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Vince
Vice Admiral
Posts: 1574
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:43 pm
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Relax wrote:munroburton wrote:One of the short stories makes mention of a 'shredder pulser dart' type banned by "all civilised nations" including Silesia(which still trades it. Go figure). Single shots apparently take out clusters of people.
Getting your stories mixed up. Flechlett guns are perfectly legal. Kill multiple people. It is nothing more than a Honorverse Shotgun Nullfield guns, still sold in Silesia, were banned. That is the gun Honor got nailed by in HotQ.
You've got some of the stories mixed up. While flechette guns are legal, shredder pulsar darts are not: The Service of the Sword, With One Stone by Timothy Zahn wrote:"Missile away!" Venizelos barked abruptly.
"Where?" Honor demanded, searching her displays. There it was, scorching away from the pirate.
"Well away forward," Venizelos said. "It's going to pass a hundred thousand kilometers in front of Flagstad's bow."
Honor felt her eyebrows lifting as she confirmed the missile's vector for herself. Most pirates didn't bother with anything as civilized as warning shots. "Are you getting anything from his ID transponder, Joyce?" she asked.
"Nothing useful," Metzinger said. "It reads out as the Locksley, with a Zoraster registry, but there's no ship of that name in our files." She paused for a moment, listening to her earbud. "He's calling on us to drop our wedges and prepare to be boarded," she added. "He claims to be with the Logan Freedom Fighters, and pledges we won't be harmed if we cooperate."
Venizelos snorted. "Cute. And, of course, your average merchie wouldn't know the Logan group doesn't operate in the Zoraster system."
"Actually, they may have just started," Wallace spoke up. "One of Logan's top lieutenants has been talking with the Zoraster Freemen about an alliance. They may have cut a deal."
"You're kidding," Venizelos said, frowning at him. "Where did you hear that?"
Wallace gave him a wry smile. "Try reading the ONI dispatches sometime," he said. "It's all in there."
Venizelos's mouth twitched. "I guess I'll have to start skimming them a little slower," he conceded. "I don't know, though. Boarding merchies sounds more like a pirate maneuver than something freedom fighters would do."
"Especially when their fight is supposed to be with the Silesian Navy, not Manticoran merchantmen," Honor agreed. "Joyce, has he given any explanation for his demand?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Metzinger said, her voice suddenly grim. "He says they're looking for a shipment of shredder pulser darts. Apparently there's a special order on its way to the Ellyna Valley government."
"Yuck," Venizelos muttered under his breath.
"Agreed," Honor said with a disgusted feeling of her own. Pulser darts were lethal enough without adding in the shredding capability that could take out whole clusters of people with a single shot. All civilized nations, including the Star Kingdom, had banned them long ago. So, for that matter, had the Silesian Confederacy, at least on paper.
Unfortunately, there were still people out there who had no qualms about using them, which was why there were still people out there manufacturing the damned things.
"Tell them we don't have anything like that aboard any of our ships," she instructed Metzinger.
"Yes, Ma'am." Metzinger turned back to her board.
"I guess you can't blame them for not wanting to end up on the receiving end of shredders," Venizelos commented.
"Next question being whether they plan to destroy them if they find them, or simply load 'em in their own guns," DuMorne pointed out.
"They'll destroy them," Wallace told him. "The Logan group has consistently denounced the use of street-sweeper weapons, and there's never been a report of their own people using them. Any deal they made with the Freemen would have required that same restraint."
"So what exactly is our official stance toward these people?" Venizelos asked. "The usual hands-off thing, unless and until they threaten our shipping, at which point we can slap them down as hard as we want?"
"Basically," Honor said, turning back to Metzinger. "Joyce?"
"He apologizes, but says they have to check for themselves, Ma'am," the com officer reported. "He again promises we won't be harmed unless we do something foolish."
"He's certainly a polite sort of fellow," Venizelos commented. "So how hard are we going to slap him, Skipper?"
Honor studied her displays. The Locksley was well within the no-escape area now, and apparently still unaware that he was facing anything other than six helpless merchantmen. At this point, Fearless could basically do whatever she wanted to him.
