Honor - Honor Among Enemies Part 10

"You see, Sir?" Caslet said to Jourdain. "We'll give them a target they can't resist and try to suck them in. At the very least, we should be able to ID them, and with any luck at all, they'll be coming in to match velocities with us before they know what we really are. Without knowing their max accel or our exact vectors ahead of time, I can't promise to overhaul them, but I can d.a.m.ned sure give them a run for their money. In fact, I'd almost prefer not to catch them."

"Why not?" Jourdain asked in surprise.

"Because if we can get close enough to chase them into hyper without overhauling, they may just be stupid enough to lead us to their home system," Caslet said grimly. "Independents or not, they may have more than a single s.h.i.+p, Sir, and I want to know where they nest. I've got a feeling Citizen Admiral Giscard will want them just as badly as we do, and unlike Vaubon, he's got the firepower to smash any bunch of pirates who ever operated."

Jourdain nodded slowly, not even seeming to notice that Caslet had said "we" and not "I," and the citizen commander hid an inner smile. Jourdain took another turn around the command deck, hands folded behind him, then nodded again and turned back to Vaubon's official CO.

"All right, Citizen Commander. We can take the time to divert to Sharon's Star, at least. If we don't hit them there, I'll have to reconsider before authorizing you to move on to Magyar, but a diversion to Sharon's Star won't put the rest of the squadron behind schedule. And-" he smiled a cold, wintry smile "-you're right. I do want these people, too."

"Thank you, Sir," Citizen Commander Warner Caslet said quietly, and looked at Foraker. "Get Brans...o...b..'s data downloaded ASAP, Shannon."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"Well? What do you think?"

Honor sat in her briefing room, a month and a half out of New Berlin, while the squadron orbited the planet Sachsen. Sachsen was one of the Confederacy's sector administration centers, which meant a powerful detachment of the Silesian Navy was home-ported here, and the Andermani Empire had acquired a hundred-year lease on the planet's third moon as the HQ of an IAN naval station. As a consequence, the system was a rare island of safety amid the Confederacy's chaos, but Honor's attention wasn't on Sachsen at the moment. Instead, it was on the holo chart glowing above the conference table, and she raised one hand, palm up in question.

"I'm not sure, Milady." Rafael Cardones frowned at the chart. "If the Andies' information is right, this is certainly the major threat zone. But you're talking about branching out into a whole 'nother sector. The Admiralty might not like that . . . and I'm not sure I like splitting the squadron up quite that widely. Captain Truman?"

Honor's golden-haired second in command shrugged. "Split up is split up, Rafe," she pointed out. "We'll be just as much out of mutual support range covering one system as ten, unless you want to hold us together, and we'd look a little odd lollygagging around in a bunch. Some of these pirates have d.a.m.ned sensitive survival instincts-if they see a batch of merchies holding station on one another in a single star system, they may smell a trap and stay clear. But if we split into single s.h.i.+ps, we can cover a lot more systems. I like the rotation idea, too. It should not only keep presenting any bad guys with fresh faces, but the changing patrol areas should keep our people from getting stale."

"Maybe so," Cardones agreed. "But if the Andies could twig to us, what's to say someone else hasn't? If the bad guys know we've got Q-s.h.i.+ps out here, they're either going to stay away or come in carefully . . . maybe in greater numbers." He looked at Honor. "Remember the sim you set up for me and Jennifer, Skipper?"

Honor nodded and quirked an eyebrow at Truman, who shrugged.

"I can't fault either point, but 'staying away' is what we want them to do. I mean, killing them all off would be a more permanent solution, but our real job is to reduce losses, isn't it? As for numbers, of course we're going to get hurt if someone decides to swarm one of our s.h.i.+ps. But why should a whole squadron of raiders go after a Q-s.h.i.+p in the first place? They're not going to get any worthwhile loot, but they will get plenty of hard knocks, even if they take us out. They know that, so why risk it for no return?"

