Mission of Honor

disappointed if she succeeded . . . she thought.

'All right,' she said. 'You win. I'll make the flight arrangements, but I can't do that until you hand me the security plan. So where is it?'

'Oh, well, I've got that right here,' he told her with a chuckle and tossed the chip folio across to her. She missed the catch, but Farragut reached up a long-fingered true-hand and plucked it neatly out of the air.

'Thanks,' she told the 'cat as he handed it across to her. 'Nice to see that at least some male members of some species are capable of showing a modicum of courtesy,' she added, looking rather pointedly at Andrew.

'Ha! He's just sucking up to his celery source!'

Miranda laughed, and Andrew winked at her, then waved casually and headed back out of her office. She smiled after him for a few moments, then shook her head and inserted to the data chip into her reader. A file header appeared on her display, and her smile faded into a frown of intensity as she studied the file's contents.

She supposed it was entirely possible—even likely—that a great many Manticorans would find it more than mildly ridiculous for someone to file a security plan that ran to better than fifty pages just for a day trip to take a ten-month-old baby and his grandmother to his aunt's birthday party. Miranda LaFollet, on the other hand, did not, because the grandmother in question was her Steadholder's mother, and the ten-month-old was Raoul Alfred Alastair Alexander-Harrington, who would someday, Tester willing, be her Steadholder.

Not that she'd be around to see that day. At least, she hoped she wouldn't, she thought with a familiar edge of bittersweetness. She'd been just too old for prolong when the treaty of alliance with Manticore brought it to the planet Grayson. At fifty, she was thirteen years younger than Lady Harrington, but if anyone had simply looked at the two of them, they would have thought the interval was twice as great . . . and in the opposite direction. Miranda would have been more than human if there hadn't been times she resented the extended lifespans Manticorans took for granted, but she'd truly come to terms with it. Or she thought she had, at least. And if neither she nor Andrew would ever be able to receive the prolong treatments, their younger siblings, like her brother Micah, certainly had.

She sat gazing sightlessly at the display for a couple of seconds, then shook her head with a snort. She had more important things to do than sit around brooding, she told herself tartly, and returned her attention to Andrew's plan.

* * *

'—stupidest damned idea I've ever heard of! It's not like we don't have other things—worthwhile things—we could be doing instead, after all! And if anything ever really happens to the station, who the hell's going to have time to run for a frigging life pod in the first place?'

Ensign Paulo d'Arezzo felt a very strong desire to throttle Lieutenant Anthony Berkeley. Unfortunately, he lacked Helen Zilwicki's aptitude for hand-to-hand mayhem. Or perhaps fortunately, given the fact that Berkeley was a full senior-grade lieutenant, which would have brought up all sorts of sticky things about 'striking a superior officer, the Star Empire then being in a state of war.' He rather doubted a court-martial would feel 'because the deceased was such a loudmouthed moron' constituted sufficient justification for violating Article Nine. Although if the members of the court actually knew Berkeley . . . .

'And another thing,' the lieutenant went on, waving his right hand, index finger extended to emphasize his point as he shared his insights, 'how the hell much did this little brain fart cost? I mean, launching every single pod the station has? Jesus! Just recertifying all of them is gonna take weeks, and you know they're gonna downcheck at least some of them!'

You know , Paulo thought, it was a lot more fun aboard Hexapuma even when people were shooting at us! If Helen had to get herself sent back off to Talbott without me, why couldn't I have at least stayed aboard the ship, like Aikawa? For that matter, why couldn't I have stayed anywhere that would have kept me away from a klutz like Berkeley?

Deep inside, he rather suspected he would have been grumpy anyplace they sent him if Helen wasn't around. That thought was one he tried not to examine too closely, though. It still made him . . . uncomfortable after he'd spent so many years running away from any sort of serious emotional entanglement. But the truth was that her absence left an empty place down inside him—one he'd never realized was there when all he'd been able to think about was the attractive physical 'packaging' Manpower, Incorporated, had designed into someone it had intended to sell as a pleasure slave. A sex toy, really.

But, be that as it might, assigning him to work directly under Anthony Berkeley had to come under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment. If there'd been any real justice in the galaxy, he'd have been assigned to Admiral Yeager's Research and Development Division, with Captain Lewis. That would have been interesting, especially for someone with Paulo's natural bent for the electronic warfare officer's career track. But, no. In their infinite wisdom, the powers-that-were at the Bureau of Personnel had decided he and Senior Chief Wanderman should get a little hands-on time with the fabrication side. Which, little though he cared to admit it, might actually contain at least a modicum of rationality. It never hurt for an EWO to have at least some familiarity with the nuts and bolts of his hardware, after all. But there had to be some way for him to get that familiarity without putting up with Berkeley!

If only there were some way he could quietly and discreetly leave the small classroom in which their party of evacuees been instructed to wait. Unfortunately, there wasn't one, and Berkeley happened to be the senior officer present, which put him in charge of their small detachment. If Paulo tried to sneak out, the lieutenant would demand to know where he was going, and somehow 'anywhere you aren't' didn't seem the most diplomatic possible response. Truthful , yes; diplomatic, no.

'And if we just had to do something this stupid,' Berkeley continued, 'at least we could have done it when we weren't—'

'Excuse me, Lieutenant,' a contralto voice said from the doorway, 'but exactly what 'stupid' something did you have in mind?'

Berkeley's mouth shut with an almost audible click, and he spun towards the slender, dark-haired commander standing in the open door with her head cocked to one side.

'I, uh, didn't see you there, Commander McGillicuddy,' he said.

'No,' Commander Anastasia McGillicuddy agreed pleasantly. 'I don't suppose you did. However, I was just passing through when I heard what sounded remarkably like a raised voice. I was down at the end of the hall, you understand, so I wasn't completely certain that was what I was hearing. I decided to find out.'

Her smile was as pleasant as her tone, but her brown eyes were cold, and the much taller and bulkier Berkeley seemed to shrink slightly.

'As I drew closer, I realized you were availing yourself of this opportunity to continue the instruction of the junior officers entrusted to your care,' she went on. 'I was impressed by your apparent vigor. Obviously, you'd been discussing a subject you felt strongly about. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to find out what it was.'

'Ma'am, I was just—that is, well . . . .' Berkeley's abortive response trailed off, and despite himself, Paulo actually felt a feeble—very feeble—flicker of sympathy.

He throttled it without difficulty.

'Should I assume, Lieutenant, that you question Vice Admiral Faraday's priorities?' McGillicuddy asked softly.

Berkeley said nothing at all, and her nostrils flared. Then she looked past Berkeley to the junior officers and enlisted waiting in the classroom. She considered them briefly, then returned her attention to Berkeley.

'Since you feel qualified to critique this exercise, Lieutenant,' she told him, 'I'll arrange for you to present your view of it directly to Captain Sugihara.' Berkeley's fair complexion turned considerably fairer at the mention of Captain Brian Sugihara, Rear Admiral Trammell's XO. 'In the meantime, I strongly suggest you give some consideration to the appropriateness of your present forum. Especially considering that you happen to be the senior officer present. You might want to spend the time more profitably doing something like . . . oh, I don't know. Considering your report to Captain Sugihara, perhaps. In fact, you might want to give a little thought to whether or