when she must have figured out she was going to need every
missile she had very shortly.
All fire ceased, and the brutally wounded flagship of TG-H001 and her crippled
consort raced for
safety.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Hereditary President Harris looked around the magnificently decorated dining
room and tried not to
show his worry. It was his birthday, and the glittering horde of well- wishers
had gathered as it always did,
but this time there was a difference. The soft clink and clatter of tableware
sounded completely natural;
the near total absence of conversation did not.
His mouth quirked mirthlessly, and he reached for his wineglass. Of course
there was no
conversation; no one wanted to talk about what all of them knew was true.
He drank deep of his wine, hardly noticing its exquisite bouquet, and let his
eye run over the tables.
As it did on every Presidents Day, the Republic's government had virtually
shut down for the celebration,
since anyone in government who mattered simply had to be here. Only Ron
Bergren and Oscar Saint-Just
were absent. The foreign secretary had departed for the Erewhon Wormhole
Junction, en route to the
Solarian League and a desperate (and probably futile) effort to convince the
League that Manticore had
started the war. Saint-Just, on the other hand, had been working eighteen-hour
days ever since Constances
assassination—without getting any closer to her killers. But every other
cabinet member was here, as
were the heads of all of Haven's most prominent Legislaturalist clans and
their immediate families.
Harris set the glass back down and stared into its tawny heart. Despite the
forced air of festive
normality, there was a terrible, singing tension in this room, for the growing
fear spawned by Constance's
                                     226

unexpected murder had been fanned by the disastrous reports from the
frontiers.
They'd been mouse-trapped. Harris made himself admit that. They'd set their
plans in motion,
confident the game was theirs to direct as it always had been, only to
discover that, after fifty years of
conquest, they had finally met a foe even more cunning than they were.
He'd read the dispatches. Given what Admiral Rollins had known, Harris had to
agree he'd had no
choice but to move against the Hancock System, yet hindsight proved only too
clearly that the Manties
had known all about the "secret" Argus net. They'd used it to offer Rollins an
irresistible bait by
"withdrawing" their ships, and the result had been devastating. The arrival of
the dreadnoughts which had
compelled Admiral Chin to surrender would have been bad enough, but it hadn't
been the end. Oh, no.
Not the end.
Harris shuddered. The second jaw of the Manty trap had failed by the thinnest
margin when the rest
of Admiral Parks' "dispersed" task force dropped out of hyper barely thirty
minutes too late to intercept
Rollins before he hypered out, yet his escape hadn't saved him in the end.
Reinforced to almost a third
again of his prewar strength, Parks had moved instantly against Seaford Nine
and Rollins' weakened task force. Seaford's defenders had destroyed a couple
of ships of the wall and damaged others, but only three
of their own capital ships had survived, and Rollins' flagship hadn't been one
of them. PNS Barnett had
blown up early in the action, killing Rollins and his entire staff, and the
command confusion that followed
had finished Seaford off.
And then Parks had left one battle squadron to hold Seaford and returned to
Hancock . . . just in time
to meet Admiral Coatsworth as he moved in, expecting to find Rollins in
possession. At least Coatsworth
had gotten most of his ships out, yet his lead squadrons had taken a terrible
pounding, and without
Seaford's repair facilities, he'd been driven clear back to Barnett with his
damaged units while his courier
boats reported the disaster to Haven.
Public Information had clamped down a total news blackout, but rumors had
leaked. That was one
reason Harris had gone ahead with his annual birthday celebration, as an
effort to convince people of the
governments "business as usual" confidence in the face of those rumors. Not,
he thought bitterly, that he
expected it to do any good. The only thing that could really calm the public
would be the news that
Admiral Parnell's attack on Yeltsin's Star had succeeded, and it would take at
least another week for
Parnell's report of victory to reach Haven.
Assuming, of course, that he had a victory to report.
Harris grimaced at his own gloomy thoughts and straightened in his chair. One
thing that wouldn't
help was for the President to look as if his best friend had just died, and—
His thoughts broke off as the head of his security detachment walked quickly
                                     227

across the room
towards him. The security man's expression was neutral, but his body language
communicated an entirely
different message.
"What is it, Eric?" the President asked quietly.
"I'm not certain, Sir." The security man's New Geneva accent was more
pronounced—and anxious—
than usual. "Capital Traffic Control's just picked up half a dozen Navy
shuttles entering city airspace
without prior clearance."
"Without clearance?" Harris pushed his chair back and stood. "Where are they
headed? What did they
say when Control challenged them?"
"They say they're an unscheduled training mission authorized by Naval Security
to test CTC's
readiness states, Mr, President."
"A security test?" Harris wiped his mouth with his napkin and dropped it
beside his plate. "Well, I
suppose that makes a degree of sense, under the circumstances, but contact
Secretary Saint-Just and get
InSec to validate."
"We're trying, Sir, but Secretary Saint-Just is away from his com."
"Then screen Undersecretary Singh. Someone must know—"
The Presidential Security Force man stiffened, pressing his hand to his
unobtrusive earbug, then
paled. His right hand seized the President by the sleeve, and Harris staggered
as he was half- flung towards
an exit.
"Eric! What the hell—?!"
'Those shuttles just altered course, Mr. President! They're headed straight in
our direction, and—"
The PSF man never finished his sentence, for seven assault shuttles of the
People's Navy screamed
over the People's Palace. Four five-thousand-kilo precision guided warheads
scored direct hits on the
Presidential Dining Room, and Sidney Harris, his wife, his three children, and
his entire cabinet and all of
his senior advisors, ceased to exist in a fireball of chemical explosives.
Five seconds later, the Palace itself was little more than flaming rubble
strewn across the cratered
horror of its once immaculate grounds.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Quorum, I am appalled by the scale of this act of
treason." Speaker
Robert Stanton Pierre shook his head sadly as he gazed out over the stunned
faces of the People's Quorum
and spoke into the dead silence. For all intents and purposes, the entire
government of the Peoples
Republic of Haven had been annihilated along with the heads of every
Legislaturalist family that really
mattered, and the full impact of the disaster was still sinking into the
Quorum's minds.
"The fact that Secretary Saint-Just's Internal Security personnel were able to
intercept and annihilate
the traitors cannot lessen the blow," Pierre went on sadly. "Not only have our
leaders and their families
been brutally murdered, but the traitors came out of our own military!
Commodore Danton has confirmed
                                     228

