Honorverse favorite passages

The two of them stood that way for several seconds, and then Allison gave herself a shake and looked up at Honor with something much more like her normal grin.
“Now that you’ve told me that much, though,” she said, “I suppose I should ask you if all of that stuff you’re not supposed to talk to me about has anything to do with that little unauthorized attack you made on the Casimir System in company with the Ballroom?”
Honor blinked in astonishment, and Allison snorted.
“Honor, Beowulf is just on the other side of the Wormhole. Where do you think all those liberated slaves went? And what makes you think a ‘merchantship’ crewed almost exclusively by people with last names like ‘X’ could land a thousand liberated slaves on Beowulf without my family knowing about it? I got Jacques’ first letter less than a week after you got home from Silesia! But since it was obvious to your father”—she glowered at Alfred—“that you’d been ordered not to talk about it, I didn’t press you for any details. Now that you’ve been to talk to the Admiralty, though, I’m not feeling quite so charitable. So, tell me. Did Jacques get the details right?”

“Oh, hi, Rog!” he said in a sunny tone. “I’d like to introduce you to someone. This is my baby sister, Angelique. Angelique, my friend Roger.”
Angelique Adcock had to be one of the most attractive women Roger Winton had ever seen, and the crown prince saw many attractive women. She wasn’t classically beautiful, no, but “classically beautiful” women (and men) were a dime a dozen in the Star Kingdom, where personal affluence made biosculpt and genetic beauty mods readily obtainable. And she didn’t need classic beauty, he thought. He’d actually seen imagery of her before, although Jonas might or might not be aware of that, yet that imagery hadn’t done her justice. In person, face-to-face, she had a unique, fresh, gray-eyed attractiveness which was wholly her own, and an oval face which had clearly been designed for the laughter and zest which lurked in those gray eyes. Her natural skin tone was far lighter than Roger’s, but she had the deeply tanned, bronzed complexion of someone who clearly spent a lot of time outdoors. Her kinship to her brother was obvious, but Jonas’ strong features had been softened in her, and she turned with a quick, friendly smile of her own, automatically holding out her hand, as her brother introduced her.
“Hi,” she said. “Pleased to meet—”
Her voice died in a peculiar sort of half-squeak, her mouth froze half-open, her eyes flew wide, and Jonas chuckled in obvious delight.
“Hello,” Roger said, reaching out to grasp the hand which had stopped halfway to him. The imp of the perverse touched him abruptly, and he bent over the hand, brushing its back with his lips before he straightened. “Your brother has a peculiar sense of humor, Ms. Adcock.”
She stared at him for several more heartbeats, and then seemed to come back to life again. She shook herself, smiled more than a little crookedly at Roger, and turned her head to glare at Jonas.
“No,” she said tartly. “He thinks he has a sense of humor…Your Highness.”
She looked back at Roger as she addressed him by his title, and he shook his head, still holding her hand.
“This isn’t a social occasion, Ms. Adcock,” he told her with a smile of his own. “I’m perfectly well aware Jonas deliberately threw me at you cold, but I really don’t use any of that long, dreary list of titles when I’m on duty. Or with friends. Which, somehow, despite your entirely accurate observation on the state of his sense of humor, Jonas has become. For now, at least.” He turned his gaze on Adcock. “You do realize, don’t you, that any Machiavellian monarch worth his salt has hordes of sinister retainers lurking in the shadows at his beck and call to visit retribution on those who irritate him? Retainers who could make you disappear just like that!”
He snapped the fingers of his free hand sharply, and a soft little chuckle spurted out of Angelique Adcock.

“Now,” Jonas went on a bit more briskly, putting the moment firmly behind him, “I’ve been following some of that research at Grendel U for a month or so now, Rog, and if you’re here to talk about what I think you’re here to talk about, I’m definitely interested. I think we may need to get Chief Thompson in to discuss it with us, as well, since it’s going to fall into her bailiwick, unless I’m mistaken. But before we do that, Angel happened to be in town and decided to drop by to drag her ancient and decrepit brother off to lunch. Under the circumstances, I’d like to invite you to accompany us…if you’ll leave that reader right here on my desk and promise not to say a single word about it until we get back. Deal?”
Roger started to refuse politely. He knew Angelique lived on Gryphon, the single habitable planet of Manticore-B, where she was one of the planet’s leading silviculturalists. She didn’t get to Manticore all that often, and he had no business intruding into a family lunch. But then he glanced at Angelique and noticed her quick, fleeting smile at Jonas’ stern tone.
It was a very attractive smile, he thought, bending over to scoop up Monroe and lift him to his shoulder perch.
“Deal…Sir,” he said with a smile of his own, and dropped the reader on Jonas’ desk.

“I really think she hadn’t even considered the possibility of my proposing until Bannister opened his mouth and ‘outed’ her,” Roger continued harshly. “That’s probably partly my fault. I was trying to be gradual about it, trying to avoid scaring her off, and I think I waited too long. She’s thinking about it now, though, and what she really wants to do is run away back to Gryphon and hide in those woods of hers! But I’m not going to give up on her, Mom.” His expression firmed. “She’s the one I want, the one I love, and she damned well loves me, too. I’m not letting that get away from me. I know how much you and Dad loved each other, and I want that, as well. And we’ve both had the prolong therapies.” He looked straight into his mother’s eyes. “I’ve found the one I want, and I’m willing to be patient. You and Dad had forty-three T-years, and I know how good they were. But I want more than that, and I can have it, and nobody and nothing is going to take that away from Angelique and me. Nobody.”

When Ariel had finished confirming Jean Marrou's essential honesty and Queen Elizabeth had heard the recordings, the Queen retired to her privy chamber and requested that Chou, Justin, and Duchess Winton-Henke meet with her there.

"I," she said pithily when all were gathered and Duchess Winton-Henke had heard the full story, "want their heads."

Ariel, bristling in her lap, telegraphed the intensity that Elizabeth would not permit herself to put into her voice. Monroe, lying on the chair next to Justin, raised his head and hissed.

Neither Chou nor Justin said anything, their gazes turning to the duchess.

"Then all of this must become public," Caitrin said.

"Yes," the Queen said. "What of it? They have conspired to assassinate the King—and succeeded. Two of them are Havenite minions. All are treasonous."

