Honor locked her hands behind her. She didn't say a word for at least one full minute, but her eyes blazed. Morale, and performance, aboard Wayfarer had gone up by leaps and bounds. Her people had come together, fused into a single living, breathing whole by their shared accomplishments. They'd only had to look around to see how well they'd done, and she'd made certain they knew she was proud of them, as well. Even Sally MacBride and Master-at-Arms Thomas had commented to her on it, and Tschu's Engineering department had shown the greatest improvements of all.
Now someone had attempted to murder one of her crew, and the way whoever it was had done it was almost worse than the attempt itself. Few spacers would admit it, but the terror of being lost, of drifting helplessly in space until your suit air and heat ran out, was one of the darkest nightmares of their profession.
That was what someone had done to Ginger Lewis, and Honor's rage burned even hotter because it was her fault. She never doubted who was responsible for this, and she was responsible for the fact that Steilman was still at large. She should have forgotten about Tatsumi's career and Wanderman's sense of self-respect and smashed Steilman the first time he stepped out of line. She'd let herself be distracted, let herself actually look forward to Wanderman's giving Steilman his comeuppance, and forgotten that he might have marked Lewis down for a victim.
The right corner of her mouth began to tic, and Rafe Cardones, who knew the signs of old, felt himself tighten at the telltale sign of fury. Then he realized she was even more enraged than he'd thought, for her voice was calm, almost conversational when she spoke to him at last.
"Is Lewis all right?"
"Angie says she will be, but I'd say she's used up about two lifetimes of luck," he replied carefully. "Her attitude thrusters could just as easily have slammed her straight into the hull, and she inhaled enough stomach acid to cause major lung damage. Angie's on top of that, but she pulled thirty-five gees for twenty minutes, with no warning, and her vector looks like a near-weasel chasing a rabbit. That didn't do her a bit of good, and she was pretty far gone in anoxia, from the lung damage, not suit failure, before the pinnace got to her. By the way," he added, "Tatsumi was the ready section SBA. Angie says he's the only reason she's still alive."
"I see." Honor paced once around her day cabin while Nimitz crouched on his perch, tail lashing and coat bristled as he shared her searing wrath. Tschu had brought Samantha with him, and she quivered with her own echo of the emotions radiating from Honor and Nimitz... and her own person. The engineer reached up to stroke her spine soothingly, and she pressed back against his touch, but she also bared her fangs with a sibilant hiss.
"Who worked suit maintenance?" Honor asked finally, turning back to the others.
"I've pulled the duty roster, but we're working extra shifts with the pod reloading, and there were some extra hands involved," Tschu said. "I've got the check-off on Lewis's SUT, it was Avram Hiroshio, one of my best techs, but there've been so many people in and out of the suit morgue that anyone could have done it. It was all software, Ma'am. All the bastard needed was five seconds when no one was watching to overwrite his chip onto the SUT computer."
"You mean to tell me," Honor pronounced each word with deadly precision, "that someone in my ship tried to murder one of my crewmen, and we don't have the slightest idea who it was?"
"I can narrow it down some, Skipper, but not enough," Tschu admitted. "It could've been any one of two or three dozen people. I'm sorry, but that's the truth."
"Is Randy Steilman on the list?" she asked flatly.
"No, Ma'am, but..." Tschu paused and drew a deep breath. "Steilman isn't, but Jackson Coulter and Elizabeth Showforth both are, and they're part of Steilman's circle. I can't prove it was either of them, though."
"I don't care what you can prove. Not now." Honor turned to Cardones. "Screen the Master-at-Arms. I want Coulter and Showforth brigged, and I want them sweated."
"I understand, Ma'am," Cardones started, "but with no evi..."
"My authority," she said in that same flat, calm voice. "You tell them that. And you remind them a serving member of the military does not have the right to remain silent. One of those two people just attempted to commit murder, and I want them hammered until I know which it was."
Cardones met her gaze levelly, but his own was troubled.
"Skipper, I'll do it, but you know they're going to claim they never actually meant to kill her, that it was only a prank that got out of hand, even if we break them down."
"I don't care." Honor Harrington stood very tall and straight, hands still locked together behind her, and her eyes were brown, blazing ice. "This is the second 'accident' to one of my people. Understand me. There will not be a third. I will have these two in the brig, and I will have them hammered, and I will find out who did it. And when I do, I will by God make whoever it was the sorriest piece of scum ever to wear Manticoran uniform. Do you read me on this, Rafe?"
"Yes, Ma'am." Cardones nodded sharply, fighting an urge to spring to attention, and she nodded back.
"Good."
Aubrey Wanderman sat in sickbay once more, this time holding Ginger's hand. She lay very still, mouth and nose covered by a transparent oxygen mask. Commander Ryder had promised Aubrey she'd be all right, that she only needed the oxygen until the quick heal repaired her acid-seared lungs, but she looked so still. So broken.
It's only the quick heal, idiot! he told himself sharply, and knew it was true. They'd put her under a general while they flushed the acid out of her lungs, and then they'd had to hit her with a massive dose of the quick heal compounds. That always put the recipient out like a light. But knowing it didn't make her look one bit less terrible, and he looked up as Yoshiro Tatsumi paused at the foot of the bed.
"Thanks," Aubrey said simply, and the SBA shrugged uncomfortably.
"Hey, it's my job, okay?"
"Yeah, I know. Thanks anyway. She's a friend."
"I know." Tatsumi nodded, eyes dark with compassion as he gazed down at her. "You know she's likely to have some problems when she comes out of the quicky, don't you?" he asked quietly. "I mean, she went for a wild one, man. Odds are real good she's gonna have some post traumatic from it." He shook his head. "I knew a tech once, an electronics guy, like you, went for a Dutchman. He was working on a gravitic array and some asshole in CIC didn't check the warning board. Threw power to the array while he was on it and blew him clear off the hull. Power surge fried his com and half his suit electronics. It took us almost twelve hours to find him. That man never went extra vehicular again. Just couldn't to it."
"Ginger's tougher than that," Aubrey said more confidently than he felt. "She's always loved EVA, too, and she was only out there about thirty minutes. She can kick it. No way she's going to let a stupid accident get to her that way."
"Accident?" Tatsumi blinked, then looked around carefully and shook his head. "It wasn't any damned accident, man," he said much more softly. "Haven't you heard?"
"Heard what? Lieutenant Wolcott gave me permission to come right down here, and I've been here ever since."
"Shit, Wanderman, the Old Lady's brigged Coulter and Showforth. Word is, somebody sabotaged her SUT, and the Skippers pretty damned sure it was one of those two. She's gonna turn whoever it was into reactor mass when she figures out which one to hang, too. I mean, that lady is pissed, man!"