by David Weber
"Yes," she said, "and as I explained to Captain Benson and Lieutenant Dessouix earlier, I have a proposition for you."
"I’m sure you do," he said flatly, and this time she let her exasperation show.
"Commodore Ramirez, what possible motive could the Peeps have for ‘luring’ you out here and pretending to be Manticorans?" she demanded. "If they wanted you dead, all they’d have to do would be to stop delivering food to you! Or if they’re too impatient for that, I’m sure a little napalm, or a few snowflake clusters—or an old-fashioned ground sweep by infantry, for goodness’ sake—could deal with you!"
"No doubt," he said, still in that flat tone, and Honor felt the anger grinding about in him like boulders. This man had learned to hate. His hatred might not rule him, but it was a part of him—had been for so many years that his belief she was StateSec was interfering with his thinking.
"Look," she said, "you and I need to talk—talk, Commodore. We can help each other, and with luck, I believe, we may even be able to get off this planet completely. But for any of that to happen, you have to at least consider the possibility that my men and I are not Peeps."
"Not Peeps, but you just happen to turn up in Black Leg uniform, with Peep weapons, on a planet only the Peeps know how to find," he said. "Of course you aren’t."
Honor stared at him for ten fulminating seconds, and then threw up her arm in exasperation.
"Yes, that’s exactly right!" she snapped. "And if you weren’t as stubborn, mule-headed, and hard to reason with as your son, you’d realize that!"
"My what? " He stared at her, shaken out of his automatic suspicion at last by the total non sequitur.
"Your son," Honor repeated in a flat voice. "Tomas Santiago Ramirez." Commodore Ramirez goggled at her, and she sighed. "I know him quite well, Commodore. For that matter, I’ve met your wife, Rosario, and Elena and Josepha, as well."
"Tomas—" he whispered, then blinked and shook himself. "You know little Tomacito? "
"He’s hardly ‘little’ anymore," Honor said dryly. "In fact, he’s pretty close to your size. Shorter, but you and he both favor stone walls, don’t you? And he’s also a colonel in the Royal Manticoran Marines."
"But—" Ramirez shook his head again, like a punch drunk fighter, and Honor chuckled sympathetically.
"Believe me, Sir. You can’t be more surprised to meet me than I am to meet you. Your family has believed you were dead ever since the Peeps took Trevor’s Star."
"They got out?" Ramirez stared at her, his voice begging her to tell him they had. "They reached Manticore? They—" His voice broke, and he scrubbed his face with his hands.
"They got out," Honor said gently, "and Tomas is one of my closest friends." She grinned wryly. "I suppose I should have realized you were the ‘Commodore Ramirez’s Captain Benson was talking about as soon as I heard the name. If Tomas were on this planet, I’m sure he’d have ended up in Camp Inferno, too. But who would’ve thought—?" She shook her head.
"But—" Ramirez stopped and sucked in an enormous breath, and Honor reached up and across to rest her hand on his shoulder. She squeezed for a moment, then nodded her head at the roots of the tree under—and in—which she had spent the day.
"Have a seat in my office here, and I’ll tell you all about it," she invited.
Jesus Ramirez, Honor reflected an hour or so later, really was remarkably like his son. In many ways, Tomas Ramirez was one of the kindest and most easygoing men Honor had ever met, but not where the People’s Republic of Haven was concerned. Tomas had joined the Manticoran Marines for one reason only: he had believed war with the PRH was inevitable, and he had dedicated his life to the destruction of the People’s Republic and all its works with an unswerving devotion that sometimes seemed to verge just a bit too closely upon obsession for Honor’s peace of mind.
Now she knew where he’d gotten it from, she thought wryly, and leaned back against the tree trunk while Tomas’ father digested what she’d told him.
I wonder what the odds are? she thought once more. Ramirez beat the numbers badly enough just to survive to reach Hell, but that I should run into him like this—? She shook her head in the darkness which had fallen with the passing of the sun. On the other hand, I’ve always suspected God must have a very strange sense of humor. And if Ramirez was going to get here at all—and not get himself shot for making trouble—it was probably inevitable he’d wind up at Inferno. And given that "troublemakers" are exactly what I need if I’m going to pull this off at all, I suppose it was equally inevitable that we should meet.
