by David Weber
In fact, it was a terror campaign, directed against those unable to defend themselves. And if anyone might have missed that little point, TF 783’s assigned target would make it abundantly clear.
The Cachalot System, 50.6 LY from Dzung and only 49.6 LY from Beowulf, was an independent system which had opted against joining the Solarian League when it was initially founded. It was also a prosperous, heavily populated system which had been a Beowulf trading partner for the better part of a thousand years…and depended on the Beowulf System Defense Force to provide its rapid response security force. Its organic “military forces” consisted of no more than a couple of dozen frigates and LACs, because no one would be insane enough to attack someone so closely associated with one of the League’s founding and most powerful star systems.
Until now, at least.
She wondered just how explicitly Kingsford or Brenner, the CO of Strategy and Planning, had admitted Buccaneer’s true objectives in the detailed operational orders. And, while she was wondering, she wondered how many of those independent and nominally independent star systems would recognize that the League was choosing to target them because it dared not attack the members of the “Grand Alliance” directly.
Bit of a potential downside, there, Gabby my girl, she reflected, then shrugged mentally. Maybe that’s another reason to pick Cachalot. It’s close enough to Beowulf that systems farther out in the Fringe may not realize how lightly defended it is. Even if they do, we’ve got to do something, though, and thank God no one is planning on sending us after one of the Manties’ primary star systems! Given how quick they smashed up Filareta…
Her thought trailed off, and she nodded again, more firmly.
“I just hope Technodyne—or somebody—gets its thumb out and moves right along with that multidrive missile of yours, Sir!”
GSNS Protector Oliver I
Manticore Binary System
Star Empire of Mantiocre
“Honor!”
Michael Mayhew turned with a smile as Honor and Mercedes Brigham followed the earnest-faced young ensign who’d been their escort from Protector Oliver I’s boat bay. Soft music played in the background, stewards circulated with trays of finger food and wine glasses, and conversation hummed in the background as he held out his hand. Honor gripped it firmly, smiling back at him, and Nimitz chittered a greeting of his own from her shoulder. Mayhew laughed and extended his hand to the treecat, in turn, and Honor chuckled.
Even as she did, though, she couldn’t avoid the reflection that Mayhew, who was twenty years her junior, looked at least ten years her senior. That was the difference between the third-generation prolong she’d received as a child and the first-generation prolong he’d received when he was already adult. And even so, he looked far younger than his older brother, Benjamin.
“It’s good to see you,” Mayhew continued, then grimaced. “I know—I know! We see each other a lot, either on the com or in person, but that’s always official business. I suppose this is, too, in a way, but at least the two of us don’t have to talk shop tonight!”
“That will be something of a relief,” she acknowledged. “There are times I find myself forgetting I’m an honest spacer, given all the time I spend in conferences, discussions, planning sessions, worry sessions…”
She shrugged and Mayhew nodded.
“I know. And it’ll get even worse after the Beowulf referendum is certified. Getting them integrated into the Alliance is going to take some doing.”
“With all due respect, My Lord, not as much as you might be thinking,” another voice said, and Honor turned with a smile as a blue-eyed man in the uniform of a Grayson rear admiral joined the conversation.
“Michal!” she said. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to say anything about the heirs of a planetary ruler short-circuiting proper military etiquette or anything like that,” Rear Admiral Michal Lukáč, commanding officer of First Battle Division, Sixth Battle Squadron, GSN, said. “But as I’m sure you and Commodore Brigham understand perfectly, the correct procedure is for you to be greeted by Captain White first.”
Honor looked around quickly, then back at Lukáč.
“At least you waited until that poor ensign wasn’t around to hear you,” she said severely. “It wasn’t his fault Michael here shortstopped me!”
“Excuse me,” Mayhew said with a smile, “but unless I’m mistaken, I’m the brother of a planetary despot. That means I get to jump the queue when I feel like it.”
