Mission of Honor

by David Weber

  "And there's another aspect to this, too," Denis LePic observed. "Obviously Tom and his people are a lot more qualified to speak to the purely military implications of this attack, but Wilhelm Trajan's people over at Foreign Intelligence have been kicking it around, as well. They're looking less at what kind of hardware might have been used and more at why it was used in the first place . . . and by whom. They've come to the conclusion that it couldn't have been the Sollies, for a lot of reasons, including the timing. And we know it wasn't us. That leaves the famous 'parties unknown,' and based on what's been happening in the Talbott Cluster, suspicion's focusing on Manpower. Unfortunately, that raises at least as many questions as it may answer.

  "For example, where did a transstellar corporation—or the Mesa System's official government, for that matter—get its hands on the military muscle to do something like this? And assuming it had the capability in the first place, why aim it at Manticore? And if Manticore is its target, and it had this sort of capability, why try to maneuver the Sollies into the mix? And if it turns out that Manpower—or whoever Manpower's fronting for—has ambitions where Manticore's concerned, how do we know those are the only ambitions it has out here in the 'Haven Quadrant'?"

  He leaned back in his chair and looked around the table.

  "We don't have answers to any of those questions. Given that, I'd be extraordinarily cautious about concluding that my enemy's enemy must be my friend."

  "Those are all valid points, Denis," Nesbitt acknowledged after a moment. "Still, given the size of the Manty merchant fleet and the huge advantages the Manticoran Wormhole Junction provide to it, I can think of a lot of reasons that wouldn't have anything to do with us for someone to be interested in picking off Manticore."

  "Maybe," Stan Gregory said. "On the other hand, don't forget the real reason the Manties and Manpower have been busting each other's chops for so long. They're probably the only people in the galaxy, outside of Beowulf, at least, who're every bit as serious as we are about enforcing the Cherwell Convention. In regard to which, let's all remember what happened in Congo five months ago. And Mesa's Green Pines fantasy. Not to mention who most probably tried to kill Queen Berry, since we know damned well it wasn't us."

  "A very good point," Theisman agreed. "Of course, it raises another question. If Manpower has, or even just has access to, the hardware that let them get in and out of the Manticore Binary System without even being detected, why did they use a bunch of ex-StateSec 'mercenaries' against Torch? Why not just blitz the Congo System and then send in a couple of conventional cruisers and a brigade of Marines to sweep up the pieces?"

  "To preserve secrecy until they were ready to pull the trigger on Manticore itself?" Nesbitt suggested. "To try to point the Manties' suspicion at us, because of the StateSec connection?

  "Either of those might make sense," Theisman acknowledged, "although, frankly, the first seems a lot more likely to me. After all, they know the Manties aren't idiots and that Admiral Givens has to've figured out someone was hiring and supporting SS refugees, so it seems a lot less plausible they'd think they could implicate us. Still, it's possible, I suppose. And the fact that we can't rule out even your second suggestion only emphasizes what the President and Denis are both saying. We don't know anything about the thinking behind this. My own view is that we can't afford to assume anything about anything at this point. Certainly, speaking as Secretary of War, I can't offer any assurances about our ability to prevent the same thing from happening to us. And given our abysmal ignorance about this entire episode, the fact that I can't think of any good reason for someone to do it to us as well doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."

  * * *

  "Well what do you think?" Pritchart asked some time later.

  Most of the cabinet secretaries had departed, leaving her with Theisman, LePic, and Montreau. Not only were they her key advisers on military affairs, intelligence, and foreign policy, but Montreau had joined the other two as one of her closest political allies.

  The Secretary of State remained aware of her status as the newest member of Pritchart's inner circle, however, and she glanced at Theisman and LePic, as if waiting for one of them to respond. When neither of them spoke up immediately, she shrugged.

  "I think we just spent the last hour and a half thrashing around and basically admitting to one another that we don't know a damned thing about a damned thing, at present," she said frankly. "I also think that between you, you, Tom, and Denis managed to at least cool Tony's ardor for suddenly getting more aggressive at the peace table, though—assuming there's any more peace table to get aggressive at. I wish I could feel more confident Henrietta's convinced that this isn't the time to start pushing back as well, though."

  "I wish we knew more," Pritchart fretted, with an openness she would have risked with very few other people. "You're right, we don't know a damned thing." She looked at LePic. "Have Wilhelm's people got any leads, Denis?"

  "None I haven't already shared with you." LePic grimaced. "I wish we had confirmation one way or the other about Cachat and Zilwicki! If anyone might be able to shed at least a little light on whatever the hell is going on in Mesa and with Manpower, it would be them."

  "You don't think that whatever they got involved with led to this, do you?" Montrose asked. The others looked at her, and she shrugged. "I don't see how it could have, myself, but as Denis just implied, we don't have a clue what's going on inside Mesa, whatever we used to think we knew about it. Since that's true, we can't know if Officer Cachat and Captain Zilwicki didn't stumble across something that provoked whoever's really calling the shots into attacking Manticore."

