Honor stared at him for perhaps two breaths, her thoughts completely frozen. Then they jerked back into motion with an almost physical shock.
"How badly damaged?" The question came out crisply, but even as she asked it she was aware of how much a lie that calmness was. "And what about Captain Bachfisch?"
"Tim doesn't know exactly how bad it is, My Lady. But from what he said, it doesn't sound good." The armsman inhaled. "And it was her executive officer who answered the patrol's challenge. He says Captain Bachfisch has been wounded."
Honor held herself in her seat in the pinnace by sheer force of will. Nimitz was curled in her lap, and she felt the physical tension in his muscles as the pinnace cut its drive and Pirate's Bane's boat bay tractors reached out for it.
She looked out through the armorplast viewport, and her jaw muscles clenched as she saw the ugly holes blown in the Bane's skin. "Badly," she supposed was one way to describe what had happened to the armed merchantman. Personally, she considered it to be grossly inadequate.
The pinnace rolled on its internal gyros, aligning itself so the tractors could deposit it gently in the docking buffers. At least the bay gallery was still vacuum tight, she thought grimly as she watched the personnel tube run out to the pinnace's airlock. Bleak anger and anxiety roiled within her, and then she looked down as a hand-foot patted her on the knee.
"No," she replied. "They told me that he said he'll be all right. There's a difference."
"Stinker," Honor sighed, "sometimes I think 'cats still have a lot to learn about humans. There may not be any point in empaths or telepaths trying to lie to each other, but we two-foots always think we get away with it. And when we don't want someone to worry . . ."
even through the 'cat's own anxiety, she tasted a sudden flicker of amusement,
Honor looked down at him, and then, to her own amazement, she actually chuckled.
"You may have a point," she conceded. "On the other hand," she sobered again, "the fact that it was his exec who reported in doesn't sound good."
Honor flicked her eyes to the telltale above the airlock. Nimitz was right, and she scooped the 'cat into her arms and rose as the pinnace's flight engineer reached for the hatch button.
Others pushed up out of their seats behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder. LaFollet and Spencer Hawke sat in the row directly behind her, but there were enough others to make the pinnace's spacious passenger compartment seem almost crowded. Mercedes Brigham, George Reynolds, Andrea Jaruwalski, and Timothy Meares were all present . . . and so were Surgeon Captain Fritz Montoya and a full twenty-person medical team.
A second pinnace, this one loaded with two platoons of Werewolf's Marines, settled into the docking buffers beside Honor's pinnace, and her expression tightened once more. Then she moved forward as the inner hatch of the airlock opened.
It wasn't the first time Honor had seen Thomas Bachfisch wounded. But this time was worse. Much worse. She felt the physical pain radiating from him as she stood beside his bed in Pirate's Bane's spartan sick bay, and it took every ounce of self discipline she possessed to keep her own nonphysical pain out of her expression.
"Your Grace," Jinchu Gruber said, "will you please convince him to let Doctor Montoya get him out of here?"
Pirate's Bane's executive officer stood on the other side of Bachfisch's bed. Gruber wasn't exactly in pristine condition himself, Honor noted. His left arm was in a sling, he walked with a noticeable limp, and the left side of his face was badly bruised.
"Stop fussing, Jinchu." Bachfisch's voice was hoarse with pain, but he managed a tight smile. There was a different sort of pain in that smile, and something inside Honor winced as she tasted his emotions. "I'm better off than a lot of people."
"Yes, you are, Skipper." Gruber's voice was harsh, hard-edged with exasperation. "Now stop feeling guilty about it, damn it!"
"My fault," Bachfisch replied, shaking his head doggedly on the pillow.
"I didn't see you holding a pulser on anyone to make us sign on," the exec shot back.
"No, but—"
"Excuse me, Your Grace," Fritz Montoya put in, "but I'd appreciate it if the three of you could argue about this later." Honor turned to crook one eyebrow at the doctor, and Montoya shrugged. "I've already sent the worst half dozen cases across to Werewolf. Or, perhaps I should say, the worst half dozen other cases. I'd really like to get Captain Bachfisch over there sometime this week, too."
"I'm not leaving the Bane," Bachfisch said stubbornly.
"Oh yes you are, Captain," the blond-haired surgeon captain told him with an implacable calm Honor knew altogether too well from personal experience. "We can argue about it for a while first, if you really want to. But you are leaving."
Bachfisch opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Honor put one hand gently on his shoulder.
"Don't argue," she told him, resolutely not looking at the space where his legs ought to have tented the sheets. "You'll lose. For that matter, you'd lose even if Fritz was the only person who was going to be arguing with you. And he isn't."
Bachfisch looked back up at her for a moment, and then smiled crookedly.
"You always were a stubborn woman," he murmured. "All right, I'll go. But since you're here now . . ." He looked past her, indicating her staff officers with his eyes, and she nodded.
"I gathered from Commander Gruber's message that you were going to insist on a bedside debrief," she said serenely. "Now, if I were inclined to indulge in calling any kettles black, I might comment on the stubbornness involved in that. Since I'm far too broad-minded to do anything of the sort, however, why don't we just get started?"
Bachfisch's chuckle might have been tight with pain, but it was also genuine, and she tasted his gratitude for her manner.
"Commander Gruber," she waved at the exec, "already told us about your decision to shadow the Peep—Hecate, wasn't it?" She glanced up at Gruber, who nodded, and Honor looked back down at her old captain. "He told us you'd decided to, but what he couldn't tell us was what the hell you thought you were doing?"
Bachfisch's eyebrows flew up, and Honor tasted the surprise of all of her officers at hearing even that mild an oath out of her, but she never took her own eyes from Bachfisch's. She was willing to be calm and collected about his state, but she wanted him to cherish no illusions about her opinion of the sanity involved in getting himself and his ship mixed up in something like this.
"What I thought I was doing," he told her after a moment, "was trying to figure out what a Havenite fleet might be doing in your bailiwick, young lady. And I might point out that I've been old enough to make decisions for myself for quite some time. Why, just last week I picked out which shirt I wanted to wear without any help at all."
Their eyes held, and then, almost against her will, she smiled.
"Point taken," she told him. "On the other hand, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't try quite so hard to get yourself killed next time. You think we could compromise on that?"
"I'm certainly willing to take it under advisement," he assured her.
"Thank you. Now, getting back to business. You followed Hecate until she left the grav wave."