David Weber - Mission of Honor

“In what sense?” She tilted her head to one side.

“In two senses, I suppose.”

“Whether or not I would have fired if you hadn’t surrendered?”

“That’s one of them,” he admitted.

“All right. In that sense, I wasn’t bluffing at all,” she said levelly. “If you hadn’t surrendered, and accepted my terms in full, I would have opened fire on Second Fleet from beyond any range at which you could have effectively replied, and I would have gone right on firing until whoever was left in command surrendered or every single one of your ships was destroyed.”

Silence hovered between them for several moments that seemed oddly endless. It was a taut, singing silence—a mutual silence built of the understanding of two professional naval officers. And yet, despite its tension, there was no anger in it. Not anymore. The anger they’d both felt at the time had long since vanished into something else, and if she’d had to pick a single word to describe what the two of them felt now, it would have been “regret.”

“Well, that certainly answers my first question,” he said finally, smiling crookedly. “And I suppose I’m actually relieved to hear it.” Her eyebrows arched, and he snorted. “I’ve always thought I was a pretty good poker player. I would’ve hated to think I’d misread you quite that badly at the time.”

“I see.” She shook her head with a slight smile of her own. “But you said there were two senses?”

“Yes.” He leaned forward, propping his forearms on his thighs, and his eyes were very sharp. “The other ‘bluff’ I’ve been wondering about is whether or not you really could have done it from that range?”

Honor swung her chair from side to side in a small, thoughtful arc while she considered his question. Theoretically, what he was asking edged into territory covered by the Official Secrets Act. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if he was going to be e-mailing the information to the Octagon. Besides…

“No,” she said after no more than two or three heartbeats. “I couldn’t have. Not from that range.”

“Ah.” He sat back once more, his crooked smile going even more crooked. Then he inhaled deeply. “Part of me really hated to hear that,” he told her. “Nobody likes finding out he was tricked into surrendering.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again, and he chuckled. It was a surprisingly genuine chuckle, and the amusement behind it was just as genuine, she realized. And it was also oddly gentle.

“You wanted my databases intact,” he said. “We both know that. But I know what else you were going to say, as well.”

“You do?” she asked when he paused.

“Yep. You were going to say you did it to save lives, but you were afraid I might not believe you, weren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say I thought you wouldn’t believe me,” she replied thoughtfully. “I guess the real reason was that I was afraid it would sound… self-serving. Or like some sort of self-justification, at least.”

“Maybe it would have, but that doesn’t change the fact that Second Fleet was completely and utterly screwed.” He grimaced. “There was no way we were going to get out of the resonance zone and make it into hyper before you were in range to finish us off. All that was going to happen in the meantime was that more people were going to get killed on both sides without changing the final outcome at all.”

Honor didn’t say anything. There was no need to, and he crossed his legs slowly, his expression thoughtful.

“All right,” he said. “With the stipulation that any classified information is off the table, I’ll answer your questions.”

“So you’re satisfied with our own security position at the moment, Wesley?”

Benjamin IX, Protector of Grayson, leaned back in his chair, watching the uniformed commander in chief of the Grayson Space Navy across his desk. Wesley Matthews looked back at him, his expression a bit surprised, then nodded.

“Yes, Your Grace, I am,” he said. “May I ask if there’s some reason you think I shouldn’t be?”

“No, not that I think you shouldn’t be. On the other hand, I have it on excellent authority that certain questions are likely to be raised in the Conclave of Steadholders’ New Year’s session.”

Matthews’ expression went from slightly surprised to definitely sour and he shook his head in disgusted understanding.

The two men sat in Benjamin Mayhew’s private working office in Protector’s Palace. At the moment, the planet Grayson’s seasons were reasonably coordinated with those of mankind’s birth world, although they were drifting slowly back out of adjustment, and heavy snow fell outside the palace’s protective environmental dome. The larger dome which Skydomes of Grayson was currently erecting to protect the entire city of Austen was still only in its embryonic stages, with its preliminary girder work looming against the darkly clouded sky like white, furry tree trunks or—for those of a less cheerful disposition—the strands of some vast, frosted spiderweb. Outside the palace dome, clearly visible through its transparency from the bookcase-lined office’s window, crowds of children cheerfully threw snowballs at one another, erected snowmen, or skittered over the steep, cobbled streets of the Old Town on sleds. Others shrieked in delight as they rode an assortment of carnival rides on the palace grounds themselves, and vendors of hot popcorn, hot chocolate and tea, and enough cotton candy and other items of questionable dietary value to provide sugar rushes for the next several days could be seen nefariously plying their trade on every corner.

What couldn’t be clearly seen from Matthews’ present seat were the breath masks those children wore, or the fact that their gloves and mittens would have served the safety requirements of hazardous materials workers quite handily. Grayson’s high concentrations of heavy metals made even the planet’s snow potentially toxic, but that was something Graysons were used to. Grayson kids took the need to protect themselves against their environment as much for granted as children on other, less unfriendly planets took the need to watch out for traffic crossing busy streets.

And, at the moment, all of those hordes of children were taking special pleasure in their play because it was a school holiday. In fact, it was a planetary holiday—the Protector’s Birthday. The next best thing to a thousand T-years worth of Grayson children had celebrated that same holiday, although for the last thirty T-years or so, they’d been a bit shortchanged compared to most of their predecessors, since Benjamin IX had been born on December the twenty-first. The schools traditionally shut down for Christmas vacation on December the eighteenth, so the kids didn’t get an extra day away from classwork the way they might have if Benjamin had been thoughtful enough to be born in, say, March or October. That little scheduling faux pas on his part (or, more fairly perhaps, on his mother’s) was part of the reason Benjamin had always insisted on throwing a special party for all the children of the planetary capital and any of their friends who could get there to join them. At the moment, by Matthews’ estimate, the school-aged population of the city of Austen had probably risen by at least forty or fifty percent.

It was also traditional that the protector did no official business on his birthday, since even he was entitled to at least one vacation day a year. Benjamin, however, was prone to honor that particular tradition in the breach, although he’d been known to use the fact that he was officially “off” for the day as a cover from time to time. And it would appear this was one of those times. Events were building towards the formal birthday celebration later this evening, but Matthews was among the inner circle who’d been invited to arrive early. He would have found himself in that group anyway, given how long and closely he and Benjamin had worked together, but there’d obviously been other reasons this year.