Scion of Honor

by Arthur Hansen

Betrayed by the gods, exiled from Earth, Sheila Henderson finds herself the pawn of Fate even as ancient enemies plot her death. It's enough to make a girl mad. Fighting mad. Even two thousand years isn't enough to stop her.

2. Drums of War

Drums of War Chapter 1 - A New Voyage

A young girl woman in the uniform of the Manticorian Navy walked into the offices of a prestigious brokerage firm. The attendant behind the desk (purely there for because of prestige and to show that they could afford one) looked up to see the young ensign step through the door. The wood paneling along the walls gleamed warmly from the fine polish.

"Can I help you?" he asked pleasantly.

"Yes, I have an appointment with Mr. Greene about an investment portfolio at nine o'clock," she replied.

The man looked confused, but nodded as he tried to remember where he had seen her face before. "Uh, let me check." A quick glance showed that Greene had a half an hour open for a Baroness Lynx. "Baroness?"

"Yes?"

"He's expecting you." He personally led her to a spacious office with the heavy-set man behind the varnished oak desk. "Mr. Greene, Baroness Lynx." Now he remembered, this was the young woman in the navy that had discovered the Lynx junction.

"Lady Sheila, if I may be so bold," Green said as he rose up and gave her a slight bow. He then held out his hand to shake hands. The vista of the morning sunlight flitting between the massive mega-skyscrapers was quite amazing with a cloud actually below them.

"It's good to meet with you so shortly. I'll be shipping out soon again and I don't have a lot of time." She gave him a quick smile.

"Yes, I understand you have a bit of money that you have come into and want to invest it into companies that are being set up to sell to some of the more primitive planets out in the Talbot Cluster?" he noted as his hand brought up her request.

"Exactly. Improving their lives a bit by using my money to help finance them upgrading their infrastructure should pay itself back in just ten years if things work out. And really, money should be used for a purpose. Not to just make more money. So I would like to invest in companies and funds that are going to be used to finance such upgrades." Really, Montana and the other planets out by Talbot could really use the aid.

"I'll see about drawing up your paperwork. How much money are we talking about?" Greene asked as he started to draw up his plans in his head.

"I have about three million Manticorian dollars at this point. I have several companies that I've researched that should be able to do the work well." Sheila started to launch into her very brief but exacting plans.

Exactly as her appointment was ending, she handed him the chit. "And here you go. Let me sign the preliminary paper work and I'll be off."

"Certainly." Green then handed her a pad to jot her name down and bio-signed it.

"If you don't mind, I've got to catch a shuttle in about an hour." With that, she was on her way.

The trip up to the space station Hephaestus was fairly boring, in her mind. How quickly the fantastic became the mundane. She had lived in an era where it was only the elite pilots that could hope to get into space and now there was actually a learner's license for shuttles for thirteen year olds.

The civilian shuttle docked and had a good seal. This quickly led people to exiting the shuttle and picking up their luggage, of which Sheila only had her one large grav-trunk. Unlatching its remote, she had it follow behind her as she headed to the military only section. It was a matter of following her pad's directions.

The standard pair of guards were at the dock of the light cruiser that could be seen through the armored windows. The Apollo itself, lead on for the entire Apollo-class light cruiser. One of its missile ports was open to space as drones and hardsuited workers were replacing it.

The marine saluted and then barked out, "Your papers, please." He frowned as he took in her small row of awards and a very incongruous hyper-command pin on her uniform. "Lady Ensign Manticoria. Everything appears to be in order."

"If you could direct me to the bridge so I may give the captain my compliments?" she asked nicely.

"Captain Truman should be on the bridge. Let me com up and let her know you are on your way." It was unstated that it was just in case she got lost on her way up to the bridge they could then send someone to find her.

"Thanks, Corporal Maddings." She gave him a sunny smile that was all dimples.

After all, he had no idea that she had already memorized the basic layout of the Apollo when she had learned of her latest post. So it was only a short trip for her before she entered the muted buzz of the center of the ship. "Ensign Manticoria, reporting for duty, captain," she called out while saluting. She had left her grav trunk behind in the hallway in a cubby.

Commander Alice Truman nodded. "At ease, ensign. I've heard some very interesting things." The blonde haired and blue-eyed woman was studying herself very intently. "I understand you are to be my assistant astrogator?"

"Yes, captain. It doesn't look like we are going anywhere right now though," she replied.

"Good. And correct, though the repairs are finalizing shortly. Drop off your luggage to your quarters and then report back to the bridge so you can being your familiarization of Apollo's navigation systems." With that, she gave a sharp salute and then dismissed her newest officer.

---

Apollo was just waiting on the finish up the missile mount repair and then for the rest of her new squadron to arrive. So Captain Truman had her crew undergoing simulator training as HMSS Hephaestus finished installing the new systems for the first week. Hephaestus broke them free at that point so that the captain could instigate what she considered 'proper training' out in the asteroid field.

Sheila was getting to know her superior, Lieutenant Androunaskis who was the head Astrogation Officer. He was a humorless man with a penchant for perfection. As fourth in command of Apollo, he seemed to take his duties far too seriously. Known as 'Andy' to his few close companions, he had been driving Sheila and the enlisted to distraction while occasionally keeping an eye on the tactical station.

The jaunty light cruiser was currently turning over four-eighty gravities, which was slower than Sheila's last ship at normal maximum, but quite spry for a cruiser.

The XO was currently in charge, as Truman wanted to watch the proceedings. So Lady Lieutenant Commander Ellen Prevost was currently snapping out orders to Sheila who happened to be the sailing master. "Bow down 40 degrees, starboard 8 degrees," she called out."

Sheila chimed back her response even as she perfectly followed the directions, much to the confusion of Lt. Androunaskis.

He currently was standing by Captain Truman as she studied the results of her work. "She doesn't come across as a brand spanking new ensign," he said in his gruff tone that seemed to match his dark coloration and looks he got from Old Russia.

"You haven't read her jacket?" the calm and collected master of Apollo asked curiously.

"I'm still having some of my computer technicians look over it, as some of the things look absurd. Inheriting command of a ship after all the officers were killed, granted a peerage for her work in mathematics and then dodging several assassination attempts... it sounds like some sort of bad holodrama." His dark beard gave him a very stern look. "She'd have to be living under a jinx."

"A jinx, hmm? Well, in fact, that was my first thoughts when I first perused it. I took it upon myself to contact PuBers to validate the information. The answer I got back was that her jacket was probably a little brief and light of details to keeps some top secret details under wrap." She just took in Androunaskis's befuddled expression with a tight smile. "In fact, I found out I'm not cleared to know everything in her jacket."

Andy shot her a puzzled look. "Wasn't she just a Middie a month ago?"

"So the records I can read state." Alice Truman kept watching the ongoing exercise quite closely.

And that disturbed the head astrogator quite thoroughly.

---

Two months later and Apollo was now at HMSS Vulcan, where the HMS Fearless was undergoing a final refit and restock of supplies and would then resume duties as flagship of a taskforce. The engineers were just finalizing some adjustments on some new systems that Sheila was not really cleared to know about, but she could tell that it had to do with the gravitic sensors somehow.

But Sheila was not worried about that. She was currently on leave and had decided to head down to the planet for a short visit. Quite a few people had tried to convince her that Manticore itself would be a much more pleasant place, but she wanted to go rock climbing and hiking in some severe mountains, not suntan on a beach or go boating, both things that she had done quite a bit of while attending the Royal Manticorian Naval Academy.

So she had a baseball cap on her head, shorts and a tank top along with a good set of hiking boots as she quickly and efficiently clambered up the near vertical cliff face. To the left of her, an icy runoff from the mountain glacier had given her some fresh water. So she was a bit startled when her private com went off. Holding onto the cliff edge with one hand, she pulled it out of her pocket. "Sheila here."

The male voice on the other side sounded slightly peeved. "This is Ranger Parkins with the Sphinx Preserve Rangers. Kid, quit hacking our emergency tracking frequencies."

"I'm sorry?" she asked as she fiddled with the ear piece with her one hand. "I'm currently halfway up a cliff and I'm certainly not hacking anything." There, now she could continue to climb. Which she did, smoothly and efficiently climbing almost straight up.

"We don't know how you are doing it, but your fake signal set off our A.I. software. No way does someone hike sixty kilometers in two hours and then continues on to climb at the rate 'you' are supposed to be going at."

"I regret to inform you that you are incorrect, sir. I'm currently on Mount Jarkosian, about 2,000 meters up from the base and I hope to finish up my climb her today in peace. If you can prove any maleficence on my part, feel free to press charges. But I would suggest very strongly that you might want to verify your accusations carefully lest I have to defend myself vigorously in a court of law."

"No listen here you dumb little brat. You're stupidity-"

"That is Baroness Lynx to you, Ranger Parkins," she snapped out before he could really anger her. The rock she was holding onto shifted, sending pebbles falling to the ground hundreds of feet below her.

The voice on the other side paused at that. "Very well, baroness. We shall 'verify' your situation and then press charges if you are interfering with an emergency function here. Parkins out."

They must have a tracker on every signal coming out of the planetary reserve park, she thought to herself in aggravation.

So she was not surprised when half an hour later an aircar casually floated into range. Just moments later, her com rang again.

"Baroness?" another voice called out, a female voice light with surprise and concern.

"That's myself. Are you in that aircar over there?" Sheila asked as she again hung by one hand and then waved with her free one.

"Yes, ma'am. If you don't mind me asking, how are you doing that?" the slightly freaked out voice asked.

"A bit of superhuman ability," she calmly replied as she continued her climb. She was almost at the top by now. Only one hundred meters to go.

"Do you mind if I watch?" the woman said. "I think I might have to record this so Reggie can believe this."

"Sure, go ahead. As long as you give me a ride back to the lodge," she replied impishly.

In another twenty minutes, she was finally on top of the mountain. Most of the really high ones were on protected preserves, but this mountain was actually a fair bit taller than the highest ones on Earth.

The ranger's aircar hovered over carefully and Sheila hopped the twenty feet over as its side door opened.

"I'm Ranger Atterson," the female called. "This is Ranger Parkins."

"And I have to say, Baroness Lynx, that I do owe you a very sincere apology. You must come from an even higher gravity world like San Martinos or something," the pilot called out.

"I accept your apology, Ranger Parkins. You were just trying to make sure that your emergency systems were functioning," she called back as the door closed, making the inside suddenly much quieter. She ignored his reference to her being from a high gravity world. If they wanted to believe that, more power to them. "I appreciate the lift."

"It's on Parkin's penny. He has to justify it to our boss," Atterson explained with a grin.

None of them saw a giant eight-foot long Treecat slink up to the top of the mountain, far from the treecat ranges. Brilliant green eyes studied the aircar as it flew off. The cream and rust red creature turned to the nearest treecat range to the north and in great, one hundred and fifty foot leaps, bounded down the mountain.

---

Chapter 2: Deathly Duels

The clink of glasses at parties really had stayed the same, Sheila thought to herself as she wended her way through Captain Harrington's party up on HMSS Vulcan for the recommissioning of the Fearless. As a matter of course and part of the task force that was going to be sent to Yeltsen's Star, most of the officers of Apollo were here to mingle. Through the armor plast windows, the sleek form of the heavy cruiser shown with white spot lights. The curve of the space station filled the rest of the view, while Sphinx could bare be seen slipping out of view.

She noted the host being dragged off by Rear Admiral Raoul Courvosier. As a newly-minted junior ensign, she was basically here to be seen and not heard, as such august bodies of other admirals were in attendance.

"It is amazing how young you can look in a uniform," a dandy man in an expensive silk suit said. His ruffles on his shirt probably had more lace than Sheila's entire wardrobe.

"That is a problem of third generation prolong, from what I understand," she noted while subtly not stating her own actual age of fifteen years.

"Reginald Houseman. I am under Courvosier and the chief financial negotiator to Grayson," he said with a disarming smile.

"Ensign Sheila Parthenos Manticoria," she replied as she shook his hand. She snagged a glass of the fruit juice from one of the passing waiters.

"I thought I recognized you. Already an ensign? Moving up in the world, I see." He took a sip of blushing champagne from the fluted glass.

