Honor Among Enemies hh-6

by David Weber

  "There can't be many left, Rafe," she replied, equally quietly, "and for all we know, they don't have any life support over there. We, on the other hand, may be able to get some of ours back. Our only hope is that we can and that one of their consorts has some idea where we both are and comes looking for us, but they may not have even that much hope. We have to give them the best chance we can. It's the only decent thing to do."

  Cardones nodded slowly, then moved off to his own duties, and Honor looked back up and beckoned to the petty officer she'd been speaking to when Tremaine's report came in.

  "All right, Haverty," she said briskly. "Once you've got that leak in Seven-Seventeen patched, I want pressure back in there. Commander Ryder needs to move people out of sickbay to relieve crowding, and that's the best place to put them. So as soon as we've got pressure, inform Senior Chief Lewis so we can organize a working party to move them. Once you're through in Seven-Seventeen, I want you and your people to do an eyeball on Main Environmental. Then..."

  She went on speaking, passing her orders in the confident tones of a captain, and wondered how much longer she could keep the pretense up.

  Stephen Holtz followed the Manty lieutenant into the mess compartment, and his face was numb, still frozen with the shock of loss. His casualties were far worse than the Q-ships, in both absolute and relative terms. There'd been twenty-two hundred men and women on his ship; the forty-six survivors had all been able to fit into the single pinnace which had come to pick them up.

  The Manty pilot, Lieutenant Tremaine, had invited him to take the copilots seat aboard the shuttle, and he'd watched the Q-ship's mangled hull grow through the view port. He'd found a bitter satisfaction in knowing he'd destroyed it just as certainly as it had destroyed his beautiful Achmed, yet he'd known it was foolish. These people were his enemies, but the only reason any of his people were still alive was because those enemies had taken them off the airless, powerless hulk which had once been a battlecruiser. And they, as he, had simply been doing their duty.

  Duty, he thought bitterly. Oh, yes. We did our duty, didn't we? And look where it's brought us all.

  A tall woman in a captain's skinsuit turned to face him, almond eyes dark with matching grief, and he nodded to her. Somehow the formality of a salute would have been out of place.

  "Stephen Holtz, PNS Achmed," he said in a rusty-sounding voice.

  "Honor Harrington, HMS Wayfarer, or what's left of her," she replied, and Holtz felt his eyes widen. So this was Honor Harrington. Just as dangerous as the intelligence reports suggested... and as good. Well, I suppose I've managed one thing no one else seemed able to do. She won't be pounding any more of our ships into wreckage.

  "I'm sorry your losses were so high," Harrington said. "As you can see, my own..." She shrugged, and Holtz nodded. There was no point in either of them hating the other. "We may be in a little better position than I'd thought," she went on more briskly. "It looks like we can get at least some backup Environmental on line. It'll be canned life support, but one of our main scrubber plants is still intact, and we've got one operable fusion plant. If we can duct to the scrubber, we'll have enough life support for four hundred or so. Which," she added with quiet bitterness, "will be more than enough." She inhaled deeply, then went on. "Unfortunately, we've only got six or seven environmental techs left, and all our engineering officers were casualties, so it's going to take a while."

  "My assistant engineer's still alive," Holtz offered. "He may be able to help."

  "Thank you," Harrington said simply, then looked him straight in the eye. "Our vectors carrying us lengthwise down the Rift, Captain, but we're angling towards the Silesian side. My best guess is that we've got about nine days before we drift into the Sachsen Wave and break up. That, of course, assumes the Selker Shear doesn't get us first. As I see it, our only real chance is to use the pinnaces to mount a sensor watch and hope one of your people comes looking for you so we can get a com message to them. If they get here in time," she drew a deep breath, "I will surrender myself and my people to you. For now, however, what's left of this ship is still a Queens ship, and I am in command."

  "Should we consider ourselves your prisoners in the meantime?" Holtz asked with a ghost of a smile. Both of them knew the chance of rescue was effectively nonexistent, yet both of them continued to play their roles, and the thought amused him.

  "I'd prefer for you to think of yourselves as our guests," Harrington said with a small, answering smile, and he nodded.

