* * *

Major Ramirez looked up as Captain Harrington came up the corridor.

'Captain, what shall I—?'

She brushed by him as if he hadn't spoken. There was no expression at all on her face, but the right side of her mouth twitched violently, and her gun was in her hand.

'Captain? Captain Harrington!'

He reached out to grasp her arm, and she looked at him at last.

'Get out of my way, Major.' Each word was precisely, perfectly formed despite her crippled mouth. 'Clean up this section. Find every one of our people. Get them out of here.'

'But—'

'You have your orders, Major,' she said in that same, chilled-steel tone, and twitched out of his grasp. She started up the corridor once more, and he stared after her helplessly.

She didn't look up when she reached the Marines in the passageway. She just strode straight ahead, and they scattered like frightened children. Sergeant Talon's squad started to fall in around her, but she waved them back with a savage chop of her hand and kept walking.

Lieutenant Tremaine stared after her, biting his lip. He'd heard about the discoveries the Marines had made. He hadn't believed it at first—hadn't wanted to believe it—but then the medics had carried Commander Brigham's stretcher past him. He'd believed it then, and the Marines' fury had been dwarfed by his own, for he knew Mercedes Brigham well. Very well, indeed.

The Captain said she wanted to be alone. She'd ordered everyone to leave her alone. But Scotty Tremaine had seen her face.

She turned a bend in the corridor, and his own face tightened with decision. He laid aside his plasma carbine and went hurrying after her.

* * *

Honor climbed the rubble-strewn stairs, ignoring the labored breathing of whoever was trying to catch up with her. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. She vaulted up the stairs, using her long legs and the light gravity, brushing past an occasional Marine, stepping through an occasional puddle of Masadan blood, and her single eye glowed like molten steel.

She walked down the final corridor, gaze fixed on the open mess hall door, and a voice was calling her from behind. It was distant and unreal, immaterial, and she ignored it as she stepped into the crowded room.

A Marine officer saluted, then flinched back from her in shock, and she went past him as if he didn't exist. Her eye swept the lines of prisoners, searching for the face she sought, and found it.

Captain Williams looked up as if he felt her hatred, and his face paled. She walked towards him, shoving people out of her way, and the voice calling her name was even louder as its owner pushed and shoved through the crowd behind her.

Williams tried to twist away, but her left hand tangled in his hair, and he cried out in agony as she slammed his head back against the wall. His mouth worked, gobbling words she didn't bother to hear, and her right hand pressed the muzzle against his forehead and began to squeeze.

Someone else's hands locked on her forearm, shoving frantically, and the sharp, spiteful explosion of a pulser dart pocked the mess hall roof as her pistol whined. She wrenched at the hands on her arm, trying to throw whoever it was off, but they clung desperately, and someone was shouting in her ear.

More voices shouted, more hands joined the ones on her arm, dragging her back from Williams while the man sagged to his knees, retching and weeping in terror, and she fought madly against them all. But she couldn't wrench free, and she went to her own knees as someone snatched the pistol from her grip and someone else gripped her head and forced it around.

'Skipper! Skipper, you can't!' Scotty Tremaine half-sobbed, holding her face between his hands while tears ran down his cheeks. 'Please, Skipper! You can't do this—not without a trial!'

She stared at him, her detached mind wondering what a trial had to do with anything, and he shook her gently.

'Please, Skipper. If you shoot a prisoner without a trial the Navy—' He drew a deep breath. 'You can't, Ma'am, however much he deserves it.'

'No, she can't,' a voice like frozen helium said, and a trace of sanity came back into Honor's expression as she saw Admiral Matthews. 'I came as soon as I heard, Captain,' he spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he sensed the need to break through to her, 'but your lieutenant's right. You can't kill him.' She stared deep into his eyes, and something inside her eased as she saw the agony and shame—and fury—in his soul.

'But?' she didn't recognize her own voice, and Matthews' mouth twisted in contemptuous hate as he glared down at the sobbing Masadan captain.

'But I can. Not without a trial. He'll have one, I assure you, and so will all the animals he turned loose on your people. They'll be scrupulously, completely fair—and as soon as they're over, this sick, sadistic piece of garbage and all the others responsible will be hanged like the scum they are.' He met her eye levelly, and his icy voice was soft.

'I swear that to you, Captain, on the honor of the Grayson Navy.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Honor Harrington sat staring out the view port, her soul cold as the space beyond the armorplast, and Admiral Matthews, Alice Truman, and Alistair McKeon sat silently behind her.

Nineteen. Nineteen of Madrigal's people were alive, and that figure had been enough to crack Commander Theisman's reserve at last. There was no record of any survivors in the Blackbird data base. Apparently Williams had erased it, but it was Theisman who'd picked up Madrigal's survivors, and there had been fifty-three of them. Twenty-six had been women. Of that number, only Ensign Jackson and Mercedes Brigham were still alive, and Fritz Montoya's face had been terrible as he described Brigham's internal injuries and broken bones.

Honor had made certain Theisman was present to hear Montoya's report, and the Commander had gone absolutely white as he turned to her in horror.

'Captain Harrington, I swear I didn't know how bad it really was.' He'd swallowed harshly. 'Please, you have to believe me. I-I knew it was bad, but there wasn't anything I could do, and ... and I didn't know how bad.'

His agony had been genuine—as had his shame. Madrigal's bosun had confirmed that it was Theisman's missiles which had killed the Admiral. Honor had wanted to hate him for that, wanted to hate him so badly she could taste it, and his anguish had taken even that away from her.

'I believe you, Commander,' she'd said wearily, then inhaled deeply. 'Are you prepared to testify before a Grayson court on the matters of which you do have personal knowledge? No one will ask you why you `immigrated' to Masada. I have Admiral Matthews' promise on that. But very few of the real Masadans are going to voluntarily testify against Williams and his animals.'

'Yes, Ma'am.' Theisman's voice had been cold. 'Yes, Ma'am, I'll testify. And—I'm sorry, Captain. More sorry than I'll ever be able to tell you.'

Now she sat gazing at the stars, and her heart was ice within her, for if Blackbird's data base hadn't mentioned the prisoners, it had held other information. She knew, at last, what she truly faced, and it wasn't a heavy cruiser. Not a heavy cruiser at all.

'Well,' she said at last, 'at least we know.'

'Yes, Ma'am,' Alice Truman said quietly. She paused for a moment, and then she asked the question in all their minds. 'What do we do now, Ma'am?'

The right side of Honor's mouth quirked without humor, for deep inside she was afraid she knew the answer. She had one damaged heavy cruiser, one damaged destroyer, and one completely crippled light cruiser, and

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