Toll of Honor, page 23
part #15 of Honor Harrington Series
He’d offered the steward as much support as he could, but for those first two days, there’d been nothing anyone could do. And then, on the third day, she’d emerged from her cabin.
Captain Henke had been there when she did. LaFollet didn’t know what the two of them might have said to one another before they’d stepped out of the hatch, but he’d seen the concern in Henke’s expression as the captain followed her into the passage.
He didn’t think the Steadholder had. He didn’t think she’d really seen much of anything, actually. Her uniform had been perfect, her grooming immaculate, but her eyes had been brown, frozen flint in a face that was gaunt with pain, and Nimitz had been hunched and silent on her shoulder, his tail hanging like a defeated army’s banner. She’d simply started down the passageway, and she hadn’t even noticed when LaFollet followed her.
He’d wondered where they were going, but only until the intra-ship car delivered them to Agni’s armory. The Marine armorer had snapped to attention behind the high counter as his CO and the Steadholder stepped out of the lift.
“Is the range clear, Sergeant?”
If glaciers could speak, one of them might have sounded like that soprano.
“Uh, yes, Milady. It is.”
“Then issue me an automatic,” she’d said in that same icy voice. “Ten millimeter.”
The sergeant had looked past her at his captain, and LaFollet had understood the worry in his eyes. He’d spent almost half his own life in armories just like this one, and he would have flatly refused to issue a weapon to someone who spoke like that. Indeed, his own expression had tightened as he wavered on the very cusp of objecting. But he’d made himself stand silent, instead, and after the briefest of hesitations, Captain Henke had nodded ever so slightly to the sergeant.
The Marine had reached under the counter for a memo board and laid it in front of the Steadholder.
“Please fill out the requisition while I get it, Milady.”
The Steadholder had started tapping keys as the sergeant turned toward the weapons storage, but her voice had stopped him.
“I need filled ten-round magazines,” she’d said. “Ten of them. And four boxes of shells.”
“I—” The sergeant had cut himself off. “Yes, Milady. Ten charged magazines and two hundred rounds in the box,” he’d said.
The Steadholder had filled out the requisition slowly and methodically, then thumbprinted the scan pad and stood there, waiting, until the Marine returned.
“Here you are, Milady.”
He’d laid the holstered pistol and two sets of ear-protectors, one of them adjusted to fit Nimitz’s ears, on the counter, then placed an ammunition carrier beside them.
“Thank you.”
The Steadholder had scooped up the pistol and attached its magnetic pad to her belt, then reached for the protectors with one hand and the ammunition with the other. LaFollet had stirred behind her, hovering once again on the brink of a protest. But before he could say a word, Captain Henke’s hand had shot out and pinned the carrier to the counter.
The Steadholder had turned her head, looked at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Honor, I—”
Henke’s voice had died, LaFollet had known what she’d wanted to say. What she couldn’t find the words to say. The same thing he’d wanted to say.
“Don’t worry, Mike.” The Steadholder’s mouth had moved in a cold, dead ghost of a smile. “Nimitz won’t let me do that. Besides”—an edge of something hungry had crept into that frozen smile—“I have something more important to do.”
Understanding had gone through LaFollet in that moment. Or perhaps it had been more of a revelation, the recognition of something he’d really known all along about the woman he’d sworn to serve, and he’d felt no surprise when the captain sighed and lifted her hand.
The Steadholder had picked up the ammunition carrier, settled its strap over her left shoulder, and looked at the armorer.
“Program the range, Sergeant,” she’d said. “Standard Manticoran gravity on the plates. Set the range gate for twenty meters. Human targets.”
And then she’d stepped through the firing range hatch.
LaFollet had stood outside the range, watching through the armorplast bulkhead as the Steadholder took her position. At least one of his concerns had been laid to rest as he watched her draw the heavy semiautomatic pistol, check the chamber, and lock the slide back. He’d never seen her handle a firearm before, not even one of the modern pulsers Grayson had been unable to afford before joining the Manticoran Alliance, far less an old-fashioned chemical-fueled weapon with equally old-fashioned iron sights, but she’d obviously known precisely what she was doing.