  "I think that's unlikely, Leslie," Theisman said. "This was obviously a carefully planned and prepared operation. I don't think it was a panic reaction, and given how long ago Zilwicki, at least, was killed on Mesa without anyone here or in Manticore making any huge new revelations, they're probably feeling pretty confident on that front."

  "I'm still not prepared to write Cachat off," LePic said stubbornly. Theisman looked skeptical, and the attorney general shrugged. "I'm not saying I expect him to make it home this time, just that he's managed to run between the raindrops so long that I'm not going to accept he's actually dead until someone delivers his body. And even then, I'll want proof it wasn't a clone!"

  "Well," Pritchart said, "I'm going to hope you're right, Denis, and not just because lunatic or not, he's our lunatic. As you say, if he's been poking around Manpower, maybe he can give us at least some clue as to what the hell's going on. In fact, I've had a disturbing thought, one that occurred to me after Tom's briefing."

  "I've had quite a few of those myself," Theisman observed. "Which one were you referring to?"

  "You made the point that we don't know what whoever hit Manticore's ultimate objectives may be, but we have to suspect Manpower's involved, for all the reasons you enumerated. And then we have Cachat's suspicion that Manpower was involved in the attempt on Queen Berry from which it's only a short step to their being involved with Admiral Webster's assassination in Old Chicago. For which"—her eyes bored suddenly into Theisman's—"some form of suicidal compulsion appears to have been used. Very much, now that I think about it. like what happened to a certain Yves Grosclaude."

  It was suddenly very, very quiet.

  "Are you suggesting Manpower was working with Giancola?" LePic asked very carefully.

  "No, I'm suggesting Arnold was working with Manpower," Pritchart replied grimly. "If they're willing—and able—to manipulate the Solarian League into going to war with the Manties, why in the world wouldn't they figure they could do the same with us? I mean, look how much easier it would be, given the fact that we didn't even have a formal peace treaty from our last war!"

  "My God." Montreau shook her head almost numbly, her face suddenly ashen."That never even occurred to me!"

  "No reason it should have, before," Pritchart pointed out.

  "It's possible we're seeing conspiracies where th
ere aren't any," Theisman said warningly.

  "I know. And the only thing more dangerous than not seeing conspiracies that are there is seeing ones that aren't," Pritchart acknowledged. "But talking about conspiracies and suicidal assassins, there's that attempt on Alexander-Harrington, too. We know we didn't do it, although I've never blamed the Manties for figuring we were the ones with the best motive. But if Manpower's been moving chess pieces around like this, and if they have the technology—or whatever—they used to control the assassin who killed Webster and that poor patsy who carried out the Torch attack, why shouldn't they have tried to pick off one of the Manties' best military commanders? Especially if the object of the exercise was for us to trash Manticore for them?"

  "Oh, how I do hope you're engaging in flights of paranoia," Theisman said after a moment.

  "So do I I think." Pritchart frowned thoughtfully for several seconds, then gave herself a shake.

  "Maybe I am indulging my paranoia, but maybe I'm not, too. You know, I almost went ahead and told Alexander-Harrington about Arnold."

  The other three stared at her, visibly aghast, and she chuckled.

  "I did say 'almost,'" she pointed out. "Frankly, does anyone in this room think she wouldn't have been more likely to respect my confidence then several members of Congress we could mention right off hand?"

  "Put that way, I suppose she would have," Theisman admitted.

  "There's no 'supposing' to it," LePic said sourly. "Younger? McGwire?" He shuddered.

  "Now, I almost wish I'd gone ahead and told her," Pritchart continued thoughtfully. "Given the depth and murkiness of the water we're all floundering around in at the moment, I'd really like to know what she'd think about the possibility of a Giancola-Manpower connection."

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Honor Alexander-Harrington sat silently on her flag bridge as HMS Invictus decelerated steadily towards the planet of her birth. Nimitz was on the back of her command chair, but not lying stretched along it as he usually was. Instead, he sat bolt upright, gazing into the visual display with her. The two of them might have been carved out of stone, and the silence on the bridge was absolute.

  Honor's expression was calm, almost serene, but inside, where thoughts and emotions ought to have been, there was only a vast, singing silence, as empty as the vacuum beyond her flagship's hull.

  She no longer needed to look at the plot. Its icons had already told her how short of reality her dread had fallen. The space about the system's two inhabited planets was crowded with shipping, showing far greater numbers of impeller signatures than would have been permitted in such proximity when Eighth Fleet departed for the Haven System. But those ships weren't the evidence her fears might have been too dark—that the damage had actually been less severe than she'd dreaded. No, those ships were the proof it had been even worse, for they were still only sorting through the wreckage, better than two weeks after the actual attack, and warning beacons marked prodigious spills of debris—and bodies—which had once been the heart and bone of the Star Empire of Manticore's industrial might.

  It's odd, a corner of her brain whispered. There was wreckage after the Battle of Manticore, too, but not like this. Oh, no. Not like this. This time every single warship we lost was caught docked, not destroyed in action. And most of the dead are civilians this time.

