by David Weber
"And how long will it take for you to determine whether or not it is?"
"Not too long, I hope. I've got Richard Maxwell working on it now, and he feels confident he can have a definitive opinion for us within a month or so. Which is actually moving at light-speed for the legal system, you know. In the meantime, we've got to get Cutworm III organized and launched, and no one at Admiralty House or here in the Fleet needs to be worrying about something like this while we're planning an op."
"I don't suppose I can argue about that," Henke said. "Personally, given who you and Hamish are-not to mention Emily-I figure you could probably get away with just about anything short of murder!"
"Maybe we could," Honor said with a frown of her own, "but that's one game I really don't want to start playing."
"Honor, you've earned a little slack, a little special consideration," Henke told her quietly.
"Some people may think so. And, in some respects, I suppose I do, too," Honor said slowly. "But the minute I begin demanding some sort of free pass, I turn into someone I don't want to be."
"Yes, I guess you would," Henke said, shaking her head with a slight, rueful smile. "Which is probably one reason everyone else would be so willing to give it to you. Oh, well." She shook herself. "I guess we'll just have to put up with you the way you are."
* * *
"And don't forget to write this time!"
"Mom!" Lieutenant Timothy Mears protested. "I always write! You know I do!"
"But not often enough," she said firmly, with an impish smile, as she banked into the final approach to Landing Field's parking bays.
"All right. All right," he sighed, giving in with a smile of his own. "I'll try to write more often. Assuming the Admiral gives me the free time."
"Don't you go blaming your slackness on Duchess Harrington," his mother scolded. "She doesn't keep you that busy."
"Yes, she does," Mears objected in tones of profound innocence. "I swear she does!"
"Then you won't mind me dropping her a little note of my own to ask her not to overwork my baby boy that way?"
"Don't you dare!" Mears protested with a laugh.
"That's what I thought," his mother said complacently. "Mothers know these things, you know."
"And they fight dirty, too."
"Of course they do. They're mothers."
The air car settled into the designated parking bay, and she turned to look at him, her expression suddenly much more serious.
"Your father and I are very proud of you, Tim," she said quietly. "And we worry about you. I know-I know!" She raised one hand when he started to protest. "You're safer on the flagship then you would be almost anywhere else. But a lot of mothers and fathers who thought their children were safe before the Peeps started shooting again found out they were wrong. We're not lying awake at night, unable to sleep. But we do worry, because we love you. So... be careful, all right?"
"I promise, Mom," he said, and kissed her cheek. Then he climbed out of the car, collected his single light bag, and waved goodbye.
His mother watched him step onto the pedestrian slideway. She watched him until he disappeared into the crowd, then lifted the air car into the exit traffic lanes and headed home.
She never noticed the nondescript man who also watched her son head for the departure concourse.
* * *
"I wish we were getting a few reinforcements, Ma'am," Rafael Cardones said as he, Simon Mattingly, and Honor and Nimitz walked down the passage away from the flag briefing room where the first preliminary meeting for Cutworm III had just broken up.
"So do I," Honor replied. "But realistically, it's only been three months since we activated Eighth Fleet. It's going to be at least a few more months before we start seeing anything else, I'm afraid."
"Three months." Cardones shook his head. "It doesn't seem anywhere near that long, somehow, Ma'am."
"That's because of how much more intense the operational pace has been this time around," Honor said with a shrug. "For us, at least. Time is probably dragging for the folks in Home Fleet and Third Fleet." It was her turn to shake her head. "I was always fortunate, as a captain. I didn't get anchored to one of the major defensive fleets and have to sit around cooling my heels for months at a time with nothing but simulations to keep my people sharp."
"No, you didn't," Cardones said dryly. "If I recall correctly, Your Grace, you were generally too busy getting the crap shot out of your ship to worry about something like that."
"Picky, picky, picky," Honor said, and the flag captain chuckled. "At least it kept my people from getting bored," she added, and he laughed harder.
Honor smiled, and the four of them stepped through the hatch onto Imperator's flag bridge.
It was fairly late in the shipboard day, and the watch was at a minimum. Mattingly peeled off, just inside the hatch, and Honor and Cardones crossed the spacious command deck to stand on its far side, gazing into the main visual display. The endless depths of space lay before them, crystal clear and sooty black, spangled with stars.
"Beautiful, isn't it, Ma'am?" Cardones asked quietly.
"And it looks so peaceful," Honor agreed.
"Too bad looks can be so deceiving," her flag captain said.
"I know what you mean. But let's not get too moody. It's always been 'deceiving,' you know. Think about what each of those tiny little, cool-looking stars is like when you get close to it. Not so 'peaceful" then, is it?"
"You do have an interesting perspective on things, sometimes, Your Grace," Cardones observed.
"Do I?"
Honor turned her head as the hatch opened again and Timothy Mears walked through it, carrying his memo board under his arm. The flag lieutenant had stayed behind to tidy up his notes of the session.
