“Then I suppose we shouldn’t keep him waiting,” he said, and glanced at the massive Marine colonel at his shoulder. “Tomas?”

  * * *

  Tomas Ramirez followed Tankersley across the grass, the pistol box—borrowed from one of Tankersley’s aristocratic relatives, its lid embossed with the arms of a cadet branch of the House of Winton—tucked under his right arm.

  Ramirez had insisted Tankersley practice on Nike’s range with one of the heavy, deliberately anachronistic but still lethal ten-millimeter pistols inside that box. He was glad he had, although the experience had only confirmed what he’d already expected to discover. Unlike Marines, naval officers were required to qualify with small arms only every other T-year, and Tankersley had grown up on Manticore, as a city boy right here in Landing. Although he’d frequently fished the waters of Jason Bay, he’d never spent a day on a hunting field in his life, nor had he ever seen any reason to carry a weapon for personal protection or shown the least interest in competitive shooting. All of which meant his familiarity with even modern small arms, far less antiques like these, was minimal, to say the least. He was an adequate shot—for certain values of the term “adequate,” at least—but he would never be able to match the polished proficiency of a professional like Summervale.

  “He’s going to be faster than you are, Paul,” Ramirez had said somberly as they stood on the otherwise empty range while the fans cleared away the propellant fumes. “He’s done this before—a lot of times. I wish we had longer to practice, but to be completely honest, I don’t think it would make an enormous difference.”

  Tankersley had nodded, his expression sober.

  “The one thing you absolutely have to be is focused,” Ramirez had continued. “Unless you’re a total idiot, you’ll also be scared. I know we don’t admit that, but you’ve seen combat. You know it’s true. So you have to step onto that field with your fear already put away in a box somewhere, and you have to fill your mind with only one purpose: to get that pistol up as quickly as you can without jerking it around. You have to be quick, but you also have to be controlled, because it won’t do you one bit of good to get off a shot if you jerk your gun hand and send it God knows where. So bring it up, find the sight picture, and squeeze. Those are the only three things in your brain. Don’t pay any attention to what he’s doing, because you can’t affect or control that. Concentrate on what you can control. And whatever else you do, don’t go into this thinking ‘I only have to take one shot, so it won’t really matter whether or not I hit him, because it’ll all be over either way.’”

  Tankersley’s eyes had narrowed, and Ramirez had snorted.

  “Of course you’ve thought about that! And in at least one respect, it’s absolutely true. But this will be a matter of fractions of a second. That’s how long it’ll take. I think he’s faster than you, and I know he’s more practiced, but he’s not automatically going to get off the first shot. And that’s why you need to be totally focused on hitting him. On preempting his shot, if you possibly can. Not on not being hit yourself, not on ‘it doesn’t matter,’ but on ‘I am going to kill this son of a bitch.’”

  He’d held Tankersley’s gaze with his own, seeing the collision of understanding and rejection deep in his friend’s eyes.

  “I’ve told you this and told you this,” he’d said. “I think this bastard’s been hired to kill you. I think it’s past time somebody killed him. And I would one hell of a lot rather piss on his grave than go to your funeral. Do you read me on this, Paul?”

  “I read you, Tomas.” Tankersley had nodded. “I read you.”

  Now Ramirez walked at Tankersley’s shoulder and hoped he truly had.

  * * *

  Denver Summervale stood waiting just outside the white wooden rail around the flat, smooth, immaculately groomed grass of the dueling ground itself. An LCPD sergeant stood behind him, and Milorad Livitnikov stood beside him, holding his own pistol box. Carlson led Tankersley and Ramirez onto the ground, then beckoned for Summervale and Livitnikov to join them.

  “Mister Summervale, Captain Tankersley,” the lieutenant said. “It is my first and foremost duty to urge a peaceful resolution of your differences, even at this late date. I ask you both now: can you not compose your quarrel?”

  He looked back and forth between them, but neither man spoke, and he sighed.

  “In that case, present your weapons.”

  Ramirez and Livitnikov opened their pistol cases, and Carlson chose one pistol at random from the pair in each case.

