CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The cutter grounded amid the ruins of Blackbird Base's hangars, and a tall, slim figure in a navy captain's skin suit walked down the ramp while a squad of battle-armored Marines at its foot snapped to attention.

"Sergeant Talon, Second Squad, Third Platoon, Able Company, Ma'am," the squad sergeant announced.

"Sergeant." Honor returned the salute, then looked over her shoulder at her pilot.

None of Fearless's small craft had yet returned, so she'd grabbed Troubadour's number two cutter. Commander McKeon, still dealing with his own ship's damages, would much preferred to have told her she couldn't have it. Unfortunately, she was senior to him, and since he couldn't keep her upstairs where it was safe, he'd assigned Lieutenant Tremaine as her pilot. Now the lieutenant trotted down the ramp in her wake, and Honor's lip twitched as she saw the heavy plasma carbine slung over his shoulder.

Pockets of Masadans still held out inside the base, and the chance of walking into trouble couldn't be totally ruled out—that was why Ramirez had assigned a full squad to babysit her and why she herself wore a sidearm—but Tremaine's weapon of choice seemed a bit extreme.

"I really don't need any more babysitters, Scotty."

"No, Ma'am. Of course not," Tremaine agreed, double-checking the charge indicator on his carbine.

"At least leave that cannon behind!" He looked up at her with a pained expression. "You're not a Marine, Lieutenant. You could hurt someone with that thing."

"That's the idea, Ma'am. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing with it," he assured her, and she sighed.

"Scotty-" she began again, but he gave her a sudden grin.

"Ma'am, the Skipper will skin me alive if anything happens to you." He looked over Honor's shoulder at Sergeant Talon, and his grin grew broader as the Marine glowered at him. "No offense, Sarge, but Commander McKeon can be a mite unreasonable at times." Sergeant Talon glared at his carbine, sniffed audibly over her com, and then looked pointedly at Honor.

"Are you ready, Ma'am?"

"I am, Sergeant," Honor replied, abandoning the attempt to dissuade her over-zealous bodyguard.

Talon nodded and waved her first section out to take point while Corporal Liggit's section brought up the rear. Talon herself accompanied Captain Harrington, completely ignoring the lieutenant trudging along beside his long-legged superior, and Corporal Liggit chuckled to himself behind her.

"What's so funny, Corp?" a private asked over the section circuit.

"He is," Liggit replied, gesturing at Tremaine and chuckling even harder as he did a hop-skip-hop to catch back up with the Captain.

"Why? What about him?"

"Oh, nothing much . . . except for the fact that I used to be a small arms instructor at Saganami Island, and I happen to know he's qualified High Expert with the plasma carbine." The private looked at Liggit in disbelief for a moment, and then she began to laugh.

"I still think it would have been wiser to delay your landing." Major Ramirez greeted Honor in the mess hall which had become a POW cage. "There's still shooting going on in here, Ma'am, and these idiots are certifiable. I've had three people killed by grenade attacks from 'surrendered' Masadans."

"I know, Major." Honor held her helmet in the crook of her arm and noted the unlimbered tri-barrels of Sergeant Talon's squad. Even Lieutenant Tremaine had abandoned his cheerful pose, and his forefinger rested lightly beside his carbine's firing stud. She looked back at Ramirez, and the living corner of her mouth twitched a brief, half-apologetic smile.

"Unfortunately, we don't know how much time we've got," she went on quietly. "I need information, and I need it quickly. And-" her slurred voice turned grim "—I want Madrigal's people found. I am not going to leave them behind if we're forced to pull out suddenly!"

"Yes, Ma'am." Ramirez inhaled and indicated a Masadan officer in a captain's uniform. "Captain Williams, Ma'am. The base CO."

Honor studied the Masadan curiously. The right side of his face was almost as badly bruised and swollen as the left side of her own; the other side was tight and sullen, and it tightened further as he glared back at her.