“The fact that you’re in a position to abuse your authority doesn’t make it right,” Honor told him. “And Michal is completely correct.” She craned her neck, looking for Captain Zachary White, Protector Oliver’s commanding officer and Lukáč’s flag captain. Since White was easily six centimeters taller than she was, he was seldom hard to spot. This time, though—
“Where is Zach?”
“Actually,” Lukáč said, “at this particular moment, he’s helping Misty deal with a slight emergency. Edward and a tray of canapés were in a head-on collision.”
“Oh, my!” Honor shook her head. “I am so not looking forward to Raoul turning eight!”
“Young Edward is actually very well behaved, especially by the standards of Grayson males,” Michael Mayhew told her.
“Yes, and this wasn’t his fault,” Lukáč said. “Despite Zach’s centimeters, Edward’s still not very tall, you know. The steward just didn’t see him. In fact, the real reason Zach’s helping deal with it is that Edward’s upset. He thinks he ruined his dad’s party, so I told Zach to nip off to reassure him and that I’d hold the fort until he got back. I think I remember reading somewhere that a good flag officer always has his flag captain’s back.”
“That’s what I’d heard, at any rate,” Honor said. “But what was this about ‘not as much as you might be thinking’? From where I sit, getting Beowulf fully integrated’s going to be something like Hercules and the stables.”
“I don’t think so,” Lukáč disagreed respectfully. “Oh, it’s going to take a lot of work, and a lot of details will need hammering out, but the truth is that Beowulf’s already effectively part of the Alliance. I mean, whose ships do you think are out there helping rebuild after Yawata? And unless I’m mistaken, Beowulf’s also who’s building the Mark 23s in our magazines. So what we’ll really be doing is regularizing something that’s been going on on a de facto basis for months now.”
“That’s actually true, in a way,” Michael Mayhew acknowledged. “It’s the regularizing and the hammering out I’m not looking forward to.”
“No reason you should, My Lord,” Lukáč told him. “And, in fairness, it’ll be a lot easier for us ‘honest spacers’ who only have to worry about shooting at the enemy. Besides—”
“Is Michal already bending your ear, My Lady?” another voice asked, and Honor turned as Captain Lenka Lukáčová joined the conversation. Lukáčová was about four centimeters shorter than her husband. She wore GSN uniform with the four golden cuff bands of a captain, but she also wore the Chaplains Corps’s crosses on her collar, not the sword insignia of a line officer.
“He promised he wouldn’t do that,” she continued, gold-flecked green eyes dancing.
“And he isn’t, Lenka, as you know perfectly well!” Honor told her. “In fact, he’s hardly started making his points forcefully at all yet.”
“Give him time,” Lukáčová suggested.
“I’m sure. And how are you? Any problems adjusting?”
She’d tried to stay in the loop as Task Force Three, the Grayson component of Grand Fleet, settled into place. It helped that Manticorans and Graysons had been serving—and dying—together for two T-decades. But there were still differences between them and a much larger percentage of the entire Grayson Space Navy had been permanently stationed here in Manticore following the Yawata Strike and the emergence of the Grand Alliance. Despite the enormous strides Honor’s adoptive homeworld had made, Grays
on remained a highly religious, theocratic society. The Manticore Binary System as a whole had less experience than the RMN’s officer corps with Graysons, and quite a few thousand Grayson civilians and dependents had arrived in Manticore to help support TF 3. Sliding them comfortably into a society whose basic constraints were sharply at odds with those of the society which had produced them was a nontrivial challenge. Lukáčová, as the senior officer of the Chaplains Corps assigned to TF 3 had a ringside seat for that sliding.
“Quite well, actually,” the captain said now. “Archbishop Telmachi couldn’t have been more helpful, although I think most of your fellow Manties are still a little…bemused by the entire notion of official shipboard chaplains. Fair’s fair, though. Most of our people still have problems with the notion that the Archbishop is only the senior prelate in a society which specifically rejects the notion of a state church. Some of my chaplains seem to have a little trouble understanding he can’t simply wave his crucifix and make all of our stumbling blocks go away. You really are a deplorably secular bunch, aren’t you?”
