"Understand something now, Commander. I don't like your cousin, and he doesn't like me, but that doesn't concern you. Unless, of course, you want it to, and I really don't think you do." Her smile showed her teeth, and something like alarm flickered in his eyes. "But regardless of your personal feelings. Commander Houseman, you will observe proper military courtesy, not simply to me but to anyone on my ship." Houseman's gaze avoided hers, flitting to Sarnow and Van Slyke, and Honor's smile turned even colder. "Don't worry, Commander. I won't involve Admiral Sarnowor Commodore Van Slyke. But, then, I don't think it will be necessary, will it?"
His eyes darted angrily back to her, and she held them coldly. Then he swallowed, and the moment of confrontation passed.
"Was there anything else, Commander?" she asked softly.
"No, Ma'am."
"Then I'm certain you have somewhere else you need to be," she said. His face tightened again for just an instant, but then he nodded curtly and turned away. Nimitz quivered with anger on Honor's shoulder, and she reached up to stroke him reassuringly while she watched Houseman vanish into the crowd.
She could have handled that better, she told herself, though the man's sheer arrogance appalled her. A commander, whatever his family influenceand the Houseman clan, she admitted, had plenty of thatwho picked a quarrel with a captain of the list deserved whatever grief it bought him, yet she knew her own response had confirmed his enmity, and she regretted that. There probably hadn't been much chance of avoiding it, but she was Sarnow's flag captain. It was part of her job description to defuse matters that might hamper the squadron's smooth operation, and she hadn't even tried. Worse, it hadn't even occurred to her that she ought to have tried until it was all over.
She sighed silently and listened to Nimitz crunch his celery. One of these days she was going to have to learn to control her own temper.
"Penny for your thoughts, Dame Honor," a tenor voice murmured. She looked up quickly, and Admiral Sarnow smiled at her. "I was wondering when you and Commander Houseman would meet. I see he survived the experience."
Honors cheeks heated at his ironic tone, and his smile turned wry.
"Oh, don't worry about it, Captain. Arthur Houseman is a liberal bigot with an ego problem. If you stepped on him, he undoubtedly needed it, and if I'd thought you'd step too hard, I would have warned you about him." Honor's blush faded, and he nodded. "Exactly. As I told you, Dame Honor, you're my flag captain, and I expect you to act the part. Which includes not taking any crap from a junior officer who's also a stuck-up prig and resents your having proved his cousin is a coward. Unfortunately, he really is good at his job. That, I imagine, is the reason Commodore Van Slyke tolerates him, but it's no reason you have to."
"Thank you, Sir," she said quietly.
"Don't thank me, Captain." He touched her elbow lightly, his eyes twinkling with curiously mingled amusement and warning. "When you're right, you're right. When you're not, I'll cut you off at the knees."
He smiled again, and she felt herself smile back.
CHAPTER NINE
Captain Mark Brentworth surveyed his spacious bridge with intense satisfaction. The heavy cruiser Jason Alvarez, the most powerful ship ever built in the Yeltsin Systemat least until the battlecruisers Courvosier and Yanakov were commissioned next monthwas the pride of the Fleet. She was also all his, and she'd already won her spurs. The pirates who'd once infested the region were rapidly becoming a thing of the past as local Manticoran units and the rapidly expanding Grayson Navy hunted them down. Alvarez and Brentworthhad two independent kills and four assists to their credit, but prey had gotten progressively scarcer over the last few months, and, in a way, the captain was almost grateful for the boredom of his present assignment. Picket duty just beyond Yeltsin's Star's hyper limit was unglamorous, but his people needed the rest after the wearing concentration of pirate-hunting. Not that he wanted them to feel too relaxed, he thought with an inner smile.
The latest convoy from Manticore was due within six hours, and it ought to arrive inside Alvarez's sensor envelope, but he and his exec hadn't mentioned that to the rest of his crew. It would be interesting to see how quickly his people detected the convoy's arrival... and how quickly they got to battle stations until it was positively ID'ed.
In the meantime, however, there were
"Unidentified hyper footprint at three-point-five light-minutes, Sir!"
"Plot it!" Brentworth snapped, and looked at his exec. "Battle stations, Mr. Hardesty!"
"Aye, aye, Sir!"
Alarms began to whoop even as the exec replied, and Brentworth looked down at the displays deploying about his chair with a frown. If this was the convoy, it was much earlier than it ought to be. On the other hand, it seemed improbable anything else would come in this close to its scheduled ETA.
The captain rubbed the tip of his nose, then turned to his tac officer. Lieutenant Bordeaux's eyes were intent as he studied the data. It would be a while yet before his light-speed sensors picked up anything at this range, but CIC's analysis of the FTL gravitic readings coalesced before him while Brentworth watched.
"It's a singleton, Sir," Bordeaux reported, never looking away from his display. "Looks like a freighter. Range six-three-point-one-six million kilometers. Course zero-zero-three by one-five-niner. Acceleration two-point-four KPS squared. Present velocity point-zero-four-eight Gee."
Brentworth started to nod, then snapped upright. The course was right for a least-time vector to Grayson, but that velocity was all wrong. The freighter must have been burning along at a full sixty percent of light-speed to carry that much vee across the alpha wall. That was well outside the safe hyper velocity envelope for a ship with commercial grade anti-rad and particle shielding, and the physiological stress of a crash translation at that speed was brutal. For that matter, she must be riding the ragged edge of compensator burnout to maintain her present acceleration with a freighter's drive!
No merchant skipper would maneuver like thatnot if he had a choiceand the captain's stomach tightened. There were supposed to be three freighters, escorted by a pair of destroyers, but Alvarez saw only one impeller source. Coupled with the freighter's crash translation and accel...
"Astrogation, plot me an intercept course! Communications, get off an immediate contact report to Command Central!"
He hardly noticed the taut responses as he waved Hardesty in close beside his chair. The exec's face was as worried as his own, and Brentworth forced his voice to remain very level.
"Who else is out here, Jack? Anyone closer to them than us?"
"No, Sir," Hardesty said quietly, and Brentworth's mouth tightened, for Alvarez was currently at rest relative to Yeltsin's Star. His ship's acceleration was twice that of the unknown freighter, but the freighter was headed almost directly away from her at over 14,000 KPS, and she was far beyond missile range... as anyone following her would also be.
"Where's that course, Astrogation?" he snapped.
"Sir, we can't intercept short of Grayson orbit if she maintains her current acceleration," the astrogator replied. "At max accel, we'll take over eighty-eight minutes just to match velocity with her."
Brentworth's hands clenched on the arms of his chair, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply. He'd been afraid of that. The only, real hope for an interception now was that someone closer to Grayson had a convergent vector. But the freighter wouldn't be running this hard unless something was chasing her, and it was remotely possible he could get into range of that something.