Echoes Of Honor

to back her up rather than risk having the rest of the galaxy think we had potentially serious divisions at the top or invite another coup attempt from our domestic enemies. Which is also why they had Public Information fake up that whole hanging scene.'

'I have to admit, I didn't quite understand the reasoning behind that,' Bukato said. 'I hope you'll pardon me for saying this, but it seemed gratuitous to me.'

''Gratuitous,'' McQueen snorted. 'In some ways, that's not a bad word for it, I suppose. And I imagine it will motivate at least some of the Manties to seek revenge. But the decision was made over at Public Information, and I'd have to say that PubIn was the proper place for it to be made. They're in a better position to judge its effect on civilian and neutral opinion than those of us in the Navy are.'

Somehow the bitter twist of her mouth didn't quite match her thoughtful, serious tone, and Bukato was surprised by the sparkle of laughter he felt deep inside. No doubt anyone listening to the chips would hear exactly what she wanted them to, but she did have a way of getting her actual meaning across anyway.

And I suppose there was a little rationality in faking Harrington's execution, he thought. At least this way we don't have to admit that—what? thirty?— POWs staging an unsuccessful jail break managed to completely destroy an entire battlecruiser all by themselves! God only knows what making that public knowledge would do to our morale, even if it was only a StateSec ship. Not to mention what the damage to StateSec's reputation for invincibility might do the next time they got ready to suppress some poor bastards. And whether we hanged her or not, she's still dead. We couldn't bring her back even if we wanted to, so I guess we might as well get a little propaganda mileage out of it if we can. And assuming it was the sort of mileage we wantedin the first place. If it was.

He shook free of his thoughts and looked at the new Secretary of War again, trying to read what was going on behind those green eyes of hers. He knew her reputation, of course. Everyone did. But so far he'd seen remarkably little evidence of her famed political ambition, and she'd accomplished more to straighten out the Navy's mess in the bare six T-months since being officially named Secretary of War than Kline had managed in over four T-years. The professional naval officer in Ivan Bukato couldn't help admiring—and appreciating that—yet he sensed a crossroads looming in his own future. She hadn't just happened to come out of her shell tonight. She really was testing him, and if he let himself be drawn into a feeling of loyalty to her, the consequences could prove... unfortunate. Even fatal.

And yet...

'I understand, Ma'am,' he said quietly, and saw her eyes flicker. It was the first time he'd used the traditional, 'elitist' courtesy instead of calling her 'Citizen Secretary.' Technically, she was entitled to it as a member of the Committee of Public Safety, but staying away from the form of address the Navy had been denied among its own ever since the Harris Assassination had seemed the better part of valor.

'I'm glad you do, Ivan,' she said after a moment, and saw the answering understanding in his eyes as she used his given name for the very first time. The first step of the intricate dance had been accomplished. Neither of them could be certain yet where the dance would end, but the first step was always the most important one. Yet it was also time to cover her backside just a little more, and she smiled sardonically at Bukato even as she made her voice come out seriously and thoughtfully. 'We're going to have to make some pretty tough decisions of our own when it comes to recommending purely military policy. I realize political and diplomatic decisions are going to have an impact on the military equation, but frankly, until we get our own shop up and running properly, I'm delighted that I don't have to concern myself with nonmilitary policy. Time enough to worry about fine-tuning our coordination with the diplomats once we're confident we can hold the Manty bastards where they are!'

'Of course, Ma'am,' Bukato agreed, and the two of them smiled thinly at one another.

Chapter Three

Long experience had taught Petty Officer first-class Scott Smith to collect his battered locker from the heap outside the personnel shuttle's cargo tube, activate its counter-grav, and tow it safely out of the way before he did anything else. Only after accomplishing that did he look for the directions board. His searching eyes found it, and he crossed the concourse to it, then kept one hand resting lightly on the locker as he studied the flashing information. There it was: HMS Candice, the same name as on his transfer orders. He grimaced. He still didn't have the least damned idea what a 'Candice ' was, but he didn't like the ring of it.

Sounds like the candied-apple kind of name that should belong to some damned armed merchant escort, he snorted mentally. Or maybe a tender. A tug? He shrugged irritably. Hell of a name for a warship, anyway. And why the hell couldn't they just leave me aboard Leutzen? It took me three damned T-years to get that slot, and now they yank me out of it for God knows what.

He grimaced again, but orders were orders. He double-checked the display for the right color-coded guide strip and set glumly off through the bowels of Her Majesty's Space Station Weyland for his destination.

* * *

Lieutenant Michael Gearman watched the tallish, fair-haired PO 1/c walking down the color guide in front of him and cocked an eyebrow in speculation. He and the noncom had arrived on the same shuttle, and he wondered if they were headed for the same destination. It seemed probable, but Weyland was a big place—not as large as Vulcan or Hephaestus, but still the better part of thirty kilometers long. It was also tucked away orbiting Gryphon, otherwise known as Manticore- B-V, which had caused a few of Gearman's hospital buddies to groan in sympathy when they heard about his travel orders. Gryphon was the least Earth-like of the Manticore System's three habitable planets. It had required far more terraforming than Manticore or Sphinx, and its extreme axial tilt gave its weather an unenviable reputation among the inhabitants of its sister planets. Worse, from the viewpoint of certain Navy hotshots, its sparsely scattered population was noted for regarding the sissies who lived on the Star Kingdom's other worlds with a certain contempt. That attitude, unfortunately, carried over into the local civilians' attitude towards visiting military personnel in search of diversion and, coupled with the lack of anything like real cities, left those same military personnel with a limited selection of off-duty entertainment possibilities.

But that was all right with Gearman. After nineteen months of regen therapy, he'd had about all the leave he could stand. He was eager to get back to work, and whatever his commiserating friends might have to say about Manticore-B's being the armpit of the Manticore Binary System, he suspected his new assignment might be far more interesting than they expected. It had become traditional over the last twenty or thirty T-years for the Royal Navy to assign its more sensitive R&D prototypes to Weyland's technical support teams, mainly because the secondary component of the binary system saw so much less foreign shipping traffic. Manticore-B's massive asteroid belts supported a very heavy industrial presence, and huge freighters hauled both finished components and massive loads of raw materials from its orbital smelters to Manticore-A. But the main freight transshipment points for the Star Kingdom orbited either Manticore or Sphinx, and that was where the vast majority of the out-kingdom shipping stayed. For the most part, Gryphon was served even in peacetime by short- haul Manticoran-flag freighters which plied back and forth between it and the rest of the Star Kingdom, and the Navy had made the complete prohibition of non-Manticoran hulls in Manticore-B space official once the shooting started.

Which was why BuShips and BuWeaps liked building and testing prototypes at Weyland. The Office of Naval Intelligence still couldn't guarantee secrecy, but at least the Fleet didn't have to worry about which putatively neutral freighters in the area were actually spying for the Peeps. Not that Gearman had any hard evidence that his assignment was to any such hush-hush project. On the other hand, he'd checked the last available ship list when he got his new orders, and there was no 'HMS Candice' on it. Of course, the names of new