Honor Among Enemies

isn't what you're going to have to do when it comes down to you and Steilman.'

Aubrey pushed up into a sitting position and nodded, eyes dark and serious, and the sergeant major smiled thinly.

'You're quicker than he is, but he's bigger and stronger. From his record, he's a brawler, not a fighter. He'll probably try to surprise you and drag you in close, so the first thing you've got to do is stay alert, especially any time you think you're alone. If he does get his hands on you, you're in trouble, so if it happens, break fast, back off, and come in again. Whatever you do, don't fight his way, because he can take more punishment. What you've got to do is take him out quick and however dirty you have to be. Don't go looking for him, and don't start it, you don't want to get brought up on charges yourself, but the instant he takes a swing, drop his ass, and don't worry too much about how you do it. As long as you don't kill him outright, Doc Ryder should be able to put him back together, and given the difference in your sizes and the fact that he started it, I don't think you'll catch any flak for putting him down. But to do it, you've got to remember he is tough. You try to match him punch for punch or let him set the limits, and he wins. Go in hard, fast, and like you mean it, and when he goes down, you don't back off. You keep going until you're sure he'll stay down, you hear me?'

'Yes, Gunny,' Aubrey said very seriously, and if the thought that he might possibly be able to do what Hallowell had just described still seemed unlikely, it no longer seemed absurd.

'Good! Then back on your feet, kid, and this time try not to come at me like my old pacifist aunt.'

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

Margaret Fuchien was not a happy woman as she stood in the gallery of RMMS Artemis' Number Two Boat Bay and watched the VIP shuttle dock. As a rule, people aboard Artemis went to some lengths to prevent Fuchien from becoming unhappy, for her cuffs carried four gold bands, and she had the no-nonsense, hard-nosed attitude one might have expected from the skipper of one of the Star Kingdoms crack liners. She'd earned every promotion she'd ever had, and she was used to doing things her way. It was a privilege she'd earned along with her rank. But the man and woman aboard that shuttle weren't simply two more passengers; they were the ones who wrote, or at least authorized, her paychecks. Worse, they owned her ship.

She wasn't at all pleased to see them, for she'd run Artemis back and forth on the Silesian run for over five T-years, and she didn't need the latest Admiralty advisories to tell her the situation in the Confederacy was going steadily to Hell. She most emphatically did not need to find herself responsible for both members of the Hauptman clan just now... not that what she needed seemed to be of particular importance to her employers.

The docking tube cycled, and she pasted a smile on her face as Klaus Hauptman walked down it. Artemis was a passenger liner; unlike a warship or freighter, her oversized docking tubes generated their own internal gravity to keep ground-grippers' lunches where they belonged, and the magnate stepped easily across the interface into the shipboard gravity. He paused there, waiting until his daughter joined him, then crossed to Fuchien.

'Captain,' he held out his hand, and Fuchien gripped it.

'Mr. Hauptman. Ms. Hauptman. Welcome aboard Artemis.' She got it out without even gritting her teeth.

'Thank you,' he replied, and watched another woman step out of the tube. Fuchien and Ludmilla Adams had met on one of the trillionaire's previous voyages, and they exchanged nods and brief smiles. Adams' face was too well trained to say anything she didn't want it to, but Fuchien felt obscurely comforted by the look in the other woman's eyes. Clearly Adams was no happier about this trip than the captain was.

'I've had the owner's suite prepared for you and Ms. Hauptman, Sir,' Fuchien said. 'At least we've got plenty of room on board.'

Hauptman flashed a brief, tight smile at her oblique warning. Her objections had been more explicit when he first informed her of his plans, and despite his equally explicit order to terminate the discussion, she wasn't going to give in without one last try. Not, he admitted, that she didn't have a point. Passenger loads for Silesia had dropped radically in the last five or six months, to a point at which Artemis and Athena were barely breaking even. Of course, they'd never been exactly cheap to operate, given their out-sized crews and armaments. At barely a million tons, Artemis wasn't much bigger than most battlecruisers, but she carried three times the crew of a multimillion-ton freighter like Bonaventure, most of them ex-Navy personnel who looked after her weapons systems. She needed to run with almost full passenger loads to show a profit, which wasn't normally a problem, given the security her speed and those same weapons systems offered. Now, however, the situation was so bad that even she was badly underbooked, and the captain's reference to the fact was as close as she would let herself come to suggesting, again, that her boss stay the hell home where it was safe.

Not that he intended to... and not that Stacey had shown any inclination to listen to his arguments that she should. He sighed with a mental headshake and wondered if Captain Fuchien had any idea how thoroughly he sympathized with her.

'Well,' he said, 'at least that means first-class dining won't be too crowded.'

'Yes, Sir,' Fuchien replied, and waved at the lifts. 'If you'd follow me, I'll escort you to your quarters before returning to the bridge.'

'You're not serious,' Sir Thomas Caparelli said.

'I'm afraid I am,' Patricia Givens replied. 'I just found out this morning.'

'Jesus.' Caparelli ran both hands through his hair in a harried gesture he would have let very few people see. ONI's latest update on losses in Silesia had come in just two days ago, and those losses were considerably higher than they'd been when Task Group 1037 was dispatched. One thing the First Space Lord definitely didn't need just now was for the wealthiest man in the Star Kingdom, and his only child, to go haring off into the middle of a mess like that.

'There's no way we can stop them,' Givens said quietly, as if she'd read his mind. Which, he reflected, wasn't all that difficult just now. 'If private citizens want to take passage through what's for all intents and purposes a war zone, that's up to them. Unless, of course, we want to issue orders to hold Artemis.'

'We can't,' Caparelli sighed. 'If we start holding liners, people are going to ask why we're not holding freighters, too. Or, worse, the freighters'll start holding themselves. And we can't very well admit we're only worried about two of her passengers, now can we?'

'No, Sir.'

'Damn.' Caparelli gazed at his blotter for a long moment, then punched a code into his terminal. Less than a minute later, his screen lit with the face of an RMN lieutenant.

'System Command Central, Lieutenant Vale.'

'Admiral Caparelli, Lieutenant,' the First Space Lord growled. 'Let me speak to Captain Helpern, please.'

'Yes, Sir.' The lieutenant vanished, to be replaced by a chunky, heavyset four-striper.

'What can I do for you, Sir?' he asked politely.

'RMMS Artemis is pulling out for the Silesian run in eleven hours,' Caparelli said, coming quickly to the point, 'and Klaus and Stacey Hauptman are on board.' Helpern's eyes widened, and Caparelli nodded grimly. 'That's right. We can't stop them, but I don't need to tell you what kind of crap we'll be in if anything happens to them.' Helpern shook his head, and Caparelli signed. 'Since we can't stop them, we'd better send along a gunslinger. Can you shake loose a destroyer or a light cruiser?'

'Just a second, Sir.' Helpern looked down, and Caparelli heard him punching a query into his own data terminal. Perhaps thirty seconds trickled past, and then Helpern's eyes met the First Space Lord's once more. 'I don't have any cruisers available within that time frame, Sir. If you can hold them for another fourteen hours or so, I