In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC (34 page)

“In the end,” he’d said, “there comes a time when a Queen’s officer has to decide. Not follow orders, not seek counsel and advice, not pass the responsibility on to someone else—
decide
. Make a choice. Recognize the costs and the consequences in the full knowledge that people
who weren’t there
are going to pass judgment upon him for it without any particular interest in being fair about it. That’s the true measure of an officer—of a human being. Right or wrong, popular or unpopular, he has to know where duty, moral responsibility, and legal accountability meet the honor of his uniform and the oath he swore to his monarch and his kingdom. When that time comes, an officer worthy of that uniform and that oath and that monarch makes the
hard
decision, in full awareness of its consequences, because if he doesn’t make it, he fails all of them…and himself.”

She doubted Admiral Courvoisier had ever imagined in his wildest dreams that one of his protégés might someday find herself in the basement of a Silesian health club hobnobbing with admitted murderers and terrorists. Yet when all was said and done, however
hard
the decision might be, it was also a simple one, wasn’t it?

“So,” she heard her voice say calmly, “tell me more about this ship of yours, Opener. Two megatons, you said? With something that size to work with, sneaking
Hawkwing
into range of the platform just got a lot simpler.”

*
   
*
   
*

Honor watched from behind eyes which were calmer than she actually felt as Chief Bonrepaux poured coffee into her senior officers’ cups. She herself nursed a mug of her favored cocoa, but the rest of her officers—with the exception of Surgeon Lieutenant Neukirch, who wasn’t present—were all firmly in the official coffee camp with the rest of the Navy. At the moment, however, most of them seemed a bit too preoccupied to properly appreciate their beverage of choice.

Bonrepaux finished pouring while two of her minions placed trays of small sandwiches and other finger food on the table. The chief steward surveyed their work, nodded to them when she found it good, and then twitched her head at the door. They disappeared, Bonrepaux took one last look around, then followed them.
 

The day cabin door slid shut behind the chief steward, and Honor took a slow sip of her cocoa while she considered the other men and women at the table. It wasn’t a particularly large day cabin—
Hawkwing
was only a destroyer, and on the small side compared to her younger sisters, at that, and cubic space for living quarters was limited, even for her commanding officer. The wardroom was considerably larger, but the wardroom aboard a Royal Manticoran Navy ship belonged to all of its officers
except
the captain. The CO was a guest there. It was her subordinates’ refuge and social center, and she didn’t intrude upon it unless she was invited.

Especially
not,
she thought now,
for something like this
.

“I imagine you’ve all got a few questions about exactly what it is we’re up to,” she said finally, setting her cup neatly on the saucer in front of her. From their expressions, her last sentence would appear to be one of the grosser understatements she’d uttered lately, she reflected, and felt the faint vibration of Nimitz’s almost silent purring chuckle against the back of her neck as he followed her thoughts, or at least her mood.

“Well, I imagine we
are
all at least a little…curious, Skipper,” Taylor Nairobi said after a moment. His tone was light, almost whimsical, but his expression wasn’t. In fact, there was an almost hurt look in his eyes, Honor thought. She regretted that, but there was a reason why, for the first time in the two T-years they’d served together, she hadn’t taken him fully into her confidence.

“I’m sure you are,” she said, “and I apologize for leaving all of you in the dark until now. But I had my reasons—which had nothing at all to do with my trust or personal and professional regard for all of you.”

“Well,
that
sounds ominous,” Aloysius O’Neal observed cheerfully, although his gray eyes were serious and thoughtful across the table from her.

“That isn’t
exactly
the word I’d choose, Al,” Honor told him, “but it’s headed in the right direction. In about eighteen hours, we’re going to be arriving at our current destination, and I’m sure Aniella”—she flashed a smile at the astrogator—“wasn’t the only one who felt a certain degree of curiosity when I told her where we were going.”

The “where” in question was, in fact, a thoroughly useless, completely planetless red dwarf. The only value it possessed was as a convenient beacon. Not even the best astrogator could guarantee a pinpoint arrival at her intended destination, and even a useless star was a lot more visible than any starship. Especially if the starship in question was doing its best to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Bad novels frequently had single ships making contact at deep-space rendezvous in the “trackless depths of interstellar space,” but professional spacers knew exactly how much time the ships in question could spend looking for each other, given how much distance even the smallest astrogational error amounted to over the course of a voyage light-years in length.