"Captain Williams," she said courteously, "I regret-"

He spat in her face.

The glob of spittle hit the dead skin of her left cheek. She couldn't feel it, and for just one moment she couldn't quite believe it had happened, but Major Ramirez's left arm shot out. Armored fingers twisted in the neck of the Masadan's one-piece uniform, and exoskeletal muscles whined as he snatched Williams off his feet. He slammed him back against the wall like a puppet, and his right fist started forward.

"Major!" Honor's voice cracked like a whip, and Ramirez diverted the blow in the nick of time. His gauntlet smashed into the stone wall beside Williams' head like a mace, so hard flying stone chips cut the Masadan's cheek, and the red-faced, strangling captain flinched aside with a gasp of terror.

"Sorry, Ma'am." The major was white with fury as he muttered his apology—to Honor, not Williams—and dropped the Masadan. He rubbed his left hand on his equipment harness as if to scrub away contamination, and Sergeant Talon handed Honor a napkin from a dispenser on one of the mess tables. She wiped her numb face carefully, her eyes still on the major, and wondered if Williams truly understood how close to death he'd just come.

"I understand your feelings, Major," she said quietly, "but these people are our prisoners."

"Yes, Ma'am. I understand." Ramirez drew a deep breath and turned his back on Williams while the captain wheezed for breath. "They're scum, and one of them killed a medic trying to patch him up, but they're our prisoners. I'll remember that, Ma'am."

"See that you do," Honor said, but she laid her hand on his armored shoulder as she spoke, and he managed a brief smile.

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied more naturally, then gestured at a large chart spread out on one of the tables. "Let me show you where we are, Ma'am."

Honor followed him to the table, and he ran a finger across the captured ground plan.

"We now control the three upper levels," he said, "and I've got one of Captain Hibson's squads down onto Level Five to secure the power plant, but the Masadans still holding out on Four and parts of Five had too much time to get set before we penetrated that deep. It looks like the most fanatical members of the garrison headed that way when we took over the control room, and some of them knew how to override the blast doors locally, so we couldn't keep them from flowing together into some fairly tough knots."

Honor studied the plan and nodded in understanding.

"The specialists Admiral Matthews loaned us are interrogating the computers," Ramirez went on, "and, in some respects, I'd as soon leave them down there while we got what we came for and pulled out. Unfortunately," his voice turned harsh, "we've begun picking up indications Madrigal's survivors are being held somewhere in this area-" his finger tapped "—on Level Four."

"'Indications'?" Honor asked sharply. "Not confirmation?"

"No, Ma'am. That's what worries me. None of these people-" he waved at the Masadans crowded against the mess hall walls "—will say a word about them, but they look awfully uneasy when we ask. We haven't really had time for systematic interrogation, and, as you say, they're our prisoners, so there are limits to the way we can ask, but after Commander Theisman's hints, I don't like it, Ma'am. I don't like it at all."

"Neither do I," Honor murmured, staring at the map with her good eye. "Do we know-"

She broke off as a Marine lieutenant marched up with a fresh Masadan prisoner. He came to attention and saluted his superiors; the Masadan didn't, but he looked less sullen than many of his fellows.

"Captain, Major," the lieutenant said, "this is Colonel Harris, the commander of the ground defense force."

"I see." Ramirez examined the Masadan. "Colonel, I'm Major Ramirez, Royal Manticoran Marines. This is Captain Harrington of Her Majesty's Navy."

Harris' gaze snapped to Honor as she was named, and his eyes narrowed. She saw a flash of repugnance in them, yet she wasn't certain whether it was because of who and what she was—the woman whose forces had defeated the Faithful—or because of the ruined side of her face. He looked at her for a moment, then bobbed a stiff, wordless nod.

"Allow me to commend you for instructing your people to surrender," Ramirez continued, and Honor was content to let his less threatening, male voice handle the conversation. "It undoubtedly saved their lives."