"They must be given a trial."

"Must they?" Elizabeth's dark eyes glinted angrily. "Did they give my father the benefit of the legal fashion in registering protests?"

"If you have them privately executed," Caitrin said evenly, "you are as much in violation of our Constitution as they are themselves. Would you like to give Haven's other allies an opportunity to bring action against you? If you are impeached, then Prince Michael takes over a kingdom in chaos. Haven will certainly strike then."

Justin Zyrr raised his hand in question. "What's wrong with a trial? Daniel and I have found some evidence, but Marrou's confession and her recordings make conviction a certainty."

"Perhaps." The duchess steepled her fingers and looked over them, her eyelids half-closed. "Before I continue, let me state that I agree with Elizabeth. I want these bastards' heads. You may forget, Beth, but Roger was my big brother, my buddy, my—"

Her voice broke. Sipping water, she steadied herself with admirable poise.

"I am only too aware of the consequences of a public trial," she continued. "First of all, Howell is one of the three or four most important Crown Loyalists. Public doubt placed on him will weaken the authority of the party—and, don't forget, they are Cromarty's most reliable allies outside of his own Centrists.

"Secondly," she continued, "publicly trying Havenite spies—both of whom are members of Parliament—will most certainly start a witch hunt within our government. Members of the Lords hold their seats by inheritance, but those in the Commons are elected. And the Commons, if I may remind you, tend to support Crown policy. If incumbents can be challenged on their imagined Havenite leanings, the upset may lead to members being elected who will not tend to support the Crown."

Chou nodded, "And open a way for Haven to get more of its lackeys into Parliament."

"Exactly," the duchess agreed. "Who would accuse members elected on an anti-Haven platform of being a spies themselves?"

Queen Elizabeth listened, her mahogany face stiff, but dark spots of color on either cheek making her anger readily apparent. Duchess Henke glanced at her, read her mood, but continued relentlessly.

"Thirdly, Marrou would almost certainly be let off with only minor penalties. Her testimony is needed to condemn the others. Although she has not once hinted that she would plea bargain—"

Chou interrupted. "I hinted that the opportunity would be open to her and she simply looked affronted. She's ready to take her licks."

"No matter," Caitrin Winton-Henke said remorselessly. "Marrou's role in the trial cannot help but make her something of a hero in the public eye. Even if she is barred from holding office thereafter, as a private citizen she still will be in a position to influence others. Politically, her primary interests are domestic. She is actively opposed to our foreign policy. If we help to make a hero of her, we will be creating a powerful adversary."

The Queen opened her mouth, but her aunt's eyes locked on hers and her voice, cold with hard-held self-control, marched on across whatever she might have said.

"And finally, there are the foreign policy implications of making all this public. If we accuse the People's Republic of having ordered its paid agents to plan Roger's assassination and then convict those agents of that crime in open court, the very least that could happen would be severance of all diplomatic relations. And, yes, there's nothing I'd like better than to punch the bastards who paid for this right in the eye. But we're not ready yet, Beth. That's what Roger was doing, the reason they wanted him dead before he could get us ready. They don't want to hit us yet. We're too far away, and they've got too many problems closer to home. Besides, they probably figure they can use stooges like Seltman and Gwinner to keep undercutting our efforts to build up any effective opposition. But if it comes to a shooting war now, the odds are very, very good that we'd lose. If we avenge Roger's death, we risk losing the very thing he died to achieve."

Queen Elizabeth hit the flat of her palm against the table. Ariel's tail lashed back and forth.

"You make your points very well, Aunt Caitrin, but I cannot accept that these people will be permitted to go free. If a trial is unacceptable, I must take refuge in our Code Duello."

"Beth!" Justin gasped. "You couldn't!"

"Is the Queen not permitted the same recourse as a private citizen?" she responded angrily.

"Can you fire a pistol?" Chou asked, his tone one of idle curiosity, but his eyes burning.

"I can," Elizabeth said proudly. "My father made certain that both Michael and I had training."

"And how would you challenge them without making public the reasons for the challenge?" Duchess Henke said. "Remember, each one must accept your challenge. I do not believe Marvin Seltman could be so goaded. He knows that you have too much to lose if this becomes public."

"I will offer . . ." Elizabeth's voice faded, her eyes flooded with tears.

"And Marrou would have every reason to request a champion," Daniel Chou added. "And the opportunity for an enemy to offer her the use of a skilled specialist is too great to ignore."

Justin leaned across the table and took Elizabeth's hands in his, ignoring Ariel's growled threat.

"Beth, you'd be killed and for nothing. The end results of a duel would be sufficient to severely weaken the Star Kingdom."

Queen Elizabeth stayed silent for a long while, her downcast eyes studying the tabletop as if reviewing her options. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse with unshed tears.

"I most sincerely hope that I am never forced to refuse any of my subjects the choice you have taken from me today. I never realized that the Queen would be less protected by the law than the least of her subjects."

"Lady Harrington just killed my cousin Denver." Elizabeth's eyes widened, and Cromarty shook his head. "No, I'm not upset about it. Or, rather, I am, but not because she killed him. You know how he's hurt the family for years, Your Majesty. He took a positively sadistic pleasure in doing it."

"Yes, I do know." Elizabeth's voice was quiet, and she nibbled her lower lip. "I knew they were going to meet, of course. I imagine everyone in the Kingdom did. And, given what you've just said, I won't scruple to tell you that I'm as relieved as I am surprised that she won."

"I think we were all wasting our worry on the wrong party this time, Your Majesty," Cromarty said flatly. "She hit him four times before he could fall, then put a fifth bullet right through his head."

Elizabeth's eyes widened still further, and she pursed her lips in a silent whistle.

"That, however, is the least of our problems," the duke went on. "The media were there in force. They've splashed every gory moment of it over the services on a system-wide hookup—and they've also been carrying Lady Harrington's statement, as well."

"Statement?" The Queen sounded puzzled, and Cromarty nodded.

"Yes, Your Majesty, her statement. She's formally accused the Earl of North Hollow of paying Denver to kill Tankersley—and her."

"My God," Elizabeth whispered, and the duke felt a sort of masochistic satisfaction at her obvious shock. He watched her eyes narrow and waited patiently as the wheels began to turn. It took her less than thirty seconds to run through all the permutations he'd already considered and look squarely back out of the screen at him again.

