The Honor of the Qween

she faced an eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-ton battlecruiser. What was left of Grayson's Navy didn't even count. She might as well shoot their crews herself as commit them against a Sultan —class battlecruiser ... and her own ship was no match for one, either. A Sultan carried almost twice her armament, five times her ammunition, and sidewalls far heavier than her own. Despite Fearless's superior electronics, there would be very few survivors if she and Troubadour went toe-to-toe against Thunder of God.

'We do the best we can, Alice,' she said softly. She straightened her shoulders and turned from the view port, and her voice was crisper. 'It's always possible they'll decide not to push it. They've lost virtually all their Masadan units. That leaves Haven without any sort of cover. This `Thunder of God's skipper will be as well aware of that as we are, and he can't know how soon we expect reinforcements.'

'But we know, Ma'am.' McKeon's voice was quiet. 'The freighters won't even make Manticore for another nine days. Add four days for the Fleet to respond, and—' He shrugged.

'I know.' Honor looked at Truman. 'Apollo's nodes and Warshawski sails are in good shape, Alice. You can cut five days off that response time.'

'Yes, Ma'am.' Truman's face was desperately unhappy, but there was absolutely nothing she could do to help here.

'Alistair, you and I will have to get our heads together on the way back to Grayson. We're going to have to fight smart, if it comes to it.'

'Yes, Ma'am,' McKeon said as quietly as Truman, and Honor looked at Admiral Matthews as he cleared his throat.

'Captain, none of us suspected just how heavy the odds against you really are, but your people have already done—and suffered—far more for us than we had any right to expect. I hope that whoever Thunder of God's captain may be, he'll have the sense, the sanity, to realize the game is lost and pull her out. If he doesn't, however, surely Grayson can survive whatever the Faithful may do until your relief force gets here.'

He fell silent, and Honor knew what he was trying to say—and why he couldn't quite say it in so many words. He knew how unlikely her ships were to survive against a Sultan, and the man in him wanted to give her a way out, to find a reason for her to back off and survive. But the admiral in him knew how desperate the Masadans would become when they heard what had happened to Blackbird, their navy, and Principality. Desperate people did irrational things ... and Masada had stated its willingness to nuke Grayson when it wasn't desperate.

Poor as her own chances against a Sultan might be, Fearless and Troubadour were all Grayson had, and if she pulled them out ...

'Perhaps, Admiral,' she said quietly. 'But if they're insane enough to continue at all at this point, there's no way to predict what they may do. And even if there were, it's my job to protect the planet.'

'But you're not Graysons, Captain.' Matthews' voice was as quiet as her own, and she shrugged.

'No, we're not. But we've been through a lot with you people, and we owe Masada.' She heard a soft growl of agreement in McKeon's throat. 'Admiral Courvosier would have expected me to stand by you just as he did, Sir,' she went on past a fresh stab of sorrow and guilt. 'More importantly, it's what my Queen would expect of me—and what I would expect of myself.' She shook her head. 'We're not going anywhere, Admiral Matthews. If Masada still wants Grayson, they'll have to come through us to get it.'

* * *

'Yes, Sir. I'm afraid it is confirmed.' Captain Yu sat in the Honorable Jacob Lacy's office, and Haven's ambassador to Masada looked just as grim as he did. Unlike most of his diplomatic colleagues, Lacy was a retired naval officer, a fact for which Yu was profoundly grateful.

'Shit,' the ambassador muttered now. 'Principality, too?'

'All of them, Mr. Ambassador,' Yu said harshly. 'Tom Theisman squealed a download to Virtue just before Harrington began her final run, and Blackbird Base confirmed the complete destruction of the Masadan fleet before it went off the air. For all practical purposes, Thunder is all that's left, Sir.'

Rage clogged his voice and smoldered like lava in the back of his throat as he admitted it. If only Tractor Five hadn't gone down. If only it hadn't turned out even the flux coil was shot. Twelve hours of repairs had turned into twenty, then twenty-five, and then that fat-headed, stupid, incompetent fucker Simonds had cost them another full day and a half with his fits and starts! If it hadn't been so insane, Yu would have sworn the idiot was trying to delay their return to Yeltsin's Star!

And the result had been catastrophe.

'What are Masada's chances now, Captain?' Lacy asked after a moment.

'They'd have better luck putting out Yeltsin's Star by pissing on it, Sir. Oh, I could take Harrington. I'd get hurt—Star Knights are nasty customers—but I could take her out. Only it wouldn't do any damned good. She must have sent for help. All her warships were present at Blackbird, but if she sent her freighters away first, she could still have a relief force out here in ten or twelve days. And there will be a relief force—one that'll come in ready to kick ass and take names, Sir. We've destroyed at least one Manticoran ship; from Blackbird's final report, we killed some more Manticorans there, and Harrington undoubtedly has proof Principality was Haven-built. Whatever the Staff and Cabinet may think, the RMN won't take that lying down.'

'And if Masada were in possession of Grayson when they arrived?' It was clear from Lacy's tone that he already knew the answer, and Yu snorted.

'It wouldn't matter a good goddamn, Mr. Ambassador. Besides, I doubt Grayson will surrender if they know help is coming, and that idiot Simonds is just likely to order demonstration nuclear strikes.' He clenched his jaw. 'If he does, Sir, I'll refuse to carry them out.'

'Of course you will!' Yu relaxed just a bit at the ambassador's response. 'There's no possible moral justification for slaughtering civilians or violating the Eridani Edict, and the diplomatic repercussions would be catastrophic.'

'Then what do you want me to do, Sir?' the Captain asked quietly.

'I don't know.' Lacy scrubbed his hands over his face and frowned up at the ceiling for a long, silent moment, then sighed.

'This operation is shot to hell, Captain, and it's not your fault.' Yu nodded and hoped—without much conviction—that the Staff would endorse Lacy's opinion.

'Grayson will fall all over itself to sign the treaty now. Not only has all this underlined the Masadan threat, but we've literally thrown them into Manticore's arms. Gratitude, as well as self-interest, is going to push them together, and I don't see any way to avert that. If the Masadans had pushed operations more vigorously, or allowed us to station a squadron or two in Endicott to back you up, that might not be the case, but now—'

The ambassador pinched the bridge of his nose, then went on slowly.

'In a lot of ways, I'd like to simply wash our hands of the entire situation, but once Grayson signs up with Manticore, we'll need a presence in Endicott worse than ever. And much as I'm rapidly coming to despise the `Faithful,' they'll need us worse than ever with Manticore and Grayson both itching to chop them up. The trick is going to be keeping them alive long enough to realize that.'

'Agreed, Sir. But how do we go about doing that?'

'We stall. It's all we can do. I'll send my courier boat off to request a `visit' by a battle squadron or two, but it's going to take at least a T-month for anything to come of that. Somehow, we're going to have to keep Masada from doing anything stupid—anything else stupid, that is—while we simultaneously fend off any Manticoran counterattack against Endicott.'

'If you'll forgive my saying so, Mr. Ambassador, that would be a neat trick if you could do it.'

'I don't know that I can,' Lacy admitted, 'but it's the best we can hope for now.' He swung his chair slowly back and forth, then nodded. 'If you can keep the Masadans from launching any more adventures against Yeltsin, then your ship will still be intact and in Endicott when the Manticorans turn up, right?' Yu nodded, and the ambassador leaned over his desk. 'Then I need you to be completely honest with me, Captain. I know how close you are to Commander Theisman, but I have to ask this. Assuming he and his people survived, will they have stuck