CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Honor Harrington sat staring out the view port, her soul cold as the space beyond the armorplast, and Admiral Matthews, Alice Truman, and Alistair McKeon sat silently behind her.

Nineteen. Nineteen of Madrigal's people were alive, and that figure had been enough to crack Commander Theisman's reserve at last. There was no record of any survivors in the Blackbird data base. Apparently Williams had erased it, but it was Theisman who'd picked up Madrigal's survivors, and there had been fifty-three of them. Twenty-six had been women. Of that number, only Ensign Jackson and Mercedes Brigham were still alive, and Fritz Montoya's face had been terrible as he described Brigham's internal injuries and broken bones.

Honor had made certain Theisman was present to hear Montoya's report, and the Commander had gone absolutely white as he turned to her in horror.

"Captain Harrington, I swear I didn't know how bad it really was." He'd swallowed harshly. "Please, you have to believe me. I-I knew it was bad, but there wasn't anything I could do, and . . . and I didn't know how bad."

His agony had been genuine—as had his shame. Madrigal's bosun had confirmed that it was Theisman's missiles which had killed the Admiral. Honor had wanted to hate him for that, wanted to hate him so badly she could taste it, and his anguish had taken even that away from her.

"I believe you, Commander," she'd said wearily, then inhaled deeply. "Are you prepared to testify before a Grayson court on the matters of which you do have personal knowledge? No one will ask you why you 'immigrated' to Masada. I have Admiral Matthews' promise on that. But very few of the real Masadans are going to voluntarily testify against Williams and his animals."

"Yes, Ma'am." Theisman's voice had been cold. "Yes, Ma'am, I'll testify. And—I'm sorry, Captain. More sorry than I'll ever be able to tell you."

Now she sat gazing at the stars, and her heart was ice within her, for if Blackbird's data base hadn't mentioned the prisoners, it had held other information. She knew, at last, what she truly faced, and it wasn't a heavy cruiser. Not a heavy cruiser at all.

"Well," she said at last, "at least we know."

"Yes, Ma'am," Alice Truman said quietly. She paused for a moment, and then she asked the question in all their minds. "What do we do now, Ma'am?"

The right side of Honor's mouth quirked without humor, for deep inside she was afraid she knew the answer. She had one damaged heavy cruiser, one damaged destroyer, and one completely crippled light cruiser, and she faced an eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-ton battlecruiser. What was left of Grayson's Navy didn't even count. She might as well shoot their crews herself as commit them against a Sultan-class battlecruiser . . . and her own ship was no match for one, either. A Sultan carried almost twice her armament, five times her ammunition, and sidewalls far heavier than her own. Despite Fearless's superior electronics, there would be very few survivors if she and Troubadour went toe-to-toe against Thunder of God.

"We do the best we can, Alice," she said softly. She straightened her shoulders and turned from the view port, and her voice was crisper. "It's always possible they'll decide not to push it. They've lost virtually all their Masadan units. That leaves Haven without any sort of cover. This 'Thunder of God's' skipper will be as well aware of that as we are, and he can't know how soon we expect reinforcements."

"But we know, Ma'am." McKeon's voice was quiet. "The freighters won't even make Manticore for another nine days. Add four days for the Fleet to respond, and-" He shrugged.

"I know." Honor looked at Truman. "Apollo's nodes and Warshawski sails are in good shape, Alice. You can cut five days off that response time."

"Yes, Ma'am." Truman's face was desperately unhappy, but there was absolutely nothing she could do to help here.

"Alistair, you and I will have to get our heads together on the way back to Grayson. We're going to have to fight smart, if it comes to it."

"Yes, Ma'am," McKeon said as quietly as Truman, and Honor looked at Admiral Matthews as he cleared his throat.

"Captain, none of us suspected just how heavy the odds against you really are, but your people have already done—and suffered—far more for us than we had any right to expect. I hope that whoever Thunder of God's captain may be, he'll have the sense, the sanity, to realize the game is lost and pull her out. If he doesn't, however, surely Grayson can survive whatever the Faithful may do until your relief force gets here."

