In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC

by David Weber

  “I’ve got that tray you wanted, Skipper,” she said now, offering a large plastic tray under an opaque cover.

  “Thank you, Rose-Lucie,” Honor replied as the steward set her burden down on one end of the table.

  “And Commander Nairobi asked me to tell you Lieutenant Janacek and his party will be returning aboard in the next fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Thank you,” Honor repeated, and Bonrepaux nodded and headed back out. The door closed behind her, and Honor returned her attention to Nimitz.

  “As I said,” she told him firmly, “you’re not going to make me feel guilty. However…”

  She reached out a long arm to lift the lid off the tray, and Nimitz’s flattened ears perked upright. Bonrepaux had delivered a stack of the chicken salad sandwiches of which Honor was particularly fond (and which helped provide the calories her genetically enhanced metabolism required) and a moisture-beaded bottle of Old Tilman. But in addition to the sandwiches and beer, there was a neat pile of freshly cut celery sticks, as well.

  Nimitz flowed down from the chair back and began to sidle across the table towards her, and Honor chuckled. All treecats had an absolute passion for celery, for reasons neither Honor nor any other human had ever been able to figure out, and Nimitz’s passion was even stronger than most. He paused, nose a quarter-meter from the tray, whiskers quivering, tail swishing, clearly torn between greed and the need to maintain his proper air of long-suffering martyrdom at having been left behind when she went dirt-side.

  It was, alas, a hopelessly unequal struggle, and one long-fingered true-hand darted out and claimed one of the crisp, green stalks.

  “Gotcha,” Commander Honor Stephanie Harrington murmured softly.

  * * *

  “Welcome back aboard, Everett,” Honor said as Lieutenant Janacek stepped into her briefing room twenty-five minutes later. He started to come to attention, but she only pointed at the chair whose back Nimitz had been decorating when Bonrepaux dropped off the bribe-loaded tray.

  “Sit,” she said.

  “Thank you, Ma’am.”

  The youthful Marine settled into the indicated seat, and Honor leaned toward him slightly, resting her forearms on the table and clasping her hands lightly.

  “I’ve been looking over your reports,” she continued, coming straight to the point. “Now that the Silesians have taken possession of your prisoners, I’m sure they’re going to want all the paperwork and evidentiary material as quickly as possible. So I thought I’d ask if there’s anything you think should be added to your existing remarks.”

  Janacek didn’t reply immediately, and Honor’s right eyebrow rose millimetrically. Nimitz looked up from the stylus he’d been playing with, cocking his head, ears pricking, and Janacek glanced at the ’cat before he turned back to Honor.

  “Ma’am, I don’t know that it’s something that ought to be added to the reports for the Sillies—I mean, the Silesians,” he corrected himself quickly.

  He might have colored just a bit, although it was difficult to tell, given the olive complexion which went so strangely with his arctic blue eyes. Honor’s mouth twitched ever so slightly, but she had herself well in hand. She refused to laugh at his self-correction and embarrass him even further.

  “What I meant to say, Ma’am,” he went on, his tone edged with gratitude for her restraint, “is that I noticed something that seemed…odd to me. Out of kilter.”

  “ ‘Out of kilter’ exactly how?” Honor asked.

  “It’s just… Well, Ma’am, right after we took the Evita, those were some pretty unhappy pirates. I mean, alleged pirates.” He managed to not—quite—roll his eyes as he added the qualifier the Silesian legal system insisted upon. “I think a lot of them expected us to just shove them out the lock,” he continued. “When they figured out we weren’t going to do that, they calmed down some, but they still seemed pretty damned nervous, if you understand me.”

  He looked at her, and she nodded. If she’d been someone captured in the act of committing piracy, she’d have been fairly nervous herself, she supposed.

  “But then they found out we were taking them to Saginaw, Ma’am,” Janacek said. “And when that happened, they got a lot less nervous, somehow.”

  “They did?” Honor murmured.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Janacek was clearly relieved to have gotten out his observation without having her tell him he was imagining things. At the same time, he looked as if he might have felt better if she had told him that.

  Honor would have felt better if she’d been able to tell him that, too. But young Lieutenant Janacek, despite his occasionally brash youthfulness, wasn’t the sort to imagine things like that. And given the normal state of affairs in Silesia, there were entirely too many reasons why his observation might have been right on the money. She found herself wondering about Rear Admiral Zadawski’s apparent delay in informing Sector Governor Charnowska’s office about Evita. It was entirely possible that it was one more example of why Janacek’s observation might not be mistaken.

  Which was not a possibility Commander Honor Harrington especially cared to contemplate.

  “Well, Everett,” she said finally, “it may have been as simple as relief at the prospect of getting out of quarters as packed as the ones we crammed them into.” It was evident from Janacek’s expression that he didn’t buy that particular explanation any more than she did. “At any rate,” she continued more briskly, “I think you’re probably right that it’s not something we need to add to our reports or depositions for the local authorities.”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  “In that case, welcome back aboard. Go get yourself settled back into your quarters. And I’ll expect you to join me, the exec, the master, and Lieutenant Hutchinson for dinner tonight.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Janacek stood, and this time he did come to attention.