"In fact, I hear that she might make lieutenant junior grade by the end of this voyage," Captain Truman said as she intruded. "Mr. Houseman, a pleasure." The blonde haired and blue-eyed captain shook hands with the politician.

"Captain Truman. Also a pleasure. The queen is moving with some vigor on this deal. And I'm glad to see that the Admiralty is giving us fine ships like Fearless and Apollo to ride herd on the convoy. In fact, I heard they scrounged up money from a few private investor so we'll actually have another small freighter to join us." Houseman seemed quite pleased. "If Grayson can repay the loans, they might even make a very decent profit."

"I hope I do," Sheila said a grin before she took a small sip of her fruit juice. "I had not realized my investment was going northward with us, I thought it was going to the Talbot Cluster. But according to my Representative, they haven't negotiated any loans out there as such." And it appeared that some people had started to copy her investment designs.

"Well, the Talbot Cluster isn't quite as lucrative as Silesia. The markets are quite a bit weaker," the Liberal politician noted. "Though I suppose they also have less pirates, too."

"And their pirates are generally a little less well armed," Alice noted carefully. "In fact, I would say you were quite lucky out there to catch that one pirate you did get out there. My review of that fight was that it was a short, sweet battle."

"Well, anyone can shoot a ship running frantically away. After all, even an idiot like a Midshipwoman could do it. I mean, she did, after all," a gruff voice said as he interrupted their conversation.

Sheila's lips sealed tight as her eyes narrowed in anger. Slurs against her intelligence always set her off. "I warned them to heave to and they fired on my command as they fled."

The heavyset woman in the uniform of a Chief Petty Officer sneered at that. "Yes, shooting and destroying a pint-sized pirate was oh so hard. It must have taken quite a bit of effort for your little pea-sized brain to process those orders," the brown-haired woman said. Her hazel eyes were cold and dark. Her uniform had emblazoned her name on her breast pocket. Bannoman.

Houseman and Truman both looked shocked that someone would speak that way. "Chief Bannoman, that is not the tone to take to a superior officer." The captain of the Apollo looked furious now.

The young scion studied her opponent carefully, then nodded to herself. "It appears you have a personal problem, chief," she finally said. Her fist unclenched as she took in the setting and the crowd. The chief petty officer was the only enlisted officer present among the large crowd that was starting to take notice of the event.

"I have a lot of problems with adolescent ranking officers murdering people. It's just amazing that there were no survivors to discount your version of events," the enlisted woman replied in a loud tone. Her emphasis on the term ranking rather than using the standard term of superior was a studied insult.

"Your comments go beyond the pale, Mrs. Bannoman," Sheila said very carefully.

Reginald Houseman looked confused for only a second even as Alice Truman took in a hissed breath.

"Are you demanding satisfaction?" Bannoman said in a mocking tone.

"It appears I must demand satisfaction. As I ship out tomorrow, it must happen forewith and immediately." Sheila's blue-green eyes were very hard as she stated the official words of the challenge.

Several civilians in the crowd of the part called out hushed whispers as they finally realized what was going on.

"It will only take a few minutes. We should be able to use the shooting range here on Vulcan to settle the matter." Jenny Bannoman just smiled like a predator, showing her teeth against her weathered features.

---

The shooting range of HMSS Vulcan was quickly cleared and the visitor's gallery was filled to the rim. The Regimental Sergeant Major of the marines presided, her dark features a contrast to her green and gray uniform. Sheila was wearing her dress uniform with its sword on one side and a standard issue 9mm pistol held on the other.

Bannoman had a custom pistol and belt that the master at arms verified as legal. She quickly filled all the clips with the steadied precision of long practice. The petty officer had her second, a civilian that looked nearly as cruel as she did.

"And who will be your second?" Shannon Ivorski asked from her place on the sidelines as per the Ellington Protocol. They would fire their clip until one or the other was unable to continue.

Alice Truman stepped forward. "I will be her second." Although she personally detested duels, in this case she could tell that Sheila would not back down and that this was wholly instigated by the enlisted officer.

"Thank you, captain."

The two duelist stood back, guns held carefully at their hips.

"Is there no way to reconcile your viewpoints?" Ivorski asked carefully for the record, a bead of sweat appearing on her brow. There were three admirals and a dozen captains of the list along with several dignitaries and nobles.

Honor Harington's brown eyes watched the scene in shock as her party was incredibly disrupted by the challenge. Nimitz was quite tense from all of the emotions lacing the crowd. At her side, Raoul Courvosier had a bitter look on his face.

"What's with the glum look?" Honor asked quietly.

"This is basically a legal, paid hit, captain. I've heard of Bannoman before. She's a ruthless woman that has left a trail of bodies behind her almost as long as Sommervale or Metois." His cherubic expression was very grim. "They'll probably cashier her for this, justification or not."

Honor felt Nimitz's tail flick over her shoulder easily, as he seemed to relax. "That's strange. Nimitz does not seem worried anymore. I expected his empathy to have him on edge here."

"Maybe he knows something we don't?" Raoul said lightly.

Both parties had stated that their grievances could only be settled in a duel. They started to walk apart as ordered by the master of the duel. Bannoman's boots hit the ground softly, but even Ivorski could not hear Sheila's standard leather boots. An energy seemed to crackle in the air; unseen but not unfelt.

Ivorski gave the signal by dropping the hankerchief and both figures spun to fire. The first bullet hit the professional duelist in her chest even as Sheila's head twitched to the side as she saw the bullet moving towards it. Another three bullets were fired from both, though only one more of the petty officer's even came close to Sheila.

The crowd exploded into instant hushed whispers as Sheila stood with her gun pointed. "Do you yield, Petty Officer Bannoman?"

Her opponent snarled from the ground as she tried to staunch her blood and stand up. "I can't." Her blood slicked gun was in her shaking hand, desperately trying to raise off the ground

"I don't wish to kill you, ma'am. Please-" the young scion was saying when her opponent suddenly caught on fire, purple flames erupting from her mouth and nose. Sheila looked on for a split second, then quickly glanced over to the gallery with an intense stare.

Ice-blue eyes met her own blue-green eyes calmly before the older red-head woman winked at her and then disappeared in a flicker of purple flame.

That galvanized Sheila to move, trotting over to the emergency fire gun to spray it over the convulsing body even as the sergeant major tried to put out the fire with her uniform coat. Bannoman's second was standing in shock at the sudden burnt carnage.

Captain Truman frowned as she moved over to the freshly extinguished body as medics checked it in vain for vitals. "A jinx indeed."

Sheila gave her a steady look. "Perhaps." Inwardly she raged, though now she had a face for her enemy.

---

"Admiral Lars," Queen Elizabeth's clear voice called out. She was currently sitting a blue chair behind her desk. Across from her was a very plain, wooden chair that showed a bit of her temper at the why she had called in the Fifth Space Lord personally. Blue and white tapestries covered the white polished wood as streams of golden sunlight from the setting sun shown in the huge bay windows. Her Treecat was sunning in the last pool of light on a couch.

"Your Majesty," Admiral of the Red Anton Vorstolki said as he tried to figure out why he had been called to her private office. He bowed quite deeply, going to one knee.

"It is good to see that your loyalty is shown, for I am a bit upset at your department," Elizabeth said finally.

"If you could be so kind to enlighten me, your majesty? Then perhaps I could redress this oversight," he said in a quiet voice. Damn Janeck for leaving him hanging.

"This is no oversight, but the specific actions to reverse the recommendations of an officer that oversaw a midshipwoman's cruise and then elevation into the Navy's officer corps." Dark eyes shown hard-edged in her anger.

"You called me here to go over the recommendation of a Midshipwoman to an Ensign?" He could not help the tone of disbelief that had crept into his voice.

"Actually, her commanding officer and his Officer Candidate Training Officer both recommended that she be mustered out of her warrant as a full lieutenant junior grade. Yet somehow that information and her recommendation for the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal got turned down and not even mentioned. Would you mind explaining that, Admiral Lars?" Her tone was no longer frosty, but a cold wind that hinted at arctic winds that could freeze a man to his bones.

Anton Lars had actually seen this played out a few times, though he did not think he would have to deal with a stymied promotion in such a subordinate position again while being the Fifth Lord of the Admiralty. Usually it would be someone trying to push their favorite up and wanting to cut a deal. "I had not actually heard that," he replied while he licked his lips nervously. It appeared the queen herself had decided to be Midshipwoman Manticoria's patron in the fleet.

"I would suggest that a review be done before her task force ships out in two days. Thank you for your time, Admiral Lars." It was an obvious dismissal and he bowed on his way out.

Anton frowned heavily, making him looking older than his features and gray hair would suggest. He was almost seventy years old, of course, and a first generation prolong. His driver and aircar whisked him away to the Admiralty House, the massive complex that housed the governing body of the Navy. He had barely sat down at his desk before he pulled a bottle of whiskey from his drawer and filled a glass. After fortifying himself, he put in a call to the First Lord of the Admiralty.

"First Lord Janacek here," came the video response from Sir Edward Janacek.

"This is Admiral Lars. I figured I needed to com you about my meeting with the queen," the master of the Bureau of Personnel said to his direct boss. "It was... different than I was expecting."

"She did not give you a hassle about missing the quota for expanding the academy or the fleet?" The burly admiral on the other side frowned at that, as if considering matters.

"In fact, she only touched upon the matter of a promotion and commendation she felt was not addressed correctly. She felt a quick review of the slighted officer was warranted."

"The Queen called you about an officer's promotion?" Janacek sounded almost as confused as Lars actually had.

"It appears she intends to be the personal patron of this ensign." The Fourth Lord's tone was almost bland and as banal as it could be. He leaned back in his plush leather chair as he took in Janacek's confusion. The ice in his refilled drink tinkled merrily.

"What ensign has the Queen's ear? I thought her cousin just made lieutenant?" Always a consummate politician, he was trying to juggle in his head the different officers that could match the rank and connections needed.

"It's that damn Manticoria, Edward. You know, that girl that just got into a duel six hours ago? And her opponent spontaneously combusted? That must have brought her to her majesty's attention and the fact that she was not promoted to lieutenant junior grade right from her midshipman's cruise."

Janacek's face darkened in anger. It had been his suggestion to that review board that she was too young for the promotion out of zone, as he was not the biggest fan of the girl after her dreaded discovery with the termini had put him in bad odor with the queen. "She's gone too far!"

"She did not demand that we promote the girl, but that we 'review' the promotion and the recommendation for the medal of valor. And that'll sink me if I don't play it right. I'd forgotten the queen can review promotions at any rank. If this leaks to the newsies that we failed to give a hero of the navy a medal for taking out a pirate, rescuing a slave and capturing the slavers and the buyer..." Anton said his thoughts as they came to him.

"Is there anything you can do?"

"Grin and bear it," Anton replied carefully. "If I leave it unbiased, they will probably recommend her for promotion and the award. And then she is unlikely to complain any more."

"Such abject favoritism is unbecoming," Janacek said without a trace of embarrassment, as he was known to play favorites quite heavily.

"Well, she's headed out to Yeltsin's Star, so I doubt she can get into much more trouble." The Fifth Space Lord shrugged at that. Grayson should basically be just a strictly political affair.

---

Chapter 3: Flashpoint Arrival

"I stand relieved," Androunaskis declared formally to hand over his position to Sheila.

"You are relieved," she replied as she took over. She nodded to the two enlisted crewman of shift who were on the job as the Apollo scythed through hyperspace along with the convoy. Her eyes drifted carefully over the tactical display, showing the fourteen ships of the convoy, then back to the display forward which showed the 'frozen' streams of the purple and green gravity tides they they currently shot across hyperspace at a leisurely pace for warships.

That was of course due to the ten freighters full of technical goods to upgrade Grayson's and Casca's infrastructure, effectively gifts or 'bribes' to get them to join the Manticorian Alliance against Haven. Those ten ships were invisible to the naked eye, but their double sails of gravity were clearly visible as glowing snowflakes in the alien space.

Her superior officer left the bridge as Lieutenant Commander Amberson took up her position as the officer of the watch. The brunette in a long ponytail gave a soft smile to the two ensigns and Sheila. "Don't worry, lieutenant. I don't plan on taking myself off the bridge."