Unless, of course, there was some convenient, clearly visible target destination they could both make for.

“The reason we’re headed there,” she continued, “is to meet someone. And after we’ve done that, we’ll be moving on to another destination in company.”

“Another destination, Ma’am?” Lieutenant Hutchinson asked when she paused for a moment, and she smiled at the tactical officer.

“It seems there’s something rotten in Casimir, Fred,” she said, “and we’re going to do something about it. You see—”

*
   
*
   
*

The others had departed, leaving Honor alone with Nairobi and O’Neal. She waited until the door closed behind their juniors, then tipped her chair back, folded her hands over her stomach, and smiled crookedly at them.

“Somehow,” she said almost whimsically, “I seem to sense that the two of you are less than totally delighted with this operation.”

O’Neal snorted, but Nairobi’s expression was anything but amused, and he shook his head almost grimly.

“Skipper,” he said, “I hope I’m not out of line to say this, but you’re damned right I’m not ‘totally delighted’ about this little brainstorm of yours.” He shook his head again. “No wonder you didn’t tell any of the rest of us about it until just now! I suppose I’m grateful you didn’t, but what I really wish is that you’d opened your mouth about it in the very beginning so I could’ve done my damnedest to talk you out of it!”

“To be honest,” Honor said calmly, “that’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d try to convince me not to do it, and I also knew you wouldn’t succeed.” She shrugged ever so slightly. “You’d only have wasted a lot of time, energy, and concern over my sanity. Don’t think I don’t appreciate the fact that you would’ve tried to save me from myself, because I do. But since you weren’t going to manage to anyway, it just seemed kindest to everyone concerned to avoid the conversation.”

“Bull…excrement,” O’Neal said, shifting what he’d been about to say in mid-word.
 

Honor cocked an eyebrow at him, and he snorted again.

“Oh, I don’t doubt for a minute that you knew exactly what Taylor would’ve been saying to you, Skip,” the sailing master told her. “And I don’t doubt you were just as happy not to have that conversation. But all three of us—and all those people who just left your cabin, for that matter—know the real reason you kept your mouth shut.” His eyes held hers unwaveringly. “You’re protecting us, and we damned well know it.”

“You’re right,” Honor admitted. “I know the main reason Taylor would’ve been trying to talk me out of this is that he knows exactly what our orders are, and he’d be trying to protect me from myself. That’s one of an exec’s jobs, and Taylor’s a darned good exec. But it’s my job to protect the
rest
of you from myself, when it’s necessary, and this is one of those times.”

“Let me guess,” Nairobi said bitingly. “Before we ever left Saginaw, you recorded a dispatch and sent it off home, informing the Admiralty of your intentions, and also informing them that you had not discussed this with any of us, that you were acting entirely on your own responsibility and authority, and that none of us shared any part in your decision to embark upon this lunacy. Is that about right?”

“About.” Honor nodded. “Although I might quibble just a bit over the word ‘lunacy,’ now that I think about it.”

“
I
wouldn’t,” O’Neal said in a considerably less amused tone.
 

She looked at him, and he scowled.

“Don’t get me wrong, Skipper. Assuming your information’s correct, there’s probably nothing in the entire Confederacy that needs squashing as much as these bastards do. For that matter, I’m all in favor of somebody doing it. Hell, I’m even in favor of the
Navy’s
doing it! But Taylor’s exactly right about our orders, and you wouldn’t even be considering this—especially not with your…allies—if you didn’t know Governor Charnowska flat out isn’t going to do it. That means you’re setting out to deliberately antagonize the person you were ordered to cooperate with, and that you’re doing it in company with a flipping batch of
terrorists
! Christ, Skipper, couldn’t you find a
bigger
club for her to beat you with? The Foreign Office’s going to want you
crucified
for this, and with these Ballroom fanatics cranked in—!”

He pushed himself forcefully back in his chair, both hands shoulder-high in front of him, as if he were throwing something away, and Nairobi nodded.