"Did he?" she asked, and Cromarty shrugged.

"I have no evidence one way or the other, Your Majesty. It's certainly possible, and I very much doubt that Lady Harrington would accuse him unless she had some sort of proof to back it."

Elizabeth nodded, rubbing her cheekbone with a knuckle. "If she does have evidence, she'll act on it." She might have been speaking to herself, but her eyes never looked away from the Prime Minister's. "For that matter, she never would have told the media unless she planned to kill him." She nodded to herself, and her voice sharpened. "How bad will the fallout be if she does?"

"Bad, Your Majesty. Possibly very bad. If she kills him the same way she did Denver, it may even be disastrous." The Prime Minister shivered. "You haven't seen it yet, Your Majesty. I wish I hadn't. If she takes North Hollow out the same way, the Opposition will go mad. We may be looking at a crisis even worse than the declaration fight."

"Damage control?" the Queen asked crisply.

"Difficult, but not impossible—maybe. We'll probably lose the Conservative Association, whatever happens, but we've brought in almost enough Progressives to offset that, and the New Men are on our team, at least for now. The Liberals are almost certain to join the Conservatives in demanding Harrington's head. Even if we give it to them, they'll probably go even further into Opposition. If we don't give it to them, the Progressives will go with them. Even in the best case, this is going to hurt us badly, Your Majesty."

"But your majority will survive?"

"If we give them Harrington it will, Your Majesty. Or I think it will, at any rate. I can't be certain. At this point, I can't even begin to guess how the Commons will react. Harrington's been almost a patron saint to them ever since Basilisk, but with something like this—"

He shrugged, and Elizabeth frowned. He let her think about it for several seconds, then cleared his throat.

"I see only one optimum solution, Your Majesty," he said.

"Really?" The Queen chuckled without humor. "I fail to see anything 'optimum' about this one, Allen!"

"I happen to know that Earl White Haven has already ordered Lady Harrington not to pursue a challenge to North Hollow," the duke began, "and—"

"Ordered her?" Elizabeth's face hardened, and a dangerous sparkle crept into her eyes. "He ordered her not to challenge him?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, he—"

"He violated the Articles of War is what he did!" Elizabeth snapped. "If North Hollow were still a serving officer he would have been within his rights, but he doesn't have a leg to stand on in this case! Dame Honor would be fully justified in filing charges against him."

"I realize that, Your Majesty." Cromarty realized he was sweating and made himself not wipe his forehead. He recognized the signs, and Elizabeth III in a temper was not something he cared to confront. "I believe," he went on carefully, "he was concerned with the consequences to her career. And while he undoubtedly exceeded his authority, his concern was certainly justified."

"And Hamish Alexander has always been willing to ignore the rules when he thought he was right," the Queen added in a flat voice.

"Well, yes, Your Majesty. But he generally is right, and I don't think, in this case, that we—"

"Oh, stop defending him, Allen!" Elizabeth brooded in silence for a long minute, then shrugged. "I don't like it—and you can tell him so for me—but you're probably right. It's not my affair unless Dame Honor does elect to file charges."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Cromarty managed to hide his relief and leaned toward his pickup. "But the point I was going to make is that he was right, both about the effect on her career and about the political fallout." Elizabeth nodded unwillingly, and the duke put on his most persuasive expression. "Since he was right, and since Dame Honor clearly has no intention of accepting his arguments or his order, I thought perhaps—"

"Stop right there." The hardness was back in Elizabeth's eyes. "If you're going to suggest that I order her to drop it, you can forget it."

"But, Your Majesty, the consequences—"

"I said I won't do it, Allen."

"But perhaps if you simply spoke to her, Your Majesty. If you explained the situation and just asked her not to—"

"No." The single word came out flat and cold, and Cromarty closed his mouth. He knew that tone. The Queen looked at him for a moment, her eyes harder than ever, but then her face softened and a strange expression crossed it, one almost of shame.

"I won't pressure her, Allen." Elizabeth's voice was very quiet. "I can't. If I asked her not to, she probably wouldn't, and it would be utterly unfair to her. If we'd done our job in the first place, North Hollow would have been convicted of cowardice. We wouldn't have cashiered him, Allen; we would've shot him, and none of this would have happened."

"You know why we couldn't, Your Majesty," Cromarty said softly.

"Yes, I do, and it doesn't make me feel one bit better. We failed her, Allen. It's already cost her the man she loved, and it's our fault. My God, if this Kingdom ever owed any of its subjects justice, it was her, and we didn't give it to her." She shook her head. "No, Allen. If this is the only way Dame Honor can finish the job we should have done, I won't stop her."

"Please, Your Majesty. If not to avoid the political consequences, think of the effect on her. There won't be any way we can protect her. She'll lose her career, and we'll lose one of our most outstanding young captains."

"Do you think Dame Honor doesn't know that?" Elizabeth asked softly. Her eyes demanded the truth, and Cromarty shook his head silently. "Nor do I. And if she knows the price and she's willing to pay it, I'm not going to tell her she can't. And neither are you, Allen Summervale. I forbid you to pressure her in any way, and you tell Earl White Haven the same goes for him."

"My, that was a little sloppy of me, wasn't it?" she murmured.

Her crew gawked at her for just a second, and then a chorus of relieved laughter ran around the bridge. She smiled, but when she looked up at McKeon, his face was grim, and there was no humor in his eyes.

"You stopped the courier, Skipper," he said quietly, under cover of the others' laughter, "but what about the freighter?"

"I'll stop her, too," Honor said. "Any way I have to."

"But why, Ma'am? You said you understood what's going on, but I'll be damned if I do!"

"Sirius's departure was the last piece I needed." Honor spoke so softly he had to lean forward to hear her. "I know where she's going, you see."

"What?!" McKeon started, then grabbed for his self-control and looked around the bridge. A dozen pairs of eyes were locked on him and his captain, but they whipped back to their own instruments under the impact of his fiery gray glare. Then he returned his own questioning gaze to Honor.

"Somewhere out here, Alistair, probably within only a few hours' hyper flight, there's a Havenite battle squadron. Maybe even a full task force. Sirius is headed for a rendezvous with them."

McKeon's face went white, and his eyes widened.