"All right, I understand what you want, Commodore Harrington," the deep voice rumbled suddenly out of the darkness, "but do you realize what will happen if you try this and fail?"
"We’ll all die," Honor said quietly.
"Not just ‘die,’ Commodore," Ramirez said flatly. "If we’re lucky, they’ll shoot us during the fighting. If we’re un lucky, we’ll be ‘Kilkenny Camp Number Three.’"
"Kilkenny?" Honor repeated, and Ramirez laughed with no humor at all.
"That’s the Black Legs’ term for what happens when they stop sending in the food supplies," he told her. "They call it the ‘Kilkenny Cat’ method of provisioning. Don’t you know the Old Earth story?"
"Yes," Honor said sickly. "Yes, I do."
"Well, they think it’s funny, anyway," Ramirez said. "But the important thing is for you to realize the stakes you’re playing for here, because if you—if we —blow it, every human being in this camp will pay the price right along with us." He exhaled sharply in the darkness. "It’s probably been just as well that was true, too," he admitted. "If it weren’t—if I’d only had to worry about what happened to me—I probably would have done something outstandingly stupid years ago. And then who would you have to try this outstandingly stupid trick with?"
A flicker of true humor drifted out of the night to her, carried over her link to Nimitz, and she smiled.
"It’s not all that stupid, Commodore," she said.
"No... not if it works. But if it doesn’t—" She sensed his invisible shrug. Then he was silent for the better part of two minutes, and she was content to leave him so, for she could feel the intensity of his thought as yet again his brain examined the rough plan she’d outlined for him, turning it over and over again to consider it from all directions.
"You know," he said thoughtfully at last, "the really crazy thing is that I think this might just work. There’s no fallback position if it doesn’t, but if everything breaks right, or even half right, it actually might work."
"I like to think I usually give myself at least some chance for success," Honor said dryly, and he laughed softly.
"I’m sure you do, Commodore. But so did I, and look where I wound up!"
"Fair enough," Honor conceded. "But if I may, Commodore, I’d suggest you think of Hell not as the place you ‘wound up,’ but as the temporary stopping place you’re going to leave with us."
"An optimist, I see." Ramirez was silent again, thinking, and then he smacked his hands together with the sudden, shocking sound of an explosion. "All right, Commodore Harrington! If you’re crazy enough to try it, I suppose I’m crazy enough to help you."
"Good," Honor said, but then she went on in a careful tone. "There is just one other thing, Commodore."
"Yes?" His voice was uninflected, but Honor could taste the emotions behind it, and the one thing she hadn’t expected was suppressed, devilish amusement.
"Yes," she said firmly. "We have to settle the question of command."
"I see." He leaned back, a solider piece of the darkness beside her as he crossed his ankles and folded his arms across his massive chest. "Well, I suppose we should consider relative seniority, then," he said courteously. "My own date of rank as a commodore is 1870 p.d. And yours is?"
"I was only eleven T-years old in 1870!" Honor protested.
"Really?" Laughter lurked in his voice. "Then I suppose I’ve been a commodore a little longer than you have."
"Well, yes, but—I mean, with all due respect, you’ve been stuck here on Hell for the last forty years, Commodore! There’ve been changes, developments in—"
She broke off and clenched her jaw. Should I tell him I’m a full admiral in the Grayson Navy? she wondered. But if I do that now, it’ll sound like—
"Oh, don’t worry so much, Commodore Harrington!" Ramirez laughed out loud, breaking into her thoughts. "You’re right, of course. My last operational experience was so long ago I’d have trouble just finding the flag bridge. Not only that, you and your people are the ones who managed to get down here with the shuttles and the weapons that might just make this entire thing work."
He shook his head in the darkness, and his voice—and the emotions Honor felt through Nimitz—were dead serious when he went on.
