The journey seemed to take forever, yet the lift door slid open at last, and Honor stepped out into the light cruiser's armory. The senior chief master sergeant who served as Agni's Marine armorer looked up from a service manuals display, then snapped to attention behind the long, high counter.
"Is the range clear, Sergeant?" Honor asked in that same, dead voice.
"Uh, yes, Milady. It is." The armorer didn't sound happy to confirm that, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Then issue me an automatic," she said. "Ten millimeter."
The sergeant looked over Honor's shoulder at his captain. He was a man who'd spent a lifetime with weapons, and the thought of putting one into the hands of a woman who spoke like that frightened him. It frightened Henke, too, but she bit her lip and nodded.
The sergeant swallowed, then reached under the counter and produced a memo board.
"Please fill out the requisition while I get it, Milady," he said.
Honor began tapping keys. The sergeant watched her a moment, then turned away toward the weapons storage, only to stop as Honor spoke again.
"I need filled ten-round magazines. Ten of them. And four boxes of shells."
"I" The sergeant cut himself off and nodded. "Yes, Milady. Ten charged magazines and two hundred rounds in the box."
He vanished into the weapons storage, and Henke stepped up to Honor's side. She watched the long fingers tapping memo keys with slow, painful precision, and her own face was troubled. The Star Kingdom's military hadn't used chemical-powered firearms in over three T-centuries, for no firearm ever made could match the single-hit lethality of the hyper-velocity darts of a pulser or pulse rifle. A man hit in the hand by a pulser dart mightif he was very, very luckysurvive with the mere loss of his arm, and that made auto-loading pistols antiques, yet every Manticoran warship carried a few of them, precisely because their wounds were survivable. They were always available, and always in the traditional ten-millimeter caliber, yet never issued for duty use; they had only one function, and as long as duels were legal they were carried for those who wished to practice with them.
But they could be used for other purposes.
Honor finished filling out the requisition form and thumbprinted the scan pad, then slid the memo board back across the counter. She stood there, hands at her sides, waiting, until the sergeant returned.
"Here you are, Milady." He laid the heavy, bolstered pistol and a set of ear-protectors on the counter, his reluctance obvious. He followed them with a second pair, their connector strip adjusted to something approximating the size of a treecat's head, though Honor hadn't requested them, then placed an ammunition carrier beside them with even greater reluctance.
"Thank you." Honor scooped up the pistol and attached its magnetic pad to her belt, then reached for the protectors with one hand and the ammunition with the other, but Henke's hand snapped out. It came down on the ammunition carrier, pinning it to the counter, and Honor looked at her.
"Honor, I" Henke began, but her voice died. How could she ask her best friend the question she had to ask? Yet if she didn't, how could she live with the consequences if
"Don't worry, Mike." There was no life, no expression, in Honor's voice, but her mouth moved in a cold, dead travesty of a smile. "Nimitz won't let me do that. Besides," the first trace of feeling touched her facean ugly, hungry twist of her lips, more sensed than seen and somehow more frightening than anything she'd done or said yet, "I have something more important to do."
Henke stared into her eyes for a moment, then sighed and lifted her hand. Honor slid the ammunition carrier off the counter, looping the strap over her left shoulder and settling the heavy pouch at her side. She nodded once to Henke, then looked at the armorer.
"Program the range, Sergeant. Standard Manticoran gravity on the plates. Set the range gate for forty meters. Human targets."
She turned without another word, and stepped through the firing range hatch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Prince Adrian, this is Hephaestus Central. Stand by for final departure clearance."
Captain Alistair McKeon nodded to his helmsman to stand ready and pressed the com stud on the arm of his command chair.
"Prince Adrian copies standby for final departure clearance, Hephaestus. Holding."
"Understood, Prince Adrian." There was a moment of silence while the controller double-checked his board. Then"You are cleared, Prince Adrian."
"Prince Adrian copies clearance. Undocking," McKeon responded, and looked back at the helmsman. "Disengage mooring tractors."
"Disengage mooring tractors, aye, Sir." The helmsman depressed half a dozen buttons. "Tractors disengaged, Sir."
"Check our zone, Beth."
"Checking zone, aye, Sir." The tactical officer made a quick sensor sweep, and McKeon waited patiently. He'd once seen what happened when a battlecruiser failed to do that and a shuttle pilot had strayed into the departure zone. "Zone clear, Sir. Five small yard craft at two-one-eight zero-niner-five, range two-five kilometers. Apollo bears zero-three-niner, same plane. Range seven-point-five klicks."
"Confirmed on maneuvering plot, Sir," the helmsman reported.
"Very good. Forward thrusters."
"Engaging forward thrusters, aye, Sir." The heavy cruiser trembled as she eased out of her berth, and McKeon watched the cavernous docking bay move back and away on the visual display.
"Hold her on her present heading," he said. The helmsman acknowledged, and McKeon switched his visual display to starboard just as Apollo slid stern first out of her own berth. Their courses diverged sharply, pushing them apart to clear the safety perimeters of their impeller wedges, and McKeon depressed an intraship com stud.
"Colonel Ramirez," a deep voice answered.
"Departure on schedule, Colonel. Our ETA looks good."
"Thank you, Sir. We appreciate the assistance."
"Least we can do, Colonel," McKeon replied, and leaned back in his chair as he cut the circuit.
Colonel Tomas Ramirez and Major Susan Hibson had been shocked by their latest readiness tests. While no one could fault the willingness of HMS Nike's Marine detachment, the entire battalion was sadly out of training. The influx of replacements and corresponding transfer out of experienced personnel had only made bad worse, and Colonel Ramirez and his able exec had concluded that Something Had To Be Done, whether Nike was operational or not. After all, Royal Manticoran Marines shouldn't stand around and lose their edge just because the sissies who ran the Navy broke one of their ships!
A quick memo up the chain of command earned the endorsement of no less a personage than General Dame Erica Vonderhoff, Commanding Officer, Fleet Marine Force. Of course, COFMF couldn't issue orders to the Navy; the best she could do was authorize Ramirez to request troop lift support on an "as available" basis with her blessings.
The Navy had been sympathetic, but Colonel Ramirez's request to Training and Support Command had been greeted with regrets; the Fleet would need at least a week to free up the lift for a battalion-level training drop. Training and Support would be happy to schedule them ASAP, but in the meantime, why not carry out high orbit insertions from Hephaestus? After all, the space station orbited Manticore itself, and the Star Kingdoms capital planet offered suitable training areas in abundance. What about, say, Camp Justin in High Sligo? That was about hip-deep in snow just now, which ought to offer plenty of scope for toughening Nike's Marines back up. Or, if Colonel Ramirez would prefer desert, how about Camp Maastricht in the Duchy of West Wind?