The Graysons had led the way toward one possible iteration of the type, with their Courvoisier II-class of pod-layers. The RMN's Agamemnons were the Manticoran version of the same design concept, as the Blcher-class was for the Andermani, and that approach clearly offered significant advantages over the older designs.
But the BC(P) wasn't really completely satisfactory. Although it could produce a very heavy volume of fire, its endurance at maximum-rate fire was limited, and the type's hollow core design came at a greater cost in structural integrity than the same concept did in a bigger, far more strongly built superdreadnought. So Vice Admiral Toscarelli's BuShips had sought another approach at the same time it was designing the new Edward Saganami-C-class heavy cruisers.
Nike was the result: a 2.5 million-ton "battlecruiser," almost three times the size of Honor's old ship, but with an acceleration rate thirty percent greater. The old Nike had mounted eighteen lasers, sixteen grasers, fifty-two missile tubes, and thirty-two counter-missile tubes and point defense clusters. The new Nike mounted no lasers, thirty-two grasers-eight of them as chase weapons, fifty missile tubes (none of them chasers), and thirty counter-missile tubes and laser clusters. The old Nike had carried a ship's company of over two thousand; the new Nike's complement was only seven hundred and fifty. And the new Nike was armed with the Mark 16 dual-drive missile. With the "off-bore" launch capability the RMN had developed, she could bring both broadsides' missile tubes to bear on the same target, giving her fifty birds per salvo, as opposed to the older ship's twenty-two. And whereas the old Nike's maximum powered missile range from rest had been just over six million kilometers, the new Nike's had a maximum powered endurance of over twenty-nine million.
She couldn't fire the all-up, three-stage MDMs the Courvoisiers and Agamemnons could handle, so her tactical flexibility was marginally less, and her warheads were slightly lighter, but an Agamemnon rolling pods at her maximum rate would shoot herself dry in just over fourteen minutes, whereas Nike carried sufficient ammunition for almost forty minutes, and she carried fifty percent more counter-missiles, as well. For that matter, although the Courvosiers did, in fact, carry the three-stage weapons, the RMN had chosen to load the Agamemnons' pods with Mark 16s. BuWeaps had gone ahead and produced the standard pods, as well, but Admiralty House had decided the salvo density the Mark 16 permitted was more important that the bigger missiles' greater powered envelope.
Personally, Honor was convinced that this Nike represented the pattern for true battlecruisers of the future, and she deeply regretted the fact that although the Janacek Admiralty had authorized her construction, they had seen her as a single-ship testbed. The Navy desperately needed as many Nikes as it could get, and what it had was exactly one. Which was all it would have for at least another full T-year.
But at least Honor had the only one of her there was, and-she smiled at her reflection in the armorplast-she'd convinced Admiral Cortez to give her to a captain who was almost as competent as he was... irritating.
"Do you want another pass on her, Your Grace?" the pilot inquired, and Honor pressed the intercom key on the arm of her chair.
"No, thank you, Chief. I've seen enough. Head straight on to the flagship; Captain Cardones is expecting me in time for lunch."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
The pinnace turned away, and Honor leaned back in her seat as her mind reached out to the future.
"Dr. Illescue! Dr. Illescue, would you care to comment on the press accounts of Duches Harrington's pregnancy?"
Franz Illescue walked stolidly across the Briarwood lobby, ignoring the shouted questions.
"Dr. Illescue, are you prepared to confirm that Earl White Haven is the father of Duchess Harrington's child?"
"Dr. Illescue! Isn't it true Prince Michael is the child's father?"
"Are you prepared to categorically deny that the father is Baron Grantville or Benjamin Mayhew?"
"Dr. Illescue-!"
The lift doors cut off the hullabaloo, and Illescue keyed his personal com with an almost savage thumb jab.
"Security, Meyers," a voice responded instantly.
"Tajman, this is Dr. Illescue." The fury seething in Illescue's normally controlled baritone was almost palpable. "Will you please explain to me what the hell that... that three-ring circus in our lobby is about?"
"I'm sorry, Sir," Meyers said. "I wasn't aware you were coming in through the public entrance, or I would have at least warned your driver. They descended on us right after lunch, and so far, they haven't committed any privacy violations. According to SOP, I can't bar them from the public area of the facility until they do."
"Well, as it happens, I wrote the damned SOP," Illescue half-snarled, "and as of now, you can bar those jackals from any part of this facility until Hell's a hockey rink! Is that perfectly clear?!"
"Uh, yes, Sir. I'll get on it right away, Sir."
"Thank you." Illescue's voice was marginally closer to normal as he broke the circuit and inhaled deeply.
He leaned back against the wall of the lift car and rubbed his face wearily.
He and Meyers were no closer to finding the leak than they'd been when they began, and the story was ballooning totally out of control. Not that he'd ever had much hope of controlling it in the first place. The press was working itself up to a feeding frenzy, and the most preposterous speculation imaginable-as the shouted question in the lobby indicated-had become rampant. At least he'd spoken to both Doctors Harrington, unpleasant though it had been, and he felt reasonably confident neither of them thought it had been his doing, but that didn't make him feel much better. Even though he was prepared to dislike Duchess Harrington because of her parentage, she was a patient. She had a legal and moral right to privacy, to trust that doctor-patient confidentiality would not be violated, and it had been. It was almost like a form of rape, even if the assault was non-physical, and he would have been coldly, bitterly furious in any patient's case. In this instance, given the prominence of the patient in question and the way that prominence was goading the newsies speculations, his emotions went far beyond fury.
Franz Illescue was not a man with much use for the custom of dueling, even if it was legal. But in this case, if he could find out who was responsible, he was prepared to make an exception.
"Welcome back," Michelle Henke said with a smile as Andrew LaFollet peeled off at her day cabin's hatch and Honor and Nimitz stepped through it.
"Thanks." Honor crossed the cabin and flopped onto Henke's couch far more inelegantly than she would ever have considered if anyone else had been present.
"I trust Diego did the honors properly?" Henke asked lightly. Captain Diego Mikhailov was Ajax's captain. "I told him you wanted it kept low key."
"He kept is as low key as my faithful minion outside the hatch there would permit," Honor replied. "I like him," she added.
"He's a likeable sort. And good at his job. Not to mention smart enough to realize how harried and hunted you must feel right now. He understands exactly why he's not invited to dinner tonight. In fact, he commented to me that you must be delighted to be back aboard ship."
"As a matter of fact, I've seldom been happier to find myself confined aboard ship in my entire life," Honor admitted as she rested her head on one couch arm, closed her eyes, and stretched out with Nimitz on her chest.
"That's because the worst that can happen here is that you get blown up," Henke said dryly. She crossed to the wet bar, opened a small refrigerator, and produced a pair of chilled bottles of Old Tilman.Honor chuckled appreciatively, although her amusement was clearly less than complete, and Henke grinned as she opened the beer bottles.