  “Dismissed, Lieutenant,” Honor told him.

  * * *

  Honor settled herself more comfortably into the pinnace’s seat as the small, sleek craft separated from Hawkwing and sliced into the upper reaches of the planet Jasper’s atmosphere.

  It was, she acknowledged, a beautiful planet. Fractionally larger than Old Earth, its gravity ran about one percent higher than humanity’s birth world, which made it only about seventy-five percent that of Honor’s own home world. Of course, the majority of planets humanity had chosen to settle had gravities lower than Sphinx’s, and she was accustomed to feeling light on her toes when she visited other worlds.

  The two planets had very similar hydrospheres, however, and almost exactly the same axial inclinations, which was pleasantly homey. On the other hand, Jasper’s orbital radius was less than half that of Sphinx, which gave it a far shorter (and far warmer) year. One, in fact, which was almost identical with that of the planet Manticore.

  She watched the display on the passenger compartment’s forward bulkhead as the pinnace arrowed towards Onyx and wondered once again how the city had avoided ending up known as “Landing” or “First Landing” or “Footfall” like most other capitals. It made a change, at least, she reflected as Onyx’s buildings grew rapidly larger on the display.

  For that matter, she’d noticed on her previous visits that the system and sector capital looked far more welcoming than many a Silesian city she’d visited. Its broad avenues, green belts, parks, and water features were clearly evident on the display driven by the pinnace’s forward optical head, and she saw remarkably little evidence of the slums which were so much a part of the typical Silesian urban landscape. They were there—she knew they were, and if she looked closely, she could find them—but they seemed less extensive than usual, and she told herself that was a good sign.

  Frankly, at the moment, she could use any good omens she could find. Hawkwing had orbited Jasper for over five days now, and after taking custody of her prisoners, the evidence, and the various detailed reports and depositions (from her own personnel, the pirates’ freed captives,
and Sywan Oberkirch’s complement), the planetary authorities seemed to have had very little to say to Commander Harrington or her ship’s company. There was no way of knowing how much of that was due to simple bureaucratic inefficiency and how much to deliberate delay on the part of Rear Admiral Zadawski and/or his staff, or even—for that matter, and despite her apparent attitude—on Sector Governor Charnowska’s part. For that matter, Honor supposed it was entirely possible she was simply over-refining on a perfectly unexceptionable and easily explained series of delays. It wasn’t as if the Silesian Ministry of Justice was any more efficient than any other part of the Confederacy’s government. Or as if that government as a whole felt any burning urgency to appear to kowtow to Manticoran concerns with piracy, for that matter. At least some of that was perfectly understandable, however, given the two star nations’ past history, and lack of urgency didn’t necessarily equal a refusal to act. Nonetheless, there were times she’d found herself rather wistfully wishing she’d gone ahead and taken Commodore Teschendorff up on his offer. He’d certainly been right about how long this looked like taking, at any rate!

  Not that it was all bad. She had, indeed, been able to grant liberty to most of her people, and Lieutenant (JG) Ottomar Mason, her logistics officer, had managed not only to revictual the ship, but also to scrounge up several other items which had been in short supply. She was pleased he’d been able to do that, but even more by the opportunity to get the members of her crew some time planet-side. It was good for people who lived so much of their lives in the sealed environments of their starships to actually smell open air and maybe even find the opportunity to walk on a beach somewhere, or soak up a little sun—a point Taylor Nairobi had made to her just this morning.

  “Unless I’m mistaken, Skipper,” he’d said after completing his daily report, “everybody aboard the Hawk’s managed to get dirt-side…except you.”

  “Nonsense,” she’d retorted. “I’ve been planet-side three or four times.”

  “And every time it’s been to call on the governor or for some other official appointment,” Nairobi pointed out. “Not exactly what I’d call a ‘liberty,’ Skip.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t start making excuses.” Nairobi’s stern tone had been rather undermined by the twinkle in his eyes. “Just say, ‘Yes, Mr. Exec, I believe you have a point. And while I’m down there sampling the local cuisine, I believe I’ll keep an eye out for a new cookbook for my father’s collection.’ ”

  Honor had opened her mouth once more to protest that she had entirely too much paperwork to go gallivanting off, but she closed it again. First, because Nairobi had a point. She needed to spend some time on a real, living planet just as badly as any of her crewpeople did. Secondly, because the fact that all of her visits had, in fact, been official, meant Nimitz hadn’t been planet-side, either. Despite what she might have said to him after her courtesy call to Sector Governor Charnowska, he didn’t have to look mournful to make her feel guilty for denying him that treat. If human beings needed time in a nonartificial environment, that was even truer for someone with the keen senses of a treecat. And the exec’s last shot had been a shrewd one, as well, since most of her officers had discovered that she did indeed make it a habit to collect cookbooks for her father.

  Which was how she found herself headed for the Melchior Rajmund and Emiliá Reginá Stankiewicz Interstellar Spaceport (universally referred to as simply as “Capital Spaceport” for fairly obvious reasons) this rainy spring day.

  * * *

  “Well, if it isn’t Commander Harrington!”

