“That’s good, Milord.” Sarnow nodded. His voice was still weak, but satisfaction flickered in his green eyes.

  “Well, I’m afraid we don’t have an official declaration of war yet.” Caparelli shrugged. “We should—Parliament should’ve given it to us the day word of Hancock hit Landing—but apparently politics are still politics.” He grimaced with the sour disgust of someone whose position forced him to spend far too much time dealing with the realities of the Star Kingdom’s political establishment. “I think we’ll probably get it before much longer, though. Assuming the Liberals get their thumbs out, anyway.” The First Space Lord’s nostrils flared. “You may not believe it, but some of them are still arguing for ‘the path of sanity’ and ‘not leaping to any hasty conclusions until we have all the information we need before we make any irrevocable decisions’ despite the fact that the Peeps obviously shot first!”

  From his tone, the First Space Lord was quoting someone exactly. In fact, Sarnow was pretty sure he could have guessed which of Countess New Kiev’s Liberal Party peers had made the remarks. That second one, about “hasty conclusions,” had to have come from the Earl of Dabney. The man was a pompous, sanctimonious, overprivileged windbag whose invincible confidence in his own opinions made him dangerous, in Sarnow’s opinion. His dogged, unremitting opposition to every single year’s Naval Estimates for the past fifteen T-years, despite the looming menace of the People’s Republic of Haven, was a case in point.

  On the other hand, unlike some other members of the House of Lords, like Baron High Ridge, say . . .

  “Fair’s fair, Sir,” he said. “Don’t say I agree with them, but I think a lot of them—the Liberals, I mean—are sincere.”

  “I’m prepared to admit most of them are sincere,” Caparelli replied. “Not all of them, though. Especially not in the Lords. Given the company they keep there, honesty isn’t all that high on their list. And even granting they really believe what they’re spouting on the House floor, that just means they’ve put their heads very sincerely up their asses.”

  Sarnow chuckled, then winced, and Caparelli shook his head apologetically.

  “Sorry! I don’t imagine laughing does your gizzards a lot of good just now, Mark. Anyway, it won’t hurt anything if they burn another couple of weeks before they vote out the formal declaration.” He shrugged. “Given message transit times and deployment speeds, it’ll be a while before we’re ready for anything beyond the immediate counterstrikes. I’ve already authorized Riposte Gamma, and that’s really about as far as we can go until we have better intel on what the hell the Peeps are going to do, now that their initial offensives got shot to hell.”

  Sarnow nodded again. The Royal Manticoran Navy believed in being both prepared and thorough when it came to defending the Star Kingdom’s home star system and commerce from attack. As part of its thoroughness, it had dutifully considered the possibility of an attack by any hypothetical star nation, but it had always recognized that the only logical “hypothetical aggressor” was the People’s Republic of Haven, and it had planned accordingly. The RMN had long recognized that the People’s Republic would almost inevitably fire the first shot in the war against which both star nations had prepared for the last twenty T-years or so. Longer than that from Manticore’s perspective; the RMN’s buildup had actually begun well over half a T-century earlier, under Samantha II, ten T-years before Roger III came to the throne in 1857 PD, and it had only accelerated after Roger’s death in 1883. Sixty T-years was a long time to think about something, so even though the Admiralty had always anticipated that the Peeps would shoot first, they’d given quite a lot of attention to considering just what the Star Kingdom might do in the event that Manticore—unlike any of the People’s Navy’s previous targets—survived that opening shot and got to shoot back.

  The result was Case Riposte, a war plan whose options covered every imaginable set of circumstances. Riposte Gamma was, in fact, a far more optimistic variant than most Navy analysts had ever believed would be possible. If Caparelli had authorized Gamma, Admiral White Haven must have inflicted truly catastrophic damage on the People’s Navy when he ambushed it at Yeltsin’s Star.

