"That's all enormously interesting, Mac," she told him with a twinkle of moderate severity. "It didn't exactly answer my first question, though. I would imagine this mystery skipper has a name?"
"Oh, of course, Ma'am. Did I forget to mention it?"
"No," she told him. "You didn't 'forget' anything. You chose not to tell me because that curiously twisted faculty which serves you as a sense of humor told you not to."
He grinned as her shot went home, then shrugged just a bit too casually.
"You have a naturally suspicious personality, Ma'am," he told her in virtuous tones. "As it happens, however, the gentleman does have a name. I believe it's . . . Bachfisch. Thomas Bachfisch."
"Captain Bachfisch?" Honor jerked bolt upright in her chair, and Nimitz's head snapped up where he reclined on his bulkhead perch. "Here?"
"Yes, Ma'am." MacGuiness's grin had vanished, and he nodded seriously. "Lieutenant Meares didn't recognize the name. I did."
"Captain Bachfisch," she repeated softly, and shook her head. "I can't believe it. Not after all this time."
"I've heard you speak of him," MacGuiness told her quietly. "According to Lieutenant Meares, he sounded a bit hesitant about asking to see you, but I felt certain you wouldn't want this opportunity to slip away."
"You're certainly right about that!" she said firmly, then cocked her head. "But you said he sounded 'hesitant' about asking to call on me?"
"That was the way Lieutenant Meares put it, Ma'am," MacGuiness replied. "I'm sure the com section has the actual request on record, if you'd care to view it, but I haven't seen it myself."
"Hesitant," Honor repeated and felt an obscure sort of pain somewhere deep down inside. Then she shook herself. "Well, he may be hesitant, but I'm not! Tell Tim that his request is approved, and that I'll see the Captain at his earliest convenience."
"Yes, Ma'am," MacGuiness acknowledged, and disappeared as quietly as he had come, leaving Honor to her thoughts.
* * *
He's aged, Honor thought, hiding a pang of dismay as the stoop-shouldered man in the blue uniform swung himself across the interface from the boarding tube's zero-gee into the boat bay gallery's standard single gravity. She'd checked Werewolf's copy of the officers' list and found Bachfisch's name on it. Her old captain was a full admiral now, but solely because seniority continued to accrue even on half-pay, because that was precisely where he'd been for almost forty years. Forty hard years, she thought as she gazed at him. The dark hair she remembered was liberally laced with silver, despite his first-generation prolong, and Nimitz shifted ever so slightly on her shoulder, uneasy as both of them tasted the sense of pain and loss which flowed through him as he found himself once again upon a Queen's ship.
"Pirate's Bane, arriving!" the boat bay intercom system announced crisply, and the side party came to attention as the bosun's pipes shrilled in formal salute.
The dark eyes widened in surprise, and the shoulders squared themselves. That pain and loss intensified almost unbearably for just a moment, then turned into something far warmer. Not gratitude, although that was part of it, so much as understanding. An awareness of exactly why Honor had chosen to extend full formal military courtesies to a mere merchant skipper, whatever his half-pay rank might be. He came to full attention and saluted the junior-grade lieutenant boat bay officer at the head of the side party.
"Permission to come aboard, Ma'am?" he requested formally.
"Permission granted, Sir," she replied, snapping him a parade ground-sharp salute of her own, and Rafe Cardones stepped forward to greet him.
"Welcome aboard Werewolf, Admiral Bachfisch," Honor's flag captain said, extending his hand.
"That's 'Captain Bachfisch,' Captain," Bachfisch corrected him quietly. "But thank you." He shook Cardones' hand firmly. "She's a beautiful ship," he went on sincerely, but his eyes looked over Cardones' shoulder at Honor, and the emotions swirling through him were too intense and complicated for her to sort out.
"Thank you," Cardones told him. "I'm rather proud of her myself, and if you can spare the time, I'd be delighted to take you on the five-dollar tour before you return to your own ship."
"That's very kind of you. And if it's at all possible, I'll certainly take you up on it. I've heard a lot about this class, but this is the first opportunity I've had to actually see one."