And yet . . .
"Mr. Wallace, do you happen to know how well-supplied Logan's group is?" she asked.
"I don't know the numbers, Ma'am," Wallace said slowly. "A little better than the average Silesian rebel, probably, but not that much better."
"Can they afford to throw away missiles just for the fun of it?" she asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
"Not a chance," Wallace said firmly. "Not even the relatively piddling one he tossed across our vector."
Honor nodded, her mind made up. The Locksley had spent a valuable missile trying to get the convoy to stop without any further fighting. That meant he was either exactly who he said he was, with the more or less peaceful intentions he claimed to have, or else a pirate with the kind of chutzpah even a politician might envy.
"All right," she said. "Joyce, get a camera ready on me. Andy, when I cue you, bring up the wedge and sidewalls and paint him with the active sensors."
She settled herself in her chair and made sure her uniform tunic was straight. This should prove interesting. "He's hailing again, Ma'am," Metzinger said.
Honor nodded. "Put him through."
The screen before her cleared, and the face of a young man appeared, his cheeks tired and sunken, his eyes blazing with the fire of zealots and True Believers everywhere. "—one last time, Manticoran ships," he was saying. "If you don't drop your wedges—"
He broke off abruptly, his bright eyes goggling as he belatedly recognized her uniform. "This is Captain Harrington of Her Majesty's Ship Fearless," Honor said calmly into the stunned silence coming from the com. "I'm sorry; I didn't catch that?"
And with her final word she flicked a finger at Venizelos.
All around her, the bridge displays altered as Fearless suddenly surged to full combat readiness. The young man on the com display jerked like he'd been stung, his eyes darting to his own off-camera monitors, and Honor could hear the faint sounds of gasped consternation coming from the command deck around him.
"I've made my half of the introductions," she prompted. "Your turn."
With what appeared to be a supreme effort of will, the man pulled his gaze back to the com screen. "My name is Iliescu," he said, his cheeks looking more sunken than ever. "I—all right, Captain, you've got us. What now?"
"You've threatened my convoy, Mr. Iliescu," Honor reminded him coolly. "Verbally, as well as by putting a missile into space against us."
She watched his face as he opened his mouth, probably to protest that that had been a warning shot. But he subsided with the words unsaid. She knew that, and he knew that she knew it.
"All of which means that I would be within my legal rights to blow you to scrap," she continued. "Or do you see it differently?"
Iliescu took a deep breath. "I see that the use of shredder darts is an attack on all civilized human beings," he said. "I see that they're illegal, but that they're still being used by petty tyrants desperate to hold onto their power and their privileges. What would you do, Captain, if they were being used against your people?"
"We're not talking about me," Honor reminded him. "Do you have any evidence that there are Manticoran ships carrying these things?"
His lip twitched. "We don't know who's bringing them," he admitted. "All we know that they're supposed to be coming in soon, from a supplier on Creswell."
Honor nodded. Creswell had been the convoy's last port of call. So that was why Iliescu had been lying in wait in this particular spot. "So what are you planning to do? Stop every convoy coming from that direction until you find the shredders?"
Iliescu drew himself up. "If necessary," he said with stubborn dignity.
"All by yourself?"
"We have three other ships on loan from the Logan Freedom Fighters," he said. "We're running this in shifts."
"Who's your contact with Logan?"
The question seemed to take Iliescu off guard. "What?"
"I want the name of your contact," Honor repeated. "The one who negotiated the alliance with your Zoraster Freemen."
Iliescu's eyes were bulging again. "You're very well informed, Captain," he said. "I don't know if I should . . ."
"There's no deal possible unless you convince me, Mr. Iliescu," Honor warned quietly. "As far as I can tell from here, you could still just be another pirate with a gift for glib."
Iliescu swallowed hard. "His name is Bokusu. Simon Bokusu."
Honor glanced at Wallace, caught the other's fractional nod. "All right," she said, looking back at Iliescu. "Under the circumstances, I'm going to give you this one free pass. But from now on you leave Manticoran ships alone, or there will be trouble. Is that understood?"