  Ramirez and Nike’s armorer had personally stripped both of Tankersley’s pistols, checked every part with painstaking care, cleaned and oiled them. He knew those weapons were in perfect working order, and he was confident the same was true for Summervale’s, but still he watched like a hawk as Carlson examined both of his chosen pistols with skilled fingers. The lieutenant worked each action twice, then handed one to Tankersley and the other to Summervale and looked back at the seconds.

  “Load, Gentlemen,” he said, and watched as each of them loaded five gleaming rounds into a magazine. Ramirez snapped the final round into place and handed the magazine to Tankersley as Livitnikov did the same for Summervale.

  “Load, Mister Summervale,” Carlson said, and Summervale slid the magazine into place and slapped it once, with arrogant, practiced grace, to be sure it was seated securely.

  “Load, Captain Tankersley,” Carlson said and Tankersley inserted his own magazine. He didn’t try to match Summervale’s showmanship, but his fingers were steady as he pressed the magazine baseplate firmly to ensure it was locked in place.

  “Take your places, Gentlemen,” Carlson said.

  Ramirez squeezed Tankersley’s shoulder briefly, and the captain smiled at him, then turned and walked to the center of the field. He turned in place, facing south, as Summervale crossed to stand behind him, facing north, and Carlson took his own place at the side of the field.

  “Mister Summervale, Captain Tankersley,” he said, raising his voice to be clearly heard, “you may chamber.”

  Tankersley pulled back the slide, chambering a round.

  “You have agreed to meet under the Dreyfus Protocol,” Carlson said. “At the command of ‘Walk,’ you will each take twenty paces. At the command of ‘Stop,’ you will immediately stop and stand in place, awaiting my next command. Upon the command ‘Turn,’ you will turn, and each of you will fire one round and one round only. If neither is hit in the first exchange, you will each lower your weapon and stand in place once more until I have asked both parties if honor is satisfied. If both answers are in the negative, you will take two paces forward upon the command ‘Walk.’ You will then stand in place once more until the command ‘Fire,’ when you will once more fire one round and one round only. The procedure will repeat until one party declares honor is satisfied, until one of you is wounded, or until your magazines are empty. Should either of you violate the terms and procedures I have just explained, it will be my duty to stop you in any way that I can, up to and including the use of deadly force, and I will fulfill that duty. Do you understand what I have just said, Captain Tankersley?”

  “I do,” Tankersley replied.

  “Do you understand what I have just said, Mister Summervale?” Carlson asked then, and there was an ever so slightly harder edge to his voice. Summervale heard it, and his lip curled, but he only nodded curtly.

  “Very well,” Carlson said, and drew his holstered pulser while Tankersley and Summervale stood back-to-back in the dew-slick grass. He waited a moment longer, letting the stillness settle into their bones like iron in the morning quiet.

  “Walk,” he said then, and watched them striding slowly and deliberately away from one another. He counted the paces silently, then raised his free hand.

  “Stop,” he said quietly, and the two men stood there, still facing away from one another, weapons ready. The morning held its breath around them like a living thing.

  And then—

  “Turn!” Lieutenant Carlson said and thunder shattered the stillness.

  HMS Prince Adrian

  HMSS Hephaestus

  Manticore Planetary orbit

  Manticore Binary System

  March 22, 1906 PD

  lieutenant Scotty Tremaine peered at the diagnostic readout on his handheld. He couldn’t quite make out the tiny letters, and he blinked his eyes, trying to make them focus. They refused, and his mouth tightened angrily. He glared at the display, then hurled it back into the open toolbox at his elbow.

  It hit with a clatter, and the youthful lieutenant clenched his fists for a moment, then scrubbed angrily at his eyes. He drew a deep breath, held it for a long, slow moment. Then he exhaled, and his shoulders slumped.

  “Sorry about that, Horace,” he said.

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Sir,” the powerfully built senior chief with the battered prizefighter’s face replied, and Tremaine snorted harshly.

  “Don’t think Commander Yaytsev will be real happy if we go around breaking the equipment, though,” he said.