"Then I'll see if our COLAC, Captain Tremaine, can accompany us," Cardones promised. "He'll be able to give you the LAC jock's viewpoint, as well."
"I'll look forward to it," Bachfisch assured him, still looking at Honor, and Cardones smiled just a bit crookedly and stepped back to make room for his Admiral.
"Captain Bachfisch," she said softly, reaching out her own hand. "It's good to see you again, Sir."
"And you . . . Your Grace." He smiled, and there was an entire universe of satisfaction and regret behind that expression. "You've done well. Or so I hear." His smile grew broader, losing some of its hurt.
"I had a good teacher," she told him, squeezing his hand firmly, and he shrugged.
"A teacher is only as good as his students, Your Grace."
"Let's just say it was a joint effort, Sir," she said, relinquishing his hand at last, and nodded her head at Cardones. "And let me repeat Captain Cardones' welcome. I hope you'll be good enough to join us for supper and allow me to introduce you to the rest of my senior officers?"
"Your Grace, you're very kind, but I wouldn't want to impose, and—"
"The only imposition would be for you to decline the invitation, Sir," Honor interrupted firmly. "I haven't seen you in almost forty T-years. You're not getting off the ship without dining with me and my officers."
"Is that an order, Your Grace?" he asked wryly, and she nodded.
"It most certainly is," she told him, and he shrugged.
"In that case, of course, I accept."
"Good. I see you still have a firm grasp of the tactical realities, Sir."
"I try," he said with another small smile.
"In that case, why don't you accompany me to my day cabin?" she invited. "We have a lot of catching up to do before supper."
"Indeed we do, Your Grace," he agreed softly, and followed her into the lift car, while Andrew LaFollet trailed along behind.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"It really is wonderful to see you again, Sir," Honor said quietly as she ushered him into her day cabin and waved for him to seat himself in one of the comfortable chairs around the beaten copper coffee table. She saw him glance down at the table and watched the corners of his eyes crinkle in amused pleasure as he saw the bas relief Harrington Steading coat of arms which adorned it.
"It was a gift from Protector Benjamin," she half-apologized, but he only shook his head.
"I was only admiring it, Your Grace. And reflecting on just how well you truly have done . . . not on the vainglory of putting your monogram on a simple piece of furniture."
"I'm relieved to hear it," she said dryly, and she was immensely relieved by the sparkle of mischievous humor which accompanied his words.
"To be perfectly honest," he said more seriously, "the galaxy would probably cut you at least a little slack if your head had gotten a bit too big for your beret. On the other hand, I'd have been surprised if the midshipwoman I remembered had let that happen."
"I try to remember I'm merely mortal." Her attempt to make it come out humorously wasn't entirely successful, and she felt her cheekbones heat slightly. He glanced at her sidelong, then shrugged.
"And I'll try not to embarrass you any more, Your Grace. Except to say that one of my greatest regrets is that Raoul Courvoisier didn't live to see you now. He wrote to me after Basilisk Station to make sure I had the entire story straight, so I know he'd had proof his faith in you had been amply rewarded. But I also know how delighted he'd have been to see that others had seen fit to reward it, as well."
"I miss him," Honor said softly. "I miss him a lot. And it means a lot to me to know that you and he stayed in touc
h."
"Raoul was always a loyal friend, Your Grace."
"Captain," Honor said, meeting his eyes, "it's been thirty-nine T-years, but the last time we saw each other, I was only a midshipwoman. And half-pay or not, you are an admiral yourself. If it's all the same to you, I'd be grateful if you could remember that I was once one of your snotties and forget about the 'Your Graces.' "
"That's easier said than done, Yo—" Bachfisch paused, then chuckled. "Put it down to automatic social reflexes," he requested. "On the other hand, if I'm not supposed to call you 'Your Grace,' what would you prefer? Somehow, I don't think 'Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington' is really appropriate anymore, do you?"
"Probably not," she conceded with a chuckle of her own. "And I don't think I'd prefer 'Admiral Harrington,' either. So suppose we try just 'Honor.' "
"I—" the captain started, then paused again and cleared his throat. "If that's what you'd really prefer . . . Honor," he said after a moment.
