"Lets just say that one of my chiefs has a way with computers. He got access to the ships net and took the entire system down, and in the confusion, the rest of my people broke me out of solitary confinement, seized control of a boat bay, stole us some transport, and blew the ship up as they left." She felt a fresh, wrenching stab of loss and grief for the people who had died making that possible, but she let none of it show in her face. Not now. Not until she had convinced these people that she was telling them the truth.
"And just how the hell did they do that?" the other woman asked in obvious skepticism, and Honor smiled crookedly at her.
"They demonstrated what happens when you bring up a pinnaces impeller wedge inside a boat bay," she said very softly. The other woman showed no reaction at all for two or three seconds, and then she flinched as if someone had just punched her in the belly.
"My God! " she whispered. "But that"
"Killed everyone on board," Honor finished for her grimly. "Thats right. We took out the entire ship... and no one dirtside knows we got outand downalive. With, as I said, somewhat better equipment than you seem to have."
"How do you know?" the man demanded, speaking for the first time. His speech was similar to his companions, but even more slurred and hard to follow, and he made an impatient gesture when Honor cocked her head at him. "How do you know they dont know?" he amplified in his almost incomprehensible accent, speaking very slowly and with an obvious effort at clarity.
"Lets just say weve been checking their mail," Honor replied.
"But that means" The woman was staring at her, and then she wheeled back to her companion. "Henri, theyve got a pinnace!" she hissed. "Sweet Jesus, theyve got a pinnace!"
"But" Henri began, and then stopped dead. The two of them stared at one another, expressions utterly stunned, and then turned back as one to Honor, and this time suspicion and fear had been replaced by raw, blazing excitement.
"You do, dont you?" the woman demanded. "Youve got a pinnace, and My God, you must have the com equipment to go with it!"
"Something like that," Honor replied, watching her carefully and privately astonished by how quickly the other woman had put things together. Of course, it must be obvious that if theyd gotten down without the Peeps knowing about it they had to at least have a lifeboat, but this woman had gotten past her disbelief and shock to put all the clues together far more rapidly than Honor would have believed was possible. Was that because her odd accent made her sound like some sort of untutored bumpkin from a hick planet whose schools couldnt even teach their people to speak proper Standard English?
"But why are you?" the blonde began, speaking almost absently, as if to herself. Then she stopped again. "Of course," she said very softly. "Of course. Youre looking for manpower, arent you, Commodore? And you figured Camp Inferno was the best place to recruit it?"
"Something like that," Honor repeated, astonished afresh and trying not to show it. She didnt know how long this woman had been a prisoner, but captivity obviously hadnt done a thing to slow down her mental processes.
"Well I will be dipped in shit," the other woman said almost prayerfully, and then stepped forward so quickly not even LaFollet had time to react. Honor felt her armsman flinch beside her, but the blonde only held out her right hand, and Honor tasted the wild, almost manic delight flaring through her.
"Pleased to meet you, Commodore Harrington. Very pleased to meet you! My names Benson, Harriet Benson," she said in that slurred accent, "and this" she nodded her head at her companion "is Henri Dessouix. Back about two lifetimes ago, I was a captain in the Pegasus System Navy, and Henri here was a lieutenant in the Gaston Marines. Ive been stuck on this miserable ball of dirt for something like sixty-five T-years, and I have never been more delighted to make someones acquaintance in my life!"
Chapter Thirteen
"So thats about the long and the short of it," Benson said fifteen minutes later. Complete introductions had been made all round, and the two POWs sat cross-legged under the shade of the same tree with Honor while LaFollet hovered watchfully at her shoulder and Mayhew and Clinkscales stood guard. "I was dumb enoughand also young, stupid, and pissed off enoughto join up with the effort to organize a resistance movement after the surrender, and InSec dumped me here in a heartbeat." She grimaced. "If Id realized no one else was going to be able to stand up to their goddamned navy for the next half century, I probably wouldve kept my head down back home, instead."
Honor nodded. She had only a vague notion of the Pegasus Systems location, but she knew it was close to the Haven System... and that it had been one of the PRHs very first conquests. And from the flavor of Harriet Bensons emotions and the steel she sensed at the older womans core, she strongly suspected the captain would have attempted to resist the Peeps whatever she had or hadnt known about the future.
"And you, Lieutenant?" she asked courteously, looking at Dessouix.
"Henri got shipped in about ten years after I did," Benson replied for him. Honor was a bit startled for a moment by the other womans interruption, but Dessouix only nodded with a small smile, and there was no resentment in his emotions. Was it his accent? It was certainly much thicker than Bensons, so perhaps he routinely let her do most of the talking.
"From where?" she asked.
"Toulon, in the Gaston System," Benson said. "When the Peeps moved in on Toulon, the Gaston Space Forces gave them a better fight than we did in Pegasus. Then again," her mouth twisted, "they knew the bastards were coming. The first thing we knew about it was the arrival of the lead task force."
She brooded in silence for a few moments, then shrugged.
"Anyway, Henri was serving in the Marine detachment aboard one of their ships"
"The Dague," Dessouix put in.
"Yes, the Dague." Benson nodded. "And when the system government surrendered, Dagues skipper refused to obey the cease-fire order. She fought a hit-and-run campaign against the Peeps merchant marine for over a T-year before they finally cornered her and pounded Dague to scrap. The Peeps shot her and her senior surviving officers for piracy, and the junior officers got shipped to Hell where they couldnt make any more trouble. I guess it waswhat? About ten T-years, Henri?after that when we met."
"About ten," Dessouix agreed. "They transferred me to your camp to separate me from my men."
"And how did the two of you end up at Inferno?" Honor asked after a moment.
"Oh, Ive always been a troublemaker, Commodore," Benson said with a bitter smile, and reached out to lay a hand on Dessouixs shoulder. "Henri here can tell you that."
"Stop that," Dessouix said. His tone was forceful, and he enunciated each word slowly and carefully, as he if were determined to make his weirdly accented Standard English comprehensible. "It wasnt your fault, bien-aime. I made my own decision, Harriet. All of us did."
"And I led all of you right into it," she said flatly. But then she inhaled sharply and shook her head. "Not but what he isnt right, Dame Honor. Hes a stubborn man, my Henri."
"And you arent?" Dessouix snorted with slightly less force.
"Not a man, at any rate," Benson observed with a slow, lurking smile. It was the first Honor had seen from the other woman, and it softened her stern face into something almost gentle.
"Id noticed," Dessouix replied dryly, and Benson chuckled. Then she looked back at Honor.
"But you were asking how I wound up here. The answers simple enough, Im afraidugly, but simple. You see, neither InSec nor these new Black Leg, StateSec bastards have ever seen any reason to worry about little things like the Deneb Accords. Were not prisoners to them; were property. They can do anything the hell they like to us, and none of their superior officers are going to so much as slap their wrists. So if youre good looking and a Black Leg takes a hankering for you"