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# Chapter Forty-Two

"You know," Mercedes Brigham said quietly as she, Nimitz, and Andrew LaFollet walked down the passage towards Werewolf's flag briefing room with Honor yet again, "this couldn't have happened at a much worse time, Your Grace."

"You're right," Honor agreed, equally quietly. "Not that there could ever be a 'good' time for it."

"No, Ma'am."

The compartment hatch opened before them, and feet scuffed on the decksole as the waiting officers rose.

It was the first full dress meeting of every single one of Honor's task group and squadron commanders, and it included an imposing array of rank and experience. It also included a lot of faces she knew very well indeed, beginning with Alistair McKeon and Alice Truman. Then there was Rear Admiral Samuel Webster, commanding the Sixteenth Battle Squadron; Rear Admiral George Astrides, CO of the Ninth Battle Squadron; Alfredo Yu, now a full admiral; Warner Caslet, commanding Yu's First Battle Squadron; Rear Admiral Harriet Benson-Dessouix, Commanding his First CLAC Squadron; Vice Admiral Mark Brentworth, commanding his Second Battle Squadron; and Rear Admiral Cynthia Gonsalves, commanding his First Battlecruiser Squadron. It was an impressive assembly of talent, backed up by a dozen more admirals she knew less well, beginning with Rear Admiral Anson Hewitt the previous station commander. And behind them were still more people she knew and trusted implicitly. Like Susan Phillips, Yu's flag captain aboard (embarrassing though Honor still found the name) GSNS Honor Harrington, and Captain Frederick Bagwell, once the operations officer on Honor's very first battle squadron staff and now Brentworth's flag captain. Her command team might not be quite the "band of brothers (or sisters)" so beloved of military hagiography, but as she looked at all of those waiting faces and tasted the emotions behind them, she knew it was a better one than most flag officers could ever expect in mundane reality. And at least she'd had time to get to know the ones she hadn't already known before arriving at Sidemore. A few of them would need closer attention, and some of the others were merely solid. But several of them were very good, indeed, and one or two probably deserved the label of brilliant. And every single one of them, however anxious he or she might be, was prepared to support whatever Honor decided.

But that was the difference between her and them, she thought as she crossed to her chair, nodded for all of them to resume their seats, arranged Nimitz on the back of her own chair, and sat herself. They were prepared to support her decisions; she was the one who had to make them.

"I'm glad we were all in range for a face-to-face meeting, Ladies and Gentlemen," she told them. "Of course, I would have been even happier if the subject of this meeting had never arisen. Mercedes," she looked at her chief of staff, "would you please summarize our latest information so we can be certain everyone is on the same page?"

"Yes, Your Grace," Brigham agreed, then paused and cleared her throat before she began in a deliberately dispassionate voice.

"Approximately three hours ago, the Manticoran-flag freighter Chantilly arrived here in Marsh from the Zoraster System. As many of you already knew, we had dispatched Captain Ferrero and the Jessica Epps to Zoraster to intercept a suspected slaver as part of Operation Wilberforce. According to our intelligence sources, the slaver in question was operating in the service of New Hamburg interests but squawking the false transponder code of an Andermani-flag merchie, the Sittich. Captain Ferrero was provided with a complete electronic fingerprint on the real Sittich in order to ensure that she could be positive the ship she stopped was not, in fact, the Andy to whom that code legitimately belonged.

"Apparently, Jessica Epps successfully intercepted the false Sittich. In the process, however, there was an . . . incident with the Andermani heavy cruiser Hellbarde. Chantilly didn't have complete details, but Captain Nazari, her skipper—who holds a Reserve naval commission as a full commander—decided that it was more important for her to reach us with the information she did have than to delay in the hopes that she might somehow obtain still more. Fortunately, Captain Nazari herself was close enough to the scene of the incident for her sensors to provide us with at least some firsthand observational data. Unfortunately, Chantilly is a merchant ship. As such, her sensor suite is scarcely up to military standards, and the data available to us leave much to be desired."

Brigham paused again, as if to be sure her listeners were still with her, then continued.

"Nonetheless, despite any shortcomings of the raw data, Commander Reynolds, Captain Jaruwalski, and myself have been able to reach certain conclusions. I stress that these are only conclusions, although the three of us believe them to be valid.