He fell silent, and Honor knew what he was trying to say—and why he couldn't quite say it in so many words. He knew how unlikely her ships were to survive against a Sultan, and the man in him wanted to give her a way out, to find a reason for her to back off and survive. But the admiral in him knew how desperate the Masadans would become when they heard what had happened to Blackbird, their navy, and Principality. Desperate people did irrational things . . . and Masada had stated its willingness to nuke Grayson when it wasn't desperate.

Poor as her own chances against a Sultan might be, Fearless and Troubadour were all Grayson had, and if she pulled them out . . .

"Perhaps, Admiral," she said quietly. "But if they're insane enough to continue at all at this point, there's no way to predict what they may do. And even if there were, it's my job to protect the planet."

"But you're not Graysons, Captain." Matthews' voice was as quiet as her own, and she shrugged.

"No, we're not. But we've been through a lot with you people, and we owe Masada." She heard a soft growl of agreement in McKeon's throat. "Admiral Courvosier would have expected me to stand by you just as he did, Sir," she went on past a fresh stab of sorrow and guilt. "More importantly, it's what my Queen would expect of me—and what I would expect of myself." She shook her head. "We're not going anywhere, Admiral Matthews. If Masada still wants Grayson, they'll have to come through us to get it."

"Yes, Sir. I'm afraid it is confirmed." Captain Yu sat in the Honorable Jacob Lacy's office, and Haven's ambassador to Masada looked just as grim as he did. Unlike most of his diplomatic colleagues, Lacy was a retired naval officer, a fact for which Yu was profoundly grateful.

"Shit," the ambassador muttered now. "Principality, too?"

"All of them, Mr. Ambassador," Yu said harshly. "Tom Theisman squealed a download to Virtue just before Harrington began her final run, and Blackbird Base confirmed the complete destruction of the Masadan fleet before it went off the air. For all practical purposes, Thunder is all that's left, Sir."

Rage clogged his voice and smoldered like lava in the back of his throat as he admitted it. If only Tractor Five hadn't gone down. If only it hadn't turned out even the flux coil was shot. Twelve hours of repairs had turned into twenty, then twenty-five, and then that fat-headed, stupid, incompetent fucker Simonds had cost them another full day and a half with his fits and starts! If it hadn't been so insane, Yu would have sworn the idiot was trying to delay their return to Yeltsin's Star!

And the result had been catastrophe.

"What are Masada's chances now, Captain?" Lacy asked after a moment.

"They'd have better luck putting out Yeltsin's Star by pissing on it, Sir. Oh, I could take Harrington. I'd get hurt-Star Knights are nasty customers—but I could take her out. Only it wouldn't do any damned good. She must have sent for help. All her warships were present at Blackbird, but if she sent her freighters away first, she could still have a relief force out here in ten or twelve days. And there will be a relief force—one that'll come in ready to kick ass and take names, Sir. We've destroyed at least one Manticoran ship; from Blackbird's final report, we killed some more Manticorans there, and Harrington undoubtedly has proof Principality was Haven-built. Whatever the Staff and Cabinet may think, the RMN won't take that lying down."

"And if Masada were in possession of Grayson when they arrived?" It was clear from Lacy's tone that he already knew the answer, and Yu snorted.

"It wouldn't matter a good goddamn, Mr. Ambassador. Besides, I doubt Grayson will surrender if they know help is coming, and that idiot Simonds is just likely to order demonstration nuclear strikes." He clenched his jaw. "If he does, Sir, I'll refuse to carry them out."

"Of course you will!" Yu relaxed just a bit at the ambassador's response. "There's no possible moral justification for slaughtering civilians or violating the Eridani Edict, and the diplomatic repercussions would be catastrophic."

"Then what do you want me to do, Sir?" the Captain asked quietly.

"I don't know." Lacy scrubbed his hands over his face and frowned up at the ceiling for a long, silent moment, then sighed.

"This operation is shot to hell, Captain, and it's not your fault." Yu nodded and hoped—without much conviction—that the Staff would endorse Lacy's opinion.

