Postwar Conversations

cthia wrote: quote="SWM"[quote="cthia"]

Another conversation that just has to take place, if it hasn't, and I felt sorry for both Estelle Matsuko and Honor for the way this went down.

After Honor was victorious On Basilisk Station, Fearless had taken a whipping, and Honor didn't have time, or intact communications to touch bases with Estelle, to let her know she had survived. Textev states that Estelle hadn't even known who was the victor. In retrospect, I don't see why Reliant couldn't dispatch a report to the system governor.

At any rate, Estelle is going to tell Honor, in a mushy scene, how very worried she was about her. And probably something along the lines of, "Don't every do that to me again!"

If Michelle is around that fireplace, she'll add a certain "Seems she has a nasty little habit of doing that to her loved ones."

"Status?"

"All stations manned, Captain," the exec said crisply. "Impeller wedge coming up—we should have movement capability in another ten minutes. Sirius has been underway for six-point-eight minutes . . . at four hundred and ten gees."

He paused, and Honor's jaw clenched. That was low for most warships, but impossibly fast for a freighter, and it confirmed Santos's deduction. Only military impellers could have produced that kind of acceleration for a ship Sirius's size . . . and only a military grade inertial compensator could allow her crew to survive it.

"The courier boat?" Her voice was sharp, and McKeon frowned.

"She started powering her wedge just after we did, Ma'am."
"Understood." Honor looked over her shoulder. "Do we have a link to the Resident Commissioner, Mr. Webster?"
"Yes, Ma'am."

"Put it on my screen." Honor looked back down just as a pale-faced Dame Estelle appeared. The commissioner opened her mouth, but Honor raised a hand and spoke first. "Excuse me, Dame Estelle, but time is short. I think I know what's going on now. Have you heard anything more from your patrol?" Matsuko shook her head mutely, and Honor's face went more masklike still.

"Very well. I am dropping my Marines now." She shot a sideways glance at McKeon, and he nodded and hit an intercom key to give the order. "Aside from that, there's very little we can do for you, I'm afraid. And unless I miss my guess, we're going to have problems of our own soon enough."

"I understand," Dame Estelle broke in, "but there's something you should know before you do anything else, Captain." Honor cocked her head and gestured for the commissioner to continue. "We picked up a transmission from the general area where our patrol went down just after we lost contact with Lieutenant Malcolm," Matsuko said quickly. "It was scrambled but not encrypted, and we just broke the scramble. The transmitter didn't identify himself, and he used a code name for his recipient, but we detected a transmission to the freighter from the Haven Consulate immediately afterward, so I think we know who it was intended for."

"What did it say?" Honor demanded. Dame Estelle didn't answer in words; she simply played the message off, and Honor's eyes went cold and flat as a male voice gasped over her com.

"Odysseus! It's Odysseus now, damn it! The frigging Shaman's lost his goddamned mind! They're boiling up out of the caves, and I can't hold them! The hopped-up bastards are kicking off right fucking now!"

A surflike roar of Medusan voices and the whiplash cracks of countless rifles echoed behind the words, and then the sounds cut off as Dame Estelle stopped the playback.

"Thank you, Dame Estelle," Honor said flatly. "I understand what's happening now. Good luck."

She killed the circuit and bent over her maneuvering display, ignoring McKeon as she punched in the parking orbit pattern and laid vectors across it. It was going to be close, but there was far less orbital traffic than there had been, and if she could pull it off . . .

"Impellers in three minutes, Ma'am," McKeon reported.

"Mr. Webster!"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"Stand by to record a signal to Lieutenant Venizelos at Basilisk Control for immediate relay to Fleet HQ. Fleet scramble, no encryption. Priority One."

Heads turned, and Webster's swallow was clearly audible.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Standing by to record."

"'Mr. Venizelos, you will commandeer the first available Junction carrier to relay the following message to Fleet HQ. Message begins: Authentication code Lima-Mike-Echo-Niner-Seven-One. Case Zulu. I say again, Zulu, Zulu, Zulu. Message ends.'" She heard McKeon suck air between his teeth at her shoulder. "That is all, Mr. Webster," she said softly. "You may transmit at will." Webster said absolutely nothing for an instant, but when he replied, his voice was unnaturally steady.

"Aye, aye, Captain. Transmitting Case Zulu." There was another brief pause, then, "Case Zulu transmitted, Ma'am."

"Thank you." Honor wanted to lean back and draw a deep breath, but there was no time. The message she'd just ordered Webster to send and Venizelos to relay to Manticore was never sent in drills, not even in the most intense or realistic Fleet maneuvers. Case Zulu had one meaning, and one only: "Invasion Imminent."

"Captain, are you sure—?" McKeon began, but her raised hand stopped him.

And then there had been the long voyage home. The long, slow voyage that had seemed to crawl, for Fearless's communications had been out. There was no way to tell Dame Estelle or the Admiralty what had happened, who had won, or the price her people had paid. Not until Fearless limped brokenly back into Medusa orbit thirteen hours after she'd left it and a white-faced Scotty Tremaine brought his pinnace alongside her air-bleeding wreck.