Honor nodded slowly, rubbing Nimitz's ears while the 'cat curled in her lap. Rafe was playing the cautious devil's advocate-a role foreign to his own aggressive nature-because it was his job to shoot holes in his CO's schemes on the theory that it was better for one's exec to shoot up one's plans than for the enemy to shoot up one's s.h.i.+ps. And he had a point. If a bunch of bad guys tried to pounce on a single s.h.i.+p, the odds were that that s.h.i.+p would get badly hurt. But Alice had a point, too.

The problem lay in the new data Commander Hauser had provided. Raiding patterns had s.h.i.+fted since ONI put together her own pre-deployment background brief. s.h.i.+ps had been disappearing in ones and twos in Breslau and the neighboring Posnan Sector, and they still were. But where whoever it was had been snapping up single s.h.i.+ps and then pulling out, so that the next half-dozen or so got through safely, now as many as three or even four s.h.i.+ps in a row were disappearing-all in the same system. Losses were actually higher now in Posnan than in Breslau, which was what had forced Honor to rethink her original deployment plans, but the new pattern of consecutive losses was almost more worrisome than the total numbers. Consecutive losses meant raiders were hanging around to s.n.a.t.c.h up more targets, and that was wrong. Raiders shouldn't do that . . . or not, at least, if they were operating in the normal singletons.

No raider captain wanted to stooge around with a prize in tow, because two s.h.i.+ps together were more likely to be detected and avoided by other potential prizes. Then there was the manpower problem. Very few pirates carried sufficient crew to man more than two or three-at most four-prize s.h.i.+ps unless they captured the original s.h.i.+ps' companies and made them operate their s.h.i.+ps' systems.

On the other hand, she thought unhappily, they might just be managing to hang onto those crews. Normally, something like half the s.h.i.+ps. .h.i.t by pirates were able to get their personnel away before the s.h.i.+p was actually taken, and some incidents were still following that pattern. But some weren't, and the crews of no less than eighty percent of the Manticoran s.h.i.+ps lost in Posnan had vanished with their vessels. That was well above the usual numbers, and it suggested two possibilities, neither pleasant. One, someone was simply blowing away merchant s.h.i.+ps, which seemed unlikely, or, two, someone had sufficient s.h.i.+ps to use one to run down any evading shuttles or pinnaces while another took the prize into custody.

And that, of course, was the reason for Rafe's concern. If the bad guys had multiple s.h.i.+ps working single systems, the opposition might be far tougher than the Admiralty had a.s.sumed.

"I wish we knew just how the Andies tumbled to us," Truman murmured, and Honor nodded.

"I do, too," she admitted, "but Rabenstrange didn't say, and I can't really blame him. Just telling us they know could jeopardize their intelligence net. We'd be asking a bit much for them to simply tell our own counter-intelligence types how they'd done it."

"Agreed, Milady," Cardones said. He rubbed his nose, then shrugged. "I'd also like to know just why the pattern's s.h.i.+fted this way. According to Commander Hauser's figures, we're the only ones losing merchies in groups."

"That may be simple probability," Truman said. "We've got more s.h.i.+ps out here than anyone else, despite our losses. If anyone's going to take multiple hits, the people with the most targets are the ones who'd get hit most often."

"And when you add our draw down in light units," Honor pointed out, "we actually turn into more tempting targets than someone like the Andies, who still have wars.h.i.+ps available to respond. If I were a raider, I'd pick on the people I knew weren't in a position to drop a squadron of destroyers into my cosy little web."

"I know, but I just can't help feeling there's something more to it," Cardones said.

"Maybe there is, but the only way to find out what it might be is to go see for ourselves." Honor tapped another command into her terminal, and bright green lines sprang into existence in the holo chart. They linked ten star systems-six in Breslau and four in Posnan-in an elongated, complex pattern thirty-two light-years across at its widest point, and she gazed at it moodily.

