Mission of Honor

packet. And one coming from somewhere none of our people are supposed to be.'

'But—' Sands began, then shut his mouth rather firmly.

'I know what you're thinking,' the lieutenant told him, 'and you've got a point. I don't know how anyone who's not supposed to be here could have gotten in, either. Not how she could've gotten past Perimeter Security without being detected on the way in, anyway. And I may be jumping at shadows. All the same, though, this is something to be passed on to older and wiser heads, I think.'

She rested one approving hand lightly on Sands' shoulder for a moment, then keyed her headset.

'Commander Neukirch,' she requested.

'Neukirch,' a deep, slightly sleepy voice responded after a brief pause.

'Drombroski, Sir, in CIC. I'm sorry to disturb you, but we've just picked up something down here that makes me a little nervous.'

'Nervous?' Lieutenant Commander Gilderoy Neukirch's voice sharpened. As Star Witch 's tactical officer, he was Dombroski's immediate superior. She hadn't been aboard all that long, but he'd formed a positive opinion of her judgment.

'Yes, Sir. It's a burst transmission. It's a big one—it looks like our platform crossed its path before we caught all of it, despite its compression. According to our shipping logs, there shouldn't be anyone at its apparent origination point, either. And, Sir, it's encrypted, and we don't even recognize the encryption.'

Neukirch sat abruptly upright in bed.

'Inform the bridge immediately,' he said sharply. 'Then screen Captain McMahon. Tell him I suggest he get up, get dressed, and meet me in CIC as soon as possible.'

* * *

'Ah, excuse me, My Lady,' Andrew LaFollet said with infinite politeness, 'but unless I'm mistaken, isn't Lady Claire's birthday today ?'

Doctor Allison Chou Harrington, one of the Star Empire of Manticore's premier geneticists, looked up from the unhappy youngster on the changing table and gave Lord Raoul Alexander-Harrington's personal armsman the sort of look which had been known to level tall mountains and reduce glaciers to steaming swamps.

'If you would like to shoulder your responsibilities as this young monster's guardian and change his diaper yourself, Colonel Andrew LaFollet, I'm sure we could facilitate things,' she told him.

'Assassins, blades, bullets, and bombs come with the job, My Lady,' he replied solemnly. 'Diapers—and the surprises they so often contain—weren't listed anywhere when I signed up.'

'Well, they should have been,' she said, reaching for the cleansing tissue he extended to her.

In fact, as both of them knew perfectly well, Allison had volunteered to change Raoul. It was, she said, a grandmother's duty. Besides, she liked babies, especially her own personal grandbabies. Of which, as she had pointed out to her daughter upon occasion, she still had only one. Well, two counting Katherine, of course.

'There, baby!' she said, sealing the clean diaper in place and scooping him up for tickling and an enthusiastic hug before she tucked him back into his onesie. 'All clean and fresh smelling . . . for now, at least.'

He gurgled happily, and she laughed. Despite the volume of which he was capable, he was actually an extraordinarily even-tempered baby. He took particularly vocal exception to having his diapers changed, for some reason, yet other than that he spent a lot more time being delighted with the universe than he did complaining about it. It had been sixty-two T-years and some change since Raoul's mother had been his age, but Allison didn't remember young Honor Harrington being quite as cheerful as he was. Then again, Honor hadn't met Nimitz until she was twelve, and Raoul was for all intents and purposes being raised by treecats, as well as humans. God only knew where that was going to end up!

'I'll go give Jeremiah the heads up,' LaFollet told her, and she nodded. Sergeant Jeremiah Tennard was actually her daughter Faith's personal armsman, but the twins' armsmen frequently doubled up watching the kids so that one of them could keep an eye on her or Alfred. Which was how he'd come to be assigned to Allison when she came ahead to Sphinx to reopen the Copper Walls house. And how he'd become her limo pilot for this little junket, as well.

And they're so damned well meaning and eager about it I can't even work up a good mad , she thought. Even if it does sometimes make me feel like they think I'm another nine-year-old they have to keep track of!

'Lindsey!' she called.

'Yes, Milady?' Lindsey Phillips, Raoul's nanny, poked her head into the nursery.

'I think we're ready,' Allison told her. 'He smells better, anyway.'

'Milady, I could have done that, you know,' Lindsey told her. 'Unless I'm mistaken, it's listed somewhere in my job description.'

'No, is it?' Allison smiled at the young woman who was also Katherine Alexander-Harrington's nanny, as she'd been for Faith and James Harrington, as well. 'You mean that, all these years, I could actually have had you changing diapers? '

'As a matter of fact, you could have,' Lindsey told her gravely.

'Ah, if only I'd known!'

Lindsey chuckled and took Raoul, balancing him against her shoulder, and the two women walked out the nursery door and down the short hallway in the comfortable, centuries-old house high in the Copper Wall Mountains. They paused on the veranda, gazing out across the dense green trees of Sphinx and the just visible blue flashes of the Tannerman Ocean far beyond and below them.

A customized armored air limousine in the green livery of Harrington Steading sat on the parking circle, with LaFollet and Sergeant Tennard talking beside it. Overhead, a pair of heavily armed sting ships circled patiently, and Allison shook her head. It was at moments like this, especially when all the security was focused here, on the Harrington freehold which had been in her husband's family since the Plague Years and which had been her own home since she returned with him to Manticore from Beowulf so many decades before, that the absurdity of the changes in her life snapped into crisp, unambiguous clarity. And it was also at moments like this that she found herself most wistfully wishing things hadn't gotten quite so complicated.

But there's no point wishing , she reminded herself once again. And however 'complicated' things may seem sometimes, you couldn't change any of it without changing all of it, and then where would you be? Somehow I don't see you giving up Raoul or Katherine just to avoid having to put up with other people's schedules!

'Here we are, Andrew,' she said, and Raoul's armsman turned and smiled at her. 'I hope we haven't really made you late,' she said.

'Actually, we are running a little late, My Lady,' he said, 'but that's all right. Miranda just screened. It seems Faith had a little accident when they were leaving the Landing House. Something to do with sliding down the grand staircase banister again.'

'Oh, Lord!' Allison rolled her eyes, and Lindsey chuckled. Honor's younger sister was almost nine T-years old, and she'd developed a veritable obsession for banisters after watching half a dozen treecats go tobogganing gleefully down them. Thankfully, her twin brother James seemed to have avoided that particular mental aberration.

'It's all right, My Lady,' Andrew assured her. 'At least she didn't break anything, this time.'

'Would that be that she didn't break any portion of her own person, or that she didn't break anything else ?' Allison inquired, and the armsman chuckled.

'Neither, in this case,' he said. 'But she did manage to bloody her nose, with predictable consequences for her clothes. So what with picking her up, stopping the nosebleed, her father's discussion of questionable decisions, and then getting her changed, they missed their flight out of Landing and had to re-book. They're in transit now, but Miranda says Lady Claire's pushed her party back an hour to give them time.'

'I see.' Allison shook her head. 'Well, by the time they get here, I'm sure Raoul will have come up with another delay of his own. But until then, let's get your show on the road.'

'Of course, My Lady.'

* * *

The torpedoes were unaware that anyone had overheard their e-mail. Not that they would have cared if they had known, of course. Nor were they particularly impressed by the meticulous precision, planning, and execution by