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HMS Prince Adrian

Manticore Planetary Orbit

Manticore Binary System

June 14, 1906 PD


brandy floated down the short tube from the shuttle lock, caught the grab bar at the inboard end, and swung herself through the interface from the tube’s microgravity into the ship’s standard single gravity.

Don’t trip, she told herself sternly. Don’t trip!

She’d actually seen a flag officer—only a commodore, perhaps, but still a flag officer—stumble over her own two feet and sprawl flat on her face boarding one of her subordinates’ ships. It could happen to anyone, if she allowed her attention to wander, but the truth of that fact made it no less embarrassing for whoever’s turn it was today. And at least the commodore had been a commodore, not the newest member of the ship’s company reporting aboard for the very first time!

She landed neatly, just outside the decksole line that indicated the official, legal boundary between the ship and the rest of the universe, and the blond, snub-nosed ensign with the officer-of-the-deck brassard and a name tape that said “Nelson, Patricia,” came to attention and saluted.

“Permission to come aboard?” Brandy requested as she returned the courtesy.

“Permission granted, Ma’am,” Ensign Nelson replied.

“Lieutenant Bolgeo to join the ship’s company,” Brandy said then, extracting her order chip from her pocket.

The ensign took it, fitted it into her chip reader, examined the display briefly but thoroughly, then popped it back out and returned it.

“Welcome aboard, Ma’am,” she said then. Her tone was courteous, but there was something about it. . . . A subtle note of tension, perhaps. “I believe the Captain is expecting you. Wait one, please.”

She looked over her shoulder at the boat bay personnel, then whistled.

“Evans!”

“Yes, Ma’am?” a burly chief petty officer with a power-tech shoulder flash replied.

“Escort Lieutenant Bolgeo to the Captain’s day cabin.”

“Aye, aye, Ma’am!” Evans said, then looked at Brandy. “If the Lieutenant would follow me?”

“Lead the way, Chief.”

It wasn’t a long trip, especially for someone whose last shipboard assignment had been a battlecruiser, but it seemed much longer to Brandy. There were always a certain number of “opening-night” butterflies whenever one joined a new ship, and in her case, she was acutely aware that it was over fifteen months since she’d last held a shipboard assignment. At least her TDY aboard Hephaestus had provided enough hands-on time with the enormous station’s engineering systems to get her feet back under her, but there was a distinct difference between running watches in a repair slip or space station fusion room and stepping into the assistant engineer’s slot aboard a heavy cruiser.

They passed several other members of Prince Adrian’s company on the way, and despite her own nervous preoccupation, there was something . . . odd about them, Brandy thought. Almost an echo of whatever she’d seen in Nelson’s eyes. It wasn’t anything she could really put her finger on, but every ship had a personality. It could have a happy crew or an embittered one, although commanding officers and executive officers who let things get that bad tended to find themselves relieved of their duties. And it wasn’t as if the people they passed seemed bitter, or angry, but from their expressions and body language, Prince Adrian was not a happy ship, and Brandy tried hard to avoid a feeling of dread.

The Marine sentry outside the captain’s quarters came to attention as Brandy followed Evans up to him.

“Lieutenant Bolgeo,” she said. “I believe I’m expected.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the Marine said and tapped his earbud. “Lieutenant Bolgeo to see the Captain,” he said, and the hatch slid open.

“Ma’am.”

He indicated the open hatch, and Brandy looked at Evans.

“Thank you, PO,” she said. “I expect we’ll be seeing more of one another sometime soon.”

“You’re welcome, Ma’am.” Evans braced briefly to attention, then headed back toward the boat bay as Brandy stepped through the hatch.

The cabin beyond it was moderately palatial. Smaller than a captain might have enjoyed aboard a capital ship, but enormously grander than the one a mere lieutenant would find herself assigned to. It was also comfortably arranged, with a scattering of holopics, a couple of pretty good old-fashioned watercolor landscape paintings, and bulkhead racks that held data folios and even some old-fashioned hardcopy books.