"If we follow this pattern," she said after a moment, "we'll have one s.h.i.+p-and a different one-entering or departing one of these systems every week or so. If anyone is lying low and watching for us, they won't see the same s.h.i.+p hanging around for extended periods. That should keep us from looking like trolling wars.h.i.+ps, and it puts us in the center of the zone of heaviest losses and lets us patrol the widest area once we get there."

"Yes, it does," Cardones admitted. "a.s.suming we don't run into anyone operating in squadron strength, I'd say it's clearly our best approach. But it does move us into Posnan, and it leaves all these stars in Breslau"-he tapped at his own terminal, and nine more stars blinked-"uncovered. We're taking losses there, too, and Breslau is where we're tasked for operations."

"I know," Honor sighed. "But if we extend the pattern, we also extend times between stars. We spend more time in hyper and less in n-s.p.a.ce where we're most likely to actually find and kill pirates. This seems to me to give us the best mix of deception and time in the zone, Rafe."

"I agree," Cardones said in turn. "I just wish we could cover more area if we're going to split up anyway. However we go at it, you know we won't be there when someone gets. .h.i.t, and the cartels are going to howl that we're-that you're-not doing our job if that happens."

"The cartels are just going to have to accept the best we can do," Honor replied. "Our s.h.i.+pping will still be hit whatever pattern we follow, and without more Q-s.h.i.+ps, there's not much we can do about it. I know they're going to complain if we aren't covering a system and they lose a s.h.i.+p there, but the fact is that the pirates have the initiative. They're the ones who decide where they'll raid; all we can do is follow them and hurt them badly enough the survivors decide to go somewhere else. If we clear one area, they'll move to another and we'll follow them, which should at least let us cramp the scale of their operations. And once we pick a few of them off, the Admiralty can point to the kill numbers as proof that we're actually doing some good."

"You know what I wish?" Truman asked. Honor looked at her, and the other captain shrugged. "I wish we knew who was funding and supporting the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. You know as well as I do that the average piracy ring can afford to lose and replace vessels-and crews-all year long if as much as a third of them manage to take a decent prize on each cruise. Think about it. These eleven s.h.i.+ps"-she tapped her screen, where the names of the most recently missing vessels were displayed-"represent an aggregate value of almost twelve billion just for the hulls. You can buy a lot of s.h.i.+ps heavy enough to kill merchies for that kind of money."

"According to Commander Hauser, the Andies are working on that, just like ONI," Honor said. "If we can identify whoever's actually disposing of the s.h.i.+ps and cargoes, we'll be in a position to demand their local authorities take action against them." Truman made a sound which might charitably have been called a laugh, and Honor shrugged. "I know a lot of the locals will be in bed with the pirates, but if they're too stupid-or dirty-to take at least pro forma action, I suspect Admiral Rabenstrange would be delighted to drop a squadron of the wall in on them to convince them to see reason. We, unfortunately, don't have that sort of firepower. All we can do is pour water on the fire and at least make them replace losses."

"I know," Truman sighed, "but I can wish, can't I?"

"I'll wish right along with you," Honor agreed. "In the meantime, this looks to me like the best way to proceed in light of the information and forces available to us."

"Agreed," Truman said, and Cardones nodded, though he still seemed a bit unhappy at the prospect. Honor knew most of his unhappiness was for her sake, since she was the one who was going to catch any criticism that came the squadron's way, and she wondered if he'd worked through the same logic Admiral White Haven had explained to her on Grayson. It seemed likely; Rafe was sharp, and the level of his unease indicated more than a mere sense of tactical exposure.

"All right," she said more briskly, shaking off her own awareness of those same points. "In that case, Alice, we'll go with the pattern you and I discussed. You'll take Parna.s.sus to Telmach and Samuel will take Scheherazade to Posnan to start your legs. I'll take Wayfarer to Libau for the first leg through Walther, and Allen and Gudrid will take the first Hume-Gosset leg."

