Mission of Honor

admission.

'When those ships arrive, they will not be here on a peaceful diplomatic mission. All of us have known for our entire lives how corrupt the Solarian League has truly become. We know who truly runs the Solarian bureaucracy. We know about the 'sweetheart deals' between Solarian transstellars and the venal, utterly dishonest Frontier Security commissioners who pimp for them. We know about the vast gulf between the League's soaring professions of belief in human dignity and human worth and OFS' support of debt peonage throughout the Verge. Between the League's solemn condemnation of the interstellar genetic slave trade and the reality of high League officials and bureaucrats on the payrolls of criminal enterprises like Manpower, Incorporated.'

Her lip curled, and her brown eyes glittered like ice.

'Knowing what we know, none of us can be surprised by the fact that the Solarian League Navy intends to demand the Star Empire of Manticore's unconditional surrender. The intention is to turn us into yet another OFS- administered satellite of the League. We've all seen, only too often, what happens to local government, local administration of justice, local economies, and the right of self-determination when the 'enlightened' supervision of the Office of Frontier Security engulfs an independent star nation. Make no mistake about it—that is precisely what the League intends to do to us.

'It intends to do so out of a desire for vengeance for the defeats it's suffered at our Navy's hands. It intends to do so because it cannot tolerate the example of a 'neobarb' out-system star nation which refuses to slavishly comply with the League's whims. It intends to do so because it resents the size and power of our merchant marine. And it intends to do so out of the basest motives of greed as it contemplates the potential revenue source of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction.'

She paused yet again, briefly, and her shoulders squared and her head rose proudly.

'There is no hope of dissuading the Solarians from their chosen course,' she said slowly and distinctly. 'The Solarian League, for all its past glories and high achievements, has become an appetite , a voracious hunger, and trillions of its citizens, living safe, satisfied, self-centered, and secure lives on its core worlds, have no concept of what routinely happens to the weak and the helpless along its frontiers.

'It's time they found out.'

The eyes which had been cold as ice glittered with a sudden fire, and Ariel half-rose on the back of her chair, lips curling back from his fangs in challenge.

'The Star Empire of Manticore has been wounded as we've never been wounded before,' she said flatly. 'But a hexapuma or a peak bear or a Kodiak max is most dangerous when it's wounded. Perhaps the men and women secure at the heart of the Solarian League's bureaucracy have forgotten that fact. If so, we're about to remind them.

'I do not say this lightly. I know, even better than any of you, how badly we've been weakened, how seriously our industrial and economic power has been reduced, what that means ultimately for our military capacity. I know the stakes.'

The woman the treecats had named 'Soul of Steel' looked out of all those countless HD displays, and there wasn't a single millimeter of retreat in those eyes of blazing ice.

'Despite the damage we've suffered, Home Fleet remains intact. Despite the damage to our production lines, Home Fleet's magazines are fully loaded. Our system-defense missiles are untouched. If the Solarian League wants a war, the Solarian League will have one. If that is the choice the League makes, then the war which began at New Tuscany and continued at Spindle will resume right here. Whatever they may think, the fleet they've dispatched against us is no match for our remaining combat power. If they choose to send a second, equally large, fleet after this one, the Admiralty is confident we have sufficient strength to defeat it, as well. No doubt the League believes we'll refuse to fight because of the vast difference between our ultimate capabilities. The League is wrong.

'Within six T-months, we will have reestablished our missile production capability. It won't be as great as it was prior to the recent attack, but it will be sufficient to guarantee the security of our own star systems against any ships or weapons currently in the Solarian League Navy's inventory. That is the bottom-line analysis of the Admiralty, and you have my word—and the word of the House of Winton—that I am telling you the absolute truth when I say that.'

She paused once more, letting that soak into her audience's minds. Then she smiled thinly.

'There is, of course, a vast difference between being able to guarantee our own security in the near term and being able to defeat a behemoth like the Solarian League in the long term. I don't pretend to have a magic bullet to guarantee our ultimate victory. But I do have this. I have the courage of the Manticoran people. I have my own refusal to fail the trust those people have placed in the House of Winton. I have the determination of all Manticorans—those of the Old Star Kingdom and those of the Star Empire who have newly and freely joined us—to live in freedom. I have the skill and the high professionalism and the dauntless determination of the men and women of the Manticoran armed forces. And I have the absolute certainty that those things will never fail me . . . or you.

'I don't bring you any 'magic bullet,' because there is none. I make no promises of easy triumphs, because there will be no easy triumphs. I promise you only the truth, and the truth is that the price we will ultimately pay will be even higher than the one we've already paid. That the cost of the battle which waits for us will be sacrifice, loss, backbreaking toil, blood, and grief. But I also promise you this one more thing. I promise you victory . For seventy-plus T-years, the Star Empire has lived under sentence of death, yet we're still here. And we will still be here when the smoke finally clears. However long it takes, whatever sacrifice it entails, wherever the battle takes us, and no matter what foe we may face, we will triumph, and those who have wrought such destruction and suffering upon us, who have butchered our civilians, who have attacked us from the shadows like assassins, will discover to their infinite regret that in the defense of our homes, our families, and our children, we can be just as merciless as them .'

Chapter Forty-Two

The alarm buzzed in the darkness, and Honor Alexander-Harrington sat up in bed, reached out a long arm, and pressed the acceptance key.

Nimitz had rolled off of her chest when she moved, and his green eyes glowed like molten emeralds in the come terminals' reflected light as he blinked sleepily. She felt his mind glow nestled close to her own, and she gave him a quick caress with her free hand as the display came fully alive with the wounded lion of HMS Invictus ' wallpaper.

'Yes?'

She hadn't slept well over the three months since the attack on the home system. She'd hoped that might change once she got back aboard her flagship here at Trevor's Star, but it hadn't. Yet there was no sign of that in her crisp acknowledgment as she accepted the com request audio only.

'Your Grace,' Captain Rafael Cardones' voice replied, 'I think we need you on Flag Bridge. Now.'

Honor's eyebrows rose as Cardones' strained tone registered. She'd seen him in the midst of combat, seen him cradling broken ribs while he continued to man his station, seen him in the most stressful situations she could imagine, and yet she'd never heard that note in his voice before.

'What is it, Rafe?' she asked sharply.

'Your Grace, we've just picked up a hyper footprint. It's a single ship, about four light-minutes outside the system limit. It's quite near one of the FTL platforms, and it's squawking its transponder code.'

'And?' she prompted a bit sharply when he paused.

'And it's a Havenite ship, Ma'am. In fact, according to its transponder, it's Haven One .'

* * *

'All right, Hamish, what's this all about?' Elizabeth Winton demanded irritably as she sat down in front of the com. The two T-weeks since her defiant speech hadn't been restful, and the anticipated arrival of Admiral Filareta's fleet within the next week to ten days wasn't likely to improve things one bit.