A tallish, broad-shouldered, powerfully built junior-grade captain, his brown hair just touched with silver at the temples, sat behind the desk in one corner. A sandy-haired lieutenant commander sat in another chair at the end of the desk, and Brandy crossed the carpet and came to attention.

“Lieutenant Bolgeo, Sir!” she said.

“Stand easy, Lieutenant,” the captain told her with a crooked smile that looked somehow out of place. Although that might have been because there was no trace of it in his level gray eyes.

“Thank you, Captain McKeon,” she replied, wondering what she might have done to provoke that somber, dark gaze. It was not, she thought uneasily, the sort of welcoming look a starship captain bestowed upon someone he was happy to see.

“This is Lev Carson, the XO,” McKeon continued, waving one hand at the seated lieutenant commander. “I’ve buzzed Lieutenant Commander Yaytsev to tell him his new assistant’s arrived aboard, but he’s not actually in the ship right now. I believe he’s trying to extort additional spares out of Hephaestus.”

He paused, and Brandy nodded.

“Yes, Sir,” she said.

“In his absence, I’d like to welcome you aboard Prince Adrian, and Commander Carson will take you down to Engineering and help you settle in.”

He paused again, and Brandy nodded once more.

“I’ve read your file, Lieutenant,” McKeon said then. “It’s impressive. I know you’ve been on the binnacle list for a while after Hancock, but I’ve known Art McBain for a long time. Matter of fact”—he flashed another of those smiles that never seemed to touch his eyes—“I was the ATO in Argonaut when he made his snotty cruise. And what he had to say about you was even more impressive than your file. You might say you come highly recommended.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Brandy shrugged ever so slightly. “I’m glad Commander McBain gave me positive marks.”

“And probably a bit surprised,” McKeon said dryly, and snorted a chuckle as Brandy’s eyebrows rose. “I said I’ve known him a long time, Lieutenant. And, just between you and me, he’s pretty proud of that hard-ass image of his. The truth is, the people he rides hardest are the ones he expects the most out of. And from the way he talked about you, I’m pretty sure he rode you pretty damned hard before Hancock.”

“Well, yes, Sir. I guess he did. But he was never unfair about it!”

“No, he wouldn’t have been.” McKeon nodded, then let his chair come fully upright and laid his palms on his desk.

“I’ll hand you off to the XO now, Lieutenant. Hopefully, the Admiralty will formally stand up Sixth Fleet in the next week or so and finally let us go after the Peeps the way we should’ve done already. I think you’ll have a few days to get your feet under you, first, though.”

He nodded at Carson, and the lieutenant commander climbed out of his own chair.

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” Brandy said, coming back to attention.

“I’ve invited the ship’s officers to dine with me tonight, Lieutenant. I’ll see you again then.”

“Yes, Sir.” Brandy repeated.

“Until then.”

McKeon nodded dismissal, and Brandy paused to allow Carson to lead the way back through the hatch and down the passage toward the central lift shaft.

“You really are a welcome addition, Lieutenant,” Carson said after the cabin hatch had closed behind them. “It may not feel like it right this minute, but you are.”

“Sir, I—” Brandy began, but Carson twitched an interrupting hand at her.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “And I’m not surprised if you’re getting a less than cheerful vibration from our people right now. But you looked a tad nervous back there.”

“I certainly didn’t mean to, Sir,” Brandy said a bit stiffly, feeling her cheekbones heat, and Carson shook his head.

“I said not to worry about it. Trust me, you were fine! And under normal circumstances, you’d probably be in a chair in the Skipper’s cabin with a cup of coffee while he personally gave you the full ‘welcome aboard’ briefing. Which I’m about to give you, so don’t worry about that, either. But I’m afraid you haven’t picked the very best time to be coming aboard.”

Brandy looked at him, raising puzzled eyebrows. What could he—?

And then she had it, and kicked herself for not realizing sooner what it had to be. She probably would have, if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with moving into her new duty assignment. Captain Alistair McKeon’s friendship with Honor Harrington was widely known, after all.

