Honor Among Enemies

Randy Steilman stood looking down at the tech, shaking his head while an unpleasant smirk twisted his lips. He started to step away, and Ginger took two long strides towards him.

"Hold it right there, Steilman!" her voice cracked across the space between them, and he stopped, then turned with slow, unspoken insolence to face her. His eyes surveyed her with an insolent familiarity all their own, and he cocked an eyebrow.

"Yes, Senior Chief?" he asked with elaborate i

"What happened, Dempsey?"

"I-I don't know," the tech got out through gritted teeth. "I just reached for my kit, and..." He shrugged helplessly, and Ginger looked at the woman who'd been working with him.

"I don't know either, Senior Chief," she said. "I was watching the display. We needed a number-three spa

"You still need me?" Steilman put in lazily. Ginger shot him a dangerous look, and he smiled back blandly. She bit down on a sharp remark, mindful of MacBride's orders, and stooped to examine Dempsey's work stand. One look was all it took: both legs at its right end had collapsed, and the locking lever swung loose to her touch.

She straightened slowly, and the fire in her eyes had gone cold as she turned to Steilman.

"I hope you still think this is fu

"Me? Think it's fu

"Because I watched Dempsey and Brancusi set up myself, Steilman. I saw Dempsey lock those legs, and they sure as hell didn't unlock themselves on their own."

"What're you saying? You think I had something to do with this?" Steilman's smile had changed, and there was an ugly twist to his lips. "You're outa your fucking mind!"

"You're on report, Steilman," Ginger said coldly, and an even uglier light flared in his eyes.

"You're full of shit, Senior Chief," he sneered. "You can't prove I did shit to that stand."

"Maybe I can and maybe I can't," Ginger said flatly, "but at the moment, you're on report for insolence."

"Insolence?" Steilman said incredulously. "You got delusions of grandeur for a jumped up..."

"Say it and you're dog meat," Ginger snapped, and he paused, mouth gaping open in sheer surprise. Then his right hand clenched into his fist, and he started forward.

Ginger watched him come, not giving an inch. She watched the fist come up and willed it to strike, because the minute it did, Steilman's ass was hers. Striking a petty officer wasn't the capital offense striking an officer was, but it was close enough, and...

"Right there, Steilman!" a baritone voice barked, and Steilman froze. He turned his head, and his jaw clenched as he saw Bruce Maxwell bearing down on him. He looked back at Ginger, giving her a look filled with hate, and she swore silently. Why in hell had Bruce had to turn up at exactly the wrong moment?

"What the fuck d'you think you're doing?!" Maxwell snarled, and Steilman shrugged.

"Me and the Senior Chief were just having a little difference of opinion."

"Bullshit! Goddamn it, I have had it up to here with your crap, Steilman!"

"I didn't do nothing," Steilman insisted sullenly. "I was just standing here, and she jumped my ass over what one of her stupid fuckers did."

"Ginger?" Maxwell looked at her, and she looked back levelly.

"Call the Master-at-Arms," she said, the corner of her eye watching Steilman stiffen in the start of true uneasiness at last. "Steilman's on report for insolence, and I want this stand checked for prints."

"Prints?" Maxwell looked puzzled, and she smiled thinly.

"Somebody unlocked its legs to cause it to collapse. Now, it may have been one of my people, but I don't believe it for a minute. I think somebody else did it just for the fun of it, and I don't see anyone in this compartment in gloves, do you?"

"But..." Maxwell began, only to be cut off.

"It's not just a prank," Ginger said coldly. "Look at Dempsey’s hand. We've got personal injury here. That makes it an Article Fifty, and I want the ass of whoever did it."

Maxwell looked down at the sitting tech, and his face tightened as he took in the impossible angle of his ring finger. When he looked back at Steilman, his expression was bleak and cold, but it was Ginger he spoke to.

"You got it, Ging," he said flatly, and beckoned to another petty officer. "Jeff, go get Commander Tschu, then buzz Mr. Thomas."

"You sent for me, Ma'am?"

"Yes, I did, Rafe. Sit down, please." Honor turned from her contemplation of a bulkhead plaque with the image of a sailplane etched into its heat-warped golden alloy and pointed at the chair facing her desk in her day cabin. She waited until Cardones had seated himself, then folded her hands behind her and regarded him for a long, silent moment.

"What's this I hear about Wanderman?" she asked finally, coming to the point with characteristic bluntness, and Cardones sighed. He'd hoped she wouldn't hear about it until he'd managed to deal with it, but he should have known better. He'd never been able to figure out how she stayed so thoroughly abreast of the most minute happenings aboard her ship. He was certain MacGuiness was part of her network, and no doubt her Grayson armsmen were, as well, now that she had them. Yet he felt certain she would have managed the same thing without any of them.

"I'd intended to take care of it before bringing it to your attention, Ma'am," he said. It was never a good idea for an exec to prevaricate to his CO. At the same time, it was the exec's job to deal with things like this without involving his skipper. The authority of the captain of a Queen's ship was the ultimate sanction against the improper actions of any crew, and it was properly held in reserve until there was no option but to employ it. Once the captain became involved, there was no turning back from the full force of the Articles of War, and Cardones, like Honor, believed it was almost always better to salvage a situation than to call in the heavy artillery.

But sometimes there was no choice but to roll out the big guns, he thought glumly, and the desire to salvage what one could was no excuse for allowing an animal capable of assaulting his own crewmates to go unpunished.

"I appreciate your motives and your position, Rafe," Honor said now, seating herself behind her desk and cocking her chair back, "but I'm picking up some rumors I don't much care for... including some about an episode in Impeller One." Nimitz dropped from his perch to leap into her lap and sat upright, leaning back against her to regard the exec with his own grass-green gaze, and she rubbed his ears.

"I don't much care for them myself, Ma'am, but at the moment, we're stymied. As far as Wanderman's concerned, he's insisting he fell, and Tatsumi, the SBA who carried him into sickbay, claims he doesn't know anything about it." The exec held up his hands. "I think they're both lying... but they're both scared to death, too. Unless something changes, I don't believe either of them will come forward, and unless they do, we don't have an official leg to stand on."

"What does the Master-at-Arms say?"

"Thomas took some of his people and had a very close look at the site of the 'fall.' It wasn't hard to pinpoint, Wanderman bled a good bit. There's nothing in the area for him to have fallen over, and the blood spots are close to the bulkhead, which isn't exactly where someone moving down the middle of the passage would be likely to hit his face in a fall. None of that is conclusive, however, and Wanderman could have tripped over his own two feet if he was moving quickly enough."