"If you truly manage to pull this off, you’ll certainly have earned the right of command," he told her. "And the one thing we absolutely can’t afford is any division within our ranks or competition for authority between you and me. I may technically be senior to you, but I will cheerfully accept your authority."
"And you’ll support me after the initial operation?" she pressed. "What happens then is going to be even more important than the preliminary op—if we’re going to get off-planet, at any rate—and no one can command this kind of campaign by committee." She paused a moment, then went on deliberately. "And there’s another consideration, as well. I fully realize that you and thousands of other people on this planet will have your own ideas about what to do with the Peeps, and how. But if we’re going to carry through to a conclusion that actually gives us a chance to get off Hell, our command structure will have to hold all the way through... including the ‘domestic’ side."
"Then we may have a problem," Ramirez said flatly. "Because you’re right. Those of us who have spent years on Hell do have scores to settle with the garrison. If you’re saying you’ll try to prevent that from happening—"
"I didn’t say that," Honor replied. "Captain Benson’s given me some idea of how badly the Peeps have abused their prisoners, and I’ve had a little experience of the same sort myself, even before the Peeps grabbed me. But the fact that they’ve seen fit to violate the Deneb Accords doesn’t absolve me, as a Manticoran officer, from my legal obligation to observe them. I almost forgot that once. And even though I felt then—and feel now—that I was completely justified on a personal level, it would have been a violation of my oath as an officer. I’m not going to let it happen again, Commodore Ramirez. Not on my watch."
"Then you are —" Ramirez began, but Honor interrupted.
"Let me finish, Commodore!" she said sharply, and he paused. "As I say, I must observe the Deneb Accords, but if I recall correctly, the Accords make specific provision for the punishment of those who violate them so long as due process is observed. I realize that most legal authorities interpret that as meaning that those accused of violations should be tried in civilian courts following the end of hostilities. We, however, find ourselves in a wartime situation... and I feel quite sure there are sufficient officers on Hell, drawn from any number of military organizations, for us to empanel a proper court-martial."
"Court-martial?" Ramirez repeated, and she nodded.
"Exactly. Please understand that any court empaneled under my authority will be just that: a court in which all the legal proprieties, including the rights of the accused, will be properly safeguarded. And assuming that guilty verdicts are returned, the sentences handed down will be those properly provided for in the relevant law codes. We will act as civilized human beings, and we will punish wrongdoing, not simply compound it with barbarisms of our own."
"I see. And those are your only terms?" Ramirez asked.
"They are, Sir," she said unflinchingly.
"Good," he replied quietly, and her eyebrows rose. "A fair and legal trial is more than any of us ever really hoped these people would face," he explained, as if he could see her surprise despite the darkness. "We thought no one would ever speak for us, ever call them to account for all the people they’ve raped and murdered on this godforsaken piece of hell. You give us the chance to do that, Commodore Harrington, and it’ll be worth it even if we never get off this planet and StateSec comes back and kills us all later. But assuming we all live through this, I want to be able to look into the mirror ten years from now and like the man I see looking back out of it at me, and if you let me do what I want to do to these motherless bastards, I wouldn’t."
Honor let out a long, slow breath of relief, for the feel of his emotions matched his words. He truly meant them.
"And will the other people on Hell share your opinion?" she asked after a moment.
"Probably not all of them," he admitted. "But if you pull this off, you’ll have the moral authority to keep them in line, I think. And if you don’t have that," his tone turned bleaker, but he continued unflinchingly, "you’ll still have all the guns and the only way off the planet. I don’t think enough of us will want to buck that combination just to lynch Black Legs, however much we hate them."
"I see. In that case, may I assume that you’re in, Commodore Ramirez?"
"You may, Commodore Harrington." A hand the size of a small shovel came out of the darkness, and she gripped it firmly, feeling the strength in it even as she savored the determination and sincerity behind it.
Book Three
Chapter Fifteen
"Thank you for coming, Citizen Admiral. And you, too, Citizen Commissioner."
