At All Costs

Chapter Forty-Four

"Well, that went pretty well, I thought, Your Grace."

Andrea Jaruwalski was trying very hard not to preen in satisfaction, and Honor smothered a smile. Jaruwalski, Brigham, Rafe Cardones, and Yolanda Harriman had joined her for di

"I suppose you could say that," Honor said slowly, pursing her lips with a dubious expression. "Of course, there were a few little glitches."

"There always are," Brigham pointed out. "Personally, Your Grace, I found myself wondering just who programmed the simulation to throw that extra squadron of superdreadnoughts at us."

She gave Honor an intensely speculative look, which Honor returned with one of total i

"It occurred to me, while I was wondering," Brigham continued, "that whoever might have decided to do it-and, I trust you'll note, I name no names-would have needed a minion somewhere in the flagship. Preferably, someone with access to the tactical computers. Of course, once that ignoble suspicion occurred to me, I womanfully put it behind me as one unworthy of our open and forthright command staff."

"Mac!" Honor called through the pantry hatch.

"Yes, Your Grace?"

"Bring me my hip-waders, would you? It's getting deep in here."

"Of course, Your Grace," MacGuiness replied with perfect aplomb. "Would you like your snorkel mask, as well?"

"I don't think it's going to get quite that deep," Honor said as her guests laughed.

"Very good, Your Grace," MacGuiness said as he stepped back out of the pantry and set a second serving of peach cobbler in front of Honor. She smiled her thanks and picked up her dessert fork again.

"Your Grace," Brigham said wistfully, watching Honor dig in, "there are times when I positively hate you and that metabolism of yours."

She patted her own reasonably flat stomach and shook her head sadly.

"You should try the downside of it sometime, Mercedes," Honor told her. "You may envy the way it lets me pander to my sweet tooth, but try waking up with the sort of middle-of-the-night munchies I got as, say, a twelve-year-old." She shuddered. "Trust me, as an adolescent, I seemed to spend all my time shoveling in food, not just half of it."

She felt a sudden jab of darker emotion from behind her and glanced over her shoulder.

Andrew LaFollet stood inside the dining cabin hatch. Before the attempt on Honor's life, he would have been content to stand his post outside the hatch, given the guest list. These days, that was out of the question as far as he was concerned, and she recognized the somberness radiating from him. He was remembering PNS Tepes and her own half-starved gauntness when he, Jamie Candless, and Robert Whitman broke her out of a StateSec holding cell.

She caught his eye long enough to smile gently at him, and he smiled back, shaking off his mood. Then she turned back to her guests, none of whom had picked up on that particular bit of byplay.

"Actually, Andrea, getting back to your original comment, I have to agree. Things did seem to go quite well, over all. I was especially pleased with the way Mistletoe worked."

"I was, too, Your Grace," Cardones said. "At the same time, I can't help worrying a little bit about the simulation's parameters. If it turns out Mistletoe doesn't work as well in practice-or, even worse, gets picked up early-we could be in a world of hurt against another missile attack like the one they threw at us at Solon."

"You're right, of course." Honor nodded. She forked up another bite of cobbler, chewed, and swallowed, then continued. "We deliberately used the more pessimistic set of assumptions from Admiral Hemphill's testing programs, but we won't know for certain until we test it against active Havenite defenses. For the most part, though, BuWeaps has done a pretty good job of simulating enemy threat levels for quite some time now."

"I know." Cardones nodded, and smiled. "I didn't say my worries were all that reasonable, Your Grace. I just said I had them."

"Personally, Skipper," Harriman told him, "I'm looking forward to seeing Apollo in action." Imperator's tactical officer smiled almost beatifically. "Their point defense better be really good if they expect to go home with a whole hide this time!"

"I only hope they don't figure out how few of the new pods we really have," Brigham said.

"Unless their spies have managed a lot better penetration than ONI thinks they have, they shouldn't realize that," Honor replied. "And if they do have that kind of penetration, we're in so much trouble already that it won't really matter if they figure out that particular point."

Brigham chuckled.

"You're right, Your Grace, I-"

"Excuse me, Your Grace."

Honor turned, eyebrows lowering, as MacGuiness stepped back out of his pantry.

"What is it, Mac?"

"Communications just buzzed. A special Admiralty courier boat just cleared the Junction. According to her captain, she has emergency dispatches onboard."

The levity and confidence of Honor's di

The enlarged and more powerful fleet which wasn't going anywhere, after all, she thought grimly.

"I'm sorry to get you all up this late," she began. "Unfortunately, the Admiralty's news isn't good."

She saw no surprise on the tense faces in the display. That much, at least, they'd all obviously guessed.

"This afternoon, the Admiralty received an emergency dispatch from Admiral Khumalo in Talbott," she continued evenly. "A copy of that dispatch was included in the Admiralty download I received an hour ago. Commander Reynolds," she waved a hand at her intelligence officer, "will put together copies of most of the material and distribute it to all of you immediately after this conference. For the moment, to summarize, Admiral Khumalo's informed the Admiralty that Captain Aivars Terekhov has deduced that the apparently unrelated terrorist incidents in the Cluster have, in fact, been carefully orchestrated by outside elements. Specifically, the terrorist Nordbrandt and her 'Freedom Alliance of Kornati' are being armed with modern weapons by Mesa. The same apparently holds true for the terrorists operating in the Montana System, as well."

She clearly had everyone's attention, she noted with bitter amusement.

"Apparently, Captain Terekhov has physical proof of that part of his theory. He intercepted and captured a Jessyk Combine slaver being used to run in the weapons. Before he did so, however, it used a laser cluster to destroy one of his pi

She closed her eyes briefly in pain, recalling the bright promise and eagerness of Midshipwoman Ragnhild Pavletic. Then she opened them once more and continued.

"After interrogating the slaver's surviving crew and breaking into its computers, Terekhov concluded that the Republic of Monica is also involved. He believes the Monicans are being provided with modern warships in sufficient numbers to provoke a crisis in the Cluster. And he believes the Office of Frontier Security is also involved, and that OFS is prepared to commit Solly fleet units to 'restore order' in the Cluster after the Monicans have acted."