War Of Honor

course, but it doesn't change those two considerations.'

She paused once more, surveying the faces and tasting the emotions about her, and behind her own calm facade she felt her own tension, her own anxiety. Her own sense of responsibility.

'I intend,' she said, 'to send Chantilly's sensor log to Sachsen for review by Admiral Sternhafen. I will point out to him that according to that log, his commander clearly fired on our vessel before Jessica Epps returned fire. I will suggest to him that it would be . . . appropriate for him to determine whether or not the ship identifying itself as Sittich was the ship which ought to have been squawking that transponder code, and I will share with him the intelligence we developed suggesting that the ship in question was in fact both a slaver and illegally squawking a fraudulent code. I will request that he thoroughly investigate these events, and offer to conduct such an investigation jointly with him. In particular, I will request access to Hellbarde's surviving personnel—under Andermani supervision, of course—in an effort to obtain firsthand testimony from the only survivors.'

'Your Grace,' Reynolds said, 'all of our information on Graf von Sternhafen suggests that he's not going to pay you a great deal of attention. According to everything we have, he's a card-carrying member of the anti- Manticore faction within the IAN. Not to put too fine a point on it, he hates the Star Kingdom's guts.'

'I'm well aware of that, George. That's one reason why I've been looking forward to Herzog von Rabenstrange's arrival to replace him. And why I think the timing on this episode is particularly tragic. Nonetheless, I don't see any way to justify not at least attempting to defuse this situation before it careens entirely out of control. If, in fact, this was an accident—if the Andies didn't intend from the beginning to pull the trigger on a general war between the Empire and the Star Kingdom—then I have an absolute responsibility to do all I can to pull us back from the brink instead of simply plunging over it because I don't expect my efforts to succeed.'

Several heads nodded unconsciously in agreement around the conference table, but she tasted dis agreement from several of her subordinates, as well. And, in all fairness, she couldn't really blame them for it. For all of her effort to remain analytical and detached, she felt a bright, searing flicker of rage whenever she thought of what had happened to Erica Ferrero's ship and all of her crew. Alice was undoubtedly correct that there'd been lapses on both sides, but if the Andermani hadn't been deliberately provoking incidents for so long, those lapses probably wouldn't have occurred . . . and would never have had such fatal consequences if they had.

She wanted vengeance. She wanted to avenge her dead and simultaneously pay back all of the premeditated slights the Andermani had given the Royal Manticoran Navy. And she wanted, God help her, an enemy she could face openly, across the broadsides of her warships, without all of this endless hiding in shadows and groping with uncertainty even as she looked over her shoulder at a Government she neither agreed with nor trusted. She wanted that so badly she could taste it, like fire on her tongue.

Which was precisely the reason she dared not leap to any conclusions or foreclose any options. However much she wanted to.

'In addition to the messages I'll be sending to Sachsen,' she went on, 'I will, of course, dispatch a complete report to the Admiralty.'

Who probably won't bother to read even this one, she thought bitterly.

'Unfortunately,' she went on in that same calm, even tone, 'even our fastest dispatch boat will take over two weeks to reach the Star Kingdom. And, of course, any reply will take equally long to get back to us. That means we're going to have to respond without fresh instructions for a minimum of more than a full standard month.'

She didn't really need her ability to taste emotions directly to sense her subordinates' response to her use of the plural pronoun. As good as these people were, they would have been superhuman not to feel a flash of intense relief at the realization that someone other than they was ultimately responsible for deciding just how 'we' were going to respond.

Her lips quirked ever so briefly at the thought, then she shook it aside and continued.

'Until—and if—we receive instructions to the contrary, I have no choice but to continue to enforce existing policy and directives in our operational area. Accordingly, we'll continue to patrol the star systems to which we've regularly assigned priority. I'm willing to pull in a bit from the periphery of our ops area, but we're going to maintain a definite presence in the core systems. In fact, I want our patrols beefed up even further. We can't afford to disperse our screening elements too broadly, and I have no desire to dilute our combat power. Nonetheless, I want our present plans to assign our vessels to operate at least in tandem to be expedited. In fact, where at all possible, I want ships operating in at least divisional strength, and pulling in a bit should free up the strength for that.

'We've already dispatched warnings to all of our units currently on station in other star systems, and I've instructed them to minimize potential additional incidents. Hopefully, all of them will receive our dispatches before they find themselves face-to-face with Andermani units which have already been informed of events in Zoraster. We certainly can't rely on that, however, which means we have to face the conclusion that it's entirely possible that we'll have additional incidents before we get everyone warned. In fact, it's possible we've already had one or more of those additional incidents.

'At the same time I've instructed them to minimize potential incidents, I've also made it very clear to them that their first and overriding responsibility is to safeguard their commands and their personnel. They're to take whatever measures they believe are required to that end. Which is why,' she drew a deep breath, 'I have instructed them to go to rules of engagement Alpha Two.'

Something like a shiver went through the compartment, and she smiled bleakly. ROE Alpha Two specifically authorized a captain to open fire preemptively if she believed her command was under threat of attack. It specifically did not require her to allow a potential opponent to get in the first shot, although even under Alpha Two she was expected to do all she could to avoid shooting before she pressed the button herself.

Despite that, Honor was fully aware of the danger of escalation her change in the rules of engagement constituted. She would have preferred to avoid it, but her conscience would never have permitted her to. Not nowadays, when the massive salvos ships armed with missile pods could throw were capable of completely swamping and overwhelming an opponent's point defense. Allowing the enemy to fire first in order to clearly establish responsibility for a hostile act was no longer a survivable option.

'Understand me clearly on this, People,' she said very quietly. 'It's our responsibility to maintain the peace if that's at all possible. But if it isn't possible for us to do that, then we have an even more overriding responsibility to enforce Her Majesty's Government's policy in Silesia and to protect the Marsh System and Sidemore. If that brings us into open conflict with the Andermani Empire, then so be it.

'I don't look forward to a war with the Andies. I don't want one. No one in her right mind does. But,' Lady Dame Honor Harrington told her admirals softly, 'if they want one, I intend to make them regret their choice.

'Seriously.'

Chapter Forty Three

'I'm afraid we have another one, Your Grace.'

Honor looked up from the report on her display, and her mouth tightened as she tasted Mercedes Brigham's emotions. The chief of staff's mood wasn't dark enough for a report of heavy casualties, but if there was no death in it, there was something else. Something which had provoked a fresh anxiety in her.

'How bad this time?' Honor asked quietly.

'Not as bad as the last one,' Brigham reassured her quickly. 'And a hell of a lot better than what happened to Jessica Epps. The dispatch is from Captain Ellis—'

'He has Royalist, doesn't he?' Honor interrupted.

'Yes, Your Grace,' Brigham confirmed, and Honor nodded. Royalist was a Reliant —class ship, like Honor's own one and only battlecruiser command, HMS Nike. The Reliants were no longer the latest, most modern ships in the Royal Navy's inventory, but they remained large and powerful units, capable of taking on anything below the wall, and they'd had priority for refits and upgrades.

'He and his division were picketing the Walther System, over in the Breslau Sector. They'd been on station