"What?" White Haven blinked in confusion, then frowned. "What d'you mean, 'easy'?" he growled, and Webster shook his head and grinned.

"Put Harrington into something 'sedate'? Lord, she'd be chewing the bulkheads inside a week!" He laughed again at the earl's expression and leaned back in his chair. "Sorry," he said, not sounding particularly sorry, "but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to twist your tail after all the grief you've given me over her. As a matter of fact, Lucien and I, um, overruled BuMed while you were out at Hancock. We figure she's up to snuff whatever the psycho-babblers think, so we're throwing her right back into the deep end."

"Deep end?"

"Indeed. We gave her Nike last week."

"Nike?" White Haven sat bolt upright, jaw dropping, then recovered and glared at his friend. "You bastard! Why didn't you just tell me?!"

"I told you you're too easy." Webster chuckled. "Got a bit of a God complex when it comes to faith in your own judgment, too." He cocked an eyebrow. "What made you assume I didn't share your opinion of her?"

"But last month you said—"

"I said we had to go through channels, and we did. Now we've done it. But it was certainly worth it to see you hot and bothered."

"I see." White Haven leaned back in his own chair, and his lips quivered. "All right, so you put one over on me. Next time it's my turn."

"I await the event with trepidation," Webster said dryly.

"Good, because I'm going to catch you when you least expect it." The earl tugged at an earlobe for a moment, then snorted. "But since you're putting her back on a bridge, why not—"

"You never quit, do you?" Webster demanded. "I've just given her the plum command slot in the entire Fleet! What more d'you want from me?"

"Calmly, Jim. Calmly! I was just going to say, why don't you send Nike out to Hancock Station as Sarnow's flagship when she commissions?"

Webster started to reply, then stopped with an arrested expression. He played with his coffee cup for a moment, and then he began to grin.

"You know, you might just have something there. Lord, won't all our other junior flag officers just howl if Sarnow cops Nike!"

"Of course they will, but that wasn't my point. I assume that the fact that you're giving Harrington Nike means that despite your 'tail twisting' you share my estimate of her capabilities?"

"Of course I do. She needs more seasoning before we start talking about flag rank, but she's definitely on the fast track."

"Well, she could learn a lot from Sarnow, and the two of them'd get along like a house on fire," White Haven said. "More than that, frankly, I'd feel a lot better if Parks had a pair like them to keep him on his toes."

"Um. I think I like it," Webster said slowly. "Of course, Yancey will have a fit. You know what a stickler for protocol and proper military courtesy he is. The way Harrington busted that asshole Houseman's chops in Yeltsin is probably going to stick in his craw."

"Let it. It'll be good for him, in the long run."

"All right, Hamish." The First Lord nodded crisply.

"I'll do it. And I only wish I could be there to see Yancey's face when he finds out!"

CHAPTER FOUR

"All right, Helm, take us to eighty percent," Honor said quietly.

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Coming to eighty percent power." Master Chief Coxswain Constanza's skilled hands brought up the strength of Nike's impeller wedge, and Honor watched the command chair repeater displays as her ship's acceleration rose to the Navy's normal maximum power settings. Nike charged towards the outer reaches of Manticore-A's family of planets and asteroids, the bright star chip of Manticore-B glaring dead ahead in the visual display, as the drive readings peaked.

"Eighty percent power, Ma'am," Lieutenant Commander Oselli announced. "Three-point-niner-four-one-four KPS squared."

"Thank you, Charlotte." Honor's soprano was coolly courteous, but her satisfaction was unmistakable. That was bang on the builder's estimate, and she touched a stud on her chair arm.

"Engineering, Commander Ravicz," a voice replied instantly.

"This is the Captain, Commander. How does it look down there?"

Ivan Ravicz glanced at the builder's rep at his elbow, and the woman raised a circled thumb and index finger in the ancient gesture of approval.

"Looking good, Ma'am," the engineer told his CO. "We're getting a tiny kick in the telemetry from Fusion Three, but the drive's dead on the green."

"What sort of kick?"

"Nothing major, Ma'am, just a little bottle fluctuation. It's well within tolerances, and the power room systems don't even show it. That's why I think it's in the telemetry, but I'm keeping an eye on it."

"Good, Ivan. Stand by for our full power run."

"Standing by, Ma'am."

Honor cut the circuit and looked back across at Constanza.

"Take us to maximum military power, Helm."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Coming to maximum military power."

There was a hint of suppressed excitement in the helmswoman's voice, and Honor hid a smile. Coxswains didn't get many opportunities to really open their ships up—nor, for that matter, did captains, since BuShips could be remarkably crabby over "unnecessary and undue strain on the propulsive systems of Her Majesty's starships"—but there was additional reason for excitement today.

Constanza adjusted her power settings slowly, eyes intent on her panel while Honor watched her own readouts with equal intensity. Her mind always tended to drift to the inertial compensator at moments like this. If it failed, Nike's crew would turn instantly into something gruesomely reminiscent of anchovy paste, and Honor's ship had been chosen to test BuShips's newest generation compensator. It was an adaptation of the Grayson Navy's, which hadn't been calculated to inspire confidence in all hands, given that Grayson's general technology lagged a good century behind Manticore's, but Honor had seen the Graysons' system in action. It had been crudely built and mass-intensive, yet it had also been undeniably efficient, and BuShips claimed not only to have exterminated every possible bug but to have tweaked the specs even further, as well. Besides, the Navy hadn't had a compensator failure in over three T-centuries.

Or, at least, not one anyone knew about. Of course, there'd been the occasional ship lost "to causes unknown," and since a compensator failure under max accel would leave no survivors to report it...

She put the thought aside as the wedge peaked and Oselli spoke.

"Maximum military power, Captain." The astrogator looked up with an enormous smile. "Five-one-five-point-five gravities, Ma'am!"

"Very good!" This time Honor couldn't quite keep her delight out of her voice, for that was two and a half percent better than BuShips and the builders had estimated. It might be three percent less than her last ship had been capable of, but HMS Fearless had massed only three hundred thousand tons.

She touched the stud again.

"Engineering, Commander Ravicz."

"The Captain again, Ivan. Everything still green down there?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I wouldn't care to keep her here too long," Honor heard Ravicz's satisfaction waning with his professional caution, "but this ship is really built." The builder's rep grinned at the compliment, and he smiled back.

"We'll back off shortly," Honor told him, and leaned back in her chair as she released the stud. "Hold us at max for another thirty minutes, Helm."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Constanza replied crisply, and Honor felt her bridge crew's pleasure at their ship's performance.

She shared it, but her mind was already reaching ahead to the next phase. Once the sustained full power trial was out of the way, it would be time to exercise Nike's armament. That was one reason for their present course, since the Beta Belt was the Navy's traditional gunnery exercise area. There'd be a few less asteroids shortly, she thought cheerfully, and reached up to scratch Nimitz's chin as he purred on the back of her chair.