more than enough smoking guns tucked away in there to destroy anyone she really wants to destroy. She doesn't need any more information to be a threat to us, if that's what she decides to become. Besides, you've already used her for half a dozen things I can think of whose legality might be . . . questioned by a real stickler. The surveillance of Harrington and White Haven, springs to mind.
'My point is that she already knows enough to blow us out of the water. But she can't do that without doing herself in right along with us. The same is true of Melina. After Reynaud, she's the most dangerous potential leak where RMAIA is concerned. but she's also the one who's done such a good job of insulating Marisa from harsh reality, which means that if the Agency goes down, she goes right with it.'
Descroix shrugged.
'Georgia and Melina both have very, very good reasons to see to it that any nasty suspicion is directed away from themselves to someone else. In fact, if I thought Melina were up to it, I'd advise leaving the entire affair in her hands. Unfortunately, I don't think she is ... whereas Georgia has clearly demonstrated her own capability in such matters. So, given how very good she is at this sort of thing anyway, it strikes me that it wouldn't make any sense to bring anyone else in. The more people we involve, the more likely something is to leak entirely by accident, much less what someone like Reynaud could do to us if our efforts came to his attention. So let's put the project in the hands of a single individual with a powerful interest in seeing to it that her tracks are buried right along with ours.'
'I see,' he said for a third time. And then, slowly, he smiled.
Chapter Twenty Six
The G6 star at the heart of the Marsh System was a thoroughly average system primary. Nothing much to write home about, Honor thought, leaning against the bulkhead beside the armorplast viewport as she gazed out into the dark, diamond-dusted clarity. Just one more insignificant furnace in which the fires of creation blazed with inconceivable fury, shedding their stupendous glory down the halls of God's endless night.
Certainly not anything important enough for the Star Kingdom of Manticore to risk a war over.
She snorted, and tasted Nimitz's echo of her own dark moodiness from where he reclined on the perch beside his bulkhead-mounted life support module. Of course, she also knew that the somberness they shared sprang from more than her awareness of the all but impossible task she faced here. For the 'cat, it was the loneliness, the separation from his mate. But that was a separation Nimitz and Samantha had endured before, and would again, and at least he and Honor had one another, while Samantha had Hamish. Both 'cats knew this was one of the inevitable prices of their bonds with their humans, and in its own way, that knowledge was a form of armor. It didn't lessen the pangs of their separation—a separation which was far worse for empaths than for the 'mind-blind'—but at least both of them knew exactly how vital they were to one another . . . and that they would be together once again at deployment's end.
Which was far more than Honor knew. She deeply regretted separating Nimitz and Samantha, and her regret carried a strong overtone of guilt, yet deep inside, she couldn't quite stifle an ignoble envy, almost jealousy. However much the two 'cats might miss one another now, their separation would come to an end. Honor's wouldn't. She knew that, but at least this empty, lonely ache at the heart of her was better than the pain and hopeless longing she'd felt before she put distance between her and Hamish. She told herself that at least a dozen times a day, and for the most part, she believed herself.
For the most part.
She turned her head, letting her gaze sweep over the nearest ships of her gathered task force. They floated in orbit about the planet Sidemore, the space-going equivalent of a fleet anchored in a safe harbor, but she'd been pleased when she arrived to find that Rear Admiral Hewitt had insisted upon maintaining a heightened state of readiness. All of his vessels' parking orbits had been carefully arranged to avoid any problems with wedge interference if it was necessary to bring up their impellers quickly. And he'd also seen to it that at least one of his battle squadrons' impeller nodes had been hot at all times. The ready duty rotated among his squadrons on a regular basis, but his precaution meant that its units could bring up their wedges in as little as thirty to forty-five minutes.
Honor had not only told him how much she approved of his wariness but also maintained and extended his standing orders, including the dispersal of their orbits, to the units of Task Force Thirty-Four, as well. Which meant, of course, that even ships as stupendous as
Of course, not all naked eyes had been created equal, and Honor smiled despite her moodiness as she brought up the telescopic function of her artificial left eye and the distant, floating mountains of battle steel grew and blossomed magically.
They hung there in the void, like killer whales in an endless sea of dark kelp, spangled with the green and white lights of starships in orbit, their flanks dotted with the precise geometry of weapon bays or LAC launch tubes. There were dozens of them, huge capital ships, pregnant with firepower and destruction and awaiting her orders. With the reinforcements she'd brought out from Manticore, she had eight full battle squadrons, plus Alice's understrength CLAC squadron, screened by five battlecruiser squadrons, three light cruiser squadrons, and two destroyer flotillas . . . which didn't even count the dozens of cruisers and destroyers scattered through the nearer sections of the Confederacy on anti-pirate duties. She had no less than forty-two ships of the wall under her command, which made her 'task force' a fleet in all but name. It was also far and away the most powerful force which had ever been placed under her orders, and as she gazed out the viewport at the might and power ready to her fingertips, she supposed she ought to feel confident in the strength of her weapon if she should be called upon to use it.
Yet what she really was was aware of its flaws.
She couldn't fault the readiness state which Hewitt had maintained during his time on the station any more than she could fault the cheerfulness with which he'd surrendered his authority to her upon her arrival. Alister and Alice had managed to sharpen Task Force Thirty-Four to a far keener edge than she'd allowed herself to hope for during the voyage here, and Hewitt's squadrons had managed to maintain a far higher degree of readiness than Home Fleet. No doubt because his captains, like he himself, had been altogether too well aware of how far from any other help they'd be if it hit the fan out here in Silesia.
But all the readiness in the galaxy couldn't change the fact that only six of her forty-two ships of the wall were
She inhaled deeply, then straightened up, squared her shoulders, and scolded herself for allowing herself to fall into a slough of despond. She'd known when she accepted the posting that this was exactly what was going to happen, although, to be honest, she hadn't anticipated that even Janacek would be quite so blatant as to assign every single Manticoran dreadnought still in commission to her. But even if he'd replaced every one of them with pre-pod superdreadnoughts, her strength would still have been totally inadequate if the Andies truly were willing to push things to the brink of outright hostilities. So it probably made sense, from Janacek's viewpoint, to pile as many as possible of his obsolescent assets into the same heap. After all, if he lost them, it wouldn't be as if anything vital had gone with them. Except, of course, for the people aboard them.
She scolded herself again, although a bit less forcefully. She really should be careful about imputing sordid motives to the First Lord. Not because she doubted that he had them, but because not even Sir Edward Janacek could have