"It's the only answer that makes sense," she said. "The drugs and guns on the planet were intended to produce a native attack on the enclaves. It was supposed to come as a complete surprise and produce a bloodbath as the Medusans slaughtered off-worlders right and left—including, as you yourself pointed out, their own merchant factors in those northern trade enclaves. In fact," she spoke more slowly, lips tightening and eyes hardening in sudden surmise, "I'll lay odds Sirius is officially assigned to one of those enclaves by the Havenite government." She nodded to herself. "That would make this just about perfect, wouldn't it?"

"How, Ma'am?" McKeon was out of his depth, and he knew it.

"They're trying a coup de main to seize the planet," Honor said flatly. "Sirius's master is 'fleeing in panic' from the native insurrection. In the course of his flight, he'll 'just happen' to encounter a Peep squadron or task force in the area on 'routine maneuvers.' Naturally, he'll spill out his story to the Havenite commander, who, horrified and overcome with a sense of urgency and the need to save off-worlder lives, will immediately proceed to Medusa with his entire force to put down the native uprising." She stared into McKeon's eyes and saw the dawning understanding.

"And once he's done that," she finished very softly, "he'll proclaim Haven's possession of the entire system on the grounds that Manticore has demonstrated its total inability to maintain order and public safety on the planet's surface."

"That's insane," McKeon whispered, but his tone was that of a man trying to convince himself, not truly a protest. "They know we'd never stand for it!"

"Do they?"

"They must! And the entire Home Fleet's only a single wormhole transit away, Skipper!"

"They may believe they can get away with it." Honor's voice was cool and dispassionate; her thoughts were neither. "There's always been a certain anti-annexation movement in Parliament. Maybe they think enough bloodshed on Medusa, coupled with their presence here, will finally give that movement the strength to succeed."

"Not in a million years," McKeon growled.

"Probably not, no. But they're looking in from the outside. They may not realize how little chance of it there is, and maybe they figure they can pull it off however Parliament's xenophobes react. If this had worked the way they planned—assuming I'm right about their intentions—we'd have had no prior reason to suspect their involvement. Under the circumstances, any ship on the picket here probably would have been too busy reacting to the dirt-side situation from a cold start to worry about Sirius's departure. We might not even have noticed it, in which case she'd have slipped away to alert their task force, or whatever, and bring it back in without anyone on our side even suspecting they were coming until they actually arrived. If that had happened, their forces would have been in Basilisk before Home Fleet could even start to react."

She paused and began punching numbers into her maneuvering systems with an unaccustomed speed and accuracy that amazed McKeon. The results flashed on her screen, and she pointed at them.

"Look. If they pop out of hyper right at the hyper limit on a reciprocal of Sirius's present course, they'll be barely twelve light-minutes out from Medusa. If they translate downward at the maximum safe velocity, they can be into planetary orbit in under three and a half hours, even at superdreadnought acceleration rates. They'll also be just over eleven-point-three light-hours from the terminus, so they can reach it in twenty-eight hours and forty-five minutes. If we didn't know they were coming until they dropped out of hyper, they'd have plenty of time to be set up right on the terminus when Home Fleet tried to make transit through it."

McKeon paled. "That would be an act of war," he protested.

"So is that." Honor jabbed a thumb in the general direction of Medusa. "But what's happening dirt-side would only be an act of war if we knew who'd done it, and they've done their level best to convince us it was Manticoran criminals who supplied the guns and drugs. By the same token, their interdiction of the terminus would only turn into an act of war if we tried to transit and they fired on us. If I'm right about their plan, they can't have their entire fleet waiting around out here. For that matter, if they did have their entire fleet out here and they were really ready to fight, they wouldn't need any pretexts. They'd just come crashing in and sit on the terminus, and that would be that. But if they've only got a battle squadron or two, then, yes, we could kick them out of the system even if they were waiting for us. Our losses would be brutal, but theirs would be virtually one hundred percent, and they have to know that."

"Then what in God's name do they think they're doing?"

"I think they're running a bluff," Honor said quietly. "They hope we won't push it and risk engaging them if they're in a position to hurt us badly enough—that we'll stop to negotiate and discover public opinion back home won't stand for heavy casualties to take back a system the anti-annexationists don't want anyway. But if it is a bluff, that's another reason to use a relatively small force. They can always disavow the actions of their commander on the spot, claim he was carried away by understandable concern for off-worlders in the wake of the Medusa Massacre but that he exceeded his authority. That leaves them a way to back out and save face, especially if no one knows they caused the massacres. But think about it, Alistair. Events on Medusa are really just a side show. A pretext. They're not after the planet; they're after control of a second Junction terminus. Even if there's only one chance in fifty that they could pull it off, wouldn't the potential prize be worth the risk from their viewpoint?"

"Yes." There was no more doubt in McKeon's voice, and his nod was grim.

"But I may be wrong about the size of their force or how willing they'll be to fight," Honor said. "After all, their fleet's bigger than ours. They can stand the loss of a couple of battle squadrons as the opening round in a war, especially if they can inflict a favorable rate of exchange in return. And it's going to be a horse race to get anything here from Manticore in time to stop them, even with our Code Zulu. Our message will take thirteen and a half hours to reach Fleet HQ, but Sirius can be into hyper in two hours and fifty minutes—call it three. Let's say they reach their rendezvous three hours after that. Assuming a Fleet acceleration of four-twenty gees, that means their units could be back here in as little as twelve hours and on the warp point in forty-one, which leaves HQ just twenty-seven and a half hours from receipt of our Code Zulu to cover the terminus. Assuming Admiral Webster reacts instantly and dispatches Home Fleet from Manticore orbit with no delay at all, that'll take them—" She punched more numbers into her maneuvering plot, but McKeon was already ahead of her.

"Call it thirty-four hours for superdreadnoughts, or thirty-point-five if they don't send anything heavier than a battlecruiser," he muttered, jaws clenched, and Honor nodded.

"So if they are prepared to fight, they'd have over three hours to deploy energy mines on the terminus and take up the most advantageous positions before Home Fleet can possibly arrive. Which means the only way to be sure we don't wind up with a major fleet engagement is to stop Sirius from reaching her rendezvous."

"How do you plan to stop her, Ma'am?"