Harris gave another nod, still without speaking.

"However, Colonel," Ramirez went on, "we seem to have a problem here." He tapped the plan of the base. "Some of your men are still resisting in these sectors. They don't have the firepower to stop us, and an awful lot of them are going to get killed if we have to go in after them. I would appreciate it if you would instruct them to lay down their weapons while they still can."

"I can't do that." Harris spoke for the first time, his voice quiet but firm, despite an edge of bitterness. "Anyone who was going to surrender already has, Major. My talking to them won't change their minds."

"Then I'm afraid we're going to have to call out the really heavy weapons," Ramirez said, watching the colonel's face closely. Harris' eyes seemed to go very still, and then he inhaled deeply.

"I wouldn't do that, Major." He put his finger on the map, five centimeters from Ramirez's. "There are Manticoran prisoners in this area."

"Harris, you fucking traitor!"

Honor's head snapped around, and her single eye flashed with rage as Captain Williams writhed and twisted in the hands of a Manticoran Marine. He was actually frothing at the mouth, screaming imprecations at the colonel, and this time she chose not to intervene when he was slammed back against the wall. His torrent of abuse died in a hoarse, anguished cough as the impact knocked the breath from him, and she looked back at Harris.

"Please continue, Colonel," she said quietly. He flinched at the sound of her voice, but he tapped the plan again.

"This is where they are, Major," he said as if Honor hadn't spoken. "And if I were you, I'd get in there quickly," he added. "Very quickly."

"Captain, will you please get further back?!" Sergeant Talon grated. Smoke hazed the corridor, and grenade explosions and a savage crackle of small-arms fire thundered up ahead.

"No, I won't, Sergeant," Honor didn't—quite—snap. She knew perfectly well she had no business in a ground battle. That wasn't her area of expertise. But her pulser was in her hand as Captain Hibson's leading elements smashed ahead down the passageway.

"If anything happens to you, the Major'll have my ass!" Talon growled, then added, as an afterthought, "Begging the Captain's pardon."

"Nothing's going to happen to me," Honor said, and Scotty Tremaine rolled his eyes heavenward behind her.

"Ma'am, I-" The fire ahead rose to a crescendo, then died, and Talon listened to her command net. "That's it. They're clear to Corridor Seven-Seventeen." She gave Honor another glare. "This time, stay behind me, Captain!"

"Yes, Sergeant," Honor said meekly, and Talon snorted again.

They waded forward through the smoke and debris, past bodies and bits of bodies and blood-splashed corridor walls. A few Marines were down, for if none of the Masadan infantry weapons were remotely equal to theirs, these defenders had had a little more time to prepare, and the most fanatic among them had charged from concealment with suicide charges of blasting compound. Few had reached their targets, and most of those they'd hit were only lightly injured, thanks to their armor, but such rabid fanaticism was frightening.

Honor was just stepping over a tangled heap of dead Masadans when an armored Marine lieutenant swooped up the passage and slammed to a halt.

"Captain Harrington, Major Ramirez's respects, and could you please come straight ahead. We've . . . found the prisoners, Ma'am."

His voice was flat and harsh, and Honor's stomach clenched. She started to ask a question, then stopped herself at the look in his eyes. Instead, she simply nodded and started forward at a half-run.

This time Sergeant Talon raised no demur; she just sent her lead section leaping ahead to clear the way. When Honor stumbled over a corpse, the sergeant caught her without a word, then swung her up in armored arms and went bounding ahead at a pace she could never have matched on her own feet. Corporal Liggit did the same for Tremaine, and the corridor walls blurred with the speed of their passage.

They emerged into a wider area, clogged by Marines who seemed struck by a strange stillness, and Talon set her down. She squirmed forward between the bulky, towering suits of battle armor, hearing Scotty wiggling through them behind her, then came to an abrupt halt as Ramirez loomed suddenly before her.

