The Honor of the Qween

from the control room.'

'Ferret One, Ramrod. Good work, Captain. Send them in—but remind them we want the place intact.'

'Aye, Sir. We'll take it in one piece if we can. Ferret One clear.'

* * *

Captain Williams heard the thunder coming closer and slammed his hand down on the button that closed the control room hatch. He stared at it with wide eyes, then whirled and cursed his technicians as they began to scramble for the still open hatch on the far side of the chamber. They ignored him, and he snatched out his sidearm.

'Get back to your posts!' he screamed.

A terrified lieutenant turned to run, and Williams shot him in the back. The man went down, and his shriek of agony galvanized the others. They darted through the hatch, and Williams howled curses after them, firing until his magazine was empty. Then he turned back to the control room, and his eyes were mad as he calmly replaced the empty magazine and switched the selector to full auto. The sobbing lieutenant dragged himself towards the hatch, his blood a thick, crimson smear on the floor, and Williams stepped over beside him.

He emptied the entire magazine into the dying man.

* * *

Private Montgomery slapped her beehive on the sealed panel, stepped back, and hit the button. The hatch blew apart, and Sergeant Henry went through it in a swooping leap.

A single Masadan officer's pistol spat fire at less than ten meters' range, and steel-jacketed slugs whined uselessly from the Sergeant's armor. He felt them bouncing away and started to bring up his pulser, then remembered his orders to take the place intact. He grimaced and waded through the fire, and an armor-augmented fist clubbed the Masadan to the floor.

* * *

A corridor blast door slammed shut with no warning at all, crushing the man in front of Colonel Harris in an explosion of gore, and the colonel slithered to a halt in shock. Someone screamed over his suit com, and the colonel whirled to see another man shrieking and twisting as the door at the far end of the corridor segment ground his leg to paste. But then, through the screams, he heard something even more terrifying.

'Attention. Attention, all Masadan personnel!' His face went white, for the voice in his earphones spoke with an accent he'd never heard before ... and it was female.

'This is Captain Susan Hibson of the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps,' the cold, flat voice said. 'We are now in possession of your central control room. We now control your blast doors, sensors, and life support. Lay down your arms immediately or face the consequences.'

'Oh, God,' someone whimpered, and Harris swallowed hard.

'W-what do we do, Sir?' His exec was trapped on the far side of the blast door behind the colonel. Harris could almost feel the man's struggle to suppress his own terror, and he sighed.

'There's only one thing we can do,' he said heavily. 'Lay down your weapons, boys. It's over.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The cutter grounded amid the ruins of Blackbird Base's hangars, and a tall, slim figure in a navy captain's skin suit walked down the ramp while a squad of battle-armored Marines at its foot snapped to attention.

'Sergeant Talon, Second Squad, Third Platoon, Able Company, Ma'am,' the squad sergeant announced.

'Sergeant.' Honor returned the salute, then looked over her shoulder at her pilot.

None of Fearless's small craft had yet returned, so she'd grabbed Troubadour's number two cutter. Commander McKeon, still dealing with his own ship's damages, would much preferred to have told her she couldn't have it. Unfortunately, she was senior to him, and since he couldn't keep her upstairs where it was safe, he'd assigned Lieutenant Tremaine as her pilot. Now the lieutenant trotted down the ramp in her wake, and Honor's lip twitched as she saw the heavy plasma carbine slung over his shoulder.

Pockets of Masadans still held out inside the base, and the chance of walking into trouble couldn't be totally ruled out—that was why Ramirez had assigned a full squad to babysit her and why she herself wore a sidearm—but Tremaine's weapon of choice seemed a bit extreme.

'I really don't need any more babysitters, Scotty.'

'No, Ma'am. Of course not,' Tremaine agreed, double-checking the charge indicator on his carbine.

'At least leave that cannon behind!' He looked up at her with a pained expression. 'You're not a Marine, Lieutenant. You could hurt someone with that thing.'

'That's the idea, Ma'am. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing with it,' he assured her, and she sighed.

'Scotty—' she began again, but he gave her a sudden grin.

'Ma'am, the Skipper will skin me alive if anything happens to you.' He looked over Honor's shoulder at Sergeant Talon, and his grin grew broader as the Marine glowered at him. 'No offense, Sarge, but Commander McKeon can be a mite unreasonable at times.' Sergeant Talon glared at his carbine, sniffed audibly over her com, and then looked pointedly at Honor.

'Are you ready, Ma'am?'

'I am, Sergeant,' Honor replied, abandoning the attempt to dissuade her over-zealous bodyguard.

Talon nodded and waved her first section out to take point while Corporal Liggit's section brought up the rear. Talon herself accompanied Captain Harrington, completely ignoring the lieutenant trudging along beside his long-legged superior, and Corporal Liggit chuckled to himself behind her.

'What's so funny, Corp?' a private asked over the section circuit.

'He is,' Liggit replied, gesturing at Tremaine and chuckling even harder as he did a hop-skip-hop to catch back up with the Captain.

'Why? What about him?'

'Oh, nothing much ... except for the fact that I used to be a small arms instructor at Saganami Island, and I happen to know he's qualified High Expert with the plasma carbine.' The private looked at Liggit in disbelief for a moment, and then she began to laugh.

* * *

'I still think it would have been wiser to delay your landing.' Major Ramirez greeted Honor in the mess hall which had become a POW cage. 'There's still shooting going on in here, Ma'am, and these idiots are certifiable. I've had three people killed by grenade attacks from `surrendered' Masadans.'

'I know, Major.' Honor held her helmet in the crook of her arm and noted the unlimbered tri-barrels of Sergeant Talon's squad. Even Lieutenant Tremaine had abandoned his cheerful pose, and his forefinger rested lightly beside his carbine's firing stud. She looked back at Ramirez, and the living corner of her mouth twitched a brief, half-apologetic smile.

'Unfortunately, we don't know how much time we've got,' she went on quietly. 'I need information, and I need it quickly. And—' her slurred voice turned grim '—I want Madrigal's people found. I am not going to leave them behind if we're forced to pull out suddenly!'

'Yes, Ma'am.' Ramirez inhaled and indicated a Masadan officer in a captain's uniform. 'Captain Williams, Ma'am. The base CO.'

Honor studied the Masadan curiously. The right side of his face was almost as badly bruised and swollen as the left side of her own; the other side was tight and sullen, and it tightened further as he glared back at her.

'Captain Williams,' she said courteously, 'I regret—'

He spat in her face.

The glob of spittle hit the dead skin of her left cheek. She couldn't feel it, and for just one moment she couldn't quite believe it had happened, but Major Ramirez's left arm shot out. Armored fingers twisted in the neck of the Masadan's one-piece uniform, and exoskeletal muscles whined as he snatched Williams off his feet. He slammed him back against the wall like a puppet, and his right fist started forward.