Honor Among Enemies

"Hail Warnecke, Fred."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Cousins punched a command into his panel, then nodded to her, and she faced the pickup, her eyes cold, as Warnecke's face appeared on the main screen. He looked almost as calm as before, but not quite, and she wished they were close enough for Nimitz to give her a read on his emotions. Not that she was certain it would have helped. She was convinced the man was insane, and a madman's emotions might have been the most dangerous guide of all upon which to rely.

"I said we'd speak again, Mr. Warnecke," she said.

"So you did," he replied, and the com lag now was barely noticeable. "You seem to have an uncommonly capable 'freighter' up there, Captain. My compliments." Honor bobbed her head in cold acknowledgment, and he smiled thinly. "Nonetheless, I'm still down here with my button, and I assure you I will push it if you force me to. In which case, of course, the deaths of all these i

"I don't think we'll play that game," Honor replied. "You have an alternative. If you detonate your charges, you'll do it because you chose to do that rather than accept the unreasonably generous offer I've already made you."

"My, my! And I thought I was the villain of the piece!" Warnecke raised his hand, bringing a small, hand-held transmitter into the pickup's field, and bared his teeth. "Are you really so blase about the possibility of my pressing this button? I have very little to lose, you know. I've heard about Andermani prisons. I'm not at all sure I'd prefer life in one of them to, well..."

He flipped his wrist to emphasize the transmitter he held, and his eyes burned with a dangerous light. Honor felt an icy breeze blow down her spine, but no trace of it touched her face.

"Perhaps not, Mr. Warnecke, but death is so permanent, don't you think?"

"Where there's life, there's hope, you mean?" The man on her com screen laughed and leaned back in his chair. "You intrigue me, Captain Harrington. Truly you do. Are you really so sanctimonious that you'd prefer to see hundreds of thousands of people killed rather than allow a single pirate and his henchmen to just sail away in their unarmed repair ship?"

"Oh?" Honor cocked an eyebrow. "You intend to put four thousand extra people into your repair ship's life support?" She shook her head. "I'm afraid you'd find the air getting rather thick before you made another planet."

"Well, sacrifices must be made, of course," Warnecke acknowledged, "and I suppose it would only be courteous of me to leave you some prisoners as a trophy. Actually, I was thinking in terms of myself and perhaps a hundred close associates." He leaned towards the pickup. "Think about it, Captain. I'm sure my privateers must have taken at least a few Manticoran ships, there are so many of them, after all, but the Confederacy isn't your kingdom. What do you care about its rebels and revolutionaries? You can have Sidemore, rescue Marsh, send the ragtag 'pirate' leaders packing in a single ship, and collect thousands of prisoners, all without risking a single town or city. Quite an accomplishment, don't you think?"

"Your loyalty to your people overwhelms me," Honor observed, and he laughed again.

"Loyalty, Captain? To these fools? They've already failed me twice, they and their incompetent shipboard counterparts. They cost me my own nation, my place in history. Why ever should I feel 'loyalty' to them?" He shook his head. "A pox upon all of them, Captain Harrington. You can have them with my compliments."

"While you scurry off to try it all over again? I think not, Mr. Warnecke."

"Come now, Captain! You know it's the best deal you're going to get. Death or glory, victory or magnificent destruction, those are a naval officer's choices, aren't they? What makes you think mine are any different?"

Honor gazed at him for a long, silent moment while her mind ticked away. His mellow voice was so cultured, so powerful, made anything he said seem so rational and reasoned. It must have been a potent weapon when he first began his career in the Chalice. Even now, he exuded a twisted charm, like the seduction of an incubus. It was the emptiness within him, she thought. The void where a normal person kept his soul. The blood on his hands meant nothing, less than nothing, to him, and that was his armor. Since he felt no guilt, he projected none.

"Do you really think," she said finally, "that I can let you go? That it's as simple as that?"

"Why not? Who was it back on Old Earth who said, 'Kill one man and you're a murderer; kill a million and you're a statesman'? I may not have that quite correct, but I'm sure the paraphrase is close. And navies and armies and even monarchs negotiate with 'statesmen' all the time, Captain. Come, now! Negotiate with me... or I may just press the button anyway, to show you how seriously you should take me. For example..."

His other hand came up into the pickup's field, and his index finger pressed a button on the transmitter number pad.

"There!" he said with a brilliant smile, and Honor heard someone suck in air behind her. She turned her head and saw Je

"My God, Ma'am!" the tac officer gasped. "We've got a nuclear detonation on the planet! Tracking makes it about five hundred k-tons... right in the middle of a town!"

Honor felt a fist punch her in the belly, and her face paled. She couldn't control that, but her expression didn't even flicker while the horror of it rolled through her. "Casualty estimate?" she asked flatly. "I-I can't be certain, Ma'am." The tough-as-nails tac officer was visibly shaken. "From the size of the town, maybe ten or fifteen thousand."

"I see." Honor inhaled deeply, then turned back to the com and flicked her hand at Cousins. The sound came back up, and Warnecke's smile had vanished.

"Did I fail to mention that I can detonate any one of the charges separately?" he purred. "Dear me, how careless of me! And there you were, thinking it was an all or nothing proposition. Of course, you don't know how many charges there are, do you now? I wonder how many more towns I can wipe off the face of the planet, just as a bargaining ploy, you understand, before I set off the big one?"

"Very impressive," Honor heard herself say. "And just what sort of negotiations did you have in mind?"

"I thought it was quite simple, Captain. My friends and I get aboard our repair ship and leave. Your ships stay in orbit around Sidemore until my ship reaches the hyper limit, and then you come down and clean up the riffraff I'll be leaving behind."

"And how can I be certain you won't send the detonation command from your ship anyway?"

"Why in the world should I want to do that?" Warnecke asked with a lazy smile. "Still, it is a thought, isn't it? I suppose I might consider it a proper way to, ah, chastise you for crippling my operations here... but that would be vindictive of me, wouldn't it?"

"I don't think we'll take that chance," Honor said flatly. "If, and I say if, Mr. Warnecke, I were to agree to allow you to leave, I'd need proof that it would be impossible for you to detonate your charges."

"And as soon as you knew it was impossible, you'd blow me out of space. Come, Captain! I expected better from you! Obviously I have to retain my Sword of Damocles until I'm safely out of your reach!"

"Wait." Honor rubbed an eyebrow for a moment, then let her shoulders sag ever so slightly. "You've made your point," she said in a quieter voice, "but I've made mine, as well. You can kill the people of Sidemore, and I can kill you. The very thought of letting you go turns my stomach, but..." She drew a deep breath. "There's no need to do anything irreversible at this point. You can't leave the system without my permission, and I can't land Marines without your seeing it and pressing your button. Let me consider this for a little while. Perhaps I can come up with a solution we can both accept."