"Yeah, I suppose it is," Ashford said after a moment. "Then again, how likely is it that Peep ECM could fool us at that short a range?"
"I don't know. Maybe not very . . . but it'd be even less likely if we were watching for it, now wouldn't it? And come to think of it, I know at least one Peep tac witch who probably could fool us."
Ashford looked up from the display, eyes bright with curiosity, but he reined himself in quickly. Tremaine could almost feel the intensity with which the captain longed to ask him just which Peep tactical officer he'd managed to strike up a personal acquaintance with. But he didn't ask . . . and Tremaine chose not to tell him. In fact, he rather regretted having said a thing about it. Like the other survivors from Prince Adrian, he'd made a point of not saying a word to anyone about the efforts Lester Tourville and Shannon Foraker had made to see to it that they were treated decently. By now, ONI knew Tourville was one of the Peep admirals who'd trounced the Allies so severely in Esther McQueen's offensive, and it looked like Foraker was still his tac officer. Given that, Tremaine supposed it would have made sense, in a cold-blooded, calculating sort of way, to see if they couldn't convince State Security to shoot the two of them. But the survivors had decided, individually and without discussion or debate, to keep their mouths shut. The newsies had crawled all over every escapee from Hell they could find—indeed, Scotty was amazed that Dame Honor and Nimitz (or Andrew LaFollet) hadn't killed or even crippled a single reporter, given how relentlessly they'd hounded "the Salamander"—but not one report had mentioned Tourville or Foraker.
"In any case, it won't hurt a bit for us to be on guard against this kind of thing," he said after a moment, nodding at the display. "And truth to tell, I'll bet she and the Admiral saw it as an opportunity to work on anti-LAC tactics of their own."
"You don't really think the Peeps are going to be able to match our birds, do you?" Ashford failed to keep the incredulity entirely out of his voice, and Tremaine chuckled.
"Not anytime soon, no. On the other hand, don't get too uppity about the differences in our hardware. I had an opportunity to look at a lot of their stuff up close and personal, and it's not as bad as you might think. Not as good as ours, in most cases, but better than most of our people seem to assume." He paused, then grimaced. "Well, better than I'd ever assumed, anyway, and I doubt I was unique."
"Then how come they keep getting their ears pinned back?"
"I said their stuff wasn't as good as ours . . . but most of it's probably as good as anything anyone else has. Their real problem is that they don't know how to get the best out of what they've already got. Their software sucks, for instance, and most of their maintenance is done by commissioned personnel, not petty officers and ratings. Oh—" Tremaine waved both hands "—they don't have anything like the FTL com, and they haven't cracked the new compensators, the new beta nodes, or any of that stuff. But look at their missile pods. They're not as good as ours, but they go for a brute force approach to put enough extra warheads into a salvo to pretty much even the odds. And think about Ghost Rider. It's going to be years before they can match our new remote EW capability, but if they wanted to accept bigger launchers and lower missile load-outs, they could probably match the extended range capabilities of Ghost Rider's offensive side. Heck, build the suckers big enough, and they could do it with off-the-shelf components, Stew!"
"Hmph! Have to be really big brutes to pull it off," Ashford grumbled. "Too big to be effective as shipboard weapons, anyway."
"What about launching them from a pod format for system defense?" Tremaine challenged. "For that matter, put enough of them in single-shot launchers on tow behind destroyers and light cruisers, even if they had to trade 'em out on a one-for-one basis with entire pods of normal missiles, and they could still get a useful salvo off. I'm not saying they can meet us toe-to-toe on our terms. I'm only saying that a Peep admiral or tac officer who knows how to get maximum performance out of his hardware can still do one hell of a lot of damage, however good we are. Or think we are."
"You're probably right," Ashford admitted slowly. "And they can afford to take more damage than we can, too, can't they?"
"That they can . . . at the moment. Of course, that could change with the new designs and—"
The hatch to the sim compartment slid open, and Tremaine broke off as he turned towards it. Then his face lit with an enormous smile as a sandy-haired man with a prizefighter's build and a battered face stepped through it.
"Chief!" the commander exclaimed, stepping forward quickly, then paused as the newcomer held up one hand in a "stop" gesture, pointed at his collar insignia with his other hand, and gave a huge, toothy grin.
