War Of Honor

"And if we manage to confirm all of that?"

"If we manage to confirm all of that—or even half of it—then we immediately make tracks for Sidemore," Bachfisch said. "I know the people who are expecting us to deliver their cargoes are going to be more than a little pissed off when we don't show. And I know we're going to be looking at some pretty stiff penalties. But I strongly suspect that Duchess Harrington will defray any of our losses out of her discretionary funds when she hears what we have to tell her. And she and her intelligence people can probably help us concoct some sort of explanation for our customers' benefit."

"I see." Gruber looked back down at the plot.

"I realize I'm taking a chance shadowing a destroyer," Bachfisch said softly. "And I suppose it's not fair to our people for me to be doing it in the interests of my own kingdom. None of them signed on to be Preston of the Spaceways. But I can't just sit there and watch something like this happen."

"I wouldn't worry about the people, Skipper," Gruber told him after a moment. "I don't say they're looking forward to any possible confrontations with the Peeps, but most of them have already figured out at least part of what you're up to. And the truth is, Skip, that if you figure this is what we need to be doing, we're all prepared to trust your judgment. You've gotten us into trouble a time or two, but you've always gotten us out the other side again."

He looked up, and Bachfisch nodded in satisfaction at what he saw in the exec's face.

"That bogey is closing up on us a little, Sir."

Lieutenant Commander Dumais, captain of the Trojan —class destroyer RHNS Hecate, cocked his head in an invitation for his tac officer to continue.

"I still can't tell you exactly what it is," Lieutenant Singleterry admitted. "Local h-space conditions are particularly bad just now. But it still looks like a merchie."

"A merchie," Dumais repeated, then shook his head. "I don't question your judgment, Stephanie, but just what in Hell do you think a merchie would be doing following us around this way? Using us for cover against pirates, sure. But following us out into the middle of nowhere?"

"If I could tell you that, Skipper, then I'd be wasting my time in the Navy compared to the fortune I could be making choosing wi

"Hmmm." Dumais frowned in thought. "You did say local sensor conditions are bad?"

"Yes, Sir. In fact, they pretty much suck, and they're getting worse. Particle count is way up, and that grav eddy at three o'clock is fu

"In that case, I can think of two possible explanations for her behavior," Dumais said. "The one I like better is that she is riding our heels as cover against pirates and she wants to stay close enough to be sure we'll notice if anyone hits her."

"And the other one is that she's closing up to hold us on her own sensors?" Singleterry asked, then tugged at the lobe of her left ear as Dumais nodded. "I guess that might make sense. But that would suggest she really has been deliberately shadowing us."

"Yes, it would," Dumais agreed.

"Which brings me back to the question of why a merchant ship would be doing anything of the sort," Singleterry said.

"I suppose that one possibility is that she isn't a merchant ship, whatever she may look like," Dumais suggested.

"You think she might be a warship?"

"It's certainly possible. Play a few games with your nodes, and you can make a warship's impeller wedge or Warshawski sails look like a merchie's."

"A Manty?" Singleterry suggested unhappily.

"Possibly. On the other hand, it's more likely to be an Andie out here. For that matter, it could actually be a Silly. This is officially their territorial space, after all, even if everyone else seems inclined to forget that. One of them could have noticed us hanging around in Horus and gotten curious."

"I guess an Andie or a Silly would at least be better than a Manty," Singleterry said. "But either way, I don't think the Admiral is going to be very happy if there's anything to your suspicions."

"Tell me about it!" Dumais snorted. He gazed at his plot for several more seconds, frowning in thought.

Hecate would be transitioning from Warshawski sail to impeller wedge when she left the fringes of the grav wave in another three hours. At that point, she'd be within less than five and a half hours' flight time of her destination. And if that was a shadowing warship back there, then whoever she belonged to would have a very shrewd notion of where Dumais' ship was headed. Which meant that they'd have a very shrewd notion of where Second Fleet lay awaiting its orders from Nouveau Paris.

The lieutenant commander growled a silent mental curse. He'd worried about the decision to use his ship and her squadron mate Hector as Second Fleet's communications link with Ambassador Jackson in Horus from the moment he was assigned the duty. He understood the absolute necessity of making sure that link was secure, but it would have been a lot smarter to use a regular dispatch boat for the job. Unfortunately, whatever New Octagon genius had thought this one up had neglected to consider that possibility, and apparently no one there—or on Admiral Tourville's staff—had realized until Second Fleet reached Silesia that Ambassador Jackson didn't already have a dispatch vessel assigned to him.

Under the circumstances, the Admiral hadn't had any choice about making his own arrangements to cover the final leg of the communications link. And because he didn't have any dispatch boats of his own, he'd had to detach a couple of destroyers for the job.

The worst part of it was that Second Fleet had to be positive its communications were functioning properly. If the order to attack was sent from home, it had to get through. So Admiral Tourville had left not one, but two destroyers behind to ensure the maintenance of his communications with Ambassador Jackson. Two destroyers weren't going to be all that much more noticeable than one, and at least this way, the ambassador could use one ship to shuttle back and forth between Horus and Second Fleet, maintaining constant contact while keeping the other on station in Osiris orbit in case the actual attack order should come in.

Dumais wasn't at all sure what was in the sealed dispatches Jackson had instructed him to deliver to Admiral Tourville this time. Nothing the ambassador had said had given him any impression that they were truly vital, and he would really have preferred not to be sent off to play postman with some routine message. On the other hand, he supposed it did make sense to use his ship rather than risk hiring a commercially available dispatch boat and giving it the coordinates for Second Fleet's hiding place.

Which was how he found himself out here with that incredibly irritating sensor ghost dogging his heels.

"We don't have any idea of what his sensor capabilities might be, do we?" he asked Singleterry after a moment.

"Assuming he's hanging back at the very edge of his ability to hold us on his sca

"Which would seem to suggest that there's a better chance it's a Silly than an Andy," Dumais mused aloud.

"Or," Singleterry countered, "that it's a merchie with a really good commercial-grade sensor suite. Given how risky a neighborhood this can be, a lot of the merchant ships that spend time out here have much better sensor packages than anything we'd see closer to home."