that the shuttles which carried out the attack were covered by official
orders—orders which would have
been wiped from his data base by still other traitors if not for the prompt
action of loyal members of his
staff. I deeply regret the casualties those loyal men and women suffered in
the gunfight which wrecked
the Commodores HQ, but the presence of the traitors who provoked it, coupled
with their readiness to
resort to violence when challenged, must raise the gravest suspicions. Under
the circumstances, we have
no option but to assume the worst, at least until the most thorough
investigation can sift these horrible
events in detail."
"Mr. Speaker!" A well- fed, beefy back-bencher stood, and Pierre nodded to
him.
"The Chair recognizes Mr. Guzman."
"What do you mean 'assume the worst,' Mr. Speaker?"
"I mean that we face the gravest crisis in our history," Pierre said softly.
"This attack was launched by
Navy personnel on the heels of the worst defeat our fleet has ever suffered.
We must ask ourselves who
had the authority to order those shuttles out on their 'exercise.' We must ask
ourselves who had reason to
fear the government's reaction to their failure against the Hancock System and
the loss of Seaford Nine."
"Surely you're not suggesting that senior Navy officers were responsible?!"
"I am suggesting only that until we know who was responsible, we must consider
every possibility,
however terrible," Pierre replied in a level voice. "I hope with all my heart
that I am doing our military
personnel a grave injustice by even suggesting such a thing, but until we can
be certain of that, we owe it
to the Republic to guard against the chance that I'm not."
"We owe it to the Republic?" someone else asked, without seeking recognition,
and Pierre nodded
grimly.
'The government has been destroyed, ladies and gentlemen. Secretary Saint-Just
and Secretary
Bergren are the cabinet's sole survivors, and only Secretary Saint-Just is
currently on Haven. He's already
informed me that, as no more than Secretary Palmer-Levy's acting successor, he
feels neither qualified to
nor capable of assuming the burden of government. Which means that we, the
people's representatives,
have no option but to assume emergency powers until such time as formal
government can be
reestablished."
"Us?" someone yelped, and Pierre nodded once more.
"I realize our experience is limited, but who else is there?" He looked at his
fellows appealingly. "We
are at war with the Star Kingdom of Manticore and its lackeys. In a time of
such peril, the Republic must
not drift uncontrolled, and until we can know positively that the military is
reliable, we dare not place
ourselves at its mercy. In the face of those inescapable and overriding
concerns, we have no choice but to
face our responsibility to provide the stability we so desperately need by
                                     229

organizing ourselves as a
committee of public safety to assume direction of the state."
The Peoples Quorum stared at its speaker in shock. After so many decades of
rubber-stamp approval
of someone else's policies, barely a fraction of them had the least idea how
to wield effective power. The
very thought of it terrified them, yet none of them could deny the force of
Pierre's logic. Someone had to
assume control, and if there was the chance of a full-scale military coup . .
.
Pierre let the silence linger for long, endless moments, then cleared his
throat. "I have, on my own authority, discussed our critical situation with
Secretary Saint-Just. He has
already moved to secure control of the essential administrative centers here
on Haven and assures me of
the loyalty of his own InSec personnel, but he has no desire to impose any
sort of one-man rule on the
Republic. In fact, he's practically begged me to explain the realities of our
plight to you so that we can
move quickly to establish the broad-based committee required to reassure our
own people and the galaxy
at large that no coup will be permitted to overthrow the Republic." Pierre
shrugged helplessly.
"I see no option but to honor his request, ladies and gentlemen, and organize
ourselves as a caretaker
government until public safety can be restored."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Amos Parnell sat in his office off DuQuesne Base's central war room and stared
in sick horror at his
terminal. The stocky, powerful CNO seemed shrunken, aged beyond his years, and
his face was haggard.
His task force had returned to the Barnett System less than ten hours ago
after its agonizingly slow
passage from Yeltsin and what he supposed historians would call the Battle of
Yeltsin. "Massacre of
Yeltsin" would be more appropriate, and it was his fault. He'd taken the
Mantles' bait hook, line, and
sinker.
He closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands, and knew he was a beaten
man. Not just by the
Mantles, but inside. He'd gone into Yeltsin believing he had a three-to-one
advantage, only to find himself
facing a force even stronger than his own, and somehow the Manties and their
allies had been able to
preposition their powered-down wall of battle perfectly. It was as if they'd
been clairvoyant, as if they'd
been able to see every move he made in real time.
Their opening broadsides had taken him totally by surprise. A quarter of his
fleet had been crippled
or destroyed almost before he knew the enemy was there, and he had no idea how
he'd extricated anything
from the deadly trap. He couldn't remember. No doubt he could replay the com
records and flag bridge
recorders and reconstruct his orders, but he had absolutely no coherent memory
of giving them. It was all
a hideous nightmare of lightning- fast decisions and desperate improvisation
that had somehow fought
                                     230

