Honor frowned and rubbed the tip of her nose, wondering (far from the first time) how someone like Young had survived so long in the Queens service. She'd seen Corell's reaction to him mirrored in too many other officers, many of them male, to believe her own opinion of him was unique.
She sighed and tipped her chair further back. In light of her troubles with him, she'd researched his background more carefully than she cared to admit, and what she'd found appalled her. She'd always known a certain segment of the aristocracy (not all of them conservatives, by a long mark) believed the rules didn't apply to them, that they were above the constraints lesser beings had to accept, but the Young family was outstanding even among the scum element of the nobility. From all reports, Pavel's father, the current Earl of North Hollow, was as bad as Pavel himself... and the record suggested his grandfather might actually have been worse! Three entire generations of the same family had gone their self-centered way, as if determined to single-handedly prove the depths to which "nobility" could sink, and somehow they'd gotten away with it.
Wealth, birth, and political influence, she thought sourly. Power they took so completely for granted that the responsibilities which went with it had no bearing on their lives. Power they abused with a casual lack of concern that sickened her. That it revolted the majority of their peers, as well, did little to protect less eminent persons from them, and sometimes that made her wonder about her entire society. Yet even at her most depressed, a stubborn part of her insisted that the very reason they stood out so disgustingly was because they were the exceptions, not the rule.
She twitched her shoulders and took herself to task. Why Young acted as he did and how he got away with it were less important than the consequences, and one thing had become clear to her. Paul was right; Young was afraid of her. It showed in his eyes, now that she knew to look for it, on the rare occasions when he found himself within her reach, and she was a little ashamed by her intense satisfaction at that discovery. Not even the fact that he and Houseman obviously were doing their best to alienate Commodore Van Slyke from her could impair her grim pleasure—though it might have, she conceded honestly, if Van Slyke had been willing to pay them the least attention.
She smiled again, bleakly, and turned back to her terminal as thoughts of the commodore returned her attention to important things. She brought up a display of the system and the task group's current dispositions and felt herself nodding in slow satisfaction as she studied it.
Admiral Sarnow had rethought his deployments in the last week or so, and the task group was no longer clustered tightly about the base. He'd left the minelayers there, for he'd evolved a plan for their use that was both subtler and safer than the one Honor had envisioned, but he'd moved his battlecruisers and heavy cruisers to the far side of the primary from the base to cover the most probable approach vectors from Seaford Nine.
There was an element of risk in that, Honor acknowledged. If the bad guys came at them from the opposite direction, they might find themselves badly placed to meet the threat, but they were close enough in that they should have time to intercept short of the base. It would be tight on the least favorable approach, since towing the pods slowed them to a max accel of less than 359 gees, and the interception would come at a dangerously low range, yet the edge their FTL sensor capability gave them should make it possible. On the other hand, it was unlikely Admiral Rollins would get too tricky. If he believed he had the strength to take the system, he'd feel no real need for sneakiness; if he doubted that he could do it, then he'd have every reason for caution and conservatism in any attack he might launch.
She nodded again, then looked up at the admittance signal's chime. She checked her chrono, and her eyebrows rose as she pressed the stud. She hadn't realized it was quite so late in the morning.
"Yes?" she said.
"Executive Officer, Ma'am," her Marine sentry announced.
"Thank you, Corporal. Come on in, Exec."
The hatch slid open almost instantly, and Mike Henke grinned at her.
"Ready for the weekly reports, Ma'am?" Henke took the memo pad from under her arm and waved it, and Honor groaned.
"As ready as I ever am." She sighed, and pointed to a chair across from her desk. "Take a seat and let's see how quickly we can get through them this time."
"All right, then." Henke nodded and tapped a note into her memo pad. "That takes care of the hardware side of the engineering department. Now—" she scanned a fresh screen of data "—about those promotions. Chief Manton is definitely due for senior chief, but if we bump him up we'll be over establishment in electronics."
"Um." Honor tapped a finger gently on her crossed knee as she leaned back in her chair. The captain of a Queen's ship had broad power to authorize enlisted and noncom promotions, as long as she stayed within the establishment laid down by BuPers for her command. If a promotion exceeded her establishment, she was required to return the "overly senior" personnel to Admiralty control for reassignment as soon as possible. It was a pain in the posterior, but Honor knew it was also intended to prevent captains from showing too much favoritism.
"His efficiency report is top drawer, Mike," she said at last. "And Lord knows he's done an outstanding job ever since we commissioned. I don't want to lose him, but I don't want to hold him back, either. Besides, we'll still be over establishment whenever he gets his rocker, even if we wait until BuPers acts, and he'll spend another ten months in grade, easy. If we bump him now, at least we can get him the salary and seniority he deserves."
"Agreed. The only problem is that regs are going to require that either he or Senior Chief Fanning be reassigned out of Nike."
"Unless we get the Admiral to sign off on letting us hang onto him 'in the interests of the Service,'" Honor mused. "After all, he's about the best gravitic tech I've ever seen, and we do have the pulse transmitter to worry about. That's been his baby from the outset, so—"
She broke off with a grimace as her terminal chimed.
"'Scuse me a minute, Mike," she said, and swung her chair back upright. She punched the acceptance key, and her terminal flicked to life with Evelyn Chandlers face. Honor took one look at her expression and stiffened.
"Yes, Eve?"
"The outer sensor net's just reported a hyper footprint, Ma'am—a big one, about thirty-five light-minutes out from the primary. It's right on the mark for a least-time approach from Seaford."
"I see." Honor felt Henke's sudden tension and was astounded by how calm her own voice sounded. "How big is 'big,' Eve?"
"We're still getting the preliminary readings, Ma'am. At the moment, it looks like thirty to forty capital ships, plus escorts," Chandler said flatly, and Honor's mouth firmed.
"Does Flag Plot have your data?"
"Yes, Ma'am. CIC is feeding it to them now, but—"
A brilliant scarlet override icon flashed in the corner of Honors screen, and her raised hand halted the tac officer in mid-sentence.
"This is probably the Admiral now, Eve. Don't go away."
She accepted the emergency call and straightened her shoulders as Mark Sarnow's face replaced Chandler's. His heavy eyebrows were tight, his mouth grim under his mustache, and Honor made herself smile a welcome even though she knew he saw the tension in her own expression.
"Good morning, Sir. I assume you've seen the scanner data?"
"I have, indeed."
"I've just been discussing it with Commander Chandler, Sir. May I bring her back into the circuit?"
"Certainly!" Sarnow agreed, and the screen flickered as Honor brought Chandler into a three-way conference. A moment later, a second flicker split Honor's screen into fifths, not halves, as Captain Corell, Commander Cartwright, and Lieutenant Southman, Sarnow's intelligence officer, plugged into the same circuit.