Chapter FORTY-TWO

Citizen Commander Warner Caslet and his officers followed the Manticoran Marine down the hall. A familiar man in a green uniform gave them a quick once over, then knocked on the frame of the opened door at the corridors end.

"Citizen Commander Caslet and his officers, My Lady," Simon Mattingly said, and a clear soprano replied from the room beyond.

"Send them in, please," it said, and Mattingly smiled and waved the Republican officers on. Somewhat to Caslet’s surprise, the Marine peeled off at the door, and Mattingly closed it quietly behind them, leaving them alone with Honor Harrington and Andrew LaFollet.

Well, not quite alone. Two treecats sat on the back of her chair, the smaller, dapple-coated female pressed tight against the back of her neck while her mate hovered protectively. Caslet knew what had happened to Samantha's person, and he saw her loss in her body language, but he also sensed the loving support flowing to her from Nimitz and his person.

"Please, be seated," Honor invited, waving to the chairs before her desk. The half-dozen Peeps sat at her gesture, and MacGuiness appeared to pour each of them a glass of wine.

Honor leaned back to gaze at them, and Samantha slipped down from the chair back to huddle in her lap. Honor gathered the 'cat in her arms, hugging her as she would have hugged Nimitz, and felt Nimitz channeling her own support to Samantha. But even as she held the grieving treecat, her mind was flickering back over the last month's hectic events.

She hadn't been able to believe it when Sukowski turned up. For all the brave front she'd projected, she'd known, not thought; known, they were all going to die. Changing her mind had been hard, even with the proof right in front of her, and then her elated relief had been replaced by a deep, terrible anger that Sukowski and Fuchien and her own detached LAC skippers could have run such an insane risk after Wayfarer had paid such a terrible price to buy Artemis' escape.

She'd known at the time that her fury was born of her own whipsawed emotions, but the knowledge hadn't been enough to keep her from feeling it, and the haste with which Sukowski and Lieutenant Commander Hunter had begun explaining that they weren't really running a risk would have been hilarious had she been even one or two centimeters closer to rational.

And, in fact, they had been careful. Artemis had dropped the LACs and her shuttles and then translated very cautiously down to the alpha bands without using her impellers at all, possible for such a slow translation, though only the best ship handler and engineer could have pulled it off, and hidden in the lower bands while Sukowski led the search mission towards Wayfarer's last known position. The LACs' sensors were inferior to those of a battlecruiser, but their impeller signatures were far weaker, as well; they would have seen any Peep long before the Peep could detect them in return, and all of them had been prepared to shut their own wedges down instantly.

It was Sukowski who'd plotted their search pattern, and he'd done a good job. But they would probably have missed Wayfarers inert hulk if Scotty Tremaine and Horace Harkness hadn't picked them up on passive and guided them in, and Honor still woke shivering when she considered the odds against their success. Yet they'd done it. Somehow, they'd done it, and the four LACs and three long-range shuttles had lifted every surviving crewman, Manticoran and Peep alike, off Wayfarer.

The chance that anyone would stumble across her before she blundered into a grav wave and broke up was less than minute, but Honor had made sure no one would. She'd set the nuclear demolition charge herself, with a twelve-hour delay, before she went aboard Andrew with Sukowski and Hunter.

Space had been tight enough she'd ordered all baggage abandoned, but MacGuiness and her surviving armsmen had somehow smuggled the Harrington Sword and Key, her .45, and the golden plaque commemorating her record-setting sailplane flight at the Academy aboard Andrew. She'd picked up her holocube of Paul personally, but that was all she had left of everything she'd taken aboard, that, and her life, and Nimitz . .. and Samantha.

