by David Weber
Chapter Eighteen
"Who did you say?" Lester Tourville stared at the face on his com, certain he'd misunderstood, but Citizen Captain Bogdanovich nodded vigorously.
"There's no mistake, Citizen Admiral. May I play Citizen Captain Zacharys message for you?"
Tourville nodded, and the time and date header for a burst transmission message addressed to the chief of staff replaced Bogdanovich's image. The header disappeared in turn, and a slim, severe-faced woman appeared. The name patch on the left breast of her skinsuit said "ZACHARY, HELEN G," and her dark eyes seemed to hold an echo of the astonishment Tourville himself had just experienced. She looked out of the screen for a moment, then cleared her throat.
"Citizen Captain Bogdanovich," she said formally, "I have to report that PNS Katana, under my command, and PNS Nuada, Citizen Captain Wallace Turner, commanding, have engaged the Manticoran heavy cruiser Prince Adrian. After a long range exchange in which I was able to take maximum advantage of my towed missile pods, Prince Adrian was compelled to surrender. Katana suffered moderate damage, including twenty-one casualties, seven of them fatal, but Nuada sustained no damage, and my executive officers preliminary survey indicates that Prince Adrian's casualties were at least six times our own. We are examining the prize, but her crew's destruction of classified equipment seems to have been thorough, and the heavy damage we ourselves inflicted includes the destruction of her forward impeller room. My present impression is that repair will be impossible out of our available resources, and I'm afraid we'll have to destroy her rather than take her with us when we withdraw from the system."
She paused for a moment, as if drawing a mental breath, and went on in an almost mechanical voice.
"Among the prisoners we've so far identified are Prince Adrian's commander, Captain Alistair McKeon, RMN, and the commander of the escort squadron attached to the convoy which evaded our attack, Commodore Honor Harrington. We also have several of Commodore Harrington's staff officers in custody." She paused again, almost as if she found what she'd just said impossible to believe, and then her shoulders twitched in the tiniest of shrugs.
"Unless instructed otherwise, I intend to leave Citizen Captain Turner and his ship to complete the task of securing Prince Adrian and take my own command to rendezvous with the flagship in order to transfer my commissioned prisoners aboard as quickly as possible. I will continue my survey of my own damages en route to you, and hope to be able to give you a complete report on them upon my arrival. Citizen Commissioner Kuttner has been informed of my intentions and endorsed them. Zachary, clear."
The screen blanked briefly once more, and Bogdanovich's image reappeared. The chief of staffs eyes sparkled, and Tourville felt a huge grin spread across his face. He knew his excitement and delight were out of keeping with the addition of a mere heavy cruiser to the eleven prizes his ships had already taken in Adler, even if the cruiser in question did belong to the navy which had kicked the PN's butt regularly for six years now, but he didn't really care.
"Harrington," he murmured. "Harrington, by God!"
"Yes, Sir! I mean, yes, Citizen Rear Admiral!"
Bogdanovich returned his grin with interest, and Tourville tipped his chair back and crossed his legs. His smile turned almost dreamy, and he drew a cigar from his breast pocket. Affectation or not, there would never be a more appropriate moment for one.
Harrington, he thought. First Adler, and now Harrington!
He unwrapped the cigar, nipped its end off with strong, white teeth, then lit it with finicky precision while his mind considered what Public Information would do with this bit of news. A mere commodore shouldn't have been all that big a catch, especially not against the galaxy of Republican vice admirals and admirals the Manties had bagged. But there was nothing "mere" about this particular commodore. Honor Harrington was one of the bogeymen of the People’s Navy. She'd come to epitomize the vast gulf between the capabilities of the RMN and the People's Navy, and Tourville savored the sense of having taken a large first step to bridge that gulf. For all its small scale, his success at Adler was the most one-sided defeat the Manties had suffered in five hundred T-years, and their people would realize that just as clearly as Tourville did. That was probably already more than Citizen Admiral Theisman had dared hope for when he sent Tourville out, but now, as an unexpected bonus, ships under his command had also captured Harrington.