"We're still in Manticoran space, and what's happening on Medusa certainly constitutes an 'emergency situation.' Under the circumstances, I have the authority to order any ship to heave to for examination."

"You know Haven doesn't accept that interpretation of interstellar law, Ma'am." McKeon's voice was low, and Honor nodded. For centuries, Haven had championed the legal claim that the right of examination meant no more than the right to interrogate a ship by signal unless it intended to touch or had, since its last inspection, in fact touched the territory of the star system in which the examination was demanded. Since turning expansionist, the Republic had changed its position (within its own sphere) to the one most of the rest of the galaxy accepted: that the right of examination meant the right to physically stop and search a suspect ship within the examiner's territorial space regardless of its past or intended movements. But Haven had not accepted that interpretation in other star nations' territory. In time, they would have no choice but to do so, since the double standard they claimed was so irritating to the rest of the galaxy (including the Solarian League, which had all sorts of ways to retaliate short of war), but they hadn't yet, and that meant Sirius's master might very well assert Haven's old, traditional interpretation and refuse to stop when called upon to do so.

"If he won't stop willingly, then I'll stop him by force," she said. McKeon looked at her in silence, and she returned his gaze levelly. "If Haven can disavow the actions of an admiral or vice admiral, Her Majesty can disavow those of a commander," she pointed out in that same quiet voice.

McKeon stood looking at her a moment longer, then nodded. She didn't have to mention the next logical step in the process, for he knew it as well as she did. A flag officer could survive being officially disavowed; a commander could not. If Honor fired into Sirius and provoked an interstellar incident which left Queen Elizabeth no choice but to disavow her actions, then Honor's career was over.

He started to say so, but a tiny shake of her head stopped him. He turned away and walked towards the tactical station, then stopped. He stood for a second, and then he retraced his steps to the command chair.

"Captain Harrington," he said very formally, "I concur completely in your conclusions. I'd like to log my agreement with you, if I may."

Honor looked up at him, stunned by his offer, and her brown eyes softened. He could hardly believe what he'd just said himself, for by logging his agreement he would log his official support for any actions she took in response to her conclusions. He would share her responsibility for them—and any disgrace that came of them. But that seemed strangely unimportant as he looked into her eyes, because for the first time since she'd come aboard Fearless, Alistair McKeon saw total, unqualified approval of himself in those dark depths.

But then she shook her head gently.

"No, Mr. McKeon. Fearless is my responsibility—and so are my actions. But thank you. Thank you very much for the offer."

She held out her hand, and he took it.

"Are you sure about this, Ma'am?" Sergeant Gutierrez asked quietly, and Abigail smiled sourly. At least the towering noncom was asking the question as privately as the pinnace's cramped confines allowed. That, unfortunately, didn't change the fact that he appeared to be less than overwhelmed with her plan.

Such as it was, and what there was of it.

"If you're asking if I'm sure it will work, Sergeant," she said coolly, "the answer is 'no.' But if you're asking if I'm confident this is what will give us our best chance, than the answer is 'yes.' Why?"

"It's just— Well, Ma'am, no offense, but what you're talking about doing would be hard enough if we were all trained Marines."

"I'm aware that Navy personnel aren't trained in planetary evasion and concealment tactics the way Marines are, Sergeant. And if I had another choice, believe me, I'd take it. But you'll just have to take my word for it that there's no way this pinnace could possibly avoid detection, interception, and destruction if we try to stay in space. That's an area where we Navy types have a certain degree of expertise of our own." She gave him a thin smile. "So, the way I see it, that only leaves us the planet. Understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Gutierrez said. He remained clearly unhappy, and she suspected he also remained somewhat short of total confidence in her leadership ability, but he couldn't avoid the force of her argument, either.

"Well," she told him with a more natural smile, "at least we already had our survival supplies ready to go, didn't we?"

"Yes, Ma'am, we did." Gutierrez surprised her with a chuckle which acknowledged that he knew she'd given him the initial assignment just to yank his chain. She grinned back wryly, but then their moment of shared humor faded, and she nodded to him.

* * * * * * * *

She patted Palmer on the shoulder, then nodded to Gutierrez to follow her, and the two of them made their way back to the mouth of the ravine. Abigail crouched there, Gutierrez squatting behind her, and gazed back up the way they'd come. Their position was as close as they were going to get to a private conversation, she thought.

"They're fast," she said finally, and half-sensed Gutierrez's shrug behind her.

"People who fly are always faster than people who walk, Ma'am," he said philosophically. "On the other hand, people who walk can get into places people who fly can't."

"But if they can pin us down in a place like this," she said quietly, "they won't really haut even if it took the pirates four or five times as long to cover the same distance, they'd be to the ravine in no more than an hour and half or so.

"We need to buy some more time, Sergeant," she said.

"I'm certainly open to ideas, Ma'am," Gutierrez replied.

"How good are those thermal blankets at blocking sensors, really?"

"Well," Gutierrez said slowly, "they're pretty damned effective against straight thermal sensors. And they'll help some against other sensors. Not a lot. Why, Ma'am?"

"We don't have enough of them to cover all of us," Abigail said. "Even if we did, it will only be a matter of time until they work their way far enough down the valley to spot this ravine." She thumped the rock wall behind her. "And when they do—" She shrugged.

"Can't argue with you there, Ma'am," the sergeant said slowly, in the tone of a man who was pretty sure he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"It occurs to me that if we just stay here, they'll get all of us once they reach this point," Abigail said steadily. "I'm sure you and your people will put up a good fight, but with us pinned down in here, all it would take would be one or two grenades or plasma bursts, wouldn't it?"

Gutierrez nodded, his expression grim, and she shrugged.

"In that case, our best bet is to decoy them away from the ravine," she said. "If we just stay here, we all die. But if some of us use the thermal blankets for cover while we move away from here, then deliberately show ourselves further down the valley, well away from the ravine, we can draw them after us, pull them past the others. There should even be a pretty good chance that they'll assume all of us are somewhere out there ahead of them and extend their perimeter past the ravine without ever realizing it's here."

Gutierrez was silent for several seconds, then he drew a deep breath.

"Ma'am, there may be something to what you're saying," he said very slowly. "But you do understand that whoever does the decoying isn't going to make it, don't you?"