The return flight to Artemis had been nerve-racking for everyone. Linking back up with something as small as a flight of LACs and shuttles after twice translating through two distinct sets of hyper bands was the sort of navigational feat legends were made of, but Margaret Fuchien had pulled it off. Artemis had risen slowly back into the delta bands, like a submarine surfacing from deep water, and she'd hit within less than two hundred thousand kilometers of Fuchien's estimated position. After that, it had been a straightforward if anxious proposition to drop back down into normal-space and spend ten days making repairs before creeping stealthily back up to the gamma bands and heading back for New Berlin. There'd been plenty to do, and Honor had thrown herself into assisting Fuchien in every way she could. Artemis' captain had been grateful, but Honor had known the real reason for her own industry. Miraculous as Sukowski's rescue had been, exhausting activity had been her only refuge from her dead.

It had been the afternoon of the fourteenth day when Klaus Hauptman had asked quietly to be admitted to the cabin Fuchien had assigned Honor. Five of her twelve armsmen had died with the rest of her crew, but Jamie Candless had been her sentry when Hauptman arrived. Honor could still hear the cool contempt in Jamie's voice as he announced her visitor, and she'd seen the matching contempt in Andrew LaFollet's eyes as the magnate walked through the hatch. But neither armsman had been prepared for the reason behind his visit.

"Lady Harrington," he'd said, "I've come to apologize." The words had come low and slow, but his tone had been firm, and Honor had felt his sincerity through Nimitz.

"Apologize, Mr. Hauptman?" she'd replied in the most neutral voice she could manage.

"Yes." He'd cleared his throat, then looked her squarely in the eye. "I don't like you, Milady. That makes me feel smaller than I'd like to feel, but whether I like you or not, I know I've treated you... badly. I won't go into all of it. I'll only say that I deeply regret it, and that it stops here. I owe you my life. More importantly, I owe you my daughter's life, and I believe in keeping my accounts squared, for better or worse, maybe that's part of what makes me such a son-of-a-bitch from time to time. But the debt I owe you is one that can't be repaid, and I know it. I can only say thank you and apologize for the way I've spoken to you, and of you, over the years. I was wrong in Basilisk, too, and I want you to know I realize that, as well."

She'd looked back at him levelly, feeling his strain and recognizing how monumentally difficult it had been for him to say what he just had. She didn't like him, either, and she doubted she ever would, but in that moment, she'd come far closer to respecting him than she'd ever believed she might, and she'd nodded slowly.

"I won't disagree with you, Sir," she'd said quietly, and if his eyes had flared, he'd taken it without protest. "As far as debts are concerned, my crew and I were simply doing our duty, and no repayment is necessary. But I will accept your apology, Mr. Hauptman."

"Thank you," he replied, then surprised her with a small, wry smile. "And whether you see it that way or not, I know I still owe you more than I can ever hope to repay. If I or my cartel can ever serve you in any way, Lady Harrington, we're at your service."

She'd simply nodded, and his smile had grown.

"And now, My Lady, I have one request, which is that you and your treecat, or 'cats," he'd added, looking at Samantha "...will join me for dinner tonight."

"Dinner?" She'd started to refuse politely, but he'd raised one hand almost pleadingly.

"Please, Milady," he'd said, a proud and arrogant man asking a favor he knew he had no right to. "I would truly appreciate it. It's... important to me."

"May I ask why, Sir?"

"Because if you don't dine with me, my daughter will never believe I actually apologized to you," he'd admitted. "And if she doesn't, she may never speak to me again."

He'd gazed at her with a raw appeal too strong to refuse, and she'd nodded.

"Very well, Mr. Hauptman. We'll be there," she'd said, and, to her surprise, she'd actually enjoyed the meal. She and Stacey Hauptman had turned out to have a great deal in common, which had amazed her... and made her suspect there must be more to the man who could raise such a daughter than she'd ever believed Klaus Hauptman could have inside.

Now she shook herself, brushing aside the memories, and looked at the prisoners of war she'd invited to the room Herzog Rabenstrange had assigned her at the IAN’s main fleet base on Potsdam. The Andermani had not been pleased to learn the Peeps were operating raiders in their vicinity, and they were making their displeasure known through diplomatic channels. The decision to offer Honor's crew, and prisoners, the IAN’s hospitality until the RMN could retrieve them was another way to make the same point, and it hadn't been lost on the Havenite ambassador when he tried, unsuccessfully, to demand those prisoners be released to him.

