War Of Honor

Her Majesty's Space Station T-001 had never even attained the dignity of a formal name. Known to its denizens as "the Tamale" for reasons Flanagan had never been able to divine, T-001 offered absolutely no amenities. About the only good thing anyone could say about it was that an ex-Peep cargo transfer space station modified to play orbital mothership to a standard group of a hundred and eight LACs was big enough that at least there was ample perso

It would have been nice if the increase in living space had been accompanied by an improvement in the quality of that space. On the other hand, perhaps the amenities they had were actually better suited to the quality of the LAC group living in it. Not that the problem was with the basic quality of the perso

Flanagan had been stu

She muttered a weary, heartfelt curse at the familiar thought, then punched up the next report in her queue and grimaced as she read the header. Lovely. Now The Powers That Were wanted her squadron's crews to run a complete inventory of all emergency survival stores. She wondered why that was. The group's maintenance perso

But whether it made sense or not wasn't Flanagan's problem, so she drew a deep breath, settled down in her chair, and prepared to dive into yet another exhilarating adventure in creative paperwork.

That was the moment the entire universe changed.

The sudden, raucous, atonal howl took her utterly by surprise, but her instincts knew what they were doing. She was already out of her chair and halfway out of her small office before she even realized she'd moved. She was up to a full run within five meters, dashing through a bedlam of startled exclamations, other chairs skidding across decksoles, hatches cycling madly open, feet thundering down passages towards lift shafts, and over all of it that bone-crawling, brain-piercing alarm shrieking its warning.

As a squadron skipper, Flanagan's office cubicle was on the same deck as her squadron's LAC bays. She didn't need a lift shaft to reach her command ship, and only one member of her crew—Ensign Giuliani—had managed to beat her there. Of course, a corner of her brain reflected with something very like shell-shocked detachment, Giuliani practically lived aboard Switchblade. He was the command LAC's coxswain, and he'd discovered that he could seduce the flight computers into providing what amounted to his own, private simulator. As far as al-Salil was concerned, of course, Giuliani's solo excursions in training were completely unauthorized, but Flanagan had somehow failed to mention them to T-001's COLAC.

"What's happening, Cal?" she demanded pantingly as she skidded to a halt just inside Switchblade's boarding tube.

"I'm not sure, Skipper," Giuliani replied flatly, never looking up from the tactical plot he'd brought on-line as soon as the alarm began to sound. "But from the looks of things, we're fucked."

Flanagan felt her eyebrows try to crawl up into her hairline. She'd never heard quite that note in the brash young ensign's voice. Nor, now that she thought about it, had she ever heard even the mildest profanity from him in her own august presence.

"Can you be more specific?" she asked tartly, and this time Giuliani raised his head and gave her a half-apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Skip," he said contritely. "I should've said that it looks like the system is under attack by unknown forces operating in overwhelming strength. Except that unless I'm completely wrong, they're not 'unknown' at all. I think they're Peeps."

"Peeps?" Flanagan wanted the word to come out as a question, or perhaps a protest, but it didn't. After all, who else would be attacking a Manticoran picket here in the Tequila System? Elves? Yet despite that, she felt an underlying sense of disbelief. Everyone had heard the rumors about the Peeps' new fleet, but no one had suggested to her that any sort of attack was imminent.

"Can't think of anyone else they'd be," Giuliani told her as the other members of Switchblade's crew began to arrive. Flanagan heard them opening equipment lockers and dragging out their skinsuits. Suits weren't usually stored aboard LACs, but "the Tamale's" conversion had been a bit on the crude side. It worked—most of it, usually—but no one had bothered with any frills. And since the flight crews' battle stations were aboard the LACs, the decision had been made to keep the skinsuits there, as well. It had led to a few problems with perso

Whoever it was, they'd come loaded for bear, she thought. T-001 and her sister station T-002 were all the defenders the Tequila System had. Which was pretty frigging stupid, she reflected grimly, given its status as the furthest advanced system Eighth Fleet had occupied during the final offensive of the war. Or maybe it wasn't. What they had was big enough to deter casual intrusions, and if it wasn't powerful enough to mount a defense against an all-out attack, at least it was sufficient to act as a credible tripwire. Anyone who wanted Tequila was going to have to pay cash for it. Unfortunately, it looked like the Peeps had brought plenty of spare change.

At least Vice Admiral Schumacher had decent in-system FTL sensor capability. The big passive arrays which had once been pla

Which meant Cal was correct; "fucked" was exactly what they were.

"Launch instructions are coming up now, Skip," Lieutenant Benedict a