  A sense of failure flowed through her, steadily, with all the patience of an ocean, and with it came shame. A dark guilt that burned like chilled vitriol, for she had failed in the solemn promise she'd made when she was seventeen T-years old. The vow she'd kept for all the years between then and now—honored with a fidelity which only made her present failure infinitely worse. This was exactly what she'd joined the Navy all those years ago to prevent. This was the wreckage of her star nation, these were the bodies of her civilians, and all of it was the work of enemies she was supposed to have stopped before they ever got close enough to play atrocity's midwife.

  Nimitz made a small, soft sound of protest, and she felt him leaning forward, pressing against the back of her neck. She knew, in the part of her brain where conscious thought lived, that he was right. She hadn't even been here. When this attack came sweeping through her star system like a tsunami, she'd been over a light-century away, doing her best to end a war. She wasn't the one who'd let it past her.

  But however right he might have been, he was still wrong, she thought grimly. No, she hadn't been here. But she was a full admiral in her queen's service. She was one of the Royal Navy's most senior officers, one of the people who planned and executed its strategy.

  One of the people responsible for visualizing threats and stopping them.

  Invictus settled into orbit, farther out than usual to clear the debris fields which had once been Her Majesty's Space Station Vulcan, and she gazed at the image of her home world, so far below.

  "Excuse me, Your Grace," a voice said quietly.

  Honor turned her head and looked at Lieutenant Commander Harper Brantley, her staff communications officer.

  "Yes, Harper?"

  It was wrong, she thought, that her voice should sound so ordinary, so normal.

  "You have a communications request," Brantley told her. "It's from the Admiralty, Your Grace," he added when she arched an eyebrow. "The request is coded private."

  "I see." She stood, held out her arms, and caught Nimitz as he leapt gracefully into them. "I'll take it in my briefing room," she continued, cradling the 'cat as she walked across the bridge.

  "Yes, Ma'am."

  Honor felt Waldemar Tümmel watching her. Her young flag lieutenant had been hit even harder than most of her personnel by the news from home, given that his parents and two of his four siblings had all lived aboard Hephaestus. Their deaths hadn't yet been confirmed—not as far as anyone aboard Invictus knew, at any rate—but there was no optimism in his bleak emotions. She'd done her best to reach out to him during the voyage back to Manticore by way of Trevor's Star, tried to help him through his anxious grief, but she'd failed. Worse, she didn't know if she'd failed because that grief was too deep or because her own mingled grief and guilt had kept her from trying hard enough.

  Yet despite everything, he continued to do his duty. Partly because its familiar demands were comforting, something he could cling to and concentrate upon to distract himself from thoughts of his family. Even more, though, she knew, it was because it was his duty. Because he refused to allow what had happened to his universe to prevent him from discharging his responsibilities.

  Now she felt him wondering if she would need him in the briefing room, and she looked at him long enough to shake her head. He gazed at her for an instant, then nodded and settled back into his bridge chair.

  Spencer Hawke, on the other hand, never even hesitated. He simply followed his Steadholder across her flag bridge and into the briefing room, then arranged himself against the bulkhead behind her.

  Honor felt him there, at her back. Technically, she supposed, she should have instructed him to wait outside the briefing room door, given the security code Brantley had said the message carried. That thought had crossed her mind more than once over the years, in similar situations, yet it had never even occurred to her to actually do it with Andrew LaFollet, and she knew she would never do it with Hawke, either. He was a Grayson armsman, and he would guard his steadholder's secrets with the same iron fidelity with which he guarded her life.

  She seated herself, set Nimitz on the conference table to one side of her terminal, and brought up the display.

  "Put it through, Harper," she told the com officer when his image appeared.

  "Yes, Ma'am," he replied, and disappeared, to be replaced almost instantly by a brown-haired, brown-eyed man of average build in the uniform of a captain of the list. She recognized him immediately.

  "Good afternoon, Jackson," she said.

  "Good afternoon, Your Grace," Captain Jackson Fargo replied quietly. "It's good to see you home again, although I wish it were under other circumsta
nces."

  "I know." She smiled briefly at the man who headed Hamish Alexander-Harrington's Admiralty House staff. "It's good to see you again, too, with the same proviso."

  "Thank you, Your Grace." Fargo gave her a small half-bow, then cleared his throat. "The First Lord asked me to screen you. He's actually on Sphinx at this moment. Well, more accurately, he's aboard a shuttle which happens to be headed in your direction at this moment. His ETA is about twelve minutes, and he asked me to tell you he would very much like to join you aboard your flagship when he arrives, if that would be convenient."

  A tiny flicker of joy flashed like distant lightning across the horizon of the emptiness within her, and she felt herself smiling ever so slightly.

  "I believe, Captain," Lady Dame Honor Alexander-Harrington told him, "that I'll be able to find the time somehow."

  * * *

  God, he looks terrible!

  The thought flicked through Honor's mind the instant Hamish swung across the boarding tube's interface and into the internal gravity of Invictus' boat bay.

  She felt Nimitz's agreement and tasted a fresh stab of the treecat's own concern as Samantha looked across at them from her perch on Hamish's shoulder. Nimitz's mate looked worn, exhausted. Her normally immaculate pelt was almost disheveled, and her tail hung down Hamish's back like the banner of a defeated army.