Honor was laughing along with Mike, Alice, Iris, and a bunch of her other friends. The bunch had decided to take a girl's night out, and they were having a blast. And no doubt raising the blood pressures of their other friends with their antics. She had invited them all out on a similar night months ago, and even though not all of them were familiar with each other they quickly clicked. Soon these meetings were regular for them all, and they always had a blast.
The fact that all the military people there were not in the favor of The Powers That Be didn't matter much to the politicals and others. In fact, they almost valued it because most of their half-pay status meant that the Space Lords didn't like them because they supported the Cromarty Government and their naval officials. It simply made it easier to get them all together for their semi-regular meetings.
The one 'rule' at these meetings was that whoever the story told was about, they would be telling the next one. If the person in question was not present...then a random person was chosen. Some of the stories were embarrassing, but those were the best.
Andrea Jarowalski has started with a story on one of Honor's lectures at Saganami. Honor had happened to have a bad cold that day, and many of her words were garbled. But some of what she had said had apparently come out in a way she hadn't meant. Most of it sounded like gibberish, but a few things had sounded embarrassing or downright funny.
Honor had followed that up with the story of how Mike had reacted to baseball when Honor had introduced it to her 'Grayson-style'. Mike had glared at her across the table they sat at, especially when Honor said "Because it's baseball!"
Now, Beth (aka Queen Elizabeth, Monarch of Manticore) was hiding her face under the table they were sitting at as Mike told a story about her, some cousins, and one particularly annoying hoop they had borrowed from a circus that had been in town at the time. Then she straightened and her eyes danced with mischief. Honor poked Mike, who then looked up at her cousin and broke off midsentence.
"So would you like to hear a story?" Elizabeth asked conversationally. Her tone may have been completely innocent, but her eyes gave her away. Mike gulped. "I have one you'll certainly find amusing..." She trailed off, and started the story as everyone leaned in to listen to her hushed voice.
A 14 year old Michelle Henke was sitting on a chair near the grassy expanse of the greens. She didn't know what to do with her legs, so she swung them forwards and backwards. Her face was in her hands, and she looked bored as anything. She wasn't even really supposed to be here, but she had been even more bored staying in her dorm and studying by herself. There was something about advanced mathematics that just didn't click with her.
She stood up and started to walk around the Island's campus in search of something to do. Classes hadn't officially started for the year, and the other side of her dorm was empty as of yet. No doubt some fresh face would fill that empty bunk soon enough though. There weren't actually all that many people around the Island this time of year, as it was part of the long break before the new year and semester began. As she walked she started to daydream. That was her first mistake.
Mike didn't see it coming when she found herself walking peacefully on the ground one second, and upside down, hoisted over one of the oldest, largest trees on the Island. She hadn't seen the tree, the rope now tightly wound around her legs, nor the people that surrounded her now. Least of all them. She tried to reach up, to undo the knots holding her in place and then thought better of it. Then other hands grabbed hers and her shoelaces did a good job to hold them in a place where she couldn't reach the knots. Then the people scampered away after a few whispered comments, and she was left alone.
That was the scariest part for Mike. Worse, she knew that no one would come looking for her because no one would notice her absence. There were few enough people on the Island to start with, and even fewer had seen her or even had talked to her before. Minutes passed, then hours. It seemed much longer, a never ending eternity for the trapped girl. Then an amazing thing happened.
"Um, are you alright?" Mike opened her eyes, which she had shut in an effort to block out reality. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dimness that was oh-so bright to her eyes.
"I...could use a little help." Mike admitted, managing-barely-not to sign in relief in front of her savior.
"What happened?" That savior was a girl. Tall, lean, fit, but obviously a girl. With a treecat on her shoulder?
"I'm not sure." Mike admitted again, embarrassed that she had been paying so little attention at the time to the circumstances. "Um, what's your name?"
"Honor. Honor Harrington. And you?" The girl asked again. Her voice was quiet and she was fidgety, but her tone was firm and controlled, Mike noted.
"Michelle Henke. But call me Mike please." Mike smiled down at the girl as the 'cat vaulted off her shoulder, into the tree. The girl-Honor-started to work on those annoying shoelaces. She soon had them free and Mike sighed in relief.
