by David Weber
"Really, Sir. We'll be fine," she said, and he decided he had no choice but to take her at her word.
"I'm glad to hear it. In the meantime, however," his voice turned suddenly harsher, "I thought you might like to hear who was behind the coup."
"You know?" Honor leaned forward and felt Venizelos and Truman stiffen with matching interest.
"Yes." Mayhew looked almost physically ill. "We've got his confession on tape. It was my cousin Jared."
"Your cousin?" Honor gasped before she could stop herself, and he nodded miserably.
"Apparently all his anti-Masadan rhetoric's been nothing more than a cover, Captain. He's been working for them for over eight years. In fact, Councilman Clinkscales now thinks he was the second `Maccabeus,' not the first. He thinks my Uncle Oliver passed the position on to him when he died."
"My God," Honor whispered.
"We're just starting to put it all together," Mayhew went on in that same wretched tone, "but Security got several assassins alive, mainly thanks to your treecat. Aside from the first one he attacked, he seems to have settled for blinding his opponents. I'm afraid only one of the ones you hit survived."
Honor said nothing. She merely sat watching his expression and feeling his pain. She was an only child, but the Harrington clan was an extensive one. She didn't need anyone to tell her how terribly it must hurt to know his own cousin had plotted his family's murder.
"At any rate," the Protector continued after a moment, "Howard and his people took them into custody, patched them up, and interrogated them. Howard won't tell me exactly how. I think he's afraid I wouldn't approve of his methods, but whatever he did to them, some of them talked fairly quickly, and he's been able to put together at least a rough chronology.
"Apparently Masada's been building a fifth column out of our own reactionaries ever since the last war. We never even guessed—something else Howard blames himself for—but that was because, religious fanatics or not, these `Maccabeans' apparently realized their ideals were too divorced from the mainstream for them to achieve anything by open resistance or guerrilla warfare. So instead of coming into the open and alienating the population as a whole—not to mention warning Security of their existence—they've been waiting until they thought they had a chance to decapitate the state in one blow."
"And replace you with your cousin," Honor said flatly.
"Precisely." Mayhew's voice was equally flat. "None of the assassins had ever actually met him, but the support they'd been given—genuine uniforms and IDs, the exact guard schedule, detailed maps, Palace Security's challenges and countersigns—all pointed to someone inside the palace itself. And they could tell Howard's people how to locate the `Maccabean' communications net, which led him to a couple of plotters who did know who `Maccabeus' was."
Mayhew looked away for a moment.
"Howard was devastated. He and Jared have been close Council allies for years, and he felt personally betrayed. But instead of arresting him immediately, Howard confronted him in person, and Jared was stupid enough—or desperate enough—to admit he was Maccabeus. Apparently he hoped Howard shared enough of his beliefs to join him. I imagine he thought the two of them together could still kill me and put Jared in my place. Instead, Howard recorded the entire conversation, then called in his people to arrest him."
"Protector Benjamin," Honor said softly, "you have my sincere sympathy. To know your cousin—"
"If Jared could betray my planet to Masada, if he could plot to kill my family and succeed in killing men who protected me from birth," Mayhew said harshly, "he is no cousin of mine! The law of Grayson sets only one penalty for what he's done, Captain Harrington. When the time comes, he'll pay it."
Honor bent her head silently, and the Protector's nostrils flared. Then he shook himself.
"At any rate, he's clammed up since his arrest. Whatever else he may be, he seems to hold his beliefs honestly. But he made the mistake of keeping records. They've told Howard a lot, and he believes he can break the entire organization with them.
"It seems Jared's position as Minister of Industry was the key to the entire plot. His father, my uncle, held the same position before him, and they'd placed entire crews of Maccabeans on some of the mining and construction ships. The Masadans have been slipping in and out of Yeltsin for some time—Mike tells me it probably wasn't difficult if they translated into n-space beyond detection range, then came in under minimal power—and Jared's Maccabean crews have been rendezvousing with them as his couriers to Masada.
"Howard isn't positive, but he now believes this war was launched not as a genuine bid to conquer us militarily but to create panic. According to one of Jared's people, the plan was for him to have Michael and myself killed at what he judged was the proper psychological moment. That would have made him Protector, and if there'd been enough fear and confusion, he could have made himself dictator, as well, on the pretext of dealing with the crisis—at which point he would have `negotiated an end to the hostilities.' Ending the war without Masada's actually attacking the planet itself was supposed to cement his hold on power, after which he'd have appointed like-minded cronies to positions of power in order to `reform' us into voluntarily accepting the Masadan line and, eventually, amalgamating with Endicott."
"I can't believe he'd have succeeded," Honor murmured.
"I don't think so either, but he did, and he'd managed to convince Masada. And if it could have been pulled off, it would have been perfect from the Faithful's viewpoint. They'd have gotten their hands on us and our industry without all the damage a fight to the finish would inflict, and Jared would have terminated our negotiations with you as his very first step. With your Kingdom out of the way, Masada—which, Howard tells me, is definitely working with Haven—would've had the only outside ally. If his `reform' approach failed, they still could have used that edge to pick us off any time."