clear of Yeltsin with barely half the ships he'd taken into it, and half of
them had been so battered their
return to Barnett had taken more than twice as long as the passage out.
And now this. The President was dead. The entire government was dead, as were
his own father, his
younger sister, his brother, three of his cousins, and virtually their entire
families, and Navy personnel had
done it.
He ground his teeth in agony at the thought. The Manties' Hancock trap had
succeeded even more
completely against Admiral Rollins than the Yeltsin ambush had against him.
Sixteen percent—the best
sixteen percent—of the Fleet's wall of battle had been wiped out, and even as
the Navy bled and died on
the frontiers, another faction of its personnel had committed mass murder
against its own people. He
ached with agonizing, personal shame and thought longingly of the loaded
pulser in his desk drawer. All
it would take was a single squeeze of the stud . . . but he owed the Republic
more than that. He owed it
whatever he could do to stem the tide of disaster.
His office door opened, and he snatched his hands down and looked up.
Commodore Perot stood in
the doorway, and Parnell opened his mouth to demand the reason for the
intrusion, then paused.
The commodore wasn't alone, for two men and a woman stood behind him. They
wore InSec's
uniform, and Perot's face was a sickly, ashen hue.
One of the InSec men touched Perot's shoulder, and he shambled into the
office, his eyes stunned.
Parnell stiffened and opened his mouth once more, but the woman spoke before
he could.
"Admiral Amos Daughtry Parnell?" It came out hard and clipped, an accusation,
not a form of
address. "What's the meaning of this?" Parnell tried, to put iron into his
voice, but he he ard its wan, weary
quiver.
"Admiral Parnell, I am Special Undersecretary for Security Cordelia Ransom,
and it is my duty to
inform you that you are under arrest."
"Arrest?" Parnell stared at her, feeling anesthetized and numb, as she drew a
crackling sheaf of paper
from her pocket. "On what charges?"
"On charges of treason against the people," Ransom said in that same, hard
voice. She tossed the
sheaf of paper onto his desk, and the admiral stared down at it dazedly, then
picked it up in trembling
hands.
From its date, the standard InSec detention order must have been written
within hours of his Yeltsin
dispatch's arrival on Haven, and like all InSec DOs, its wording was vague.
The charges were listed in
bald, terse sentences, but no amplification or specifics were offered.
He read the charges slowly, unable to believe this was happening, and then he
came to the last page.
It wasn't a standard detention order after all, for the signature block had
been changed. The space which
                                     231

should have contained the Secretary of Internal Security's authorization of
Parnell's arrest bore another
name and title, and he stared at it numbly.
"By order of Rob S. Pierre, Chairman, Committee of Public Safety," it said.
Dame Honor Harrington stepped into the briefing room. She removed her white
beret, and Nimitz
swayed gently on her shoulder as she tucked the beret under her left epaulet
and looked at the man
awaiting her,
Vice Admiral Sir Yancey Parks returned her gaze levelly. She felt his emotions
through her link to
the treecat, and there was still no liking for her in them. She wasn't
surprised. She might not know what
had prejudiced Parks against her to start with, but she'd come to the
conclusion that it didn't much matter,
anyway. They were simply the wrong personalities to like one another.
Yet they were also professionals. They didn't have to like each other, and
just as she felt Parks'
dislike, she felt his stubborn determination to do his duty. It was a pity,
she thought, that he couldn't feel
her emotions. Perhaps that sort of understanding might have overcome their
mutual dislike.
And perhaps not.
"I've just been reading your doctor's report on Admiral Sarnow," Parks said a
bit abruptly. "I must
say, I'm impressed. Very impressed."
"Yes, Sir. Commander Montoya is one of the finest doctors I've ever known—as I
can attest from
personal experience."
"So I understand." Parks' lips quirked in a dour smile, and he pointed at a
chair. "Sit, Captain. Sit!"
His voice had a testy edge, and he watched through wintry eyes as she obeyed.
"I owe Admiral Sarnow—and you—a very great vote of thanks." Parks didn't like
admitting that, but
he did it. "Of course, you were technically in the wrong not to pass command
to Captain Rubenstein, but
in view of the tactical situation—and the result—I have fully endorsed your
decision, and my dispatch to
Admiral Caparelli fully approves your conduct and commends your skill and
courage."
"Thank you, Sir," Honor said quietly, and reached up to still Nimitz with a
touch as the 'cat shifted on
her shoulder.
"I've also read your report on the . . . incidents of the engagement," Parks
went on in a flat tone, "and
taken statements from all surviving captains. In light of those statements and
the com records from
Warlock's data base, there is no question in my mind that Lord Young first
ordered his squadron to scatter
without authorization and subsequently withdrew his ship and its support
against your specific orders. The
situation is complicated by the fact that he was, in fact, senior to you, but
he had no way of knowing Admiral Sarnow had been incapacitated. At the moment
he made his decision, he did so against what he
believed to be Admiral Sarnow's orders and hence in defiance of his lawful
superior while in the presence
of the enemy. As such, I have had no choice but to remove him from command and
                                     232

assemble a captains'
board to consider his actions."
He paused, and Honor watched him in silence. She'd known all about the board
of inquiry. She might
not like Parks, but she had to admit he'd acted both promptly and generously
where the task group was
concerned. Of course, she thought bitterly, there weren't very many people
left to be generous to.
Sarnow's force had suffered over twelve thousand fatal casualties, and none of
them had been necessary.
She knew she would never be able to forgive Parks for letting it happen, yet
she also knew he'd done
the best he could. He'd made a bad call, but he hadn't known about the Peeps'
spy satellites when he did it.
Once he'd discovered their existence, his actions had been both rapid and
decisive. The proof was in the
pudding, she supposed, and the conquest of Seaford Nine and the total
destruction of the Peeps' military
presence in his command area was a very substantial pudding indeed.
But Parks knew how much he owed the task group. He'd been more than generous
in his praise, and
she'd already seen the honors list he'd proposed to the Queen. She was on it,
as were Sarnow, Banton, Van
Slyke, and at least a dozen other officers and twice as many ratings and
noncoms. Too many of them were
mentioned only posthumously, yet Parks had done what he could, and his report
on his own actions pulled
no punches. He'd fully admitted his mistakes—and been equally explicit in his
praise for Admiral Mark
Sarnow and the officers and enlisted personnel under his command.
Except for Lord Pavel Young. Young had been relieved from command and placed
under open arrest
even before Parks moved against Seaford, and Commodore Capra had taken Honors
own testimony in a
recorded deposition for the board of inquiry. Now she waited to hear its
verdict.
"It is the opinion of the officers of the board," Parks said quietly, "that
Lord Young has proven his
total lack of fitness to command a Queen's ship. The board has also concluded
that the confusion his
withdrawal caused in your missile defense net was directly responsible for an
indeterminate but
substantial number of casualties to other ships of the task group. It is the
board's recommendation, which I
have endorsed—" Parks looked squarely into Honor's eyes"—that Lord Young be
returned to Manticore,
there to be tried by court- martial for cowardice and desertion in the face of
the enemy."
Honors nostrils flared, and Nimitz hissed. A savage sense of satisfaction went
through her, cold and
deadly, not exultant. Parks sat silent, watching her, and she inhaled and
squared her shoulders.
"Thank you, Sir. For all of our people."
The admiral shrugged, but her link to Nimitz was still open, and she felt
Parks' mixed emotions. His
own actions, however successful, left him open to serious criticism. Young's
family could be expected to
                                     233

