Uncompromising honor, p.43
Uncompromising Honor, page 43
part #19 of Honor Harrington Series
“I beg your pardon?” This time, Megan did blink.
“After my own escapade, I got dragged kicking and screaming into the wonderful world of politics, Commander. Without any hereditary titles to hang on you, the Hypatians can’t do the same thing to you. Speaking with the voice of experience, I advise you to count your blessings.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that, Your Grace!” Megan shuddered.
“Well, don’t let your hopes get too high,” the duchess advised her. “Hypatia may not have a toy chest full of steadings and titles and things, but Her Majesty does. And, still speaking with the voice of experience, she likes to open it up for people who accomplish the sorts of things you accomplished. And, to be honest,” her expression softened and the hand on Megan’s shoulder squeezed once, firmly, “you deserve it. Everyone in your entire squadron deserves it, and I’m pretty sure Her Majesty will make her own feelings in that regard abundantly clear.”
“Your Grace, I’ve already got the only thing I could possibly have wanted,” Megan said softly.
“I know. Believe me, I know.” Harrington smiled oddly, and the treecat made a sound that seemed to fall somewhere between a soft croon and a laugh. “And I understand Commander Stob responds well to regen.”
“That’s what he’s been telling me, anyway.” Megan’s smile turned a bit tremulous. “I wouldn’t put it past him to lie about it, though.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, jaw tightening as memory replayed the moment when the HSP told her they’d recovered Jayson’s life pod…and another moment, the one in which she’d realized he’d lost both legs.
Sixty people. That was how many they’d recovered alive out of the 1,948 men and women aboard Phantom, Shikomizue, Talwar, and Cinqueda. Three percent. And one of them—miracle of miracles—had been the man she loved. At that instant, she hadn’t cared about his legs; she’d cared about his life.
“As a matter of fact, he isn’t—lying, I mean,” the duchess assured her with a smile. “Personally, I don’t regenerate at all, so I made a point of asking about all your people from the squadron. As it happens, I have pretty fair contacts here at Bassingford, so I didn’t get any nonsense about patient confidentiality, and the only one who doesn’t is Commander Ilkova. Mind you, Commander Stob’s going to be in what my father refers to—somewhat inelegantly—as the ‘body shop’ for quite a while, but in the end, you’ll get him back in one piece, I promise.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Megan said sincerely.
Somehow, coming from Duchess Harrington, that reassurance went deeper than it had coming from mere doctors or even Jayson himself. Was that because she knew Harrington had paid the price of combat more than once herself? Or was it simply something about the woman the newsies called the Salamander?
“Well, I just wanted to tell you how incredibly well I think you performed.” The duchess’s voice was brisker, and she patted Megan’s shoulder once, then stood back. “Until my pinnace grounded, I didn’t realize you’d be here so I could tell you that in person. I’m glad I had the chance, but my real motive in coming dirt-side was to have lunch with my parents, and my dad, especially, doesn’t have a lot of flex in his schedule anymore, so I’m afraid I have to get a move on. Especially since I need to drop in on Admiral Kotouč while I’m here.” She shook her head. “He’s going to be in the shop even longer than your fiancé, I’m afraid.”
“I’m just glad he’s here to be in it, Your Grace,” Megan said frankly, and Harrington nodded.
“You and me, both,” she said. “And I imagine he’s at least as prone to ‘survivor’s guilt’ as you are.” The duchess’s nostrils flared and her lips tightened for just a moment. “Trust me, that’s something else I know a little about, Commander. Fortunately, I had Nimitz. You don’t, but be smarter than I was. Talk to the counselors here at Bassingford.”
“I’m already talking to them, Your Grace.”
“Good woman!” Harrington smiled broadly and this time, she punched Megan lightly on the same shoulder. “Not only a good tactician, but a wise one, too! I see great things in your future, Commander. And at the risk of sounding rude, would I be too far out of line if I invited myself to your wedding?”
“To our wedding?” Megan managed to get her mouth shut again after a moment. “We’d be honored! It never occurred to me that—”
Words failed her, and the duchess chuckled, but her expression was serious when she spoke again.
“The honor will be mine, Commander. Trust me, the honor will be mine.”