  "I can live with that," he said, and offered her his hand. She shook it firmly, and the skinsuited, six-limbed creature on her shoulder nodded gravely to him. Holtz amazed himself by nodding back, then waved at his small party of survivors. "And now, perhaps Citizen Commander Wicklow should get with your environmental techs, Captain," he said quietly.

  "We've got the backups on-line down in Environmental, Ma'am," an exhausted Ginger Lewis reported from DCC three hours later. "Commander Wicklow’s been a big help, and I think he's found a way to beat the temperature loss when we put in the ducting to the scrubber."

  "Good, Ginger. Good. And my quarters?"

  "We can't get pressure in there, Ma'am, there's just too much bulkhead damage. But the Bosun thinks she's found a way to get the module out."

  "She has?" Honor was relieved to hear it. Samantha's module was intact, but the bulkhead niche in which it was mounted had deformed badly, locking it in place. Samantha couldn't survive outside it, yet there'd seemed to be no way to get it out of Honor's day cabin.

  "Yes, Ma'am." Sally MacBride's voice came onto the circuit. "There's a serviceway behind the bulkhead. I can put in a crew with a torch and cut the entire bulkhead out, then take the module out through the serviceway. It'll be tight, but we can do it."

  "Thank you, Sally," Honor sighed. "Thank you very much. Can we spare anyone for it?"

  "Yes, Ma'am. After all," Honor heard the bosun's weary smile, "she's the only crewman still trapped. I've got your Candless with me; he and I can handle it ourselves."

  "Thank you," Honor said again. "And thank Jamie for me, please."

  "I will, Ma'am," MacBride assured her, and Honor looked up as Rafe Cardones paused beside her again.

  "I think we've got the immediate situation under control, Skipper."

  "Good. In that case, let's start getting the people fed." Honor waved at the tables, where volunteers had managed to assemble huge plates of sandwiches out of the mess compartments galley supplies. "We're going to have enough trouble from fatigue without adding mistakes induced by hunger and low blood sugar."

  "Agreed. And it should help morale some, too. God knows I could eat a kodiak max!"

  "Me, too," Honor said with a smile. "And once..."

  "Skipper! Skipper!"

  Honor jerked, jumping half out of her skin as the urgent voice blurted from her skinsuit com. It was Scotty Tremaine, mounting sensor watch in his pinnace with Horace Harkness, and she'd never heard such urgency in his voice.

  "Yes, Scotty?"

  "Skipper, I've got the most beautiful sight in the goddamned universe out here!" Scotty half-shouted, swearing in her hearing for the first time in her memory. "It's gorgeous, Skipper"

  "What's'gorgeous'?" she demanded.

  "Here, Skipper! Let me relay to you," he said instead of answering directly. Honor looked at Cardones in bafflement, and then another voice came over her suit com.

  "Wayfarer, this is Harold Sukowski, approaching from your zero-two-five, three-one-niner," it said. "I am aboard LAC Andrew with your Lieutenant Commander Hunter, with John, Paul, Thomas, and three shuttles in company. James and Thaddeus are keeping an eye on Artemis, but we thought you might like a ride home."

  Chapter FORTY-TWO

  Citizen Commander Warner Caslet and his officers followed the Manticoran Marine down the hall. A familiar man in a green uniform gave them a quick once over, then knocked on the frame of the opened door at the corridors end.

  "Citizen Commander Caslet and his off
icers, My Lady," Simon Mattingly said, and a clear soprano replied from the room beyond.

  "Send them in, please," it said, and Mattingly smiled and waved the Republican officers on. Somewhat to Caslet’s surprise, the Marine peeled off at the door, and Mattingly closed it quietly behind them, leaving them alone with Honor Harrington and Andrew LaFollet.

  Well, not quite alone. Two treecats sat on the back of her chair, the smaller, dapple-coated female pressed tight against the back of her neck while her mate hovered protectively. Caslet knew what had happened to Samantha's person, and he saw her loss in her body language, but he also sensed the loving support flowing to her from Nimitz and his person.

  "Please, be seated," Honor invited, waving to the chairs before her desk. The half-dozen Peeps sat at her gesture, and MacGuiness appeared to pour each of them a glass of wine.