"That is comforting, ma'am. Though we are a bit closer to relief here if needed," Sheila replied as she nodded at the display. The green icons of friendlies were a bit heartening.

"If you don't mind me asking, what was all that about when BuPers sent your promotion through just before we shipped out?" Amberson asked curiously. She had been there when Captain Truman had handed over the promotion to lieutenant junior grade. The tactical officer had discovered that it made the young noble the youngest ever lieutenant in the history of Manticore. She was, in fact, younger than most Midshipmen entering the academy.

"I'm not totally sure myself, but the timing just after I'd gotten into that duel makes me think that I was brought back to some-one's attention and they gave a shove to the promotion board to review it." She shrugged to show she was a bit confused as they were.

Midshipman Willister frowned as he considered that. "So politics?" He was a fairly dark-skinned and quite tanned from just graduating from Saganami. His brown eyes were quite lively and innocent at twenty-three years old.

Amberson gave the midshipman a warm smile. "You will find out there is a lot of politics to being an officer, Midshipman Willister. It's not something a lot of officers like, as they would rather be apolitical. But that really isn't feasible when you are put in charge of millions of dollars of her majesty's equipment." She was radiating the calm collected commanding officer she was.

Willister nodded as he filed that useful tidbit of information away like the dutiful trainee officer he was.

The other ensign, Jeffrey Cole, looked up from his stint as trainee tactical officer. "So, lieutenant, exactly what amazing innovation are you working on now?" He was a pale skinned kid with shocking black hair.

"Oh, I'm just thinking over the Iota barrier. I've been doing a bit of research on what components of a hyperspace undergo the greatest stress while transitioning and I think I've narrowed down which components would fail if the Iota barrier is a bit thicker than the projections expect. It doesn't actually match existing dimensional models anyways." At his incredulous look, she gave him a smile. "It's an interesting mental exercise. I doubt I'll be given a ship to tinker with."

"Only you consider massively technical hyperspace physics problems an interesting mental exercise, Ji- Lady Lt. Manticoria," Jeffrey said with a smile that faltered as he stumbled over her name.

Her blue-green eyes studied him for a long moment, even as she adjusted their course casually. "It seems I've gotten a nickname that's stuck," she noted in a soft tone of complaint.

Both midshipmen flushed and tried to look busy while the lieutenant commander raised a thing eyebrow. "Oh? I haven't heard that one."

"I think the newsies have started to call me the Jinx of Lynx," Sheila replied as she tried to make herself look busy.

"Well, I don't see it. And from what I've heard, the trade that is going into Lynx is starting to pay off already," Amberson said firmly.

The rest of the eight hour shift went quietly. As they were getting close to Yeltsin's Star, the captain and first watch were coming on station, relieving everyone from active stations, though they were to stay on the bridge as back up just in case.

The fleet traversed down the the intervening two hyperspace barrier walls in a fairly controlled passage in due consideration for the poor civilian crew that was not trained for crash translations. Having a very sensitive inner-ear was pretty hellacious, Sheila thought to herself. She could balance on a wire in a wind storm, but what hyperspace translations did had made her throw up through most of her previous hyperspace trips until she had managed to overcome that. Luckily she had figured it out before she was shipped off for her first real voyage.

The young scion was actually surprised at the seething activity, as there were huge space-stations and small fortresses clustered around the foreboding and lethal looking planet. It looked like it was time to meet the new neighbors.

---

Sheila stood at an easy attention as she led a group of enlisted Manticorian crewman on a tour of one of the Grayson LACs, GSN Perry Warren. The junior officer (who was easily twenty years her senior in age) in the light blue of their uniform was giving them an abbreviated tour.

"And this is our engineering section; power plant 1. As you can see, it's nowhere near as advanced as your own power rooms, but it does get the job done," Lt. Commander Weber said, breezing into the cramped compartment. Pipes seemed to come form all directions as everyone was forced to duck around them on the narrow catwalks.

"Sodium?" Sheila noted aloud as she spotted a warning label. "You are using liquid sodium as a... heat transfer mechanism to an electrical turbine?"

"Ah, a good eye. Unfortunately, our fusion technology is so very limited that most of our ships actually use fission. For the power requirements of our LACs, they are barely sufficient," he said with a hint of pride.

"Nothing wrong with that. That actually looks quite a bit more advanced for fission controls that I've seen in the archives. That's actually a very reasonable power output for a pure fusion tech base. How often do you have to replace the graphite-plutonium rods?" she asked quite curiously.

"Only every five years, though we re-provision every four months," the Grayson officer explained.

"They're using fission piles?" Senior Chief Petty Officer Milkins asked in derision, her brown eyes had a hint of almond shape to them, as she could trace her ancestry back to Beowulf. Then his comment caught up to her fore brain. "Every four month for provisioning?" That did not sound right to the Manticorians.

"Hmm. That's actually an amazing amount of endurance for a LAC, Commander Weber," the scion noted aloud. "I believe our LACs only have an endurance under way of about two weeks."

"Yes, but I understand that your LACs are a bit more high tech," he replied wistfully.

"I think I might have to bring that up to my superior officers. That sort of duration actually would help our own LACs, though we really can't field many right now." Sheila was really considering the matter.

Weber nodded as he led them out the small hatch and then down a set of twisting corridors, with pipes along one wall and across the ceiling. They were headed to one of the power room that handled the damage control for the forward (Beta) nodes.

Most of the other ratings were looking at things closely this time. Sheila shared a glance with Milkins again, both of them nodding to each other.

"And here are our impeller rooms. On such a small ship, we have combined them a bit so that it covers all six nodes." Lt. Commander Weber shrugged. "It does make the ship a little less survivable, but... it is a LAC."

"And hence, fairly fragile to begin with." Sheila was studying the impeller nodes. They looked very... different. "Say, how many gravities can she turn out?" If she was seeing that correctly, it was mostly likely only about a hundred and fifty gravities.

"Only three hundred and seventy-five. Our tech base is pretty crude, but we get things done," Weber said with a slightly haughty tone that seemed to ooze some sort of bad attitude to the visiting officer.

"That's not... I mean, that should not be possible," Milkins said suddenly. "The inertial dampner system looks totally scrambled. I don't even understand how it can work."

"Well, outsiders ignored us for so long as we tried to figure out modern systems. So we were forced to stand up for ourselves and figure this all out on our own."

Sheila was studying them closely as she leaned out over the catwalk. "I think you might have accidentally created something rather amazing, Lt. Commander Weber."

"I'm sure that your command will listen to you great technical expertise," Weber said with a barely concealed sneer.

"I see." And she did. It was obvious that Weber did not really believe she was at all competent. But she and the rest of the female crew had been told to be on best behavior and not 'flaunt' their gender at the male chauvinists. So she just grinned and bore it out.

---

Chapter 4: Life and Living

Mark Vors whooped out a painful breath as his back hit the mat. Somehow he made his body curl up and roll to the left, just beating a foot that tried to finish him off, even through the padding practice gear he was wearing.

"Come on, Markie! I've got a fiver riding on this!" fellow Private First Class Wayne Milton called out. He was a big, beefy young kid, looking all of sixteen which put his real age at about twenty-five.

"You bet that I would win against Manticoria? Are you nuts?" the rake thin marine private called out as he backed up.

"No, I bet you could at least tag her," he cat-called across the gym. Behind him a group of Spacer First Class pukes were being bawled out by a marine sergeant that had been roped into getting them into better shape by having them jog around the edge of the gym. They were on their third lap and lagging badly.

"Okay, that I might be able to do," the tanned man from Landing said. His hair was cropped so short it was actually hard to tell what color it was.

"Decisions, decisions," Sheila muttered as she put in her teeth-guard again. Well, she was not going to let him hit her. While the Coup de Vitisse was not her preferred style of fighting, she really was that much faster than just about anyone.

Her opponent was standing up to her, letting his greater mass and reach to allow him to weather her lightning fast punches and kicks. She spotted an opening, that he turned into a hasty grab.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, he slipped his elbow into her side, much to her surprise.

"I guess you friend wins that bet," she noted. "That was sneaky."

"I've got the bruises to prove it," he said in a faux whimper. "So, milady, are you seeing anyone?" He was a bit emboldened by his success.

"Er, not currently. I guess you are offering?" Sheila held out a hand to shake from his victory.

"Sure. I'd be more than happy to hang out with you while they yodel to some thrash metallica noise."

She had a bad feeling about that. It sounded slightly violent.

---

Sheila was hanging out in the officer's Ward Room, reading a book while off duty when Surgeon Lt. Wendy Gwynn entered. "Ah, there you are. I've been meaning to catch up to you, Lt. Manticoria."

"Lt. Gwynn? Is there a problem?" the young scion asked, deactivating her pad.

"Not really. I just need to run a few more tests and I need more comprehensive samples, unfortunately. Let me grab a bite to eat and then we'll head down to my office," the older woman said, though she only looked to be in her mid-twenties. She was actually in her forties, of course and still had an appetite of a young woman. Moving into the attached galley, she quickly built herself a decent sandwich. Then she added chips and a pickle.

The daughter of Athena continued to nibble her carrot sticks as the older woman demolished the quite large supper. She was currently reading up on a tactical manual that Captain Truman had suggested. It was interesting, if a little limited and narrow in scope.

Twenty minutes later (and two Midshipman that grabbed a quick bite on the way to their shift) Sheila stood up to follow. "So why now to do a follow up on my physical?" she asked.

"I actually had some statistical discrepancies in some of your tests and forwarded them to the main medical facility of Vulcan for review. They sent them back, but I was in the middle of physicals for marines. They always whine when its their time, thinking that because they feel fine they don't need their annual physical."

They entered a lift to take them down three decks and into the heavily armored section that the medical bay. There were twenty-five beds in close confines, along with the very cramped offices of the surgeon lieutenant. Two small, but fully functional surgery suites were apparent, along with the dispensary near the main door. Gwynn led her to one of the surgeries, as they doubled as exam rooms when not in use.

The tests were a bit invasive and the surgeon lieutenant went carefully through a checklist of steps. "This really doesn't make any sense," she admitted. "I'm not showing even a bit of growth from your first physical from when you joined Saganami. The part that is really worrisome is that I'm not showing the genetic RNA markers for the integration for the prolong process. So as far as I can tell, the prolong is not taking."

"Not... taking? Is that even possible?" Sheila asked as she concentrated on the problem.

"That can happen if you had just finished a growth spurt, but that situation only lasts a few months at best at your normal aging speed before prolong. Now, you are fifteen years old, correct?" Wendy could not believe that the young girl had already almost matched her rank. Promotions were slower in the medical profession, but she was not that old.

"That's correct. It has been two years and five months since I underwent the prolong process." How could she not be growing at all?

"Your telemeres are not showing the artificial extension at all. Those are encoded so that as they wear down to specific genetic ages, then the additional extensions attach themselves. It looks like I'm going to have to send this to a specialist." Wendy put away the sealed samples after verifying the ID tags. They would be stored in the cold storage at near absolute zero.

"Which doesn't explain my lack of growth." Sheila had a thought that this was going to deal with her innate powers somehow. She slipped her tunic and jacket back on. Other than that, she was the picture of health.

Stepping out, she filled in her paperwork on a portable pad and then stopped as she saw Senior Petty Officer Milkins sitting in a waiting chair.

"Ah, there you are. I heard from Lt. Commander Hackmore that if I wanted someone to help crunch some numbers, that I should talk to you. He seems to think you are really top notch mathematician."

"Ah, okay, Chief Milkins. What can I help you with?" Sheila asked as they stepped out into the access hall.

"Let's head to my office cubical in engineering. I've been trying to decipher the numbers on the Grayson inertial compensator." The halls were full as shift change was coming up.

Technically, it was supposed to be Sheila's sleep period, but she had found she could go almost a week without sleep if needed. So she usually just grabbed a quick nap at the beginning or end of her sleep schedule. Lt. JG Eduard Sommers was starting to show some concern, but even he had to admit that she never appeared tired.