The major's eyes were hard, his nostrils flared, and he radiated pure, murderous fury. A barred door stood open behind him, and a pair of medics knelt in a pool of blood as they worked frantically over a man in the filthy uniform of a Manticoran petty officer. A Masadan officer's corpse sprawled against the wall opposite the cell, and he hadn't been killed by pulser fire. His head had been twisted off like a bottle cap, and the right arm of the battle-armored Marine private beside his body was bloody to the elbow.

"We've found six dead so far, Ma'am," Ramirez grated without preamble. "Apparently this bastard-" he jerked a savage gesture at the headless Masadan "—just started walking down the corridor shooting prisoners when our point broke into the cell block. I-"

He broke off as the senior medic rose from beside the petty officer. He met the ajor's gaze and shook his head slightly, and Ramirez swallowed a savage curse.

Honor's single eye burned as she stared at the body, and the memory of how she'd kept Ramirez from smashing Williams was gall on her tongue while the major got himself back under a semblance of control.

"I'm afraid this isn't all of it, Ma'am," he said in a harsh, clipped voice. "If you'll come with me?" She nodded and started forward, but he waved Tremaine back as he began to follow. "Not you, Lieutenant."

Tremaine looked a question at Honor, but something in Ramirez's voice warned her, and she shook her head quickly. His expression turned mutinous for just a moment, then smoothed, and he stepped back beside Sergeant Talon.

Ramirez led Honor another forty meters, to a bend in the passage, then stopped and swallowed.

"Captain, I'd better stay here."

She started to ask him a question, but his face stopped her. Instead, she nodded once and stepped around the corner.

The dozen Marines in evidence looked odd. For a moment, she couldn't understand why, then she realized: they'd all removed their helmets, and every one of them was a woman. The realization struck a terrible icicle through her, and she quickened her pace, then slid to a halt in the open door of a cell.

"Honey, you've got to let us have her," someone was saying softly, gently. "Please. We've got to take care of her."

It was Captain Hibson, and her strong, confident voice was fogged with tears as she bent over the naked, battered young woman on the filthy bunk. The prisoner's face was almost unrecognizable under its cuts and bruises, but Honor knew her. Just as she knew the equally naked, even more terribly battered woman in her arms.

The young woman clung to her companion desperately, trying to shield her with her own body, and Honor stepped forward numbly. She knelt beside the bunk, and the young woman—the girl—on it stared at her with broken, animal eyes and whimpered in terror.

"Ensign Jackson," Honor said, and a spark of something like humanity flickered far back in those brutalized eyes. "Do you know who I am, Ensign?"

Mai-ling Jackson stared at her an endless moment longer, then jerked her head in a spastic, uncoordinated nod.

"We're here to help you, Ensign." Honor would never know how she kept her voice soft and even, but she did. She touched the stiff, matted hair gently, and the naked ensign flinched as if from a blow. "We're here to help you," Honor repeated while tears slid down her face, "but you have to let us have Commander Brigham. The medics will help her, but you have to let her go."

Ensign Jackson whimpered, clinging even more tightly to the limp body in her arms, and Honor stroked her hair again.

"Please, Mai-ling. Let us help her."

The ensign looked down at Mercedes Brigham's blood-caked face, and her whimpers collapsed into a terrible sob. For a moment, Honor thought she would refuse, that they'd have to take Brigham from her by force, but then her desperate grip loosened. Hibson stepped in quickly, lifting the barely breathing Commander in armored arms, and Mai-ling Jackson screamed like a soul in hell as Honor gathered her in a protective embrace.

It took ten minutes and all the medics could do to break Ensign Jackson's hysteria, and even then Honor knew it was only a calm in the storm. There was too much hell in those broken, almond eyes for anything more, but at last she lay still on the stretcher, torn by great, heaving shudders under the blanket. She clung to her CO's hand like a child, eyes begging her to make it all a nightmare, not real, and Honor knelt beside her.

