War Of Honor

"No, but I'll buy you lunch," she countered, and LaFollet felt a fresh sinking sensation as he saw the way her eyes suddenly danced even more devilishly than Nimitz's had. White Haven arched a questioning eyebrow, and she chuckled. "You're here on the Island, Hamish, and whether Janacek likes it or not, you are a flag officer. Why not let me com ahead to Casey and reserve one of the flag dining rooms for lunch?"

"Oh, Honor, that's evil," White Haven said with a sudden huge grin, and LaFollet closed his eyes in profound agreement. Casey Hall was the enormous cafeteria right off the Quadrangle. Its main dining hall was capable of seating almost a third of Saganami Island's entire student body simultaneously, but it also boasted smaller, much more palatial dining rooms for more senior officers. Including fifteen or twenty small, private rooms reserved for admirals and very senior captains of the list and their guests on a first-come, first-served basis.

"Janacek will fall down in a frothing fit when he hears you and I had lunch together in the very heart of what he'd like to consider his own private domain," the Earl continued. "Especially when he figures out I came straight from Willie's after discussing what he and High Ridge had to say at the briefing this morning."

"I doubt we'll be quite that lucky," Lady Harrington disagreed, "but we can at least hope his blood pressure will kick up a few points."

"I like it," White Haven a

For the tiniest sliver of a moment, Andrew LaFollet hovered on the brink of the unthinkable. But the instant passed, and as he stepped around the Steadholder to open the door for her, he pressed his lips firmly together against the words he had no business saying.

They really don't have a clue, he thought. That's why they don't realize I'm not the only person—the only two-footed person, anyway—who's begun to notice the way the two of them look at each other. The last thing they need is to go traipsing off to a private lunch in such a public place, but they don't even realize it.

He opened the door, glanced through it in a quick, automatic search, then stood aside to allow the Steadholder and her guest through it. He watched them heading for Joha

Father Church says You look after children and fools, he told the Comforter. I hope You're looking after both of them now.

Chapter Four

Captain Thomas Bachfisch, owner and master of the armed merchant ship Pirates' Bane, was a lean, spare man with a thin, lined face. He was more than a little stoop-shouldered, and despite his immaculately tailored blue civilian uniform, he did not cut an impressive figure. Nor, for that matter, did Pirates' Bane. At around five million tons, the freighter was of little more than average size for most regions of space, although she did tend towards the upper end of the to

As his present occupation demonstrated.

He stood in his freighter's boat bay, hands clasped loosely behind him, and watched with grim satisfaction as the latest group of Silesians to underestimate his vessel shuffled toward the waiting shuttle from the Andermani cruiser Todfeind. They were more than merely subdued as they filed between the row of waiting Andermani Marines and the armed crewmen Bachfisch had detailed to deliver them to their new jailers.

"We'll send your handcuffs back across as soon as we get these . . . people properly brigged, Captain," the Andy oberleutnant der Sterne in charge of the Marine detail promised him.

"I appreciate that, Oberleutnant." Bachfisch's tenor voice was just a bit on the nasal side, and its clipped Manticoran enunciation contrasted sharply with the Andermani officer's harsher accent.

"Believe me, Sir, the pleasure is all ours." The oberleutnant finished his count as the last prisoner marched droopingly past him. "I make that thirty-seven, Kapitan," he a

The oberleutnant punched an entry into his memo board, then shook his head and gave the blue-coated man beside him a much more admiring look than naval officers were wont to waste on mere merchant captains.

"I hope you'll pardon me for asking, Kapitan," he said with a marked air of diffidence, "but just how did you manage to capture them?" Bachfisch cocked his head at him, and the oberleutnant shook his own head quickly. "That may not have sounded exactly the way I meant it, Sir. It's just that, usually, pirates are more likely to capture merchant crews than the other way around. It's always a pleasant surprise when someone manages to turn the tables on them, instead. And I have to admit that when the Kapitan told me to come across and take them off your hands I did a little research. This isn't the first time you've handed us a batch of pirates."

Bachfisch regarded the youthful officer, the equivalent of an RMN lieutenant (junior grade), thoughtfully for a moment. He'd already transmitted his complete report to Todfeind's captain, and the cruiser's legal officer had taken sworn statements from all of his officers and most of his senior ratings. That was SOP here in the Confederacy, where witnesses to acts of piracy were frequently unable to attend the eventual trials of the pirates in question. But it was obvious from the oberleutnant's earnest expression that his seniors hadn't chosen to share that information with him . . . and that curiosity was eating him alive.

"I prefer handing any batch of pirates over to you rather than to the Sillies," Bachfisch said after a moment. "At least when I hand them over to the Empire, I can be reasonably certain I won't be seeing them again. They know it, too. They were an unhappy lot when I told them who'd be taking them into custody from us.

"As to how we came to turn the tables on them . . ." He shrugged. "The Bane may not look it, Oberleutnant, but she's as heavily armed as a lot of heavy cruisers. Most merchies can't afford the to