She only wished she could get her father aboard Trafalgar for a weekend.
She shook that thought aside and returned her attention to Yanakov.
"I'm always happy to see you, Judah, but given how busy everyone is just now, I rather doubt this is purely a social occasion."
"As usual, My Lady, you're right," Yanakov admitted.
"Well then, Admiral Yanakov, let's be about it," she invited, and Yanakov smiled for a moment. Then he seemed to sober again.
"The main reason I'm here, My Lady, is to say goodbye."
"Goodbye?" Honor repeated a bit blankly.
"Yes, My Lady. I've been recalled. They need me back home."
"Oh?" Honor sat up straighter.
Reports of the attack which had hit Yeltsin's Star simultaneously with the one on the Manticore Binary System were still incomplete. Transit time was under four days for a dispatch boat, as compared to the roughly six and a half between the Junction's Trevor's Star terminus and the Haven System, so she'd known for days now that the Graysons had been pounded, as well. What she was short on were details. Which wasn't surprising, really. No doubt Grayson had enough wreckage of its own that needed sorting through before it could issue anything like definitive reports.
"You've gotten a more complete report from home?" she continued, and he nodded heavily.
"I have. In fact, I brought a copy of it for you."
He slipped a chip folio out of the inside pocket of his tunic and laid it on the corner of her desk. She wasn't surprised that it had been delivered directly to her instead of coming through the Admiralty, given that she was the second ranking officer of the Grayson Space Navy, even if she was on "detached duty" to her birth star nation.
"How bad is it?" she asked quietly.
"Bad," he said flatly. "In fact, it's worse than the original estimates. Blackbird is gone, My Lady and it looks like we lost virtually a hundred percent of the workforce."
Honor's stomach muscles tightened. It wasn't a surprise, however much she might have wished the preliminary reports had been wrong. Given the dispersed architecture of the Blackbird yards, she'd at least dared to hope the attack might have been a little less effective than the one on the concentrated capacity of Hephaestus and Vulcan . At the same time, though, she'd realized that anyone who could put together an operation as conceptually daring and as brilliantly executed as the one which had cauterized the Star Empire would have recognized the differences between her targets and planned accordingly. Apparently, she had.
"They don't seem to have used as many of those graser-armed remote platforms of theirs," Yanakov continued, as if he'd heard her thoughts, "but they used a lot more missiles and kinetic strikes to compensate. According to the Office of Shipbuilding, at least ninety-six percent of the physical plant was destroyed outright or damaged beyond repair. And, as I say, personnel losses were near total."
Honor nodded, and fresh shadows gathered in her eyes. She'd been one of the major investors when Blackbird was built, and the economic loss was going to be a severe blow in a financial sense. That was totally immaterial to her, however, beside the human cost. Almost a third of the total workforce had been from Harrington Steading itself or employed by Skydomes. And over eighteen percent of those employees had been women—a stupendous percentage for patriarchal Grayson, even now.
"The only good news is that Blackbird was far enough away from the planet that we didn't take any collateral damage to the orbital habitats or farms. Or"—his eyes met hers—"to the planet itself, of course."
"Thank God for that," Honor said with soft, intense sincerity.
"We had even more new construction caught in the yards," he went on, "but we didn't have many ships in for repairs or overhaul, so at least we were spared that."
"And they want you back home to take over the system defenses," Honor said, nodding. But Yanakov shook his head.
"I'm afraid not, My Lady," he said quietly. "The latest dispatch boat from Grayson brought me direct orders from the Protector. He sent a personal message for you, as well." The Grayson admiral took another chip folio from his tunic and laid it beside the first one. "I'm sure it will explain everything in greater detail, but I wanted to tell you personally."
"Tell me what, Judah?" Honor sat back in her chair. "You're beginning to make me a little nervous, you know."
"I'm sorry, My Lady. That wasn't my intention. But"—Yanakov inhaled deeply—"I wanted to tell you myself that I've been appointed High Admiral."
For a moment, it didn't register. Then Honor's eyes widened, and she felt her head shaking in futile, instinctive rejection.
They sat in silence for several seconds until, finally, it was her turn to draw a breath.
"Wesley was out at Blackbird?" she said softly.
"Yes, My Lady. I'm sorry. He was there for a stupid, routine conference." Yanakov shook his own head, his eyes bright with mingled sorrow and anger. "Just one of those things. But I know how close the two of you were. That's why I wanted to tell you in person. And," he managed an unhappy smile, "to assure you that if you should happen to want the assignment, it's yours. After all, you're senior to me."
"Not on a bet, Judah," she replied almost instantly. "I know how much Hamish hates being tied to the Admiralty, and I know how much Wesley hated having to give up a space-going command. I don't think I'd like it any more than either of them." She shook her head again, much more firmly. "They're not getting me off a flag deck that easily! Not now, especially."
Her voice turned harsher on the last sentence, and Yanakov nodded.
"I was afraid that was what you'd say," he admitted. "I thought it might be worth a try, at least, though."
"I'd do almost anything for you, Judah," she told him. "Almost anything."
Yanakov chuckled. It sounded a bit odd—perhaps because both of them had heard so few chuckles in the last few weeks—but it also sounded remarkably natural. As if they might actually get used to hearing it again, sometime. Then he stood and extended his hand again.
"I'm afraid they want me home in a hurry, My Lady. I'm headed back aboard the same dispatch boat and it's scheduled to break Manticore orbit in less than two hours. So I'm afraid I have to say goodbye now."
"Of course."
Honor stood, but instead of taking his hand, she walked around the deck and stood facing him for perhaps two seconds. Then she put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
She felt him stiffen instinctively, even after all these years. Which, she supposed, showed you could take the boy out of Grayson, but you couldn't take the Grayson out of the boy. But then his automatic response to being touched so intimately by a woman who was neither his wife nor his mother or sister disappeared, and he hugged her back. A bit tentatively, perhaps, but firmly.