Truman nodded. The patrol pattern Honor had outlined would put her own Parna.s.sus and Wayfarer in the systems of maximum threat for the first portion of the pattern, while MacGuire's Gudrid would have the closest thing to a milk run for her first system.

"All right." Honor said again. She sat up straighter and looked both her subordinates in the eye in turn as Nimitz flowed up over her shoulder to sit on the back of her chair. "There are two more things we should consider. The first is what we do with anyone we capture. Rafe was out here in Fearless with me, so he already knows my policy, Alice, but you weren't. Have you had a chance to review my memo on it?"

"I have," Truman replied with a sober nod.

"Do you have any problems with it?" Honor asked quietly.

"No, Ma'am." Truman shook her head. "If anything, you're being too lenient."

"Perhaps so," Honor acknowledged, "but we have to at least pretend the Confederacy has a functional government-until they prove otherwise, at any rate. In the meantime, I'll draft formal orders for you, Allen, and Samuel to cover the situation. Remember that we need any information we can get on operational patterns, though. If anybody wants to deal by turning informer, feel free to use your initiative and judgment as to terms."

Truman nodded, and Honor rubbed her eyes wearily. "And that brings me to my last point-which is the possibility that these new patterns indicate we aren't looking just at normal raiders, or even privateers. The 'liberation governments' in Psyche and Lutrell are the most likely culprits if someone is operating in squadron strength, but there's one other possibility."

"Peeps," Truman said flatly, and Honor nodded.

"Exactly. Neither ONI nor the Andies have picked up any signs of it, but the Peeps have their own connections out here. For that matter, their emba.s.sies are still open, since they aren't at war with Silesia or the Andies. It wouldn't be too hard for them to make a quiet deal with one of the smaller system's governors for clandestine resupply, and their emba.s.sies' intelligence on s.h.i.+pping patterns is probably at least as good as ours. If they have managed to slip a raiding squadron in on us, they'd go after our s.h.i.+pping, not anyone else's, and they wouldn't want the crews of the s.h.i.+ps they hit getting loose to tell us they're here."

"Unless their purpose is to force the Admiralty to cut loose heavier forces to chase them," Truman pointed out. "That's exactly what they tried to do before they hit you at Yeltsin, Honor, and they succeeded. Why not deliberately let our people 'get away'? Wouldn't it make sense to be obvious if their object is to prove to the Admiralty how seriously our s.h.i.+pping here is threatened?"

"A possibility," Honor agreed, "but I don't think they would. Their operations before Fourth Yeltsin were part of a coordinated plan designed to impose a temporary change in our deployments to suck forces away from a specific objective for a single offensive strike. They could be trying to draw us into false deployments again, but this far from home there's no way they could coordinate with the front. I suspect that means they'd go for a long term, general diversion, not a specific, short term one."

She frowned at the holo, rubbing the tip of her nose, then shrugged.

"On top of that, anything they sent out here would find itself in a world of hurt if we went after it in a big way. Without regular fleet bases of their own-which they don't have-they'd be at a severe disadvantage if we did transfer the forces to go after them. And don't forget the edge our shorter pa.s.sage times through the Junction give us in information flow and deployment speeds. We'd have an excellent chance of making the transfer, hitting them hard, and getting our light forces back home before the rest of the Peeps even knew we'd made the move. By the same token, I doubt they want to do anything to irritate the Empire. They have to be delighted that the Emperor's sitting things out so far, and open, large scale fleet operations in the Andies' backyard might just cause him to change his mind. Besides, they don't have to operate openly to achieve the same objective. Bottom line, it doesn't matter who's raiding us, just that someone is."

"True enough." Truman nodded.

"But the point I'm making is this," Honor went on. "If it is the Peeps, they're going to be using real wars.h.i.+ps, not the lightly armed vessels your typical raider cobbles up. I think it's unlikely we're looking at Peep operations, and it's possible I'm jumping at shadows, but we can't afford to a.s.sume anything. So it's important that we all keep our guards up, and, for the record, I am instructing all captains to remain covert and avoid action against any Peep wars.h.i.+p larger than a heavy cruiser. If we run into a battlecruiser or one of their battles.h.i.+ps-which I hope to G.o.d we don't-try to avoid action. The loss of a real wars.h.i.+p would hurt them more than losing a Q-s.h.i.+p will hurt the Star Kingdom, but it's much more important that we know what we're up against."

