by David Weber
* * *
It took the massive attack seven minutes to reach Task Force 82. Of the seventeen thousand missiles in the initial launch, only sixty lost their telemetry links and self-destructed after wandering off course. The Mark 31s killed over three thousand in the outermost intercept zone. In the middle zone, bolstered by the Katanas' Vipers and the standard counter-missiles from the Shrikes and Ferrets, they killed another four thousand. Jammers blinded another sixteen hundred missiles as they tried to settle into final acquisition, and the incredible cauldron of missile, starship, and LAC impeller wedges was too much for Moriarty's arthritic light-speed telemetry to sort out any longer.
The surviving eighty-three hundred MDMs dropped into autonomous mode as they hit the inner counter-missile zone. Shipboard EW did its best to spoof and blind the attackers, last-second decoy launches drew some of them astray, and a seemingly solid wall of Mark 31s met them head on.
Four thousand more MDMs were wiped out of space. Another eleven hundred fell prey to decoys or jamming. Three hundred of the survivors were penetration-aid EW platforms, without laser heads, and almost half the remaining twenty-nine hundred lost lock and reacquired not starships, but the nearer, more readily seen LACs. They streaked in to the attack, but Manticoran LACs were extraordinarily difficult targets. "Only" two hundred and eleven of them-and the twenty-one hundred of Honor's men and women aboard them-were killed.
And then the final sixteen hundred missiles attacked TF 82's starships, most of them targeted on the two superdreadnoughts.
Only one thing saved HMS Imperator, and that was the damage already inflicted on Intolerant. Imperator's consort's defenses and electronic warfare capability were simply far below par. She was both easier to see and easier to hit. The near-sighted autonomous-mode MDMs mobbed her in huge numbers, ignoring Imperator, and her last-ditch defenses weren't equal to the task of protecting her.
Warhead after warhead, literally hundreds of them, detonated in a hellish pattern of strobes-bubbles of nuclear fusion spitting deadly harpoons of coherent radiation that crashed through Intolerant's wavering sidewalls and ripped deep, deep into her massively armored hull. Mike Henke's battlecruisers did their best to beat that tide of destruction aside, but they simply lacked the firepower, and they themselves were not immune from attack.
Honor clung to the arms of her command chair, feeling Imperator shudder under the pounding of her own hits, tasting Nimitz in the back of her brain, clinging to her with all his fierce love and devotion as death thundered and bellowed about their ship. Yet even as she did, her eyes were on the plot, watching the lethal wave of fire washing over Intolerant.
No one would ever know how many hits the superdreadnought took, but however many there were, it was too many. They ripped into her again, and again, and again, until, suddenly, she simply disappeared in the most brilliant, eye-tearing flash of them all.
Nor did she go alone. The light cruisers Fury, Buckler, and Atum vanished from Honor's plot, as did the battlecruisers Priam and Patrocles. The heavy cruisers Star Ranger and Blackstone were reduced to crippled hulks, coasting onward ballistically without power or drives. And HMS Ajax faltered suddenly as her entire after impeller ring went down.
Imperator took over a dozen direct hits of her own, yet the flagship's actual damage was incredibly light. Her thick armor shrugged off most of the hits with little more than superficial cratering, and despite the loss of half a dozen energy mounts, she remained fully combat capable.
Honor gazed into the bitter ashes of her display, tasting the cruel irony of her flagship's apparent inviolability as she saw the harrowed wreckage of the rest of her command. Of the twenty starships and five hundred and sixty LACs she'd taken across the hyper limit, only twelve starships, all but two of them damaged, and three hundred and forty-nine LACs survived. And even as she watched, Ajax and the heavy cruiser Necromancer were falling behind due to impeller damage.
"Your Grace," Andrea Jaruwalski said quietly. Honor looked at her. "The remote arrays confirm the destruction of two of their minelayers and heavy damage to one of their superdreadnoughts."
"Thank you, Andrea." Honor was astounded by how calm, how normal, her own voice sounded. It was a pathetic return for what the Havenites had done to her, but she supposed it was better than nothing.
"Harper," she said, "get me a link to Admiral Henke."
"Yes, Your Grace."
Several seconds passed before Michelle Henke's strained face appeared on Honor's com.
"How bad is it, Mike?" Honor asked as soon as she saw her friend.
"That's an interesting question." Henke managed to produce at least the parody of a smile. "Captain Hamilton and his exec are both dead, and things are... a bit confused over here, just now. Our rails and pods are still intact, and our fire control looks pretty good, but our point defense and energy armament took a real beating. The worst of it seems to be the after impeller ring, though. It's completely down."
"Can you restore it?" Honor asked urgently.
"We're working on it," Henke replied. "The good news is that the damage appears to be in the control runs; the nodes themselves look like they're still intact, including the alphas. The bad news is that we've got one hell of a lot of structural damage aft, and just locating where the runs are broken is going to be a copperplated bitch."
"Can you get her out?"