"It is," she told him, and he nodded, then sat in the indicated chair and created a small space in the conversation by leaning back and crossing his legs before he let his attention sweep around the rest of the day cabin.
His eyes rested for just a moment on the crystal case protecting the sword rack, the glittering key of a steadholder, and a multi-spired golden star whose crimson ribbon was stained with darker, browner spots. A bronze plaque hung above it, one corner twisted and broken as if by a great heat, bearing the image of an old-fashioned sailplane. And another case held Honor's anachronistic .45 . . . and a more modern ten-millimeter dueling pistol.
He gazed at all of them for several seconds, as if absorbing the evidence of how much time—and life—had truly passed since last he'd seen her. Then he drew a deep breath and returned his attention to her.
"Quite a change since the last time you and I were in Silesia together," he observed wryly.
"I suppose so," she agreed. "But it brings back a lot of memories, doesn't it?"
"That it does. That it does." He shook his head. "Some of them good . . . some of them not so good."
"Sir," she said just a bit hesitantly, "at the court of inquiry after we got home. I asked to testify, but—"
"I know you did, Honor. But I told the court I felt you had nothing to add."
"You told the court?" she looked at him in disbelief. "But I was right there on the bridge. I knew exactly what happened!"
"Of course you did," he agreed, almost gently. "But I knew you too well to let them put you on the stand." She continued to stare at him, her eyes shadowed with sudden hurt, and he shook his head quickly. "Don't misunderstand me. I wasn't worried about anything you might say hurting me or my chances. But the official record already contained everything you could have testified to, including your own after-action report, and you've never been noted for your overly powerful self-preserving instincts. If they'd gotten you on the stand, you were almost certain to say something fierce in my defense, and I didn't want anything splashing on you."
"I'd have been honored to be 'splashed on' if it could have helped you, Sir," she said quietly.
"I know that. I knew it when I refused to let my advocate call you as a witness. But you had enough enemies of your own already for any midshipwoman, and I wasn't about to see you throw away the credit you so richly deserved for saving my ship. Not when anything you said wasn't going to matter, anyway."
"You couldn't know that it wouldn't matter," she protested.
"Oh, yes, I could, Honor," he said with a half-bitter, half-amused smile. "Because the fact of the matter was that I deserved to be dismissed from my ship."
"You did not!" she disagreed instantly.
"I think I'm hearing the midshipwoman who served under me, not the admiral sitting across her coffee table from me," he observed almost lightly. She opened her mouth, but he raised one hand and shook his head at her. "Think about it—as a flag officer, not a midshipwoman. I don't say there weren't extenuating circumstances, but let's be honest. For whatever combination of reasons, I allowed Dunecki and his ship into point-blank range, and I damned near got my own ship blown out of space, as a consequence. I did get too many of my people killed," he added in a much darker tone.
"But you couldn't have known," she protested.
"You were one of Raoul's proteges," he replied. "What did he always tell you about surprises?"
"That they were usually what happened when one captain made a mistake about something she'd actually seen all along," she admitted slowly.
"Which is precisely what I did." He shrugged. "Don't think it wasn't important to me to know you wanted to speak up in my defense, because it was. And don't think that because of that one incident I regard myself as some sort of total failure. But neither of those things changes the fact that I hazarded the ship the King had entrusted to me and that I would have lost her, with all hands, if not for the actions of a midshipwoman on her snotty cruise and a quite disproportionate amount of good luck. To be perfectly honest, I was surprised when they only placed me on half-pay rather than dismissing me from the Service entirely."
"I still say they were wrong," Honor said stubbornly. He looked at her quizzically, and it was her turn to shrug uncomfortably. "All right. I suppose that if I were sitting on a court of inquiry on a similar incident and all I had was the official record, I might have agreed some penalty was appropriate. I might have. But I like to think that by now I've seen enough of the ways in which good, competent officers can do everything right and still crap out to give anyone the benefit of the doubt."