"If they are operating out here, it's probably with light stuff," Truman said.

"Of course it is, and if we run into any of their light units, we kill them," Honor said. "But I didn't expect to see battles.h.i.+ps in Yeltsin last year, either. They've shown they're willing to operate their light battle squadrons aggressively, however inexperienced most of their officer corps was at the start of the war, and if there are any big boys out here, I want to know it. I'm serious, people. No heroics. If you're forced into action, go all out and don't worry about hiding any of your capabilities, but reporting the presence of heavy Peep units is more important than trying to destroy them. Understood?"

Cardones and Truman both nodded, and Honor stood, scooping Nimitz from her chair back and setting him on her shoulder.

"In that case, let's be about it. I want to be headed for our initial stations by zero-three-hundred."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Klaus Hauptman nodded curtly to his driver as she opened the air limo door for him. His expression was thunderous as he climbed out of the palatial vehicle, and the limo's internal atmosphere had been anything but restful during the flight, but Ludmilla Adams took neither the curtness of his nod nor his anger personally. When Klaus Hauptman was upset with an individual, he let that individual know in no uncertain terms. Since he hadn't ripped her head, he must be ticked off with someone else, and she'd learned long ago to view his occasional bursts of anger with much the same equanimity as someone who lived on the slope of an active volcano might view its eruptions. If they happened, they happened, and she was prepared to ride them out. Besides, arrogant and self-centered though he was, he normally did his best to make amends when he realized he'd lashed out at one of his employees for something someone else had done.

Of course, it didn't always work that way, and he could be an incredibly vindictive old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but Adams had been with him for over twenty years. She was not only his chauffeur but also his security chief and personal bodyguard, and she had the one quality Klaus Hauptman valued above all others: competence. He respected her, and they'd developed a comfortable relations.h.i.+p over the last two decades. It was a master-employee relations.h.i.+p, of course, not one between equals, but it provided her with a certain insulation against his tiffs.

Now he stepped past her onto the manicured lawn of the Hauptman estate. The low-growing, sprawled-out mansion appeared to be only two stories tall, but appearances were deceiving. Although the Hauptmans themselves and their small army of servants lived on the upper floors everyone could see, ninety percent of it was buried in the nine bas.e.m.e.nt and sub-bas.e.m.e.nt levels which housed its vehicle garages, maintenance areas, data management sections, and the hundreds of other business functions required to manage the Hauptman Cartel.

The architects had created something which resembled a cross between a Roman villa from Old Earth and a rustic hunting lodge. The fusion of styles should have looked ridiculous, yet they merged somehow into a single, coherent whole that was oddly suited to the dense forest surrounding the estate. Of course, the whole thing was an ostentatious affectation in a counter-grav civilization. Towers were far cheaper and more s.p.a.ce efficient-it was always easier to build upward than to excavate downward, and servants didn't have to walk half a kilometer from the kitchen to the dining room in a properly designed tower-but Klaus Hauptman's grandfather had decided he wanted a country seat, and a country seat was what he'd built.

"Will we be needing the car again this afternoon, Sir?" Adams asked calmly.

"No." Hauptman snapped, then made himself pause. "Sorry, 'Milla. Didn't mean to bite your head off."

"One of the things I'm here for, Sir," she replied wryly, and he barked a crack of laughter.

"I still shouldn't do it," he admitted, "but-" He shrugged, and she nodded. "At any rate," he continued, "I won't be needing the car again today. In fact, I may be going off-planet soon."

"Off-planet?" Adams. "Should I alert our people to make preparations?"

