Honor Among Enemies

'Separate him from the transmitter,' the Peep murmured. Honor’s eyes swiveled to him, and he nodded slowly. 'We can't do that, can we? But what if we separated him and his transmitter from the planet?'

'Exactly,' Honor said. 'Get him out of range of the charges, then deal with him.'

'He could still leave a timer,' Caslet mused, and it was as if he and Honor were alone. The others could hear their words, but the two of them were communicating on a far deeper level than anyone else could follow.

'Timers we can deal with,' Honor replied. 'We know where he's transmitting from, and he wouldn't trust his detonator where anyone else could get to it. That means it has to be in his HQ, and we can take that out from orbit if we have to.'

'It's in a town,' Caslet objected.

'Granted, but if he did use a timer, he'd set it to hold the detonation until he was too far away from Sidemore for us to overtake him short of hyper, and his repair ship's probably even slower than Wayfarer. Even if he could pull two hundred gees, which he can't, he'd still need over four hours to reach the hyper limit, and our LACs can pull almost six hundred. That gives us three hours in which they could overhaul him from a standing start.'

'Three hours to find a timer that could be anywhere in his HQ?' Caslet objected.

'We don't have to,' Honor said, her voice cold as space. 'That's a fairly big town down there, but his HQ's close to one edge. If we have to, we can probably evacuate that end of town, then take out the HQ with a kinetic strike. Blast and thermal bloom would still tear up the local real estate, but the explosion would be clean, and we wouldn't have to kill anyone. For that matter, he'll be leaving a lot of people behind. Suppose we tell them the charges are down there? Then we offer them life in prison if they find his timer, deactivate it, and turn it over to us ... and tell them that if it goes off, we'll execute anyone who survives the explosions. With their 'fearless leader' already having sold them out, I think we can count on them to find it for us.'

'Risky either way, but you're probably right,' Caslet agreed. 'But how do we work it so that he's willing to leave the planet in the first place? He may be crazy, but he's too smart to go for anything that doesn't at least look feasible.'

'The com systems,' Honor said softly. 'The repair ships com systems. That's the weak spot in the thread he's hung his 'Sword of Damocles' from.'

'Of course!' Caslet's eyes blazed. 'His hand unit couldn't possibly have the range. Once he's more than a few light-seconds from the planet, he'd have to use the ship's com to transmit the detonation command!'

'Exactly.' Honor’s chocolate eyes burned as bright as Caslet's, and she smiled. 'Not only that, but I think I may see a way to take the timer out of the equation, as well, or at least give us at least another hour to work on finding it.'

'You do?' Caslet rubbed his jaw.

'I think so. Harry,' she turned to her chief engineer, 'I'm going to need you to whip up some specialized hardware fast to pull this off. First...'

'All right, Mr. Warnecke,' Honor told the face on her com screen some hours later. 'I've considered my options, just as I said I would, and I have an offer for you.'

'Indeed?' Warnecke smiled like a benign uncle and raised his hands in eloquent invitation. 'Talk to me, Captain Harrington. Amaze me with your wisdom.'

'You want to leave the system, and I want to be certain you don't blow up the planet as you depart, correct?' Honor spoke calmly, trying to ignore the furnace of Andrew LaFollet's emotions. They beat at her through her link to Nimitz, for her chief armsman was aghast at what she proposed to do, but she couldn't let herself worry about that just now. Her personal participation was the one bait which might lure a man who saw the universe only as an extension of himself, and would expect others to do the same, into her trap, and she concentrated all her attention on her enemy.

'That seems to sum up our positions quite nicely,' Warnecke agreed.

'Very well. I propose to allow you and your people aboard your repair ship, but only after I've sent a boarding party aboard to disable all of her communication systems.' Warnecke cocked his head, expression arrested, and she smiled. 'Without a shipboard system to transmit your detonation order, you can't double-cross me at the last minute, now can you?'

'You must be joking, Captain!' This time Warnecke's tone was testy, and he frowned. 'If you take away my ability to transmit, you also take the gun out of my hand. I don't think I'm very interested in going aboard ship only to be blown out of space once I get there!'

'Patience, Mr. Warnecke. Patience!' Honor smiled. 'After my people have disabled your vessel's coms, you'll send your designated 'henchmen' aboard her. You yourself, however, and no more than three others of your choice, will be aboard a single unarmed shuttle docked to the exterior of your ship, where I and three of my officers will join you. Your shuttle transmitter will, of course, be able to send the detonation command at any time during this process. My people will then disable all transmitters aboard all small craft docked in your boat bays. Once they report to me that all your long-range com systems, except the one aboard your shuttle, are inoperable, I'll allow it to depart orbit. You will also have aboard your shuttle a short-range radio, no more than five hundred klicks' maximum range, as determined by my people, not yours, with which to maintain communication with your shipboard personnel. Once you've satisfied yourself that all my boarders have left your vessel, you, myself, and my three officers will remain aboard the shuttle while you head for the hyper limit. Assuming nothing, ah, untoward happens before reaching the limit, you'll then go aboard your ship, and my officers and I will undock the shuttle and return to my ship, taking with us the only means by which you could detonate the charges. Since the shuttle will be unarmed, we will, of course, be unable to hamper your departure in any way.'

She raised one hand, palm uppermost, and arched both eyebrows, and Warnecke stared at her for several seconds. 'An interesting proposal, Captain,' he murmured finally, 'but while it would never do to accuse a gentlewoman and an officer of duplicity, what's to prevent your boarding party from planting an explosive device of your own while destroying my transmitters? I would really be most unhappy to translate into hyper only to have my ship blow up.'

'Your own people will be free to oversee their operations. My boarders will be armed, of course, and any attempt actually to interfere with them will be met with deadly force. But your people don't really have to interfere, do they? All they have to do is tell you such a device has been placed, and you press the button.'

'True.' Warnecke scratched his beard gently. 'But then there'd be the situation aboard the shuttle, Captain. I appreciate your willingness to offer yourself as a hostage for the honesty of your intentions, but you wish to bring three of your officers with you, as well. Now, if you put four armed military people, including yourself, in a situation like that, they might just decide to do something heroic, and I wouldn't like that, either.'

'Perhaps not, but I have to have some means of making certain you don't send the order over the shuttle com.'

'True,' Warnecke said again, then smiled lazily. 'However, Captain, I think I'm going to have to insist that your personnel be unarmed.'

'Impossible,' Honor snapped, and prayed he wouldn't guess she'd already considered this very point. 'I have no intention of providing you with additional hostages, Mr. Warnecke.'

'I'm afraid you don't have a choice,' he said. 'Come, Captain! Where’s that warrior's courage, that willingness to die for your beliefs?'

'Dying for my beliefs isn't the issue,' Honor shot back. 'Dying and allowing you to blow up the planet is.'

'Then I think we have an impasse. A pity. It seemed like such a nice idea.'

'Wait.' Honor folded her hands behind her and began to pace back and forth, frowning in obvious thought. Warnecke sat back, toying with his hand-held transmitter, and whistled a cheerful tune while the seconds oozed past. Then she stopped and faced the pickup once more.