In Enemy Hands

Greentree even realized he'd spoken aloud, but she decided to pretend the words had been meant for her.

'Of course you could have tried,' she said so sharply that he looked up in surprise. 'People can always try, Captain, but sometimes a naval officer has to know when not to try. When trying is the easy way out for her, or her reputation, or her conscience, but only at the cost of failing in her duty. I'm certain any number of idiots who weren't there are going to tell you you should have rushed in to rescue Lady Harrington no matter what she'd ordered you to do. No doubt you could have saved yourself all the pain those accusations are going to cause you if you had tried. But you and I both know, however much it hurts to admit it, that it would have been the wrong decision.'

She held his eyes, her expression fierce.

'Even if Lady Harrington hadn't specifically ordered you to hyper out, you could never have gotten into support range of Prince Adrian. She was much too far away for you to reach before she either crossed the hyper limit and escaped on her own or was forced into action. In either case, there was nothing you could do to affect what happened to her. If you'd tried, you would have risked what probably happened to her, running into someone lying doggo in your path, and your primary responsibility, both under Lady Harrington’s direct orders and as the squadron's flag captain, was to the convoy under your escort. You're going to hear enough people second guess you, Captain. We're both adults. We know that's going to happen, and we both know some of the people doing it are going to be unfair and cruel. Don't you start doing it, as well.'

'But what am I going to tell Grayson?' Greentree asked wretchedly. 'I lost the Steadholder, Admiral!'

'You didn't lose anyone, Captain!' Sorbanne half-snapped. 'Lady Harrington did her duty, just as you did yours. She chose to wear that uniform, to assume the risks that go with command of a squadron in time of war. And she also chose to order Prince Adrian to draw the enemy away from the convoy.'

'I know,' Greentree said after a moment. 'I suppose I even know you're right, and I appreciate your kindness in telling me so. Someday, I'm sure, what you've said will come to mean a great deal to me. But right now, right this minute, Dame Madeleine, all I can think of is all those people on Grayson. Not because they'll blame me for it, but because they've lost her. Because we've all lost her. It just... doesn't seem possible.'

'I know,' Sorbanne sighed. She leaned back, running her fingers through her short hair, and managed a bleak smile. 'It always seems that way with the really good ones, doesn't it? They're not like us. They're invincible, somehow, immortal. The magic will keep them safe, bring them back to us, because it has to. Because they're too important for us to lose. But the truth is that they aren't invincible... or immortal. No one is, and when they go down, the rest of us have to find some way to take up the slack.'

'I don't think we can 'take up the slack' this time,' Greentree said soberly. 'We'll do our best, Admiral, and we'll survive.' He returned her bleak smile. 'We're Graysons, and Graysons know a thing or two about surviving. But find someone else who can fill her shoes? Be what she was?' He shook his head. 'We'll be a poorer planet for having lost her, Dame Madeleine, and those of us who knew her will always wonder what we might have managed to do or become if we hadn't lost her.'

'Maybe living up to what you think she would have expected of you will actually inspire you to accomplish even more,' Sorbanne suggested gently. 'A woman could have a worse legacy than that. And don't automatically assume you've 'lost her,' either. All we know right now is that Prince Adrian is overdue. Of course we have to allow for the worst, but there are almost always survivors, even when ships are lost in action, and from what I know of Lady Harrington, she had, has, the moral courage to accept responsibility for ordering a Queen's ship to surrender. I don't think she would've let Prince Adrian fight to the death if it was obvious she couldn't win, not when she had to know you'd gotten the convoy out. I'd say the odds are at least even that she's alive and a prisoner.'

'You're probably right, Ma'am,' Greentree replied, 'and I hope you are. But the Peeps don't have a very good record for treating POWs properly, and if I were the Committee of Public Safety, Lady Harrington is one officer I wouldn't be in any hurry to exchange. I hate thinking of her in their hands, not as much as I do the thought that she may be dead, but I still hate it. And given how long this war looks like lasting, it may be years, even decades, before we get her back.'

'There, I'm afraid, I can't argue with you,' Sorbanne admitted with another sigh, 'but years are better than never, Captain.'

'Yes, Ma'am,' Greentree said softly. 'They are.' He gazed down at his cap again for several long seconds, then stood and tucked it under his left arm.

'Thank you, Admiral Sorbanne,' he said, holding out his right hand as she rose in turn. 'I appreciate your taking the time to tell me personally, and your advice.' He managed a smile that would have looked almost natural on a less harrowed face. 'I suppose from my whining it must sound as if we Graysons have forgotten Lady Harrington is also a Manticoran, Ma'am, but we haven't. We know how badly your navy is going to miss her, as well.'

'We are that, Captain,' Sorbanne agreed, squeezing his hand firmly. 'I'll say good-bye now,' she continued. 'You have to be getting back to Yeltsin, and I've got things to organize here. For your private information, I'm putting together a reconnaissance in force for Adler. We'll be sending in a dozen battlecruisers and cruisers with a superdreadnought division in support, so unless they've reinforced mighty heavily, we should kick their asses clear back to Barnett or wherever else they came from.'

'I wish we could come along, Ma'am.'

'I know you do, and I wish you could, too, but...' Sorbanne shrugged, and Greentree nodded and released her hand. She returned his nod, and he turned and headed for the office door, but her raised voice stopped him just before he left.

'One thing, Captain,' she said quietly, and he turned back to face her. 'From what I've seen of you, you're a man who believes in doing his duty, however unpleasant it may be,' she told him, 'but I've taken the liberty of sending a dispatch boat to Yeltsin. It left two hours ago, with the news of Lady Harrington’s presumed loss.'

'I see.' Greentree gazed at her for a moment, then exhaled heavily. 'I understand, Dame Madeleine, and though I probably shouldn't be, I'm grateful.'

'I won't say you're welcome,' Sorbanne said, 'because I wish no one had to tell your people she's missing, but...'

She shrugged again, and Greentree bobbed his head.

'I'll be going, then, Ma'am,' he said.

A moment later the door slid shut behind him, and Madeleine Sorbanne stood gazing at it for several seconds before she drew a deep breath and nodded sharply to it.

'Good luck, Captain,' she said softly, and then she squared her shoulders and walked back to the chair behind her desk and the responsibilities that went with it.

Thirty minutes later, a lift aboard GNS Jason Alvarez came to a halt and Thomas Greentree drew a deep breath and stepped out. He made himself walk as closely to normally as he could, yet he knew his face was like stone. He couldn't help that. Indeed, he wasn't even certain he wanted to, for what he was about to do was almost a rehearsal, on a very personal and painful level, of what would await him when he returned to Yeltsin's Star, and his expression simply matched the heart which lay like frozen granite in his chest.

He turned a bend, and his eyes flinched from the green-uniformed man standing outside Lady Harrington’s quarters. Normally, that duty belonged to James Candless or Robert Whitman, as the junior members of her regular three-man travel detail. When she was... away, however, someone else was responsible for guarding the sanctity of her quarters. As Andrew LaFollet's second-in-command, Simon Mattingly was too senior for that duty, but someone had to make out the assignment roster, and in LaFollet's absence that person was Corporal Mattingly. He could station anyone he wanted here, and he stood as straight as a spear, his shoulders square, buttons and brightwork shining like tiny, polished suns. He even wore the knotted golden aigulette with the Harrington arms which a steadholder's personal armsmen wore only on the most formal of occasions, and Greentree's jaw clenched.