  Honor leaned back to gaze at them, and Samantha slipped down from the chair back to huddle in her lap. Honor gathered the 'cat in her arms, hugging her as she would have hugged Nimitz, and felt Nimitz channeling her own support to Samantha. But even as she held the grieving treecat, her mind was flickering back over the last month's hectic events.

  She hadn't been able to believe it when Sukowski turned up. For all the brave front she'd projected, she'd known, not thought; known, they were all going to die. Changing her mind had been hard, even with the proof right in front of her, and then her elated relief had been replaced by a deep, terrible anger that Sukowski and Fuchien and her own detached LAC skippers could have run such an insane risk after Wayfarer had paid such a terrible price to buy Artemis' escape.

  She'd known at the time that her fury was born of her own whipsawed emotions, but the knowledge hadn't been enough to keep her from feeling it, and the haste with which Sukowski and Lieutenant Commander Hunter had begun explaining that they weren't really running a risk would have been hilarious had she been even one or two centimeters closer to rational.

  And, in fact, they had been careful. Artemis had dropped the LACs and her shuttles and then translated very cautiously down to the alpha bands without using her impellers at all, possible for such a slow translation, though only the best ship handler and engineer could have pulled it off, and hidden in the lower bands while Sukowski led the search mission towards Wayfarer's last known position. The LACs' sensors were inferior to those of a battlecruiser, but their impeller signatures were far weaker, as well; they would have seen any Peep long before the Peep could detect them in return, and all of them had been prepared to shut their own wedges down instantly.

  It was Sukowski who'd plotted their search pattern, and he'd done a good job. But they would probably have missed Wayfarers inert hulk if Scotty Tremaine and Horace Harkness hadn't picked them up on passive and guided them in, and Honor still woke shivering when she considered the odds against their success. Yet they'd done it. Somehow, they'd done it, and the four LACs and three long-range shuttles had lifted every surviving crewman, Manticoran and Peep alike, off Wayfarer.

  The chance that anyone would stumble across her before she blundered into a grav wave and broke up was less than minute, but Honor had made sure no one would. She'd set the nuclear demolition charge herself, with a twelve-hour delay, before she went aboard Andrew with Sukowski and Hunter.

  Space had been tight enough she'd ordered all baggage abandoned, but MacGuiness and her surviving armsmen had somehow smuggled the Harrington Sword and Key, her .45, and the golden plaque commemorating her record-setting sailplane flight at the Academy aboard Andrew. She'd picked up her holocube of Paul personally, but that was all she had left of everything she'd taken aboard, that, and her life, and Nimitz . .. and Samantha.

  The return flight to Artemis had been nerve-racking for everyone. Linking back up with something as small as a flight of LACs and shuttles after twice translating through two distinct sets of hyper bands was the sort of navigational feat legends were made of, but Margaret Fuchien had pulled it off. Artemis had risen slowly back into the delta bands, like a submarine surfacing from deep water, and she'd hit within less than two hundred thousand kilometers of Fuchien's estimated position. After that, it had been a straightforward if anxious proposition to drop back down into normal-space and spend ten days making repairs before creeping stealthily back up to the gamma bands and heading back for New Berlin. There'd been plenty to do, and Honor had thrown herself into assisting Fuchien in every way she could. Artemis' captain had been grateful, but Honor had known the real reason for her own industry. Miraculous as Sukowski's rescue had been, exhausting activity had been her only refuge from her dead.

  It had been the afternoon of the fourteenth day when Klaus Hauptman had asked quietly to be admitted to the cabin Fuchien had assigned Honor. Five of her twelve armsmen had died with the rest of her crew, but Jamie Candless had been her sentry when Hauptman arrived. Honor could still hear the cool contempt in Jamie's voice as he announced her visitor, and she'd seen the matching contempt in Andrew LaFollet's eyes as the magnate walked through the hatch. But neither armsman had been prepared for the reason behind his visit.

  "Lady Harrington," he'd said, "I've come to apologize." The words had come low and slow, but his tone had been firm, and Honor had felt his sincerity through Nimitz.

  "Apologize, Mr. Hauptman?" she'd replied in the most neutral voice she could manage.