"If my perspective seems odd," she continued, turning back to Cardones, "it's only because-"
Her voice chopped off as abruptly as a guillotine blade, and she whirled back towards the hatch even as Nimitz catapulted off her shoulder with a bloodcurdling, tearing-canvas snarl. Cardones' jaw dropped, and he started to turn himself, but he was far too slow.
"Simon!" Honor shouted, even as her right hand flashed up, caught Cardones by the front of his tunic, and flung him towards the floor with all the brutal power of her genetically-engineered heavy-world musculature.
The armsman's head snapped up, but he lacked Honor's empathic sense. He couldn't taste what she tasted-couldn't recognize the sudden, surging horror radiating from Timothy Mears as the young man abruptly found his body responding to the orders of someone-or something-else.
It wasn't Mattingly's fault. Timothy Mears was part of his Steadholder's official family. He was her aide, her student, almost an adoptive son. He'd been alone in her company literally thousands of times, and Mattingly knew he was no threat. And so, he was totally unprepared when Mears' right hand reached out casually-so casually-in passing... and snaked Mattingly's pulser out of his holster.
The armsman reacted almost instantly. Despite the totality of his surprise, his own arm lashed out, seeking to recapture the weapon, or at least immobilize it. But "almost instantly" wasn't quite good enough, and the pulser snarled.
"Simon!"
This time it was no shout. Honor screamed her armsman's name in useless protest as the burst of heavy-caliber darts ripped into his abdomen and tracked upward into his chest. His uniform tunic, like Honor's, which had been modified to resist Nimitz's claws, was made of antiballistic fabric, but it wasn't designed to resist military-grade pulser fire at point-blank range, and Mattingly went down in an explosion of blood.
Honor felt the agony of his death, but there was no time to grieve. And agonizing as what had just happened to Mattingly was, it was actually less agonizing than what she tasted from Timothy Mears. His horror, shock, disbelief and guilt as his hand killed a man who'd been his friend was like some horrifying shroud. She could feel him screaming in protest, fighting with desperate futility, as his arm came up, sweeping around the br
idge, holding down the stud on the stolen pulser.
A hurricane of darts shrieked across Flag Bridge. Two Plotting ratings went down, one of them screaming horribly. The Communications section exploded as the darts chewed their way through displays, consoles, chair backs. The deadly muzzle tracked onward, slicing the bandsaw of hyper-velocity darts across Andrea Jaruwalski's unmanned station and killing the Tactical quartermaster of the watch. And yet, even as the carnage mounted, Honor knew it was all incidental. She knew her horrified flag lieutenant's actual target.
Nimitz hit the back of a command chair, bounding towards Mears, but the cyclone of darts slammed into the chair. They missed the 'cat, but the chair literally exploded under him, and not even his reflexes could keep him from falling to the deck. He landed with his feet under him, already prepared to bound upward once again, but he'd lost too much time. He couldn't possibly reach the flag lieutenant before the pulser in Mears' hand found Honor.
Honor felt it coming. Felt the useless denial screaming in Timothy Mears' mind. Knew the flag lieutenant literally could not resist whatever hideous compulsion had seized him. Knew he would rather have died himself than do what he'd just done. What he was about to do.
She didn't think about it, not consciously. She simply reacted, just as she'd reacted by throwing Rafael Cardones out of the line of fire. Reacted with the trained instincts of over forty years of practice in the martial arts, and with the muscle memory she'd drilled into herself on the firing range under her Jason Bay mansion.
Her artificial left hand flexed oddly. It rose before her, forefinger rigid, and in the instant before Timothy Mears' fire reached her, the tip of that forefinger exploded as a five-dart burst of pulser fire ripped across the flag bridge and the flag lieutenant's head erupted in a ghastly spray of gray, red, and pulverized white bone.
Chapter Thirty-Two
"Your Grace, Captain Mandel is here," James MacGuiness said quietly.
Honor looked up from her console with a feeling of guilty relief. She'd gotten only a few hours of fitful sleep in the twenty-one hours since the massacre on her flag bridge, and she was still dealing with personal letters to the families of the dead. The message she'd already composed for Simon Mattingly's family had been bad enough; the one she was recording now, for Timothy Mears' parents, was far worse.
MacGuiness stood in the open hatch of the office workspace attached to her day cabin, and his expression was as haggard as she felt. Simon Mattingly had been his friend for over sixteen T-years, and Timothy Mears had been like a younger brother. Eighth Fleet's entire command structure was stunned by what had happened, but for some, Honor thought, it was far more personal than for others.
"Show the Captain in, please, Mac."
"Yes, Ma'am."
MacGuiness disappeared, and Honor saved what she'd already recorded for Timothy's parents. As she did, her eyes fell on the black glove on her left hand-the glove concealing the tattered last joint of her index finger-and she felt once again the terrible, tearing grief there'd been no time to feel then as she shot down all of the potential and youthful exuberance of the flag lieutenant who'd meant so much to her.