She’d laid out the magazines on the firing bench, then manipulated the joystick at her station to turn the holographic human target until it stood with one shoulder toward her, one arm raised in a one-handed shooting position. The firing range’s physical depth was only ten meters, not the twenty she’d specified, but LaFollet had realized that the target had been downsized—and, he’d discovered later, the grav plates had been adjusted—to create a twenty-meter apparent range and bullet trajectory. And, as he’d watched, she’d raised the pistol . . . and put the entire magazine into the target’s head. The entire group couldn’t have spanned more than twelve centimeters.
Then she’d done it again. And again. Ten times, without a single shot that hadn’t landed dead center. And as he’d watched, a sense of grim, cold satisfaction had filled his soul.
She’d reloaded the magazines methodically from the boxed ammunition, then done it again. And after she’d refilled them all for the second time, she’d gone back to the armorer for more ammunition, and then returned to the range. She’d spent the next best thing to eight hours on that range over the next two days, until they’d reached Manticore. After that first session, she’d shifted from a stationary target and reprogrammed the hologram to move—slowly at first, but with increasing speed—and still those unerring bullets had plunged through it again and again.
After the second trip to the range, she’d paused and raised an eyebrow at LaFollet as she returned the pistol to the armor.
“You have a question, Andrew.”
It was a statement, not a question, he’d realized. And she’d been right. But how did he—?
“Actually, My Lady, I was just curious,” he’d said after a moment. “A weapon like that”—he’d flipped his head in a nod at the pistol on the armor’s counter—“would’ve been standard issue for any armsman before the Alliance. With holographic sights, but the basic platform would’ve been pretty much identical. The Star Kingdom’s military hasn’t used them for a long, long time, though. I’ve met quite a few Manticoran personnel who are pretty fair shots with one of these.” He’d tapped the pulser holstered at his hip. “Not so much with one of those. They really don’t like the recoil—or the muzzle blast—the first time they try one.”
“They don’t?”
There might actually have been a flicker of humor in those frozen brown eyes, and Lady Harrington had smiled ever so slightly. An Old Terran wolf might have smiled like that, and the humor was a cold, hard, hungry thing.
“No, My Lady. They don’t,” he’d said.
“My Uncle Jacques is from Beowulf,” she’d said then. “He used to be a major in the Biological Survey Corps—don’t let the name fool you; it’s one of the best Special Forces organizations in the galaxy. I rather doubt Summervale knows about him, given how tight BSC’s security is. And my dad may be a retired Navy doctor, but he was a Marine before that. And I grew up on Sphinx. You don’t go into the bush on Sphinx without a gun, Andrew. So I learned to shoot before I was eleven, and you might say I had good teachers.”
“With ‘antiques’ like that, My Lady?” he’d asked, nodding at the pistol again.
“That’s where Uncle Jacques comes in.” She’d smiled even more coldly. “He belongs to something called the Society for Creative Anachronisms. It’s a bunch of hobbyists fascinated by the past. He gave me my favorite nitro-powder rifle—Daddy’s always preferred pulse rifles—when I was twelve. And both of them made sure I understood handguns, too.” Her smile had vanished. “I don’t imagine either of them ever thought I’d need one for this.”
“No, My Lady. I don’t imagine they did, either,” he’d said, and heard the grim approval in his own voice when he did.
The range was the only place she’d gone, and those frozen brown eyes had never thawed, but Andrew LaFollet had been satisfied. Not happy, only satisfied.
Now the capsule stopped. The door opened, and Mattingly stepped through it before the Steadholder. She shook her head but let him, and then LaFollet followed her out and down yet another passageway—this one a good twenty meters across and ten meters tall, with an island of greenery down its center—toward what looked for all the world like a pair of swinging doors under flowing golden letters that read simply DEMPSEY’S.