"Thank goodness, Honor." The girl flinched. "Is it okay if I call you Honor?"
"Umm...sure!" she replied. Then she looked up and squeaked "Watch out!" As Mike's world started to plummet. And then, in a nauseating twist, it turned upwards with a sharp twinge as gravity reversed itself.
She hadn't quite fallen, but that was because of Honor's treecat. He had brought to her the other end of the rope, elevating Mike further. To Mike's credit, she didn't scream, either in pain or anticipation of hitting the ground without warning. Honor had the other part of the rope in hand. "It's okay, we'll get you out of there in a second once we-"
Mike turned to her, glancing around in a futile gesture to see what was happening as she started to fly downwards again. When she looked to see why, she saw the other girl. She had somehow gotten the rope around her wrists, and was now hanging from them. She made a frustrated noise as she swung the rope to face Mike.
"Sorry about this. The rope caught around my wrists when I tried to take it off of Nimitz's hand-foot. I was trying to make the loop big enough for me to have more than a finger hold on it. That obviously failed." She shrugged helplessly. "Whatever. How that happened doesn't really matter, only the setback does. So, now to get off of this..."
"Like that's going to happen anytime soon." Mike snorted in disdain.
"Well, we need a plan first, and then a way to execute it. Nimitz," She said, apparently to the 'cat. "Can you go and find someone who might get us down in case we fail? Like a teacher or something?" The treecat bounded away from the tree with the two trapped girls. Then Honor turned to Mike. "Let's be about it." Her dark eyes were serious and Mike felt her own gaze harden in response as she thought through the problem in front of them.
"Hey, Honor?" Mike began. "If I managed to get some sort of a grip on a branch and give you some slack, do you think you could undo your wrists? I couldn't climb all the way up to reach my feet, but I could do that much-I can reach that bough on the left." She gestured with her hand, knowing that from Honor's vantage point, she could clearly see it. "Plus," Mike added, doing a fair imitation of a shrug, "I couldn't reach my feet anyway. Or see them for that matter."
"That may work." Honor conceded. "Try it on the count of three?"
"You've got it!" Mike promised, and promptly pushed on the bough with all her remaining strength. Honor stepped on a bough on her side of the tree, trying to generate just a little more slack. She moved her fingers nimbly, but the knots were too strongly tightened with the strain their weights had been putting on it. She could loosen it a bit, but not enough. On the other hand...
"Michelle," She started and was cut off as Mike pointed an accusing finger at her.
"I thought I told you to call me Mike!" Mike stated with mock-roundness.
"Mike then." Honor replied indifferently. "I can't get the rope loose. And I can see where the rope goes through the trunk-a place where it splits off almost vertically a few dozen meters up. We need a plan B."
"Think you can climb up there? Because I can't think of any alternative."
"I can try...but with the way my hands are right now, I can't be certain."
"It's our best bet. Since we can't loop it over the branch so it had nothing to hold us up by, and just take the fall. I mean, we've got to get down somehow!"
"I said I'd try, didn't I?" Honor replied crisply and turned her attention to the thickly branched tree. She contemplated several ways up, and in the end chose one that she thought she could rely less on her hands being apart for. Besides, there was a safety net in Mike to catch her if she fell. So she started to climb upwards.
She reached the top, where the rope was. Mike had been lowering herself down steadily. She could now touch the ground with her fingertips, but not much more. Then came the inevitable issue.
"Mike? We may have a problem." Honor said softly.
Mike groaned and asked the next inevitable. "What is it?"
"I can't untangle the rope from here. Whoever rigged this made it pass through this complex root system. I'm not certain I could get it out even if there was only weight on one side, or neither." Honor admitted.
"But we need to get out of this tree!" Mike wailed back, wanting to tear the tall girl's hair off her head. Then she took a few breaths and calmed herself. "So what do you suggest?"
Honor considered the question for a moment before asking another. "Can you reach any reasonably sharp rocks?"