A throat cleared itself, and she looked up once more.
"Captain Mandel, Your Grace," the burly, broad-shouldered officer just inside the hatch, black beret tucked under his left epaulet and spine ramrod straight, said gruffly. He and the slightly taller, slender woman beside him both wore the insignia of the Office of Naval Intelligence. "And this," Mandel indicated his companion, "is Commander Simon."
"Come in, Captain, Commander." Honor pointed at the chairs in front of her desk. "Be seated."
"Thank you, Your Grace," Mandel said. Simon-Honor felt herself flinch inside as the commander's last name lacerated her sense of loss-said nothing, only smiled politely and waited a moment until Mandel had seated himself. Then she sat, as well, economically and neatly.
Honor regarded them thoughtfully, tasting their emotions. They were an interesting contrast, she decided.
Mandel's emotions were just as hard-edged as his physical appearance. He radiated bulldog toughness, but there was no sense of flexibility or give. Focused, intense, determined... all of those applied, yet she had the sense that he was a blunt instrument. A hammer, not a scalpel.
But Simon, now. Simon's emotions were very different from her outward appearance. She looked almost colorless-fair-haired, with a complexion almost as pale as Honor's own and curiously washed out looking blue eyes-and her body language appeared diffident, almost timid. But under that surface was a poised, 'cat-like huntress. An agile mind, coupled with intense curiosity and an odd combination of a puzzlesolver's abstract concentration and a crusader's zeal.
Of the two, Honor decided, Simon was definitely the more dangerous.
"Now, Captain," she said, after a moment, folding her hands atop her blotter, "what can I do for you and the Commander?"
"Obviously, Your Grace, everyone at Admiralty House-and in the Government at large, for that matter-takes a very grave view of what's happened," Mandel said. "Admiral Givens will be personally reviewing all our reports, and I've been instructed to inform you that Her Majesty will also be receiving them."
Honor nodded silently when he paused.
"Commander Simon is attached to counter-intelligence," Mandel continued. "My own specialty is CID, however, which means I'll be functioning as the lead investigator."
"Criminal Investigation Division is taking the lead?" Honor managed to keep the surprise out of her voice, but her eyes sharpened.
"Well, clearly what's happened here represents a serious security breach," Mandel replied. "The Commander has an obvious responsibility to determine how the penetration occurred. However, in a case like this, it's usually most efficient to allow an experienced criminal investigator to go over the ground first. We know what to look for, and we can often identify the points at which the perpetrator began acting abnormally." He shrugged. "With that to direct them to the point at which he was first recruited, the counter-intelligence types can hit the ground running."
"Perpetrator," Honor repeated, and to her own ears her voice was oddly flattened.
"Yes, Your Grace." Mandel radiated puzzlement at her comment, and she smiled thinly.
"Lieutenant Mears," she said quietly, "was a member of my staff for almost a full T-year. He was a diligent, responsible, conscientious young man. Had he lived, he would, I feel no doubt, have attained senior rank and discharged it well. He won't do that now, because I killed him. I would greatly appreciate it, Captain, if you could find some word other than 'perpetrator' with which to describe him."
Mandel looked at her, and something clicked into place behind his eyes. She could feel it, taste his sense of "Oh, that's what it was!" as he recognized-or thought he did-what he was dealing with.
"Your Grace," he said compassionately, "it's not unusual, especially this soon after something like this, for it to be difficult to accept that someone we knew and liked, trusted, wasn't exactly what we thought he was. I'm sure you feel responsible for the death of the 'conscientious young man' you killed. But you killed him in self-defense, and the fact that you had to demonstrates that he wasn't who or what you thought he was."
Honor's eyes narrowed, and she heard Nimitz's soft, sibilant hiss.
"Captain Mandel," she said even more quietly, "did you or did you not read my own report about what happened here?"
"Of course, Your Grace. I have a copy of it here." He tapped the microcomputer cased at his belt.
"In that case, you ought to be aware that Lieutenant Mears was not responsible for his actions," she said flatly. "He wasn't the 'perpetrator' of this crime, Captain; he was its first victim."
"Your Grace," Mandel said in patient tones, "I did, indeed, read your report. It was well written, concise, and to the point. However, you're a combat officer. You command ships and lead fleets in battle, and the entire Star Kingdom knows how well you do it. But you aren't a criminal investigator. I am,
and while I don't doubt a single factual observation from your report, I'm afraid your conclusion that Lieutenant Mears was under some form of compulsion simply doesn't make sense. It's just not supported by the evidence."
"I beg your pardon?" Honor asked, almost conversationally, and a slight tic began at the right corner of her mouth.
"Your Grace," Mandel probably wasn't even aware of his own sense of patient, confident superiority in his area of expertise, but Honor certainly was, "you stated in your report that Lieutenant Mears was attempting to resist some sort of compulsion the entire time he was killing people, including your own armsman. But I'm afraid that statement is in error-a conclusion I base on two main points of observation and logic.