In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC (43 page)

He glared at her for a moment.

“However, based on what I’ve so far seen from the reports and documentation you’ve submitted to Governor Obermeyer—
after
the fact—I’m inclined to believe that at least the dead—the
many
dead—left in the aftermath of your high-handed actions were, in fact, the pirates and slave traders you’ve accused them of being. And that fact, Commander, is the
only
reason I’m not going to demand that you and your ship accompany me back to Saginaw so that you might account for your actions to Governor Charnowska in person. Believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see you attempting to explain yourself to her. Under the circumstances, however, and bearing in mind the need for any
responsible
officer to attempt to minimize the interstellar consequences of your actions, I’m not going to insist on that. Instead, I’m instructing you, on my own authority, as the senior officer present of the Confederacy Navy, to immediately depart Silesian space with your vessel. I have no doubt your own superiors will find your efforts to explain this affair away at least as specious as I would myself, and I confidently anticipate that you will soon experience the consequences of their severe displeasure.”

He glared at her again, then waved one hand in an abrupt gesture.

“Is there anything you’d care to say in response, Commander?”

“Actually, Sir,” she said respectfully, “there are three questions I’d like to ask, with your permission.”

“Ask,” he said brusquely.

“First, Sir, what would you like me to do with the prisoners my personnel are currently holding aboard the platform? There are approximately six hundred of them, counting the survivors of the platform’s crew and the complements of the two pirate vessels—excuse me, of the two
alleged
pirate vessels—which were moored here when we arrived.”

“A reasonable question.” Teschendorff sounded as if he would have preferred to denounce it as
unreasonable,
assuming he could have found a way to. “And in response,” he continued, “I’ve informed Governor Obermeyer that, in view of the fact that dealing with so many prisoners would grossly strain her own facilities and system security assets, I will personally take your prisoners into my custody, along with any documentary or physical evidence you may wish to provide, and return them to the Hillman Sector with me. I’m sure we’ll be able to get to the bottom of all this there.”

“I see. Of course I’ll be prepared to hand them over to you at your convenience, Sir.”

Teschendorff only sniffed, then waved his hand again.

“You said you had two more questions, Commander.”

“Yes, Sir. As you presumably know from my reports to Governor Obermeyer “—
and I’ll bet she was just
delighted
to hand
those
over to you when you asked for them,
she thought sardonically—“I was assisted in this operation by several civilian volunteers. In fact, it was only through the assistance of their vessel that I was able to bring
Hawkwing
into effective range of the platform and the pirate vessels—I mean, of course, the
alleged
pirate vessels—in the system. Obviously, they believed I had the authority to request their aid in this operation. Since they acted in good faith within that belief, and since they suffered several fatal casualties of their own in the fighting, I’d like to request your assurance that they will also be permitted to withdraw from Casimir rather than facing any sort of local charges for their actions.”

Teschendorff made a noise which sounded remarkably like a growl and drummed the fingers of his right hand on the briefing room table for several seconds. Then, finally, he nodded grudgingly.

“Very well,” he said. “Obviously, pirates and slavers are the general enemies of all civilized star nations. I can hardly fault civilian volunteers for being willing to assist a naval officer who—as you yourself just pointed out—they undoubtedly assumed had the authority to enlist their aid in the suppression of such enemies. Under the circumstances, yes, they’re free to go.”

“Thank you, Sir. I appreciate your generosity.”

“I’m not being generous to
you,
Commander,” Teschendorff pointed out icily. He let that sentence linger for a moment, then shrugged. “And your third question?”

“In addition to the civilian personnel legitimately assigned to the platform, Sir,” Honor said quietly, “we discovered well over nine hundred genetic slaves in holding cells. Obviously, neither
Hawkwing
nor
Feliksá
has the life support capability to lift that many people off this platform. For that matter, I’m not certain anyone in the entire Casimir System has that much life support—or, for that matter, that Governor Obermeyer’s planet-side facilities would be adequate to absorb that many liberated slaves without subjecting them to crowded, possibly primitive living conditions for some time, at least. The CO of the
Rapunzel,
however, has informed me that he
does
have enviro capacity to take them all aboard his vessel. I believe, under the circumstances, that allowing him to do so, and to transport them either to the Star Kingdom or to some other planet which is prepared to offer them safe haven, would be both the humane and the proper thing to do.”