Mike tried grasping around the dirt. Her hand closed on a rock. "Yeah. I can try to throw them up to you, if you like." And so, after half a dozen tries, Honor was now holding a rock. After deciding she couldn't get her wrists out of the rope without hurting herself, she decided she'd have to make do with the attempt to shred the rope. That was the only thing she could do. And that was the second mistake.
Confident that no matter what happened she couldn't fall, Honor started to work at the rope. She actually made some progress, the rock with the help of the tension of the rope, to cut through it. Honor had to take a break, as her back had stiffened and she needed badly to stretch out her arms sideways. While some of that was impossible, she did her level best...and lost her balance trying.
Her arms wrenched as the sudden shock of Honor's drop rippled through them both. Soon both gazed upward, at the spot where Honor had been, from the same side of the tree.
"Well then," Honor said wryly. "Now what?"
Mike was still glaring at the foliage around that area, and nearly missed Honor's question. "How far did you manage to cut?"
Honor thought for a second. "I made it through a decent amount of the root system and part of the rope itself." Then a realization shook her. "The root system! That's got to be the only thing holding us up right now! And it's damaged..."
"Do you think we could break through it?"
"Possibly. Let's try it. I mean, we have nothing to lose, right?"
"True." Mike shared a grin with Honor
"Then let's be about it."
The girls tugged and shifted, trying to catch tree limbs over their hands and feet, to pull down more heavily on the partially immolated root system. And suddenly, it gave with a small crunch, akin to that of a treecat biting into fresh celery. Both girls tumbled to the ground with the remains of the rope.
They lay on the ground, stunned for the moment by both the impact and the fact that they both were indeed on soil again, not suspended midair by the evil tree. Then both of them rolled to sit up. Honor held out her hands to Mike, who loosened the rope for her. Honor sighed in relief and rubbed her wrists a moment before she got to work loosening the rope about Mike's ankles.
Then rubbed raw skin hit the cool air of the evening, and Mike furiously rubbed her throbbing ankles. "Thank you." She heard the other girl say quietly.
Mike snorted. "I didn't do anything, except throw rocks at you. I'm the one who should be thanking you!" She said severely. "You need to mentally take credit for what you do, Honor Harrington."
"So do you, Michelle Henke."
The corner of Honor's mouth twitched into a smile, accompanied by Mike's all-out grin. Then they heard it.
A faint, unfamiliar voice said "Alright, Alright! I'm coming," They shared a quizzical glance, and both turned to the direction of the footfalls. And the sight was one they'd remember. A man, wearing the clothes of a teacher-an admiral, maybe?-turned the corner to turn to them. If one looked down, towards the admiral's shoes, they would see a 'cat nipping at his legs, forcing him onward. Honor's lips twitched again as she caught sight of Nimitz, and let out a low whistle.
Nimitz responded instantly by bounding off towards her. Indeed, he nearly barreled her over, and she laughed as she pet him. The admiral was on his heels, waiting for some enemy, and relaxed as he caught sight of the two teen girls. "And what have we here?" He asked, cocking his head and leaning up against a tree.
The girls exchanged a glance. "Well, we got lost and kind of fell for a prank, Sir." Honor stated.
Mike chuckled. "By that, she means I got lost and fell for a prank, she tried to rescue me and got stuck in the same prank. And we just got out of it, Sir." She looked over to where Nimitz was purring on Honor's lap. "We didn't think we could, so we sent out the 'cat for help." Her tone turned wry. "He sure took his time."
The admiral shook his head. "Admiral Courvosier. And you two are?"
"Michelle Henke"
"Honor Harrington, Sir"
"Well, Ms. Henke, Ms. Harrington, let's get you back to the rest of the school. Ms. Harrington, I believe you have paperwork to do."
"Yes sir."
"Well then, let's be about it." He turned and gestured for the two to follow as he walked away. The two exchanged a glance and a smile, and started trotting after the admiral.
At this point, all of them were quite surprised. For different reasons, of course.
Some of them, like Mercedes, was unable to suppress their laughter. Alice Truman, in particular, looked at Honor, to Mike, and back, muttering "that explains a lot". And Honor and Mike themselves were shocked to the core.
