War Of Honor

"CIC makes it right on five hundred and ten gravities from a base velocity of right on six-point-five thousand KPS," Harris replied. The captain's surprise showed, and he nodded. "Like I say, Skipper—she's got to be military, and she's ru

"Any com traffic from her, Mecia?" Ferrero demanded.

"None, Ma'am," the lieutenant replied.

"Well, see if you can raise her," the captain directed. "At that much to

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," McKee agreed, and began speaking into her hush mike. "Unknown vessel bearing zero-three-seven, zero-two-niner, this is Her Majesty's Ship Jessica Epps, Captain Erica Ferrero, commanding, in pursuit of suspected pirate bearing zero-zero-six, zero-one-five from our position. Captain Ferrero extends her compliments and requests that you identify yourself and advise us of your intentions. Jessica Epps, clear."

Given the distance, it took three minutes and fifty-three seconds for McKee's hail to cross the vacuum between Jessica Epps and the unknown warship. Their closing velocity reduced the range by almost sixteen and a half million kilometers during that time, which meant that it required only a shade over two minutes and a half for the other captain's reply to arrive.

McKee twitched visibly in her chair when it did. Then she turned to her captain.

"I think you'd better listen to the direct feed, Ma'am," she said.

Ferrero started to ask her why, but then she shrugged and nodded, and a harsh, strongly accented Andermani voice sounded from the bridge speaker.

"Jessica Epps, this is His Imperial Majesty's Ship Hellbarde,Kapitan der Sterne Gortz, commanding." The male voice's tone carried a powerful dose of something. Ferrero couldn't precisely identify what that "something" was, but she didn't much care for it. "We are in a superior position to intercept the vessel you are pursuing. We will deal with it. Break off. Hellbarde, clear."

Ferrero understood McKee's reaction to that brusque message perfectly. Captains of warships of sovereign star nations didn't necessarily have to waste fulsome military punctilio on one another, but there were certain standards of courtesy. This message was little more than a curt dismissal, an instruction to get out of Hellbarde's way which did not even respond to Ferrero by name. Addressed to a warship of a navy which had so recently ratified its claim as the most powerful one within several hundred light-years, it amounted to a studied insult. Moreover, under established interstellar naval protocols, the fact that Jessica Epps was already clearly in pursuit and overhauling before Hellbarde entered the chase gave her priority in claiming the prize. As Ferrero had just observed, this was her bird, not Hellbarde's.

"Put me on-mike, Mecia," she said flatly.

"Aye, aye, Ma'am." McKee tapped a command into her panel, then nodded to her commander. "Live mike, Ma'am."

"Hellbarde, this is Captain Ferrero." The CO forced her tone to remain pleasant but allowed an edge of crispness to intrude. "We appreciate the offer of assistance, but we have the situation in hand. Be advised that we will be firing our initial warning shot in approximately—" she checked the sidebar on her tactical plot "—eighteen standard minutes. Captain Ferrero, clear."

She waved one hand, gesturing for McKee to go ahead and transmit, then leaned back in her chair, wondering what in the hell this Kapitan der Sterne Gortz thought she was playing at. It wasn't as if a ship the size of the pirate they were chasing was going to be worth an enormous amount of prize money. No navy would buy something as small and lightly armed as a typical pirate vessel into service, so the only real possibility for prize money would be the thousand dollars of "head money" the Star Kingdom paid for each pirate captured—or killed resisting capture—in the course of a warship's cruise. Given the small size of the current candidate, that probably wouldn't amount to much more than forty or fifty thousand to be divided amongst Jessica Epps' entire crew. Neither Ferrero nor her perso

Ferrero jerked upright in her chair, spi

"The Andy just launched on the pirate, Skipper! I have three birds in acquisition!"

Ferrero's eyes dropped to her own repeater plot, and she swallowed a curse of disbelief as it updated. Harris was right. Preposterous as it sounded, Hellbarde had just launched missiles at Jessica Epps' prize in complete violation of all interstellar naval practice. Not to mention at least half a dozen solemn protocols Ferrero could think of right off hand.

There was nothing she—or anyone in the universe—could have done to change what happened next. Hellbarde was much closer to the target than Jessica Epps was, and the flight time on her missiles was little more than seventy seconds. None of them were warning shots, either.

The hapless suspected pirate altered course, rolling ship frantically in an effort to interpose the roof of its impeller wedge between it and the incoming warheads. It was wasted effort, and its pathetically outclassed counter missiles and point defense were equally useless. Seventy-four seconds after Hellbarde's launch, what had been a forty-seven thousand-ton starship had become a spreading pattern of very small pieces of wreckage.

"Jessica Epps, this is Hellbarde," the same harsh, hard voice said from the bridge speakers. "As we said, we will deal with it. Hellbarde, clear."

Every eye on Jessica Epps' command deck turned to Erica Ferrero. Most of them turned away, almost as quickly, for not one of her officers could ever recall having seen so much raw fury on their captain's face. She glared at her plot, lips tight in a snarl of anger, and every fiber of her being wanted to lash out at that smug, disdainful voice.

But a small, clear voice of warning sounded in the back of her brain, despite her rage. She had no doubt that Kapitan der Sterne Gortz—whoever the hell she was—had enjoyed what she'd just done, but the fact that she'd done it at all, coupled with the increased Andermani presence throughout this entire region, suggested a great many unpleasant possibilities. No warship captain in her right mind would gratuitously violate all accepted interstellar law and standards of behavior and simultaneously insult another navy the way Gortz just had . . . unless there was a very good reason for it.

It was always possible that Gortz wasn't in her right mind, but that seemed unlikely, to say the least. Another possibility was that she was one of the Andies who particularly resented the RMN's presence in Silesia—or, at least, the Star Kingdom's refusal to give her own star nation a free hand in the Confederacy—and who believed she was sufficiently well born (or had sufficiently powerful personal patrons within the IAN) to escape the consequences of her actions.