"Grayson will fall all over itself to sign the treaty now. Not only has all this underlined the Masadan threat, but we've literally thrown them into Manticore's arms. Gratitude, as well as self-interest, is going to push them together, and I don't see any way to avert that. If the Masadans had pushed operations more vigorously, or allowed us to station a squadron or two in Endicott to back you up, that might not be the case, but now-"

The ambassador pinched the bridge of his nose, then went on slowly.

"In a lot of ways, I'd like to simply wash our hands of the entire situation, but once Grayson signs up with Manticore, we'll need a presence in Endicott worse than ever. And much as I'm rapidly coming to despise the 'Faithful,' they'll need us worse than ever with Manticore and Grayson both itching to chop them up. The trick is going to be keeping them alive long enough to realize that."

"Agreed, Sir. But how do we go about doing that?"

"We stall. It's all we can do. I'll send my courier boat off to request a 'visit' by a battle squadron or two, but it's going to take at least a T-month for anything to come of that. Somehow, we're going to have to keep Masada from doing anything stupid—anything else stupid, that is—while we simultaneously fend off any Manticoran counterattack against Endicott."

"If you'll forgive my saying so, Mr. Ambassador, that would be a neat trick if you could do it."

"I don't know that I can," Lacy admitted, "but it's the best we can hope for now." He swung his chair slowly back and forth, then nodded. "If you can keep the Masadans from launching any more adventures against Yeltsin, then your ship will still be intact and in Endicott when the Manticorans turn up, right?" Yu nodded, and the ambassador leaned over his desk. "Then I need you to be completely honest with me, Captain. I know how close you are to Commander Theisman, but I have to ask this. Assuming he and his people survived, will they have stuck to their cover story?"

"Yes, Sir." Yu's response was definite. "No one'll believe it, but they'll follow orders, and they all have official Masadan documentation."

"All right. Then what we'll do is this. You'll stall Sword Simonds while I work on his brother and the Council of Elders. If we can prevent any further offensive against Grayson and keep Thunder intact, I'll try to run a bluff if Manticore moves to punish Masada. When they turn up, Thunder will revert to being PNS Saladin, an official Republican unit defending the territory of a Republican ally."

"My God, Sir—Manticore will never buy it!"

"Probably not," Lacy agreed grimly, "but if I can get them to hesitate, even briefly, over committing an open act of war against us, I'll have a toe in the door. And if I talk fast enough, and if Masada agrees to make massive enough reparations, we may just be able to prevent outright invasion of Endicott until our reinforcements get here."

"Mr. Ambassador, Masada doesn't have anything to pay reparations with. They've bankrupted themselves with their military budgets."

"I know. We'll have to bankroll them . . . which will be one more hook in our favor, if it works."

Yu shook his head. "I realize you don't have much to work with, Sir, but this sounds awfully thin. And I guarantee the Masadans won't go for it. Not willingly, anyway. I'm beginning to think they're even crazier than we thought, and one thing I do know is that Simonds—both the Simondses—are determined to avoid becoming a Republican client state."

"Even when the only other option is their destruction?"

"I wouldn't bet against it, and that's assuming they're ready to admit their only other option is destruction. You know what a fruitcake religion they've got."

"Yes, I do." Lacy sighed. "That's why we're not going to tell them what we're doing until it's too late for them to screw it up. We're going to have to keep them in the dark about what we're really up to and hope they realize later that we were right."

"Jesus," Yu murmured, sagging back in his chair. "You don't want much, do you, Mr. Ambassador?"

"Captain," Lacy smiled wryly, "no one knows better than I do what a sack of snakes I'm handing you. Unfortunately, it's the only sack I've got. Do you think you can bring it off?"

"No, Sir, I don't," Yu said frankly. "But I don't see any choice but to try, either."

" . . . but to try, either," Captain Yu's voice said, and the click as Deacon Sands switched off the tape recorder echoed in the council chamber. He looked at Chief Elder Simonds, but the Chief Elder's fiery eyes were locked upon his brother's expressionless face.

"So much for your precious allies, Matthew. And your own men don't seem to have done much better!"

Sword Simonds bit his lip. The Council's terrified hostility was palpable; anything he said would be futile, and he closed his mouth, feeling sweat on his forehead, then looked up in astonishment as someone else spoke.