  "Yes." He'd cleared his throat, then looked her squarely in the eye. "I don't like you, Milady. That makes me feel smaller than I'd like to feel, but whether I like you or not, I know I've treated you... badly. I won't go into all of it. I'll only say that I deeply regret it, and that it stops here. I owe you my life. More importantly, I owe you my daughter's life, and I believe in keeping my accounts squared, for better or worse, maybe that's part of what makes me such a son-of-a-bitch from time to time. But the debt I owe you is one that can't be repaid, and I know it. I can only say thank you and apologize for the way I've spoken to you, and of you, over the years. I was wrong in Basilisk, too, and I want you to know I realize that, as well."

  She'd looked back at him levelly, feeling his strain and recognizing how monumentally difficult it had been for him to say what he just had. She didn't like him, either, and she doubted she ever would, but in that moment, she'd come far closer to respecting him than she'd ever believed she might, and she'd nodded slowly.

  "I won't disagree with you, Sir," she'd said quietly, and if his eyes had flared, he'd taken it without protest. "As far as debts are concerned, my crew and I were simply doing our duty, and no repayment is necessary. But I will accept your apology, Mr. Hauptman."

  "Thank you," he replied, then surprised her with a small, wry smile. "And whether you see it that way or not, I know I still owe you more than I can ever hope to repay. If I or my cartel can ever serve you in any way, Lady Harrington, we're at your service."

  She'd simply nodded, and his smile had grown.

  "And now, My Lady, I have one request, which is that you and your treecat, or 'cats," he'd added, looking at Samantha "...will join me for dinner tonight."

  "Dinner?" She'd started to refuse politely, but he'd raised one hand almost pleadingly.

  "Please, Milady," he'd said, a proud and arrogant man asking a favor he knew he had no right to. "I would truly appreciate it. It's... important to me."

  "May I ask why, Sir?"

  "Because if you don't dine with me, my daughter will never believe I actually apologized to you," he'd admitted. "And if she doesn't, she may never speak to me again."

  He'd gazed at her with a raw appeal too strong to refuse, and she'd nodded.

  "Very well, Mr. Hauptman. We'll be there," she'd said, and, to her surprise, she'd actually enjoyed the meal. She and Stacey Hauptman had turned out to have a great deal in common, which had amazed her... and made her suspect there must be more to the man who could raise such a daughter than she'd ever believed Klaus Hauptman could have inside.

  Now she shook herself, brushing aside the memories, and looked at the prisoners of war she'd i
nvited to the room Herzog Rabenstrange had assigned her at the IAN’s main fleet base on Potsdam. The Andermani had not been pleased to learn the Peeps were operating raiders in their vicinity, and they were making their displeasure known through diplomatic channels. The decision to offer Honor's crew, and prisoners, the IAN’s hospitality until the RMN could retrieve them was another way to make the same point, and it hadn't been lost on the Havenite ambassador when he tried, unsuccessfully, to demand those prisoners be released to him.

  "Thank you for coming," she told those same prisoners now.

  "You're welcome, of course," Caslet replied with a wry smile. "Equally of course, we would have found it somewhat difficult to decline the invitation."

  "True." Honor smiled, then shrugged. "Herzog Rabenstrange is waiting to join us all for dinner. He'd like to meet you all, but the reason I asked you to stop here first was to tell you something Citizen Captain Holtz has already been informed of. At my recommendation, and with the approval of the Andermani and our ambassador to the Empire, you and all survivors from Achmed will be released to your ambassador in three days. We're attaching no conditions to your release."

  Caslet's smile froze, and she felt his alarm, and his fellows. She paused a moment, knowing she shouldn't but unable to resist the temptation, then cleared her throat and continued calmly.

  "Despite Citizen Commander Foraker's efforts to wheedle technical information out of my people," she said, watching Foraker blush under her level gaze, "none of you have observed anything which isn't already or won't very soon become available to your Navy through other sources. For example, you're aware our Q-ships mount heavy energy weapons and are able to deploy powerful salvos of missile pods, but by now other sources within the Confederacy have undoubtedly already sold that information to one of your many spies there. Accordingly, we can return you to the Republic without jeopardizing our own security, and given your services to Captain Sukowski and Commander Hurlman, not to mention Captain Holtz's people's efforts aboard Wayfarer, it would be churlish not to release you."