“There you are!” Crown Princess Consort Rivka Rosenfeld-Winton exclaimed as Honor stepped out of the old-fashioned elevator in King Michael’s Tower with Spencer Hawke on her heels.
“Your Highness,” Honor replied with a faint smile.
“I’ll ‘Your Highness’ you!” Rivka said, reaching out to take both of Honor’s hands in hers and squeeze. “I’ve got a ribbon cutting in Haynes Port I’m already late for, so I can’t stay right now, but Roger and I would love to have you join us for supper! How long will you be in Landing?”
“Only about another six hours, I’m afraid.” Honor grimaced. “I’m on my way to Admiralty House from here for a conference, and as soon as it’s over, I’ve got to head back to Imperator. Now that you’re an experienced married woman, you can probably figure out why I’m not especially happy I won’t be able to spend the night dirt-side.”
“Actually, I can’t imagine why,” Rivka said innocently, and Honor snorted.
“Of course you can’t. Tell me, have your loving subjects started talking to you about heirs to the Crown the way my loving steaders have been talking to me about heirs to the Key?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure it’s coming.” Rivka shook her head. “You’d think that as long as we’ve had prolong…”
“Hah!” Honor snorted again, this time with magnificent disdain. “Maybe someplace where they don’t think in terms of dynasties! Although, at that, Manticorans aren’t quite as…obsessive about it as Graysons. Trust me, no one’s cutting me a pass in Harrington Steading! Not,” she added with a judicious air, “that the preliminaries to produce heirs don’t make up for a lot, now that I think about it.”
“True,” Rivka agreed with a smile. “Very true. Thank you for helping me keep this in perspective.”
“One of the things I’m here for,” Honor reassured her. “And now, I believe I have an appointment with your mother-in-law.”
“And how was lunch with your parents?” Elizabeth Adrienne Samantha Annette Winton inquired as the lieutenant from the Queen’s Own opened the sitting room door and ushered Honor through it.
Honor nodded her thanks to their guide—not that she’d actually needed guiding after so many years—and Major Hawke peeled off to join the sergeant standing post outside the door.
“Lunch was good, if a little on the hurried side,” she said, crossing the room to hug the woman who was arguably the most powerful monarch in the explored galaxy. “I thought I’d allowed plenty of time, but Admiral Kotouč was conscious. He wasn’t much in the mood for small talk, but Nimitz and I needed to have a word with him.” Her expression sobered. “He’s not taking what happened to his squadron well, Elizabeth.”
“I’m not surprised.” The Empress waved her into one of the worn, comfortable armchairs. “After the last twenty odd T-years, I’ve had entirely too much experience with people who have to deal with something like that. And I’ve discovered that being the Queen—or even the Empress—doesn’t make me feel one bit better when people go out and die for me.”
She sighed, her eyes sad, then shook herself.
“Still,” she said in a brighter voice, “I’m sure you and Nimitz did him a world of good.”
“Not us so much as Commander Ilkova,” Honor said.
“Oh, really?” Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose.
“Oh, definitely ‘really’!” Honor rolled her eyes. “Not that either of them is saying a word about it yet to the other one. Trust me, though, they’re both picking up on what the other one isn’t saying, if you take my meaning. I think they’re probably smarter than Hamish and me, too.”
“Is Article One-Nineteen going to be a problem for them?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Honor said. “One thing I’ve never had a taste for is hypocrisy, Elizabeth! But from Ilkova’s mind-glow, I’d say there’s not much chance of her letting Kotouč get away. And from his mind-glow, he won’t be trying to!”
“Wise man.”
Elizabeth’s tone was even drier than Honor’s had been. Then she leaned back in her own chair, her eyes darker.
“I’ve been keeping tabs on his condition myself,” she said. “We need him back, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that he seems to be doing so well. But this whole ‘Operation Buccaneer’ has me worried, Honor. Worried a lot.”
“It should,” Honor replied. Nimitz flowed from her chairback. He sat upright in her lap, leaning back against her, and she wrapped her arms about him and rested her chin between his ears. “It should. This was a lot uglier than I expected it to get, even after Cachalot. Than any of us expected, I think. Which probably says something about our own wishful thinking, in the end.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I never saw it coming, either.”