"Apparently, while Jessica Epps was in the process of challenging the suspected slaver, Hellbarde challenged Jessica Epps, in turn. I say 'apparently,' because Chantilly's sensors showed absolutely no trace of Hellbarde at that time. This leads us to conclude that Hellbarde was operating under stealth, and from the course of events, we strongly suspect that Jessica Epps was unaware of her presence when she began the interception of the 'Sittich.'

"Without access to the message logs of the ships involved, there's no way for us even to guess at this point about what communications passed between Jessica Epps, Hellbarde, and 'Sittich.' All that Chantilly and Captain Nazari can tell us for certain, is that Captain Ferrero apparently fired a single warning shot across 'Sittich's' bows. Almost immediately, Hellbarde fired a full missile broadside at Jessica Epps."

Something like a sigh ran around the compartment as Brigham said the words at last. They were hardly a surprise; all of them knew why they had been summoned to this meeting. But somehow, that foreknowledge hadn't robbed them of their impact, and Honor tasted the internal tightening, the sense of foreboding, that came with them.

"Chantilly, given the limitations of her sensor suite and the capabilities of Andermani EW, was completely unaware of Hellbarde's presence until she opened fire. Nonetheless, the sequence of shots, and their firing bearings, can be unambiguously determined from her sensor records. Clearly, Jessica Epps fired the first shot, but it was a single missile, fired almost directly away from Hellbarde. Hellbarde's broadside, on the other hand, was clearly targeted on Jessica Epps and was not intended in any way as a 'warning shot.' Moreover, although it isn't really germane to the cause of this incident, it would appear from Chantilly's sensors that Hellbarde opened fire from a range in excess of ten million klicks from Jessica Epps."

This time, Honor did taste a ripple of true surprise . . . and dismay. That was still much shorter than Ghost Rider's maximum effective range, but it was also much greater than even their most pessimistic estimates had assigned to Andermani missiles.

And, she reminded herself, that's only the range at which we know they fired. We don't have any real reason to conclude that it was the maximum range at which they could have fired.

"Jessica Epps returned fire," Brigham continued. "The ensuing engagement lasted for approximately thirty-seven minutes. Casualties on both sides were extremely heavy. Captain Nazari herself headed for the scene of the action as soon as firing had ceased in order to render such assistance as she could. There wasn't a great deal she could do. Jessica Epps was destroyed with all hands." The chief of staff's voice level never changed, but it sounded suddenly very, very loud in the hush her words produced. "Hellbarde was apparently in little better condition. Her captain, her executive officer, and most of her bridge officers were apparently killed in the engagement. Captain Nazari's rescue efforts were quickly superseded by those of local Confed security units, but her estimate is that no more than a hundred of Hellbarde's ship's company survived. From the visual imagery of Hellbarde's wreck which Chantilly was able to obtain, I would be very surprised if Nazari's estimate isn't high. One thing on which Commander Reynolds, Captain Jaruwalski, and I all agree strongly is that Hellbarde will never fight again.

"For what it matters, Chantilly's sensor data clearly indicate that Jessica Epps was winning the engagement handily when a hit from one of Hellbarde's last laser heads apparently caused one of her fusion plants to lose containment."

The chief of staff paused once more, then turned to look at Honor.

"Those are the bare bones of Captain Nazari's report, Your Grace. The full raw take from Chantilly's sensors, plus the recording of Captain Nazari's verbal report, will be made available to all of the Station's flag officers and their staffs. Captain Nazari herself is still available, and Chantilly will remain in-system, in order to ensure the availability of any potential witnesses from her ship's company, until such time as we authorize her to continue her voyage."

"Thank you, Mercedes," Honor acknowledged, and it was her turn to meet the eyes of her assembled subordinates.

"Obviously," she said, her soprano voice much calmer than she felt, "this is precisely the sort of incident we've all been afraid of. The most important question, and one we can't possibly answer definitively at this point, is whether or not this represents deliberate Andermani policy."

"My initial reaction is that it probably does, Your Grace," Anson Hewitt said. Then he shrugged. "On the other hand, I may well be prejudiced by my own experiences out here."

"If you are, Anson, you certainly have more than enough reason to be," Honor told Sidemore Station's former commanding officer.

"At the same time, My Lady," Cynthia Gonsalves observed, "this would appear to be a rather abrupt break with the Andies' policy of gradually increasing the level of their provocations. Particularly in light of the fact that Hellbarde fired on Jessica Epps first, without being threatened herself. And that she did so from a range which clearly revealed the fact that her missiles were substantially longer ranged than we'd previously been given any cause to suspect."

