"Good evening, Colonel. Captain. Major." Babcock nodded respectfully to the senior officers around the table, and her smile turned into something like a grin as Scotty Tremaine flipped her an impudent salute. The Navy was less punctilious about military protocol in off-duty situations, and the Corps had learned to put up with them. Besides, only a convinced misanthrope could have produced an appropriate glower at Tremaine.
"To what do we owe the honor, Gunny?" Ramirez asked, and the sergeant-major nodded at McKeon once more.
"I'm sergeant-major to Major Yestachenko in Captain McKeon's Marine detachment now, Colonel. I was just on my way back to Prince Adrian when I noticed all of you over here. I haven't seen you or Major Hibson since your promotions, and I thought I'd pay my respects in passing."
Ramirez nodded. Dempsey's was a civilian establishment. It wasn't uncommon for officers and noncoms, or even enlisted personnel, from the same commands to run into one another here, and there was an unofficial protocol for what happened when they did. He started to reply when Tankersley's chrono chirped, and the naval officer looked down at it with a grimace.
"Damn," he said mildly. "Looks like I have to be going, folks. Places to be and people to see, I'm afraid." He finished off his drink and rose, smiling at the others. "It's been fun, and I'll see you all later."
He nodded to Babcock, who came to a sort of parade rest in reply, then turned toward the exit. The others watched him go, and Ramirez saw Babcock smile at his back. So, the colonel thought. The sergeant-major was another of the Captain's well-wishers.
But then Babcock's smile vanished. It didn't fade; it disappeared into a sudden, bleak expression Ramirez had seen on her face only once before, when they broke into the cell blocks of Blackbird Base and discovered what the Masadans had done to their Manticoran POWs. It happened like magic, in a single beat of the heart, and the raw hatred in her eyes stunned the colonel with its abrupt, brutal impact.
"Gunny?" The single word came out softly, questioningly, before he could stop himself, and Babcock shook herself. Her eyes dropped down to meet his for a moment, then rose once more, and he turned to look over his own shoulder. She was staring at the man at the bar, the one who'd looked elusively familiar, and Ramirez's brows lowered in a frown.
"What is it, Gunny?" His voice was firmer and more authoritative. "Do you know that man?"
"Yes, Sir, I do," Babcock's reply was grim and stark.
"Well, who is he?" Ramirez felt the others looking at them both in surprise. Surprise both at Babcock's reaction and his own tone as that nagging sense of almost recognition tugged at him again.
"Denver Summervale, Sir," Babcock said flatly, and air hissed between Ramirez's teeth as the pieces suddenly clicked. He felt Hibson tense beside him, and McKeon frowned at him across the table.
"What's going on, Tomas?" the captain asked. "Who is that guy?"
"You wouldn't know, Sir," Ramirez replied. He forced his fists to unclench and turned his back deliberately upon Summervale's presence. "He wasn't one of yours; he was ours."
"Not for a long time now, Sir," Susan Hibson said quietly.
"He was ours for too damned long, Ma'am," Babcock grated, then shook herself. "Excuse me, Ma'am."
"Don't apologize, Gunny. Not for that."
"Would one of you please explain what's going on?' McKeon asked, and Ramirez smiled without humor.
"Captain The Honorable Denver Summervale was once a Marine officer, Sir," he said. "He's also some sort of cousin of Duke Cromarty. Thirty-odd years ago, he was court-martialed and dismissed from the Queens Service after he killed a brother officer in a duel."
"In a duel?" McKeon looked back toward the bar, and Babcock made a grating sound of disgust.
"If you can call it that, Captain," she said flatly. "The officer he killed was a lieutenant—my lieutenant. I was his platoon sergeant. Mr. Tremaine here reminds me a lot of him, only he was even younger." McKeon's eyes snapped back to the sergeant-major, and she met his gaze levelly. "He was just a kid. A nice kid, but so new he squeaked. Only it turned out his family had enemies, and Captain Summervale goaded him into a duel. It was a farce, a put-up job, and I couldn't get Mr. Thurston to realize it."
The sergeant-majors bleak face was cold with almost as much self-hatred as loathing for Summervale. It was the face of someone who'd failed a junior officer she was supposed to look after.
"It wasn't your fault, Gunny," Ramirez said. "I've heard the stories, and everyone knew Summervale's reputation. Lieutenant Thurston should have realized what was going on."
"But he didn't, Sir. He actually believed he'd accidentally impugned Summervale's honor, and that made him hesitate. That bastard was a good second faster off the mark, and he put that bullet exactly where he'd been damned well paid to put it."
"That was never proven," Ramirez said quietly, and Babcock's snort was just short of insubordinate. The colonel ignored it. "It wasn't proven," he went on in that same quiet voice, "but I think you're right. And so did the Corps when they cashiered him."
"Too late for Mr. Thurston," Babcock half-whispered, then shook herself again. "I'm sorry, Sir. I shouldn't have spoken that way. It just... sort of took me by surprise after all these years."
"Like Major Hibson says, don't apologize. I knew about Summervale, but I didn't know you'd been in Thurston's platoon at the time." Ramirez turned to glance over his shoulder again just as Summervale paid his bill and left, and the colonel's eyes narrowed in speculation.
"I haven't heard anything much about him or what he's been up to for the last several years," he mused aloud. "Have you Susan? Gunny?"
"No, Sir," Babcock replied, and Hibson shook her head silently.
"Odd." Ramirez rubbed an eyebrow, frowning down into his drink, and made a mental note to report Summervale's presence to Marine Intelligence. They liked to keep track of their own bad apples, even after they were officially "theirs" no longer. "It's probably just a coincidence," he went on thoughtfully, "but I wonder what a paid duelist, who has to know how any Marine who recognizes him is going to react, is doing aboard Hephaestus?"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Honor Harrington squared her shoulders and tried not to feel absurd as she strode down the arched, ancient hallway in a swishing rustle.
In three decades as a Queen's officer, Honor had never worn a skirt. In fact, she'd never worn one at all, and she'd been pleased (whenever she considered it) that they'd gone out of style—again—fifty Manticoran years ago. They were worse than useless in zero gee and almost equally impractical for most other things she did with her time, yet they also showed a stubborn refusal to die once and for all. They were actually making a modest comeback in the Star Kingdom even now... among idiots with the money to replace entire wardrobes and a need to be on the cutting edge of every fashion trend, anyway.
Unfortunately, Grayson women didn't wear trousers. Period. Which had led to something very like panic among the protocolists when she arrived without a single gown to her name.
She'd started out by refusing even to consider wearing one, but it was hard enough for half the Graysons she met to deal with the concept of a female steadholder in the first place. The notion of seeing not merely a woman but a woman in trousers in the sacred precincts of Steadholder Hall had threatened more conservative thinkers with heart failure. Even the "Modernists" had viewed the idea with sufficiently mixed feelings for Protector Benjamin, the man who'd seized avidly upon Honor's achievements to initiate Graysons mammoth social reforms, to beg her to reconsider.