by David Weber
"Excuse me, Dame Honor," he said quickly. "I thought the gym would be unoccupied. I didn't mean to intrude."
"That's all right, Captain Tankersley." Honor finished climbing out of the pool. "And you're not intruding. Come on in."
"Thank you, Ma'am." Tankersley moved further forward to let the hatch close behind him, then looked around and whistled silently. "Admiral Sarnow wasn't joking when he said they'd given him his own playground, was he?"
"No, he wasn't," Honor agreed. "Just a second, and I'll turn the gravity back down."
"Don't bother, please. I often turn it up myself—when there's no one around to scream about it. That's one reason I was so grateful the Admiral invited me to drop by when I was off duty."
"It does make people a bit cranky," Honor agreed with a smile.
"Well, I can see their point, but I got into the habit at Saganami Island. I was on the unarmed combat team, and Chief MacDougal always had us Manticoran and Gryphon sissies work out under at least an extra quarter-gee."
"You were on the team?" Honor asked in surprise. "So was I! Which form did you train in?"
"The Chiefs favorite," Tankersley said wryly. "Coup de vitesse."
"Have you kept in training?' she demanded.
"Yes, Ma'am. Not as well as I'd like, but I've kept it up."
"Well, well, well," Honor murmured. "That's very interesting, Captain Tankersley. It just happens that I need a sparring partner. Interested?"
"Only if you promise not to hurt me," Tankersley said. Honor's eyebrows rose, and he grinned. "I've seen that footage from Grayson, Ma'am."
"Oh." Honor's cheeks heated, and she looked away. "I'd hoped people would forget about that."
"Good luck, Ma'am. It's not every day a Manticoran officer foils an attempt to assassinate a friendly head of state—and on camera, no less."
Honor shrugged uncomfortably. "It was really Nimitz's doing. If he hadn't felt their emotions and warned me, we'd all have been dead."
Tankersley nodded more soberly and glanced across the gym at Nimitz, who returned his gaze with all the hauteur of a holovid star.
"At any rate," Honor went on more briskly, "I still need a sparring partner, and if you're available... ?"
"Of course, Ma'am. I'd be honored."
"Good!" Honor held out her hand and he took it with a smile. She smiled back, but then she looked into his eyes and paused. There was something in them she wasn't accustomed to seeing. She couldn't quite put her finger on what that something was, but she was suddenly aware of how wet and clinging her thin unitard was. She felt her face heating again, and her own eyes fell as she released his hand with a sudden sense of awkwardness.
He seemed to feel it, too, for he looked away with a slight air of embarrassment. Silence hovered between them for a moment, and then he cleared his throat.
"By the way, Dame Honor," he said, an edge of strain shadowing his voice, "I've always wanted to apologize for what happened in Basilisk. I—"
"There's no need to apologize, Captain."
"I think there is, Ma'am," Tankersley disagreed quietly. He looked back into her face, his own expression serious.
"No, there isn't," she said firmly. "You happened to get caught in an old feud. You certainly didn't have anything to do with it, and there wasn't anything you could have done to prevent it."
"But I've always felt so dirty over it." Tankersley's eyes fell. "You see, I'd endorsed Captain Young's request for a refit before we knew anyone else had been assigned there. All his senior officers had."
Honor stiffened. She'd wondered why Young hadn't been relieved for leaving his station; now she knew. He must have learned of her assignment to Basilisk before she had, and he'd taken steps to cover himself when he abandoned the picket to her. A captain who arbitrarily pulled his ship off station for refit had better have a very compelling hardware problem to justify it. But if all of his department heads agreed his ship was in need of general overhaul, The Book authorized him to seek permission from his station's senior officer to return to the yard. As long as the senior officer in question approved, he couldn't be officially censured for abandoning his station... even if it later turned out the overhaul hadn't been necessary after all. And since Pavel Young had also been the senior officer on Basilisk Station, he could grant his own "request"—and leave Honor alone and unsupported—without ever quite violating the letter of the regs.