The Steadholder paused about two meters from them and drew a deep breath, then turned to her armsmen.
“All right, Andrew. Simon. I’m not going to have any problems with you two, am I?”
LaFollet gazed back at her. She hadn’t specifically discussed what was about to happen with him, but he knew. Just as he knew the reason she’d left Nimitz in her quarters aboard Nike.
For that matter, he knew she would have preferred to leave him and Mattingly with Nimitz. In fact, it was obvious she truly hadn’t yet fully internalized the requirements of Grayson law where steadholders’ security details were concerned, and she’d tried to do just that. Fortunately, Regent Clinkscales had briefed Andrew LaFollet carefully against this very moment. Even better, in some ways, he’d spent hours picking James MacGuiness’ brain on the best way to approach explaining the realities to her. MacGuiness probably knew her better than anyone outside her parents and Captain Henke, and he’d obviously approved of her armsmens’ presence even before he’d learned of Captain Tankersley’s death.
“Tell her it’s her duty,” he’d said with a sad smile. “That’s the one argument she can never, ever ignore.”
That was precisely what LaFollet had done, and when she’d pointed out that armed foreign nationals weren’t permitted aboard Manticoran warships, he’d simply shown her his copy of the Star Kingdom’s official response to Protector Benjamin’s personal communication to its foreign secretary over a year ago in anticipation of this moment.
The one signed by Prime Minister Cromarty and countersigned by Queen Elizabeth herself. The one that officially recognized Lady Harrington as Steadholder Harrington, a foreign head of state who happened to share the same body with Countess Harrington, and specifically granted her armsmen the right to keep and bear arms in her presence, wherever she might be. And, for good measure, granted them diplomatic immunity, to boot.
That was the point at which she’d realized she truly was stuck with them, he thought as he looked back at her now.
“You’re our Steadholder, My Lady,” he said. “Your orders to us have the force of law. We don’t like the idea of your risking yourself, but we won’t interfere as long as this Summervale offers you no physical violence.”
“I don’t like qualifications from my subordinates, Andrew,” she said, and his shoulders straightened in involuntary reflex. “I won’t try to tell you your duty under normal circumstances, but when I tell you you will do nothing, whatever happens between Summervale and me, that’s precisely what I mean. Is that understood?”
LaFollet felt his face go blank as, for the first time, he heard the unmistakable snap of command in her voice.
“Yes, My Lady. I understand,” he said crisply, and the Steadholder nodded.
“Good,” she said, then drew a deep breath. “In that case, gentlemen, let’s be about it.”
* * *
She really shouldn’t be here.
She knew that. She’d even told herself that. But sometimes Iris Babcock didn’t listen to herself, and this was one of those times.
No one had told her what was likely to happen today, but it was a sorry excuse for a Marine noncom who couldn’t figure out what was going on. She knew HMS Agni had returned from Grayson with Lady Harrington the day before, and she knew Lady Harrington. There was no question in her mind what the Countess intended to do, and there was really only one place she could do it. Babcock’s cousin Malachi had confirmed that for her, and he’d also quietly reserved a corner table near the bar for her. Major Yestachenko had looked at her a bit oddly when she’d announced she had a personal errand to run aboard Hephaestus, if that was all right with the Major. She suspected Yestachenko had a pretty shrewd idea of what that “errand” was, but the Major was another of the good ones. He’d only suggested—a bit pointedly, true—that he expected her to “stay out of trouble.”
Which she intended to do.
Probably.
Now she sat back, nursing a beer and watching the slim, fair-haired man at the bar. He’d been there for the last three hours, and according to Malachi, he’d been there for over five hours, yesterday.
Nothing suspicious about that, she thought with a snort.
“Now why did I expect I’d find you here, Gunny?”
She looked up with a start, and her eyes widened briefly.
