War Of Honor

procedures and also as a way to build the SN's experience base as rapidly as possible. Which didn't mean they were about to put anyone whose competence they doubted into a position as sensitive as that of a heavy cruiser's tactical officer. But whatever her brain might know, her emotions remained stubbornly unconvinced.

Maybe it wasn't just her. Maybe the entire Sidemore Navy—such as it was, and what there was of it— wasn't quite able to believe that anyone else would take it seriously at its young and tender age. She couldn't really speak for the rest of her home world's officer corps, but there were enough times she still felt like the new kid in class herself when she measured her own meager seven T-years of naval experience against the professional resume of someone like Ackenheil, who was very nearly three times her own age and a highly decorated combat veteran, to boot. Which made her a bit hesitant about offering an opinion, even when it was asked for. Particularly since she was the current officer of the watch, and she really should have been keeping her eye on the entire command deck rather than puzzling over reports she wasn't officially supposed to be worrying her head over, anyway. LaFroye was in a standard parking orbit, with her wedge down and little more than a skeleton watch, and she'd turned the con over to Lieutenant Turner, the astrogator (who was eleven T-years older than she was and had nine more T-years of experience), so it wasn't exactly as if she were neglecting her duties, but still . . .

Ackenheil's firm lips seemed to quiver, as if a smile threatened to take them over for just a moment, and she felt herself blush. She hated it when she blushed. It made her feel even more like a schoolgirl pretending to be a naval officer.

Jason Ackenheil managed—with difficulty—not to smile as Lieutenant Commander Zahn's cheekbones turned a delicate pink, and he scolded himself for wanting to. Well, not really wanting to, perhaps. It was just that the young Sidemore officer was so determined to get it right and so convinced that the Royal Manticoran Navy had made special allowances to put her into her present slot. The fact that she was an extraordinarily talented young woman, with one of the best sets of tactical instincts he'd ever seen, seemed to escape her somehow.

But perhaps he shouldn't blame her for that. The truth was that despite her ability, the Navy had indeed gone out of its way to assign SN officers to responsible slots aboard the RMN ships deployed to Sidemore Station, and some of them—no, be honest, all of them—were extremely short on experience, by Manticoran standards, for the positions they held. There was no way to avoid that. Unless they wanted the Sidemorians to have an entire navy which contained no officer above the rank of lieutenant, then the locals had no choice but to promote at a ridiculously rapid rate. Like the prewar Grayson Navy, the Sidemorians had acquired a skeletal core of Manticoran 'loaners,' but the bulk of their officer corps was being built from within, and assigning as many as possible of their more promising home-grown officers to Royal Navy ships was one way to transfer some of the much greater Manticoran experience to them.

Everyone knew that, and he'd been prepared to discover that Zahn was . . . less than totally qualified when he was first informed that she would be assigned to LaFroye. As it turned out, his worries had been unnecessary, as he'd realized within the first week after her arrival. That had been over six T-months ago, and his initial favorable impression of her had been amply confirmed over that period. Still, he had to admit that there were times when he felt rather more like her uncle than her CO. It was just that she was so damned young. He was more accustomed to junior-grade lieutenants her age than he was to lieutenant commanders, and it was difficult, sometimes, to keep that from showing, however competent the lieutenant commander in question might be. Which, he reminded himself a bit sternly, probably didn't do a thing to bolster her belief that she'd earned her position. Besides, he genuinely wanted to hear what she had to say. Young she might be, but he'd learned to respect her analytical abilities almost as much as her tactical skills, and he walked over to stand beside her station chair.

'No one really knows what they're planning, Commander,' he said as he leaned over her shoulder to study the incidents displayed on her plot. 'Certainly no one from ONI seems to have a clue! Nor, to be devastatingly honest about it, do I. Which is why I'd be interested in any hypotheses you might care to offer. You certainly couldn't do any worse job of reading their minds than the rest of us have been doing.'