play on them in any defense they mounted, and his endorsement of the board's
recommendations would
make the Earl of North Hollow his mortal enemy, whatever the trials outcome.
He knew it, and it worried
him, but he'd endorsed them anyway.
"At any rate," he went on after a moment, "it's time you took Nike home for
repairs, Dame Honor."
Honor nodded. The repair base had patched up the most critical of the task
group's hurts, but most of
its units had already departed for Manticore. There were too many damaged
ships for the base's capacity;
the worst cripples, the ones needing the most yard time for complete repairs,
had to be sent home, and
HMS Nike would take months to heal.
"You depart for Manticore within the next twelve hours," Parks said, "and I'm
sending Lord Young
home in your ship under quarters arrest."
Honor stiffened and started to open her mouth, but Parks' gaze pinned her to
her chair.
"Yours is the next departing ship. Considering the serious charges against
him, he is entitled to the
promptest return—and trial—possible, and I will expect you to treat him with
proper military courtesy. Until and unless he is tried and convicted, he
remains a Queens officer and your senior. I realize the
uncomfortable position in which this places you, but I expect you to do your
duty—as you always have."
His eyes softened, somehow, with the final words, and she was puzzled by the
surge of genuine
apology she sensed through her link to Nimitz. It muted her own angry distaste
for sharing the same air as
Pavel Young., and she bit her lip for just a moment, then nodded.
"I understand, Sir Yancey."
"I thought you would, Milady." Her eyebrows tried to rise at his totally
unexpected form of address,
and he smiled. It wasn't an effusive smile, but it was genuine, and he rose
and extended his hand.
"Commodore Capra will transmit your formal orders to Nike," he said. "I will
personally inform
Captain Young of the boards recommendations—and my own— before I send him
aboard."
"Yes, Sir."
'Then I think that concludes our business, Dame Honor. God speed." He shook
her hand firmly, and
she braced to attention and turned toward the hatch. It hissed open before
her, and she started to step
through it, then paused as the admiral spoke again.
"Oh, by the way, Dame Honor. I almost forgot to mention that you'll find
another passenger waiting
for you when you return to Nike."
"Another passenger, Sir?" Honor turned in the open hatch, her expression
puzzled, and Parks
chuckled with genuine humor.
"It seems Captain Tankersley was promoted from captain junior grade to captain
of the list just before
the Peep attack. As such, he's too senior to stay on as exec aboard the base
here, and since he, um, did
such a fine job of dealing with Nike's original engineering difficulties, I
                                     234

thought it only fitting to return
him to Manticore for reassignment aboard her."
Honor stared at him, trapped between amazement and sudden joy, and Parks gave
her the first
completely natural smile she'd ever seen from him.
"I trust the two of you will find something to talk about during the voyage,
Captain Harrington."
APPENDIX: HONOR HARRINGTON'S NAVY
— NAVAL DESIGN AND DOCTRINE
Warship design in the twentieth century of the Diaspora was dictated, as it
had been for the past
seven hundred T-years, by the limitations and capabilities of starship
propulsive systems.
Engagements in hyper-space were far less common than normal-space combat
simply because it was
so difficult for ships to find one another there. As a result, designs were
optimized for normal-space
warfare, despite the severe tactical drawbacks this imposed on the rare
occasions upon which ships fought
one another in hyper.
Normal-space movement depended upon a ship's impeller wedge, the inclined
bands of stressed
gravity above and below the vessel. The physics of the impeller drive required
that this wedge be open
both ahead and astern of the ship, although the sternward opening was much
shallower. Since no known
weapon could penetrate an impeller stress band, this meant no ship could fire
at targets directly "above" or
"below" it, but it also meant that fire directed at a ship from above or below
was ineffective.
The sides of the impeller wedge, unlike its ends, could be closed by gravity
sidewalls, a much weaker
version of the impeller stress band. A warship's sidewalls were its first and
primary line of defense,
extremely difficult for missiles to penetrate (though there was an unending
race between missiles with
better sidewall penetrators and defensive designers' efforts to build ever
tougher sidewalls) and
invulnerable to even the most powerful energy weapons at ranges in excess of
400,000 to 500,000
kilometers (approximately forty percent of effective range against targets
without sidewalls). The fact that a ship could no more fire out through its
impeller wedge than it could be fired upon also
dictated the arrangement of its armament, most of which was grouped on the
broadside, with a much
weaker "chase" armament arranged for fire ahead and astern. Chase armaments
were intended to cover the
blind spots in a vessel's broadside firing arcs, but they tended to be much
lighter than broadside batteries
because there was simply less hull volume in which to mount them.
Although no "Holes" could exist in an impeller stress band, portals (known to
naval spacers as
"gunports") could be opened in a vessel's sidewalls to permit unobstructed
fire of its own weapons. In
theory, gunports represented dangerous chinks in its defenses; in practice,
the targets were too small and
fleeting—they were "open" only long enough for a shot to be fired through
                                     235

