Honor Among Enemies

Her case beeped once more, and she took her hand unhurriedly from the 'cat and punched numbers into the keypad yet again. But this time it was a slightly different code. The red light went out, and she glanced casually at the bulkhead chrono.

Three hours and fifteen minutes. She and Fred Cousins had considered the maximum range of Warnecke’s hand-held transmitter carefully before she allowed the privateer to exchange it for the original. It was remotely possible, assuming a sufficiently sensitive receiving array, that a unit that small might have a range of as much as two light-minutes. With that in mind, Honor had decided Warnecke had to be at least five light-minutes from the planet before she dared take any action against him, and that time had now come.

She waited another few seconds, then pressed the third button on the case, the one the new number code had armed, and two things happened. First, the small but efficient jamming pod hidden in the demolition charge on the outside of the shuttle came to life, putting out a strong enough field to trash any radio signal. The shuttle's com lasers could still get the detonation order through, but even as the jammer went into action, the end of the case opened and the familiar weight of a cocked and locked .45 automatic slid out into her hand.

None of Warnecke’s men realized anything had happened, for the seat in front of Honor hid the case from them. Besides, they knew she was unarmed, for they'd checked the case without finding the giveaway power source of a pulser or any other modern hand weapon. The possibility of something so primitive it used chemical explosives had never even occurred to them.

Honor’s expression didn't even flicker as she brought the pistol up in a smooth, flowing motion, and its sudden, deafening roar filled the passenger compartment like the hammer of God. The bodyguard named Allen had his flechette gun ready, but he never even realized he was dead as fifteen grams of hollow-nosed lead exploded through his forehead, and the stu

The bodyguard was hurled back out of his seat, spraying the bulkhead, and Andre Warnecke, with a gray-flecked bucket of red, and Honor was on her feet, holding the pistol in a two-handed grip.

"The party is over, Mr. Warnecke," she said, and her eyes were carved of frozen brown flint. She had to speak loudly to hear herself through the ringing in her ears, and she smiled as the privateer stared at her in disbelief. "Stand up and move away from the transmitter."

Warnecke swallowed, eyes wide as he realized he'd finally met a killer even more deadly than he, then nodded shakenly and started to push himself up. That was the instant the pilot made a dive for a fallen flechette gun, and the terrible, ear-shattering concussion of the .45 hammered the compartment twice more. The double tap wasn't a head shot this time, and the pilot had over fifteen seconds to scream, writhing on the deck while aspirated blood gushed from his mouth, before he died. But Honor didn't even blink, and the pistol was trained once more on Warnecke's forehead before he could even think about going for his own sidearm.

"Stand up," she repeated, and he obeyed. He moved away from the transmitter, and Honor nodded to LaFollet.

Her chief armsman wasn't gentle. He moved up the starboard passenger aisle, staying well clear of his steadholder's field of fire until he could reach Warnecke, then threw the privateer brutally to the deck. He drove a knee into his captives spine and twisted both arms so harshly up behind him that Warnecke cried out in pain.

Mattingly was there in a moment, scooping up both blood and brain-spattered flechette guns and tossing them to Candless before he and LaFollet jerked Warnecke to his feet once more. A hand removed the pulser from Warnecke's holster and tucked it inside Mattingly's tunic, and then the two armsmen frogmarched him to the rear of the compartment and shoved him into a seat. Mattingly sat three seats away, leveling the liberated pulser at Warnecke's chest, and Honor carefully lowered the .45’s hammer and shoved the heavy weapon into her tunic pocket.

"I made you an offer which would have left you alive," she told her prisoner. "I would have honored that offer. Thanks to you, I no longer have to." Her smile could have frozen a star's heart. "Thank you, Mr. Warnecke. I appreciate it."

She collected her case once more and punched a third combination into the number pad. The jamming pod shut down obediently, and the tractor pads holding the demolition charge to the shuttle disengaged. The device Warnecke had blithely assumed was only a demolition charge clanged to the repair ship’s hull, and the amber telltale flashed confirmation as a second set of pads locked it in place.

Honor scooped Nimitz up, feeling the 'cat's fierce exultation as she held him close, and stepped over the bodies of the men she'd killed into the flight deck. The controls were standard, but she set the 'cat in the copilots seat and took two full minutes to familiarize herself with them before she slipped the pilot's headset on and flipped up the plastic shield over the belly tractor power switch. Separating from a vessel underway under impeller drive was tricky, but at least the repair ship had no sidewalls, and she lit the acceleration warning in the passenger cabin and keyed the intercom.

"Acceleration in thirty seconds," she a

She waited, watching the chrono tick down, then killed the tractors holding the shuttle to the repair ship's hull and drove the belly and main thruster levers clear to the stop.

They were conventional thrusters, but they were also powerful, and just over one hundred gravities of acceleration hurled the shuttle away from the ship. The small craft's artificial gravity did its best, but its inertial compensator had no impeller wedge to work with. Twenty gravities got through, and Honor grunted as a giants fist slammed down. But the shuttle blasted straight for the perimeter of the repair ship's wedge at an acceleration of one kilometer per second squared. It was more than enough to clear the wedge before its narrowing after aspect could destroy the tiny craft, and she gasped with relief as she hurtled free and killed the belly main thrusters. She burned the thrusters for another thirty seconds, using her attitude thrusters to slew away from the repair ship at a more tolerable fifty gravities, then brought the shuttle's transmitter on-line.

"Pirate vessel, this is Captain Honor Harrington," she said coldly. "Your leader is my prisoner. The charges on the planet are now inoperable, but you have a two hundred k-ton charge in skin contact with your hull, and I have the transmitter which controls it. Reverse course immediately, or I will detonate it. You have one minute to comply."

The shuttle was far enough out to bring up its own impellers now, and Honor engaged the wedge and shot ahead at four hundred gravities. She watched the big vessel falling away from her with one eye and the chrono with another and keyed her mike once more.

"You now have thirty seconds," she said flatly, circling back around to maintain visual observation on the repair ship. Still it continued to run for the hyper limit, and she wondered if its crew thought she was bluffing or simply figured they had nothing left to lose.

"Fifteen seconds," she said emotionlessly, hand hovering over the case. "Ten seconds"

Still the ship maintained its course, and she slewed the nose of the shuttle away, taking it out of her cockpit's line of sight even as she polarized the passenger compartment view ports.