"I don't know," Henke admitted. "Frankly, it doesn't look good, but I'm not prepared to just write her off yet. Besides," she managed another smile, this one almost normal looking, "we can't abandon very well."
"What do you mean?" Honor demanded.
"Both boat bays are trashed, Honor. The Bosun says she thinks she can get the after bay cleared, but it's going to take at least a half-hour. Without that-" Henke shrugged, and Honor bit the inside of her lip so hard she tasted blood.
Without at least one functional boat bay, small craft couldn't dock with Ajax to take her crew off. There were emergency personnel locks, but trying to lift off a significant percentage of her crew that way would take hours, and the battlecruiser carried enough emergency life pods for little more than half her total complement. There was no point carrying more, since only half her crew's battle stations were close enough to the skin of the hull to make a life pod practical.
And her flag bridge was not among the stations which fell into that category.
"Mike, I-"
Honor's voice was frayed around the edge, and Henke shook her head quickly.
"Don't say it," she said, almost gently. "If we get the wedge back, we can probably play hide and seek with anything heavy enough to kill us. If we don't get it back, we're not getting out. It's that simple, Honor. And you know as well as I do that you can't hold the rest of the task force back to cover us. Not with Bogey Three still closing. Even just hanging around for a half-hour while we try to make repairs would bring you into their envelope, and your missile defense has been shot to shit."
Honor wanted to argue, to protest. To find some way to make it not true. But she couldn't, and she looked her best friend straight in the eye.
"You're right," she said quietly. "I wish you weren't, but you are."
"I know." Henke's lips twitched again. "And at least we're in better shape than Necromancer," she said almost whimsically, "although I think her boat bays are at least intact."
"Well, yes," Honor said, trying to match Henke's tone even as she wanted to weep, "there is that minor difference. Rafe's coordinating the evacuation of her personnel now."
"Good for Rafe." Henke nodded.
"Break north," Honor told her. "I'm going to drop our acceleration for about fifteen minutes." Henke looked as if she were about to protest, but Honor shook her head quickly. "Only fifteen minutes, Mike. If we go back to the best acceleration we can sustain at that point and maintain heading, we'll still scrape past Bogey Three at least eighty thousand kilometers outside its powered missile range."
"That's cutting it too close, Honor!" Henke said sha
rply.
"No," Honor said flatly, "it isn't, Admiral Henke. And not just because Ajax is your ship. There are seven hundred and fifty other men and women aboard her."
Henke looked at her for a moment, then inhaled sharply and nodded.
"When they see our accel drop, they'll have to act on the assumption Imperator has enough impeller damage to slow the rest of the task force," Honor continued. "Bogey Three should continue to pursue us on that basis. If you can get the after ring back within the next forty-five minutes to an hour, you should still be able to stay clear of Bogey Two, and Bogey One is pretty much scrap metal at this point. But if you don't get it back-"
"If we don't get it back, we can't get into hyper anyway," Henke interrupted her. "I think it's the best we can do, Honor. Thank you."
Honor wanted to scream at her friend for thanking her, but she only nodded.
"Give Beth my best, just in case," Henke added.
"Do it yourself," Honor shot back.
"I will, of course," Henke said. Then, more softly, "Take care, Honor."
"God bless, Mike," Honor said equally quietly. "Clear."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The communicator on her desk buzzed, and she looked up from the report and pressed the acceptance key.
"Yes?"
"Your Grace," Harper Brantley's voice said, "you have a message."
"What is it?"
"We've just been informed that the First Lord and First Space Lord are aboard the midday shuttle flight, Your Grace. Their pinnace will dock with Imperator in thirty-seven minutes."
"Thank you, Harper."
Honor's courteous voice was calm enough to fool anyone who didn't know her very well indeed. Harper Brantley was one of those who did.
"You're welcome, Your Grace," he said quietly, and cut the circuit.
Honor sat back in her float chair, and Nimitz crooned comfortingly from his perch. She looked up and smiled, acknowledging both his love and his effort to cheer her, but they both knew he hadn't succeeded.
She looked back at her terminal, and the latest in the merciless progression of reports floating in its display. There was never an end to any Queen's officer's paperwork, and she'd found that was even truer after a resounding defeat than it was after a victory. In many ways, she was grateful. It gave her something to do besides sitting in the stillness of her quarters, listening to her ghosts.
Nimitz hopped down onto the desk and rose on his haunches, leaning forward to rest his true-hands on her shoulders while the tip of his nose just touched hers. He stared into her eyes, his own grass-green gaze as deep as the oceans of Sphinx they had sailed together in her childhood, and she felt him deep inside her. Felt his concern, and his scolding love as they both grappled with her sense of guilt and loss.
She reached out and folded her arms about him, holding him to her breasts while she buried her face in his soft, soft fur, and his croon sang gently, gently through her.
* * *
Honor stood in Imperator's boat bay, Andrew LaFollet at her shoulder, as the pinnace settled into the docking arms. The green light glowed, the inner end of the personnel tube opened, and the bosun's pipes shrilled as Major Lorenzetti's Marine side party snapped to attention.