He allowed himself to consider the consequences of his triumph for several more seconds, but then he blew a cloud of smoke and made himself come back to ground. There was a certain danger bound up in his success, he reflected. For one thing, it was damned likely to get him promoted, and that was bad. He'd prospered so far by avoiding the higher rank which would take him away from the independent commands he loved, on the one hand, and expose him to the risk of being made an example for failure that went with fleet command, on the other. But if Public Information poured it on too thick and heavy, the Navy would have little choice but to offer him promotion, and he could hardly escape it once it had been offered.
Any navy, even one whose high command languished in the grip of revolutionary fervor, had a simple rule where officers who refused promotion, and thus indicated they were unprepared to accept the responsibility which went with it, were concerned. They were never again asked to accept it. In fact, they were never employed in responsible positions again... and only in the most extraordinary of conditions were they ever employed in any capacity. And while he was hardly alone in looking for ways to avoid the role of StateSec's scapegoat, people who refused promotion, especially in a navy fighting for its life, were likely to find their professional colleagues actively assisting the SS in getting rid of them.
He frowned at the thought and made a mental note to be certain that his reports gave full credit for Harrington's capture to Zachary and Turner. The Fleet would know he'd been in command, and his modesty would stand him in excellent stead with his peers, but with a little bit of luck, well, he admitted, probably it'll take a lot of luck, but it's worth trying for, the official record would steer any promotion towards Zachary and Turner. And, he reflected, both of them certainly deserve it. Luck may have played a big part in their pulling this off, but luck always plays a part. God knows Harrington's been shot through with luck to manage all she has!
He nodded and took his cigar from his mouth. He held it in front of himself, studying the glowing tip with a frown, and let his mind replay Zachary's message. He was certain the citizen captain would have told him if Harrington had been injured in the battle, and he was glad she hadn't been. Much as news of her capture pleased him, Tourville was not one of the Republican officers who hated her for what she'd done to their Navy. Indeed, that was one reason the thought of capturing her pleased him so. She was a foe he could respect, one worthy of his steel, and he looked forward to meeting her. And, he told himself with a mental chuckle, I especially look forward to being the first senior Republican officer to meet her when he's not her prisoner!
But the fact that he did respect her, as much as her own military record or her political importance, made it even more important that she be treated with the courtesy her rank and achievements had earned. The Republics reputation for proper treatment of prisoners of war had not been an admirable one even under the Legislaturalists. Lester Tourville was one of the officers who felt both shamed by and bitter over that, and the Republic’s record had gotten even worse under the new regime. State Security now had primary authority for the management of prisoners, both military and political, and the Navy fought a continuous, clandestine war to keep its POWs out of StateSecs clutches. Unfortunately, the Navy won only the battles the SS chose to let it win, and even those victories were usually no more than the result of StateSecs decision to let the Navy come up with the personnel required to run its own POW camps while the SS concentrated on more important (and politically sensitive) prisons.
It was possible, even probable, that StateSec would demand that Harrington be turned over to i
t, Tourville realized, and his smile vanished into a bleak nonexpression. Not only did she deserve better, but unlike StateSecs thugs, Tourville and every other member of the Peoples Navy had a direct interest in the proper treatment of captured Allied personnel. There were many more PN officers and ratings in Allied hands than the reverse, and if the Manties decided to retaliate for the mistreatment of their personnel, it wouldn't be State Security who paid the price.
The citizen rear admiral cocked his chair back again and gazed thoughtfully at his com. He noted Bogdanovich's expression, the puzzlement in the chief of staffs eyes as he sensed his admiral’s change of mood without grasping all the reasons for it. But Bogdanovich was secondary to Tourville’s thoughts at the moment. There were aspects to this situation which he'd overlooked in his immediate exultation, and his mind began to click as he considered how best to deal with the repercussions looming up down the road.