"Sergeant, if we all stay here, we all die here," she said flatly. "It's always possible some of the decoy force might survive." She held up a hand before he could protest. "I know how heavy the odds against that are," she told him. "I'm not saying I think any of them will. I'm only saying that it's at least theoretically possible . . . whereas if we stay here, there's no possibility at all, unless Gauntlet somehow miraculously gets back in the nick of time. Or would you disagree with that assessment?"

"No, Ma'am," he said finally. "No, I wouldn't."

"Well, in that case, let's—" she looked up at the sergeant with a bittersweet smile he didn't quite understand "—be about it."



It wasn't quite that simple, of course. Especially not when Gutierrez found out who she intended to command the decoys.

"Ma'am, this is a job for Marines!" he said sharply.

"Sergeant," she shot back just as sharply, "it was my idea, I'm in command of this party, and I say that makes it my job."

"You're not trained for it!" he protested.

"No, I'm not," she agreed. "But let's be honest here, Sergeant. Just how important is training going to be, under the circumstances?"

"But—"

"And another thing," she said, deliberately dropping her voice so that only Gutierrez could hear her. "If—when—they finally catch up with the decoys," she said unflinchingly, "they're going to realize they've been fooled if all they find are Marines. That was a Navy pinnace. They may assume some of the crew stayed aboard to draw their fire and cover the rest, but do you think they're not going to be suspicious if they don't find any naval personnel dirtside?"

Gutierrez stared at her, his expression unreadable, as he realized what she meant. That despite anything else she might have said, she knew the decoys were going to die . . . and that she was deliberately planning to use her own corpse in an effort to protect the other personnel under her command.

"You could have a point," he acknowledged, manifestly against his will, "but you really aren't trained for this. You'll slow us down."

"I'm the youngest, fittest Navy person present," she said bluntly. "I may slow you down some, but I'll slow you down the least."

"But—"

"We don't have time to debate this, Sergeant. We need every minute we've got. I'll let you choose the rest of the party, but I'm coming. Is that clearly understood?"

Gutierrez stared at her for perhaps another three heartbeats. And then, slowly, obviously against his will, he nodded.

* * * * * * * *
Mateo Gutierrez interrupted his focused, intense study of their back trail long enough to glance down at the exhausted midshipwoman briefly, and the hard set of his mouth relaxed ever so slightly for just a moment. Approval mingled with bitter regret in his dark eyes, and then he returned his attention to the night-covered valley behind them.

He'd never thought the girl would be able to keep up the pace he'd set, he admitted. But she had. And for all her youth, she had nerves of steel. She'd been the first to reach Tillotson when the pulser dart came screaming out of the dark and killed him. She'd dragged him into cover, checked his pulse, and then—with a cool composure Gutierrez had never expected—she'd taken the private's pulse rifle and appropriated his ammo pouches. And then, when the three pirates who'd shot Tillotson emerged into the open to confirm their kill, she'd opened fire from a range of less than twenty meters. She'd ripped off one neat, economical burst that dropped all three of them in their tracks, and then crawled backward through the rocks to rejoin Gutierrez under heavy fire while the rest of Sergeant Harris' first squad put down covering fire in reply.

He'd ripped a strip off of her for exposing herself that way, but his heart hadn't been in it, and she'd known it. She'd listened to his short, savage description of the intelligence involved in that sort of stupid, boneheaded, holovision hero, recruit trick, and then, to his disbelief, she'd smiled at him.

It hadn't been a happy smile. In fact, it had been almost heartbreaking to see. It was the smile of someone who knew exactly why Gutierrez was reading her the riot act. Why he had to chew her out in order maintain the threadbare pretense that they might somehow survive long enough for her to profit from the lesson.

She'd killed at least two more of the enemy since then, and her aim had been as rock steady for the last of them as for the first.

* * * * * * * *

He looked back down their present hillside. All four of First Squad's survivors were on the same hill, and there was no place left for them to go. The ground broke down in front of them for just under a kilometer, but the hill on which they were dug in was squarely in the mouth of a box canyon. They were finally trapped with no avenue of retreat.

He could see movement, and he realized the idiots were going to come right up the slope at them instead of standing back and calling in air strikes. It wasn't going to make much difference in the end, of course . . . except that it would give them the opportunity to take an even bigger escort to hell with them.

Well, that and one other thing, he told himself sadly as he looked with something curiously like love at the exhausted young woman beside him and touched the butt of the pulser holstered at his hip. Mateo Gutierrez had cleaned up behind pirates before. And because he had, there was no way Abigail Hearns would be alive when the murderous scum at the foot of that hill finally overran them.

"It's been a good run, Abigail," he said softly. "Sorry we didn't get you out, after all."

"Not your fault, Mateo," she said, turning to smile up at him somehow. "I was the one who thought it up. That's why I had to be here."

"I know," he said, and rested one hand on her shoulder for a moment. Then he inhaled sharply. "I'll take the right," he said briskly. "Anything on the left is yours."

roseandheather wrote:

--------
HMS Inconceivable. He wasn't sure what he thought of "inconceivable" as the name for one of Her Majesty's starships, but it was certainly a fitting appellation for his flagship, under the circumstances.

Mission of Honor

The things I want to do to that man...!!

"I don't think I've ever seen the Steadholder quite like this," Spencer Hawke said quietly.

********
Neither she nor the colonel had discussed exactly what it was he was doing today, but Mattingly and Hawke both knew it had something to do with the rather peculiar travel agenda Lady Harrington had laid out for LaFollet the evening before.

All of that was odd enough, yet it wasn't what had prompted Hawke's remark. There was a . . . distracted edge to her. She lacked that complete and total focus on whatever the task in hand happened to be which was usually so much a part of her. And she seemed both excited and apprehensive, which was very much not like her.

Mattingly glanced at the younger armsman. Hawke had not yet been briefed on the details of the aforementioned peculiar travel agenda. For that matter, Mattingly hadn't been fully briefed on it, himself, but he believed in being prepared. So he'd done a little research of his own on this "Briarwood Center" the Steadholder was intent upon visiting so privately.

"I've seen her in moods like this one," he said after a moment. "Not often, but once or twice. Thank God it's not as bad as the one she was in before they sent us to Marsh!"