“Countess Harrington, Sir?” she asked quietly, and Carson nodded.

“Art said you were quick, Lieutenant.”

“I should have remembered about him and the Countess.”

“Maybe.” Carson shrugged. “I don’t know her as well as the Skipper does. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever met. But there are several members of the ship’s company who have served with her before, and all of them think the world of her. That’s the real reason I’ve mentioned this, because a couple of them are in Engineering. They’re good people, Lieutenant, the best, but right now they’re hurting, so they won’t be at their best when you start settling in. Don’t take it personally if they aren’t. It really and truly doesn’t have a single thing to do with you.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you for the heads-up.”

“There’s enough crap flying around for everybody right now, Lieutenant. I hope we’ll be putting most of it behind us pretty quickly. And if we don’t”—he turned his head and gave her a broad smile—“it’ll be my job as XO to kick everybody in the butt until we do. Which, of course, I will do with the utmost tact and human kindness.”

“Of course, Sir,” Brandy agreed with a small smile of her own, and he chuckled as they reached the lift shaft and he punched their destination into the panel.

She stood with her hands folded behind her, watching the location display while she thought about what Carson had just said. No wonder McKeon’s eyes had been so dark. God only knew where the fallout from Lady Harrington’s duel would finally end, but two things were already clear.

The first of those things was that she’d become a political pariah. The Star Kingdom’s peers had voted, by a substantial majority and with indecent haste, to expel her from the House of Lords. It had taken less than two days for Pavel Young’s allies to demand—and be given—her political head. They couldn’t touch her title, but they could refuse to allow her to take the seat to which that title entitled her. And they could turn the entire process into a political crucifixion while they did it. Peer after peer—not all of them Conservatives or Liberals—had taken to the floor to condemn her in the most scathing, bitter terms imaginable for the way in which she had “abused” and “misused,” and “flouted” the rules of their own august chamber. And quite a few of them hadn’t stopped there. Brandy literally hadn’t believed her own ears when Baron High Ridge rose to condemn Lady Harrington for the “cold-blooded murder of an unarmed man.”

The sheer gall of calling Earl North Hollow “unarmed” when the only reason the weapon in his hand was empty because he’d already fired every cartridge in it into the back of the woman High Ridge was accusing of murdering him had stunned Brandy. She’d stared at the HD, wondering what kind of diseased mind could throw that charge at Lady Harrington, and then her eyes had widened as a hard, angry rumble of agreement went up from the Conservative benches behind him. And not just the Conservatives. The growl—snarl, really—of approval had actually been even louder from the Liberals. After all, they’d been calling her a dangerous lunatic ever since the first and second battles of Yeltsin!

The Countess hadn’t been completely without defenders, however. Baroness Medusa had risen with fire in her eyes and fury in her voice as she shredded High Ridge’s accusation, and several others had spoken in Lady Harrington’s defense, as well. But nothing could derail the juggernaut of her expulsion as unfit and unworthy of a seat in the Star Kingdom’s senior legislative chamber.

But that was only the first consequence, and Brandy knew all of Lady Harrington’s friends had to be waiting for the second, inevitable shoe. The political repercussions, the way in which the Opposition had demonized and vilified her, had to wash over into Admiralty House, as well. The minority of the Navy which supported the Opposition’s interpretation of North Hollow’s court-martial and condemned Lady Harrington as a loose warhead, had come out of the shadows like ravening near-weasels that smelled blood. They finally saw their chance to bring down the hammer, and the way in which her dismissal from the Lords had been politicized meant that this time it would be impossible for the Admiralty to ignore them. Rumor said Earl White Haven and Lady Harrington’s other supporters were fighting a dogged rearguard in her defense, but this time they were going to lose. And that meant the Navy was going to lose one of its finest officers.

No wonder her friends aboard Prince Adrian were in a less than cheerful mood.

The lift car slowed, then stopped, and the doors opened outside the forward fusion room.

“And now, Lieutenant,” Carson said, waving her out of the car, “allow me to introduce you to your new domain.”


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