"No." Hauptman shook his head. "If I go at all, it won't be that sort of trip." Adams' eyebrow rose, and he smiled crookedly. "I don't mean to be cryptic, 'Milla. Believe me, I'll let you know in plenty of time before we go haring off anywhere."

"Good," Adams said, and pressed a b.u.t.ton on the remote on her left wrist. The limo rose behind them and whispered off to the parking entrance, and she followed him into the imposing edifice he modestly called home.

A human butler opened the old-fas.h.i.+oned, unpowered door, and Hauptman nodded to him. The butler took one look at his employer's face and stood aside. He didn't say anything, but he quirked an eyebrow at Adams and shook his head wryly as Hauptman stalked past him. Adams smiled back and trailed the magnate down a long, airy hall embellished with a fortune in art.

"Is Stacey here?" Hauptman grunted, and Adams consulted her wrist remote.

"Yes, Sir. She's out by the pool."

"Good." Hauptman paused and tugged at an ear lobe for a moment, then sighed. "You might as well go on, 'Milla. I'm sure you've got things of your own to take care of, but we'll be staying home tonight. If you're free, I'd appreciate your joining us for supper."

"Of course, Sir." The security chief nodded, then watched Hauptman walk on down the hall without her, and a small smile played about her lips. He was an odd duck, her employer. Curt, self-centered, capable of atrocious rudeness, arrogant, hot-tempered, and totally unaware of the sublime sense of superiority his wealth gave him, yet capable of consideration, kindness, even generosity-as long as he could be those things on his own terms-and imbued with an iron sense of obligation to those in his employ. If he hadn't been the wealthiest man in the Star Kingdom, the only word that would have applied was "spoiled," she thought. As it was, one could only call him "eccentric" and let it go at that.

Klaus Hauptman stalked on down the corridor, unaware of his bodyguard's thoughts. He had other things on his mind, and he wasn't looking forward to them as he stepped out into the estate's central courtyard.

The formal garden's carefully tended Old Earth roses and Manticoran crown blossom formed lanes that splashed the court with color and led the eye to the huge swimming pool at its heart. That pool was half the size of a soccer field, and its center was dominated by an ornate fountain. Vast bronze fish from half a dozen planets spouted water into the pool from their open mouths while mermaids and mermen lounged among them, and the constant, splas.h.i.+ng murmur of water was subliminally soothing.

At the moment, however, Hauptman's attention was on the young woman in the pool. Her hair was as dark as his own, but she had her mother's brown eyes. She also had her mother's high cheekbones and oval face to go with those eyes, and her features had their own strength. She wasn't beautiful, but, in its own way, that was a statement of power, for she could have afforded the finest biosculpt in the galaxy and had herself turned into a G.o.ddess. Stacey Hauptman had chosen not to, and her willingness to settle for the face genetics had given her when she didn't have to said that this was a woman who was comfortable with who and what she was-and who had no need to prove anything to anyone.

She turned at the end of a lap and paused, treading water, as she caught sight of her father. He waved, and she waved back.

"Hi, Daddy! I didn't expect you home this afternoon."

"Something came up," he replied. "Do you have a minute? We need to talk."

"Of course." She stroked strongly to a ladder, climbed out of the pool, and reached for a towel. She was trim and lithe but richly curved, and Hauptman felt a familiar spurt of irritation at the skimpiness of her suit. He suppressed it with an equally familiar sense of wry self-amus.e.m.e.nt. His daughter was twenty-nine T-years old, and she'd amply demonstrated her ability to look out for herself. What she did and who she did it with were her affair, but he supposed every father felt the same way. After all, fathers remembered what they'd been like as young men, didn't they?

He chuckled at the thought and walked over to pick up her robe. He held it for her to slip into against the dropping evening temperature, then waved to the chairs around one of the pool-side tables. She belted the robe, sat, leaned back, crossed her legs, and looked at him curiously, and his amus.e.m.e.nt faded as his mind returned to the day's news.

"We've lost another s.h.i.+p," he said abruptly.