  Honor turned in surprise, and her almond eyes widened as she found herself face to face with none other than Commodore Mieczyslaw Teschendorff.

  Who, she discovered, was one of the tallest human beings she’d ever met.

  Honor Harrington was accustomed to towering over virtually every woman she met, and of being as tall as—or taller than—most men, as well. Teschendorff, however, stood well over two meters in height. She wasn’t used to looking across at someone else’s third or fourth tunic button, and from his solid, broad-shouldered physique, it seemed evident that his height wasn’t the product of a low-gravity homeworld environment, either.

  “Commodore Teschendorff,” she responded after a moment, coming to attention and saluting. He returned her Manticoran-style salute with a somewhat less crisp rendition of the Silesian version, then gazed interestedly at the silky-coated treecat on her shoulder.

  Nimitz looked back at him, green eyes bright and alert, one true-hand resting lightly on top of the white beret that marked Honor as the commander of a hyper-capable starship of the Royal Manticoran Navy. The ’cat’s ears were up, his head tilted slightly to one side, and Honor felt the soft, heavy plume of his tail switching ever so gently from side to side against her back.

  “So, Commander,” Teschendorff said, “am I correct in assuming that your companion there”—he nodded in Nimitz’s direction—“is a Sphinxian treecat?”

  “Yes, Sir. He is.” Honor didn’t quite manage to conceal her surprise at Teschendorff’s question. Very few of the people she’d met outside the Star Kingdom of Manticore had any clue what a treecat was.

  “I thought it might be.” Teschendorff looked pleased, then chuckled at her expression. “Xenobiology and botany are hobbies of mine, Commander Harrington,” he explained. “I’m particularly interested in nonhuman sapients, and I understand your Star Kingdom’s Constitution formally recognizes treecats as the planet Sphinx’s native sentient species. They’re tool-users, I believe?”

  “Yes, Sir, they are,” Honor replied, and realized she was torn between pleasure that Teschendorff obviously really did know something about the ’cats and a native Sphinxian’s almost instinctive protectiveness towards the furry arboreals.

  “Fascinating. That makes two nonhuman sapients in your Star Kingdom, now that you’ve established that protectorate over the Basilisk System. That has to be a record for a star nation with so few star systems.”

  “I believe it is,” Honor agreed.

  Teschendorff nodded, still contemplating Nimitz with obvious fascination and pleasure, and she wondered if the Silesian had also heard about the ’cats’ telempathic abilities. That particular treecat capability was one which the humans who knew them best went to some length to downplay except with people they knew well and trusted. There’d been a few nasty incidents early on in human-treecat relations, especially when unscrupulous bio researchers—the planet Mesa came to mind—had tried to acquire specimens of treecats in order to probe their reputed telepathy.

  “Well!” Teschendorff said after a few more seconds, almost visibly shaking himself. “May I ask what brings you to the fair city of Onyx, Commander? Official business, or personal?”

  “Personal, this time, Sir.”

  “Indeed?” Teschendorff regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision.

  “As it happens, Commander Harrington, I’m here on personal business this morning, as well. Feliksá has finished her trials, and Captain Holt and I will be returning to our station in Hillman in the next day or so. So I thought I should spend today visiting one of my favorite restaurants here on Jasper. I was stationed here for some time, you know.”

  “No, Sir,” Honor replied (not entirely truthfully), “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, I was. And I have to say that it was my experience when I was here that Jasper’s cuisine is superior to most. Have you had the opportunity to sample it yet?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Honor smiled. “As a matter of fact, Nimitz and I”—she indicated the treecat on her shoulder as she named him—“are just on our way to repair that omission.”

  “Really? Did you have a particular restaurant in mind?”

  “Not yet, Sir.”

  “Well, if you’ll forgive me for pointing this out, you might find it just a bit difficult to gain admittance to most of our restaurants—including, I’m afraid, almost all the bet
ter ones—with what most of the local citizenry is going to persist in regarding as a ‘pet’ on your shoulder.”

  Honor grimaced at the reminder. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had that experience more than once. Even some Manticoran restaurants reacted that way.

  “What I was thinking,” Teschendorff went on before she could respond, “is that I’ve never actually had the opportunity to make a treecat’s acquaintance. If you and—Nimitz, was it?—wouldn’t object to my making the most of that opportunity, it would be my pleasure to invite you as my guest to one of my own favorite restaurants. One where I feel reasonably confident my own modest endorsement might convince the management to regard him as yet one more diner and not someone’s pet.”

  Honor gazed at him, feeling Nimitz on her shoulder, and wondered exactly what lay behind that invitation. It was possible that it was as simple as Teschendorff was suggesting. On the other hand, it had been Honor’s experience that the universe normally wasn’t quite that straightforward. And the intensity with which Nimitz continued to regard the Silesian officer suggested that he found something about Teschendorff just as fascinating as Teschendorff appeared to find him, which raised all sorts of interesting questions.

  But if, in fact, Teschendorff had any sort of ulterior—or at least so far unstated—motives for his invitation, the only way to find out what they might be was to accept it. Besides, the opportunity for an officer of her own seniority to make the acquaintance of a senior commodore in someone else’s navy didn’t come along every day.