“Harkness?” She produced a scowl. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Really?” Horace Harkness said almost pityingly, then toe-hooked a chair out from under her table and sat down. “You think you’re the only person tapped into the grapevine?” It was his turn to snort. “I wouldn’t miss this for the frigging world, Gunny! Or maybe I should say I wouldn’t miss this for the frigging world either?”
She glared at him for a moment.
“Okay, you caught me.” She shrugged. “So sue me.”
“Nah.” Harkness raised a hand to catch the attention of one of Dempsey’s real, live human waitstaff. “Couldn’t do that without suing myself.”
“What do you need, Senior Chief?” the waiter asked.
“A stein of Old Tillman, I think,” Harkness replied. “Oh, and a side of fries. You need anything else, Gunny?”
“Actually,” Babcock decided, “fries sound pretty good. Make that a double, Ken. And put it on my tab.”
“You got it, Sergeant Major.”
The waiter nodded and headed off, and Harkness grinned.
“That was right neighborly of you, Gunny!”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Babcock said dryly. “Just remember, I get the family discount.”
“Man, never thought of myself as a cheap da—” Harkness began, then paused in mid syllable as the double doors opened.
“Showtime, Gunny.”
“Yeah,” Babcock agreed, then twitched her head to her left. “Keep an eye on that big guy in the Hauptman shipsuit. He’s had his eye on our friend at the bar as long as I have, and the son of a bitch is packing. I’m thinking our friend might have brought a little extra muscle along after his conversation with the Colonel.”
“Shoulder holster on the left side?” Harkness nodded. “Noticed that while I was sneaking up on you.”
“Observant bastard for a vacuum-sucker, aren’t you just?”
“I try, Gunny. I try.”
* * *
Andrew LaFollet and Simon Mattingly followed the Steadholder through the swinging doors.
She paused long enough for a single, sweeping glance. It found the fair-haired man seated at the bar, his back to the doors, and she started across the restaurant with a steady, measured stride.
LaFollet and Mattingly held station behind her, and LaFollet’s antennae tingled as a big, beefy fellow in a yellow shipsuit turned his head. The major didn’t care for the way the Manty’s eyes followed the Steadholder, but his weren’t the only eyes following her. The man with his back to her looked as if he had not a care in the world, but his eyes were on the mirror behind the bar, focused on the Steadholder’s reflection like lasers.
The Steadholder crossed the restaurant and stopped a meter behind him. LaFollet saw her eyes in the mirror, too, and then—
“Denver Summervale?” she said in a tone like a daggered icicle.
He sat for an instant, then turned, and Andrew LaFollet’s palm itched as he curled a contemptuous lip at the Steadholder.
“Yes?” he sneered.
“I’m Honor Harrington,” she said.
“Should that mean something to me?” he demanded in that same, sneering tone, but LaFollet saw something in his eyes that belied his finely honed scorn. Something that suggested this meeting wasn’t developing exactly the way he’d planned. And then—
“Yes, it should,” the Steadholder said. “After all, I’m the woman Earl North Hollow hired you to kill, Mister Summervale. Just as he hired you to kill Paul Tankersley.”
She hadn’t raised her voice, but it was a voice accustomed to command. It carried clearly, and disbelieving silence radiated outward across the crowded restaurant with stunning, lightning speed.
Summervale’s disdainful expression vanished. He gaped at her, obviously dumbfounded, and LaFollet wondered just what the idiot had expected the Steadholder to say. In Summervale’s defense, he’d never seen her ankle-deep in assassins’ bodies, but a man with his record should have done his homework. Then again, perhaps that record of his was the reason he hadn’t. LaFollet’s research had turned up over a dozen duels Summervale had fought. He’d won all of them easily, and Lady Harrington had never fought even one. This was his game, not hers, and no doubt he’d expected her to approach him in a white-hot fury. For her to challenge him, put him in position to dictate the terms of their inevitable meeting. Clearly, he’d anticipated neither her ice-cold control not that she—that anyone—would dare to publicly denounce him as a paid killer . . . and name the man who’d hired him, as well. It was an understandable error, if not a forgivable one.