  “The Commander’s not that kinda hardcase, Sir,” Harkness said. “Runs a tight department, but he’s not gonna chew your ass over a dropped handheld.”

  “I didn’t drop it,” Tremaine pointed out, and Harkness shrugged.

  “Nope. But there’s a lot of that going around,” he said.

  “Yeah.” The single word came out in a gusty sigh, and Tremaine nodded heavily. “Yeah, I guess there is.”

  He drew another deep breath and leaned a shoulder against the bulkhead of the pinnace’s electronics compartment while he ran one hand over his hair. He knew Harkness knew exactly why he’d had trouble reading the diagnostic, and he didn’t really care. He and the senior chief had been through too much together to worry about trying to hide their emotions, especially when it was just the two of them. And they weren’t the only people aboard Prince Adrian who were feeling those emotions just now.

  Although it must be immeasurably worse aboard Nike, he thought. Among Captain Harrington’s current crew, who’d watched the love growing between her and Paul Tankersley. Who knew that eventually the Captain would return to them and they would have to face her.

  It wasn’t their fault, any more than it was Tremaine’s or Harkness’. And not one of them would feel they hadn’t somehow failed her by not preventing it. It was illogical. It was unreasonable—even stupid—but all of them felt it.

  “I talked to Gunny Babcock about it,” Harkness said, and despite his lingering grief, Tremaine smiled ever so slightly.

  Horace Harkness’ relationship with Marines in general was a hate-hate affair. True, it had been quite some time since he’d faced a captain’s mast for knocking the stuffing out of a Marine. But the list of bars he and various Marines had reduced to wreckage was legendary, and he and Sergeant Major Iris Babcock—“Gunny” Babcock, since that was the unofficial, and hence hallowed, title bestowed upon any warship’s senior Marine noncom, regardless of his or her official rank—had a rather . . . fraught relationship. It was less strained than it might have been, since they’d served together under Captain Harrington in Yeltsin and both of them—like Tremaine himself—had been involved in the liberation of Blackbird Base and the surviving Manticoran POWs. Unfortunately, “less strained than it might have been” still left considerable room for improvement.

  “And what did the Gunny have to say?” Tremaine asked, after a moment.

  “She hates the son of a bitch.” Harkness’ voice was suddenly harsh, almost as cold as his eyes. “This isn’t the first time the miserable piece of shit’s killed somebody she cared about. Hell, I think the way she saw it coming only makes it worse for her! And the Colonel—!”

  The senior chief clamped his jaw, and Tremaine nodded heavily.

  He knew Colonel Ramirez almost as well as he knew Captain Harrington. Ramirez was a man of iron, everyone knew that. “And now with Paul, you’ve got proof it is,” McKeon said bitterly. And Tremaine knew exactly how the bitterness of Ramirez’s grief, his sense of failure, fanned the white heat of his rage. It wasn’t his fault any more than it was anyone else’s, but he’d been Tankersley’s second. He’d been there on the field.

  And he was the one who’d have to face the Captain and tell her how it had happened.

  “I actually sat down with her over a beer,” Harkness said in a voice that was much closer to normal, and Tremaine blinked.

  “You had a beer with Gunny Babcock?” he repeated carefully.

  “Well, yeah.” Harkness looked a little embarrassed, but he met Tremaine’s eyes steadily. “Seemed like the thing to do. And, for a Marine, I guess she’s not that bad. For a Marine, of course.”

  “Oh, of course!” Tremaine nodded, careful about his expression, and grateful for the brief sparkle of amusement Harkness’ semi-belligerent, defensive expression sent through him.

  “Anyway,” the senior chief went on, “thing is, I think she had to vent, and she couldn’t do it with the other jarheads, so she had to settle for me.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t easy for her to open up even with me, really. Took a while. But she had a lot to say about Summervale, once I got her talking. More’n I expected, really.” He shook his head, his face forgetting its duty to express disdain for all Marines. “She’s hurting even worse than most of us, Sir. She actually . . .” He shook his head and half-glared at Tremaine. “I think she was right on the edge of crying, Sir.”