"Can you tell us what happened?" she asked gently, and the ensign jerked as if she'd been struck. But this time she licked her scab-crusted lips and gave a tiny, frightened nod.

"Yes, Ma'am," she whispered, but then her mouth worked soundlessly and fresh tears spangled her eyes.

"Take your time," Honor murmured in that same, gentle voice, and Jackson seemed to draw a sort of fragile strength from its encouragement.

"T-they picked us up," she whispered in a tiny thread of a voice. "The Captain, and Exec, and I w-were the only o-officers alive, Ma'am. I-I think there were twenty or . . . or thirty others. I'm not sure."

She swallowed again, and one of the medics pressed a cup of water into Honor's free hand. She held it to the ensign's lips, and Jackson sipped shallowly. Then she lay back on the stretcher, eyes closed. When she spoke again, her voice was flat, mechanical, without any human feeling.

"They brought us back here. For a while—a couple of days, maybe—it wasn't too bad, but they put all the officers in the same cell. They said-" her brief, frozen calm began to crack once more "—they said since we'd let women in uniform, the Captain could keep his w-whores with him."

The living side of Honor's face was as mask-like as the dead side, but she squeezed the ensign's hand.

"Then . . . then they just went crazy," Jackson whispered. "They came and took . . . me and the Commander. W-we thought it was just for interrogation, but then they threw us into . . . into this big room, and there were all these men, and they . . . they-"

Her voice broke, and Honor stroked her face as she sobbed.

"They said it was because we were women," she gasped. "They . . . they laughed at us, and they hurt us, and they said . . . they said it w-was G-G-God's will to . . . to punish Satan's w-w-whores!"

She opened her eyes and dragged herself up, staring into Honor's face while her hand tightened like a claw.

"We fought them, Ma'am. We did! B-but we were handcuffed, and t-there were so many of them! Please, Ma'am—we tried! We tried!"

"I know, Mai-ling. I know you did," Honor said through her own tears, hugging the brutalized young body, and the ensign relaxed convulsively. Her head rested on Honor's shoulder, and her voice was broken and dead.

"W-when they were . . . done, they . . . threw us back. The Captain—Captain Alvarez—did what he could, b-but he hadn't known, Captain. He hadn't known what they were going to do."

"I know," Honor whispered again, and the ensign's teeth clenched.

"T-then they came back, a-and I couldn't fight any more, Ma'am. I-I just couldn't. I tried, but-" She dragged in a ragged breath. "Commander Brigham could. I-I think she hurt some of them really bad b-before they got her down, and then they beat her and beat her and beat her!" The broken voice climbed, and a medic stepped in with a hypo as she trembled violently in Honor's arms.

"The Captain tried to stop them, Ma'am. H-he tried, and . . . and they knocked him down with their rifle butts, and then they . . . they-" She twisted in agony, and Honor covered her mouth with her hand, stilling her voice while the hypo took effect. She'd already seen the huge, dried bloodstain on the cell floor and the ragged streaks where someone's heels had been dragged through it to the door.

"And then they raped us again," the ensign said at last, her eyes hazy. "Again and again, and . . . and they said how nice it was of their CO to . . . to give them their own whores."

Her thready voice faded to silence, and Honor eased her back down and bent to kiss the filthy, bruised forehead, then tucked the ensign's limp hand under the blanket and rose.

"Take care of her," she told the senior Marine medic, and the woman nodded, her own face wet with tears.

Honor nodded back, then turned towards the door of the cell. As she stepped through it, she drew her sidearm and checked the magazine.

Major Ramirez looked up as Captain Harrington came up the corridor.

"Captain, what shall I—?"

She brushed by him as if he hadn't spoken. There was no expression at all on her face, but the right side of her mouth twitched violently, and her gun was in her hand.

"Captain? Captain Harrington!"

He reached out to grasp her arm, and she looked at him at last.