"Those are excellent points," Honor agreed.

"With all due respect, Your Grace," Alistair McKeon pointed out, "as important as the question of intent obviously is, it may also, unfortunately, be completely beside the point. Shots have been fired, casualties have been suffered, and we've lost a Queen's ship with all hands. Whatever these clever-assed bastards may have been planning on doing, what they've actually accomplished is to present us with an act of war."

The sudden, brief silence which greeted his blunt observation was profound.

"Yes, they have," Honor said into that silence after a moment. "But the reason they did may still be of critical importance. My own initial read is that this entire incident represents a mistake."

"Mistake?" Alice Truman shook her head. Unlike many of the other flag officers in the briefing room, Truman had had the opportunity to look over the sensor data from Chantilly before joining the rest of them. "Your Grace, Hellbarde was clearly not threatened in any way when she opened fire on Captain Ferrero's vessel. Given how long and how assiduously Hellbarde had been harassing Jessica Epps for months prior to this, there's not very much chance Hellbarde didn't know exactly who she was dealing with, either. Which means that whatever else may have happened, an Andermani warship, deliberately, without provocation, and knowingly attacked a Queen's ship."

"I don't disagree with your analysis of what happened, Alice," Honor said. "I'm not at all certain, however, that 'deliberately and without provocation' is the best way to describe it."

She felt more than a little incredulity from her subordinate officers, astonishment at both the thrust of her argument and that "the Salamander" should be the one to voice it.

"As Captain Gonsalves has already pointed out," she continued calmly, "this represents an enormous break with the level of harassment we've seen out of the Andermani in the past. Moreover, we know Herzog von Rabenstrange is expected at Sachsen to relieve Sternhafen within the next few weeks. I find it very difficult to believe that the Andermani Navy would deliberately kick off an offensive against the Star Kingdom before their new station commander—widely regarded as perhaps the best flag officer in the IAN—even arrived."

"There is that," Truman agreed.

"True," Alfredo Yu said. "But it's also remotely possible that the timing represents a form of disinformation. By timing it to occur shortly before Rabenstrange's arrival in Sachsen, they may have intended to give him a degree of plausible deniability. He can always lay the blame for the attack on Sternhafen."

Honor felt a strain of bitter amusement under his words and had to suppress an ironic snort of her own as she remembered how Yu himself had been disavowed by his government during the operations which had first brought him to Yeltsin's Star all those years ago.

"Why would he want to blame Sternhafen?" Hewitt asked.

"I don't say I agree that it's what they were trying to do," Harriet Benson-Dessouix replied. "But it's possible that they might see this as a way to hit us with a really painful provocation, a demonstration of the fact that people can get hurt out here if they don't get out of the Andies' way, while leaving themselves room to retreat from actually starting a war. They may think that if they blame it on Sternhafen, or even on Hellbarde's captain and simply officially fault Sternhafen for not having reined in Hellbarde's previous aggressiveness—which certainly wouldn't have been the result of any official Andermani policy, under this interpretation—and possibly offer some form of reparations, we'd choose to absorb the attack without retaliating. Especially if they've interpreted the position of the Star Kingdom's present government as indicating an . . . unwillingness to embrace a confrontational policy here in Silesia."

"And the purpose of hitting Jessica Epps would have been to demonstrate their own willingness to fight while simultaneously hitting the Government between the eyes with how much standing in their way in Silesia could end up costing," McKeon mused. "All without their having done a single thing to us deliberately . . . officially."

"If they did it on purpose," Benson-Dessouix pointed out. "And even though I'm the one suggesting the hypothesis, that's an awful big 'if,' Alistair."

"It's certainly one possible scenario," Honor agreed. "But, as you say, Harry, it's all entirely speculative and highly problematical. It would also impute more subtlety to the Andermani than they normally demonstrate. Also, I think it may be overlooking the fact that the slaver Jessica Epps was intercepting was squawking an Andermani merchant transponder code at the time."

"That's true enough, Your Grace," Lieutenant Commander Reynolds said. "At the same time, Chantilly—with merchant-grade sensors and from almost as far away as Hellbarde—was able to clearly identify the 'Sittich' Captain Ferrero was intercepting as at least two m-tons smaller than the ship that transponder code actually belongs to. Surely Hellbarde's ship list for the Empire's merchant marine is at least as up to date as ours is! I find it very difficult to believe that a merchant ship would be more capable of identifying her correctly than an IAN heavy cruiser."