"But do the Peeps know what's going on, Sir?" Commander Truman leaned diffidently into the com pickup's field, and the Protector raised his eyebrows at her. "Commander Alice Truman, Sir," she identified herself, and he gestured for her to continue.
"It just seems unlikely to me that Haven would willingly attack a Queen's ship and risk war with Manticore as part of any such long-term, iffy operation, Sir. Even assuming we didn't wind up at war with them —and I'm not at all sure they would assume that—there'd be too many opportunities for something to go wrong on Grayson that might get us invited back in."
"I'm afraid we don't know the answer to that yet, Commander," Mayhew said after a moment's thought. "I'll ask Howard to look into it. On the face of it, however, I can't see that it matters much. The Faithful are committed now, and they've lost their `Maccabeus.' I don't see that they've got any choice but to follow through on the military option."
"Agreed." Honor realized she was rubbing the left side of her face again and lowered her hand. "Of course, if they did know the truth, and if they expected Maccabeus to make his try, that may explain why they've held off this long. They're waiting to see if he succeeded."
"If they knew his timetable, then they also know he's failed," Mayhew said, and Honor's eyebrows rose. At least both of them still worked, she thought, but her mordant humor vanished as Mayhew went on. "If his plan had succeeded, Captain, your next in command—Commander Truman, is it?" Honor nodded, and he shrugged. "Well, then, Commander Truman would already have pulled your vessels out of here."
Alice Truman bristled at his assumption that anything could have induced her to abandon Grayson to Masada.
"And why might that have been, Sir?" she asked stiffly.
"Because the entire idea was to place responsibility for my death on Captain Harrington," he said quietly, and all three Manticorans stared at him in disbelief.
"That was why they were armed with disrupters, Captain. Those aren't Grayson—or, for that matter, Masadan—weapons. The plan was to claim your demand for a meeting was only a pretext to get close to me, at which point you were supposed to
have produced your off-world weapon, murdered my guards and family as part of a Manticoran plot to seize Grayson, and then been shot down by other Security people when you tried to escape."
"He 'as ou' 'f his mind!" The right side of Honor's face tightened as the clarity of her speech vanished, but Mayhew seemed not to notice, and she went on doggedly. "No one would have believed that!" she said more distinctly.
"I don't know about that, Captain," Mayhew admitted with manifest reluctance. "I admit it would have sounded insane, but remember what a pressure cooker Grayson is right now. With me dead and your body as `evidence,' he probably could have produced enough panic and confusion to at least get himself into office and summarily break off the negotiations. If he managed that and informed Commander Truman your ships were no longer welcome in Yeltsin space, what could she do but leave? Especially when he could construe any decision to remain as further `proof' of a Manticoran plot to seize Yeltsin's Star?"
"He's got a point, Honor," Truman muttered, tugging at a lock of golden hair. "Damn. I hate to admit it, but he does have a point."
"So if they knew his timetable, and if they're monitoring the inner system for outbound impeller signatures, they know he failed," Honor said.
"Unless we get dead lucky and they're dumb enough to think the freighters are all of us," Truman agreed.
"Which they're very unlikely to do," Mayhew pointed out from the com screen. "They know precisely how many of your vessels are present. Jared saw to that ... just as he told them exactly what classes of warship you have."
"Oh, shit!" Venizelos muttered audibly, and a bleak smile flitted across the Protector's lips.
"Then we can expect them to react militarily shortly." Honor realized she was rubbing her numb face again, but this time she let herself go on doing so. "Protector Benjamin, that makes it imperative that we waste no more time. I must be able to confer with your navy immediately."
"I agree, and you won't have any further problems in that regard."
"Then Admiral Garret's been relieved?" she asked hopefully.
"Not precisely." Her good eye narrowed, but Mayhew smiled almost naturally at her. "I've managed to save face a little for him, Captain—which is important, given the state of nerves down here right now. Instead of relieving him, I've appointed him to command Grayson's fixed orbital defenses. Commodore Matthews has been promoted to admiral, and he'll command our mobile units. I've made it very clear to him that that means he's to adapt his movements and resources to yours, and he has no problem with that."
"That might work," Honor said while her mind raced, "but Command Central's still our central com node, Sir. If Garret decides to sulk—"
"He won't, Captain. He won't dare to do anything that anyone down here might perceive as an insult to you." Honor's eyebrows rose once more at the total assurance in his voice, and it was his turn to look surprised.
"Haven't you been monitoring our news nets, Captain?"
"Sir, I just got out of sickbay forty minutes ago." Honor frowned, wondering what news nets had to do with anything, then remembered Venizelos' odd expression when he'd mentioned them. She gave him a sharp look, and he shrugged with something suspiciously like a grin.
"I see." Mayhew's voice drew her eye back to the com screen. "In that case, you wouldn't know. Just a second." He killed his audio for a moment while he turned his head to speak to someone else, then looked back at her.
"What you're about to see has been playing practically nonstop over the video nets ever since the assassination attempt, courtesy of the palace surveillance system, Captain. I'd estimate it's already been seen more often and by more eyes than any other news report in our history."
His face disappeared before she could ask what he was talking about. The screen was completely blank for a second—then something else appeared.