  “All right, I should get the hell out of here so they can prep you for transport,” the First Space Lord said now. “The real reason I came is that I know that if I were the one in that bed after how brilliantly my people had performed, I’d want to know what was happening. Especially”—Caparelli smiled warmly—“because the way they performed—the way all of you performed—is what’s put us in a position to take the war to the enemy and kick the ever-loving shit out of him. Thank you. You did us all proud.”

  He held Sarnow’s eyes until the admiral nodded in acknowledgment. Then he nodded back, waved one hand, and stepped back out of the compartment.

  Bassingford Medical Center

  City of Landing

  Planet Manticore

  Manticore Binary System

  March 20, 1905

  “got a visitor, Lieutenant!”

  Brandy Bolgeo looked up from her book reader as Chief Petty Officer Jason Bates poked his head in through her hospital room’s open door.

  “It wouldn’t happen to be a surly, disreputable-looking, overweight fellow going bald on top, who was once a guest in your establishment himself, would it?” she asked the senior floor nurse in a suspicious tone, and Bates chuckled.

  “Actually, it is. But he’s got a really nice lady with him. She might be able to make him behave.”

  “Not if it’s who I’m pretty sure it is,” Brandy said mournfully, setting the reader on her bedside table. “Still, I’m braced now, so I guess you’d better let him come in.”

  “You really are brave, Lieutenant,” Bates said in suitably awed tones, then stepped aside.

  “‘Disreputable,’ is it?” the round-faced, bearded man demanded as he walked into the room. “Disreputable. That’s the best you could come up with after I spent an entire lifetime racking up black marks?”

  “You did not spend ‘an entire lifetime’ racking up black marks,” the dark-haired woman beside him said severely. “You didn’t even join the Navy until you were twenty-three, Timmy! I realize you spent most of those years getting into trouble as a civilian, but the Navy didn’t get a chance to whack you until you put the uniform on.”

  “I started as soon as I could,” Senior Chief Petty Officer (retired) Timothy Bolgeo pointed out in an affronted tone. “And I certainly did my best to make up for all that lost civilian time! I think I collected close enough to a lifetime’s worth to be entitled to a little poetic license!”

  “Ha! That’s about the only poetic thing about you,” Linda Bolgeo shot back. “Although,” she added with a judicious air, “they seemed to feel obligated to make up for all that lost time, too, once they did get a chance to start whacking you.”

  “I rest my case,” Tim said triumphantly as they crossed to the bed. Then he leaned in to hug Brandy, and she opened her arms wide. His own arms squeezed tight—tightly enough to belie the humor in his voice—and he held her close for several seconds before he inhaled deeply and stood back. He stood there, still looking down at her, until Linda gave him a pointed, none-too-gentle elbow jab. Then he twitched and moved aside with an apologetic chuckle. Linda snorted and leaned over to hug their daughter, as well, and Brandy’s eyes burned as they embraced tightly.

  “Sit. Sit!” she commanded then, waving at the hospital room’s chairs with the lightweight splint which had replaced the cast on her right hand while her left hand swiped as unobtrusively as possible (which wasn’t very) at her tears.

  “So bossy!” her father replied, smiling at her as he took his wife’s hand and the two of them settled obediently.

  “How are you feeling, honey?” Linda asked, her expression serious, and Brandy shrugged.

  “Honestly, I don’t feel all that bad, Mom. I’d a lot rather not be here, of course, but aside from a little discomfort in the wrist from the quick-heal”—she waved her splint again—“nothing’s actively hurting at the moment. My leg stump’s starting to itch from the prep treatments, but I knew that was going to happen. Somebody”—she looked pointedly at her father—“spent an awful lot of time complaining about itching when he was checked in here.”

  “I have no idea who you could possibly be talking about,” Tim said.

  “You could try to look at least a little sincere when you lie, Timmy,” Linda said.