The hatch to the engineering officers slid open, showing the twenty cubicles of the work stations. About half of them were obviously open for anyone to use, but the other ten appeared to have been staked out by the senior petty officers and the ensigns.

"Here we are. I'm going to be using the overhead holotank, Ensign Maquis?" Milkins called out.

"Sure, go ahead, Carrie," came a voice from the next cubical.

Carrie Milkins (as that was her full name) nodded and brought up a wire diagram of the compensator, obviously created from memory. "I don't understand how they can get anything out of it."

"I couldn't either, but your dimensions are slightly off." Sheila had a very fine perception that came into play as she played with its numbers a bit.

"Hmm. I thought I was closer than that. But I see what you are saying. That changes the gravimagnetic dynamic a bit. Let me pull up my numbers and I show you where I'm off."

Sheila's eyes were taking it in. "We aren't seeing the whole equation here. This is like only part of it." Her mind was considering the matter. She brought up her own pad and spurted some data to the terminal. After a few minutes, she was starting to add and move information around.

The enlisted officer whistled as she saw the rapid evolution of the equation. "I think I'm following you. That adds a lot of previous information to the basis of the compensator. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that before."

"It's all related. These were actually theories that other designers were using in their competing designs before Beowulf completed their work. They never panned out, but I don't think it was because they were wrong. They just weren't applying their ideas to the whole." Sheila's eyes were flickering back and forth between the different sections.

It still was not quite correct. There were translation issues in between. The scion started to disassemble the equations into discrete parts, using quick shorthands to indicate what sections that were missing had to do. She frowned as she sat back for a bit. A pattern was emerging that was nagging at her.

"Now I'm not following you at all. You are making this too long for just the compensator itself," the tiring petty officer said in a grumble.

"Why don't you order some snacks for us? I think I'm on the edge here. Something even bigger than the Lynx terminal." Sheila's hands were rapidly typing as she started to add more and more equations to fill in the incomplete gap.

The sandwiches and veggies were quickly demolished while they took a break.

Carrie was nodding her head as she worked her way through it. "I have to admit I'm very lost."

"I think I've got this. I just had to borrow some ideas from hyper physics to explain what is happening in real space. And if you do that, it looks like you can increase the inertial compensators by at least twenty percent." And if she kept at this, probably by over a full magnitude eventually. Though it would be in long, slow steps.

"Twenty percent increase? Are you kidding?" Carrie started to study the holotank of equations. Now that it was laid out like it was, she was able to work through the parts that had not made sense on the Grayson's design. "It does work. How did they figure it out?"

"Accidentally. We could just apply the information and we'd immediately get two to three percent. And I bet they would continue, but we can try this out." Sheila spun the chair around to look at the petty officer. "How about we take this up with Lt. Commander Hackmore?"

Cathie just grinned in reply.

---

Chapter 5: Return to Purgatory

Sheila was frowning twelve days later on the bridge. For some reason, Captain Harrington had taken three-quarters of the task force to finish the Casca part of the journey. Turning over the last five freighters to the local picket (two light cruises and four destroyers) had been relatively easier portion. She had a niggling suspicion that they had ducked out to relieve a stress in the negotiations between Ambassador Raoul Courvosier and the Grayson government.

The fact that there had been a request that had been passed down for anyone to come forward with any improprieties imposed by the Graysons. So to Sheila, that sounded like Captain Harrington had decided to forego being as pleasant any more.

Her own skin was thick enough so she really was not that worried, though she did report the rudeness of Lt. Commander Weber. She did note that he may have had more of a problem with her apparent age than her gender (which may have impacted his view of her.)

She was finding hanging out Mike Vors to be quite fun to hang out with. He had been quite shocked to discover that she was not actually old enough to legally drink. Sheila had just shrugged and then laughed as he commiserated her inability to enjoy a good lager.

"Approaching hyper-translation point," Space First Class Amy Farnesworth called out.

"Thank you, Miss Farnesworth. Lt. Androunaskis," she called out to her senior officer, "did you hear?"

"Thank you, Lt. Manticoria." Andy passed it along to the XO who of course passed it on to the captain.

Sheila handed the actual translation, playing with some techniques that actually made the reversion to normal space slightly less taxing on her inner-ear.

"Nice work, Manticoria," Captain Truman ordered. The blonde-haired and blue eyed commander was studying the holotank as impeller sources appeared deep in the system.

They were edging towards Grayson, over twenty-four light minutes away. Nine minutes into their trip, new icons flickered onto the tactical holotank.

"Contact. Three LAC class impeller wedges at about two point five light seconds. Call it 760,000 kilometers. They are on a convergent course," called out Ensign Jeffrey Cole from the tactical assistant slot he was currently in.

Sheila glanced over at the main holotank, then frowned as she looked at the gravity readings. "Lt. Androunaskis, permission to review the sensor information on the unknowns?"

"Do you have a compelling reason?" he countered back as he tilted his head a little bit sideways.

"Just a feeling, sir. I'd rather worry than be surprised." She turned back to her console at his nod, pulling up information. Her eyes were flickering over the gravitic readings. The impeller wedge was far too strong for the strangely efficient Grayson impellers and inertial compensators. Thirty seconds later, she flicked off those screens and moved back to the sailing master's controls in an almost blur. She hit the battlestations alarm and immediately called out, "Hostile LACs at six hundred thousand kiolmeters. I repeat, those are not Grayson LACs. Tentative identification matchs them to Masadan LACs."

Captain Truman looked up from where she was conversing in low tones. "That is impossible, lieutenant."

"LACs can easily be transported in a heavy freighter. In fact, I think you could tow an unmanned LAC behind a cruiser in hyperspace," she countered calmly. "Permission to transmit course change to put our wedge between them and us?" She looked impossibly confident at her station.

Alice Truman was considering her words carefully and going over the idea. "Course change, bow up forty degrees. Inform Fearless of possible hostiles. Transmit a challenge to the targets. Now!"

The whole bridge had lunged into action, even as they wished they could quickly skinny into their skinsuits. Modesty was definitely secondary but they just did not have five minutes to get all suited for battle.

"Targest have refused communication," a warrant officer over in the com section called out. They definitely should have gotten something by this point. Especially with the point-blank demand for identification.

"Designate unknowns as Bogey one, two and three!" Captain Truman called out even as she gripped her arm rest.

The three warships were cutting an angle around the three hapless LACs to keep their wedges interposed. The Masadan crewman realized they were dead as they finally came into the longest range of their primitive missiles. With a terrified plea to their god, Commander Isaiah Danville shot their entire spread of missiles at the smallest target, the destroyer Troubadour. The box-loaded missiles streaked out on their sixty second flight-

-and the little destroyer and its consorts spat counter-missiles at the anemic enemy fire, destroying all but one missile at counter-missile range, then laser clusters took it out before it could attack.

On the bridge of the Fearless, Honor's dark eyes glittered in contained anger. "Signal the bogies to cut their wedge and surrender." When Apollo had signaled an enemy warning, she thought that Alice was just being overly cautious. All of that thought had been removed as a lingering thought when they fired on her task force.

"Still no response," her tactical officer, Lt. Commander Rafeal Cardones, called out.

"Mr. Cardones," she said harshly, "you are free to engage." The captain of the list held her anger back by dint of pure will. Why would Grayson attack them so?

The two cruisers and one destroyer activated their lasers as they sharply maneuvered to present their broadside and wiped the three LACs out of existence with incredible ease. The primitive sidewalls of the LACs (laughable at best) presented no problem at this range.

Back on the bridge of the Apollo, Captain Truman turned to her astrogation crew. "Lady Lt. Manticoria, my personal thanks. It appears you were quite correct. And I promise you, we will settle this."

---

Sheila was in the gym again, doing some resistance stretches after her shift ended. The atmosphere smelled of fear to her overly sensitive nose. Quite a few navy and marines were taking time at the punching bags.

"I'm pretty sure the wall did not deserve that much frustration," Mark called out as he walked over from where he had been lifting weights. He scrubbed his hair of sweat as he grinned at her.

"Hi, Mark! How's your unarmed practice going?" she asked while answering his grin. She flipped herself around to push with her hands against the very corner of the wall with her back bent over and staring upside down at the wall. Her muscles rippled under her training unitard as as she exerted over a thousand pounds of force against the wall in a very awkward stretch.

"Fine, fine. Now that I've started to practice with you sometimes, my form has picked up remarkably," he replied. "So what do you think of the situation?"

Without any apparent strain, she walked back up the wall with her hands and stretched left and right, touching the ground in front of her toes with the flat of her hands. "It sounds grim. Admiral Courvosier death and the loss of Madrigal was a huge blow." She wondered if she mention the stonewalling that they were running into with the Graysons, then decided not to. Not that it would stop that rumor going around.

"Do you think the Peeps are ready to start a battle here?" he asked slightly worriedly as he started to shadow box.

"No, I don't think so. I get the feeling this has 'shadow operation' writ large. They might be providing some hefty metal in the form of a couple of cruisers but its in a clandestine way. But if they were really serious, we'd be fighting our way to Grayson orbit or running to Manticore for reinforcements. This is indirect so far and they haven't let us see their actual ships." After her toe-touch exercise, she started to do cross-twist ankle touches.

That was when a basketball came rocketing over at them, where she caught it one-handed before it could hit the back of her head. "Hey! Watch it. I have bridge duty in an hour," she yelled back, then tossed the basketball to swish the ring for the impromptu game going on at the far end of the gym.

"You just swished from over a hundred feet away," the rake-thin marine exclaimed. Mark knew she was athletic, but that was actually ridiculous. "Are you- And I don't really mean to intrude, but are you a genie?"

She decided to prank him slightly. "No, not a djinn. I'm a 100 % bonafide Greco-Roman hero-type!" She put her hands on the floor again and then lifted her feet off until she was doing freestanding vertical handstands. She had to laugh at his flummoxed expression while she was upside down. "No, I'm not a genie. No genetic engineering in my background that I know of. It was pretty primitive on my home planet when I was born." A deflection of the truth yet again, using the truth. Earth had been rather simple in comparison to modern genetics after 2,000 years.

"Ah, sorry. It's just, you are incredibly athletic. I mean you do things I don't see from people from Sphinx or Gryphon, which are both heavy gravity worlds." With a shake of his head, he started to shadow box again.

"I would call myself divinely gifted," she said diplomatically. After fifty handstands, she flipped to her feet. "But I really do have to be off. I need to shower and grab some reports from my bunk."

"Well, I'll see you here later? Maybe we can do some more Coup de Vitisse," Mark said eagerly.

She blushed slightly. "That sounds fun." She waved to him as she trotted through the exercising men and women.

Only a minute later, Mark's friends wandered over. Wayne was just shaking his head. "Markie, you are amazing. You going to go all the way with her?" he faux-whispered crudely.

"Of course. She is so totally a fox. Janet is just not cutting it until we get back to Manticore. She doesn't want it to be just a physical relationship And we won't even have to worry about regs interfering with an officer. She's really flexible. And I think she's untouched. So double score," Mark 'Markie' Vors said with a lecherous grin.

His two friends started pushing him between the two, never noticing that Sheila had slipped back in to the gym to ask him a question. Her eyes glittered for just a second, as tears threatened. But she would be... was stronger than that and just turned and walked into the showers.

---

Chapter 5: Desperate Measures

A shrill alarm sounded in Sheila's double bunkroom, actually waking her from her sleep. She looked at the time, realizing she had only been asleep for about half an hour. She hit the accept on the com. "Manticoria here."

"You are needed in the captain's briefing room, double time. There's been a situation," Lt. Androuvoskis ordered. "That is all." The click of the disconnection was quite loud.

It could not be a battle, so it must be something they were not wanting to worry most of the crew. She threw on a clean undress uniform and trotted down the hall at a fast rate, passing enlisted crewman. Those crewmen only saw a black blur, as Sheila had inadvertently tapped into her ichor and going well over two hundred kilometers per hour.

Captain Truman looked up at her briefing room door opening. "That was rather faster than I expected. At least you get points for promptness," she said with a smile.

Lt. Commander Lady Ellen Prevost looked up from where she was reading a data pad. "Sit at the end over there. You've managed to beat just about everyone." There seemed to be only blonde women at the table until the male and dark-haired Lieutenant Androunaskis showed up.