"Understood," the other said. "What about the shredders?"
"None of the ships in my convoy are carrying them," Honor told him. "You have my word on that."
Iliescu hesitated, then nodded. "All right. Iccgood-bye, Captain."
His image vanished as he broke contact. "Secure from battle stations," Honor ordered. "Signal the convoy to return to formation."
"Well, that was interesting," Venizelos commented. "Also pretty disgusting. What kind of a sick animal uses shredders anymore?"
"You heard the man," DuMorne said. "Petty tyrants desperate to hold onto power and privilege."
"And we have to look the other way," Metzinger murmured.
"Just one of the many fun things about duty in Silesia," Venizelos said. "Skipper, do you want to leave the wedge at full power?"
"We might as well, since the masquerade's blown anyway," Honor said. "And as long as the active sensors are on line again, let's give the area between us and the planet a good, hard look."
"Yes, Ma'am," Venizelos said. Honor turned back to her tactical plot, watching the ships of her convoy shuffling back toward their original flight formation. The maneuvers were nowhere near military-precise, but not bad for merchantmen. Maybe there ought to be a course on this sort of thing at the Merchant Fleet Academy.
There was a beep from Venizelos's board. "Skipper, we've got another wedge coming up," he announced, frowning at his displays. "Off to port, about three million klicks out."
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Snip text where Fearless makes contact with the Andermani battlecruiser Neue Bayern and Honor gets invited to dinner (and we later find out that they planned out the tactics used to take out the "pirates" working with Charles, including the flickering of Fearless' wedge to send an FTL signal to the Neue Bayern--which at the end of the story inspires Sonja Hemphill to develop FTL communication using gravity pulses).
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"I don't think I'll be in any danger over there," she told Wallace, deliberately misreading the true intent of his question. "Besides, all of you will be busy right here."
Wallace frowned. "Doing what, Ma'am?"
"Checking out our convoy," Honor told him. "I want you and Commander Venizelos to assemble some inspection teams to go across to each of the ships. Get Scotty Tremaine and Horace Harkness to help, Andy—they'll know the right people to pick for the teams."
"What kind of inspection?" Venizelos asked. "What are we looking for, Skipper?"
"Shredder darts, of course," Honor said grimly. "I gave Iliescu my word that we weren't carrying them. Before we hit orbit, I want to know if I lied to him."
And at the dinner party with the Protector of Grayson after Nimitz started going after the Macabeans: The Honor of the Queen, Chapter 20 wrote:Captain Fox grabbed the Protector without ceremony, yanking him out of his chair by brute force and throwing him behind him as he went for his own sidearm. Lord Mayhew recoiled as the dead man’s blood splashed the tablecloth and spouted over him, but he, too, reacted with admirable speed. He grabbed both his sisters-in-law, shoved them under the table, and fell across them to protect them with his own body.
Honor saw it all only peripherally. She’d always known Nimitz could feel her emotions, but she’d never knowingly felt his.
This time she did—and as she also felt the emotions of the fresh “Security detachment” through him, she exploded out of her chair. The heel of her hand slammed into the face of the newcomer closest to the Protector, and cartilage crunched horribly as she drove his nose up into his brain—just as his companion dropped the dispatch case, raised his other hand, and fired at pointblank range into Captain Fox’s chest.
The handgun made a whining noise and a sound like an axe sinking into a log, and the Security captain flew backward, his pistol less than half-drawn. His corpse knocked Mayhew to the carpet, and a corner of Honor’s mind cringed as she recognized the sound of an off-world sonic disrupter.
She reached out and caught the killer by the nape of the neck with one hand and reached past him to clamp her other over his gun before he could get a clear shot at Mayhew. She missed the gun but captured his wrist, and he dropped the weapon with a howl of anguish as her fingers squeezed and the hand on his neck yanked him off the floor. His eyes started to roll towards her in disbelief as he hurtled through the air, and then she slammed him back over the table. Dishes flew, crystal shattered, and his eyes bulged, shock become agony as the point of her elbow smashed down. It hit his solar plexus like a hammer, driven by all of her weight and strength, and she whipped away from him, leaving him to die as his lungs and heart forgot to function.