"Thank you for coming," she told those same prisoners now.

"You're welcome, of course," Caslet replied with a wry smile. "Equally of course, we would have found it somewhat difficult to decline the invitation."

"True." Honor smiled, then shrugged. "Herzog Rabenstrange is waiting to join us all for dinner. He'd like to meet you all, but the reason I asked you to stop here first was to tell you something Citizen Captain Holtz has already been informed of. At my recommendation, and with the approval of the Andermani and our ambassador to the Empire, you and all survivors from Achmed will be released to your ambassador in three days. We're attaching no conditions to your release."

Caslet's smile froze, and she felt his alarm, and his fellows. She paused a moment, knowing she shouldn't but unable to resist the temptation, then cleared her throat and continued calmly.

"Despite Citizen Commander Foraker's efforts to wheedle technical information out of my people," she said, watching Foraker blush under her level gaze, "none of you have observed anything which isn't already or won't very soon become available to your Navy through other sources. For example, you're aware our Q-ships mount heavy energy weapons and are able to deploy powerful salvos of missile pods, but by now other sources within the Confederacy have undoubtedly already sold that information to one of your many spies there. Accordingly, we can return you to the Republic without jeopardizing our own security, and given your services to Captain Sukowski and Commander Hurlman, not to mention Captain Holtz's people's efforts aboard Wayfarer, it would be churlish not to release you."

And, she thought, letting you go home to tell your admiralty that our "mere" Q-ships destroyed two of your heavy cruisers and a pair of battlecruisers, not to mention Warnecke's entire base, for the loss of only one of our ships may just cause it to rethink the value of commerce raiding in general.

"Thank you." Caslet couldn't quite keep the flatness out of his voice as he visualized what StateSec would do to him for losing his ship trying to save a Manticoran-flag vessel, and she smiled at him.

"You're quite welcome, Citizen Commander," she said gravely. "I do have one small favor to ask of you before you depart, however."

"Favor?"

"Yes. You see, I'll be returning to Manticore for reassignment shortly, and I've been trying to tidy up my paperwork. Unfortunately, we lost many of our records when Wayfarer was destroyed, and I'm having some trouble reconstructing my after-action reports." Caslet blinked at her, wondering where she could possibly be headed, and she frowned. "In particular," she went on evenly, "I can't seem to remember the name of the Andermani ship whose transponder code I was using when you came to our assistance in Schiller."

For just a moment, it totally failed to register, and then Caslet stiffened. She knows, he thought. She knows about our orders to assist Andy merchantmen! But how can she possibly...?

He shook that question off. It didn't matter. What mattered was that she did know... and that the men and women in this quiet room were the only people who'd been on Vaubon's bridge. They were the only ones who knew they'd deliberately gone to the assistance of a Manty vessel, and every one of them knew what would happen if their superiors found out they had.

Caslet looked around, seeing the same confusion and dawning comprehension in all of their faces. He looked at Allison MacMurtree, who nodded with a crooked grin, and then at Denis Jourdain. The people's commissioner sat very still, face expressionless, while seconds trickled past, and then his shoulders gave a small twitch and his lips curved in the shadow or a smile.

"Ah, I believe it was the Andermani ship Sternenlicht, My Lady," he said, addressing her with a nonmilitary title for the first time ever, and Honor smiled back at him.

"I thought that was it," she murmured. "Thank you. I'll see to it that my report, and those of my other officers, reflect that information."

"I'm happy to have been of service, My Lady." Jourdain's voice said far more than his words, and he and Honor nodded to one another as their eyes met. Then she rose, with Nimitz on her shoulder and Samantha in her arms, and Andrew LaFollet fell in on her heels as she led the Peep officers towards the door.

"I'll miss you all," she said with a small, wicked chuckle, "but I'm sure you'll be glad to get home. For now, however, Admiral Rabenstrange, and Citizen Captain Holtz and Citizen Commander Wicklow, of course, are waiting for us."