The rest of the command staff and their assistants showed up excepting the assistant tactical officer, crowding the small briefing room. Lieutenant Commander Charles Hackmore and his engineering assistant were the last, as they had been in the middle of an issue with one of the power rooms.

"Let's get started." The blonde captain of the Apollo looked over her crew down the reflective slate-black table. Somehow they seemed to have picked up that something had happened. "There has been an incident down on Grayson. Captain Harrington was cutting through the political opposition by meeting directly with Protector Benjamin Mayhew." She smiled grimly. "She had let them know in no uncertain terms that she would speak to him or she would be forced to leave Yeltsin with our task force." The woman at the head of the table held up her right hand to forestall any exclamations as the officers stirred. "In all confidence, she had no intention of doing so but she felt that she had to get their attention. Mayhew had agreed to an informal dinner meeting."

The rows of taut faces at each end were puzzled for the most part, though Lady Prevost still looked grim enough.

"There was a coup attempt during the dinner. It appears that assassins were sent to kill the Protector and his family. The murders were supposed to be laid at Captain Harrington's dead feet." Hard blue eyes looked across the listeners carefully. "They failed by the smallest margin. Captain Harrington appears to have helped foil the attack, but has been grievously wounded. They are not sure she will awaken."

"So you have taken command of the task force?" Lieutenant Commander Amberson asked cautiously.

"That is correct. While I feel I am more than competent in the position, I do wish that Captain Harrington was here, as we are going to need our best tactical mind to save Grayson. In the meantime, we may have to shift command functions temporarily to Apollo. That means instead of receiving simple orders to follow, you will have to think about how we will best use our resources. I want all department head to meet with their teams and give me a readiness report and plans." Captain Truman smiled thinly. "I understand you don't have any orders to give out yet, but I don't want to drop this on you if we have to head into battle immediately. Any questions?"

All of her senior officers shook their head. Sheila thought for a long second, then raised her hand. "Captain? Would you consider it absolutely critical that Captain Harrington recover?" The nape of her neck was prickling.

"Yes, absolutely. She has greater tactical and battle experience than I do," her captain responded.

"Then may I have permission to take actions to correct her infirmity?" she asked casually.

Alice Truman narrowed her eyes in deep thought. "If you can do so, then yes."

"It should not take long. Do you know if she is back on Fearless or still groundside?" the scion of Athena asked clearly.

The blonde XO, Lady Prevost, just looked at the captain as she nodded. "Captain?"

"If she can do it, let her. Captain Harrington has been transferred to Fearless, lieutenant." The captain of the Apollo then stood up. "Dismissed. Manticoria, once you are done with your mission, I want to speak with you."

There was a rumble of acknowledgments as the officers broke up to get back to their duties. Sheila quickly and efficiently walking to Boat Bay 1. As the ships were quite close to each other, she commandeered a cutter and a copilot.

"How many G's can you handle, Midshipman Garrett?" she asked the young man who was adjusting his controls for his slight build and height. They were both in their skinsuits, jut to be on the safe side.

"I can handle up to five G's pretty easily. We are cleared to depart," he called over to her. His brown eyes seemed to hold a lot of questions.

"We are clear. Docking collar is disconnected. All mooring points unplugged. Thrusters engaged and Fearless acknowledges our arrival in fifteen minutes," she reported.

The slim, purely reaction thruster shuttle rumbled to full life as it headed to the largest warship in orbit above the ominous green-gray planet below. They passed the lone destroyer of the ad-hoc squadron and were soon swallowed by the massive boat bay.

They were met by the slightly older Lt. Commander Rafael Cardones. His ready, if taut, smile preceded him. "Lady Lt. Manticoria. I understand you were coming, though Captain Truman didn't really say why." His short cropped black hair was sticking out under his black beret even as his pleasant eyes studied the very strange sight of a hyper-command pin on her unwomanly chest.

"That's is correct. Mr. Garrett? I should be ready to head back to Apollo shortly. Lt. Commander Cardones, is Captain Harrington still in surgery?" Her voice was quite clipped, as what she was going to do was going to rock the boat, so to speak.

"I take it you want to talk to our surgeon? Fritz, uh, Lt. Montoya isn't really able to do much for her arm or eye. And there's some internal hemorrhaging in the cranium. But if she survives the next twenty-four hours, she should pull through," the young officer said to the much younger and more junior officer.

"But she's still alive, correct?" she asked intently as she clipped her helmet to her utility clip of her skinsuit.

"As far as I'm aware. This way," Rafael said, directing her to a lift. The doors closed behind them as he punched in the destination code. The lift only had to travel up five decks. The rest was a three hundred foot walk to the infirmary.

Surgeon Lt. Fritz Montoya looked up from where he was finishing up his post operation reports. He was still in his baby blue surgery scrubs. "Commander Cardones?" he queried.

"Lt... I mean, Lady Lt. Manticoria was sent over by Captain Truman. Though I'm not sure why she's here," the trim, younger officer said to the surgeon at his desk station.

Sheila was looking around the starkly lit medical bay. The white walls were painted a soft white that was easy to clean while the robotic surgery waldos were folded up against the ceiling. "Why, hello stinker."

Nimitz turned at looked at her with intelligent green eyes. He suddenly seemed cautious, but slunk over with the grace only a six-limbed Treecat had from where he had been sitting next to Honor on her bed. He put his truehand on her calf for just a second.

"Yes, I do think your captain needs a bit of help." With that, she headed back to the only occupied bunk, stopping at twenty feet away. The form in front of her was slowly dying, as the sonic weapon had torn up blood vessels in her shoulder and smashed Honor's cheek. Blood pressure was slowly building up in her cranium.

Sheila had not done this since she had been gifted with a new relic. Her ichor hummed within her blood as her legend awoke like the center of a storm. The owl amulet under her tunic warmed up.

Nimitz hissed in shock as he felt something immense happening to his empathetic sense.

And the terrible, lethal wounds across Honor's body stitched together at an impossible pace, leaving just bruised flesh behind. Her vital monitors built into the wall by the head of the bed suddenly stabilized, her heartbeat growing stronger and more steady.

"A little doped up there. Let's make sure you are all right, hmm?" Sheila said even as Fritz and Rafael walked up. With a mere spark of legend in comparison to the healing of just a moment before, she negated any drugs in her system that could be impeding her wakefulness.

"What are you doing? She is not going to wake up with the wounds she has," Fritz said in an angry tone. And that's only if the quick heal actually managed to save her life.

So when Honor groaned, he looked shocked. Nimitz landed on her bed and then thumped onto her chest. Fritz headed to her bedside, checking the biometric readings much closer.

"I couldn't save her eye. I'm not yet powerful enough to regenerate organs or limbs," the young scion of Athena said softly.

"You did this-? How can anyone do this?" the lt. commander demanded incredulously.

"You can consider this a divine miracle, if you like. She will live, though the bruises will probably take a few days of quick heal to handle," Sheila explained as she dropped into the relaxed parade rest.

"Rafe? Fritz? The last thing I remember is being shot. Did the Protector live?" Honor demanded in a pain drenched voice. She sounded confused even as she started to pet her very demanding Treecat, who started purring happily on the white covers on her lap.

"I- Welcome back, Honor. It appears you are going to live," Fritz said as she started to examine the bandaged wound on her shoulder. A touch on the edge had released the seal, showing only deep bruises instead of the burst blood vessels.

"Yes, ma'am. He's been very forthcoming on what had happened. His palace security is investigating the assassination attempt as quickly as they can, but they haven't turned anything up at this point. "Now, lieutenant, why don't you explain what just happened here. This is not a request." His tone was quite unhappy.

"I supernaturally healed her of her most critical wounds." She just smiled at the incredulous looks from the three humans. The Treecat was supremely unworried about their conversation. Sheila did note that Honor looked confused as she looked between Nimitz and herself. "Obviously, this is not an unlimited talent, but I felt that the captain's health was important enough to warrant me revealing this capability."

"That is... a lot to take in," Fritz said slowly. "I've never heard of anyone with such a strong faith healing ability."

Her blue green eyes studied the surgeon in his scrubs for a long moment. "I did not use faith. This is mine own power," she finally said in slightly archaic English.

"Yet you said- supernaturally." Rafe Cardones was trying to puzzle it out, but he did not have quite enough pieces.

"Well, demigodesses do have powers beyond normal men and women." She gave them a moment to let it sink in. "My mother is... was Athena Parthenos, Goddess of Wisdom and War."

"That actually makes some sense of your impossible grades. You have an advanced intelligence, don't you?" Honor asked, even as Nimitz seemed to give her a very piercing look that begged for his questions to be answered. "Does the queen know?"

Sheila actually had the presence to blush. "Um, yes. She and the prime minister are quite aware. The midshipman that tried to kill me back in Saganami was transformed into a fire giant and we did several impossible things on the recorder. So she asked me to explain it and that's when my elder sisters showed up. As in pop they showed up in all godly glory and glowing." In a strangely shy manner, she seemed to reach into a cloud that appeared in front of her. Pulling her hand out, she had a crackling lightning bolt gripped in her hand. "Grandfather gave me one of his lightning bolts." The light flickered in a blinding display.

Fritz just swallowed soundlessly. "That really is very convincing." Down the row, his assistants non-commissioned officer medical assistants just gaped at the impossible display.

Honor slipped her feet out of the bed. "Well Fritz, I guess I better get back to work. I feel like I've gone three rounds with Sgt. Major Babcock. And lost as usual."

"Well, I guess I can prescribe something for the pain and the bruising. The quick heal should handle that fairly easily." He gave Honor a quick grin.

Sheila put away her lightning bolt, dimming the room dramatically. Nimitz gave her a quick hiss to show his displeasure. She gave him a direct look. "It was the best way to explain it."

Nimitz's eyes stared at her for a while then he nodded. He hopped from the bed and rubbed his flanks on Honor's legs, entreating her to pick him up.

"I, er, sorta need to report back to Captain Truman as soon as I'm done here," Sheila said in an apologetic tone.

"Well, I think it can wait for me to get a uniform on and then we'll have a full conference." The captain's tone brooked no discussion on that matter.

---

The conference had been startling for some people and very unpleasantly embarrassing for one demigoddess. They were all gathered in Fearless's main conference room around its shiny black oval shaped table, display panels inset and ready to use.

Captain Alice Truman studied the flushed face of her assistant astrogator. "I can see why that does not come up in casual conversation," she note wryly.

Captain Honor Harrington snickered even as she pet Nimitz while he lay on the table in front of her. "Which is why this conference is only for ship captains and my XO."

Commander Alistair McKeon raised his eyebrows up quite a bit, so that it almost touched the edge of his white beret. "I'm still wondering if I am dreaming. But I'll just have to trust you, Skipper."

"I think its rather immaterial to what we currently face. While getting you back, Honor, has been wonderful, I'm not sure what Lady Lt. Manticoria can do beyond what she has already shown," Commander Andreas Venizelos noted aloud.

"I can't just magic starships away. And while my mind is my strongest ability, I haven't really earned enough experience and position to apply my intelligence to its maximum," she replied truthfully. Her eyebrows lowered in a crunch of thought. "I do keep becoming smarter. I would hazard that I'm nearly twice as smart as I was when I figured out the Lynx terminus."

That caused all the senior officers to narrow their eyes in consideration.

"It appears I will just have to ask you if you think you can aid or accomplish tasks then," Captain Truman said softly. "Would that be satisfactory, lieutenant?"

"Eminently so, captain." Sheila relaxed slightly at that.

Honor slouched in her seat slightly, rubbing her hand on her chin. "So on to other matters. Alistair, Troubadour will accompany the unloaded freighters to the hyperlimit as they head back. They should be ready to depart in three hours, I believe."

Venizelos nodded. "That's right captain. They are more than happy to be off. We are effectively at 100 % combat ability, so I think we will be able to defend ourselves until they summon reinforcements."

"Should we send Troubadour home to get some heavy metal, Captain Harrington?" Truman asked. "She can make the passage in about ninety hours. Much faster than the merchant ships could."