“We stagger along as best we can,” Honor said. “And let’s not forget that it was the example of our ‘deplorably secular bunch’ that got Father Church to reconsider his position on priests who didn’t have Y chromosomes.”
Michal Lukáč flung up his hand in the gesture of a Grayson judge at a fencing match, and his wife laughed.
“I’ve missed you, My Lady,” she said. “But you’re right, of course.” She rolled her eyes. “I can still remember all the apoplexy when Reverend Sullivan ordained me. I thought at least three of the Elders would be carried off to glory that afternoon.” She smiled in fond memory. “And the way they waffled about titles!” She shook her head. “Do you know how close I came to being Brother Lenka? The Sacristy had actually written a learned dissertation about the ‘sanctity’ of the title. Thank the Tester the Reverend cut them off at the ankles!”
“For some reason,” Michael Mayhew said to no one in particular, “for the last twenty years or so Grayson seems to have been producing an unconscionable number of uppity females. Can’t imagine how that happened.”
“Well, it’s certainly not my fault,” Honor said austerely. “In fact, it’s probably more Mercedes’ fault. Or hers and—” Honor looked over Lukáč’s shoulder as two more officers approached “—Captain Davis’s.”
“Whatever it was, I didn’t do it,” the dark-haired captain—one of the two dark-haired captains—approaching the small conversational group said.
“Her Grace was just explaining that it’s not her fault Grayson females are getting out of hand,” Brigham said dryly, holding out her hand.
“Oh, no!” Captain Elizabeth Davis, Lukáč’s operations officer said. “How could anyone possibly think that?!”
“Not enough we have to produce them in a homegrown variety, but we go around importing them,” Mayhew observed, still to no one in particular, and Davis laughed.
Her own accent marked her as a native of the Star Kingdom’s capital planet, but like quite a few of the officers who’d been “loaned” to the modern Grayson Space Navy in its infancy, she’d decided she liked Grayson. In fact, she’d become a Grayson citizen almost ten T-years ago. Lord Mayhew rolled his eyes at her laugh, but he also held out his hand.
“And we’ve been damned lucky to get them—all of them,” he said in a quieter tone. “Homegrown or imported.”
“I have to agree,” Honor said. “But you know, the really remarkable thing to me, even after all these years, is how well Grayson’s grappled with all the changes.”
“Part of that’s the example we’ve been given,” Lukáčová said. “And Reverend Hanks’s input at the very beginning was huge.” Her eyes darkened, and so did Honor’s as she recalled how the gentle Reverend had given his life for hers. “And Reverend Sullivan’s been just as strong in his own way. But the bottom line is that unlike those lunatics on Masada, we haven’t forgotten the Book is never closed. They not only refused to stop listening to God, they started lecturing Him on the way things were supposed to be.” She shook her head. “We’ve had our own iterations of the Faithful to deal with, but by and large, they did us a huge favor. All we had to do was look at them to see exactly what God didn’t want us doing.” She shrugged. “With that example, how could we not get it right…mostly, anyway.”
“I think you’re probably right,” the officer who’d accompanied Davis said. He was a good twenty centimeters taller, stocky and very squarely built, with a ship’s prow of a nose and a ponytail that reminded Honor of Paul Tankersley’s. Unlike Davis, he spoke with a pronounced Grayson accent.
“It’s good to see you, James,” Honor said.
“And you, My Lady.” Captain James Sena, BatDiv 1’s chief of staff said. “Actually, though, I’m even happier to see Commodore Brigham. I was wondering if—”
“Stop right there,” Rear Admiral Lukáč said, raising an index finger.
“But, Sir, after that exercise yesterday, we’ve got to figure out—”
“You’re on dangerous ground, James,” Lukáč said solemnly.
“Sir?” Captain Sena regarded his superior with a suspicious eye, and Honor’s lips twitched.