“It’s going to be bad enough, as far as some of the people at Admiralty House are concerned, if we simply don’t try to retake this ‘liberated slaver’ of theirs,” he said. “When they find out you’ve actually cooperated with them, conducted a
joint operation,
they’re going to pop gaskets left and right.”

“I’ve considered all of that,” Honor told both of them serenely. “And Al’s right, that’s exactly why I sent off that dispatch making it perfectly clear no one else in
Hawkwing
even knew what I was thinking, far less had any part in planning this. I can testify to that under oath with a clear conscience, and so can all of you. That’s important to me. But understand this, both of you—however wise or unwise this may be, we’re
going
to do it. The reason I asked the two of you to stay behind when the others left wasn’t to give you the chance to change my mind. It was because I want you to have the opportunity to formally state your opposition to my plans before we embark on the operation.”

She paused, looking at each of them in turn, hard, before she continued.

“Don’t misunderstand me, either of you. I’ve done everything I can to protect you, but the truth is that if this goes as badly as it has the potential to go—and I’m not talking just about the op, as you both realize perfectly well—that may not matter. You’re my two ranking officers. If you don’t make your reservations about this operation part of the official record before we carry it out, it’s entirely possible that when the smoke clears you’ll find yourselves beached right alongside me. I don’t want that to happen, especially when this was all
my
idea.”

“Let me get this straight, Skipper,” Nairobi said after a moment. “Are you
ordering
us to object to your orders?”

“No, I’m just saying that—”

“Well, it’s a good thing that isn’t what you’re doing,” the XO interrupted her, “because it would be the
silliest
damned order anyone ever gave! I mean, ordering your subordinates to formally protest your lawful commands?” He shook his head. “Most nitwitted thing I ever heard of!”

“Taylor, don’t take this lightly. I’m serious when I say—”

“Skipper, do you think he doesn’t know—that we
both
don’t know—you’re serious?” O’Neal chuckled at her expression. “Of course we do. And of course we both think you’re nuts. And of course we both agree with you.”

Honor had opened her mouth again. Now she closed it, slowly, and gazed at both of them in silence for several seconds.

“I really wish you’d take my advice on this, both of you” she said quietly. “But the truth is, I’m glad you feel that way.”

“Please don’t confuse our illustrious sailing master’s agreement—or mine, for that matter—with delirious joy and unqualified approval, Skipper,” Nairobi said. “In fact, delirious joy and unqualified approval are probably the last two terms I’d use to describe my own feelings at this particular moment. Despite which, I have to go along with him. Assuming these people are telling you the truth, then this really is something that needs doing. But I have to ask you this. Are you genuinely confident they
are
telling you the truth? Or, at least, that they’re telling you
all
the truth? God knows I can’t fault the Ballroom for how much it hates Manpower’s guts, but their own hands aren’t exactly spotless, and they’ve never been above…creatively misrepresenting circumstances, shall we say, to game third parties for the result they want. There was that business in Pelzer, for example, if you’ll recall.”

“Point,” Honor agreed.
 

There wasn’t any actual proof, but ONI’s analysts had concluded that the Ballroom—or its sympathizers, at least—had fed deliberately false information to an Andermani cruiser squadron several years ago in order to provoke a raid on the territory of one of the small, independent star systems just beyond the Empire’s borders. There wasn’t much doubt the government of the Pelzer System had, in fact, been deep in bed with various Mesan interests, quite possibly including Manpower, but the slave trading depot the Andermani had expected to find, catching the system authorities red-handed, had been a figment of someone’s imagination. The Andermani incursion, however, had destabilized the system government in question…at which point a “spontaneous” coup (launched, oddly enough, by heavily armed people who appeared quite sympathetic to the suppression of the genetic slave trade and seemed to have had some odd notion that some destabilizing event might be about to occur) had removed it from power. Most of the previous government’s leading members had found themselves tried and convicted for crimes ranging from outright treason to malfeasance, bribery, embezzlement, and participation in the slave trade. Three of them had been shot, two had been stripped of their citizenship and permanently deported, and most of the rest had gone to prison for lengthy periods.