“Maybe that’s because not even the People’s Republic at its worst went around casually embracing Eridani violations. Of course, we’re not dealing with the Peeps anymore, are we? We’re dealing with the Solarian League, the shining beacon to which all the rest of the galaxy aspires!”
Elizabeth winced at the bitterness of Honor’s tone.
“Is it confirmed that the Mandarins did sign off on Hajdu’s decisions?” the Empress asked after a moment.
“Not on his time limit, but, yes. They sent him out with specific authorization to execute ‘Buccaneer’ against Hypatia. We pulled his orders out of what was left of Lepanto’s computers. They’ve upgraded their security software since we hammered Filareta, but we’d gotten too good a look inside first, and Arngrim brought back Lepanto’s actual data core. It was in pretty bad shape, but our cyber people cracked its security protocols within six hours of getting their hands on it. I think the Sollies need better cybernauts of their own.”
“I’m sure they’ll come up with them entirely too soon to make any of us happy,” Elizabeth observed, and Honor snorted in agreement.
“Anyway, we’ve got what we believe is a complete copy of the Buccaneer ops plan and orders,” she continued, “and even if Hajdu wasn’t sent out with a specific timeframe for his response to Vangelis’s rejection of Yang-O’Grady’s ultimatum, I doubt anyone in Old Chicago would have objected to the one he picked.”
“Are you sure about that?” Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t just a case of an out-of-control admiral reinterpreting his orders to suit himself?”
“Elizabeth, I haven’t had time to sit down and discuss this in detail with Pat or anybody else at Admiralty House yet. That’s where I’m going from here, and Tom Theisman and Tom Caparelli will be joining us. But we’ve been tapped in well enough to know they were getting desperate even before they came up with Buccaneer. Just based on that and what I’ve already seen of the ops plan, I’m pretty darn sure he didn’t do much ‘reinterpreting.’ In fact, he may not have done any at all. There’s something in the basic Buccaneer plan called ‘Parthian Shot.’”
“‘Parthian Shot’?” Elizabeth repeated, and Honor nodded.
“It’s a reference to an ancient Old Earth cavalry tactic.” She grimaced. “Apparently, the SLN isn’t very good at picking deceptive codenames. I doubt it would even occur to them to name a decisive offensive operation ‘Buttercup,’ for example! But, the Parthians—and quite a few other light cavalry forces—used a tactic in which they turned in the saddle and fired arrows at their pursuers while fleeing at a full gallop.”
“They—?” Elizabeth began, then broke off, her eyes widening, and Honor nodded again.
“Exactly,” she said grimly. “Their task force commanders are specifically authorized to ‘launch and leave’ in the face of anything like serious opposition. No delays to let civilians evacuate…and if they happen to deorbit a few megatons of wreckage onto an inhabited planet, well, that’s just too bad.”
Elizabeth sat back, shaking her head slowly, and it was Ariel’s turn to flow down into her lap. The two women sat there, hugging their ’cats while the horrific potential consequences of the tactic flowed through them.
After the Yawata Strike, it didn’t take much imagination.
“What’s worse, in some ways,” Honor continued, “is that we have an at least partial list of their objectives. Cachalot’s on it—we already knew that, even if Capriotti’s obviously a very different breed of cat from Hajdu and Gogunov—but so are half a dozen other star systems, Elizabeth. Most of them are neutrals where we don’t have any naval presence to do anything about it, too. I guess the one good side of that is that if we don’t have anybody there to reprise Kotouč’s accomplishment at Hypatia, that ought to at least deprive their COs of any excuse to resort to ‘Parthian.’ But it’s going to be ugly when the other reports start coming in, and we’ll have to respond to it somehow. That’s another thing both Toms and Hamish and I will be kicking around at Admiralty House.”
“How can we respond?” Elizabeth demanded. “Unless we want to start breaking up Grand Fleet, at least!”