“Of course no one wishes to see those poor people suffer any further trauma.” For the first time, Teschendorff’s expression and manner softened noticeably. “In fact, Commander, allow me to say that the one clearly mitigating circumstance of this entire disgraceful situation is that those slaves, and the civilian victims here aboard this platform, were saved from still further suffering and death. I don’t suggest for a moment that that outcome justifies your decisions and actions, but, as you say, under the circumstances, allowing those liberated slaves to depart aboard your other vessel—the
Rapunzel,
did you say?—is clearly the proper course of action. Assuming, of course, that they desire to leave.”

He regarded her stonily for several more seconds, then cleared his throat.

“Is that all you have to say, Commander?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“No protests of innocence, no attempts to justify your actions?”

“Sir, I stand by the content of the reports you’ve apparently already seen. I will, of course, provide you with copies of those reports from my own computer files, as well, in…the interest of completeness. I acted as seemed required by my judgment in light of the information available to me. If that judgment and those actions have provoked, as you say, a potential interstellar incident, I naturally deeply regret that outcome.”

He waited, as if expecting her to say something more, but she simply stood there respectfully, gazing back at him. Finally, he gave himself a little shake.

“Very well, Commander. I want you, your vessel, and…
Rapunzel
underway out of Casimir within six hours. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“Then this interview is terminated.”

Teschendorff nodded brusquely to his flag captain, and the other officer pressed a stud on the console in front of him. There was a moment of silence, and then Teschendorff stood, his expression quite different, and extended his hand across the briefing table to Honor.

“Commander,” he said, in a voice which had inexplicably lost its stern anger, as she gripped his hand firmly, “I hadn’t quite expected my luncheon invitation to lead you into such deep water. For that, I apologize. It’s unfortunately true that there are sometimes…problems which can only be addressed by stepping outside the normal avenues, as it were.”

“Yes, Sir. I understand.”

She held his eyes levelly, and Nimitz made a soft sound of agreement from her shoulder.

“Good, Commander.” His grip on her hand tightened for a moment, then he released her, stepped back, and gave her a deep, respectful nod. “It’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’d like to think that someday I’ll have the opportunity to spend some time with you and Nimitz again. Over a meal, I mean, of course.”

“Of course, Sir.” She smiled at him. “And now, with your permission, Commodore, if I’m going to meet your timetable, I think I’d better be getting back to my ship.”

*
   
*
   
*

“Admiral Webster will see you now, Commander.”

“Thank you, Senior Chief,” Honor Harrington said as the Admiralty House yeoman courteously pressed the button that opened the door to First Space Lord James Bowie Webster’s inner office.

She stood, gathered Nimitz in her arms and waited until he’d settled himself on her shoulder, then marched as calmly as she could through the waiting door.

The better part of a complete T-month had passed since
Hawkwing
’s return to the Manticore binary system. Obviously, she hadn’t been expected, since her deployment was scheduled to last six more T-months, and her early return had provoked just as many questions as Honor had known it would.

She’d transmitted her own reports immediately to the Admiralty, along with the sealed official dispatch from Commodore Teschendorff which he had insisted she take along. Given the nature of the “official conversation” with her which he’d recorded in Casimir, she didn’t really expect his official dispatch to say anything exculpatory. He couldn’t, after all. He’d already risked making entirely too many powerful enemies of his own, especially given Sector Governor Charnowska’s obvious involvement, to do anything of the sort. Honor knew that, and she didn’t blame him for a single thing that had happened. Whatever the ultimate consequences for her—and the fact that it had taken the first space lord this long to call her in looked like being a pretty bad sign—she understood exactly why Teschendorff had done what he’d done. And however much she expected it to hurt, she’d also come to the conclusion that throwing away her career was actually a bargain price for saving so many lives.

