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Honor watched the others from the comers of her eyes as she exercised and wished longingly for even a little more space. There wasn't really enough room for her to have gone through her training katas properly even if she'd been alone. With the others crowding in on her, she probably would have inflicted serious bodily injury on someone if she'd tried. Yet for all the inconvenience of being squeezed so tightly together, the part of her which eroded a little further every day under the dead weight of her helplessness was grateful the others were present. Not that any of them wanted to be here, but at least she and Nimitz didn't have to face the added burden of isolation which proper military courtesy would have imposed upon them in a larger vessel.
Despite the vast gulf between Honor's rank and theirs, McGinley, Metcalf, and DuChene were the next most senior female POWs, and it was impossible for the Peeps to offer any of their prisoners, even Honor, private quarters. Citizen Captain Bogdanovich had apologized on Citizen Rear Admiral Tourville's behalf for crowding the four of them together, but Count Tilly was only a battlecruiser. There was only so much space to go around, and however spartan, the compartment, intended by the ship's designers to provide berthing space for six junior officers, was preferable to a cell in the brig.
At first, Metcalf and DuChene had been more than a little uncomfortable at being thrown in with Honor... and Nimitz, of course. They'd seemed to feel it was somehow their fault that she'd been denied the privacy they were convinced she deserved, and the difference in their ranks had only made things worse. She'd done her best to disabuse them of the notion that they were to blame for anything that had happened, and McGinley’s presence had helped. Neither Metcalf nor DuChene had ever served with Honor before. Aside from the brief contacts they'd had during her visits aboard Prince Adrian, they'd been total strangers, but McGinley, as Honors operations officer, offered a sort of bridge. She held the same rank as the other two, yet she was also comfortable with her role as the second most important member of Honor's staff, and her existing working relationship with Honor had gradually extended itself to Metcalf and DuChene. Nothing could make their situation anything other than irregular and awkward, but the others had settled down after the first few days.
The difference in their ranks remained, of course, even in their new and strained circumstances. Honor was not simply their superior but their CO, the senior officer of all the Allied POWs, which required her to remain aloof from the others. She could never hope to be "one of the girls," but they'd fallen into an almost comfortable relationship, and Honor was glad, for she was self-honest enough to admit that in her current situation she needed any sense of stability she could get. Her contact with the other POWs was virtually nonexistent, and a sense of being disco
Nimitz, on the other hand, seemed almost content... but appearances were deceiving. He couldn't hide his sense of being trapped from Honor, although his cheerful opportunism would have fooled anyone who lacked her link to his emotions. He'd gotten to know McGinley well aboard Alvarez; now he imposed shamelessly upon her for petting and grooming. In fact, he'd deigned to accept the ministrations of all three of Honors junior officers. She might almost have felt abandoned if she hadn't realized how he'd turned petting or playing with him into a sort of occupational therapy for them... and if his willingness to luxuriate unabashedly in their attentions hadn't been such a major factor in overcoming Metcalf's and DuChene's original discomfort.
Besides, watching Nimitz manipulate the others out of their depression helped distract Honor from her own. And her fellow prisoners weren't the only people the 'cat had charmed. Indeed, Sha
Foraker was certainly a good choice, if his object was to be sure he'd picked someone he could trust to see to it that his prisoners were properly treated, but Honor had come to suspect the citizen rear admiral of an additional motive. Despite her promotion, the ops officer hadn't changed much since Honor had met her in Silesia, and she clearly wanted to repay Honor for how well she'd been treated aboard HMS Wayfarer. But what superiors in most navies might have seen as an honorable intention on her part could be extremely dangerous to an officer in the present Peoples Navy, and that, Honor suspected, was the real reason Tourville had made her his liaison. Since she'd been ordered to see to the prisoners' well-being, her superiors could hardly come down on her for being conscientious in the discharge of her duties.
It was unlikely the ops officer realized what Tourville was up to (always assuming, of course, that Honor had figured it out properly), but that blind spot was part of her charm. She had an almost childlike i
And however little awareness Foraker seemed to have of potential risks to her, she clearly recognized Honor’s greatest worry, and she'd set out to do something about it. She'd not only brought other Peeps to meet Nimitz, whose charm could be relied upon to loosen up the stiffest courtesy call, but she'd also "borrowed" the 'cat several times. Officially, she was taking Nimitz out for exercise; actually, she was introducing him to as many people as possible aboard Count Tilly with the obvious intention of convincing them he represented no danger to them.
Honor was immensely grateful for Foraker's efforts, although she would have felt more optimistic about their success if she hadn't discovered that Tourville, at least, knew Nimitz was a danger. The citizen rear admiral had taken to inviting her, McKeon, and "Colonel" LaFollet, as the three highest ranking POWs, to dine with his officers on a semiregular basis. Honor was grateful for the opportunity to see the others, although she knew those di
She'd been startled at first, though a little consideration had told her she shouldn't have been. After all, she routinely saw the files ONI compiled on Peep officers whom the RMN had decided were important enough to keep tabs on. She simply hadn't considered that the Peoples Navy might see her in that light. But they did... and as part of her file, they'd included full details of her career on Grayson. From Tourville’s deliberately casual remarks, it was obvious those details included clips from the gory Planetary Security video of her and Nimitz foiling the attempt to assassinate Protector Benjamin’s family. No one who'd seen that footage could ever make the mistake of underestimating Nimitz's lethality, and while Tourville clearly didn't feel threatened by him, she rather doubted that everyone else who had the rank to see it would share his equanimity.