The Honor of the Qween

'Unless we get dead lucky and they're dumb enough to think the freighters are all of us,' Truman agreed.

'Which they're very unlikely to do,' Mayhew pointed out from the com screen. 'They know precisely how many of your vessels are present. Jared saw to that ... just as he told them exactly what classes of warship you have.'

'Oh, shit!' Venizelos muttered audibly, and a bleak smile flitted across the Protector's lips.

'Then we can expect them to react militarily shortly.' Honor realized she was rubbing her numb face again, but this time she let herself go on doing so. 'Protector Benjamin, that makes it imperative that we waste no more time. I must be able to confer with your navy immediately.'

'I agree, and you won't have any further problems in that regard.'

'Then Admiral Garret's been relieved?' she asked hopefully.

'Not precisely.' Her good eye narrowed, but Mayhew smiled almost naturally at her. 'I've managed to save face a little for him, Captain—which is important, given the state of nerves down here right now. Instead of relieving him, I've appointed him to command Grayson's fixed orbital defenses. Commodore Matthews has been promoted to admiral, and he'll command our mobile units. I've made it very clear to him that that means he's to adapt his movements and resources to yours, and he has no problem with that.'

'That might work,' Honor said while her mind raced, 'but Command Central's still our central com node, Sir. If Garret decides to sulk—'

'He won't, Captain. He won't dare to do anything that anyone down here might perceive as an insult to you.' Honor's eyebrows rose once more at the total assurance in his voice, and it was his turn to look surprised.

'Haven't you been monitoring our news nets, Captain?'

'Sir, I just got out of sickbay forty minutes ago.' Honor frowned, wondering what news nets had to do with anything, then remembered Venizelos' odd expression when he'd mentioned them. She gave him a sharp look, and he shrugged with something suspiciously like a grin.

'I see.' Mayhew's voice drew her eye back to the com screen. 'In that case, you wouldn't know. Just a second.' He killed his audio for a moment while he turned his head to speak to someone else, then looked back at her.

'What you're about to see has been playing practically nonstop over the video nets ever since the assassination attempt, courtesy of the palace surveillance system, Captain. I'd estimate it's already been seen more often and by more eyes than any other news report in our history.'

His face disappeared before she could ask what he was talking about. The screen was completely blank for a second—then something else appeared.

It left a lot to be desired from an artistic viewpoint, a corner of her brain thought, but the imagery was remarkably clear for something as crude as video tape. It was the dinner party, and she saw herself leaning towards the Protector and listening attentively to him just as Nimitz erupted from his stool and attacked the first assassin.

She stared at the screen, appalled by the carnage, as her own image lunged up from its chair and killed the second assassin. Captain Fox went down, and she watched herself take out his killer, then whirl towards the others charging towards her. The thrown platter dropped their leader, and then people fell in all directions as gunfire ripped back and forth across the room.

She felt a stab of terror there'd been no time to feel then as she watched men crumple and die and wondered how she and Nimitz could possibly have been missed in that crossfire, and then she saw her own desperate charge as the last of the Protector's guards died.

The tape went to slow motion after that, but it still didn't last long. Indeed, it had seemed much longer at the time. Bodies seemed to fly away from her, she saw flashes of a raging Nimitz taking others down, and that same corner of her mind wondered how her Academy instructors would have rated her form.

It seemed impossible that she'd survived, and as she watched Nimitz claw down a man who'd been about to shoot her in the back she knew she wouldn't have without her diminutive ally. She reached out to him, still staring at the screen, and he purred reassuringly as he pressed his head against her palm.

Dead and crippled assassins littered the floor around her as the Security response team broke through at last, and she felt her entire body tense as the man who'd shot her did it all over again. Her image went down on the screen, and sweat beaded her forehead as the disrupter swung towards her once more, and then he was down and dead and the screen went blank.

Mayhew's face reappeared, and he smiled soberly at her.

'That's what all of Grayson's been seeing for the last several hours, Captain Harrington—a tape of you saving the lives of my family,' he said softly, and the living side of her face flamed.

'Sir, I—' she began hesitantly, but his raised hand silenced her.

'Don't say it, Captain. I won't embarrass you by saying it again, but I don't have to, either. That tape should rather conclusively discredit any claim that you were behind the assassination attempt, I think. And after seeing it, no one on this planet—including Admiral Garret—will ever dare to question your fitness as an officer again, now will they?'

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It was the first time she'd been to Command Central. Its size impressed her, but the noisiness of the status room was startling, and the shrill ringing of priority com signals, the rumble of voices, and the clatter of printers did more than startle Nimitz. He rose high on her shoulder, ears half-flattened, and his high-pitched bleek of protest cut through the background noise like a knife.

Heads turned all over the huge room, and Honor felt the ugliness of her wounded face like a brand. Commander Brentworth bristled at her side and stepped forward, glaring back at all comers, regardless of rank, but she stopped him with a tiny gesture. There was curiosity in all those stares, and shock, even repugnance, in some of them as they saw her face, but not intentional rudeness, and most of them flushed and looked away almost as quickly as they'd turned towards her.

Commodore Brentworth had been waiting for her small party. Now he materialized out of the crowd and offered his hand with only the slightest hesitation.

'I'm Commodore Walter Brentworth, Captain,' he said, and if there'd been any hesitation when he held out his hand, there was none in his use of her rank. 'Welcome to Command Central.'

'Thank you, Commodore,' she said as clearly as she could. She'd practiced hard to master her stiff lips, but his eyes flickered at the slurring she couldn't quite overcome. She knew they wanted to cling to the crippled side of her face, but he kept them resolutely under control.

'These are my captains,' she went on. 'Commander Truman of the Apollo, and Commander McKeon of the Troubadour. I believe—' the mobile corner of her mouth quirked slightly '—that you know Commander Brentworth.'

'Yes, I believe I do.' The commodore smiled at her, then nodded to his son and shook hands with Truman and McKeon. Then he turned back to Honor. 'Captain,' he began, 'please allow me to apologize for any—'

'No apologies are necessary, Commodore,' she interrupted him, but the commodore clearly shared his son's stubborn integrity. He seemed about to disagree, and she went on in the short sentences her impaired speech enforced. 'We come from very different backgrounds. There was bound to be some friction. What's important is seeing to it that there isn't any more.'

He looked up at her, letting his gaze rest frankly on her swollen, paralyzed face at last, then nodded slowly.

'You're right, Captain,' he said, then smiled. 'Mark said you had your head on straight, and I've always had considerable faith in his judgment.'

'Good, because I do, too,' Honor said firmly, and the commander blushed. His father chuckled and waved for the Manticorans to follow him.