James Sena was one of the GSN’s outstanding administrators. Although he was an excellent combat officer—one of the best—he was far more valuable in his current position. He didn’t like it, because he would far rather have been on a battlecruiser’s command deck somewhere, but he wasn’t the sort who complained. He was a no-nonsense, focused, very much to the point individual, however, and there were times when he found his admiral’s puckish sense of humor more than a little trying.
“Lord Mayhew just informed us, immediately before your arrival, that we are not to talk shop tonight,” Lukáč said firmly, blue eyes twinkling. “And as obedient subjects, it behooves us to obey him.”
“It’s a good thing it’s my brother who’s the despot—and owns all the headsmen—and not me,” Mayhew observed.
“Oh, I’m sure!” Honor said.
In fact, everyone in the GSN knew Michael Mayhew had been “navy mad” since childhood. Only the fact that it had taken his older brother so long to produce the male heir the Grayson constitution required had kept him out of uniform before Grayson had joined the Manticoran Alliance. And only the fact that Benjamin had needed him so desperately as his personal envoy had prevented him from seeking a naval career afterward. That was the real reason officers like Lukáč and Sena were prepared to be so informal with him. He was one of their own, and he’d always had a very special, very personal relationship with the GSN and its personnel. They knew how deeply he loved the Navy, and they loved him right back.
“Ah!” Mayhew said now as an extraordinarily tall officer approached them. “Captain White!”
“My Lord.” Zachary White bowed to Mayhew, and then to Honor. “My Lady.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, Lady Harrington. My son—”
“Admiral Lukáč told us about it, Zach,” Honor said, shaking her head as she held out her hand to the much shorter woman who’d accompanied White across the crowded compartment. She was one of the relatively few civilians present, and on her, the traditional Grayson gown looked good. Although her particular version of it wasn’t quite as “traditional” as many. Honor doubted she was wearing more than three petticoats.
“Is he all right, Misty?” she asked, and Madam White smiled.
“I think he’s pretty much indestructible,” she said. “He was just so upset over ‘messing up Dad’s party.’”
“He really was,” Captain White agreed, and looked at Lukáč. “I really appreciate your taking over the host’s duties, Sir. His mom could tell him I wasn’t mad at him, but he was upset enough with himself that I think he needed the paternal reassurance.”
“Lenka and I may not have any of our own, Captain, but I’ve got five siblings,” Lukáč said dryly. “And thanks to Skydomes and our little population explo
sion, the last time I looked, I’ve got somewhere around—the number is subject to change without warning, you understand—thirty-seven nieces and nephews, at least four of whom have started producing children of their own!”
White chuckled, and nodded greetings to the other officers clustered around Mayhew.
“How’s he doing overall—here in Manticore, I mean?” Honor asked Misty, and she shrugged.
“He misses his friends and his classmates, My Lady,” she said, “but it’s not like he’s not making new ones, and he’s actually ahead of his age-mates academically.” Her smile might have held a slight edge. “I don’t think those new classmates of his expected that. And the experience of actually living somewhere besides Grayson is going to be really, really good for him.” She shrugged. “Besides, the truth is that everyone here in Manticore is bending over backward to make all of us Graysons welcome. It shows, believe me.”
Honored nodded. As a steadholder—and, aside from Mayhew, the only steadholder in the Manticore Binary System—she’d felt a personal responsibility to represent the Grayson dependents who’d accompanied the GSN. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day, and so she was enormously relieved by how well things seemed to be going. And one reason they were going so well was the smiling woman standing beside her towering husband.
In many ways, Misty White was Lenka Lukáčová’s civilian counterpart. While Lukáčová dealt with the Chaplains Corps’s issues, Madame White was attached to the Grayson Family Support Command. Technically, that was a military organization, headed by Captain Leonard Fitzhugh and she was only a “civilian advisor.” Fortunately, Fitzhugh was smart enough to stay out of the way when Misty White rolled up her sleeves and went to work.