"Whoa! I mean Chief Warrant Officer Harkness!" Tremaine said with a grin of his own, and finished throwing his arms around the older man in a bear hug.
Stewart Ashford blinked at the sight, for commissioned officers did not normally greet their subordinates quite that enthusiastically. But then the name registered, and he gave the warrant officer a sudden, eagle-eyed second look.
Tremaine had eased up on the hug, though he still held the older man by the upper arms, and Ashford nodded. The crimson, blue, and white ribbon of the Parliamentary Medal of Valor could not be mistaken, even if this was only the third time he'd ever actually seen it on anyone. Besides, he should have recognized the man who wore it instantly. That battered face had certainly looked out of enough HDs and 'faxes once the newsies got hold of the details of PNS Tepes' destruction.
"Captain Ashford," Tremaine began, turning back to face him, "this is—"
"—Chief Warrant Officer Sir Horace Harkness, I believe," Ashford finished. Harkness came to attention and started a salute, but Ashford's hand beat him to it. As was only fitting. Anyone who'd won the PMV was entitled to take a salute from anyone who hadn't, and that was one tradition for which the captain felt no resentment at all.
"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Harkness," the captain said as the warrant officer returned his salute. "I won't belabor the reasons—I imagine you're well and truly tired of hearing about them anyway—but I do have one request."
"Request, Sir?" Harkness repeated cautiously, and Ashford grinned.
"It's only a small one, Sir Horace, but you see, some time ago, someone dropped a little surprise into my LAC's computers. It was a legitimate trick, I suppose, under the circumstances, since, as Commander Tremaine here was just reminding me, the object is for us to learn to expect the unexpected. But as he was also just reminding me, misery loves company, and it just occurred to me that doctoring the computers could be the sort of tradition I should be passing on to some poor bast—er, I mean some deserving soul in my own wing. And since I understand you have a certain way with computers . . . ?"
His voice trailed off suggestively, and Harkness grinned.
"Now, Sir, that would hardly be a nice thing to do. And I've sort of promised the Navy I'd swear off playing with computer systems in return for a certain, ah, lack of scrutiny where a few of my records over at BuPers are concerned. And maybe one or two minor files at the Judge Advocate General's office, too. And then there was that— Well, never mind. The point is, I'm not supposed to be doing that kind of thing anymore."
"But it would be in a very good cause," Ashford pointed out persuasively.
"Sure it would," Harkness agreed with a snort. "You just go right on telling yourself that, Sir. Me, I can't help thinking what you really want is to see to it that you're not the only one it happens to."
"Oh, there's some of that in it," Ashford admitted cheerfully. Then his expression sobered just a bit. "But as Commander Tremaine just discovered, surprise actually is a legitimate teaching tool, and better my boys and girls get some egg on their faces from something I do to them than sail all fat and happy into something the Peeps do to them."
"There's something to that, Chief. I mean Chief Warrant Officer," Tremaine said.
"Chief's just fine, Sir," Harkness told him, then shrugged. "Well, I guess if the Capta
in really wants it, I'll just have to see what I can do for him. Assuming that's all right with you, anyway, Sir."
"Me?" Tremaine raised an eyebrow, and Harkness nodded.
"Yes, Sir. Seems like I'm your new senior flight engineer, Mr. Tremaine. I know it's supposed to be a commissioned slot, but I guess BuPers decided that under the circumstances, seeing as how I've already spent so much time keepin' an eye on you and all, you'd just have to make do with me. Unless you'd rather not, of course?"
"Rather not?" Tremaine shook his head and slapped the older man on the upper arm. "Do I look like I'm crazy?" Harkness grinned and opened his mouth, but Tremaine cut him off in the nick of time. "Don't answer that, Sir Horace!" he said hastily. "But in answer to your question, no. There's no one I'd rather have."
"Well, good," Chief Warrant Officer Sir Horace Harkness, PMV, CGM, and DSO said. " 'Cause it looks like you're sorta stuck with me, Sir." He paused. "Until the shore patrol turns up, anyway!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Honor was buried in paperwork when a hand rapped gently on her Advanced Tactical Course office door. She didn't notice the quiet sound in her preoccupation . . . until it rapped again, harder, and a throat cleared itself with pointed firmness.
