At All Costs

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The communicator on her desk buzzed, and she looked up from the report and pressed the acceptance key.

"Yes?"

"Your Grace," Harper Brantley's voice said, "you have a message."

"What is it?"

"We've just been informed that the First Lord and First Space Lord are aboard the midday shuttle flight, Your Grace. Their pi

"Thank you, Harper."

Honor's courteous voice was calm enough to fool anyone who didn't know her very well indeed. Harper Brantley was one of those who did.

"You're welcome, Your Grace," he said quietly, and cut the circuit.

Honor sat back in her float chair, and Nimitz crooned comfortingly from his perch. She looked up and smiled, acknowledging both his love and his effort to cheer her, but they both knew he hadn't succeeded.

She looked back at her terminal, and the latest in the merciless progression of reports floating in its display. There was never an end to any Queen's officer's paperwork, and she'd found that was even truer after a resounding defeat than it was after a victory. In many ways, she was grateful. It gave her something to do besides sitting in the stillness of her quarters, listening to her ghosts.

Nimitz hopped down onto the desk and rose on his haunches, leaning forward to rest his true-hands on her shoulders while the tip of his nose just touched hers. He stared into her eyes, his own grass-green gaze as deep as the oceans of Sphinx they had sailed together in her childhood, and she felt him deep inside her. Felt his concern, and his scolding love as they both grappled with her sense of guilt and loss.

She reached out and folded her arms about him, holding him to her breasts while she buried her face in his soft, soft fur, and his croon sang gently, gently through her.

Honor stood in Imperator's boat bay, Andrew LaFollet at her shoulder, as the pi

"First Lord, arriving!" the intercom a

"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" he asked, as Rafe Cardones saluted.

"Permission granted, My Lord."

"Thank you." Hamish nodded and shook Cardones' proffered hand. Then he stepped past the captain and his eyes met Honor's for just a moment before he held out his hand to her. She shook it without speaking, her empathic sense clinging to the concern and love in his mind-glow, acutely aware of all the other, watching eyes, as the bay speakers spoke again.

"First Space Lord, arriving!"

"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" Sir Thomas Caparelli asked in the ancient ritual.

"Permission granted, Sir," Cardones gave the equally ritualistic response, and Caparelli stepped across the painted line on the deck.

"My Lord, Sir Thomas," Honor said in formal greeting as she released Hamish's hand to shake Caparelli's in turn.

"Your Grace," Caparelli replied for both of them, and Honor tasted his emotions, as well. The anger she'd half dreaded and yet half desired was absent. Instead, she tasted sympathy, concern, and something very like compassion. Part of her was glad, but another part-the wounded part-was almost angry, as if he were betraying her dead by not blaming her for their deaths. It was illogical and unreasonable, and she knew it. And it didn't change her emotions one bit.

"Would you and Earl White Haven care to join me in my quarters?"

"I think that's an excellent idea, Your Grace," Caparelli said after only the briefest glance at Hamish.

"In that case, My Lords," Honor said, and waved her right hand at the waiting lifts.

The short journey to Honor's quarters was silent, without the casual small talk which would normally have filled it. LaFollet peeled off outside the day cabin hatch, and Honor waved her visitors through it.

She followed them, and the hatch slid shut behind her.

"Welcome to Imperator, My Lords," she began, then chopped off in astonishment as Hamish turned and enfolded her in a fierce embrace. For just a moment, conscious of Caparelli's presence, she started to resist. But then she realized she tasted absolutely no surprise from the First Space Lord, and she abandoned herself-briefly, at least-to the incredible comfort of her husband's arms.

The embrace lasted several seconds, and then Hamish stood back, his left hand on her right shoulder, while his feather-gentle right hand brushed an errant strand of hair from her forehead.

"It's... good to see you, love," he said softly.

"And you." Honor felt her lower lip try to quiver and called it sternly to order. Then she looked past Hamish to Caparelli and managed a wry smile. "And it's good to see you, too, Sir Thomas."

"Although not, perhaps, quite as good, eh, Admiral Alexander-Harrington?"

"Oh, dear." Honor inhaled and looked back and forth between the two men. "Have we gone public while I was away, Hamish?"

"I wouldn't put it quite that way," he replied. "A few people have either figured it out or been informed because it's just so much simpler that way. Thomas here falls into both categories. I informed him... and he'd already figured it out. Essentially, at least."

"Your Grace-Honor," Caparelli said with a crooked smile, "your relationship with Hamish has to be one of the worst kept secrets in the history of the Royal Manticoran Navy." Alarm flickered in her eyes, but he only chuckled. "I might add, however, that I doubt very much that any Queen's officer would breathe a word about it. If nothing else, he'd be terrified of what the rest of us would do to him when we found out."

"Sir Thomas," she began, "I-"

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Honor," Caparelli cut her off. "First, because I think Hamish is probably right where the Articles of War are concerned. Second, because I've never seen any indication of your allowing personal feelings to influence your actions. Third, because you've made it crystal clear throughout your career that you have absolutely no interest in playing the patronage game and relying on 'interest' to further that career. And, fourth, and probably most importantly of all, the two of you-the three of you-have damned well earned it."

Honor closed her mouth, tasting the rock-ribbed sincerity behind his words. It was an enormous relief, but she made herself bite off any thanks. Instead, she simply waved for the two of them to be seated on the couch, then seated herself in one of the facing armchairs.

Hamish smiled faintly but said nothing as she deliberately separated the two of them from one another. Samantha hopped down from his shoulder, and she and Nimitz leapt up into the other armchair, curling down beside one another and purring happily.

"I imagine," Honor said after a moment, her mood darkening once more, "that you've come out to discuss my fiasco."

Hamish's expression never wavered, but she felt his internal wince at her choice of noun.

"I suppose that's one way to describe it," Caparelli said. "It's not the one I would've chosen, however."

"I don't see a better one." Honor knew she sounded bitter, but she couldn't quite help it. "I lost half my superdreadnoughts, sixty percent of my battlecruisers, half my heavy cruisers, thirty-eight percent of my light cruisers, and over forty percent of my LACs. In return for which I managed to destroy two minelayers and damage two superdreadnoughts, one of them a pre-pod relic. And to inflict absolutely no damage on the system's infrastructure which was my original objective." She smiled without a trace of humor. "That sounds like the dictionary definition of a 'fiasco' to me."