But his career couldn't have survived it when the station blew up in her face, family influence or no, if his officers hadn't signed off on his request as well.
"I see," she said after a moment. She picked up her towel and dried her hair, then wrapped it around her neck and draped its ends to cover her breasts. Tankersley stood silent, spine rigid, still looking away, and she reached out and touched his shoulder lightly.
"I see," she repeated, "but what I don't see, Captain, is any reason you should blame yourself for it." She felt his shoulder twitch and gave it a tiny squeeze before she removed her hand. "You couldn't have known what was coming when you endorsed his request."
"No," he said slowly, then sighed and turned back to her at last. "No, Ma'am, I didn't know what he was up to. As a matter of fact, I did know there was bad blood between you. I didn't know exactly why," he added hastily, "and, as I say, I didn't know you were coming when I signed off on his refit request. But I should have guessed he was up to something, and it never even occurred to me to wonder what. I suppose that's what I really blame myself for. I knew him, and I should have wondered, but to tell you the truth, all I wanted was to get away from Basilisk myself."
"Now that," Honor said with a grin that was only slightly forced, "I can understand! I was none too pleased to be sent there myself, and you'd already been stuck there for—what? A T-year?"
"Just about," he replied more naturally, and his mouth twitched in a grin of its own. "The longest year of my life, I think."
"I can imagine. But, seriously, I don't blame you or anyone but Young himself, and you shouldn't either."
"If you say so, Milady." The broad-shouldered captain surprised her with a formal bow that should have made her feel ridiculous as she stood looming a full head taller than him in her dripping unitard. But it didn't, somehow.
"Well, then!" she said, "You were on your way to exercise, and I've got to get back to my paperwork. When do you think you might be free for a match?"
"Tomorrow at twelve hundred would be good." He sounded relieved by the change of subject. "I've got a work crew scheduled to start pulling the outer hull plates under Fusion Three during the first watch, and I want to be there, but I should be clear by lunch."
"Fine! I'll see you at twelve hundred, then, Captain Tankersley," Honor said with a nod, and headed for the showers with Nimitz padding along at her heels.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The battlecruiser Invincible accelerated toward her assigned target area. Captain Marguerite Daumier sat in her command chair, outwardly relaxed as she led her temporary division's firing run, but Honor suspected she was less calm than she looked, for the atmosphere on Invincible's bridge was prickly with tension.
She rubbed Nimitz's ears, her own face carefully expressionless, as she stood at the back of the bridge, silently comparing Daumier's command crew to her own. Daumier had commanded Invincible for over a T-year, and her people worked with a smooth precision Nike's bridge crew had yet to attain—not that Honor intended to admit that to a living soul. But whatever Invincible's internal command team was like, the performance of her division had been sadly substandard.
It wasn't Daumier's fault. Nor, for that matter, was it anyone else's, really. None of the three ships had ever worked together before, and there was an undeniable hesitancy to their coordination. Intolerant had actually missed a course change and maintained three hundred and eighty gravities acceleration on her old heading for over ninety seconds before Captain Trinh realized what had happened. Honor was just as glad she hadn't been on his bridge to witness his reaction when he
did, and she'd half expected Sarnow to com the unfortunate offender for the express purpose of ripping his head off. But the admiral had only winced and stood watching the display in silence while Trinh fought to get back into formation.
That had been the day's most spectacular error, but it certainty hadn't been the only one. Most of them might not have been apparent to someone simply watching the exercise, but they were painfully evident to the people trying to carry it out. Despite their size, battlecruisers were far too lightly armed to oppose a wall of battle ship broadside to broadside. They had to rely on bold, perfect handling to outmaneuver larger opponents, and the same qualities were required to catch the smaller ships which were their rightful prey, for cruisers and destroyers could pull higher accelerations and were faster on the helm. Unhappily for Sarnow's captains, their ability to act and react as a unit was far below the Navy's usual standards, however good they might be as individuals.