"With all respect, Chief Elder, I don't think this can all be laid on Sword Simonds' shoulders," Elder Huggins said flatly. "We instructed him to delay operations."

The Chief Elder gaped at Huggins, for his hatred for and jealousy of Matthew Simonds were legendary, but Huggins went on in a precise voice.

"Our instructions to the Sword were the best we knew to give, but we made insufficient allowance for the forces of Satan, Brothers." He looked around the council table. "Our ships in Yeltsin were destroyed by this woman, this handmaiden of Satan, Harrington." His calm, almost detached tone gave his hatred an even more terrible power. "It is she who has profaned all we hold most holy. She has set herself against God's Work, and the Sword can scarcely be blamed because we exposed him to the Devil's venom."

A quiet rustle ran around the table, and Huggins smiled thinly.

"Then again, there are our 'allies.' They, too, are infidel. Have we not known from the beginning that their ends and ours differed? Was it not our fear of being engulfed by them which led us to prefer Maccabeus to outright invasion?" He shrugged. "We were wrong there, too. Maccabeus has failed us, if, indeed, he was ever truly ours. Either he made his attempt and failed, or else he will never make it at all, and after their joint battles, the Apostate and the harlot who rules Manticore will become closer than brothers. It is inevitable—if we allow the Devil to triumph."

He paused, and Thomas Simonds moistened his lips in the dead silence.

"May we assume from that last remark, Brother Huggins, that you have a proposal?" Huggins nodded, and the Chief Elder's eyes narrowed. "May we hear it?"

"The Havenite infidels clearly don't realize we've been able to listen to their plans to betray us," Huggins said conversationally. Sword Simonds shifted in his chair, swallowing any temptation to differ with Huggins' interpretation of Haven's purpose, and the Elder went on in the same everyday tone. "They think to play men who have set their hands to God's Work for fools, Brothers. They care nothing for the Work; their sole concern is to ensnare us in an 'alliance' against their enemies. Anything they say to us from this time forward will be shaped by that concern, and as such, they will be as words from Satan's own mouth. Is this not true?"

He looked around once more, and heads nodded. The assembled Elders' faces were those of men who have seen disaster staring back at them from their own mirrors. The catastrophe which had overwhelmed their plans, the trap into which they had thrust themselves and their planet, terrified them, and the only certitude in a universe which had turned to shifting sand was their Faith.

"Very well. If we cannot trust them, then we must make our own plans and bring them to fruition in God's Name even while we dissemble against the dissemblers. They believe our cause is hopeless, but we, Brothers, we know God is with us. It is His Work to which we are called, and we must not allow ourselves to falter and fail once more. There must be no Third Fall."

"Amen," someone murmured, and Sword Simonds felt a stir deep within him. He was a military man, whatever Captain Yu thought. Most of the decisions which infuriated the Havenite had sprung not from stupidity but from an agenda Haven knew nothing about, and he was only too well aware of the disastrous military position. Yet he was also a man of the Faith. He believed, despite all ambition, despite any veneer of sophistication, and as he listened to Huggins' quiet words, he heard his own faith calling to him.

"Satan is cunning," Huggins went on. "Twice before he has sundered Man from God, each time using woman as his tool. Now he seeks to do so yet again, using the Harlot of Manticore and her handmaiden Harrington, and if we view our situation only through the eyes of the flesh, it is, indeed, hopeless. But there are other eyes, Brothers. How often must we succumb to the Devil's wiles before we recognize God's Truth? We must put our trust in Him and follow Him even as Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednigo followed into the furnace and Daniel followed into the lion's den. I say to you our position is not hopeless. I say it can never be hopeless so long as God is our Captain."

"No doubt that's true, Brother Huggins." Even the Chief Elder's voice was touched with respect. "Yet we—all of us—are but mortal. What recourse have we with our navy gone if the Havenites deprive us even of Thunder of God? How can we stand off the entire power of Manticore if it comes against us?"

"We must only do our part, Chief Elder," Huggins said with absolute certainty. "The means to complete the Apostate's downfall before the Harlot's navy can intervene are in our hands. We must only grasp God's Sword and thrust It home to prove our constancy as His Faithful, and He will confound the Harlot—yes, and the infidels of Haven, as well."