It left a lot to be desired from an artistic viewpoint, a corner of her brain thought, but the imagery was remarkably clear for something as crude as video tape. It was the dinner party, and she saw herself leaning towards the Protector and listening attentively to him just as Nimitz erupted from his stool and attacked the first assassin.
She stared at the screen, appalled by the carnage, as her own image lunged up from its chair and killed the second assassin. Captain Fox went down, and she watched herself take out his killer, then whirl towards the others charging towards her. The thrown platter dropped their leader, and then people fell in all directions as gunfire ripped back and forth across the room.
She felt a stab of terror there'd been no time to feel then as she watched men crumple and die and wondered how she and Nimitz could possibly have been missed in that crossfire, and then she saw her own desperate charge as the last of the Protector's guards died.
The tape went to slow motion after that, but it still didn't last long. Indeed, it had seemed much longer at the time. Bodies seemed to fly away from her, she saw flashes of a raging Nimitz taking others down, and that same corner of her mind wondered how her Academy instructors would have rated her form.
It seemed impossible that she'd survived, and as she watched Nimitz claw down a man who'd been about to shoot her in the back she knew she wouldn't have without her diminutive ally. She reached out to him, still staring at the screen, and he purred reassuringly as he pressed his head against her palm.
Dead and crippled assassins littered the floor around her as the Security response team broke through at last, and she felt her entire body tense as the man who'd shot her did it all over again. Her image went down on the screen, and sweat beaded her forehead as the disrupter swung towards her once more, and then he was down and dead and the screen went blank.
Mayhew's face reappeared, and he smiled soberly at her.
"That's what all of Grayson's been seeing for the last several hours, Captain Harrington—a tape of you saving the lives of my family," he said softly, and the living side of her face flamed.
"Sir, I—" she began hesitantly, but his raised hand silenced her.
"Don't say it, Captain. I won't embarrass you by saying it again, but I don't have to, either. That tape should rather conclusively discredit any claim that you were behind the assassination attempt, I think. And after seeing it, no one on this planet—including Admiral Garret—will ever dare to question your fitness as an officer again, now will they?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was the first time she'd been to Command Central. Its size impressed her, but the noisiness of the status room was startling, and the shrill ringing of priority com signals, the rumble of voices, and the clatter of printers did more than startle Nimitz. He rose high on her shoulder, ears half-flattened, and his high-pitched bleek of protest cut through the background noise like a knife.
Heads turned all over the huge room, and Honor felt the ugliness of her wounded face like a brand. Commander Brentworth bristled at her side and stepped forward, glaring back at all comers, regardless of rank, but she stopped him with a tiny gesture. There was curiosity in all those stares, and shock, even repugnance, in some of them as they saw her face, but not intentional rudeness, and most of them flushed and looked away almost as quickly as they'd turned towards her.
Commodore Brentworth had been waiting for her small party. Now he materialized out of the crowd and offered his hand with only the slightest hesitation.
"I'm Commodore Walter Brentworth, Captain," he said, and if there'd been any hesitation when he held out his hand, there was none in his use of her rank. "Welcome to Command Central."
"Thank you, Commodore," she said as clearly as she could. She'd practiced hard to master her stiff lips, but his eyes flickered at the slurring she couldn't quite overcome. She knew they wanted to cling to the crippled side of her face, but he kept them resolutely under control.
"These are my captains," she went on. "Commander Truman of the Apollo, and Commander McKeon of the Troubadour. I believe—" the mobile corner of her mouth quirked slightly "—that you know Commander Brentworth."
"
Yes, I believe I do." The commodore smiled at her, then nodded to his son and shook hands with Truman and McKeon. Then he turned back to Honor. "Captain," he began, "please allow me to apologize for any—"
"No apologies are necessary, Commodore," she interrupted him, but the commodore clearly shared his son's stubborn integrity. He seemed about to disagree, and she went on in the short sentences her impaired speech enforced. "We come from very different backgrounds. There was bound to be some friction. What's important is seeing to it that there isn't any more."
He looked up at her, letting his gaze rest frankly on her swollen, paralyzed face at last, then nodded slowly.
"You're right, Captain," he said, then smiled. "Mark said you had your head on straight, and I've always had considerable faith in his judgment."
"Good, because I do, too," Honor said firmly, and the commander blushed. His father chuckled and waved for the Manticorans to follow him.
"Let me escort you to Admiral Garret, Captain." There was a hint of amusement in his voice. "I believe he's been awaiting you with some anticipation."
* * *
Admiral Leon Garret was a craggy-faced man whose hooded eyes watched Honor with a sort of hypnotized fascination as she stepped into the conference room. It was a fascination which extended itself to Nimitz, as well, and she wondered which of them he found more outre —the six-limbed "animal" who'd proved so unexpectedly deadly, or the woman who wore a captain's uniform?
He rose at her approach, but he didn't extend his hand. Had his inner confusion been less evident, she might have construed that as an insult. As it was, and despite the gravity of the situation, his expression almost betrayed her. A totally inappropriate giggle fluttered at the base of her throat, and she suppressed it only with difficulty as Commodore Brentworth introduced her small group to Garret and his officers.