That got her attention, and she looked up.
"Commander Jaruwalski is here, Ma'am," James MacGuiness said in the tone he reserved for those private moments when his wayward charge required chiding, and Honor chuckled. His eyes twinkled back ever so slightly, but the look he gave her was stern, and she composed her own expression into a properly chastened one.
"Yes, Mac," she said meekly. "Would you show her in, please?"
"In a moment, Ma'am," he replied, and crossed to her desk. It was littered with data chips, the remnants of her working lunch, a sticky-looking cocoa mug, the crusty rim of a slice of Key lime pie, a two-thirds-devoured bowl of celery, and an empty beer stein. As she looked on in faint bemusement, MacGuiness caused all that clutter—except the data chips—to teleport itself neatly onto the tray on which he'd delivered lunch in the first place. It couldn't possibly be as easy as he made it appear, Honor thought, and then smiled as his brisk fingers twitched and flipped even her data chips into seeming order. He took another second to straighten the flower arrangement on the credenza, check Nimitz and Samantha's perch, and scrutinize Honor's uniform. A speck of fluff on her right shoulder earned an ever so slight frown, and he flicked it off with a tiny sniff.
"Now I'll show her in, Ma'am," he said then, and departed with his tray in austere majesty, leaving the large office magically neat and tidy behind him.
Nimitz bleeked quizzically from his place beside Samantha, and Honor smiled as she tasted their shared delight. She couldn't be certain whether they were more amused by the arcane fashion in which MacGuiness created order out of chaos or by the firm manner in which he managed her, but it didn't really matter.
"No, I don't know how he does it either," she told them, choosing to assume it was the former, and both 'cats radiated silent laughter into the back of her mind.
She shook her head at them, then tipped back in her chair to await her guest.
It was odd, she thought. Or she supposed many people would find it so, at any rate. James MacGuiness had to be the wealthiest steward in the history of the Royal Manticoran Navy. If he was still in the Navy, that was. She'd left him forty million dollars in her will, and he'd known better than even to try to give it back when she turned back up alive. Most people with that kind of money would have been out hiring servants of their own, but MacGuiness had made it quietly but firmly clear, without ever actually saying so, that he was, and intended to remain, Honor's steward.
She'd tried, in rather half-hearted fashion, to convince him to remain on Grayson as Harrington House's majordomo. He'd shown a pronounced gift for managing the staff there (which, in Honor's opinion, was far too large . . . as if anyone cared what she thought about it), and she'd known how badly Clinkscales and her parents would miss his unobtrusive efficiency. More than that, Nimitz and Samantha had left their 'kittens behind. The kids were old enough now to be fostered, and they would certainly suffer no shortage of 'cat parenting with Hera, Athena, Artemis, and all the males prepared to keep a wary eye on their mischief making. The normal pattern, in the very rare instances in which a female 'cat who had adopted a human also produced a litter of 'kittens, was to foster them at two or three T-years of age. Samantha's need to remain at the side of her mate while he grappled with the loss of his mental voice had simply added a bit more urgency than usual to the fostering arrangement.
But MacGuiness had been the 'kittens' human foster parent for over two T-years. Honor knew how hard it had been for him to leave the cuddly, rambunctious, loving, chaos-inducing balls of downy fur behind, and she'd tasted the 'kittens' wistful sadness at his departure, as well. And it wasn't as if he'd had to follow her back off Grayson. At her own "posthumous" request, the RMN had allowed him to resign in order to remain permanently at Harrington House. And, she admitted, she hadn't asked the Service to do so simply because of his role in her Grayson establishment. She'd dragged him into and—barely—out of far too many battles, and she'd wanted him safely on the sidelines.