  “Ah, but that’s part of my devious plan,” he told her. “If I lie badly most of the time, it’s a lot easier to sneak a lie through by lying well when I really need to.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Brandy smiled at her father, and he smiled back, but she recognized the pain behind that smile. It didn’t matter that she was almost thirty T-years old. What mattered was that he saw his little girl in that hospital bed.

  “So, the docs all told us you really are doing well,” Linda said now. “But you know you’re going to be sidelined for quite a while, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Brandy sighed. “The quick-heal’s already taken care of most of the soft tissue injuries, except for the cut in my side. Even that’s a lot better than it was, though. Of course, it’s slower on bone repairs. Which is why I’m still stuck with this.” She tapped the splint with her left index finger. “Which wouldn’t be such a pain if I weren’t so right-handed.” She rolled her eyes. “And they only started regen prep a couple of days ago. They say my profile’s good, but it looks like I’m not going to respond quite as well as you did, Dad. And there’s the minor fact that they have to grow me almost an entire new leg instead of just a hand I left lying around somewhere. They’re talking about two months here in Bassingford—maybe even three. And then probably out-patient regen for at least another couple of months. So I’m afraid it looks like ‘sidelined quite a while’ is putting it mildly.”

  “You got that right, baby girl,” Tim told her, seriously. “And when they do let you out, you’re coming straight home to Liberty Crossing.”

  “They want me to rehab here in Bassingford’s PT center, Dad, and—”

  “‘They’ can want whatever they want,” he said flatly. “What matters is what your mother and I want. We did all that work on the house while I rehabbed; Doc Whalen got all trained up working with me; and on top of that, your survivor’s leave doesn’t officially start until they certify your recovery and rehab.” He raised his eyebrows. “I hope you weren’t thinking you’d spend all that time anywhere except back home?”

  Brandy looked at him, then shook her head.

  “You do remember, Daddy, that I’m a commissioned Queen’s officer? Which means I get to make at least a few decisions?”

  “You can make all the decisions you want in the Service,” he said. “But I’m not in the Service anymore, am I?” He grinned wickedly.

  “No. No, you’re not,” Brandy acknowledged with a smile of her own. But it was a bittersweet smile, because she fully recognized the regret hiding behind her father’s grin. Just as she knew exactly why he felt it . . . and why he’d left the Navy, anyway.

  Senior Chief Bolgeo’s twenty-seven-T-year Navy career had been a thing of legend, at least among his fellow noncoms. His extraordinary competence had been matched only by the occasionally epic occasions upon which he’d irritated officers who didn’t measure up to his own standards. Those had made his career . . . interesting. Well, those and the ample collection of black marks, reprimands, and occasional demotions produced by his proclivity for hosting and participating in games of chance, especially those which revolved around playing cards. His passion was for Spades, but as long as cards were involved somewhere . . .

  He’d been the sort of noncom any engineering officer would have killed to get, and his demotions had never lasted long. They had not, alas, been quite as infrequent as they might have been, however, because he’d also possessed an unequaled talent for pissing off supply officers, members of the shore patrol, and anyone else unfortunate enough to get in his way when he was locked in on a given project. But he’d loved his job, he’d loved the Navy, and as a little girl she’d known he would be a lifer.

  That had been before the explosion aboard Her Majesty’s Space Station Vulcan almost ten T-years ago, though. Brandy had been in her final year of high school when that happened, and she still remembered her mother’s face when Tim’s CO screened personally to tell her what had happened. And how bad it was.

  Only two other members of SCPO Bolgeo’s fifteen-man work party had survived, and although the disaster hadn’t been his fault—the propellant explosion in the boat bay fueling system hadn’t had a single thing to do with the power system his people were working on—he’d taken it hard. Hard enough that he’d sent in his papers when they finally let him out of the hospital after they finished regenerating the left hand he’d lost dragging one of those survivors out of the wreckage.