"Perhaps you have," he agreed. "And perhaps, if it hadn't been an incident in peacetime, if the officers of the court had had the sort of experience you have now, their decision might have been different. But it was a different set of rules in a different time, Honor." He shook his head. "I won't pretend it didn't hurt. But I've never felt it was a gross miscarriage of justice, either. And," he gestured at the blue uniform tunic he wore, "it wasn't exactly the end of my life."
"No, I suppose it wasn't. But you'd still look better in black and gold than in blue, if you'll pardon my saying so. And the Navy could darned well have used your experience when the war finally began."
"I suppose if I'm honest, that was what hurt the most," he admitted in a slightly distant tone, gazing at something only he could see. "I'd spent so many years training for exactly what happened, and I wasn't allowed to use all I'd learned in the Star Kingdom's defense when the storm finally broke." He gazed at that invisible something for several more seconds, then shook himself. "But," he said briskly, focusing on her face once more, "there was absolutely no point in sitting around and brooding over what had happened, and I've found the odd project here and there since to keep myself busy."
"I understand you own your own shipping line," Honor said.
"That might be putting it just a bit grandly," he replied wryly. "I do own two ships outright, with majority shares in three others. Not quite on the scale of the Hauptman Cartel—or Skydomes of Grayson—but not too shabby an accomplishment here in Silesia, I suppose."
"From all I've heard that's a pretty severe case of understatement. And they tell me you have at least two armed merchantmen?"
"True," he said. "You're wondering how I managed it?" She nodded, and he shrugged. "Like everything else here in the Confederacy, it all depends on how deep your pockets are, what contacts you have, and who you know. Silesia may be a dangerous place to be a merchant skipper, but for that very reason, there's a lot of money in it if you manage to survive. And I've been out here long enough to've amassed quite a few debts and favors . . . and to learn where a few useful skeletons were buried." He shrugged again. "So, technically, Pirate's Bane and Ambuscade are auxiliary units of the Confederate Navy. Technically."
"Technically," Honor repeated, and he smiled. "And practically speaking?" she inquired.
"Practically speaking, the Confed Navy's official warrants are nothing but ways around the prohibition against armed merchantmen whi
ch are available to those with sufficiently well-placed government patrons. Everyone knows the auxiliaries will never be called upon in their naval capacity. For that matter, at least some of them are pirates themselves!" He seemed, she noted, to actually find that amusing, in a grim sort of way.
"May I ask who your patron is?" she asked in a carefully neutral voice, and he chuckled.
"I believe you've probably met her, at some point," he told her. "Her name is Patricia Givens."
"Admiral Givens?" Honor stared at him, startled by the name.
"Indirectly speaking," Bachfisch qualified. "Mind you, I probably would have reached the same point eventually on my own—or I like to think so, anyway. I'd already acquired a half-ownership in Ambuscade, and to be completely honest, I'd already armed her on a minor sort of scale. My partner wasn't entirely happy about that, but we both understood that if the Sillies ever complained about it, I'd take the fall by claiming full responsibility. At least a half dozen Confed skippers—and, for that matter, at least one flag officer—knew she was armed, of course, but by then I'd been out here long enough that I was considered a Silly myself, not one of those pushy Manticoran interlopers.
"Actually, there've always been more more or less honest private armed vessels in Silesia than most people realize. I'm sure you've encountered quite a few of them yourself, during your deployments here?" He raised his eyebrows at her, and she nodded. "The problem, of course, has always been telling the good guys from the bad guys," he went on, "and for whatever reason, the Confed Navy had decided I was one of the good guys. It may have had something to do with the first couple of pirate vessels which suffered a mischief when Ambuscade was in the area."
"I hope you won't take this wrongly, Sir, but why did you stay out here in Silesia at all?" He looked at her, and she waved one hand in the air above her desk. "I mean, you've done well, but surely you had more and better contacts in the Star Kingdom then you did out here, and the Confederacy was scarcely the most law-abiding environment available."
"I suppose shame might have been a part of it," he admitted after a moment. "The language in which the court of inquiry couched its verdict was actually pretty moderate, but the subtext was clear enough, and there was a part of me which wanted sympathy about as little as it wanted condemnation. So there was certainly an element of starting over somewhere where I'd have a clean page.