"What do you mean, Brother Huggins?" Sword Simonds asked softly.

"Have we not known from the beginning that Manticore is weak and decadent? If our forces are in possession of Grayson, and if none of the Harlot's ships survive to dispute our version of how that came to pass, then what can she do? She will recoil from the Light of God, and His Hand will uphold us as He has promised It will always uphold the Faithful. And can you not see that He has given us the means to that end?"

Huggins' eyes burned with messianic fire, and his hand shot out to stab a long, bony finger at Deacon Sands' tape recorder.

"We know the infidels' plans, Brothers! We know they intend to divert and desert us, to enmesh us in their net-but they don't know that we know!" He turned his blazing eyes on the sword. "Sword Simonds! If you held undisputed command of Thunder of God, how long would it take you to secure Yeltsin's Star against the Manticoran ships there?"

"A day," Simonds said. "Perhaps less, perhaps a little more. But-"

"But you don't hold undisputed command of it. The infidels have seen to that. But if we pretend to be duped by their lies, if we lull them by seeming to accept their delays, we can change that." He stabbed the sword with another fiery stare. "How much of Thunder of God's crew is of the Faith?"

"A little more than two-thirds, Brother Huggins, but many of the key officers are still infidels. Without them, our men would be unable to get full efficiency out of the ship."

"But they're infidels," Huggins said very, very softly. "Strangers to the Faith who fear death, even in God's Name, because they believe it is an end, not a beginning. If they were forced into combat, where they must fight or die, would they not choose to fight?"

"Yes," the sword almost whispered, and Huggins smiled.

"And, Chief Elder, if the infidels of Haven were saddled with responsibility for an invasion of Yeltsin before the eyes of the galaxy, would they not be forced to at least pretend to have supported us knowingly? Endicott is but one, poor star system—would their credit survive if the galaxy learned that such as we had duped them into serving our ends, not their own?"

"The temptation to avoid embarrassment at any cost would certainly be great," the elder Simonds said slowly.

"And, Brothers," Huggins' eyes swept the table once more, "if the Harlot believed Haven stood behind us, with its fleet poised to grind her kingdom into dust, would she dare confront that threat? Or would she show her true weakness before the Light of God and abandon the Apostate to their fate?"

A low, harsh growl answered him, and he smiled.

"And so God shows us our way," he said simply. "We will let Haven 'delay' us, but we will use the delay to slip more of our own aboard Thunder of God, until we become strong enough to overpower the infidels in her crew. We will seize their ship and make her the true Thunder of God by giving the infidels the choice of certain death or the possibility of life if the Apostate and their allies are defeated. We will smash the ships of Satan's handmaiden and retake Grayson from the Apostate, and the Harlot of Manticore will believe Haven stands behind us. And, Brothers, Haven will stand behind us. The infidels will have no stomach for admitting we made fools of them—and, best of all, we will have achieved their greatest desire by depriving Manticore of an ally in Yeltsin! The People's Republic is corrupt and ambitious. If we attain their end despite their own cowardice, they will embrace our triumph as their own!"

There was a stunned silence, and then someone began to clap. It was only one pair of hands at first, but a second joined them, then a third. A fourth. Within seconds the applause echoed from the ceiling, and Sword Simonds found himself clapping as hard as any.

He stood, still clapping, and not even the knowledge that Huggins had displaced him forever as his brother's successor could smother the hope flaming in his heart. He had entered this room knowing Masada was doomed; now he knew he'd been wrong. He had allowed his faith to falter, forgotten that they were God's Faithful, not solely dependent on their own mortal powers. The great test of his people's Faith had come upon them, and only Huggins had recognized it for what it was—the chance to redeem themselves from the Second Fall at last!

He met the Elder's eyes and bowed, acknowledging the passing of power, and if a corner of his mind knew Huggins' entire plan was a reckless gamble, a last death-or-glory challenge which must end in victory or doom them to utter destruction, he ignored it. Desperation had overwhelmed reason, for he had no other option. The thought that their actions—that his actions—had failed God and doomed the Faith was unacceptable.

It was as simple as that.