"A thought to consider. Though with our three ships to what we can estimate as two of their cruisers..." Honor studied the soft fur of Nimitz for a long second. "No, I think I'd rather keep our power concentrated. Rafe? What is the situation down on Grayson?"

Rafeal pulled up a display. "It's pretty hectic down there since the attack on you and the Protector. Information is starting to leak out that this appears to be some sort of internal coup attempt. Information had pointed to Palace Security, but the news sources are backing off from that. It appears it was just someone pretending to be security. Someone with insider information, so that points to someone in power."

That caused all of them to frown at that. Getting caught up in the middle of a violent change of government was totally unexpected. That could have turned out bad for them and their war efforts.

Honor shook her head at the figuratively dodged pulsar. "Be that as it may, we still have our duty. And that is to defend our ally."

That is when Captain Harrington got a call from the planet, transferred over from the bridge. It was Protector Benjamin Mayhew that appeared on the screen that was transferred from the bridge. "Protector Mayhew, a pleasure to see you again," Honor replied happily through the dull pain of her bruises.

"You've recovered remarkably, I see," Benjamin said as he visibly relaxed on his side of the view screen. "I had been afraid that you had saved my family at the expense of your own life."

"It was a miracle," Honor said with just a hint of droll humor. "Unfortunately, my eye could not be saved. And I'm part of the minority of humanity that can not regenerate." Her remaining eye did see a start of shock from the young lieutenant. And the flash of honest regret that was on her face and her emotions. In fact, her emotions were startlingly clear compared to the other's she had felt through Nimitz. Of course, this business was all new to her.

Sheila looked over at Honor and her Treecat, feeling that she was missing something of a communication happening there.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that you are mostly recovered and saddened by the loss of you eye. We are currently in the middle of interrogating the assassins that Nimitz left alive. Unfortunately, most of the ones you hit are quite dead," the Sword said with hard eyes. "Clinkscales is currently with them himself. If there's anyone that can find out what was happening, it is him."

"But I assume that you call at this point is about that the problem we discussed has been removed?" The queen's captain had a hard eye from the repressed anger she felt at him.

"So to speak. I've assigned Admiral Garrett to the command the static defense. His replacement, Admiral Wesley Matthews, at Central Command, should be far easier to work with," the Protector explained. "A better way than to just cashier him." He shrugged at that.

"I think I can work with that."

---

Chapter 6: First Battle

It was just fifteen hours later that the task force was heading out. The whole crew was incredulous that the Masadan's had managed to build a base here in Yeltsin, but they had. When Truman and Harrington had been informed at Central Command, they had taken immediate steps. The base was at the large gas giant named Uriel. Though technically, it was on one of the moons named Blackbird. So when the base had been discovered after the Masadan sympathizers had been revealed, it had been a mere matter of deciding how to neutralize Blackbird.

Lieutenant Androunaskis and his team oversaw this operation with his typical method that was just shy of sending his non-coms into fits. They were basically waiting as the Grayson fleet of destroyers and LACs led the trio of Manticorian ships out to Blackbird, much to the displeasure its commanding officer.

Strangely, no Masadan ship had appeared yet, which had Sheila personally worried. She professionally maneuvered to slip Apollo and their sister ships into a layered defense just before they came into the powered missile range of the ice moon. Captain Harrington definitely knew her business.

That was when the Masadan base launched a heavy salvo of thirty capital class missiles. Each one was double the size of anything that even the Manticorian ships could fire and they put all that extra mass into a dangerous mix of offense and power. But the layered defense that Captain Harrington had planned for the attack was working perfectly, picking of missiles in threes and fours rapidly. Troubadour and Apollo were part of the second layer, of course and then the laser clusters on all three ships worked in a tightly knit fashion to finish off the remains.

Lieutenant Androunaski had incredibly tight lips at his command station. "That's more missiles than Captain Harrington planned for," he said casually. He was trying to exude the utter calmness of a commanding officer, but it was a bit forced.

"Second wave," Lieutenant Commander Lady Ellen Prevos called out. "Another thirty missiles at exactly 34 seconds."

Androunaski nodded at that, his normally dark skin slightly pale. "They can't have many more." His voice stated that he could not believe they had that much.

Midshipman Tony Willister looked very rattled. "Do you think the ships will be able to handle that many, sir?"

"Oh, there's an element of danger, but we've taken all the right steps to minimize them," the Astrogation Officer explained. "Really, the only thing we could have done to be in less danger would be to use fractional .c bombardment. And we really need information on their cruiser or cruisers."

"Third wave," the blonde scion called out. Another 34 seconds, just as expected.

Everything seemed to be working perfectly fine one of Apollo's laser clusters failed to localize and take out five missiles on the second wave. The computers on all three ships just could not stop to finish them off, using the barest resources they could quickly scavenge.

Two missiles streaked in and fired at short range. Fearless tried its best, but its sidewalls only degraded or bent away all but three of the bomb-pumped, gravity-pinched lasers. The ship shuddered under the attack, as a missile bay and laser mount were blasted out of existence. The last hit was the most grievous, as one her Alpha Nodes was basically vaporized.

"That was the last of them," Captain Truman said with a release of invisible tension. "What happened, Ellen?"

"Software overload or glitch in the timing, I think," her XO replied while shaking her blonde head. "Bad luck, basically."

There was nothing more to do as the combined fleet of Manticorian and Grayson ships came in closer and closer. Sheila could just about feel the tension increase. The attack would likely happen within three minutes-

"Contact!" came the shout from the plotting station.

"You are free to attack," Truman shouted.

The next four minutes was a frenzy of short range laser fire at a range that no sidewall could stand up against. Each ship took at least one hit and four of Grayson's LACs were just destroyed along with the Grayson destroyer Saul as they ravaged the fleet of Masada in return.

They were all caught unaware when the Peep destroyer Principality came streaking around the planet behind them to attack the Apollo.

---

"Stand by," Commander Theisman whispered as his ship flashed around the craggy moon with ever gathering speed. The base's sensors still fed his plot, and his teeth drew back. "Stand... by... Now!"

---

"Skipper! Astern of us-!"

Lieutenant Commander Amberson's shout wrenched Commander Alice Truman's eyes back to her display, and her face whitened in horror.

"Hard a-port!" she barked as Apollo was already swerving wildly in response.

Sheila would have made it against a laser barrage, but Principality was firing missiles, not direct energy weapons. She just could not make the ship turn any faster and the firing solutions were not even primed for such a quick response. The laser clusters did not even get a chance to fire.

And then it was just too late. The destroyer behind her had timed it perfectly and her first broadside exploded just behind the open rear of Apollo's impeller wedge. X-ray lasers opened the light cruiser's port side like huge talons and damage alarms screamed like damned souls. Amazingly for having come down that attack vector, it only took out a single Beta Node.

A second broadside was already roaring in and a corner of Captain Truman's mind wondered why the Peep was using missiles at beam ranges, but she didn't have time to think about that. Her cruiser clawed around, interposing her sidewall, and three of the incoming missiles ran physically into it and perished before their proximity fuses could trigger. Five more detonated just short of it, stabbing through the sidewall into already shattered plating, and a seventh streaked all the way past her and detonated on her starboard side. Smoke and screams and thunder filled Apollo's bridge and Truman's face was bloodless as her starboard sidewall went down and the Havenite seemed to close in for the kill.

But Principality flashed past them and turned to fire at Troubadour, trying to cripple as many enemies as he could instead in a mad kamikaze rush. They danced rapidly to interpose their wedges as the Manticorian destroyer snarled out vengeance with her lasers while the Peep destroyers was firing missiles, trying to take out its second enemy.

Fearless's return upon a reciprocal heading nearly vaporized Principality's aft end. For a few second, it looked fine as it coasted forward, then its emergency ejection system ejected its fusion reactor before it exploded with the force of a fusion bomb

Captain Truman took just enough time to verify that the battle was over before she was trying to keep her maimed ship alive. "Damage control to the bridge!" she called out, then unlocked herself from her shock cage. She had some lacerations on her leg and could feel the pain as if a club had hit her thigh.

Her bridge had been turned into a charnal house, bodies and parts of bodies strewn around. They had not lost pressure... somehow... but the secondary explosions had killed half of her crew and officers. Smoked choked the air as people moved to help the wounded... and close the eyes of the dead.

"God, how can she be alive. She's has a four foot spike of metal through her torso," Ellen called out from where she hand limped over to the exploded astrogation consoles with a limply hanging right arm. Everyone else but Sheila was strewn over the scorched metal. Many of them in several pieces.

Sheila's eyes caught the XO's just before the darkness closed in on her in an embrace that was overpowering.

---

Chapter 7: Recovery and Relief

So she was quite surprised when she awoke again, clawing her way out of the darkness into the light. Surgeon Lt. Wendy Gwynn could be heard in the background as her pain-fogged senses took in the uncomfortable bed and the straps holding her in place. The lights above her head seemed far too bright. The pain was almost indescribable, but she was already fighting to not fall back into the void of unconsciousness.

"Sheila? Lt. Gwynn! Manticoria is awake," a male intern called out.

The surgeon's voice was shocked. "What are you talking about? I'm not even sure how she's still alive." The brown-haired officer moved over and forced open Sheila's left eye to flash a light into them. "Sheila, can you hear me?"

"I'm-here-" she managed to say in a raspy voice. Her chest hurt terribly. She wanted more than anything for the pain to just quit or go away. Her will was weak, but a spark within her fought to push away the pain.

"The quick heal should have her out for at least another ten hours," the male attendant called out. "But her blood makeup is all weird. I'm not seeing any traces of the dotaphonian or metsisianophini."

Everything was too sensitive, too painful though at one level removed. A spark of divinity within her awoke with a rush, dulling the pain to a dull roar as her body become one step more real than mundane. And then her ichor thrummed in her blood. The rainbow-black blood of the gods surged through her as it appeared, knitting flesh back together. Wounds that would take weeks if not months to recover for a mortal... healed within seconds.

"What the hell was that?" Gwynn shouted. "Did you see that Ed?"

"If see you mean watched as all of her bruises just washed away like dirt... yes!" the male nurse exclaimed.

All of her vital signs on the bed-scanner jumped to perfectly stable levels. Her eyes were open, clear of any discomfort.

"Did you give me a shot of pain medicine?" Sheila asked in a clear voice, suddenly showing an amazing strength compared to just five minutes ago. She realized her torso was swathed in pressure bandages.

"I'm going to check the stomach wound," the doctor called out. Her fingers carefully touched the edge of the smart bandage, releasing a stream of darkly coagulated blood. Swabbing it quickly, she found the skin only had a fading (visibly!) scar. She moved on to the next bandage. "Well, this is a bonafide miracle. Um, let's have you move your right shoulder. It had been shattered, but its not even bruised." Her voice was confused and awed.

The young blonde scion moved it easily. "I've heard some of my family can do this. That will be handy," she admitted to herself.

That was when the life-signs on the bed ot her left started to shriek.

"Montgomery is going into cardiac arrest!" Lt. Gwynn called out. "Damn it, I'm not losing her after all the effort I put to put her back together-?"

The alarms cut off before they had gotten over to the dying patient.

"Any other patients that are in danger of dying?" Sheila asked as she sat up, holding the blood stained blanket up to her chest to protect her modesty.

"About nine. What do you mean?" Petty Officer First Class Edward Piers asked in confusion. His dark chocolate features were quite handsome, even by Sheila's standards.

"Can I get a gown? This should only take about five minutes." The daughter of Athena gave them both a smile with dimples. "After all, this is Apollo. He is a god of healing."

Surgeon Lt. Wendy Gwynn just nodded slowly as Edward got her a gown, then walked over to her the first critically wounded. By the time Sheila had walked up, she saw the patient color and vitals improve on the displays. In fact, the mostly comatose patient frowned. It actually look only about three minutes to walk down the row. By the time she had reached the end of the row, three of the nine casualties were actually trying to stand up, though groaning as they still had some deep bruises.

But bruises instead of deep cuts and lacerations.

Sheila just looked at them, nodded her head occasionally. "Well, that should be that. I don't think anyone else is in danger of dying right now that normal medicine can't help as well as I can. And I'm not unlimited. That took a lot out of me." And what the Fate Binding would do to her? She was worried about that. And she was actually fairly vulnerable, as she could feel only an ember of her Legend remaining.

