Mission of Honor

Quay directly in the center of the debris' track, using the tug's impeller wedge as a huge broom, or shield. Anything that hit the wedge would no longer be a problem. That, in fact, had been one of the unspoken reasons there were always ready-duty tugs on call at each of the space stations. If necessary, they were supposed to interpose their wedges to protect the stations against collision or attack.

Well, that part of the plan didn't work out so well, did it? Sugimatsu thought grimly. But maybe we can still do a little something for the planet.

The problem was that the wedge wasn't big enough. 'Fairly tight pattern' was a purely relative term, unfortunately, especially when one used it in relation to something the size of HMSS Vulcan and a planet, and while his present course would take Quay directly through the central, densest portion of the wreckage stream, he couldn't possibly intercept all of it. Nor could he come around in time for a second pass, even with the tug's enormous acceleration rate. He simply couldn't kill speed fast enough. So one pass was all he got—that and his ship's half- dozen powerful tractors—and a lot of those chunks of debris were bigger—much bigger, in some cases—than Quay herself.

He punched a button on his command chair's arm.

'Engineering,' a voice rasped in his earbug.

'It's going to be ugly, Harland,' he told his engineer quietly. 'No way in hell are we going to be able to catch all of it on the wedge. So make damned sure the tractors are up and ready.'

'Understood,' Lieutenant Harland Wingate acknowledged. As Quay 's engineer, he was also the tug's tow master. 'You do realize, though,' he continued, 'that my instrumentation down here isn't designed to grab ships that aren't trying to help me grab them.'

'I understand,' Sugimatsu told him. 'We're just going to have to do our best. I'm putting Truida in charge of tracking and evaluation. She'll tell you which ones to grab and where they are.'

'I can use all the help I can get,,' Wingate said grimly. Then he paused for a moment. 'Should I try emergency overpower?' he asked.

Sugimatsu started to reply, then paused. He knew what Wingate was asking. The tug's tractors were powerful enough that they had to be handled with great care under normal circumstances. Too much power, too much torque, and they could rip chunks right out of the ship they were supposed to be towing. In fact, under the wrong circumstances, they could destroy a ship outright. So what Wingate was really asking was whether or not he should deliberately red-line the tractors and try to shred the wreckage into pieces too small to survive atmospheric entry. He might or might not succeed in any given case—a lot depended on the exact composition and structural strength of any piece of debris. But if he did succeed, that would be one more piece of wreckage, one more kinetic projectile, Quay could try to stop.

And if he pushes the tractors that hard, there's a damn good chance he'll burn them out and we'll lose something we might have stopped.

Andrew Sugimatsu's jaw muscles clenched. He'd seen combat. He'd expected to see it again. But he'd never expected to find himself having to make this kind of call in the very skies of one of his star nation's inhabited planets.

He thought for an eternity all of three or four seconds long. Then—

'Crank the bastards to max,' he said harshly.

* * *

The people who'd planned Oyster Bay had carefully arranged their attack to avoid anything that could be construed as a direct attack on the planetary populations of Manticore or Sphinx. Given the nature of the war they were planning to fight, it wasn't because the MAN had any particular objection to killing as many Manticorans as possible. But there was that bothersome little matter of the Eridani Edict, and while it was probably going to take a while for anyone to figure out who'd carried out the attack, and how, that anonymity wasn't going to last forever. Eventually, the fact that the MAN and its allies were the only people who'd had the technical capability to do it was going to become obvious. There were plans in place to prevent the Manticorans from returning the compliment once they figured out who was to blame, but the Mesan Alignment's diplomatic strategies could be very seriously damaged if anyone figured out too soon how little the Eridani Edict truly meant to it.

That was the real reason the primary destruction of the space stations had been left to the torpedoes, which had overflown the planets, well clear of them. The follow up laser heads had come in on a similar trajectory, but some of the planners had argued against using any of them. Despite all the safeguards built into their guidance systems, there was always the chance, however remote, that one of them was going to ram into the planet at relativistic speeds. And, the critics had pointed out, if that happened, the Alignment's opponents would inevitably claim it had been deliberate.

The final distribution of fire had been a compromise between those who distrusted the torpedoes' ability to do the job and those who wanted no missiles anywhere near either of the inhabited planets. And as was the definition of any compromise, neither side had been completely satisfied.

But however careful they'd been to avoid direct attacks on the planets, none of them had lost any sleep over the possibility of indirect damage from the bits and pieces of wreckage raining down into the planets' gravity wells. That was something totally beyond any attacker's ability to control, and no one could possibly question the fact that the space stations had been legitimate military targets. Under those circumstances, the Eridani Edict's prohibition against deliberate attacks on planetary populations had no bearing. So if a few thousand—or a few hundred thousand—Manties were unfortunate enough to get vaporized when a fifty-thousand-ton chunk of wreckage landed on top of their town, well, making omelettes was always hard on a few eggs.

* * *

'What? '

Andrew LaFollet snapped upright in his seat, one hand pressed to his earbug. Allison Harrington had been concentrating on her grandson and the bottle he was industriously draining, but the sharp incredulity of the colonel's tone whipped her head around towards him.

He was listening intently, and she thought she could actually see the color draining out of his face. Then he stabbed the button that connected him to the pilot's position.

'Get us on the ground, Jeremiah—now! ' He listened for a moment, then nodded. 'All right. If we're that close to town. But get us there fast!'

He let go of the button, and as he turned to face Allison, she felt the limo's sudden acceleration pushing her back in her seat.

'What is it, Andrew?' she asked, arms tightening instinctively around Raoul.

'I'm not sure, My Lady—not yet. There's a lot of confusion on the emergency channels. But—' He paused, visibly gathering himself. 'But it sounds like the system is under attack.'

'What?' Allison looked at him blankly, which, as anyone who knew her could have attested, was not her customary response.

'Someone's attacked Hephaestus and Vulcan , My Lady,' he said flatly. 'I don't know how, but it sounds like the damage is going to be heavy, and I want you out of the air and on the ground somewhere safe.'

'Alfred and the kids!' she said suddenly, her face tightening, but he shook his head quickly.

'They ought to be almost exactly half way between Manticore and Sphinx, My Lady, and it sounds like this has to be an attack on our orbital infrastructure. It's not another fleet battle, anyway. and I don't think anyone's going to be wasting firepower on a local puddle jumper that isn't even particularly close to either planet.'

Allison stared at him, then swallowed harshly as she realized he was almost certainly correct.

'Thank you,' she said quietly.

* * *

Quay hurtled across the wreckage stream spilling down from orbit. Her sensors' view was restricted, but she had more than enough coverage out the sides of her wedge for Truida Verstappen to know the belly band wasn't getting it all. She'd set up her computers to tag everything that crossed the sensors' field of view, and Quay 's cybernetic brain began plotting descent curves. They could only be approximate until the tug turned and brought her powerful forward radar and lidar into action, but at least