Zahn felt herself relax just a bit at the very slight twinkle in the captain's brown eyes. Then she glanced back at the data on her plot and frowned, this time thoughtfully.

'I suppose, Sir,' she said slowly, 'that it's possible they really are engaged in normal piracy-suppression operations.'

'But you don't think they are,' Ackenheil encouraged when she paused.

'No, Sir.' She looked back up at him and shook her head. 'Of course, I don't think anyone else really believes that's what's going on either, do they?'

'Hardly,' Ackenheil agreed dryly.

There were two more incidents than there'd been the last time he checked, he noticed, and rubbed his chin while he considered them. He supposed he should be grateful the Imperial Andermani Navy had chosen to make a substantial effort to squash the operations of pirates in and around the region the RMN patrolled from its base in the Marsh System. God knew there'd been enough times he'd felt as if he needed to be in two or three places simultaneously to deal with the vermin. Ever since Honor Harrington had destroyed Andre Warnecke's 'privateer' squadron in Marsh, no pirate in his right mind was going to come anywhere near Sidemore, but that hadn't prevented the run-of-the-mill attacks, murders, and general atrocities which were standard for Silesia along the fringe of Sidemore Station's area of responsibility. So whatever else he might think, he had to admit to feeling an undeniable relief as he watched the steady drop in pirate attacks, on planets, as well as merchant shipping, which the Andies' efforts had produced.

But welcome as that might be, it was also disturbing. The Andermani had been careful to tread lightly in the region after the Admiralty announced its intention to establish a fleet base in Marsh. A few Andermani officers Ackenheil had met hadn't bothered to disguise the resentment they'd felt over the Star Kingdom's treaty with the Republic of Sidemore. They'd obviously regarded it as one more example of Manticoran interference in an area they felt properly belonged to the Andermani Empire's sphere of interest. But whatever they might have felt, the Empire had made no formal protest, and the official Andie position was that anything which reduced lawlessness in Silesia was welcome.

The diplomats who said that lied in their teeth, and everyone knew it, but that had been the official position for almost nine T-years. And during those same nine T-years, the Andie Navy had restricted its presence in and around the Marsh System to port visits by destroyers, interspersed occasionally with the odd division of light cruisers, and very rarely by individual heavy cruisers or battlecruisers. It had been enough to remind the Star Kingdom that the Empire also had an interest in the region without using forces heavy enough to be seen as some sort of provocative challenge to Manticore's presence.

But over the past few months, that seemed to be changing. There'd been only three Andie port calls during those months, and aside from one heavy cruiser of the new Verfechter class, only destroyers had actually visited Sidemore. But if the situation remained unchanged in the Marsh System itself, that was certainly not true elsewhere. It seemed that everywhere Ackenheil looked, Andermani patrols were suddenly picking off pirates, privateers, and other low-lifes, and they weren't using destroyers or light cruisers to do it with, either.

He leaned a bit closer to Zahn's plot and frowned as he read the data codes beside the two incidents he'd been unaware of.

'A battlecruiser division here at Sandhill?' he asked, crooking one eyebrow in surprise as he indicated a star in the Confederacy's Breslau Sector.

'Yes, Sir,' Zahn confirmed, and pointed to the second new incident, in the Tyler System, near the northeastern border of the Posnan Sector. 'And this one was apparently an entire squadron of heavy cruisers,' she said.

'I didn't know they had this many cruisers in their entire navy,' Ackenheil said ironically, waving at the widely scattered crimson icons. Three of them represented pirate interceptions by forces containing nothing heavier than a destroyer; all the rest marked operations which had involved cruisers or battle cruisers.

'They do seem to be turning up everywhere we look, Sir,' Zahn agreed, and pulled at the lobe of her left ear in an 'I'm thinking' gesture Ackenheil was pretty sure she didn't know she used.

'Which suggests what to you?' he pressed, returning to his original question.

'Which suggests, at an absolute minimum,' she said in a crisper voice, lowering her hand from her ear and