The Honor of the Qween

uniform of a Manticoran petty officer. A Masadan officer's corpse sprawled against the wall opposite the cell, and he hadn't been killed by pulser fire. His head had been twisted off like a bottle cap, and the right arm of the battle- armored Marine private beside his body was bloody to the elbow.

'We've found six dead so far, Ma'am,' Ramirez grated without preamble. 'Apparently this bastard—' he jerked a savage gesture at the headless Masadan '—just started walking down the corridor shooting prisoners when our point broke into the cell block. I—'

He broke off as the senior medic rose from beside the petty officer. He met the major's gaze and shook his head slightly, and Ramirez swallowed a savage curse.

Honor's single eye burned as she stared at the body, and the memory of how she'd kept Ramirez from smashing Williams was gall on her tongue while the major got himself back under a semblance of control.

'I'm afraid this isn't all of it, Ma'am,' he said in a harsh, clipped voice. 'If you'll come with me?' She nodded and started forward, but he waved Tremaine back as he began to follow. 'Not you, Lieutenant.'

Tremaine looked a question at Honor, but something in Ramirez's voice warned her, and she shook her head quickly. His expression turned mutinous for just a moment, then smoothed, and he stepped back beside Sergeant Talon.

Ramirez led Honor another forty meters, to a bend in the passage, then stopped and swallowed.

'Captain, I'd better stay here.'

She started to ask him a question, but his face stopped her. Instead, she nodded once and stepped around the corner.

The dozen Marines in evidence looked odd. For a moment, she couldn't understand why, then she realized: they'd all removed their helmets, and every one of them was a woman. The realization struck a terrible icicle through her, and she quickened her pace, then slid to a halt in the open door of a cell.

'Honey, you've got to let us have her,' someone was saying softly, gently. 'Please. We've got to take care of her.'

It was Captain Hibson, and her strong, confident voice was fogged with tears as she bent over the naked, battered young woman on the filthy bunk. The prisoner's face was almost unrecognizable under its cuts and bruises, but Honor knew her. Just as she knew the equally naked, even more terribly battered woman in her arms.

The young woman clung to her companion desperately, trying to shield her with her own body, and Honor stepped forward numbly. She knelt beside the bunk, and the young woman—the girl—on it stared at her with broken, animal eyes and whimpered in terror.

'Ensign Jackson,' Honor said, and a spark of something like humanity flickered far back in those brutalized eyes. 'Do you know who I am, Ensign?'

Mai-ling Jackson stared at her an endless moment longer, then jerked her head in a spastic, uncoordinated nod.

'We're here to help you, Ensign.' Honor would never know how she kept her voice soft and even, but she did. She touched the stiff, matted hair gently, and the naked ensign flinched as if from a blow. 'We're here to help you,' Honor repeated while tears slid down her face, 'but you have to let us have Commander Brigham. The medics will help her, but you have to let her go.'

Ensign Jackson whimpered, clinging even more tightly to the limp body in her arms, and Honor stroked her hair again.

'Please, Mai-ling. Let us help her.'

The ensign looked down at Mercedes Brigham's blood-caked face, and her whimpers collapsed into a terrible sob. For a moment, Honor thought she would refuse, that they'd have to take Brigham from her by force, but then her desperate grip loosened. Hibson stepped in quickly, lifting the barely breathing Commander in armored arms, and Mai-ling Jackson screamed like a soul in hell as Honor gathered her in a protective embrace.

* * *

It took ten minutes and all the medics could do to break Ensign Jackson's hysteria, and even then Honor knew it was only a calm in the storm. There was too much hell in those broken, almond eyes for anything more, but at last she lay still on the stretcher, torn by great, heaving shudders under the blanket. She clung to her CO's hand like a child, eyes begging her to make it all a nightmare, not real, and Honor knelt beside her.

'Can you tell us what happened?' she asked gently, and the ensign jerked as if she'd been struck. But this time she licked her scab-crusted lips and gave a tiny, frightened nod.

'Yes, Ma'am,' she whispered, but then her mouth worked soundlessly and fresh tears spangled her eyes.

'Take your time,' Honor murmured in that same, gentle voice, and Jackson seemed to draw a sort of fragile strength from its encouragement.

'T-they picked us up,' she whispered in a tiny thread of a voice. 'The Captain, and Exec, and I w-were the only o-officers alive, Ma'am. I-I think there were twenty or ... or thirty others. I'm not sure.'

She swallowed again, and one of the medics pressed a cup of water into Honor's free hand. She held it to the ensign's lips, and Jackson sipped shallowly. Then she lay back on the stretcher, eyes closed. When she spoke again, her voice was flat, mechanical, without any human feeling.

'They brought us back here. For a while—a couple of days, maybe—it wasn't too bad, but they put all the officers in the same cell. They said—' her brief, frozen calm began to crack once more '—they said since we'd let women in uniform, the Captain could keep his w-whores with him.'

The living side of Honor's face was as mask-like as the dead side, but she squeezed the ensign's hand.

'Then ... then they just went crazy,' Jackson whispered. 'They came and took ... me and the Commander. W-we thought it was just for interrogation, but then they threw us into ... into this big room, and there were all these men, and they ... they—'

Her voice broke, and Honor stroked her face as she sobbed.

'They said it was because we were women,' she gasped. 'They ... they laughed at us, and they hurt us, and they said ... they said it w-was G-G-God's will to ... to punish Satan's w-w-whores!'

She opened her eyes and dragged herself up, staring into Honor's face while her hand tightened like a claw.

'We fought them, Ma'am. We did! B-but we were handcuffed, and t-there were so many of them! Please, Ma'am—we tried! We tried!'

'I know, Mai-ling. I know you did,' Honor said through her own tears, hugging the brutalized young body, and the ensign relaxed convulsively. Her head rested on Honor's shoulder, and her voice was broken and dead.

'W-when they were ... done, they ... threw us back. The Captain—Captain Alvarez—did what he could, b- but he hadn't known, Captain. He hadn't known what they were going to do.'

'I know,' Honor whispered again, and the ensign's teeth clenched.

'T-then they came back, a-and I couldn't fight any more, Ma'am. I-I just couldn't. I tried, but—' She dragged in a ragged breath. 'Commander Brigham could. I-I think she hurt some of them really bad b-before they got her down, and then they beat her and beat her and beat her!' The broken voice climbed, and a medic stepped in with a hypo as she trembled violently in Honor's arms.

'The Captain tried to stop them, Ma'am. H-he tried, and ... and they knocked him down with their rifle butts, and then they ... they—' She twisted in agony, and Honor covered her mouth with her hand, stilling her voice while the hypo took effect. She'd already seen the huge, dried bloodstain on the cell floor and the ragged streaks where someone's heels had been dragged through it to the door.

'And then they raped us again,' the ensign said at last, her eyes hazy. 'Again and again, and ... and they said how nice it was of their CO to ... to give them their own whores.'

Her thready voice faded to silence, and Honor eased her back down and bent to kiss the filthy, bruised forehead, then tucked the ensign's limp hand under the blanket and rose.

'Take care of her,' she told the senior Marine medic, and the woman nodded, her own face wet with tears.

Honor nodded back, then turned towards the door of the cell. As she stepped through it, she drew her sidearm and checked the magazine.