  His expression dared Tremaine to make anything of that, but the lieutenant only nodded. Harkness looked back at him for a moment, then shrugged.

  “It’s like she’s seen this whole HD before, Sir. And she knows the bastard will just go right on doing this shit. It’s what he does.” He glared down into the toolbox, his eyes fiery. “It’s like some kind of goddammed curse, Sir. It just keeps happening to the Captain! And there’s not one fucking thing any of us—any of us—can do for her! Not this time.”

  Tremaine blinked again, this time on the same tears which had clouded the diagnostic. He reached out and squeezed Harkness’ burly shoulder.

  “I know, Chief,” he said. “I know.”

  The surprising thing, he thought bitterly, was that Tankersley had actually hit Summervale. It had been only a shoulder wound, little more than a graze, but he was certain Summervale hadn’t expected it. Not from a totally inexperienced opponent fighting his very first duel against a seasoned veteran of over a dozen encounters on “the field of honor.”

  Captain Tankersley had been completely outclassed in everything except courage and determination, but he’d actually gotten his shot off first, and it if had only been better placed . . .

  Only it hadn’t been. No doubt Summervale had been astonished that he’d been hit at all, but whatever else he might be, he was as cold and methodical as they came. He hadn’t rushed his own shot, hadn’t taken a chance on merely wounding his opponent. That wasn’t the result Denver Summervale had been hired to assure, and the paid duelist—the paid assassin—had taken his time, ignored his own wound . . . and shot Paul Tankersley squarely in the head.

  He hadn’t even pretended he felt anything remotely like remorse, either. He’d only stood there, pistol still in his hand, looking down at Tankersley with a lip that was ever so slightly curled, while Livitnikov and the attending physician ripped his sleeve open to get at his own trivial wound.

  And then he’d handed his weapon to Livitnikov with a haughty gaze, climbed into an air limo which had materialized out of nowhere, and simply disappeared.

  “I’ll kill him, Sir,” Harkness snarled, scrubbing at tears of his own. “I’ll kill the sorry-assed SOB with my own two hands. His fucking ‘code of honor’ won’t help him when I catch him in a goddammed alley somewhere! Hell, the Gunny’ll help me do it, and nobody’ll ever find the body!”

  “I didn’t hear that.” Tremaine’s tone was just sharp enough to make Harkness look at him.

  “I didn’t hear that,” Tremaine repeated, then. “And I’d better not hear about you and the Gunny deciding to go drinking dirtside together. It wouldn’t break my heart if something fatal were to happen to Mister Summervale, but making it happen—much as I might approve of it—wouldn’t be worth what it cost the two of you. And I’m not letting the bastard cost me any more people I care about. Do you read me on that?”

  He held Harkness’ eyes with his own, waiting, because Scotty Tremaine knew, far better than most, that Horace Harkness was capable of doing exactly what he’d just threatened to do. And between them, he and Iris Babcock almost certainly had the collection of talents—and contacts—to make it happen. But if they did, there was no way they could walk away clean. Too many knew how bitterly both of them hated Summervale.

  Silence hovered, and then, finally, Harkness gave a jerky nod. It might not have looked like much to someone else, but Scotty Tremaine recognized a silently given word of honor when he saw it.

  “Better,” he said, and squeezed the senior chief’s shoulder again. “Better.”

  He pulled the handheld back out of the toolbox and checked to be sure he hadn’t damaged its display when he threw it down, then looked back at Harkness with a crooked smile compounded almost equally of humor and bitterness.

  “Like I say, I won’t be upset if—when—something happens to Summervale, Senior Chief,” he said. “But you and Gunny Babcock don’t have to make it happen.”

  Harkness raised an eyebrow at him, and Tremaine barked a short, harsh laugh.

  “You and I both know it’s going to happen, Horace,” he said, with the certitude of a Delphic oracle. “I don’t care where Summervale hides. It won’t do him one damned bit of good, because you and I both know damned well the Captain’s going to kill him as soon as she gets home.”

  Bassingford Medical Center

  City of Landing

  Planet Manticore

  Manticore Binary System