Could he enlist Everard Honeker's aid? He certainly couldn't explain his reasoning to the people’s commissioner on the record, but Honeker had been his political watchdog long enough for them to develop a certain mutual understanding. And Honeker would reap his own share of the credit for Harrington's capture, which might just incline him to listen to what Tourville had to say. Properly speaking, Honeker himself belonged to the Office of State Security, which could reasonably be expected to hold his institutional loyalty, but he was also at least a quasi-officer who'd been exposed to the realities of naval service. More to the point, perhaps, he wasn't an idiot like too many other commissioners. Although he certainly wasn't about to admit it, he seemed to understand that a navy which expected to win wars simply could not ignore operational realities in favor of subservience to every jot and tittle of revolutionary doctrine, however asinine. He'd certainly shown himself willing to look the other way from time to time in the interest of rationality and efficiency, but could Tourville convince him to lend his support to keeping Harrington in Navy hands rather than turning her over to the SS?
The one thing the citizen rear admiral couldn't do was appeal to Honeker solely on the basis of moral obligations and the honor of the Fleet. Not because Honeker wouldn't understand the appeal was seriously meant, but because the peoples commissioner, like any people's commissioner, came with a preprogrammed rejection of anything that smacked of the old regime's prerevolutionary concepts. It was, after all, an imperishable article of faith with them that the Legislaturalist regime had collapsed under the weight of its own corrupt decadence, and that the Committee of Public Safety was engaged in a revolutionary fight to the death against the forces of reactionism, aristocracy, elitism, and entrenched plutocratic interests. The values of those opponents of justice and progress were only lies, invented to manipulate the masses, and so had to be cast aside as the posturing of the greedy elite, which had conspired throughout history to oppress and debase the People. As Citizen Committeewoman Ransom herself was fond of putting it, "Honor is a word plutocrats use when they want someone killed."
Tourville had come to suspect Honeker subscribed more deeply to the decadent values Ransom despised than he was prepared to admit, but the people's commissioner was like a man from an intensely religious family who still attended church regularly without ever admitting to himself that he'd secretly become an agnostic. Whatever might go on in the depths of his mind, he would never openly contest orthodox doctrine, and so Tourville would have to base his argument, overtly, at least, on an analysis of solid, tangible, and immediate advantage and disadvantage. Even though that agnostic part of Honeker might actually hear the moral argument, he had to give the commissioner something else which they could both pretend was the real reason for his support.
The best bet is the Deneb Accords, Tourville told himself. God knows StateSec's violated them often enough, but they're still the official basis for the treatment of captured personnel, and they explicitly charge their signatories' militaries with seeing to it that military POWs are properly treated. And the Solarian League's accepted responsibility for monitoring the treatment of both sides' prisoners in this war. State Sec may have managed to fob off the League's investigators so far, but what if I make the point to Honeker that Harrington's going to be an especially high-profile prisoner? The Manties aren't going to accept any "sloppy record keeping" excuses if she disappears, and she's also a steadholder. Even those idiots the League sends out here will have to get off their asses and really look at the situation if we "misplace" a head of state! And I could argue that naval efficiency will suffer if our people expect the other side to violate the Accords and that mistreating— No, better stay away from the idea of mistreating. He's likely to get defensive if I suggest that I expect the SS to abuse prisoners, even if we do both know that's precisely what happens. Let's say that if our treatment of Harrington violates the letter of the law as laid down by the Accords, a politically reactionary regime like the Star Kingdom is likely to retaliate, and our people know it.
He frowned down at his cigar for several more seconds, running over possible ways to phrase his argument. He needed to polish it up a bit, pick out exactly the right words... and think of some way to catch Honeker in an area where any bugs would be less effective before he sprang those words on the people's commissioner. Fortunately, he had several hours yet before Katana could possibly deliver her prisoners to Count Tilly.