“Mycroft will be completely up and running in Beowulf by early next month,” Honor replied. “It’s already up here in the home system, and Nouveau Paris will be covered in another couple of months. That’ll let us free up at least a half-dozen additional squadrons of wallers, if we need to. But, frankly, superdreadnoughts aren’t what we need. Oh,” she waved one hand as Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose, “they’d do the job, all right, but deploying superdreadnought divisions for area coverage would be like using a sledgehammer to crack walnuts. It works, but there’s a certain degree of overkill involved. Besides, if the Sollies see two or three podnoughts waiting for them, that’ll almost certainly trigger ‘Parthian.’ And even with Mycroft, we don’t begin to have enough SD(P)s to be spreading them broadcast around the galaxy. We probably have enough to cover the most strategically important neutral systems, the ones whose trade with us makes them obvious Buccaneer targets. That may be what we need to do, however little I like the thought, but I’m going to fight tooth and nail against any more diversions from Grand Fleet than we absolutely have to make.”
“Why?”
Elizabeth’s tone was honestly curious, and Honor gave a short, sharp laugh.
“Well, whatever Hamish may say when he’s feeling feisty, it’s not because they’re ‘my’ superdreadnoughts and I don’t want to share!”
“He would say something like that, wouldn’t he?”
“Only to me—thank God!” Honor shook her head. “However, I do have several reasons for resisting dispersal. One is the need to maintain a concentrated striking force—we’ve already sent a substantial chunk of fighting power off with Tourville to reinforce Mike and the Talbott Quadrant, and I’d just as soon not get into the habit of frittering away our ‘mailed fist.’ If we decide the strategic balance is shifting enough that we have to rethink our stance and take the offensive, I want as much striking power concentrated in one place as we can get. But that’s secondary, really. My main objection is more psychological than anything else, to be honest.”
“Psychological?” Elizabeth seemed surprised.
“I don’t want the Mandarins to think they’ve succeeded in compelling us to significantly redistribute our battle fleet, Elizabeth. That’s the primary objective of a strategy like this one. I don’t believe for a moment that they have the technological and tactical wherewithal to take advantage of our response if we were to weaken ourselves here by redistributing Grand Fleet. And absent some new hardware we don’t know about yet, I’d be surprised if anyone on their side’s stupid enough to think they do—now that Rajampet’s dead, at any rate. It’s possible that the Alignment might try to take advantage of any dispersal, but everything we’ve seen from the Yawata Strike analysis says we have to worry about stealth, not massive firepower, where they’re concerned. Mycroft and Apollo are more than capable of killing anything the Alignment could possibly send in; we just have to see it first, and stacking superdreadnoughts up in heaps won’t expand our sensors’ reach. So I don’t see a defensive downside to spreading our capital ships out a bit.
“But if the Mandarins believe they’re compelling us to dance to their piping, it’s likely to give them a greater sense of self-confidence. There was a general back on Old Earth who was a great proponent of maintaining what we call ‘psychological dominance’ these days. He called it ‘putting the scare’ into the other side, and when we’re up against something the size of the Solarian League, we need them as scared of us as possible. What we don’t need is them convincing themselves they don’t need to fear us. Or even simply that they don’t need to fear us as much as they did. Because if they decide that’s the case, they’re likely to start thinking in terms of more operations as stupid as Raging Justice, at which point the death toll—most of it Solly—will skyrocket again.”
“I can see that,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “But, Honor, if we don’t find a way to keep them from ‘Buccaneering’ one system after another, won’t that have the same effect? Which doesn’t even consider the impact on billions of innocent bystanders!”
“When word of what happened at Hypatia gets home, Old Chicago may rethink the whole concept. I don’t really expect it, but it’s possible. In the meantime, I think there may be a better tactical solution than scattering SD(P)s hither and yon, though. Given what Phantom and three Saganami-Bs accomplished in Hypatia, I’m more convinced than ever that the Mark 16 can handle about anything the Sollies throw at us. So I’m going to propose we redeploy the Agamemnons. I’d really prefer to use Nikes, if we had them, but we don’t, and given what Kotouč’s people accomplished with no pods at all, I think a division or two of Agamemnons should be plenty to rain on any Solly’s parade. We’ve only got a hundred or so of them, and only the Flight IIs have Keyhole, so they couldn’t duplicate Phantom’s tactics—not fully. On the other hand, the Demonic Duo may have come up with a stopgap solution to that particular problem.”