"Get out of my way, Major." Each word was precisely, perfectly formed despite her crippled mouth. "Clean up this section. Find every one of our people. Get them out of here."

"But-"

"You have your orders, Major," she said in that same, chilled-steel tone, and twitched out of his grasp. She started up the corridor once more, and he stared after her helplessly.

She didn't look up when she reached the Marines in the passageway. She just strode straight ahead, and they scattered like frightened children. Sergeant Talon's squad started to fall in around her, but she waved them back with a savage chop of her hand and kept walking.

Lieutenant Tremaine stared after her, biting his lip. He'd heard about the discoveries the Marines had made. He hadn't believed it at first—hadn't wanted to believe it—but then the medics had carried Commander Brigham's stretcher past him. He'd believed it then, and the Marines' fury had been dwarfed by his own, for he knew Mercedes Brigham well. Very well, indeed.

The Captain said she wanted to be alone. She'd ordered everyone to leave her alone. But Scotty Tremaine had seen her face.

She turned a bend in the corridor, and his own face tightened with decision. He laid aside his plasma carbine and went hurrying after her.

Honor climbed the rubble-strewn stairs, ignoring the labored breathing of whoever was trying to catch up with her. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. She vaulted up the stairs, using her long legs and the light gravity, brushing past an occasional Marine, stepping through an occasional puddle of Masadan blood, and her single eye glowed like molten steel.

She walked down the final corridor, gaze fixed on the open mess hall door, and a voice was calling her from behind. It was distant and unreal, immaterial, and she ignored it as she stepped into the crowded room.

A Marine officer saluted, then flinched back from her in shock, and she went past him as if he didn't exist. Her eye swept the lines of prisoners, searching for the face she sought, and found it.

Captain Williams looked up as if he felt her hatred, and his face paled. She walked towards him, shoving people out of her way, and the voice calling her name was even louder as its owner pushed and shoved through the crowd behind her.

Williams tried to twist away, but her left hand tangled in his hair, and he cried out in agony as she slammed his head back against the wall. His mouth worked, gobbling words she didn't bother to hear, and her right hand pressed the muzzle against his forehead and began to squeeze.

Someone else's hands locked on her forearm, shoving frantically, and the sharp, spiteful explosion of a pulser dart pocked the mess hall roof as her pistol whined. She wrenched at the hands on her arm, trying to throw whoever it was off, but they clung desperately, and someone was shouting in her ear.

More voices shouted, more hands joined the ones on her arm, dragging her back from Williams while the man sagged to his knees, retching and weeping in terror, and she fought madly against them all. But she couldn't wrench free, and she went to her own knees as someone snatched the pistol from her grip and someone else gripped her head and forced it around.

"Skipper! Skipper, you can't!" Scotty Tremaine half-sobbed, holding her face between his hands while tears ran down his cheeks. "Please, Skipper! You can't do this—not without a trial!"

She stared at him, her detached mind wondering what a trial had to do with anything, and he shook her gently.

"Please, Skipper. If you shoot a prisoner without a trial the Navy-" He drew a deep breath. "You can't, Ma'am, however much he deserves it."

"No, she can't," a voice like frozen helium said, and a trace of sanity came back into Honor's expression as she saw Admiral Matthews. "I came as soon as I heard, Captain," he spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he sensed the need to break through to her, "but your lieutenant's right. You can't kill him." She stared deep into his eyes, and something inside her eased as she saw the agony and shame—and fury—in his soul.

"But?" she didn't recognize her own voice, and Matthews' mouth twisted in contemptuous hate as he glared down at the sobbing Masadan captain.

"But I can. Not without a trial. He'll have one, I assure you, and so will all the animals he turned loose on your people. They'll be scrupulously, completely fair—and as soon as they're over, this sick, sadistic piece of garbage and all the others responsible will be hanged like the scum they are." He met her eye levelly, and his icy voice was soft.

"I swear that to you, Captain, on the honor of the Grayson Navy."