She touched a com stud.
"Engineering, Commander Hackmore," an exhausted voice said.
"Charlie, this is the Captain. You people ready for translation?"
"Yes, Ma'am. About the only parts of this ship I can vouch for are her propulsive systems, Skip."
"Good." Truman never took her eyes from the departing dots of Honor's other ships. "I'm glad to hear that, Charlie, because I want you to take the hyper generator safety interlocks off line."
There was a moment of silence, then Hackmore cleared his throat.
"Are you sure about that, Captain?"
"Never surer."
"Skipper, I know I said propulsion's in good shape, but we took a lot of hits. I can't guarantee there's not damage I haven't found yet."
"I know, Charlie."
"But if you take us that high and we lose it, or pick up a harmonic"
"I know, Charlie," Truman said even more firmly. "And I also know we've got all the squadron's wounded with us. But if you kill the interlocks, we can cut twenty-five, thirty hoursmaybe even a little moreoff our time."
"Figure all that out on your own, did you?"
"I used to be a pretty fair astrogator, and I can still crunch numbers when I have to. So open up your little toolbox and go to work."
"Yes, Ma'am. If that's what you want." Hackmore paused a moment, then asked quietly, "Does Captain Harrington know about this, Ma'am?"
"I guess I sort of forgot to mention it to her."
"I see." Truman could feel the tired smile behind the words. "It just, um, slipped your mind, I suppose."
"Something like that. Can you do it?"
"Hell, yes, I can do it. Aren't I the most magnificent engineer in the Fleet?" Hackmore laughed again, more naturally.
"Good. I knew you'd like the idea. Let me know when you're ready."
"Yes, Ma'am. And I just want to say, Captain, that knowing you figured I'd go along with this makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. It must mean you think I'm almost as crazy as you are."
"Flatterer. Go play with your spanners."
Truman cut the circuit and leaned back, rubbing her hands up and down the arms of her chair while she wondered what Honor would have said if she'd told her. There was only one thing she could have said, by The Book, because Truman was about to break every safety reg there was. But Honor had enough on her plate just now. If Apollo couldn't be here to help take that big bastard on, the least she could do was bring back reinforcements as quickly as possible, and there was no point giving Honor something else to worry about.
The commander closed her eyes, trying to forget the exhausted pain she'd seen in Honor's one good eye. The pain had been there from the moment she learned of Admiral Courvosier's death, but it cut deeper now, weighed down by every death her squadron had paid and might still be called upon to pay. Just as her exhaustion, anguish was the price a captain paid for the privilege of command. Civiliansand too many junior officerssaw only the courtesies and deference, the godlike power bestowed upon the captain of a Queen's ship. They never saw the other side of the coin, the responsibility to keep going because your people needed you to and the agony of knowing misjudgment or carelessness could kill far more than just yourself. Or the infinitely worse agony of sentencing your own people to die because you had no choice. Because it was their duty to risk their lives, and it was yours to take them into death's teeth with you ... or send them on ahead.
Commander Truman could imagine no higher calling than to command a Queen's ship, yet there were times she hated the faceless masses she was sworn to protect because of what protecting them cost people like her crew. People like Honor Harrington. It wasn't patriotism or nobility or dedication that kept men and women on their feet when they wanted to die. Those things might have sent them into uniform, might even keep them there in the times between, when they knew what could happen but it hadn't happened yet. But what kept them on their feet when there was no sane reason for hope were the bonds between them, loyalty to one another, the knowledge others depended on them even as they depended on those others. And sometimes, all too rarely, it came down to a single person it was simply unthinkable to fail. Someone they knew would never quit on them, never leave them in the lurch. Alice Truman had always known there were people like that, but she'd never actually met one. Now she had, and she felt like a traitor for having no choice but to leave when Honor needed her.
She opened her eyes again. If the Lords of Admiralty chose to go by The Book, she would face a Board, certainly, possibly even a full Court, for recklessly hazarding her command. And even if she didn't, there were going to be captains who felt the risk was unjustifiable, for if she lost Apollo, no one in Manticore would even know that Honor needed help.
But hours might make the difference in Yeltsin, and that meant she would never be able to live with herself if she didn't take the chance.
Her intercom beeped, and she pressed the stud.
"Bridge, Captain."
"Safety interlocks disengaged, Skipper," Hackmore's voice said. "This beat-up bitch is ready to roll."
"Thank you, Charlie," Commander Alice Truman said firmly. She checked the maneuvering display. "Stand by to translate in eight minutes."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Alfredo Yu knew he ought to be studying Engineering's report on Thunder of God's overhauled tractors, but he frowned sightlessly at the data, unable to concentrate on it. Something about the Masadan reaction was out of kilter. It was wrong, and the fact that he couldn't put his finger on just what that wrongness was only made him even more uneasy.
He pushed back from the terminal to pace fretfully and tried to tell himself he was being silly. Of course something was "wrong" with Masada! He'd failed. Through no fault of his own, perhaps, but he'd failed, and the repercussions of that failure, and its consequences for them, had to be echoing through every Masadan mind and heart.
And yet ...
He came to a stop, eyes unfocused but intent as he tried to chase down that "yet." Was it the Council of Elders' silence? The halfhearted way Sword Simonds had protested his excuses for keeping Thunder in Endicott? Or simply the sense of doom looming over them all?
He bared his teeth in a humorless smile at his own contrariness. He'd expected hysteria and a welter of conflicting orders from the Council, and the fact that he hadn't gotten those things should have been a vast relief. This stunned, silent lack of reaction was far better suited to his and Ambassador Lacy's purposeswas that why it worried him? Because it was too convenient?
And why should Simonds' pliancy puzzle him? The Sword must be astounded he was still alive. Surely he had to be wondering when his strange immunity would vanish, and a man who felt Death breathing quietly down his neck, never knowing when it might strike, wasn't very likely to be his old, prickly, meddlesome self, now was he?
As for senses of doom, what else could he expect? Despite the front he maintained for his inner circle of Havenite officers, he himself had no hope at all that Manticore would back off because a single Havenite battlecruiserespecially the one who'd started the shooting in the first placegot in the way. And if he didn't believe it, how could he expect his crew to? There was an air of caged lightning aboard Thunder of God, and men did their duty without chatter and tried to believe they would somehow be among the survivors when it was finished.