Vince wrote:For all those getting On Basilisk Station mixed up with The Honor of the Queen:

In On Basilisk Station, CL Fearless engaged the Peep Q-ship Sirius. "Excuse me, Skipper, but what do we know about this Sirius?" "She's big—a seven-point-six m-ton Astra-class" ship. "Captain Johan Coglin, People's Merchant Service, commanding."

While in The Honor of the Queen, CA Fearless engaged the Masadan BC Thunder of God, formerly the BC Saladin of the Peoples Republic of Haven. "He never thought of Thunder of God as Saladin these days, and he had to stop thinking of Principality as Breslau"

Edit: BC Reliant only appeared as the flagship of the relief force in The Honor of the Queen. In On Basilisk Station, the relief force was the entire Manticoran Home Fleet, but it did not arrive until after CL Fearless had limped back to the planet Medusa.

Each quote is taken from the book mentioned in the paragraph. All italics in the quotes are the author's.

Belial666 wrote:It should be noted that hundred-megaton-plus nuclear explosions are bright. Bright enough to be visible from as far away as terrestrial planets are, however briefly.


So the flashes probably were borderline-visible with the naked eye, at least from space. With a telescope with 80.000x useful magnification, the whole fight might just be visible from the planet, potentially.

cthia wrote:Another conversation that simply must happen, in their salt-n-pepper days around an open fire, is Honor and Scotty. IIRC, it was Scotty who trotted after Honor and kept her from splattering Captain Williams' brains all over that mess hall, down on the planet, during the Battle of Blackbird.

I don't see Honor's career surviving that. Especially so early on.

Edit:
It took Major Ramirez and several other officers to help restrain Honor. Talk about not knowing your own strength!

Considering this. Young really did get a patch torn out of his hide one-on-one against Honor!

The Honor of the Queen, Chapter wrote:The glob of spittle hit the dead skin of her left cheek. She couldn’t feel it, and for just one moment she couldn’t quite believe it had happened, but Major Ramirez’s left arm shot out. Armored fingers twisted in the neck of the Masadan’s one-piece uniform, and exoskeletal muscles whined as he snatched Williams off his feet. He slammed him back against the wall like a puppet, and his right fist started forward.
“Major!” Honor’s voice cracked like a whip, and Ramirez diverted the blow in the nick of time. His gauntlet smashed into the stone wall beside Williams’ head like a mace, so hard flying stone chips cut the Masadan’s cheek, and the red-faced, strangling captain flinched aside with a gasp of terror.
“Sorry, Ma’am.” The major was white with fury as he muttered his apology—to Honor, not Williams—and dropped the Masadan. He rubbed his left hand on his equipment harness as if to scrub away contamination, and Sergeant Talon handed Honor a napkin from a dispenser on one of the mess tables. She wiped her numb face carefully, her eyes still on the major, and wondered if Williams truly understood how close to death he’d just come.
“I understand your feelings, Major,” she said quietly, “but these people are our prisoners.”
“Yes, Ma’am. I understand.” Ramirez drew a deep breath and turned his back on Williams while the captain wheezed for breath. “They’re scum, and one of them killed a medic trying to patch him up, but they’re our prisoners. I’ll remember that, Ma’am.”
“See that you do,” Honor said, but she laid her hand on his armored shoulder as she spoke, and he managed a brief smile.

***Snip Honor seeing what happened to Madrigal's crew that was taken prisoner***

Major Ramirez looked up as Captain Harrington came up the corridor.
“Captain, what shall I—?”
She brushed by him as if he hadn’t spoken. There was no expression at all on her face, but the right side of her mouth twitched violently, and her gun was in her hand.
“Captain? Captain Harrington!”
He reached out to grasp her arm, and she looked at him at last.
“Get out of my way, Major.” Each word was precisely, perfectly formed despite her crippled mouth. “Clean up this section. Find every one of our people. Get them out of here.”
“But—"
“You have your orders, Major,” she said in that same, chilled-steel tone, and twitched out of his grasp. She started up the corridor once more, and he stared after her helplessly.
She didn’t look up when she reached the Marines in the passageway. She just strode straight ahead, and they scattered like frightened children. Sergeant Talon’s squad started to fall in around her, but she waved them back with a savage chop of her hand and kept walking.
Lieutenant Tremaine stared after her, biting his lip. He’d heard about the discoveries the Marines had made. He hadn’t believed it at first—hadn’t wanted to believe it—but then the medics had carried Commander Brigham’s stretcher past him. He’d believed it then, and the Marines’ fury had been dwarfed by his own, for he knew Mercedes Brigham well. Very well, indeed.
The Captain said she wanted to be alone. She’d ordered everyone to leave her alone. But Scotty Tremaine had seen her face.
She turned a bend in the corridor, and his own face tightened with decision. He laid aside his plasma carbine and went hurrying after her.