them—to be deliberately
targeted. Nonetheless, it was not unheard of (though it was very rare) for a
lucky shot to penetrate an open
gunport.
Even a freak gunport hit, however, wasn't guaranteed to inflict damage. The
maximum safe velocity
in n-space was approximately .8 c for a ship with military- grade particle and
radiation shielding, whereas
merchantmen normally relied on much weaker—and less massive—shield generators,
trading lower
maximum speeds for greater cargo capacity. But speed wasn't the only reason
military shielding was so
much more powerful, for it was also used to fill the area between the sidewall
and hull and could lessen or
even negate the effect of a hit which managed to pierce the primary defense.
The constraints of the impeller drive and the fact that ships were designed
for broadside fire also
dictated their hull forms.
The nodes which generated the impeller wedge had to be very specifically
located relative to the
dimensions of a ship. In general, they had to lie within twelve to fifteen
percent of the extreme ends of the
vessel and well inside the maximum beam which the wedge allowed. Although
there were a few
idiosyncratic exceptions, this meant virtually all warships were flattened,
"hammer-headed" spindles,
tapering to their smallest dimensions at their fore and aft impeller rings and
the n flaring back out to
perhaps a quarter of their maximum beam. The fact that starships generated
their own internal gravity
allowed designers to orient "up" and "down" perpendicular to the long axis of
the ship, which both
permitted efficient usage of internal volume and gave renewed meaning to the
ancient terms "upper" and
"lower" decks.
Chase armaments had to be squeezed into the flared ends of the spindle, and
there was little room,
relatively speaking, into which to fit them. As a general rule, a light
warships chasers might represent as
much as a third of the power of its broadsides, but the proportion fell as the
size of the ship grew. Truly
enormous ships, like superdreadnoughts, might mount broadside weapons on as
many as four or five
separate decks, and their length was as much as seven or even eight times
their maximum beam, which
meant that each "gundeck" offered twenty-five to thirty times the weapons
volume available to their
chasers.
The topsides and bottoms of warships were not armed, though a portion of those
areas were used to
mount various sensor and communication arrays. Some navies experimented with
vertically mounted
missile tubes in an effort to recoup that "wasted space," but with generally
unsatisfactory results. A capital
ship's impeller wedge might be as much as a hundred kilometers "wide," and no
missile could activate its
own impeller drive inside its mother ships drive perimeter lest its wedge
                                     236

impinge upon that of the
launching ship. Since the interference between them would have vaporized the
missile drive (and the rest
of the missile with it), any missile's initial flight path had to be a
straight line, directly away from the ship
and ninety to a hundred kilometers in length, which no practical vertically-
launched weapon could attain.
Broadside missile tubes incorporated powerful mass drivers to get the weapon
outside the warship's
wedge quickly, and, in theory, a vertical launcher could have used a mass
driver with an internally curved
path to throw a missile out a top-mounted tube at an angle which would clear
the wedge. In practice, it
was impossible to align the missile flight path precisely enough with a
sidewall gunport, and the
additional mass required by the longer, curved mass driver was prohibitive,
and efforts to devise "swim out" missiles which dispensed with mass drivers
and relied on conventional thrusters for their initial
acceleration proved universally disappointing.
All normal-space tactics and naval doctrine had evolved around the limitations
and capabilities
described above. Obviously, the bow or stern of a ship, which could not be
protected by a sidewall,
represented its most vulnerable aspect, and the ideal of virtually all normal-
space tactics was to "cross the
enemy's T" and gain a "down the throat" or "up the kilt" shot with one's full
broadside while he could
reply only with his chase armament. Since both sides knew this, however,
opportunities to cross the "T"
were rare even in single-ship duels and almost unheard of in fleet
engagements.
The most common tactical situation was the broadside duel, in which both ships
brought the full
power of one broadside to bear upon the other. Even here, however, a canny
captain never forgot the
impenetrability of his impeller wedge. Whenever possible, he "rolled ship" to
take fire—especially
missile fire—which he could not avoid against that powerful defense. At close
range, lighter ships, which
were much faster on the helm due to their lower masses, often resembled
whirling dervishes as they spun
back and forth in an effort to bring their own weapons to bear and then snap
back around to deny their
opponent a target for return fire.
Such energetic tactics, however, were less practical for fleet engagements.
First, capital ships, which
could mass up to 8,500,000 tons, were necessarily slower when it came to
rolling ship, but, more
important even than that, was the development of the formation known as "the
wall of battle."
Since broadside fire was the only- practical way to bring maximum fire to bear
upon an enemy,
admirals evolved the tactic of stacking their capital ships both vertically
and in line at the smallest
intervals their impeller wedge safety perimeters permitted. This produced the
characteristic "wall"—an
often enormous formation, one ship wide, which might extend for thousands of
                                     237