"What-When-How do you know that story?" Mike demanded, furiously. Elizabeth just wore a condescending smile. Honor glared. "I would like to know as well."
"Well, I suppose it's been long enough that I might as well tell you." Elizabeth sucked in a breath. "Lauren Brienn and Zachary Winton-two cousins of ours-had put in cameras to catch your reaction, Mike. Although," she conceded, "we didn't plan for Honor being there. But it made it that much more funny and memorable."
The looks they shot at her were deteriorating, and she laughed.
"I believe revenge is in order, isn't it." Mike mused sharing a glance with Honor.
"Yes, indeed."
Telling stories had gotten to be quite the experience among the group of unlikely friends. Be it good, bad, or ugly, everyone got back at everyone else, and all had fun while doing it. And that alone was the secret to their girls' night out. And the reason that they had risked the guys getting high blood pressure or some sort of panic attack to have their nights in peace, war, and smiles. They knew everything about each other, just from listening to these stories and from their meets.
They may not all agree on a lot of things, but the one thing they will is that the time they spent together was worth having. And, in a way, that time was the best gift of all.
The storytelling continued as the group met more and more frequently. Mike and Honor each had their revenge, and everyone had their laughs and hid their blushes of embarrassment when it was about them. In fact, it was nearly a year later and they all knew more about each other than they did any three of them before they had started. This time, it was Iris Harkness who started the telling.
"I'd been sparring with Schwartz in the gym. He was a bit better than me, so I was getting quite the workout trying not to get beat up too badly. He threw a punch to the belly, which I blocked, but followed up spinning with a kick to the back of my knees, and we went down. He won that match, too. Then he walked into the gym and nodded to me as he took my place on the mat, opposite Schwartz.
"I really didn't pay all that much attention to the opening blows, but after he didn't go down, I decided to watch. It was a good match, Horace making Schwartz go onto the defensive as much as such an offense-minded fighter can be. I won't bore you all with the details, as I'm pretty sure most of you wouldn't understand the terminology so well.
"Anyway, Horace ended up winning the match. The two of us ended up meeting again at the gym some other time, and we started sparring. I got better, and soon the two of us were pretty evenly matched. Later, we ended up meeting outside the gym, and I..." Iris trailed off.
"And you had a crush on him already, which you no doubt acted on." Laughter was in the tone of the voice, but Iris blushed anyway.
"Well, yes. And we ended up marrying about seven months after we met."
"You two are certainly two of my friends I could never have seen together." Honor glanced at Iris. "Still, I can't say it turned out badly. When is your baby due?"
"She's due in July." It was nearly Febuary.
"And by the time she's big enough to fight, the world had better watch out, huh. Especially with both you and Horace to learn from." Honor grinned. "Speaking of Horace Harnkess...I remember the time I caught him hacking into-or, at least, trying to hack into the old Fearless's simulator. He probably would have too. Alistair told me the story later. He pretty much tore his hide into strips, at the time. I've heard them both tell the story before. They remember some of Alistair's more...colorful phrases. To a T."
Alice grinned. "Speaking of Alistair, do you remember when..."
And so it continued.
Hours and cups of coffee and cocoa later, the group dispersed. It would be their last meeting for a while, what with the Eighth moving out of Manticoran space, from where it had been backing up the Home Fleet, who had just barely enough ships to cover the system. Units were hard to come by these days in Manticore, but someone had found enough to cover while the Eighth went back and got Manticore some of its own back.
Well, most of them anyway. Some of their elements were being carted off to Silesia to account for the ones that had hastened home after the first attack.
While they might laugh now and not later, while their number might just get smaller, they bid each other farewell with a grin on their faces and a promise. The same one they made every time they had seperated.
"We will remain the Tree."
That was what they had chosen to call themselves, even if it was a bit silly to each of them in their own ways. Even so, it was fitting with how their stories lifted each other up high. That and just how worth it it was to see Ariel and Nimitz's half-amused glares. The idea had come from the story of how Mike and Honor had met. There was also one last thing-with a set of morals as the trunk, each grew out in another direction, entangling each other and feeding the tree.
They called themselves a 'tree'.
And so they were.