"You’re welcome, Citizen Secretary," Citizen Admiral Javier Giscard said, exactly as if he’d had any choice about accepting an "invitation" from the Republic’s Secretary of War. Eloise Pritchart, his dark-skinned, platinum-haired People’s Commissioner, limited herself to a silent nod. As the Committee of Public Safety’s personal representative ("spy" would have been much too rude—and accurate—a term) on Giscard’s staff, she was technically outside the military chain of command and reported directly to Oscar Saint-Just and State Security rather than to Esther McQueen. But McQueen’s star was clearly in the ascendant—for now, at least. Pritchart knew that as well as everyone else did, just as she knew McQueen’s reputation for pushing the limits of her personal authority, and her topaz-colored eyes were wary.
McQueen noted that wariness with interest as she waved her guests into chairs facing her desk and very carefully did not look at her own StateSec watchdog. Erasmus Fontein had been her political keeper almost since the Harris Assassination, and she’d come to realize in the last twelve months that he was infinitely more capable—and dangerous—than his apparently befuddled exterior suggested. She’d never really underestimated him, but—
No, that wasn’t true. She’d always known he had to be at least some better than he chose to appear, but she had underestimated the extent to which that was true. Only the fact that she made it a habit to always assume the worst and double— and triple-safe her lines of communication had kept that underestimation from proving fatal, too. Well, that and the fact that she truly was the best the People’s Republic had at her job. Then again, Fontein had discovered that she was more dangerous than he’d expected, so she supposed honors were about even. And it said a lot for Saint-Just’s faith in the man that he hadn’t replaced Fontein when the scope of his underestimation became evident.
Of course, if Fontein had recommended I be purged before that business with the Levelers, then there wouldn’t be a Committee of Public Safety right now. I wonder how the decision was made? Did he get points for not thinking I was dangerous when I proved my "loyalty" to the Committee? Or for supporting me when I moved against LaBoeuf’s lunatics? Or maybe it was just a wash?
She laughed silently. Maybe it was merely a matter of their sticking her with the person they figured knew her moves best on the assumption that having been fooled once, he would be harder to fool a second time. Not that it really mattered. She had plans for Citizen Commissioner Fontein when the time came... just as she was certain he had plans fo
r her if she tipped her hand too soon.
Well, if the game were simple, anyone could play, and think how crowded that would get!
"The reason I asked you here, Citizen Admiral," she said once her guests were seated, "is to discuss a new operation with you. One I believe has the potential to exercise a major impact on the war."
She paused, eyes on Giscard to exclude Pritchart and Fontein. It was part of the game to pretend admirals were still fleet commanders, even though everyone knew command was actually exercised by committee these days. Of course, that was one of the things McQueen intended to change. But Giscard couldn’t know that, now could he? And even if he did, he might not believe she could pull it off.
He looked back at her now, without so much as a glance at Pritchart, and cocked his head. He was a tall man, just a hair over a hundred and ninety centimeters, but lean, with a bony face and a high-arched nose. That face made an excellent mask for his thoughts, but his hazel eyes were another matter. They considered McQueen alertly, watchfully, with the caution of a man who had already narrowly escaped disaster after being made the scapegoat for a failed operation that was also supposed to have had "a major impact on the war."
"One of the reasons you came to mind," McQueen went on after a heartbeat, "is your background as a commerce-raiding specialist. I realize operations in Silesia didn’t work out quite the way everyone had hoped, but that was scarcely your fault, and I have expressed my opinion to that effect to Citizen Chairman Pierre."
Something flickered in the backs of those hazel eyes at that, and McQueen hid a smile. What she’d said was the exact truth, because Giscard was entirely too good a commander to toss away over one busted operation. And it hadn’t been his fault; even his watchdog, Pritchart, had said as much. And perhaps there was some hope for the Republic still when a people’s commissioner was prepared to defend a fleet commander by pointing out that "his" failure had been the fault of the idiots who’d written his orders. Well, that and the Manty Q-ships no one had known existed. And, McQueen admitted to herself, both of those and Honor Harrington. But at least she’s out of the equation now... and Giscard is still here. Not a bad achievement for the misbegotten system he and I are stuck with.