Except for Achilles and Cassandra, that was, which must make Captain Daumier even more unhappy, Honor thought sympathetically. Commodore Isabella Banton's veteran division had operated as a team for over two T-years, and it showed as she whipped them around in obedience to Sarnow's signals. They moved as if they were a single ship, performing with a precision which brutally underscored the other ships' clumsiness. Had it come to an actual fight, Banton's two ships could probably have whipped Daumier's three, which couldn't make Daumier a very happy woman just now.
"Entering firing range, Ma'am." Invincible's tac officer sounded a bit tense, and his spine was taut, as if he were physically resisting the urge to look over his shoulder at Admiral Sarnow.
"Pass the word to the division, Com," Daumier said. "Request confirmation of their readiness."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." The com officer bent over her panel. "All units confirm readiness, Captain," she reported after a moment."
"Thank you."
Daumier leaned back, arms folded. There was something almost prayerful in her attitude, and Honor tried hard not to smile in sympathy lest someone misinterpret her expression. She knew Daumier would have vastly preferred to slave Agamemnon's and Intolerant's weapons to Invincible's fire control, but that wasn't the purpose of the exercise. Sarnow already knew Daumier's was a crack gunnery ship; he wanted to see how the division performed in a high-speed, short-range, short-notice firing pass without the squadron tac net, and Honor suspected the answer was going to be not very well.
"Coming to final firing bearing," the tac officer said. "Beacon search initiated. Searching... searching... contact!" He waited one more moment, eyes glued to his display as the asteroid-mounted beacons mimicking hostile warships blinked at him. "Beacon ID confirmed! I have lock, Captain!"
"Fire," Daumier replied sharply, and Invincible's waiting broadside fired in instant response.
Honors eyes turned almost automatically to the visual display. It was useless for battle control, but at such a short range—
A terrible, silent tornado erupted across the display as lasers and grasers tore at the inoffensive nickel-iron of Hancock's asteroid belt. Some of the smaller asteroids simply vanished, vaporizing in explosive spits of fury; others flashed like tiny stars as the beams ripped into them, and then the first missiles began to glare like small, dreadful suns, and Honor felt something almost like awe.
She'd seen more destruction unleashed in a single broadside. Indeed, she'd unleashed it herself long ago, as HMS Manticore's tac officer. But Manticore was a super-dreadnought, huge, slow, and ponderous, clumsy with her own power and designed to survive the crushing embrace of the wall of battle. This was different, somehow. There was a sense of fleetness fused with power, an awareness of the squadron's graceful lethality.
Or, she amended with a glance at the tracking display, its potential lethality, at any rate, for someone had screwed up big time.
She kept her eyes on the display, carefully not looking at Sarnow, as the ships completed their firing pass and CIC analyzed the results. One of the ships—it looked like the unfortunate Intolerant yet again—had locked her batteries on the wrong set of target beacons.
Had that been an enemy squadron out there, one of its units would have been left totally unengaged. Not only would it have escaped any damage of its own, but its fire control crews, unhampered by the threat of incoming fire, would have been free to reply as if they were engaged in target practice. Which meant one of Sarnow's ships would have taken a terrible beating.
Captain Daumier's shoulders tightened, and the silence on the bridge stretched out endlessly until Sarnow cleared his throat.
"It would appear we have a problem, Captain," he observed, and Daumier turned her head to meet his gaze. "Who was it?" he asked after a moment.
"I'm afraid Intolerant targeted Agamemnon's beacons, Sir." Daumier's level reply was equally devoid of apology or any condemnation of Trinh's ship, and Honor gave a mental nod of approval.
"I see." Sarnow folded his hands behind him and walked slowly over to the tactical section to study the detailed readouts, then sighed. "I suppose it's still early days. But we'll have to do better than this, Captain."
"Yes, Sir."
"Very well. Bring the division about, please, Captain Daumier. Put us at rest relative to the belt while Commodore Babcock makes her run. I want to see how her division does."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Plot it, Astro."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." The astrogators voice was as uninflected as his captain's, but Honor knew neither of them was looking forward to the Admiral's wordless object lesson.