"Amen," Hawke said with soft fervency, and remembered anger flickered in the backs of his usually mild eyes. Mattingly wasn't surprised to see it, but he was glad. He'd chosen that particular example deliberately, given what Hawke was going to inevitably figure out for himself tomorrow.

"She's got a lot on her mind," he continued quietly, watching the Steadholder flow gracefully through her katas.

********

"I know she does," Hawke replied to his last remark, and cocked his head. "But this isn't just about her navy job."

"No, it isn't," Mattingly agreed. "There are some . . . personal issues involved, as well."

Hawke's eyes turned instantly opaque, and his expression blanked. It was a professional armsman's reaction which Mattingly found a bit amusing, under the circumstances. He couldn't really fault the younger man for probing for information—armsmen all too often found that their primaries had neglected to mention some vitally important bit of information because it hadn't seemed important to them. Or because they didn't want to share it. Or even sometimes, as happened much too frequently for Mattingly's peace of mind in the Steadholder's case, because they'd simply decided to subordinate security requirements to . . . other considerations.

But it was a mark of Hawke's relative youthfulness that he should go into immediate "the-Steadholder's-private-life-is-none-of-my-business" mode the instant he began to suspect where his probing might lead him.

"She's not going to tell you about them, you know," Mattingly said conversationally, his tone almost teasing, as the Steadholder finished her katas.

He watched her alertly, even here, wondering if she was going to head straight for the showers, but instead, she crossed to the indoor shooting range at the far end of the gymnasium. He'd already checked the range before the Steadholder ever entered the gym, and there were no other entrances to it, so he didn't try to intercept her at the range door. Instead, he jerked his head at Hawke, and the two of them walked over to flank the door, watching through the soundproof armorplast with one eye while they kept most of their attention focused on the only access routes.

"There's no reason she ought to tell me about them," Hawke said, just a bit stiffly. "She's my Steadholder. If she wants me to know something, she'll tell me."

"Oh, nonsense!" Mattingly snorted. He felt a small flicker of surprise when the Steadholder didn't put on her ear protectors, but his incipient twinge of concern vanished when he realized she didn't have her .45 at the shooting line. Unlike that thunderous, anachronistic, propellant-spewing monster, pulsers were relatively quiet.

Satisfied that his charge wasn't going to hammer her unprotected eardrums with gunfire, he looked back at Hawke. Who was regarding him with a moderately outraged expression.

"Spencer," he said, "Colonel LaFollet didn't handpick you for the Steadholder's personal detail because you're an idiot. You know—or you damned well ought to know, by now—that no primary ever tells his armsmen everything they need to know. And, frankly, the Steadholder's worse than most in that regard. She's better than she was, but, Tester—the things she used to do without even mentioning them to us ahead of time!"

He shook his head.

"The thing you have to understand, Spencer, is that there's the Job, and then there's everything else. The Job is to see to it that that lady in there stays alive, period. No ifs, no ands, and no buts. We do whatever it takes—whatever it takes—to see to it that she does. And it's our privilege to do that, because there are steadholders, and there are steadholders, and I tell you frankly that one like her comes along maybe once or twice in a generation. If we're lucky. And, yes, although I'm not going to tell her, I'd do the Job anyway, because I love her.

"But every so often, and more often in her case than in most, the Job and who the person we're protecting is run into one another head on. The Steadholder takes risks. Some of them are manageable, or at least reasonably so, like her hang-gliding and her sailboats. But she's also a naval officer, and a steadholder in the old sense—the kind who used to lead his personal troops from the front rank—so there are always going to be risks we can't protect her from, however hard we try. And as you may recall, those same risks have killed quite a few of her armsmen along the way.

"And there's another factor involved, where she's concerned. She wasn't born a steadholder. In a lot of ways, I think that's the secret of her strength as a steadholder; she doesn't think like someone who knew from the time he learned to walk that he was going to be one. That's probably a very good thing, over all, but it also means she didn't grow up with the mindset. It simply doesn't occur to her—or, sometimes it does occur to her and she simply chooses to ignore the fact—that she has to keep us informed if we're going to do the Job. And since she doesn't, every one of us—like every armsman who ever was—spends an awful lot of time trying to figure out what it is she isn't telling us about this time."

He grimaced wryly.

"And, of course, we spend most of the rest of our time keeping our big mouths shut about the things we have figured out. Especially the ones she didn't tell us about. You know, the things she knows that we know that she knows that we know but none of us ever discuss with her."

"Oh." Hawke frowned. "So you're saying I'm supposed to pry into her personal life?"

"We are her personal life," Mattingly said flatly. "We're as much her family as her mother and father, as Faith and James. Except that we're the expendable part of her family . . . and everyone knows and accepts that. Except her."

His own frown mingled affection, respect, and exasperation as he looked through the armorplast at his Steadholder.

********


On the other side of the armorplast, the Steadholder pointed her finger down-range, and a hyper-velocity pulser dart shrieked dead center through the ten-ring of a combat target. She hadn't even raised her hand, and as they watched, she actually turned her head away, not even looking at the targets as they popped out of their holographic concealment . . . and the pulser darts continue to rip their chests apart.

"How does she do that?" Hawke demanded. "Look at that! She's got her eyes closed!"

"Yes, she does," Mattingly agreed with a smile. "The Colonel finally broke down and asked her. It's fairly simple, really. There's a concealed camera in the cuticle of the finger, and when she activates the pulser, the camera feed links directly to her artificial eye. It projects a window with a crosshair, and since the camera is exactly aligned with the bore of the pulser, the dart will automatically hit anything she sees in the window." He shook his head, still smiling. "She's always been a really good 'point-and-shoot' shooter, but it got even worse when her father had her arm designed."

"You can say that again," Hawke said with feeling.

"And a damned good thing, too." Mattingly turned away from the armorplast. "They say the Tester is especially demanding when He Tests those He loves best. Which tells me that He loves the Steadholder a lot."

Hawke nodded, turning away from the armorplast himself and frowning as he considered everything Mattingly had said to him. After several moments, he looked back across at the older armsman.

"So what is it she's not telling us?"

"Excuse me?" Mattingly frowned at him.

"So what is it she's not telling us?" Hawke repeated. "You said it's an armsman's responsibility to know all those things his primary doesn't tell him about. So tell me."

"Tell you something the Steadholder hasn't told you?" Mattingly's frown became a wicked grin. "I'd never dream of doing such a thing!"