  He hadn’t actually left the Navy, though. As he was fond of pointing out, Bolgeos had served the Royal Manticoran Navy, one way or another, for over three hundred T-years, and he’d become a civilian—and far better paid—“double-dipper” with the Hauptman Cartel. He was currently a senior project manager for Hauptman’s Naval Services Division, and while Brandy knew he missed his own Navy career (although he would have died before admitting it), she also knew he took intense satisfaction from his current employment.

  And the Navy had let him put the uniform back on long enough to give his new-minted ensign daughter her first hand salute when she graduated from Saganami Island.

  “So,” he said now, “since I am no longer a slave of the Service, bound to abject obedience to every petty commissioned tyrant, you can’t give me orders, even if you were to be so drunk with power you made the attempt.”

  “I’m not so sure you can give me orders anymore, either, Daddy.”

  “Oh, I won’t have to. I will shamelessly enlist your mother in my cause. And then you’re toast.”

  “Dirty pool, Daddy!”

  “That’s because I was a sneaky, devious old senior chief rather than a guileless and innocent junior officer such as yourself.”

  “Oh, is that what it is? I always wondered.”

  “And now you don’t have to.”

  “Would you two please stop it?” Linda Bolgeo asked. Brandy looked at her, and she shook her head. “They won’t let us stay forever. In fact, they told us you have a regen treatment scheduled in less than an hour, Brandy. So could you two stop teasing each other long enough for us to have an actual visit?”

  “Oh, I imagine we could,” Brandy agreed.

  “You’re right, Linda.”

  Tim patted his wife on the knee. Then he looked back at his daughter, and his expression turned more serious.

  “You wouldn’t know this yet, Brandy, but Hauptman Navy’s been clearing repair slips to handle some of the damaged units coming in. Cassandra’s one of them.”

  Brandy’s eyes darkened, and he nodded.

  “I’ve got the seniority, now, honey. I put in for supervision on her repairs, and they gave her to me.”

  “I’m—” Brandy had to pause and clear her throat. “I’m glad she’s in such good hands.”

  “Well, what kind of father doesn’t look after his daughter’s ride?” Tim flashed her a smile. It was brief. “I’ve walked the ship,” he continued then. “I’ve seen what happened to Damage Control.” For just a moment, his face might have been sculpted from iron. “Baby girl, I don’t know how in God’s name you got out of there alive. I really, truly don’t. But I’ve spent so much time on my knees since I saw that compartment—”

  His voice cracked, broke, and the iron crumbled. Brandy felt her own eyes burn and opened her arms once more. He crossed to the bed in a single stride, and she wrapped her left arm around him while she held her right out to Linda. An instant later, her mother was burrowed into the same embrace, and she pressed her face into their shoulders.

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” she whispered. “It’s okay. I’m gonna be fine!”

  “I know that,” he said. He straightened and cleared his throat. “Really, I do. But I’m a dad and your mom’s a mom, and you’re our daughter, and we came way too close to losing you. And that’s why you’re damned well coming home to Liberty Crossing when they let you out of this healing palace! You’re not going back out to be shot at again before we have a chance to love on you properly.”

  “Okay,” she said with a wavery smile. “Okay, you win.”

  “Always knew you took after your mom where the smarts were concerned.”

  “Mom, I’m not positive that’s a compliment to either of us.”

  “The heck it isn’t!” Tim looked at her quizzically. “Why do you think I’ve always called her ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed in Liberty Crossing’?”

  “Because you’re smarter than you look?” Brandy suggested with a more natural smile.

  “And just how hard would that be?” her mother asked with a laugh, reaching out to lay one palm against the side of Tim’s face.

  “Hey, I’m a Bolgeo, and Bolgeo males always face a . . . somewhat steeper intellectual challenge than other people. But we almost always rise to it. Why, the very first Manticoran Bolgeo was proof of that!”

  “Oh, God!” Linda rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to trot that out again, Timmy?”

  “It’s a critical piece of our family history!” Tim raised his nose with a sniff. Then he cocked his head. “And, actually, considering BatCruRon Five’s flag captain, it’s almost part of the same tradition!”