The squadron and division commanders of BatCruRon Five and its attached screening elements came to attention as Admiral Sarnow walked into the briefing room aboard Nike. Honor followed at his heels with Captain Corell, and the assembled officers' wariness was like a visible cloud. It was the first time Sarnow had gathered them all together, and Commodore Prentis, CO of Division 53, had arrived with HMS Defiant less than six hours before. He hadn't been around to participate in the last few days' exercises, but that was a mixed blessing. He might not have any blots on his copybook, but it made him very much the new lad on the block, and he must have realized by now that the rest of the squadron expected their admiral to pitch a tantrum over their recent performance.
"Be seated, ladies and gentlemen," Sarnow directed, taking his own chair at the head of the table while Honor and Corell sat to his right and left. Most of the others looked uncomfortably straight ahead of themselves, but an immaculately groomed commander seated beside Commodore Van Slyke, CO of Heavy Cruiser Squadron Seventeen, glanced sharply at Honor before he looked away. He looked vaguely familiar, though she was certain they'd never met, and she wondered who he was.
"Well, people," the admiral went on after a moment, "it seems we have our work cut out for us. Fortunately—and I use the word advisedly—Admiral Parks isn't going to expect us to do anything difficult any time soon."
His tone was light, almost whimsical, but something like an invisible mental wince ran around the table, and Captain Trinh flushed.
"I realize no one person can be blamed for our present shortcomings," Sarnow continued. "Unfortunately, all of us bear the responsibility for overcoming them. From this moment, we start with a clean slate, but everything that happens from here out gets written down. Understood?"
Heads nodded, and he gave one of his fierce smiles.
"Good! Understand, ladies and gentlemen. I don't look for scapegoats and I don't hold past mistakes against people, but I can also be the worst son-of-a-bitch you never want to meet. And the fact that Admiral Parks is watching every move we make isn't calculated to put me in a better humor. Any new squadron has its problems. I know that, and Admiral Parks knows it. The extent of our sympathy for those problems, however, will be dictated by the efforts made to overcome them. I'm sure you won't disappoint us."
Heads nodded again, a bit more emphatically, and he leaned back.
"In that case, let's begin by examining what went wrong. Captain Corell and Captain Harri
ngton have prepared a critique of the recent exercises, and I'm sure we'll all find their presentation fascinating."
Murmuring voices filled the compartment, and crystal clinked gently as stewards refilled empty glasses. Admiral Sarnow's guests stood clumped in small knots or circulated like slowly swirling water, and Honor made herself smile and nod whenever the Brownian movement brought someone into interaction range.
It wasn't easy, for she disliked social gatherings. She always had, but at least she'd learned to counterfeit the air of comfort required of a host.
She plucked a celery stick from a tray of canapes and reached up to hand it to Nimitz. The cat gave a soft chitter of delight and clasped the delicacy in a true-hand, balancing himself on her shoulder with his four rear limbs while he chewed, and her eyes twinkled as she felt his epicurean buss. She scratched his chest idly while she watched MacGuiness move unobtrusively among the commodores and captains, watching over Nike's other stewards, and thanked God she had him. And while she was at it, a prayer or two of gratitude for her exec might not be amiss. Commander Henke glided about with the grace of a Sphinx albatross, and her junior rank was more than offset by her poise. And, of course, her lineage, Honor thought with a smile.
Commodore Stephen Van Slyke emerged from the crowd to engage Sarnow in a low-voiced conversation. Honor didn't know Van Slyke, but what she'd seen of him looked good. He was built like a wrestler—bull-necked, black-haired, and brown-eyed, with eyebrows even heavier than Sarnow's—but his movements were quick, and if his comments during the COs' meeting hadn't been marked by brilliance, they'd been both pragmatic and to the point.
The same gorgeously-tailored commander who'd looked her way at the conference table followed in Van Slyke's wake and paused with an almost pained expression as the two flag officers stepped aside without him. He looked about for just a moment, and then his hazel eyes settled on Honor and narrowed.