Mission of Honor

'As you say, Sir,' Stabolis agreed, and Detweiler grinned.

'You know, Heinrich, you don't say a lot, do you?'

'I suppose not, Sir.' There might have been the faintest glimmer of an answering smile on the bodyguard's face.

'But you're always there,' Detweiler continued more seriously. 'If I haven't mentioned it lately, I appreciate it.'

Stabolis ducked his head in mute acknowledgment, and Detweiler reached out to rest one hand lightly on his shoulder for a moment. Then they reached their destination, the doors opened, and Stabolis stepped out into the passage, glancing both ways before he moved to allow his charge to leave the lift. They walked down the wide, tastefully decorated passageway to Detweiler's private suite, and he pressed the admittance buttoned himself.

'Yes?' a pleasant soprano voice said after a moment.

'It's me, Evie,' he said. 'Time to go in about thirty minutes.'

'Then should I assume Heinrich's managed to get you down here without any gravy on your shirt?'

The door opened, and Evelina Detweiler looked out at her husband. Behind her, Albrecht saw Ericka Stabolis, Evelina's bodyguard, trying hard not to smile at her principal's comment. Ericka had been with Evelina almost as long as Heinrich had been looking after Albrecht, and she had the same black hair, blue eyes, and regular features—a bit more delicate in her case—as her brother. Indeed, people were often struck by the extraordinarily close physical resemblance between the Stabolis siblings. They shouldn't have been; Ericka and Heinrich were clone twins. She was every bit as deadly as her brother, and the only significant difference between them was that she had two X chromosomes.

'No,' Albrecht said now, mildly, as his wife inspected him. 'I not only managed not to spill the gravy, but I've actually had two cups of coffee without dribbling any of it down my chin.'

'I am impressed,' Evelina told him with a chuckle, then stood back to let him through the doorway. He smiled and touched her lightly on the cheek. The Long-Range Planning Board had known what it was doing when it paired the two of them, he thought. Sometimes the LRPB's choices resulted in pairings that couldn't stand each other. Officially, that didn't happen, of course, but unofficially everyone knew it did. Fortunately, mistakes like that could usually be fixed, and in the case of an alpha line pairing like any of the Detweilers, the Board's members put special effort into trying to pick compatibles.

'Just let me change my jacket,' he told her.

'Fine. But not the red one,' she said firmly.

'I like the red one,' he protested.

'I know you do, dear.' She shuddered. 'On the other hand, I'm still hoping they can do something about your taste in clothing in our grandchildren.'

* * *

'Attention on deck!'

The command rapped out as Albrecht Detweiler, his wife, and his son Benjamin stepped out onto the stage at one end of the spacious compartment.

In one sense, there was no real pressing need for them to be here. Albrecht could have addressed the senior officers of the returning Oyster Bay fleet electronically, and he doubted they would have minded or felt slighted. But they deserved better, and whether they ever actually realized it or not, he knew they would never forget that he'd come all the way out to Darius to greet them on their return. It wasn't exactly a trivial trip from Mesa, even with the streak drive, but that wasn't what they were going to remember.

He walked across to the podium, flanked by Evelina and Benjamin, and stopped, looking out across the assembled faces of the men and women in the maroon and green uniforms of the MAN. He stood there for the better part of a full minute, taking the time to look at each of those faces, then, finally, he nodded.

'Please, be seated.'

Feet scuffed on the space station deck as the naval officers obeyed his invitation, and he let them settle themselves once again.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said after several seconds, his voice quiet, 'I came out to Darius to greet you and to tell you how extraordinarily well each and every one of you have performed. I can tell you now that Oyster Bay was a complete success.'

No one actually seemed to move, yet a stir went through his audience. Shoulders straightened almost imperceptibly, eyes brightened, and he nodded again.

'All three major Manticoran space stations were totally destroyed,' he told them. 'They've been less forthcoming about the damage to their dispersed yards, but there was no way they could conceal what had happened to Hephaestus and Vulcan , given how many witnesses there were. Weyland 's destruction has also been confirmed by official Manticoran sources. As I say, there's been no official word on damage to their dispersed yards, but all unofficial sources indicate near total destruction there, as well.

'The attack on Yeltsin's Star was equally successful. Their Blackbird Yard was totally destroyed, along with virtually its entire workforce. We have confirmation that every ship under construction at Yeltsin's Star was also destroyed or too heavily damaged to be repairable. Given that the Manties' missile production was concentrated in their space stations and that Grayson's missile production was concentrated at Blackbird, we've succeeded in destroying their ability to replace ammunition expenditures for the foreseeable future.'

He could actually feel the satisfaction of the assembled officers, and they deserved it. Still—

'The only aspect of the entire operation which can be considered less than a hundred percent success was no one's fault,' he said gravely, and the bodies shifted slightly. 'We'd hoped to destroy the Manties' entire next generation of capital ships still in the yards. Unfortunately, it appears we'd underestimated their construction speeds. You did, indeed, destroyan entire generation of capital ships, but the one before it had already been launched, and the majority of their new construction was safely at Trevor's Star, working up, at the time of your attack.'

The faces looking back at him were extraordinarily sober now, and he shrugged very slightly.

'As I say, you carried out your orders perfectly, ladies and gentlemen. The fault—if there was a fault—lies in our own original estimates of the Manties' building times. And, to be completely honest, we recognized at the time we sent you out that it was possible we were going to catch less of their new construction in the yards than we might have wished. So, while that portion of the operation was less successful than we'd hoped, the overwhelming effectiveness of the rest of Oyster Bay more than compensates. Given that virtually all of the Manticorans' combat advantages depend upon their advances in missile warfare, the fact that you've destroyed their missile production lines has dealt a much more significant blow to their war fighting capability than we would have achieved even if we'd caught the rest of their ships under construction. Once they've expended their existing missiles , it won't matter how many missile-armed ships they have.'

Here and there a head nodded, although some of the expressions he could see remained less cheerful than they had been.

'In the meantime, however,' he said more briskly, 'the entire Alignment is in your debt. We're proud of you, and we owe you a debt no one could ever truly hope to repay. The first operation of the Mesan Alignment Navy has been, by any conceivable measure, the most successful attack by any navy in the history of space warfare. What you accomplished with a mere handful of ships is unparalleled, and you've dealt a deadly blow to both the capabilities and the confidence of our most dangerous enemies. I wish, more than I could ever tell you, that we could bring all of you back to Mesa for the public parades and celebrations you so richly deserve. For now, though, it's essential we continue to conceal our military capabilities. Especially the capabilities conferred upon us by the spider drive. At this time, no one else in the entire galaxy knows—whatever they may suspect in Manticore—who was behind Oyster Bay, or where a similar attack might be launched. It's imperative we maintain that ignorance, that uncertainty, for as long as possible. So much as I would prefer to tell everyone how proud I am of you, I can't. Not yet. I can only