Nimitz’s second victim was down, screaming on the floor as he clutched at the remnants of his face, but there were more whining disrupter shots in the hall—mixed with the single, explosive crack of a regular firearm. A horde of fresh “Security” men charged through the door, all armed with disrupters, and Honor snatched a heavy metal tray from the table. It flew across the room, as accurate as Nimitz’s frisbee but far more deadly, and the leading intruder’s forehead erupted in blood. He went down, tripping the man behind him, tangling them all up briefly, and then the chaos became total as the Protector’s bodyguards suddenly realized who the enemy truly was.
Gunfire thundered across the dining room, bullets crisscrossing with the solid-sound fists of disrupter bolts. Bodies went down on both sides, and aside from the disrupters, there was no way Honor could tell who was friend and who was foe.
But Nimitz was unhampered by any confusion. The high-pitched snarl of his battle cry wailed in her ears as he hurled himself into the face of another assassin like a furry, six-limbed buzz saw. His victim went down shrieking, and the man beside him swung his weapon towards the treecat, but Honor flew across the carpet towards him. Her right leg snapped straight, her boot crunched into his shoulder, breaking it instantly, and a hammer blow crushed his larynx as she came down on top of him.
All the Mayhews’ guards were down now, but so were many of the assassins, and Honor and Nimitz were in among the others. She knew there were too many of them, yet she and Nimitz were all that was left, and they had to keep them bottled up in the entry alcove, away from the Protector and his family, as long as they could.
The killers had known she’d be here, but she was “only” a woman. They were totally unprepared for her size and strength—and training—or the mad whirl of violence that wasn’t a bit like it was on HD. Real martial arts aren’t like that. The first accurate strike to get through unblocked almost always ends in either death or disablement, and when Honor Harrington hit a man, that man went down.
More feet pounded down the hallway and fresh gunfire crackled and whined as Palace Security reacted to the violence, but the remaining assassins were between Honor and the reinforcements. She tucked and rolled, taking the legs out from under two more men, then vaulted to her feet and drove a back-kick squarely into an unguarded face. A disrupter bolt whizzed past her, and iron-hard knuckles crashed into the firer’s throat. Nimitz howled behind her as he took down another victim, and she smashed a man’s knee into a splintered, backward bow with a side-kick. He fired wildly as he went down, killing one of his own companions, and her boot pulped his gun hand as she turned on yet another. She snaked an arm around his neck, pivoted around her own center of balance, and bent explosively, and the crack of snapping vertebrae was like another gunshot as he flew away from her.
Shouts and screams and more shots echoed from the hallway, and the assassins turned on Honor with panicky fury while their rearmost ranks wheeled to confront the reinforcements. Someone thrust a disrupter frantically in her direction, but she took out his gun arm with one chopping hand, cupped the other behind his head, and jerked his face down to meet her driving kneecap. Bone crunched and splintered, blood soaked the knee of her trousers, and she twisted towards a fresh enemy as the real Security people broke through the doorway at last.
A sledgehammer smashed into her face. She heard Nimitz’s shriek of fury and anguish as it hurled her aside, twisting her in midair like a doll, but all she could feel was the pain the pain the pain, and then she crashed down on the side of her face and bounced limply onto her back.
The pain was gone. Only numbness and its memory remained, but her left eye was blind, and her right stared up helplessly as the man who’d shot her raised his disrupter with a snarl. She watched the weapon rise in dreadful slow motion, lining up for the pointblank final shot—and then her killer’s chest exploded.
He fell across her, drenching her in steaming blood, and she turned her head weakly, hovering on the edge of the blackness. The last thing she saw was Benjamin Mayhew and Captain Fox’s autopistol smoking in his hand.
I have never heard of null guns mentioned in the Honorverse. Maybe the Dahak series? -------------------------------------------------------------
History does not repeat itself so much as it echoes.
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