On Basilisk Station

Yet the barriers sealing him off from Harrington had grown too thick for that. He felt them rising into place, holding him in his chair, and then Harrington stood. She rose without haste, but he seemed to sense a jerkiness to her movement, a hidden urgency.

"Commander McKeon, you have the watch. I'll be in my quarters."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. I have the watch," he acknowledged automatically. She nodded, dark eyes looking right through him with a curious, dangerous hardness, then scooped up her treecat and strode into the bridge lift. The door closed behind her.

McKeon rose and crossed to the command chair, settling into it and feeling the warmth her body had left behind. He made himself look away from the bland lift door and leaned back against the contoured cushions, wondering what fresh disaster was headed Fearless's way.

CHAPTER SIX

The planet Medusa gleamed like a dull ball bearing far below as Fearless slid into her assigned parking orbit for rendezvous with Warlock. It wasn't much of a planet, Honor thought, watching it on the visual display. She was well-aware her concentration on Medusa stemmed from a need to think about anything but the upcoming interview with her senior officer, but her mood had little to do with her conclusion that Medusa had to be the most boring-looking world she'd ever seen.

It was gray-green, relieved only by weather patterns and the glaring white of massive polar ice caps. Even its deep, narrow seas were a barely lighter shade of the omnipresent gray-green—a soupy sludge of plankton and larger plant forms that thrived in a brew the environmental control people would have condemned in a heartbeat back on Sphinx. Medusa's axial tilt was extreme, over forty degrees, which, coupled with its cool primary, produced a climate more brutal even than Manticore-B's Gryphon. The planetary flora was well-adapted to its severe environment, but it showed an appalling lack of variation, for Medusa was covered in moss. Thousands—millions—of varieties of moss. Short, fuzzy moss in place of grass. Higher-growing, brushy moss in place of bushes. Even, God help us all, great, big, floppy mounds of moss in place of trees. She'd heard about it, even seen holos, but this was the first time she'd seen it with her own eyes, and it wasn't the same at all.

She gave a wry grimace of distaste and turned her eyes resolutely to the sight she'd been avoiding. HMS Warlock floated in the same orbit, barely a hundred kilometers clear, and she swallowed a bitter-tasting envy mixed with old hatred as she gazed at her.

The Star Knight class were the RMN's latest heavy cruisers, three and a half times more massive than Fearless and with almost six times her firepower, even before Hephaestus and Horrible Hemphill had butchered her. The big, sleek ship hung there, taunting Honor's elderly command with its mere presence, and knowing who commanded that beautiful vessel made it far, far worse. She'd thought she'd hit bottom when they assigned her to Basilisk Station; now she knew she had.

The duty helmsman brought Fearless to rest relative to Warlock, and she drew a deep breath, wondering if any of her crew guessed why she'd left Nimitz in her quarters. Not that she intended to tell them.

"Call away my cutter, please," she requested. "Mr. Venizelos, you have the watch."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Venizelos replied, and watched curiously as his captain stepped into the lift and headed for the boat bay.

Honor sat silently, arms folded, as her cutter crept across the emptiness between Fearless and Warlock. She'd been tempted, in a way, to use one of her pi

Her pilot completed his final approach, and the cutter shivered as Warlock's tractors captured it. It rolled on its gyros, aligning itself with the heavy cruiser's internal gravity as the brilliantly-lit cavern of Warlock's boat bay engulfed them, then settled into the docking cradle. Alloy clanged gently as hatch collars mated, and the green pressure light glowed.

She was alone, and she allowed herself a sigh as she stood and tucked her beret under her epaulet. Then she tugged the skirt of her tunic down, squared her shoulders, and walked briskly through the opening hatch and down the tube into the twitter of bosun's calls and the salutes of the side party.

Young hadn't come down to welcome her in person, she saw. She supposed it was a calculated insult—it was the petty sort of gesture at which he excelled—but she was relieved by his absence. It gave her a chance to settle herself and get her i

She stopped in front of the short, squared-off commander heading the side party and saluted.

"Permission to come aboard, Sir?" she asked.

"Permission granted, Commander Harrington." He returned her salute, then extended his hand. "Paul Tankersley, Warlock's exec." His voice was deep and resonant, his clasp firm, but there was an edge of curiosity in his sharp eyes. Honor wondered if he'd heard rumors about her and Young.

"If you'll accompany me, Commander," Tankersley went on after a brief pause, "the Captain is waiting in Briefing One."

"Lead on." She made a tiny gesture for him to precede her, and the two of them walked through the side party to the waiting lift.

There was no small talk on the way, which, Honor reflected, probably did indicate that Tankersley knew at least a little about her. After all, he could hardly begin a conversation with, "Do you and the Captain still hate each other's guts, Commander?" Nor could he ask for her side of it without seeming disloyal to his own CO. Under the circumstances, a prudent silence was undoubtedly his wisest course, and she felt her lips twitch with acid amusement as the lift slid to a halt.

"This way, Commander," Tankersley said, and she followed him down a short passage to the briefing room hatch. He came to a halt, pressed the admittance button, and stood aside as the panel slid open. She thought she saw just a touch of sympathy in his expression as she walked past him.

Captain Lord Young was seated behind the conference table, perusing a sheet of hardcopy. He didn't look up as she entered, and she gritted her teeth, amazed that such a trivial insult could make her so angry. She crossed to the table and stood silently, determined to wait him out.

He was the same flashy, handsome man he'd always been, she noted. Putting on a little weight, perhaps, but the short beard hid his incipient double chin quite well, and his tailoring was excellent. It always had been, even at the Academy, where everyone was supposed to wear the same Navy-issue uniform. But, then, the rules never had applied to him. Pavel Young was the eldest son and heir of the Earl of North Hollow—a point he had no intention of allowing anyone to forget.

Honor had no idea what he'd done to get himself banished to Basilisk Station. Probably, she thought bitterly, he'd simply been himself. Patronage could advance an officer's career—witness the fact that Young, who'd graduated only one form before her, had made list five years ago. Once an officer's name was on the captain's list, his eventual flag rank was guaranteed. Unless he did something so drastic the Fleet cashiered him, he only had to live long enough for simple seniority to see to that.