"Assuming that Hellbarde attempted to identify her in the first place," Warner Caslet said quietly. "That's where you're going, isn't it, My Lady?"

"Yes." Honor nodded. "Remember the history between Hellbarde and Jessica Epps. Mercedes, you and Andrea and George and I have all read Ferrero's previous reports. It's obvious Hellbarde was specifically assigned to shadow and harass Jessica Epps, not just any of our ships. As Alice just pointed out, it's been going on for months now, and Captain Ferrero's increasing frustration and anger were clearly evident from her reports. I see no reason to believe that the confrontation between them wasn't becoming equally personal for Kapitän zur Sternen Gortz, Hellbarde's CO. It's entirely possible that both of them found their judgment less than completely clear and impartial where the other one was concerned."

"You're saying that this Gortz character may have been sufficiently pissed off with Jessica Epps to jump her without trying to determine 'Sittich's' real identity one way or the other?" McKeon asked skeptically. He shook his head. "Again, with all due respect, what would a yahoo like that be doing commanding an IAN heavy cruiser?"

"Are you sure you want to ask that question, given some of the people you and I have seen commanding Manticoran heavy cruisers?" Honor replied with a more crooked than usual smile. "Especially in backwater systems like . . . oh, Basilisk, say?"

"Touché," McKeon murmured after a moment, nodding slowly, almost as if against his will.

"It could have happened that way," Truman conceded. "But if it did, there must have been some pretty serious lapses on both sides. Ferrero certainly should have informed Gortz of her intentions. And from Chantilly's sensor log, Jessica Epps had plenty of overtake on 'Sittich.' There was no way a merchie was going to evade her at that point, so there was no compelling need for Ferrero to be firing warning shots if there was any confusion or uncertainty in her communications with Hellbarde."

"I'm not prepared to condemn one of my captains' actions without a lot more information than we currently have," Honor said. "On the other hand, from the very limited data actually available to us, it would certainly appear that that may have been true. In the final analysis, it was Gortz who first fired on Jessica Epps, which certainly seems—from our perspective, at least—to have been a much more serious 'lapse' than anything of which Ferrero may have been guilty. That doesn't mean both COs didn't contribute to what happened, and I think we all need to be aware of the fact that we're automatically prejudiced against the captain who killed one of our own ship's entire company. Not to mention the depth of the anger and resentment we all feel because of the Andermani's previous, deliberately provocative policy.

"But the two key points at this moment, as I see it, are that we have a very serious shooting incident between our own forces and the Andermani Navy, and that we don't have any way of knowing precisely what led up to it. The fact that it occurred in the territorial space of a third, neutral power complicates things even further, of course, but it doesn't change those two considerations."

She paused once more, surveying the faces and tasting the emotions about her, and behind her own calm façade she felt her own tension, her own anxiety. Her own sense of responsibility.

"I intend," she said, "to send Chantilly's sensor log to Sachsen for review by Admiral Sternhafen. I will point out to him that according to that log, his commander clearly fired on our vessel before Jessica Epps returned fire. I will suggest to him that it would be . . . appropriate for him to determine whether or not the ship identifying itself as Sittich was the ship which ought to have been squawking that transponder code, and I will share with him the intelligence we developed suggesting that the ship in question was in fact both a slaver and illegally squawking a fraudulent code. I will request that he thoroughly investigate these events, and offer to conduct such an investigation jointly with him. In particular, I will request access to Hellbarde's surviving personnel—under Andermani supervision, of course—in an effort to obtain firsthand testimony from the only survivors."

"Your Grace," Reynolds said, "all of our information on Graf von Sternhafen suggests that he's not going to pay you a great deal of attention. According to everything we have, he's a card-carrying member of the anti-Manticore faction within the IAN. Not to put too fine a point on it, he hates the Star Kingdom's guts."

"I'm well aware of that, George. That's one reason why I've been looking forward to Herzog von Rabenstrange's arrival to replace him. And why I think the timing on this episode is particularly tragic. Nonetheless, I don't see any way to justify not at least attempting to defuse this situation before it careens entirely out of control. If, in fact, this was an accident—if the Andies didn't intend from the beginning to pull the trigger on a general war between the Empire and the Star Kingdom—then I have an absolute responsibility to do all I can to pull us back from the brink instead of simply plunging over it because I don't expect my efforts to succeed."