As soon as her reports had been received, the orders had come down quick and fast.
Hawkwing
was handed over to Her Majesty’s Space Station
Hephaestus
for a long scheduled and well-deserved (but mysteriously expedited) major overhaul. The destroyer’s crew was sent off on a three-week leave, as well, but only after every member of her complement had been informed in no uncertain terms that the events of her truncated deployment were to be considered classified. They were not to discuss them in any way with anyone—and, very specifically, not with the media—until the Navy had completed its own investigation.

The same points had been made with quiet emphasis to Honor by a senior-grade captain from the Judge Advocate General’s office before
she
was sent home “on leave,” as well. No one had brought up any words like “possible charges” or “boards of inquiry,” but she’d heard them hovering unspoken in the background, and the JAG captain’s general demeanor had been unpromising, to say the very least.

At first, she’d tried to pretend to her parents—and possibly to herself, for that matter—that everything would be just fine once it had all been sorted out. The fact that she’d been instructed to keep her mouth shut precluded any possibility of discussing her concerns with them, but she knew her mother and—especially—her ex-Navy father hadn’t experienced any great difficulty guessing something was wrong. Dr. Alfred Harrington had spent enough time in the service to know deployments weren’t cut short on a whim, and that a starship’s scheduled overhaul period wasn’t normally moved forward by almost a full T-year without some sort of significant engineering problem. Yet despite what had to be a burning sense of curiosity—and concern—he and Honor’s mother had painstakingly avoided asking the questions they’d quickly realized she wasn’t going to be permitted to answer.

Their silent support had been welcome, but as the days dragged by, and as they turned into weeks, still without any word from the Admiralty, Honor’s heart had gradually sunk. Anyone who’d ever served aboard a Queen’s ship had learned about waiting for news, but that was usually because simply transmitting messages across light-years of distance took a long time. It wasn’t because they were sitting around at home, trying to distract themselves with things like long hikes, hang gliders, and sailboats, while they waited for the sword of Damocles to fall. Worse, as the wait stretched out farther and farther, her initial hope that what
Hawkwing
had achieved might somehow mitigate the consequences of her actions had grown dimmer and dimmer.

And then, the day before yesterday, had come the summons to report to Admiralty House in person. And not to just anyone—to the First Space Lord, the most senior uniformed member of the Royal Manticoran Navy. Honor had never met Sir James Bowie Webster in person, although he’d addressed her class at Saganami Island when she’d been a midshipwoman. He had a reputation for integrity and fairness, but he enjoyed a matching reputation for hammering those he felt had been derelict in their duty or in meeting their responsibilities as Queen’s officers. She’d heard stories about other officers—most of them far senior to herself—who had been summoned to his office for personal meetings. Most of those stories had…ended badly for the officers in question, and despite her painfully maintained calm expression, her stomach felt as if she were stepping into microgravity rather than a luxuriously furnished office whose enormous window looked out over downtown Landing.

The large room was paneled in light-toned native woods, which wasn’t the extravagance it would have been on one of the Solarian League’s long-settled planets, and there was a fireplace in one corner. It was functional, not merely ornamental, and that
was
an extravagance. The Admiralty Building was over a Manticoran century-and-a-half old and little more than a hundred stories tall, but that fireplace’s chimney bored up through thirty-odd stories of air shafts and ventilation ducting. Which seemed just a bit much to Honor, given that the capital’s climate was far more likely to require air-conditioning than the toasty warmth of an open fire.

The rest of the office—and especially the models of starships and old-fashioned oil and acrylic portraits of ships, admirals, and famous battles scattered about it—made it perfectly clear who it belonged to, and there was no one else in it, she noted as she crossed the carpet to Webster’s immense desk. Just the two of them…that didn’t strike her as a good sign, either.