Unfortunately, that was an option she didn't appear to have. She still wasn't sure how he'd gotten his way . . . again. They'd never argued about it. There'd been no need to. By some form of mental judo which put her own skill at coup de vitesse to shame, he'd simply avoided the entire discussion and appeared aboard the Paul Tankersley for the trip to the Star Kingdom. Nor had the Navy been any more successful at imposing its own, institutional sense of order on the situation. MacGuiness had never reenlisted and showed no particular desire to do so . . . yet no one in the Service seemed aware that he hadn't. Honor was positive that, as a civilian, he must be in violation of about a zillion regulations in his current position. The security aspects of the ATC materials to which he had access alone must be enough to drive a good, paranoid ONI counterintelligence type berserk! But no one seemed to have the nerve to tell him he was breaking the rules.
Which, if she were going to be honest, was precisely how she preferred things. There'd been a time when the mere thought of a permanent personal servant had seemed preposterous and presumptuous. In many ways, it still did . . . but MacGuiness was no more her "servant" than Nimitz was. She didn't know precisely how to characterize their actual relationship, but that didn't matter at all. What mattered was that commodore, admiral, steadholder, or duchess, she was still James MacGuiness' captain, and he was still her keeper and friend.
Even if he was a multimillionaire civilian these days.
She chuckled again, then banished her fond smile as MacGuiness returned with a dark, hawk-faced woman in an RMN commander's uniform. It wasn't hard to assume a more solemn expression, for the dark cloud of the other woman's emotions—a wary bitterness and dread, only slightly lightened by a small sense of curiosity—reached out to her like a harsh hand, and it was all she could do not to wince in sympathy.
I think my suspicion must have been right about on the money. And I wish it hadn't been. But maybe we can do a little something about this after all.
"Commander Jaruwalski, Your Grace," MacGuiness announced with the flawless formality he saved for times when company was present.
"Thank you, Mac." Honor said, then rose and held out her hand to Jaruwalski. "Good afternoon, Commander. Thank you for arriving so promptly on such short notice."
"It wasn't all that short, Your Grace." Jaruwalski's soprano sounded very much like Honor's own, but with a washed-out, beaten down undertone. "And to be honest, it wasn't as if I had a lot of other things to be doing anyway," Jaruwalski added with what was probably meant to be a smile.
"I see." Honor squeezed her hand firmly, for just a moment longer than was strictly necessary, then broke the handclasp to gesture at the chair which faced her desk. "Please, be seated. Make yourself comfortable." She waited until Jaruwalski had settled herself, then crooked an
eyebrow. "Are you a beer drinker, by any chance, Commander?"
"Why, yes. I am, Your Grace." The commander was clearly surprised by the question, and that surprise seemed to cut through a bit of her enshrouding gloom.
"Good!" Honor said, and looked at MacGuiness. "In that case, Mac, would you bring us a couple of steins of Old Tilman, please?"
"Of course, Your Grace." The steward glanced courteously at Jaruwalski. "Would the Commander like anything to go with her beer?"
"No, thank you. The beer will be just fine . . . Mr. MacGuiness." The brief pause and her hesitant use of the civilian address echoed Honor's earlier thoughts, but her confusion over MacGuiness' status was definitely a secondary concern for her at the moment. It was obvious from the taste of her emotions that no flag officers had been in the habit of inviting her to drop by for a beer over the course of the last T-year.
"Very good, Ma'am," MacGuiness murmured, and withdrew with a silence any treecat might have envied.
Jaruwalski gazed after him for a moment, then turned resolutely back to face Honor. There was something very like quiet defiance in her body language, and Honor hid another wince as she tasted the bitterness behind the other woman's dark eyes.
"No doubt you're wondering why I asked you to come see me," she said after the briefest of pauses.
"Yes, Your Grace, I am," Jaruwalski replied in a flattened voice. "You're the first flag officer who's wanted to see me since the Seaford Board finished its deliberations." She smiled and gave a slight, bitter toss of her head. "In fact, you're the first senior officer who hasn't seemed to be going out of her way to avoid seeing me, if you'll forgive my bluntness."
"I'm not surprised to hear that," Honor said calmly. "Under the circumstances, I suppose I'd be astonished if it had been any other way." Jaruwalski's nostrils flared, and Honor tasted her instant, inner bristling. But she gave no sign of it as she continued in that same deliberate tone. "There's always a temptation to shoot the messenger if the news is bad, even among people who ought to know better than to blame her for it. Who do know better, when all's said."