War Of Honor

with the Andies' policy of gradually increasing the level of their provocations. Particularly in light of the fact that Hellbarde fired on Jessica Epps first, without being threatened herself. And that she did so from a range which clearly revealed the fact that her missiles were substantially longer ranged than we'd previously been given any cause to suspect.'

'Those are excellent points,' Honor agreed.

'With all due respect, Your Grace,' Alistair McKeon pointed out, 'as important as the question of intent obviously is, it may also, unfortunately, be completely beside the point. Shots have been fired, casualties have been suffered, and we've lost a Queen's ship with all hands. Whatever these clever-assed bastards may have been planning on doing, what they've actually accomplished is to present us with an act of war.'

The sudden, brief silence which greeted his blunt observation was profound.

'Yes, they have,' Honor said into that silence after a moment. 'But the reason they did may still be of critical importance. My own initial read is that this entire incident represents a mistake.'

'Mistake?' Alice Truman shook her head. Unlike many of the other flag officers in the briefing room, Truman had had the opportunity to look over the sensor data from Chantilly before joining the rest of them. 'Your Grace, Hellbarde was clearly not threatened in any way when she opened fire on Captain Ferrero's vessel. Given how long and how assiduously Hellbarde had been harassing Jessica Epps for months prior to this, there's not very much chance Hellbarde didn't know exactly who she was dealing with, either. Which means that whatever else may have happened, an Andermani warship, deliberately, without provocation, and knowingly attacked a Queen's ship.'

'I don't disagree with your analysis of what happened, Alice,' Honor said. 'I'm not at all certain, however, that 'deliberately and without provocation' is the best way to describe it.'

She felt more than a little incredulity from her subordinate officers, astonishment at both the thrust of her argument and that 'the Salamander' should be the one to voice it.

'As Captain Gonsalves has already pointed out,' she continued calmly, 'this represents an enormous break with the level of harassment we've seen out of the Andermani in the past. Moreover, we know Herzog von Rabenstrange is expected at Sachsen to relieve Sternhafen within the next few weeks. I find it very difficult to believe that the Andermani Navy would deliberately kick off an offensive against the Star Kingdom before their new station commander—widely regarded as perhaps the best flag officer in the IAN—even arrived.'

'There is that,' Truman agreed.

'True,' Alfredo Yu said. 'But it's also remotely possible that the timing represents a form of disinformation. By timing it to occur shortly before Rabenstrange's arrival in Sachsen, they may have intended to give him a degree of plausible deniability. He can always lay the blame for the attack on Sternhafen.'

Honor felt a strain of bitter amusement under his words and had to suppress an ironic snort of her own as she remembered how Yu himself had been disavowed by his government during the operations which had first brought him to Yeltsin's Star all those years ago.

'Why would he want to blame Sternhafen?' Hewitt asked.

'I don't say I agree that it's what they were trying to do,' Harriet Benson-Dessouix replied. 'But it's possible that they might see this as a way to hit us with a really painful provocation, a demonstration of the fact that people can get hurt out here if they don't get out of the Andies' way, while leaving themselves room to retreat from actually starting a war. They may think that if they blame it on Sternhafen, or even on Hellbarde's captain and simply officially fault Sternhafen for not having reined in Hellbarde's previous aggressiveness—which certainly wouldn't have been the result of any official Andermani policy, under this interpretation—and possibly offer some form of reparations, we'd choose to absorb the attack without retaliating. Especially if they've interpreted the position of the Star Kingdom's present government as indicating an . . . unwillingness to embrace a confrontational policy here in Silesia.'

'And the purpose of hitting Jessica Epps would have been to demonstrate their own willingness to fight while simultaneously hitting the Government between the eyes with how much standing in their way in Silesia could end up costing,' McKeon mused. 'All without their having done a single thing to us deliberately . . . officially.'

'If they did it on purpose,' Benson-Dessouix pointed out. 'And even though I'm the one suggesting the hypothesis, that's an awful big 'if,' Alistair.'

'It's certainly one possible scenario,' Honor agreed. 'But, as you say, Harry, it's all entirely speculative and highly problematical. It would also impute more subtlety to the Andermani than they normally demonstrate. Also, I think it may be overlooking the fact that the slaver Jessica Epps was intercepting was squawking an Andermani merchant transponder code at the time.'

'That's true enough, Your Grace,' Lieutenant Commander Reynolds said. 'At the same time, Chantilly —with merchant-grade sensors and from almost as far away as Hellbarde —was able to clearly identify the 'Sittich' Captain Ferrero was intercepting as at least two m-tons smaller than the ship that transponder code actually belongs to. Surely Hellbarde's ship list for the Empire's merchant marine is at least as up to date as ours is! I find it very difficult to believe that a merchant ship would be more capable of identifying her correctly than an IAN heavy cruiser.'

'Assuming that Hellbarde attempted to identify her in the first place,' Warner Caslet said quietly. 'That's where you're going, isn't it, My Lady?'

'Yes.' Honor nodded. 'Remember the history between Hellbarde and Jessica Epps. Mercedes, you and Andrea and George and I have all read Ferrero's previous reports. It's obvious Hellbarde was specifically assigned to shadow and harass Jessica Epps, not just any of our ships. As Alice just pointed out, it's been going on for months now, and Captain Ferrero's increasing frustration and anger were clearly evident from her reports. I see no reason to believe that the confrontation between them wasn't becoming equally personal for Kapitan zur Sternen Gortz, Hellbarde's CO. It's entirely possible that both of them found their judgment less than completely clear and impartial where the other one was concerned.'

'You're saying that this Gortz character may have been sufficiently pissed off with Jessica Epps to jump her without trying to determine 'Sittich's' real identity one way or the other?' McKeon asked skeptically. He shook his head. 'Again, with all due respect, what would a yahoo like that be doing commanding an IAN heavy cruiser?'

'Are you sure you want to ask that question, given some of the people you and I have seen commanding Manticoran heavy cruisers?' Honor replied with a more crooked than usual smile. 'Especially in backwater systems like . . . oh, Basilisk, say?'

'Touche,' McKeon murmured after a moment, nodding slowly, almost as if against his will.

'It could have happened that way,' Truman conceded. 'But if it did, there must have been some pretty serious lapses on both sides. Ferrero certainly should have informed Gortz of her intentions. And from Chantilly's sensor log, Jessica Epps had plenty of overtake on 'Sittich.' There was no way a merchie was going to evade her at that point, so there was no compelling need for Ferrero to be firing warning shots if there was any confusion or uncertainty in her communications with Hellbarde.'

'I'm not prepared to condemn one of my captains' actions without a lot more information than we currently have,' Honor said. 'On the other hand, from the very limited data actually available to us, it would certainly appear that that may have been true. In the final analysis, it was Gortz who first fired on Jessica Epps, which certainly seems—from our perspective, at least—to have been a much more serious 'lapse' than anything of which Ferrero may have been guilty. That doesn't mean both COs didn't contribute to what happened, and I think we all need to be aware of the fact that we're automatically prejudiced against the captain who killed one of our own ship's entire company. Not to mention the depth of the anger and resentment we all feel because of the Andermani's previous, deliberately provocative policy.

'But the two key points at this moment, as I see it, are that we have a very serious shooting incident between our own forces and the Andermani Navy, and that we don't have any way of knowing precisely what led up to it. The fact that it occurred in the territorial space of a third, neutral power complicates things even further, of