"But you just said—"

"I said it's an armsman's responsibility to find out about the things he needs to know. At the moment, the Colonel and I—older and wiser, not to say sneakier, heads that we are—have already found out. Now, young Spencer, as part of your own ongoing education and training, it's your job to figure it out for yourself. And, I might add, without stepping on your sword in front of the Steadholder by admitting that you have."

"That's dumb!" Hawke protested.

"No, Spencer, it isn't," Mattingly said, much more seriously. "Finding out for yourself is something you're going to have to do. And for quite a long time. Unlike the Colonel or me, you've got prolong. You're going to be with the Steadholder probably for decades, and you need to figure out the sorts of things she isn't going to tell you. And just as importantly, you need to learn how to leave her her privacy even as you invade it."

Hawke looked at him, and Mattingly smiled with more than a trace of sadness.

"She has no privacy, Spencer. Not anymore. And like I just said, she didn't grow up a steadholder. Someone who's born to the job never really has privacy in the first place. He doesn't miss what he never had, or not as much, at any rate. But she did have it, and she gave it away when she accepted her steadholdership. I don't think she's ever admitted to anyone just how much that cost her. So if we can play the game, let her cling to at least the illusion that she still has some privacy, then that's part of what it means to be an armsman. And however silly, however 'dumb,' that might sometimes seem, it isn't. Not at all. In fact, playing that game with her has been one of the greatest privileges of my service as her personal armsman."

"What I don't understand," Lieutenant Tergesen said just a bit plaintively, looking up from her cards at the sound of the Exec's laughter, "is how you can stuff all that in and never gain a kilo." The dark-haired engineering officer was in her early thirties, and while she certainly wasn't obese, she was a shade on the plump side. "I'd be as broad across the beam as a trash hauler if I gorged on half that many calories!"

"Well, I work out a lot, Ma'am," Honor replied, which was accurate enough, if also a little evasive. People were no longer as prejudiced against "genies" as they once had been, but those like Honor who were descended from genetically engineered ancestors still tended to be cautious about admitting it to anyone they did not know well.

"I'll say she does," Ensign Baumann put in wryly. "I saw her and Sergeant Tausig sparring yesterday evening." The ensign looked around at the wardroom's occupants in general and wrinkled her nose. "She was working out full contact . . . with Tausig."

"With Tausig?" Layson half-turned in his own chair to look more fully at Honor. "Tell me, Ms. Harrington. How well do you know Surgeon Lieutenant Chiem?"

"Lieutenant Chiem?" Honor frowned. "I checked in with him when I joined the ship, of course, Sir. And he was present one night when the Captain was kind enough to include me in his dinner party, but I don't really know the doctor. Why? Should I, Sir?"

This time the laughter was general, and Honor blushed in perplexity as Nimitz bleeked his own amusement from the back of her chair. Her seniors' mirth held none of the sneering putdown or condescension she might have expected from someone like a Santino, but she was honestly at a loss to account for it. Lieutenant Saunders recognized her confusion, and smiled at her.

"From your reaction, I gather that you weren't aware that the good sergeant was the second runner-up in last year's Fleet unarmed combat competition, Ms. Harrington," he said.

"That he was—" Honor stopped, gawking at the lieutenant, then closed her mouth and shook her head. "No, Sir, I didn't. He never—I mean, the subject never came up. Second runner-up in the Fleet matches? Really?"

"Really," Layson replied for the lieutenant, his tone dry. "And everyone knows Sergeant Tausig's theory of instruction normally involves thumping on his students until they either wake up in sick bay or get good enough to thump him back. So if you and Doctor Chiem haven't become close personal acquaintances, you must be pretty good yourself."

"Well, I try, Sir. And I was on the coup de vitesse demo team at the Academy, but—" She paused again. "But I'm not in the sergeant's league by a longshot. I only get a few pops in because he lets me."

"I beg to differ," Layson said more dryly than ever. "I hold a black belt myself, Ms. Harrington, and Sergeant Tausig has been known to spend the odd moment kicking my commissioned butt around the salle. And he has never `let' me get a hit in. I think it's against his religion, and I very much doubt that he would decide to make an exception in your case. So if you `get a few pops in,' you're doing better than ninety-five percent of the people who step onto the mat with him."

Honor blinked at him, still holding her sandwich for another bite. She'd known Tausig was one of the best she'd ever worked out with, and she knew he was light-years better at the coup than she was, but she would never have had the gall to ask to spar with him to if she'd known he'd placed that high in the Fleet competition. He must have thought she was out of her mind! Why in the world had he agreed to let her? And if he was going to do that, why go so easy on her? Whatever Commander Layson might think, Honor couldn't believe that—

And Honor had emerged from the holocaust as the only surviving Allied fleet commander engaged. She was being given credit for the victory, lauded as "the greatest naval commander of her age" by the newsfaxes. A Manticoran public shocked to its very marrow by the audacity of the Havenite attack and its horrific casualties, terrified by how close Lester Tourville had come to success, had fastened on her as its heroine and savior.

Not Sebastian D'Orville, who'd given his life knowing he and all his people were going to die. If D'Orville hadn't decisively blunted the initial attack, it would have devastated everything in the Manticore System, no matter what Theodosia Kuzak or Honor had done, and he and his fleet had died where they stood to do it.

Not Theodosia Kuzak, whose Third Fleet had sailed straight into the jaws of death. Who'd done everything right, yet tripped the guillotine which would have destroyed Eighth Fleet, just as surely as it had destroyed the Third, if Honor had been in her place.

And not Alistair McKeon, who had died like so many thousands of others, doing what he always did—his duty. Protecting the star nation he loved, serving the Queen he honored. Obeying the orders of the admiral who'd sent him unknowingly to his death . . . and who'd never even had the chance to say goodbye.

The praise, the adulation, were as bitter on her tongue as the ashes of the Phoenix's pyre, and she felt the darkness outside this quiet nursery. The darkness of the future, with all its uncertainties, all its risks in the wake of such a savage display of combat power and such cruel losses to both combatants. The darkness of the new and terrible blood debt the Star Kingdom and the Republic had laid up between them. The hatred and the fear which had to come from such a cataclysmic encounter, with all its dark implications for where the war between them might go.