"It sounds to me like it should work, Skipper," Singleterry said thoughtfully.
"I hope so," Dumais said cheerfully. "Because if it doesn't, we're going to have a hell of a time explaining to the Admiral why we couldn't handle a single merchie!"
Chapter Forty Six
Honor stepped back and allowed Commander Denby to climb to his feet. The commanding officer of Werewolf's third LAC squadron was a little slower than he might have been under other conditions, and he shook his head like a man listening to a ringing sound no one else could hear.
He dropped back into a ready position, but Honor shook her own head and removed her mouth protector.
"Sorry about that, Commander," she said contritely. "Are you all right?"
Denby removed his own mouth protector and then rotated his right shoulder cautiously and gave her a lopsided grin.
"I think so, Your Grace," he replied. "I'll tell you for sure when that damned bird stops singing in my ear!"
Honor chuckled. She and the commander both wore traditional gis. Although Denby's belt showed only five rank knots, he was really very good . . . and like quite a few officers who followed the coup —perhaps somewhat disproportionately represented among the LAC portion of Werewolf's complement—he was always available for a sparring match with the station commander.
Unfortunately, he'd forgotten about Honor's artificial arm. The move he'd just attempted had depended upon its victim's reaction to leverage against her elbow joint. Which hadn't worked out quite the way his reflexes had assumed it would in this particular case. Honor's counter had caught him out of position and completely by surprise, and he'd hit the mat hard. In fact, he'd hit it rather harder than she'd intended, because her reflexes hadn't assumed that he'd be left quite as open as he had by her left arm's failure to flex properly.
"Well," she said now, "we've got enough time for you to finish listening. Take your time."
"Thank you, Your Grace, but I think he's coming to the end of his selection."
Denby gave her another grin and reinserted his mouth protector, and she smiled back before she did the same thing. The two of them stepped back towards the center of the mat and dropped back into the ready position. Honor watched him warily. They'd sparred enough over the course of this deployment for her to have a very good feel for his personality. Even without her ability to sense his emotions, she would have known that his recent misadventure had inspired him to dump her on her very senior posterior. On the other hand, inspiration and success weren't necessarily the same thing, and—"Excuse me, My Lady."
Andrew LaFollet's voice interrupted, and she stepped back from Denby and turned towards her senior armsman.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, My Lady," LaFollet said from where he'd stood watching her back, even here in Werewolf's gym, and she removed the mouth protector once again.
"What is it, Andrew?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied. "Lieutenant Meares just commed. He says you're needed on Flag Bridge."
"On Flag Bridge?" Honor repeated. "He didn't say why?"
"No, My Lady." LaFollet half-raised his wrist-mounted com. "I can com him back and ask, if you'd like?"
"Please do. And ask him how urgent it is." She waved one gloved hand at her gi. "Unless it's earth shattering, I'd like to at least shower and change before I report for duty!"
"Yes, My Lady," LaFollet acknowledged with a small smile, and spoke into the wrist com. Then he looked up with the slightly absent expression of a man listening to a reply from her flag lieutenant over his unobtrusive earbug.
It was an expression which changed abruptly, and Honor's head snapped up as she tasted the surprise and apprehension in his emotions.
"What?" she asked sharply.
"Tim says Pirate's Bane just passed the perimeter patrols, My Lady," the armsman replied, using the flag lieutenant's first name instead of the more formal rank titles he was usually careful to employ out of deference to a young man's dignity. Now he met his Steadholder's eyes, and his expression was taut. "He says she's damaged—badly."
Honor stared at him for perhaps two breaths, her thoughts completely frozen. Then they jerked back into motion with an almost physical shock.
"How badly damaged?" The question came out crisply, but even as she asked it she was aware of how much a lie that calmness was. "And what about Captain Bachfisch?"
"Tim doesn't know exactly how bad it is, My Lady. But from what he said, it doesn't sound good." The armsman inhaled. "And it was her executive officer who answered the patrol's challenge. He says Captain Bachfisch has been wounded."
Honor held herself in her seat in the pinnace by sheer force of will. Nimitz was curled in her lap, and she felt the physical tension in his muscles as the pinnace cut its drive and Pirate's Bane's boat bay tractors reached out for it.
She looked out through the armorplast viewport, and her jaw muscles clenched as she saw the ugly holes blown in the Bane's skin. "Badly," she supposed was one way to describe what had happened to the armed merchantman. Personally, she considered it to be grossly inadequate.
The pinnace rolled on its internal gyros, aligning itself so the tractors could deposit it gently in the docking buffers. At least the bay gallery was still vacuum tight, she thought grimly as she watched the personnel tube run out to the pinnace's airlock. Bleak anger and anxiety roiled within her, and then she looked down as a hand-foot patted her on the knee.
<They said he'll be all right,> Nimitz's true-hands signed.
"No," she replied. "They told me that he said he'll be all right. There's a difference."
<He wouldn't lie. Not to you. Not about this.>
"Stinker," Honor sighed, "sometimes I think 'cats still have a lot to learn about humans. There may not be any point in empaths or telepaths trying to lie to each other, but we two-foots always think we get away with it. And when we don't want someone to worry . . ."
<I know. But still say wouldn't lie to you. Besides,> even through the 'cat's own anxiety, she tasted a sudden flicker of amusement, <he knows what you'd do to him when he got better if did.>
Honor looked down at him, and then, to her own amazement, she actually chuckled.
"You may have a point," she conceded. "On the other hand," she sobered again, "the fact that it was his exec who reported in doesn't sound good."
<Will know soon,> Nimitz signed back. <Green light.>
Honor flicked her eyes to the telltale above the airlock. Nimitz was right, and she scooped the 'cat into her arms and rose as the pinnace's flight engineer reached for the hatch button.
Others pushed up out of their seats behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder. LaFollet and Spencer Hawke sat in the row directly behind her, but there were enough others to make the pinnace's spacious passenger compartment seem almost crowded. Mercedes Brigham, George Reynolds, Andrea Jaruwalski, and Timothy Meares were all present . . . and so were Surgeon Captain Fritz Montoya and a full twenty-person medical team.
A second pinnace, this one loaded with two platoons of Werewolf's Marines, settled into the docking buffers beside Honor's pinnace, and her expression tightened once more. Then she moved forward as the inner hatch of the airlock opened.