Stacey's eyes darkened in understanding, and not just on a personal level. Her father had said "we," and the term was accurate, for Hauptman had learned from his own father's mistakes. Eric Hauptman had belonged to the last pre-prolong generation, and he'd insisted on maintaining direct, personal control of his empire till the day of his death. Klaus had been given some authority, but he'd been only one of many managers, and his father's death had left him woefully unprepared for his responsibilities. Worse, he'd thought he was prepared for them, and his first few years in the CEO's suite had been a roller coaster ride for the cartel.

Klaus Hauptman wasn't prepared to repeat that error, especially since, unlike his father, he could antic.i.p.ate at least another two T-centuries of vigorous activity. He'd married quite late, but he'd be around for a long, long time, and he'd had no intention of letting Stacey turn into an unproductive drone, on the one hand, or of leaving her to feel excluded and shut out-and untrained-on the other. She was already the Cartel's operations director for Manticore-B, including the enormous asteroid mining activity there, and she'd gotten that position because she'd earned it, not just because she was the boss's daughter. She was also, since her mother's death, the one person in the universe Klaus Hauptman totally and unequivocally loved.

"Which s.h.i.+p was it?" she asked now, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

"Bonaventure," he sighed, and heard her draw a breath of pain.

"The crew? Captain Harry?" she asked quickly, and he shook his head.

"He got most of his people out, but he stayed behind," he said quietly. "So did his exec."

"Oh, Daddy," Stacey whispered, and he clenched a fist in his lap. Harold Sukowski had been captain of the Hauptman family s.p.a.ce yacht when Stacey was a girl. She'd had a terrible crush on him, and it was he who'd taught her basic astrogation and coached her through her extra-atmospheric pilot's license. He and his family had become very important to Stacey, especially after her mother died. Much as he loved her, Hauptman knew he didn't always manage to show it, and her wealth and position had produced a lonely childhood. She'd learned early to be wary of people who wanted to be her "friends," and most of those she'd actually come into contact with had been employees of her father. Sukowski had, too, of course, but he'd also been a rated stars.h.i.+p captain, with the glamor that attached to that, and a man who'd treated her not like a princess, not as the heir to the Kingdom's greatest fortune, not even as his future boss, but as a lonely little girl.

She'd adored him. In fact, Hauptman had experienced a deep, unexpected jealousy when he realized how his daughter saw Sukowski. To his credit, he'd exercised self restraint in the captain's case, and, looking back, he was glad he had. He hadn't been the easiest father a motherless daughter could have had, and the Sukowski family had helped fill the void his wife's death had left in Stacey's life. She'd missed Sukowski dreadfully when he turned the yacht over to someone else, but she'd also been delighted when his seniority with the Hauptman Line gave him Bonaventure straight from the builders. She'd dragged her father to the commissioning party and presented Sukowski with an antique s.e.xtant as a commissioning gift, and he'd responded by listing her as a supernumerary crew member to make her a keel plate owner of his new s.h.i.+p.

"I know." Hauptman opened his eyes and looked out over the pool, and his jaw clenched. d.a.m.n the Admiralty! If they hadn't screwed around, this wouldn't have happened! Hauptman hated to lose any of his people, but he would have cut off his own hand to spare Stacey this. And, he admitted, he felt the loss himself, deeply and personally. There weren't many people he'd ever felt really close to, and he'd never shown Sukowski any favoritism because he made it a policy not to do that, but the captain's loss hurt.

"Have we heard anything?" Stacey asked after a moment.

"Not yet. Our Telmach factor sent off a letter as soon as Bonaventure's people reported her loss, but there hasn't been time for anything else to come in yet. Of course, Sukowski had the doc.u.mentation of our ransom offer in his safe."

"Do you really expect that made any difference?" Stacey asked harshly. Her voice was angry now-not at her father, but at their helplessness. Hauptman knew that, yet hearing her anger only fanned his own, and he clamped his jaw even tighter.