"That was... impossible," the lieutenant admitted. "Faith healing? Psychic powers?" Behind her the male nurse had a look of utter adoration upon his face.

"Closer to the former," the young blonde admitted. "I better report in to a senior officer."

"I'll let the XO know you are ambulatory and released back to duty," the older woman replied. "Edward, can you get her signed out?" Then she could go prod Lt. Montoya on loan from Fearless for assistance. He was currently resting in the ward room, something she had already done an hour ago.

"Sure," he replied slowly, as if in shock. In his heart, an ember of fanaticism had been laid, growing into a fire.

---

The door to the bridge slid open and Sheila blinked at the ruins of the bridge as several techs were busy rewiring replacement consoles in place. "Well, I can attest that it did hurt," she said in a bit of humor. "Lt. Manticoria reporting for duty, captain."

"I see Lt. Gwynn's prognosis was off a bit, which isn't too surprising. I don't think there's anyone quite like you in the fleet," Captain Truman said with a tired grin. "I need to you work with the damage control crews on the control runs. We'll be heading back to Manticore very soon for repairs and we want a smooth sailing. As soon as they finish the repairs at Beta 14, anyways."

Apollo was quite lamed. The starboard sidewall was just so much junk right now and they were missing most of their weapons. Over half the crew was dead. The poor ship had had a very rough time of it, indeed.

Sheila nodded and headed over, helping to coordinate the replacement controls for astrogration. That was when she discovered that she was the entire department after the attack. And she was sure it was only because of her supernatural gifts and her amulet. The amulet that Marianne had given her had been imbued with a powerful protection.

They were still at it five hours later when she got a summons from the captain to the undamaged conference room. It was a bit saddening to see the empty seat of her department head. So she was now filling in for him.

Captain Truman sat at the head of the table, like in so many other meetings. This time though she looked quite tired and drawn. Lt. Commander Lady Ellen Prevost did not look much better, with her right arm in a sling. Ambersome and Hackmore both looked untouched of wounds, though very tired. Sheila was now the ranking officer of Astrogation and actually looked the best off at this point.

"Thanks for your promptness. I just got a conference from Captain Harrington who has been updated on the local situation. Intelligence has confirmed that the enemy has a Sultan-class battlecruiser." She gave them time to absorb the unpleasant news. "We have been cut orders to immediately return to Manticore for reinforcements while Fearless and Troubadour will remain here in defense of Grayson."

"What are their odds?" the dark-haired Lt. Commander Charles Hackmore asked slowly. "I don't have tactical training really, but a battlecruiser... that will just chew them up."

"You do have a gift of understatement. Captain Harrington hopes that the Masadans will realize that they have failed in their bid to conquer Grayson, but she feels significantly worried that they will not see reason. And hence the gravity of our situation. Charles, are we going to be able to repair Beta 14 before we leave?" That hit had reduced their acceleration by almost 20 %.

"Grayson local shipyards shipyards say they can repair it, but it will take them about twenty to thirty hours," he replied as he reached into his undress uniform. "Then we can hit full speeds back. That is our only propulsion issue, so we should be fine." The engineer gave her a shrug.

Sheila was juggling numbers in her head. "Captain, can we do without those repairs? We will lose twelve hours transit while fixing the beta node in comparison to just the loss of acceleration."

Truman frowned as she considered that. "That's a very good point. Lt. commander, we'll forego the repairs to the beta node. Just make sure there's no bleed through into the the alpha nodes on either side. We'll be taking on the most critically wounded from Fearless and Troubadour... plus two of Madrigal's survivors."

That got a startled reaction as most of them had not heard of those survivors being found in the Masadan's base.

"We'll still do critical repairs to life support and power systems, but look to be ready to leave for Manticore in-" Alice Truman paused as she referred to a data pad. "-three hours from now. It is utterly critical that we get back to Manticore as soon as possible so that a relief force can be sent out. Do everything you can to expedite that mission. Dismissed."

Sheila stood up with the rest of the officers as her mind whirled into action. There was a possible way. Something she had been tinkering with. She had discovered an ability while working on the improved inertial compensator. Somehow she was able to build mock-ups of devices in a thousandth of the time it should have taken.

And that might help with one of her longer term strategic goals.

---

Chapter 8: The Desperate Marathon

Sheila stepped onto the bridge a mere five minutes before they were to depart. "Mr. Cole, I stand to relieve you." She had to step lightly to twist between some marines that were still helping to wire a panel for the sensors.

"I am relieved," the midshipman said in relief.

"You are relieved," she replied formally.

Lady Prevost raised an eyebrow. "Cutting it a little short, Lt. Manticoria? That's quite unusual." The exec was over at her station, riding herd on tactical.

"Yes, sir. I was almost overdue as I worked on a project to help speed our journey home." Sheila felt a stab of surprise as she realized that it was home. She had barely lived there and the ships of the navy had turned into her home, too.

The bustle of the bridge was frenetic and the emotions were taut. Sheila had her plot prepared and set off at a blistering ninety-five percent of maximum emergency military power.

Captain Truman nodded appreciatively as she rechecked the plot. Sheila was going to crowd on the speed until turn-over then and hit the hyperlimit at exactly .295 c. A little closer than she would have done it to herself, but the young demigoddess was very proficient at her duties.

After they translated just over two hours later, Truman had a small discussion quietly with her chief engineer. She was going to break a lot of regulations about hyperspace translation limits. But the only way she could see to get to home fleet fast enough. Once she was finished, she turned over to astrogation. "Helm?"

"Yes, ma'am?" Sheila called out.

"We are going to see about how fast we can make this run." She was quite tense, as it all depended on her sailing master. Thought, if there was anyone that could make this run, it had to be her supernaturally acute demigoddess officer.

"I understand. Could I speak with you for just a moment. I really can't leave as we are making our translations, but I do think this is important," the lieutenant called out. Her eyes were on her plot with the multitude of weaving lines of gravity sheers and waves listed.

Captain Truman nodded her executive officer to follow and meandered over to the astrogation station. "Lt. Manticoria, are you having a problem?"

"No problem at all, captain. I just didn't want to be shouting across the bridge my thanks for removing the safety limits." Sheila waited a second. "And I would like to ask for your trust as I try to breach to Iota Wall."

Lt. Commander Lady Prevost looked at Sheila in shock. "You have to be kidding. If we try that, we will die, lieutenant. No one has succeeded."

"Let's hear her out, before blasting a missile into the idea," Alice said as she noted absently that they were all blue-eyed and blonde women right there.

"I've been working for months on this project and have the multidimensional math down. The Iota Wall is probably twice as thick as expected. And I've done an amazing of research into hyperdrive failures over the last six hundred years since it was invented." At their nods, she continued even as she continued to pilot up to the Beta Wall. "I verified which six components would fail (or nearly fail) when the ships would hit a heavier transition barrier over the centuries. I just spent the last five hours fortifying those six components on the Apollo's hyperdrive. I feel very confident that we can transition the Iota Wall."

The midshipman and enlisted crew were listening raptly. This could literally be a historical moment.

"They are in effect a bit of a jury rig and I really think we will have to put this trip on the Official Secrets list. The strategic importance of being able to transition up to the Iota or the Kappa Band even for just couriers are astounding. If we can do this for fleet response formations, the effect on the possible war with Haven is just another stage more of importance." Her voice was calm and distinct as she transitioned them through the wall with barely a surge.

Captain Truman leveled her blue eyes on the forward display which was currently showing a computer generated image of hyperspace. The purples and greens of the particles trapped in the gravity sheers and wave. It used to be the color of death for crazy men and woman that piloted hyperspace before the Warshinski sensors were invented. "You sound like you put an immense amount of thought into it. You have my permission.

Lady Prevost nodded slowly as she followed the captain back to her command console. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm one hundred percent sure. We are about to make history, Ellen. And possibly change the outcome of the upcoming war." Alice had a bemused grin on her face.

The Beta and Delta Wall were barely noted as they traversed them. The Gamma was slightly tense. Sheila actually took a moment to verify some engineering readouts as they approached the Iota Wall, the hyperdrive ramping up to its highest settings... and beyond. The whole ship shuddered as they slammed into the energy potential.

Down in engineering, devices attached all over the hyperdrive groaned under the energy, some of them actually glowing red under the load.

"Iota Wall breached, captain. I think we need to wait for the hyperdrive to cool slightly and then we can go for the Kappa Wall," Sheila called out across the bridge. There was a whoop that was not very decorous at all from the enlisted ranks.

"Very well-" Captain Truman called out from her station as she read the same engineering readout as her station's com signaled. "This is the captain. Hackmore?"

"What the hell was that? Did we just bounce off the Iota Wall? I've got reading up and down my screens that are telling me my hyperdrive should have just blown up," the engineer said down in his main engineering control room.

"We currently just breached that barrier, lt. commander. As soon as you can cool the hyperdrive down to normal operational levels, we are going to hit the Kappa Wall." Alice Truman was exuding perfect confidence that she did not feel.

"Captain, I don't even understand how we survived the last bump. I do not recommend this," he said hurriedly.

"Trust in me, Charles. We do actually know what we are doing," Alice said with a strong amount of sincerity in her voice. "This is all purposeful."

"I'm only doing this under protest then. I can't in good conscience agree to this madness."

The ship actually shuddered harder when it went through the Kappa Wall and one of the damaged Alpha Nodes picked up a harmonic.

"Captain I'm going to have to divert slightly while I stabilize the harmonic," the scion of Athena called out. A carefully planned spiral course actually relieved the stress of the harmonic within moments. "I would suggest we expedite that repair to Alpha Node 11 as quickly as possible.

Hackmore's snippy response half an hour later informed them the Alpha Node was once again properly tuned.

"You aren't going to attempt the Mu Wall, are you?" Truman asked her pilot.

"No, ma'am. I'm pretty sure I would have to totally redesign hyperdrives to go that far up." She had a smile on her lips though. She had done it. She had smashed through an impossible thing, proving herself once again.

The lamed Apollo soared through brighter purple of the more energetic layer.

---

Admiral of the Green Hamish Alexander, Thirteenth Earl of White Haven, stood at the docking collar as a pinnace finished cycling through in impatience. He raised an eyebrow as he saw Commander Alice Truman, but the lieutenant just behind her was a surprise. "Commander, it's good to see you. I'm sorry for removing you from your ship, but I needed to get a direct briefing. I'm not sure I can believe your passage time. How did you manage to get home in just thirty-six hours?"

His head of his staff, Commander Byron, nodded at his elbow.

"The Apollo now has the singular privilege of being the fastest starship ever, as we actually reached the Kappa Band of hyperspace," Alice Truman said with just a hint of smugness.

"The Kappa Band?" Earl White Haven asked, then whistled softly. Byron's mouth actually dropped open in shock.

"I am assuming its going to have to be a Official Secret, unfortunately, at least until we start showing the Peeps what a responsive fleet really is really like," Truman said in a very proud tone.

"Yes, yes we are." Hamish was juggling numbers in his head as the frontier suddenly became a lot smaller. "And this young lady?" He thought she looked familiar.

"This is the young lady that made it possible. Lt. Lady Sheila Manticoria. She has a tendency to make the impossible happen," Truman said with a nod.

"Well, I doubt we can modify this fleet to go up to the Kappa Band, but we are still going to see how good my engineers are at hitting the uppermost parts of the Iota bad," the admiral said as he led them to a lift.

"I'm not sure that is going to be fast enough. Er, do I have permission to discuss Sunflower with Captain Truman present?" Sheila asked from where she was trailing behind the much more senior officers.

"How do you know about that, lieutenant?" Commander Byron demanded. If security on that was compromised-

"I, er, sorta invented it." She shrugged at his expression. "It was part of what I figured out when-" She looked over at Alice and stopped what she was saying.

"Yes, I think I see where you are going. You think we should use Sunflower A2 to get to Yeltsin in three days instead of the normal five." The admiral had his eyes narrowed in thought. "That is above your pay grade as a decision. But I concur entirely. Byron, hoof it to the flag bridge and divert the fleet to the junction. On my authority, the fleet will transition through Sunflower A2 and then make best speed to Grayson."

