"Oh?" Honor said neutrally, and Mercedes smiled.
"I believe in the hair of the dog, Ma'am. That's why I volunteered for the Endicott occupation force. I wanted to watch the bastards who'd sent Captain Williams and his pigs to Blackbird squirm."
"I see." Honor leaned back, and the harshness of Mercedes' voice told her the real reason the psychs had worried about her. "And did you?"
"Yes." The captain looked back down at her cap, and the single word came out leached of all feeling. Then she sighed. "Yes, I saw them squirm. And before you ask, Ma'am, I've already figured out why the shrinks didn't want me out here. They figured their tests might not have caught something and I'd lose it." She looked back up at Honor, and there was a sort of strange whimsy in her grim smile.
"They might even have been right. There was one time..." She broke off and shrugged. "Have you been to Masada since the occupation, Ma'am?"
"No." Honor shook her head. "I've considered it, but never very seriously. If there's one person in the galaxy those lunatics really hate, I'm her, and Andrew would shoot me himself, somewhere harmless, like an arm or a leg, to keep me out of their range."
"That would be wise of him, Ma'am. You know, before I saw the place myself, I wondered why the Kingdom should have to shoulder the full burden of occupying it. I mean, we're stretched way too thin as it is, and Endicott's just a hop and a skip from Yeltsin, so why not let the Graysons supply the troops? But those people..." The chief of staff shook her head and rubbed her upper arms as if against a chill.
"Is it really that bad?" Honor asked quietly.
"Worse," Mercedes said bleakly. "Remember when we first came out here? How hard we found it to understand how Grayson women could accept their status?" Honor nodded, and Mercedes shrugged. "Compared to Graysons, Masadan women are downright scary. They're not even people. They're property... and ninety percent of them seem to accept that that's the way it's supposed to be." She shook her head. "Of the few who don't, half aren't sure the occupations going to last. They're too terrified to do anything about the way they've been treated, but the ones who aren't afraid are almost worse. The homicide rate on Masada doubled in the first six months of the occupation, and something like two-thirds of the extra bodies were 'husbands', if you can call the pigs that, who'd been murdered by their 'wives.' Some of them were rather artistic, too, like Elder Simonds' wives. The cops never did find all of his body parts."
"Good Lord," Honor murmured, and Mercedes nodded.
"It hasn't just been limited to women getting even with 'husbands,' either. The overwhelming majority of Masadans still believe in their so-called religion, but a lot of those who don't have some pretty nasty personal scores to pay off. A quarter of the church elders were murdered by their parishioners before General Marcel put the others into protective custody... and that only started the survivors howling about the 'oppression of the Faith'! The whole place is still under martial law, General Marcel's had a hell of a time finding anything resembling a body of responsible moderates to act as the local government, and no one on the planet has any idea how to run a non-theocratic state. Under the circumstances, the mere thought of putting in Grayson occupation troops would touch off an explosion, and there's no way Marcel's MPs have managed to confiscate all the weapons on the planet."
Honor leaned further back and steepled her fingers under her chin as she frowned at her chief of staff. The Grayson 'faxes reported on Masada regularly, but they'd taken a distinctly hands-off approach. That had surprised her, given the centuries of hatred between the two planets, and her frown deepened as she wondered for the first time if perhaps the Council hadn't "convinced" the reporters to don kid gloves in hopes of sedating public opinion. Of course, the Star Kingdom, not Grayson, had officially claimed the Endicott System as a protectorate by right of conquest. That gave the Graysons a certain insulation from the Masadan occupation... and from what Mercedes was saying, that might be the smartest thing anyone had done yet. It was a pity anyone had to occupy the place, but the Alliance couldn't afford to leave a strategically located planet full of implacably hostile fanatics unoccupied.
"How would you rate the potential for real trouble?" she asked finally, and Mercedes shrugged.
"If you mean a general insurrection, not very great as long as we control the high orbitals. There are still lots of small arms floating around, but Marcel's managed to confiscate all their heavy weapons, we hope!, and they understand what a kinetic interdiction strike would do to anyone stupid enough to come out in the open. Couple that with ground-based Marine combat teams to support the MPs and rapid response forces deployed from orbit, all with modern weapons and battle armor, and any sort of mass resistance would be a quick form of suicide. But that hasn't prevented a lot of sabotage and more or less spontaneous acts of guerrilla warfare. Maybe worse, some of them have figured out we don't like jailing people in job lots. We're seeing some really ugly 'peaceful demonstrations,' and their organizers keep pushing. I think they're trying to see how far they can go before someone on our side pulls the trigger and creates a brand new crop of martyrs."
"Wonderful." Honor pinched the bridge of her nose and grimaced. "If they do push that far, it'll give the Liberals and Progressives back home another reason to moan about our 'brutal, imperialist' policy in the system!"
"Just thank God the Masadans haven't figured that out, Milady," Mercedes said darkly. "Their traditions are so different from ours that they don't seem to realize our government actually has to listen to people who disagree with it. If they ever do realize, and start playing to the newsies ..."
She shrugged once more, and Honor nodded.
"At any rate," Mercedes went on after a moment, "that's the real reason I transferred to Grayson service, Ma'am. They needed officers, and I needed to get away from Masada before I did something I'd regret. I mean, I know the Graysons hanged the bastards who actually raped and murdered my people, but a part of me blames all Masadans for it, and with so many of them actively pushing to see how far they can go, it'd be too easy to..."
She broke off and closed her eyes for a moment, and her nostrils flared. Then her eyes reopened. They met her admirals levelly, and what Honor saw in them reassured her. Mercedes had her own devils, but she recognized them and had them under control. And that, Honor told herself with a familiar tinge of bitterness, was the most anyone could ask of herself. Yet there was still one thing she had to know, and there was only one way to find out.
"And Captain Yu?" She asked the question quietly, and Mercedes smiled faintly.
"You mean do I blame him for what happened to Madrigal, Ma'am?" Honor nodded, and she shook her head. "He was doing his job. There was nothing personal in it, and he didn't have a thing to do with what happened on Blackbird. In fact, he protested the way our people were turned over to Williams after he had us picked up."