***Snip***

Captain Williams looked up as if he felt her hatred, and his face paled. She walked towards him, shoving people out of her way, and the voice calling her name was even louder as its owner pushed and shoved through the crowd behind her.
Williams tried to twist away, but her left hand tangled in his hair, and he cried out in agony as she slammed his head back against the wall. His mouth worked, gobbling words she didn’t bother to hear, and her right hand pressed the muzzle against his forehead and began to squeeze.
Someone else’s hands locked on her forearm, shoving frantically, and the sharp, spiteful explosion of a pulser dart pocked the mess hall roof as her pistol whined. She wrenched at the hands on her arm, trying to throw whoever it was off, but they clung desperately, and someone was shouting in her ear.
More voices shouted, more hands joined the ones on her arm, dragging her back from Williams while the man sagged to his knees, retching and weeping in terror, and she fought madly against them all. But she couldn’t wrench free, and she went to her own knees as someone snatched the pistol from her grip and someone else gripped her head and forced it around.
“Skipper! Skipper, you can’t!” Scotty Tremaine half-sobbed, holding her face between his hands while tears ran down his cheeks. “Please, Skipper! You can’t do this—not without a trial!”
She stared at him, her detached mind wondering what a trial had to do with anything, and he shook her gently.
“Please, Skipper. If you shoot a prisoner without a trial the Navy—" He drew a deep breath. “You can’t, Ma’am, however much he deserves it.”
“No, she can’t,” a voice like frozen helium said, and a trace of sanity came back into Honor’s expression as she saw Admiral Matthews. “I came as soon as I heard, Captain,” he spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he sensed the need to break through to her, “but your lieutenant’s right. You can’t kill him.” She stared deep into his eyes, and something inside her eased as she saw the agony and shame—and fury—in his soul.
“But?” she didn’t recognize her own voice, and Matthews’ mouth twisted in contemptuous hate as he glared down at the sobbing Masadan captain.
“But I can. Not without a trial. He’ll have one, I assure you, and so will all the animals he turned loose on your people. They’ll be scrupulously, completely fair—and as soon as they’re over, this sick, sadistic piece of garbage and all the others responsible will be hanged like the scum they are.” He met her eye levelly, and his icy voice was soft.
“I swear that to you, Captain, on the honor of the Grayson Navy.”

Vince wrote:Note that Major Ramirez was not mentioned as restraining Honor from blowing off Captain Williams' head, just Scotty Tremaine (by name) and other unnamed individuals. Major Ramirez was probably busy carrying out Honor's orders to evacuate everyone from the section they were in.

Prior to surrendering after the Battle of Blackbird, he erased the memory banks of his base's computer. He was captured when a Royal Marine assault team from HMS Fearless captured Blackbird, and was held with other Masadan prisoners in the mess hall. Upon meeting Captain Honor Harrington for the first time, he spat in her face, causing Major Tomas Ramirez to pick him up and violently slam him against a wall.

Williams refused to help the Manticorans and, when Colonel Harris gave the location of the Madrigal's surviving crewmembers, became violent and spat out obscenities until Major Ramirez knocked him against the wall once again.

When Captain Harrington found out about the atrocities committed by Williams and his crew, she drew her sidearm and prepared to shoot him. It took Major Ramirez and several of her crew to restrain her.

Captain Williams and the other Masadan officers of Blackbird were being held to stand trial for what happened to the Madrigal survivors. They were later hanged on Grayson in Captain Harrington's presence. (HH2)

cthia wrote:

Vince wrote:Note that Major Ramirez was not mentioned as restraining Honor from blowing off Captain Williams' head, just Scotty Tremaine (by name) and other unnamed individuals. Major Ramirez was probably busy carrying out Honor's orders to evacuate everyone from the section they were in.

Sorry again Vince. I didn't quite remember it that way either. I was going by the wiki. I thought I had missed something. I haven't gone back to do a reread to check it.

Wiki ...

Prior to surrendering after the Battle of Blackbird, he erased the memory banks of his base's computer. He was captured when a Royal Marine assault team from HMS Fearless captured Blackbird, and was held with other Masadan prisoners in the mess hall. Upon meeting Captain Honor Harrington for the first time, he spat in her face, causing Major Tomas Ramirez to pick him up and violently slam him against a wall.

Williams refused to help the Manticorans and, when Colonel Harris gave the location of the Madrigal's surviving crewmembers, became violent and spat out obscenities until Major Ramirez knocked him against the wall once again.

When Captain Harrington found out about the atrocities committed by Williams and his crew, she drew her sidearm and prepared to shoot him. It took Major Ramirez and several of her crew to restrain her.

Captain Williams and the other Masadan officers of Blackbird were being held to stand trial for what happened to the Madrigal survivors. They were later hanged on Grayson in Captain Harrington's presence. (HH2)

http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Williams_(Masada)