and she straightened her shoulders and saluted.
An ember of surprise guttered in his eyes, and his hand rose in reply. It wasn't a gesture of respect the way he did it. There was defiance and hatred in it, but also a tiny trace of what might almost be gratitude. She knew he hadn't expected to see her. That he hadn't wanted to see her here to watch his humiliation, but she felt strangely drained of triumph. He'd been her worst living enemy for thirty T-years, yet all she saw when she looked at him was his pettiness. The vicious, small-souled egotism that had believed his birth truly made him superior to those about him and would eternally protect him from any consequence of his own actions. He was no longer a threat... only a vile mistake the Navy was about to correct, and all that really mattered to Honor now was that she put him behind her forever.
And yet—
She lowered her hand from the salute and stepped aside as the junior-grade captain with the balance scale shoulder patch of the Judge Advocate General's Corps cleared his throat behind her.
'Captain Lord Young?' the stranger said, and Young nodded. 'I am Captain Victor Karatchenko. You are instructed, by order of the Judge Advocate General, to accompany me ground-side, Sir. I am also required to officially notify you that you are under close arrest, pending trial by court-martial for cowardice and desertion in the face of the enemy.' Youngs face tightened at the measured words. In shock, perhaps, but not in surprise. This was his first official notice, yet he'd known what the board of inquiry had recommended.
'You will be in my custody until we reach the appropriate planetary authorities, Sir,' Karatchenko continued, 'but I am not your counsel. Accordingly, you are advised that client privilege does not apply and that anything you say to me may constitute evidence which I can be called upon to give at your trial. Is all of this understood, Sir?'
Young nodded, and Karatchenko cleared his throat again.
'Forgive me, Sir, but you're required to answer verbally for the record.'
'I understand.' Young's tenor sounded flat and rusty.
'If you will accompany me, then, Sir.' Karatchenko stood aside and gestured to his cutter's docking tube. Another Marine officer waited at its far end. Young looked at him with empty eyes for a moment, then stepped into the tube. Karatchenko paused just long enough to salute Honor before he followed, and the gallery-side hatch closed behind them. Humming machinery evacuated the sealed tube, and a red zero-pressure light glowed. The cutter undocked, and Honor watched through the armorplast as it drifted out of
She drew a deep, deep breath and turned her back upon it. The boat bay officer and his ratings came to attention, and she walked past them and out of the gallery without a word.
Captain Paul Tankersley looked up as Honor stepped into the lift.
'So he's gone, is he?' She nodded. 'Good riddance,' he snorted, then cocked his head. 'How did he take the official news?'
'I don't know,' Honor said slowly. 'He didn't say a word. Just stood there.' She shivered and shrugged irritably. 'I should be dancing a jig, I suppose, but it all seems so... so cold, somehow.'
'And better than he deserves.' Tankersley's expression was as sour as his voice. 'At least he'll get a fair trial before they shoot him.'
The lift began to move, and Honor shivered again as Paul's words sent a fresh chill through her. She'd hated Pavel Young almost as long as she could remember, yet Paul was right about his probable fate. God knew he was guilty as charged, and the Articles of War provided only one sentence for cowardice in the face of the enemy. Tankersley watched her for a moment, then frowned and touched the override to stop the lift in mid- movement.
'What is it, Honor?' His deep, resonant voice was gentle, and she looked at him with a fragile smile that vanished almost instantly. 'Damn it,' Tankersley went on more harshly, 'that man tried to rape you at the Academy, tried to ruin your career in Basilisk, and then did his dead level best to get you killed in Hancock! He ran away—tried to take his entire squadron with him—when you needed him, and God only knows how many of your people that did kill! Don't tell me you're feeling sorry for him!'
'No.' Honor's soprano was soft enough he had to strain to hear it. 'I'm not sorry for him, Paul. I just—' She paused and shook her head. 'I'm afraid for myself. Of myself. He's finally crashing and burning after all these years, all this hatred. There's been some sort of—well, of a link between us all that time, however much I hated it. I've never understood how his mind works, but he's always been there, like some sort of evil twin. A... a part of me, somehow. Oh,' she waved a hand, 'you're right. He deserves it. But I'm the one who gave it to him, and I can't feel sorry for him, however hard I try.'
'Damn straight you can't!'
'No, that's not the point.' Honor's headshake was sharper. 'I'm not saying he deserves sympathy, only that whether he deserves it or not shouldn't affect whether or not I feel any.' She looked away. 'He's a human being, not just a piece of machinery, and I don't want to hate anyone so much that I don't even care if the Fleet executes him.'
Tankersley studied the left side of her sharp, gracefully carved profile. Her left eye was a sophisticated prosthesis, yet artificial or not, he could see the pain in it, and hatred stirred deep within him, dull but made fierce by his love for her. He started to speak sharply, angry with her for her feelings, but he didn't. He couldn't. If she hadn't felt them, she wouldn't have been the woman he loved.
'Honor,' he sighed instead, 'if you don't care what happens to him, then you're a bigger person than I am. I want him shot, not just for what he's tried to do to you over the years, but because of what he is. And if the tables were reversed, if he could have gotten you in front of a court-martial, he damned well would dance a jig! If you don't feel the same way, then the only thing wrong with you is that you're better than he is.'
She turned back to meet his eyes, and he smiled almost sadly. Then he slid an arm about her. There was an instant of tautness, almost resistance, the habit of too much loneliness, too many years of command and self- discipline, and then—she yielded and leaned against him. He was shorter than she, but she pressed her cheek into the top of his beret and sighed.
'You're a good man, Paul Tankersley,' she said softly, 'and I don't deserve you.'
'Of course you don't. No one could deserve me. But you come closer than most, I suppose.'
'You'll pay for that, Tankersley,' she growled, and he squirmed away with a yelp as she pinched his ribs hard. He cowered against the lift wall, grinning hugely, and she chuckled. 'That's only a down payment,' she warned him. 'Once I get
'I'm not scared of you!' Tankersley said defiantly. 'Nimitz isn't here to protect you now, and as for tonight—piffle!' He snapped his fingers, then drew himself up to his full height and twirled an imaginary mustache with an epic leer. 'Fritz has been prescribing extra vitamins and hormone shots. I'll reduce you to palpitating putty, begging for mercy!'
'Now you'll really pay!' Honor swatted him with a grin, and he gave her an aggrieved look and adjusted the hem of his tunic fastidiously while she turned to release the override switch. She watched the position indicator begin to move once more—then went up on her toes with a most uncaptainly squeak as a wicked pinch to her posterior repaid her assaults on his person.
She started to turn on him, but the lift was still moving, and the panel flashed warning of imminent arrival. She snapped back to face the door, head still turned to glower down at him, and he grinned back unrepentantly.
'We'll see who pays who, Lady Harrington,' he murmured smugly from the corner of his mouth, and then the doors opened.
Admiral Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord of the Royal Manticoran Navy, rose courteously as Francine Maurier, Baroness Morncreek, walked through the door. Admiral Sir Lucien Cortez stood beside him, and both of them waited until Morncreek had seated herself. The baroness was a small, slender woman, over seventy but still young and almost dangerously attractive in a dark, feline way thanks to the prolong treatment. She was also First Lord of the Admiralty, the civilian head of their service, and at the moment her face was tense.
'Thank you for coming, gentlemen,' she said as her subordinates resumed their own seats. 'I assume