kilometers vertically and
ahead and astern along the fleet's base vector. This was scarcely a
maneuverable formation, but at least it
allowed maximum fire to be brought to bear.
Unfortunately, the tactical formalism fostered by the wall of battle also
meant that major fleet
engagements tended to be frustratingly indecisive unless one side was tied
down by the need to defend a
target which it simply could not abandon, like a populated star system. If one
fleet took the worst of it and
had no overriding strategic reason to fight to the death, its commander simply
turned the units of his wall
up on their sides, presenting only the roofs or floors of their wedges to the
enemy, and then bent all his
efforts on breaking away. An opponent who turned towards him to close the
range and prevent him from
disengaging (the only possible counter) might actually cross its own "T",
permitting his ships to roll back
and fire their broadsides down the throat of the pursuing fleet with deadly
effect.
On the rare occasions when warships clashed in hyper-space, the tactical
environment was radically
different. As a rule, starships in hyper tend to stay within the area of a
grav wave, using their Warshawski
sails to draw acceleration and deceleration from the wave, and normal impeller
drives (including those of
missiles) cannot be used within the area of a grav wave.
The Warshawski sail is essentially a highly modified and very powerful
impeller stress band
projected in the form of a disk at right angles to the hull, not as a wedge
above and below it. The sail,
which is just as impenetrable as an impeller wedge, extends for three hundred
kilometers (as much as five
hundred for really large vessels) in all directions. This no t only makes
chase armaments even more
important but also deprives the warship of the protection of its wedge against
fire from "above" or
"below." Indeed, it deprives a ship even of its sidewalls, for there are no
roof and floor for the sidewall to
stitch together.
One might expect admirals to avoid grav waves if forced to fight in hyper, but
doing so is tantamount
to breaking off the action. The reason is simple: a ship under Warshawski sail
can pull almost ten times
the acceleration it could under impeller drive. Withdrawing from the wave,
then, allows a fleet which
remains within it to run away with relative impunity. A few navies have
experimented with the idea of mounting the sidewall bubble generators used to
generate 360º "sidewalls" around fixed fortifications in their capital ships
for use in hyper-space
engagements, but the sheer mass of the system is self-defeating. A ship so
equipped has an enormous
advantage in hyper, but the volume consumed by the generators cuts deeply into
that available for
weapons, which places the same vessel at an even greater disadvantage in
normal-space combat. Since nspace
combat is the rule and hyper-space combat is the exception, no navy has ever
                                     238

built a major class of
warship with bubble generators.
Because warships in hyper are stripped of both their major passive defense
against broadside fire and
their longest ranged offensive weapons, conventional tactical wisdom calls for
a head-on engagement, the
exact reverse of n-space warfare. The idea is that the area of the ship ahead
or astern of the impenetrable
Warshawski sail is much smaller than its unprotected length, and that the
reduction in target area (and
hence vulnerability) more than compensates for any loss in firepower.
In terms of maneuver once combat is joined in hyper, the advantage of
"altitude" can become even
more crucial than "crossing the T" in n-space battles. If a portion of one
fleet can curl "over" or "under"
Us opponent, it can fire down (or up) upon the unarmed topsides or bottoms of
enemy snips without
receiving return fire.
Moreover, rolling ship is not an effective way to break off action under such
circumstances, since
there is no impeller wedge to hide behind. Obviously, then, any admiral
engaged from more than one
bearing in hyper-space is in serious trouble.
— NAVAL WEAPONRY
The long-range normal-space shipkiller at the beginning of the 20th century of
the Diaspora was the
impeller-drive missile, capable of maximum accelerations of some 85,000
gravities and fitted with
defensive ECM, sidewall penetrators, and laser warheads.
Because even the highest missile velocities are well under that of light, they
can be tracked and
engaged by antimissile defenses as they close. The ranges at which they can be
fired also require that they
be capable of active, self- guided homing on their targets, since light-speed
transmission limits would
quickly render shipboard control arthritic and inaccurate. Because their
onboard seeking systems simply
can not be as sensitive and capable as those of a full-sized starship, they
are particularly susceptible to
electronic counter measures, and the fleet whose ECM is superior to its
opponents has a marked edge in
combat.
The tracking time enjoyed against missiles also means that a captain can
employ evasive maneuvers
against them. If nothing else, he can roll ship to take the incoming fire
against the impenetrable roof or
floor of his wedge. In longer range engagements, the flight time of the
missile and the acceleration
capability of his ship allow him to maneuver well clear of the position his
opponent's fire control had
predicted at the moment of fire, imposing a still greater strain on an
attacking missiles drive and seekers.
All of this requires that for effective missile fire, the missile drive must
still be active and capable of
terminal attack maneuvers right up to the instant of detonation.
A missile's effective powered flight envelope can be increased by setting it
for a lower rate of
                                     239

acceleration, which delays burnout time on its small but powerful impeller
drive. Eighty-five thousand
gravities represents the maximum attainable acceleration, used for snapshots
at closer ranges in order to
achieve the shortest possible flight times. At this acceleration rate, the
missile has a maximum powered
endurance of sixty seconds, which restricts it to a powered engagement
envelope (assuming target and
firer were at rest relative to one another at the moment of fire) of
approximately 1,500,000 kilometers and
a terminal velocity of approximately 50,000 KPS. By setting the drive down to
42,500 gravities, time to
burnout can be extended to 180 seconds, producing a maximum powered engagement
range of 6,755,000
kilometers and a terminal velocity of 75,000 KPS. Lower accelerations are
possible, but the maximum range and velocity actually begin to drop as
acceleration is further reduced, and most navies adopted
hardwired minimum settings in the vicinity of 42,500 g. The RMN, however, had
not, as it believed there
were instances in which absolute engagement range and velocity were less
important than powered flight
time to follow an opponent's maneuvers. All of these attack envelopes, of
course, can be radically
extended or reduced by the relative velocities and accelerations of the ships
engaged.
Because the chance of knocking a missile down increases geometrically in the
last 50,000 or 60,000
kilometers of its run, as it steadies down on its final attack vector, direct
hits against modern point defense
are virtually unheard of. As a result, the standard megaton-range nuclear
warhead was falling into general
disuse for ship-to-ship combat by Honor Harrington's time, replaced by the
laser head. The terminal bus
of a laser head mounts sophisticated targeting systems and powerful attitude
thrusters to enable it to align
itself so as to direct the greatest number of bomb-pumped laser beams at the
target, but it is also designed
to have a "porcupine" effect, radiating lasers in all directions. Each laser
inflicts less damage than a direct
hit could have, but the chances of a hit—even multiple hits—from a single
missile are greatly increased.
Not only does a laser head's stand-off range lessen point defense s chance to
kill it short of detonation, but
the cluster effect allows each to cover a much greater volume of space.
Active antimissile defenses consist of countermissiles, laser clusters, and
(in navies further from
"state of the art" hardware) autocannon. Countermissiles are much smaller
versions of shipkillers, with
more limited endurance and no warheads but capable of even higher
acceleration. Their weapon is their
impeller wedge. If any portion of it impinges on an attacking missile's active
wedge, both vaporize as
their drives burn out; if the target's drive has already burned out, the "grav
shear" of the counter missile's
wedge is more than adequate to rip it apart. Because of their overpowered
drives, however, maximum
effective counter missile range is seldom more than 1,000,000 kilometers or
                                     240

