"How did the exercise go?" Tankersley asked after a moment.

"Quite well, actually." Honor frowned thoughtfully. "We're getting the rough edges smoothed off, at least, but I don't think Captain Dournet was too pleased when Admiral Sarnow announced his intention to form Agamemnon with Nike as the first division."

"Too close to the flag?" Tankersley chuckled, and Honor's frown turned wry as she shook her head.

"No. I think he's more concerned over the way Nike's missed all the live-fire exercises. We're doing well in the sims, but he's afraid we're going to get rusty and make him look bad once we join the rest of the squadron."

"Fat chance with you and Mike running things!" Tankersley snorted.

His tone was so sharp Honor glanced at him in surprise. She'd decided weeks ago that she'd been utterly unfair to regard Paul Tankersley with reservations simply because he'd once been Pavel Young's exec, but he was still a yard dog. A ship was a work project for yard people, not a living, breathing entity. Very few of them ever identified personally with the vessels they worked upon, yet he sounded almost angry at the thought that Dournet might have any reservations about Nike.

Or was it because Dournet might have reservations about her captain?

Her face felt suddenly hot at the thought, and she raised her towel to burnish her almost dry hair. She and Tankersley had been sparring partners for five weeks now, and she'd come to regard him as a friend, as well. It hadn't hurt any that they were surprisingly well matched. She had the advantage in reach and reaction speed, but his chunky body was surprisingly powerful, especially for a native Manticoran. The capital worlds gravity was barely three-quarters that of Sphinx, and Honor was accustomed to the advantage that normally gave her against its denizens, but the first time she'd taken a liberty with Tankersley, he'd thrown her clear across the mat.

She'd sat flat on her backside, looking up at him in such astonishment he'd burst into laughter. She'd found herself laughing right back at him—and then she'd gotten up and shown him a little trick she'd picked up aboard her last command from a Marine sergeant-major with more experience in the coup than she and Tankersley had between them. He'd gasped in surprise, then whooped in shock as he landed belly-down on the mat with her kneeling on his spine, and the final awkwardness had gone out of their relationship from that moment.

But she hadn't realized what might be replacing it, and she examined her own feelings with care and no small amount of shock.

"Well, we'll just have to show Captain Dournet he's wrong, won't we?" she said at last, her tone light, and lowered the concealing towel as she felt her flush fade. She smiled at him. "Which, of course, we can't do until you yard dogs get us put back together."

"Ouch!" He threw up a hand like a fencer acknowledging a hit. "We're doing the best we can, Ma'am. Honest. Cross my heart."

"Well, for a bunch of idle lay-about yard types, you aren't doing too badly," she allowed with a grin.

"Why, thank you! And while I'm thinking about it, you wouldn't happen to have time for a little sparring match with an idle lay-about, would you?" He smiled menacingly, and she shook her head.

"Sorry. I didn't even check in with Mike when I came back aboard. I just headed down here to soak, and now that I've done that, I've got about three megs of paperwork waiting in my cabin computer."

"Chicken."

"Merely industrious," she assured him. She gave him an airy wave and turned to leave, but he reached out and touched her shoulder.

"If you don't have time to spar," he said, his voice suddenly devoid of all teasing, "would you care to join me for supper tonight?"

Honor's eyes widened. It was a small thing, barely noticeable, but Nimitz sat up abruptly on the parallel bar, and his ears twitched.

"Well, I don't know—" she began almost instinctively, then stopped herself. She stood there, feeling awkward and uncertain, and looked into his face intently. She'd gone to some lengths to convince Nimitz not to link her to others' emotions without warning, but just this once she longed for the 'cat's ability to read the feelings behind Tankersley's expression. For that matter, she wished she understood her own feelings, for her normal cool detachment seemed frazzled about the edges. She'd always avoided anything that even looked like an intimate relationship with a fellow officer—partly because it was a professional complication she could do without, but even more because her experiences in general had been less than happy—yet there was something in his eyes and the set of his mouth...

"I'd be delighted to," she heard herself say, and fresh surprise washed through her as she realized she meant it.

"Good!" His smile wreathed his eyes in laugh wrinkles, and Honor felt a strange, answering bubble of silent laughter deep within her. "May I expect you around eighteen hundred, then, Lady Harrington?"

"You may, Captain Tankersley." She gave him another smile, then stepped across to the parallel bars, scooped Nimitz up, and headed for the dressing rooms.

Admiral of the Green Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord of the Royal Manticoran Admiralty, was a barrel-chested man with a weight-lifter's torso grafted onto a sprinters legs. Although he was going just a bit to pot these days, the athlete whose bruising, physical style had run Hamish Alexander's soccer team into the mud of Hopewell Field—repeatedly—was still recognizable. Yet his face was taut, the unabashed swagger which had characterized him as both captain and junior flag officer in abeyance, for the First Space Lord was a worried man.

He and his fellow officers rose as Allen Summervale, Duke of Cromarty, leader of the Centrist Party and Prime Minister to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth III, entered the conference room. The PM was tall and slim, like all the Summervales, and, despite prolong, his hair was silver and his handsome face deeply lined. Cromarty had spent over fifty T-years in politics and headed Manticore's government for fifteen of the last twenty-two, and every one of those years had cut its weight into him.

The Prime Minister waved his uniformed subordinates back into their seats, and Caparelli's jaw tightened as he saw who'd walked into the room behind Cromarty. Lady Francine Maurier, Baroness Morncreek, had every right to be here as the civilian First Lord of Admiralty. So did Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord William Alexander, the Government's second ranking member. But Alexander's older brother didn't—officially, at least—and the First Space Lord tried not to glower as the Earl of White Haven found a chair of his own.

"Before we begin, Sir Thomas, I'd just like to mention that Earl White Haven is here at my request, not his." Cromarty's expressive, whiskey-smooth baritone had always been a potent political weapon, and his gentle announcement drew Caparelli's eyes to him. "As you know, he recently completed a survey of our frontier stations' readiness states for Admiral Webster. Under the circumstances, I felt his input might be of value."

"Of course, Your Grace." Caparelli knew he sounded grudging. It wasn't that he disliked the earl, he told himself. It was just that, athletics aside, Alexander—or White Haven, as he now was—had always had a knack for making him feel he was competing out of his class, and the earl's succession to his father's titles, coupled with the prestige of his year-old conquest of the Endicott System, only made it worse.

"Thank you for your understanding." Cromarty's smile was so winning Caparelli actually felt much of his resentment seep away. "And now, Sir Thomas, may I hear your conclusions?"