"First Lord, arriving!" the intercom announced, and Hamish Alexander, Samantha on his shoulder, swung himself through the tube first, as befitted his seniority as Sir Thomas Caparelli's civilian superior.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" he asked, as Rafe Cardones saluted.
"Permission granted, My Lord."
"Thank you." Hamish nodded and shook Cardones' proffered hand. Then he stepped past the captain and his eyes met Honor's for just a moment before he held out his hand to her. She shook it without speaking, her empathic sense clinging to the concern and love in his mind-glow, acutely aware of all the other, watching eyes, as the bay speakers spoke again.
"First Space Lord, arriving!"
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" Sir Thomas Caparelli asked in the ancient ritual.
"Permission granted, Sir," Cardones gave the equally ritualistic response, and Caparelli stepped across the painted line on the deck.
"My Lord, Sir Thomas," Honor said in formal greeting as she released Hamish's hand to shake Caparelli's in turn.
"Your Grace," Caparelli replied for both of them, and Honor tasted his emotions, as well. The anger she'd half dreaded and yet half desired was absent. Instead, she tasted sympathy, concern, and something very like compassion. Part of her was glad, but another part-the wounded part-was almost angry, as if he were betraying her dead by not blaming her for their deaths. It was illogical and unreasonable, and she knew it. And it didn't change her emotions one bit.
"Would you and Earl White Haven care to join me in my quarters?"
"I think that's an excellent idea, Your Grace," Caparelli said after only the briefest glance at Hamish.
"In that case, My Lords," Honor said, and waved her right hand at the waiting lifts.
* * *
The short journey to Honor's quarters was silent, without the casual small talk which would normally have filled it. LaFollet peeled off outside the day cabin hatch, and Honor waved her visitors through it.
She followed them, and the hatch slid shut behind her.
"Welcome to Imperator, My Lords," she began, then chopped off in astonishment as Hamish turned and enfolded her in a fierce embrace. For just a moment, conscious of Caparelli's presence, she started to resist. But then she realized she tasted absolutely no surprise from the First Space Lord, and she abandoned herself-briefly, at least-to the incredible comfort of her husband's arms.
The embrace lasted several seconds, and then Hamish stood back, his left hand on her right shoulder, while his feather-gentle right hand brushed an errant strand of hair from her forehead.
"It's... good to see you, love," he said softly.
"And you." Honor felt her lower lip try to quiver and called it sternly to order. Then she looked past Hamish to Caparelli and managed a wry smile. "And it's good to see you, too, Sir Thomas."
"Although not, perhaps, quite as good, eh, Admiral Alexander-Harrington?"
"Oh, dear." Honor inhaled and looked back and forth between the two men. "Have we gone public while I was away, Hamish?"
"I wouldn't put it quite that way," he replied. "A few people have either figured it out or been informed because it's just so much simpler that way. Thomas here falls into both categories. I informed him... and he'd already figured it out. Essentially, at least."
"Your Grace-Honor," Caparelli said with a crooked smile, "your relationship with Hamish has to be one of the worst kept secrets in the history of the Royal Manticoran Navy." Alarm flickered in her eyes, but he only chuckled. "I might add, however, that I doubt very much that any Queen's officer would breathe a word about it. If nothing else, he'd be terrified of what the rest of us would do to him when we found out."
"Sir Thomas," she began, "I-"
"You don't have to explain anything to me, Honor," Caparelli cut her off. "First, because I think Hamish is probably right where the Articles of War are concerned. Second, because I've never seen any indication of your allowing personal feelings to influence your actions. Third, because you've made it crystal clear throughout your career that you have absolutely no interest in playing the patronage game and relying on 'interest' to further that career. And, fourth, and probably most importantly of all, the two of you-the three of you-have damned well earned it."
Honor closed her mouth, tasting the rock-ribbed sincerity behind his words. It was an enormous relief, but she made herself bite off any thanks. Instead, she simply waved for the two of them to be seated on the couch, then seated herself in one of the facing armchairs.
Hamish smiled faintly but said nothing as she deliberately separated the two of them from one another. Samantha hopped down from his shoulder, and she and Nimitz leapt up into the other armchair, curling down beside one another and purring happily.
&n
bsp; "I imagine," Honor said after a moment, her mood darkening once more, "that you've come out to discuss my fiasco."
Hamish's expression never wavered, but she felt his internal wince at her choice of noun.
"I suppose that's one way to describe it," Caparelli said. "It's not the one I would've chosen, however."
"I don't see a better one." Honor knew she sounded bitter, but she couldn't quite help it. "I lost half my superdreadnoughts, sixty percent of my battlecruisers, half my heavy cruisers, thirty-eight percent of my light cruisers, and over forty percent of my LACs. In return for which I managed to destroy two minelayers and damage two superdreadnoughts, one of them a pre-pod relic. And to inflict absolutely no damage on the system's infrastructure which was my original objective." She smiled without a trace of humor. "That sounds like the dictionary definition of a 'fiasco' to me."