so.
If the countermissiles miss their prey, stopping them is up to the computer-
commanded laser clusters.
Unlike missiles, these require direct hits, but by the time they come into
play, their target is normally
steadying down for its final attack run, which gives them much simpler fire
solutions.
In some navies, the lasers were backed by a last-ditch autocannon defense. The
theory was simple:
throw so many shells that they built a wall of metal in the missiles' paths.
Given missiles' closing
velocities, any hit could be counted on to vaporize them, but the development
of laser heads made
autocannon largely irrelevant. When a missile can attack from 20,000 or 30,000
kilometers, no last-ditch
ballistic projectile can reach it in time.
Note that all of the above comments apply only to engagements under impeller
drive. All normal
space combats are, of course, fought out under impeller drive, as are those in
hyper-space but outside the
boundaries of a grav wave. Within a grav wave, however, where movement is
possible only under
Warshawski sail, missiles cannot be used. Only energy weapons are effective
there, and combat under
those conditions tends to be very close and extremely brutal.
The energy weapons of choice are the laser and graser, of which the graser has
both a longer range
and greater effect. But grasers are considerably more massive than lasers, so
most ships have mixed
batteries, accepting the lower effectiveness of the laser in order to mount
greater numbers of weapons
(which let them engage greater numbers of targets) while retaining the
"smashing" ability of the graser.
Ships smaller than light cruisers are normally so cramped for weapons space
that they have pure laser
energy armaments.
Another energy weapon, though seldom used at this period, was the energy
torpedo, which fired what
were for all intents and purposes packets of plasma confined in
electromagnetic bottles. Energy torpedoes
moved at near-light speeds, which made them very difficult for point defense
to engage, but the energy
torpedo had no homing capability. This made it a purely ballistic weapon, so
the initial (and only) fire
control solution was far more critical than for missiles, and the endurance of
its "bottle" was barely more
than one second, limiting absolute energy torpedo range to 300,000 kilometers
or so. In addition, the fact
that they were totally ineffective against an intact sidewall restricted them
to down the throat or up the kilt shots, which made them of strictly limited
utility. Despite this, some navies' capital ships (the RMNs
among them) incorporated light torpedo batteries for use if the enemy's T"
could be crossed or if his
sidewall failed due to other battle damage.
A new development, the grav lance, offered the ability to burn out a sidewall
by hitting it with a
disrupting burst of focused gravitic energy, but this weapon had a maximum
                                     241

effective range of little more
than 100,000 kilometers. It was also extremely slow firing, mass intensive,
and temperamental, and very
few captains were willing to sacrifice displacement which could be used for
tried and proven weapons to
squeeze in something that might work ... if they could survive to get into its
range of the enemy.
People's Navy
Tonnage Total
2801.6 Mt
258.3 Mt
1430.6 Mt
59.0 Mt
54.5 Mt
29.8 Mt
40.7 Mt
4674.5 Mt
412
48
374
81
210
354
627
1,944
— THE BALANCE OF NAVAL POWER
The pre-war naval balance between Manticore and Haven was the result of an
arms race which had
lasted for almost fifty years. Despite the Star Kingdom of Manticore's wealth
and the Peoples Republic of
Haven's ramshackle financial structure, the PRH was so much bigger that the
smaller percentage of total
income it could devote to its military budget was larger in absolute terms.
Moreover, the Star Kingdom,
the core of the Manticoran Alliance, possessed only three inhabited planets;
the PRH contained over a
hundred, which provided a far larger pool from which to draw starship crews
and support personnel, and
it had begun its initial buildup well before Manticore.
Royal Manticoran Navy
The actual strengths of the two sides in 282 A.L. (1904 P.D.) broke down as
below:
Comparative Strengths by Class:
CLASS Tonnage Total
1318.5 Mt
694.3 Mt
148.7 Mt
92.0 Mt
30.1 Mt
35.0 Mt
2318.6 Mt
186
121
—
199
333
295
                                     242

485
1,621
SD
DN
BB
BC
CH
CL
DD
TOTAL
The Peoples Navy thus had a tonnage advantage of almost exactly two to one,
yet its overall
advantage in hulls was only 1.2 to 1, despite the fact that the RMN's ships
were almost uniformly more
massive on a per-class basis. This apparent discrepancy resulted from the
composition of the two forces.
The People's Navy was designed not only for wars of conquest but to police the
enormous sphere the PRH
had already conquered. The large number of battleships in its order of battle
were intended not for the
wall of battle, where their smaller size would place them at a grievous
disadvantage against "proper" ships
of the wall, but to cover occupied systems against anything smaller than a
wall of battle ship. (This was of
particular importance against Manticore, which had always favored the
battiecruiser. The BC's
combination of accele ration and firepower made it ideal for raids on the
orbital industrial infrastructure of
enemy star systems, and the RMN had refined these tactics to a fine art over
the centuries.)
The same internal policing requirements explain the greater numbers of
destroyers in the PN fleet
mix. In addition, both navies had large numbers of LACs (light attack craft)
which do not appear in the
figures above, since their individual combat power was slight and they were
not hyper capable, being
intended purely for local defense. It should also be noted that, once again
despite the greater mass of most classes in the RMN, Haven's
total wall of battle (superdreadnoughts and dreadnoughts) contained forty-
nine percent more units than
Manticore's but held a tonnage advantage of over fifty- two percent. This
reflected the RMN's need to
build a higher percentage of smaller and less capable dreadnoughts. Not only
did each dreadnought use up
less of its smaller budget and require a shorter building time, but Manticore
needed numbers, as well as
sheer tonnage, for tactical flexibility. Despite this, however, the Manticoran
Admiralty steadfastly rejected
all suggestions that it should build still smaller and cheaper battleships as
Haven had done. The RMN's
view was that while some concessions had to be made to bring numbers up,
battleships were simply too
small and weak to lie in the wall of battle, and Manticore, unlike Haven,
could not afford to tie up
millions of tons in "capital ships" unable to bear the brunt of fleet combat.
The table below shows the relative average displacements of the latest
generation ships of the two
                                     243