He refocused on Bogdanovich's face at last and smiled.
"That's wonderful news, Yuri," he said. "Please inform Citizen Commissioner Honeker immediately, then make arrangements to receive Commodore Harrington and the other senior prisoners with proper military courtesies. From what I've heard, she's always been careful to treat her prisoners properly, and I intend to return the compliment."
"Yes, Citizen Rear Admiral."
"Oh, and that reminds me. Pass the word to Shannon, as well. I'm sure she'll want to pay her own respects to Commodore Harrington."
"I'll see to it, Citizen Rear Admiral."
"Thank you. And let me know, oh, forty-five minutes before we rendezvous with Katana."
"Yes, Citizen Rear Admiral."
"Thank you," Tourville repeated, and cut the circuit. His cigar had gone out, and he relit it, puffing reflectively while he rocked his chair gently back and forth.
Now exactly how, he wondered, should he go about luring Honeker into lending him his support?
"Citizen Captain Zachary extends her compliments and asks you and your officers to accompany me to the boat bay for transfer to the flagship, Commodore."
Honor turned at the sound of Citizen Commander Luchner's voice. She hadn't heard the hatch open, and a part of her wondered how much her crushing despair had to do with her inattentiveness. She knew her lack of expression was all the proof anyone could need of how utterly defeated she felt, but it was also the best she could manage, and she nodded to Katana’s executive officer.
"Thank you, Citizen Commander." She was distantly amazed by the sound of her own voice. It came out a bit hoarse, as if it were something whose exact management she had forgotten, yet aside from that it sounded so natural, so normal, that she felt certain it must really belong to someone else pretending to be her. She brushed her foolish notion aside and cleared her throat. It didn't seem to help a lot.
"Please convey my gratitude to your commanding officer. You and your personnel have taken good care of our people... especially the wounded. I appreciate it."
Luchner started to reply, then stopped. There was very little he could say, after all, and he settled for a polite nod and stepped aside to wave Honor through the hatch.
She obeyed the gesture, and every step seemed to jar through her. The spring had gone out of her stride, replaced by a brutal, flat-footed weariness which had nothing to do with her physical state. Or, rather, it was a weariness heaped atop her bodily fatigue, and she suspected it would weigh down upon her long after she'd recovered physically.
Alistair McKeon walked at her side, and she felt his agony, his shame, burning even more cruelly than
her own. She longed to comfort him, yet there was no realistic comfort to be offered, and even if there had been, McKeon was in no state to accept it. He was like a parent, mourning the death of a child and blaming himself for it, and the fact that none of it was his fault meant nothing to him at this moment.
Nor was Alistair the only person whose emotions lashed at her, for Andrew LaFollet followed close behind her. His utterly emotionless expression might conceal it from everyone else, but Honor felt every nuance of his frantic sense of helplessness... and failure. Echoes of those same emotions snarled in the back of her brain from James Candless and Robert Whitman, as well, for they were Grayson armsmen who could no longer protect the woman they were sworn to guard, and their desperate concern for her threatened to be more than she could bear.
She wanted to scream at them, to command them to stop. To beg them to protect her from their emotions, at least, since they could no longer protect her from anything else. But even if there'd been any hope that they could obey such an order, she had no right to give it, for the feelings whose echoes gouged away bits and pieces of her soul sprang from who and what her armsmen were. It was their devotion to her which made them so frantic, and how could she add to their distress by telling them how their misery tormented her?
She couldn't, of course. In fact, she'd done all she could by identifying them to their captors as Grayson Marines. She'd recognized McKeon's astonishment when she informed Luchner that LaFollet was a Marine colonel and that Candless and Whitman were both Marine lieutenants, but he'd said nothing. She knew he'd assumed she was lying in order to keep Candless and Whitman from being separated from her when the prisoners were segregated into commissioned and enlisted ranks, but he was only half right. That was the reason she'd identified them as Marines, but she hadn't lied.