Several heads nodded unconsciously in agreement around the conference table, but she tasted disagreement from several of her subordinates, as well. And, in all fairness, she couldn't really blame them for it. For all of her effort to remain analytical and detached, she felt a bright, searing flicker of rage whenever she thought of what had happened to Erica Ferrero's ship and all of her crew. Alice was undoubtedly correct that there'd been lapses on both sides, but if the Andermani hadn't been deliberately provoking incidents for so long, those lapses probably wouldn't have occurred . . . and would never have had such fatal consequences if they had.

She wanted vengeance. She wanted to avenge her dead and simultaneously pay back all of the premeditated slights the Andermani had given the Royal Manticoran Navy. And she wanted, God help her, an enemy she could face openly, across the broadsides of her warships, without all of this endless hiding in shadows and groping with uncertainty even as she looked over her shoulder at a Government she neither agreed with nor trusted. She wanted that so badly she could taste it, like fire on her tongue.

Which was precisely the reason she dared not leap to any conclusions or foreclose any options. However much she wanted to.

"In addition to the messages I'll be sending to Sachsen," she went on, "I will, of course, dispatch a complete report to the Admiralty."

Who probably won't bother to read even this one, she thought bitterly.

"Unfortunately," she went on in that same calm, even tone, "even our fastest dispatch boat will take over two weeks to reach the Star Kingdom. And, of course, any reply will take equally long to get back to us. That means we're going to have to respond without fresh instructions for a minimum of more than a full standard month."

She didn't really need her ability to taste emotions directly to sense her subordinates' response to her use of the plural pronoun. As good as these people were, they would have been superhuman not to feel a flash of intense relief at the realization that someone other than they was ultimately responsible for deciding just how "we" were going to respond.

Her lips quirked ever so briefly at the thought, then she shook it aside and continued.

"Until—and if—we receive instructions to the contrary, I have no choice but to continue to enforce existing policy and directives in our operational area. Accordingly, we'll continue to patrol the star systems to which we've regularly assigned priority. I'm willing to pull in a bit from the periphery of our ops area, but we're going to maintain a definite presence in the core systems. In fact, I want our patrols beefed up even further. We can't afford to disperse our screening elements too broadly, and I have no desire to dilute our combat power. Nonetheless, I want our present plans to assign our vessels to operate at least in tandem to be expedited. In fact, where at all possible, I want ships operating in at least divisional strength, and pulling in a bit should free up the strength for that.

"We've already dispatched warnings to all of our units currently on station in other star systems, and I've instructed them to minimize potential additional incidents. Hopefully, all of them will receive our dispatches before they find themselves face-to-face with Andermani units which have already been informed of events in Zoraster. We certainly can't rely on that, however, which means we have to face the conclusion that it's entirely possible that we'll have additional incidents before we get everyone warned. In fact, it's possible we've already had one or more of those additional incidents.

"At the same time I've instructed them to minimize potential incidents, I've also made it very clear to them that their first and overriding responsibility is to safeguard their commands and their personnel. They're to take whatever measures they believe are required to that end. Which is why," she drew a deep breath, "I have instructed them to go to rules of engagement Alpha Two."

Something like a shiver went through the compartment, and she smiled bleakly. ROE Alpha Two specifically authorized a captain to open fire preemptively if she believed her command was under threat of attack. It specifically did not require her to allow a potential opponent to get in the first shot, although even under Alpha Two she was expected to do all she could to avoid shooting before she pressed the button herself.

Despite that, Honor was fully aware of the danger of escalation her change in the rules of engagement constituted. She would have preferred to avoid it, but her conscience would never have permitted her to. Not nowadays, when the massive salvos ships armed with missile pods could throw were capable of completely swamping and overwhelming an opponent's point defense. Allowing the enemy to fire first in order to clearly establish responsibility for a hostile act was no longer a survivable option.

"Understand me clearly on this, People," she said very quietly. "It's our responsibility to maintain the peace if that's at all possible. But if it isn't possible for us to do that, then we have an even more overriding responsibility to enforce Her Majesty's Government's policy in Silesia and to protect the Marsh System and Sidemore. If that brings us into open conflict with the Andermani Empire, then so be it.

"I don't look forward to a war with the Andies. I don't want one. No one in her right mind does. But," Lady Dame Honor Harrington told her admirals softly, "if they want one, I intend to make them regret their choice.

"Seriously."

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