navies, but it should be borne in mind that these are only averages.
Average Tonnage by Class:
Class Haven Manticore
8,000,000
6,331,818
4,500,000
856,790
300,000
98,870
76,400
8,250,000
6,750,495
878,894
325,000
120,000
85,000
SD
DN
BB
BC
CH
CL
DD
The disparity in average hull sizes is evident, but what it actually meant in
fighting power can be best
illustrated by comparing two ships of nominally equivalent classes: HMS Nike
and PNS Sultan. Both
were battlecruisers of the latest generation, but Nike massed 879,000 tons
with a crew of 2,105 (including
Marines) as opposed to Sul-tan's 858,000 tons and crew of 1,695. Although she
was less than three
percent more massive overall, Nike's side-walls were ten percent tougher than
Sultan's, and her energy
weapons were fifteen percent more massive (and much more powerful) on a mount-
for-mount basis.
Offensively, Sultan mounted a broadside of nine lasers, six grasers, and
twenty missile tubes to Nike's
eight lasers, ten grasers, two energy torpedoes, and twenty- five missile
tubes. In terms of chase armament,
Sultan mounted two lasers and five missile tubes ahead and the same astern,
while Nike mounted four
missile tubes, two grasers, and a laser in the same positions.
Part of the Manticoran ship's superior armament was bought at the expense of
magazine space, but
though Sultan actually carried twenty- five percent more missiles, despite her
lower number of tubes, this
was offset by the RMN's superior electronics and penetration aides, which made
Nike's missiles almost
thirty percent more accurate (and harder to stop), and a higher rate of fire
per launcher.
The two ships also reflected differences in doctrine and design philosophy.
The RMN built
battlecruisers as screening elements for its battle squadrons, but it also
regarded them as raiders and
designed them for independent operations, as well. PN doctrine, on the other
hand, tied its BCs much
more tightly to the wall of battle, regarding them as scaled down, faster
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elements of the main battle fleet
with a sustained combat role in fleet engagements. The RMN believed that any
BCs life expectancy
against ships of the wall would be brief and that battlecruiser-versus-
battlecruiser actions would be short
and sharp. As a result, BuShips believed it was better to be able to throw
more missiles—especially better
missiles—faster and incorporate an energy armament heavy enough to make close-
range action decisive
than to try to outlast an opponent. It is also worth noting that the smaller
Manticoran fleet contained well
over twice as many BCs as the PN. Clearly, in any engagement with her opposite
number the Manticoran ship's heavier armament,
superior electronic warfare capabilities, and generally more efficient point
defense gave her a powerful
advantage. Indeed, a single Nike could engage two Sultans with a fair chance
of victory.
The personnel of the two fleets showed an almost equally striking disparity.
Both officer corps were
comprised of long-term volunteer professionals, but Manticore, by and large,
hewed to the doctrine
established by Commodore Edward Saganami. Its officers were expected to use
their own judgment and
trained accordingly, whereas Havenite officers were kept on much tighter
leashes by their superiors. RMN
admirals tended to allow their subordinates considerable freedom of action
within broad strategic and
tactical parameters; their PN counterparts tied their units into tight,
centralized planning and expected
them to do as they were told. There were exceptions—some outstanding—to the
pattern in each navy, but
overall a Manticoran commander was much more comfortable "thinking for himself
than a Havenite CO.
Perhaps even more significantly, the People's Republic was not a forgiving
master—and it was far more
heavily politicized. A Havenite officer dared no t deviate (openly, at least)
from the "party line," and if he
failed to carry out his orders, whether those orders made sense or not, his
career was likely to be short. In
addition, favoritism and careerism were actually more rampant in the People's
Navy than in the RMN,
despite Manticoran reformers' understandable concern with their own service's
tradition of patronage and
family influence.
There was, in addition, a tremendous difference between the enlisted and
noncommissioned ranks in
the two fleets, for over seventy percent of the Peoples Navy's lower deck
personnel were conscripts.
Manticore, on the other hand, had been able to crew her ships entirely with
volunteers, many with
previous experience in the Star Kingdom's huge merchant fleet, as awareness of
"the Havenite threat"
grew. Moreover, the RMN's petty officers, the backbone of any navy, averaged
almost twice the length of
service of their Havenite counterparts because of the higher turnover in a
conscript-crewed fleet and the
lesser personal incentives the PN offered.
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The education levels of the two sides also differed markedly. The progressive
"democratization" of
the PRH's educational system had emasculated it, while Manticore boasted one
of the toughest meritbased
systems, especially for university and post-graduate programs, in human space
(two facts which
largely explain the RMN's pronounced technological superiority). It was sad
but true that the best
educated enlisted personnel of the PN were conscripts from conquered planets
who had largely completed
their schooling before the PRH's centralized education policies blighted their
teaching establishments.
There was, however, one major offsetting imponderable which neither navy was
able to quantify
prior to the actual outbreak of war. While the Peoples Navy might rely on ill-
educated (comparatively
speaking) conscripts for the bulk of its personnel, it had also been almost
continuously at war for over half
a Terran century. Admittedly, none of its opponents had been large enough to
offer a long or protracted
resistance, but the operational experience amassed by the PN was without
equal. Inevitably, its crews
must have acquired a certain degree of "on the job training" to offset their
initial inferiority, and its
officers, on the whole, believed in their tradition of victory. It remained to
be seen whether these factors
overmatched the intensive training and motivation of the RMN's personnel, and
only the test of battle
could reveal the truth.