War Of Honor

'I know he will. And I know Pat will, too. But after so long, it just seems hard to see her as anyone else's flagship.'

'I don't doubt it. But that's not all of it, Ma'am,' Anders said almost gently, and she frowned.

'What do you mean?'

'Ma'am, you're not like me. I'm an engineer first, and a tac officer second; you're exactly the other way around. That's why you want to be out there, making Red Alpha work and executing the tactical doctrines you designed. That's the real reason you hate to see her go as much as you do.'

'You know,' Foraker said slowly, 'for a wirehead, you're a remarkably perceptive person, Five.' She shook her head. 'I hadn't considered it from that perspective, but you're right. Maybe I didn't think about it that way because I didn't want to admit how very right you are.'

'You couldn't be who you are and feel any other way about it, Ma'am,' he told her. 'But the bottom line is that as good as you are as a tac officer, the Navy and the Republic need you worse at Bolthole than they need you with First or Second Fleet. It's not where you want to be, Ma'am; it's only where you need to be.'

'Maybe you're right,' she said softly, turning to look back out the port at the steadily accelerating superdreadnought. 'Maybe you're right.'

But as she watched Sovereign of Space dwindle in the distance, she knew she didn't want him to be.

Chapter Forty One

The com attention signal chimed softly in the darkened cabin. It was a quiet sound, but decades of naval service had made Erica Ferrero a light sleeper. Her right hand shot out and hit the voice-only acceptance key before it could chime a second time, and her left hand raked sleep-tousled hair out of her eyes as she sat up in bed.

'Captain speaking.' Her voice struck her as sounding much more awake than she actually felt.

'Captain, this is Lieutenant McKee. The Exec asked me to inform you that 'Sittich' is breaking orbit.'

'Understood.' Ferrero came suddenly and fully awake at the announcement. She glanced at her bedside date/time display and grimaced. It was the middle of Jessica Epps' shipboard night. McKee had the bridge watch, and by rights, Llewellyn should have been in bed and as sound asleep as Ferrero herself. But her exec had always had a tendency to prowl around the ship at odd times, and it had become even more pronounced since their arrival in the Zoraster System.

'What's her accel, Mecia?' Ferrero asked the com officer.

'Just under two-point-five KPS squared,' McKee replied.

'And her heading?'

'Just about what you'd predicted, Skipper. She's on a least-time heading from the planet to the hyper limit.'

'Good. In that case, I don't see any reason to wake everybody else up this soon. I'll be up in about fifteen minutes. You and the Exec hold the fort until I get there.'

'Aye, aye, Ma'am.'

* * *

The red icon representing the ship masquerading as the Andermani merchant ship Sittich crawled across Jessica Epps' tactical display. She'd been accelerating steadily for over two hours now, and her velocity was up to just over 18,500 KPS. She'd traveled a hundred and thirty-nine million kilometers, taking her almost forty percent of the way to the G4 primary's hyper limit. And while she was doing that, Jessica Epps had crept stealthily closer to her, bending their vectors steadily together.

The tension on the heavy cruiser's bridge had climbed steadily. It wasn't the same sort of tension her officers might have felt if they'd been tracking another warship. No, this was the tension of a hunter as a long, careful stalk crept towards its successful conclusion, mingled with the vengeful anticipation of closing in on the sort of vermin any self-respecting naval officer recognized as his natural enemy.

Erica Ferrero glanced at her repeater plot. The range to the target was down to barely three million kilometers, and it was painfully evident that the false Sittich didn't have a clue Jessica Epps was even in the same star system with her. Ferrero supposed she shouldn't feel too much contempt for the slaver's crew. After all, they were deep in one of the better patrolled Silesian star systems, and as far as they knew, any armed vessels in that system were under the orders of the man whose illicit cargo they were carrying. Besides, Shawn Harris' carefully deployed Ghost Rider recon drones had gotten an excellent read on 'Sittich's' emissions, and the tramp's active sensors were exactly the sort of crap Ferrero would have anticipated from such a disreputable craft. They'd have been lucky to spot a medium-sized moon if they hadn't already known exactly where to look for it.

She smiled. Sneaking into someone else's star system, even when that someone else was limited to Silly sensor systems, was always a challenge. Of course, it was the sort of challenge Ferrero enjoyed, not to mention being an excellent training opportunity. That hadn't made it any easier, however, and she'd been just a bit surprised by how spoiled she'd become since FTL sensor arrays had become available. She missed the continually updated reports from the perimeter arrays she would normally have deployed. Their absence made her feel . . . exposed. As if someone who was supposed to be watching her back wasn't.

She wondered if she would have felt happier if the new patrol patterns Duchess Harrington was instituting had been fully in place and Jessica Epps had been paired off with another RMN vessel. She probably would have, she decided. And the availability of a consort would have given her much more flexibility in her stalk of the slaver. Of the probable slaver, she corrected herself conscientiously.

Of course, the presence of a second ship would have substantially increased the chances that at least one of them might have been spotted. Which made it one more example of the endless trade-offs imposed by an imperfect universe.

She snorted at the thought and looked up from the plot.

'I think we're just about ready, Bob,' she said.

'Yes, Ma'am,' Commander Llewellyn acknowledged. 'Should we send the crew to quarters?'

'I don't see any reason to completely clear for action,' Ferrero replied. 'Not against a merchie who's still two and a half million klicks outside energy range! Go ahead and close up the missile crews and Missile Defense. We can always man the energy mounts if Mr. Slaver decides to be difficult and refuses to heave to before we close into graser range. Of course, he'd have to be particularly stupid for that to happen.'

'Yes, Ma'am.'

A true stickler might have detected a slight edge of disappointment in Llewellyn's reply. The exec, Ferrero knew, was a tactical officer's tactical officer. He hated to pass up any opportunity for comprehensive weapons drills, especially when Tactical had a live target—even one as unworthy as 'Sittich'—to practice on.

'Patience, Bob,' she said in a quieter voice, pitched for his ears alone, after he'd passed the necessary orders. 'If you behave yourself, I'll let you take the first pinnace across.'

'That obvious, was I, Skipper?' he asked wryly.

'Maybe not that obvious,' she said with a grin. 'But headed that way. Definitely headed that way.'

'Missile batteries report manned and ready, Ma'am,' Harris reported from Tactical.

'Very well, Shawn. I think we're just about ready. Remember, we can't afford to just blow this one out of space, whatever it does.'

'Understood, Ma'am.' Lieutenant Harris nodded soberly. Pirates were one thing; slavers, with potentially hundreds of innocent victims aboard, were something else entirely.

'If she refuses to stop when Mecia hails her,' Ferrero went on, 'we'll put a shot or two across her bows. But if she still refuses to stop, we'll have to get close enough to take out her nodes with energy fire. Or,' she