War Of Honor

No doubt the OFS' creators had anticipated that the agency's operations would smooth the inevitable gravitation of such single-system polities into the benign arms of the League. But whatever they might have intended when the OFS was first authorized five hundred T-years ago, what it had become since was an arm of naked expansionism. These days, the OFS manufactured 'requests' for League protection. It didn't worry particularly about whether or not the people making those requests represented local governments, either. All it cared about was that someone had requested 'protection'—often against a local government, in fact—to offer the necessary pretext for its intervention. And there had been occasions when no one at all had requested OFS intervention. Instances in which the OFS had sent in the League Gendarmerie to enforce protectorate status . . . purely in the interests of safeguarding human rights, of course.

Over the centuries, the Office of Frontier Security had become the Solarian League's broom, sweeping the small, independent, poverty stricken star systems along the League's periphery into its maw, whether they chose to be swept or not. To be completely fair, which Zachary admitted she found it difficult to be in this instance, most of the worlds which were dragged into the League eventually found themselves far better off materially.

Eventually. The rub was that in the short term their citizens were given no choice, no voice in their own future. And anyone who objected to becoming a Solly was ignored . . . or repressed. Worse, the OFS was no more immune to the temptations of graft and corruption than any other agency run by fallible human beings. The lack of any sort of close legislative oversight only made those temptations stronger, and by now the agency was in bed with powerful vested interests, using its power and authority to create "sweetheart deals" for favored interstellar corporations, shipping lines, or political cronies and contributors as it reorganized the "protected" worlds under its nurturing care. There were even persistent rumors that some of the OFS administrators had forged co

Which brought Zachary right back to the Talbott Cluster, because Talbott had perhaps another twenty or thirty T-years to go until the League's creeping frontiers brought the OFS to it.

"The Talbott Cluster," she mused, half to herself, and Jefferson nodded.

"Yes, Ma'am. I did a little research when Rochelle identified Lynx, too. According to the most recent data in our files, which is probably at least ten or fifteen T-years out of date, the system population is around two-point-three billion. It looks to me as if economically they're about where the Graysons were before they joined the Alliance, or maybe not quite that far along, although their base tech level is probably a bit higher. From what I've found so far, Lynx seems to be one of the two or three more heavily populated systems in the cluster, but the average seems to work out to around one-point-five billion."

"And Lynx is only about fourteen hours from this terminus," Thatcher pointed out.

"That thought had also occurred to me," Zachary said mildly.

"Well, that certainly sounds good!" Kare said. The captain looked at him, and the scientist gri

"Yes," Zachary agreed. "Yes, I suppose it will, Doctor."

She watched Kare and Wix smiling at one another in delight, and then her gaze met Wilson Jefferson's and she saw the reflection of her own worry in the exec's eyes.

Erica Ferrero reminded herself not to snarl. It wasn't easy.

She stood at Lieutenant Commander Harris' shoulder, gazing into his tactical display at a flashing crimson dot which had become entirely too familiar.

"Definitely Hellbarde, Skip," Harris reported. "It matches her emissions signature across the board."

"Still nothing from our friend Gortz, Mecia?" Ferrero asked without ever taking her eyes from the plot.

"Not a word, Ma'am," the com officer reported.

"Figures!" Ferrero snorted, continuing to stare hard-eyed at the icon. At least Sidemore's Intelligence files had been able to finally ID Kapitan der Sterne Gortz as one Guangfu Gortz. Intelligence didn't have as much information on him as Ferrero might have wished, but what they did have clearly indicated that he was one of the IAN's cadre of Manticore-haters. Which probably meant that he was enjoying himself immensely at the moment, she thought, baring mental teeth at the memory of the florid, jowly face from the ONI file's imagery. Then she patted Harris lightly on the shoulder, turned, and stalked across to her command chair. She settled herself into it and glared at the small repeater plot that duplicated Harris' in miniature.

Jessica Epps had been spared the company of IANS Hellbarde for almost four weeks—long enough for Ferrero to begin to hope Kapitan zur Sternen Gortz had found someone else to irritate. It had, she'd realized even at the time, been a triumph of optimism over experience, but she'd been properly grateful for the respite anyway.

Now, unfortunately, that respite had come to an end, and Ferrero felt a slow, intense boil of anger bubbling away deep down inside.

She drew a deep breath and forced herself to remember Duchess Harrington's orders. Like most of the ship commanders assigned to Sidemore Station, Ferrero had been delighted when she learned Harrington was being sent out to take command. It wasn't that she had a thing against Rear Admiral Hewitt. He was a good man and a competent flag officer, but Ferrero had hoped Harrington's assignment indicated that someone back home was finally taking the situation in Silesia seriously. Certainly they wouldn't have sent "the Salamander" all the way out here if they hadn't meant for her appointment to send a message to the Andermani!

Unfortunately, it was begi

It wasn't Harrington's fault. That much was obvious. But the nature and number of the reinforcements the Janacek Admiralty had decided to send out with the duchess made it painfully evident that—to use Bob Llewellyn's colorful phrase—Sidemore was still "sucking hind teat." The astonishing arrival of so many Grayson warships had only underscored the weakness of the reinforcements the Admiralty had seen fit to spare Harrington, and the duchess' instructions to the ships assigned to her new command had been another sign that no one back home gave much of a damn about what was happening out here.

Ferrero knew that no flag officer with Harrington's reputation could have been happy issuing those orders. And the fact that she'd done it had said volumes about just how out of touch with reality the Star Kingdom's government really was. Her Majesty's starships in Silesia were to maintain and protect the traditional interpretation of freedom of space, as well as the territorial integrity of the Silesian Confederacy, against anyone who threatened to violate either, while simultaneously avoiding "provocations" of the Imperial Andermani Navy . . . or responding in kind to Andermani provocations.

That mouthful of platitudes and qualifications must have stuck in Harrington's craw sideways, Ferrero thought. That much had been evident even through the officialese of her orders. And if it hadn't been, the revision of the controlling rules of engagement which had accompanied those orders would have made it clear enough. Although the modified ROE strongly reiterated that officers were to avoid counter provocations—which, Ferrero suspected, was at least partly aimed at her own destruction of Hellbarde's remote sensor platforms, despite the fact that Harrington had officially approved her report of that patrol—they also emphasized that "These orders shall not be construed to in any way supersede or compromise a captain's responsibility to safeguard the vessel entrusted to her command. No officer can do very wrong by taking all such defensive actions as shall seem necessary and prudent in her judgment." Taken together, those seemingly contradictory provisions told Harrington's officers a lot. The most important message was that she really meant it when she ordered them to avoid responding in kind to Andermani provocations . . . and that she would back them to the hilt in any reasonable action they took in self-defense.