David Weber - At All Costs

Nimitz hit the back of a command chair, bounding towards Mears, but the cyclone of darts slammed into the chair. They missed the 'cat, but the chair literally exploded under him, and not even his reflexes could keep him from falling to the deck. He landed with his feet under him, already prepared to bound upward once again, but he'd lost too much time. He couldn't possibly reach the flag lieutenant before the pulser in Mears' hand found Honor.

Honor felt it coming. Felt the useless denial screaming in Timothy Mears' mind. Knew the flag lieutenant literally could not resist whatever hideous compulsion had seized him. Knew he would rather have died himself than do what he'd just done. What he was about to do.

She didn't think about it, not consciously. She simply reacted, just as she'd reacted by throwing Rafael Cardones out of the line of fire. Reacted with the trained instincts of over forty years of practice in the martial arts, and with the muscle memory she'd drilled into herself on the firing range under her Jason Bay mansion.

Her artificial left hand flexed oddly. It rose before her, forefinger rigid, and in the instant before Timothy Mears' fire reached her, the tip of that forefinger exploded as a five-dart burst of pulser fire ripped across the flag bridge and the flag lieutenant's head erupted in a ghastly spray of gray, red, and pulverized white bone.

"Your Grace, Captain Mandel is here," James MacGuiness said quietly.

Honor looked up from her console with a feeling of guilty relief. She'd gotten only a few hours of fitful sleep in the twenty-one hours since the massacre on her flag bridge, and she was still dealing with personal letters to the families of the dead. The message she'd already composed for Simon Mattingly's family had been bad enough; the one she was recording now, for Timothy Mears' parents, was far worse.

MacGuiness stood in the open hatch of the office workspace attached to her day cabin, and his expression was as haggard as she felt. Simon Mattingly had been his friend for over sixteen T-years, and Timothy Mears had been like a younger brother. Eighth Fleet's entire command structure was stunned by what had happened, but for some, Honor thought, it was far more personal than for others.

"Show the Captain in, please, Mac."

"Yes, Ma'am."

MacGuiness disappeared, and Honor saved what she'd already recorded for Timothy's parents. As she did, her eyes fell on the black glove on her left hand-the glove concealing the tattered last joint of her index finger-and she felt once again the terrible, tearing grief there'd been no time to feel then as she shot down all of the potential and youthful exuberance of the flag lieutenant who'd meant so much to her.

A throat cleared itself, and she looked up once more.

"Captain Mandel, Your Grace," the burly, broad-shouldered officer just inside the hatch, black beret tucked under his left epaulet and spine ramrod straight, said gruffly. He and the slightly taller, slender woman beside him both wore the insignia of the Office of Naval Intelligence. "And this," Mandel indicated his companion, "is Commander Simon."

"Come in, Captain, Commander." Honor pointed at the chairs in front of her desk. "Be seated."

"Thank you, Your Grace," Mandel said. Simon-Honor felt herself flinch inside as the commander's last name lacerated her sense of loss-said nothing, only smiled politely and waited a moment until Mandel had seated himself. Then she sat, as well, economically and neatly.

Honor regarded them thoughtfully, tasting their emotions. They were an interesting contrast, she decided.

Mandel's emotions were just as hard-edged as his physical appearance. He radiated bulldog toughness, but there was no sense of flexibility or give. Focused, intense, determined... all of those applied, yet she had the sense that he was a blunt instrument. A hammer, not a scalpel.

But Simon, now. Simon's emotions were very different from her outward appearance. She looked almost colorless-fair-haired, with a complexion almost as pale as Honor's own and curiously washed out looking blue eyes-and her body language appeared diffident, almost timid. But under that surface was a poised, 'cat-like huntress. An agile mind, coupled with intense curiosity and an odd combination of a puzzlesolver's abstract concentration and a crusader's zeal.

Of the two, Honor decided, Simon was definitely the more dangerous.

"Now, Captain," she said, after a moment, folding her hands atop her blotter, "what can I do for you and the Commander?"

"Obviously, Your Grace, everyone at Admiralty House-and in the Government at large, for that matter-takes a very grave view of what's happened," Mandel said. "Admiral Givens will be personally reviewing all our reports, and I've been instructed to inform you that Her Majesty will also be receiving them."

Honor nodded silently when he paused.

"Commander Simon is attached to counter-intelligence," Mandel continued. "My own specialty is CID, however, which means I'll be functioning as the lead investigator."

"Criminal Investigation Division is taking the lead?" Honor managed to keep the surprise out of her voice, but her eyes sharpened.

"Well, clearly what's happened here represents a serious security breach," Mandel replied. "The Commander has an obvious responsibility to determine how the penetration occurred. However, in a case like this, it's usually most efficient to allow an experienced criminal investigator to go over the ground first. We know what to look for, and we can often identify the points at which the perpetrator began acting abnormally." He shrugged. "With that to direct them to the point at which he was first recruited, the counter-intelligence types can hit the ground running."

"Perpetrator," Honor repeated, and to her own ears her voice was oddly flattened.

"Yes, Your Grace." Mandel radiated puzzlement at her comment, and she smiled thinly.

"Lieutenant Mears," she said quietly, "was a member of my staff for almost a full T-year. He was a diligent, responsible, conscientious young man. Had he lived, he would, I feel no doubt, have attained senior rank and discharged it well. He won't do that now, because I killed him. I would greatly appreciate it, Captain, if you could find some word other than 'perpetrator' with which to describe him."

Mandel looked at her, and something clicked into place behind his eyes. She could feel it, taste his sense of "Oh, that's what it was!" as he recognized-or thought he did-what he was dealing with.

"Your Grace," he said compassionately, "it's not unusual, especially this soon after something like this, for it to be difficult to accept that someone we knew and liked, trusted, wasn't exactly what we thought he was. I'm sure you feel responsible for the death of the 'conscientious young man' you killed. But you killed him in self-defense, and the fact that you had to demonstrates that he wasn't who or what you thought he was."

Honor's eyes narrowed, and she heard Nimitz's soft, sibilant hiss.

"Captain Mandel," she said even more quietly, "did you or did you not read my own report about what happened here?"

"Of course, Your Grace. I have a copy of it here." He tapped the microcomputer cased at his belt.

"In that case, you ought to be aware that Lieutenant Mears was not responsible for his actions," she said flatly. "He wasn't the 'perpetrator' of this crime, Captain; he was its first victim."

"Your Grace," Mandel said in patient tones, "I did, indeed, read your report. It was well written, concise, and to the point. However, you're a combat officer. You command ships and lead fleets in battle, and the entire Star Kingdom knows how well you do it. But you aren't a criminal investigator. I am, and while I don't doubt a single factual observation from your report, I'm afraid your conclusion that Lieutenant Mears was under some form of compulsion simply doesn't make sense. It's just not supported by the evidence."