"She discovered more than the Lynx Junction? How is that possible?" Alice asked.

"Secondary termini. They are usually only out to about one hundred light years at most. But the strategic command ability is immense. Now if she could only figure out how to transition them back to Manticore space easily. They are basically one way at this point," the gray haired man said with a hard tone. "So it appears we are going to be getting back much quicker than expected."

"Much faster, as Captain Harrington has no idea that we were going to try to get back that fast."

---

Chapter 9: The Last Battle

Honor Harrington was amazed at how tentative the Thunder of God actually had been used. Fearless and Troubadour were both still alive and unwounded. She doubted it would last, but if he wanted to fight like an idiot, she was willing to stall. Still, she studied the display closely. They were currently in another attempt to sneak into Grayson to take out the enemies. The captain would have thought his first attempt would have told him that was impossible.

She had shrugged it off at this point as she snacked on a sandwich. Luckily she had Mac to make sure that Nimitz was fed while she was stuck up on here on the bridge.

"Status change. We are picking up a signal from the recon drones," Lt. Commander Cardones called out. "It apears that three taskforces have hit the hyperlimit. Signal says they are friendly."

The main holotank showed the pre-positioned new forces that were positioned to box in any ship as they moved in towards Grayson.

Honor studied that closely with her one good eye. The other one was covered in an honest to goodness eye patch, like she was some sort of pirate. "Course change. Starboard ten degrees. Let's try to get him to chase us into the box," she called out.

Commander Andreas Venizelos called out, "Aye, aye, captain." The tension in the bridge was suddenly much lighter, no longer suffocating them under fear.

The two ships rotated to suggest they were trying to disengage toward Grayson.

"It's only been five and a half days?" Captain Mark Brentworth asked in confusion from his uncomfortable seat where he was wearing his Manticorian skinsuit with Grayson markings. The Grayson liason officer knew that the soonest that they should be expecting reinforcements was at least four days away, if not longer. They would have had to have already been on their way.

They were nearly perfectly positioned before Matthew Simonds, the captain in charge of Thunder of God, realized what had happened. The battlecruiser actually changed course three times. Twice away from the Manticorian relief forces (each quite powerful enough to defeat his battlecruiser by themselves) and then a final course change directly at Grayson.

It only took moments for Honor Harrington to realize what he was going to do. "Course change. Bow up forty degrees, full emergency power and prepare for missile interdiction. Andreas, I'm going to need you to get a targeting feed to Grayson's forts. He's making a suicide run. We have to stop everything or at least cripple him." Honor was glad they were still fairly far out.

Fearless and Troubadour were suddenly rushing towards the massive battlecruiser, belching missiles like they were were not limited in their magazine.

Thunder of God was firing his own missiles, but not at the Manticorians. The missiles were stepped down for longer endurance as they fired at the planet of their most hated enemies. The battlecruiser writhed as missiles started to streak in even as their counter-fire started to intercept his attacks. The slower speed was working against him.

On the bridge of Thunder of God, Captain Simonds sat stiffly in the captain's acceleration cage. His eyes were burning fiercely as he wished death upon his enemies. The lurid red icons of the enemy forces and the damned woman in his way of his victory. "Are any of the missiles getting through?"

"Very few, captain," his tactical officer explained. "The speeds we have to send them to be unstoppable when they reach Grayson means they are actually slower at the boost phase."

"How long to energy range?" the fanatic of Masada called out in a hoarse, extolling voice. When had been the last time he had slept? More than a day ago.

"Two minutes." They were already at five million kilometers and the range was dropping rapidly. Their previous course changes had their relative speed low, but the closer groups of ships would intercept quickly.

"Sir, we are receiving a communication. They are demanding that we surrender and stop our attack on Grayson. Something about the Eridani Edict." His second in command, Ash, was a bit worried. They really did sound insistant.

"Damn their Eridani Edict to Hades! We will destroy Grayson without mercy! Continue firing on the planet and prepare to destroy the Harlot of Manticore when we reach energy range!" Simonds shouted, almost frothing in his anger.

The Thunder of God shuddered as missiles started to strike home, even as it fought desperately to get any attack through to Grayson. If they could only destroy enough of their infrastructure, perhaps they would not be conquered in return. The whole ship heaved as a missile came in on a twisting vector and exploded right in the open wedge, a perfect up the kilt shot. The whole ship shuddered as Alpha and Beta nodes explodes and the whole ship was sent reeling. Super-conducting rings started to fail spectacularly, dropping power as the battlecruisers went into emergency shutdown.

"Captain! We missed one of the missiles," Rafe called out as he looked up in horror. The missile was was shooting off at higher and higher speeds towards Grayson, glowing balefully on his holotank.

"Make sure that we've forwarded all targeting information to Grayson space command," Honor snapped out. If that got through and hit the planet, the death toll would be immense.

Back in Grayson orbit, every fort went to full alert and the last remaining Grayson ships moved out, trying to desperately find the missile. The trace was carefully plotted and three small fortresses moved sluggishly to have a better angle. They would have a bare second and a half to lock on and fire.

In fact, the three forts opened up with their old-fashioned auto-cannons thirty seconds early, trying to saturate the missiles path with a wall of bullets. One single bullet hit the forward edge by the barest margins. The heavy battlecruiser's missile changed course ever so slightly and them slammed into Fort Bravo Five before they could even realize what had happened. Without even a sidewall, the fortress exploded in pyrotechnic fury.

One of the other fortresses and an orbital farm were heavily damaged by the attack as thousands of lives were wiped away.

"Grayson command states the last missile was stopped when it hit a fort and caused some collateral damage," Commander Venizelo called out, his face pale and worried.

How do you thank heaven that only a fort was lost? Honor wondered. She turned her view back to the lamed battlecruiser. "Prepare to launch pinnaces to capture that cruiser."

---

Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX awaited his visitors for his dinner table with a bemused description. He and two of his wives stood up as extra guards filed into the newly repaired dining room. He had actually had to use a different table, as one of the legs was almost broken off and the bullets marred the surface. "Ladies. Admiral," he bowed his head slightly.

Admiral Hamish Alexander nodded back and held out his hand to shake. "It's a pleasure to be here. Most of my fleet will be shipping back to Masada in a very short order. This sort of thing will not be stood for by her majesty." He moved on to shake the hand of his first wife, Katherine Mayhew

Benjamin smiled even as Captain Honor Harrington stepped up to shake his hand. "It's good to see you live and doing so well. Is there no hope for your eye?"

"No, but my father should be able to install a replacement. He does great work and it's just an eye. It's worth your family," she replied very sincerely. She did indeed look quite raffish with the eye-patch. "Protector Mayhew, this is Commander Alice Truman of her majesty's ship Apollo."

"A pleasure to meet you, sir." The blonde late twenty-ish looking captain gave a small bow with both feet together. "I'm glad we were able to stop the attack. I am very saddened that one of your forts was destroyed during its last attack."

"My pleasure. So Apollo did meet up with a relief force on its way?" Benjami asked curiously.

"Ah, actually... my ship is currently being repaired at HMSS Hephaestus back in Manticore even as we speak. I'm pretty sure my engineer might even speak to me once it is all fixed up." She gave a small shrug and smile at that.

"My word, I think you Manticorians have been hiding some of your capabilities," the Protector stated in a very curious tone.

Hamish let out a gruff laugh. "Actually, you might consider them to be very new additions to our capabilities. As in they did not exist before Apollo left for reinforcements." The admiral waved over to the last officer. "This is Lt. Lady Sheila Manticoria, our most unorthodox officer. For a tactical officer, she really does the most amazing engineering feats." He older face had a smile on his forty-ish looking features, though he was actually closer to ninety.

"Manticoria? That Manticoria? The one that discovered the Lynx terminus? Interesting," Katherine said. "You look, what, thirteen? Third generation prolong is very amazing."

"I'm actually only fifteen. And I'm only a second generation prolong recipient," she replied carefully.

"Well, you all have my personal thanks." Benjamin directed them to the table. "I think I'd like to hear the whole story at some point."

Now how to keep them from having a religious meltdown, Sheila wondered to herself. She guessed it was time to tap-dance through verbal minefield.

---

Epilogue:

"She's a tougher nut than I thought. Who would have expected a brat to be so resilient," Marjorie Sylvester said to her father, who was sitting across from her desk. She was in her office back on the planet Asgard. "And getting to her while she is off being a mortal officer in a navy... how irritating."

"Yet somehow her legend keeps expanding. And really, just hiring some ninja to attack her occasionally is not going to work against a demigoddess, darling." Sly Lokison's fiery hair was an ugly green color right now, giving off a heat that was scorching the paint on the walls. "I thought you were brighter than this."

"Father, father, father... You might be cunning, but you are not being devious. I've been sowing her destruction in the thing that she cares about most, her precious navy of Manticore. While it did not work out quite as I planned, it did reveal that she is being shielded. And her protector is but a mere mortal." The middle-aged looking woman had a hard smile on her face.

"Oh, really? I'm so impressed," Sly drawled out to goad a reaction from his youngest daughter. "My little girl can't even overcome a mortal."

"It might be a little tricky, but once I kill Queen Elizabeth, her house of cards of protection can be easily turned around. Especially going into this war with the People's Republic of Haven," Marjorie said with a grin. "In fact, doing it just before their war starts will destabilize Manticore enough that they'll steam-roll right over them. Wouldn't that be just delicious to show her just how pathetic her war making skills really are?"

"So you are hoping that she gets killed in the action after a fall from grace?" the new Norse god of trickery and treachery asked curiously as he took a toke off of his cigarette.

"Oh, yes. Sheila Manticoria nearly died on her last deployment. She'll lose her protector and then she'll lose her precious navy. And then the Star Nation that she's named herself for. Her Legend will be ruined and she'll just die like a pig in some military prison."

The wind howled outside as snow was carried as if it were the glee of something foul and awful, battering at the tall tower of glass and metal.

---

Epilogue the Second:

The woman in the severe, black suit with a cowled short cape bout her neck stopped at the balcony entrance of the highrise party. Inside, in the warmth, men and women in fancy clothing prepared to dance the night away. Interspaced in the creme of the society were the uniforms of the Republic Navy.

A younger woman appeared around the corner of the balcony. "Hello, Madam," the incredibly pretty woman in an outfit that would fit in at a Ren Faire.

"Marrianne? You are not planning on interceding against me here, are you?" the harsh voiced-woman said.

"Of course not. This People's Republic needs a revolution. I just wish you and the Citizen were not enamored with such harsh ways." The young-looking goddess sighed as she leaned on the balcony and over the massive towers of Nouveau Paris. "But they need to break the shackles of their oppression."

"You can have your bleeding-heart moment somewhere else," her companion said with a repressed snarl. "Or do you have something productive to say here instead of back in our Overworld?"

"No, this is a matter of now, so must be spoken outside of the Eternal Revolution, Madam. Your Republic is going to start a war soon. And that will put you on a collision course with other Deities."

"Britannia is of no concern. If Haven is at war with her proxy when the revolution comes, then we will fight. Leave me now. I must meet with my newest incarnae." And with that, the Goddess of the Terrible Revolution and the Terror entered into the ball. She moved over to talk to a petite blonde woman that was trying to ingratiate herself with the a local leader of the city. "Cordelia Ransom?"

"Yes?" the CRU agent asked cautiously. Somehow this woman set off incredibly vibes of danger.

"My name is Madam G. I'm very interested in some of your works. Let me buy you a drink," Madam Guillotine said, gesturing at the bar. "Trust me, even the Legistlatruists will not be able to harm you this evening in my presence."

And somehow Cordelia could feel the truth of those words. "Certainly."

The mismatched pair headed to the wet bar to get some very strong drinks. Out on the balcony a lighter-haired woman walked up in a civilian women's suit. "You knew she would not listen, Marianne."

"We are not all perfect. Even you make mistakes, sister Columbia," came the tart reply.

Columbia nodded mutely, looking over the drab city that was supposed to showcase the greatness of a republic; the will of the people to lead a nation into enlightenment. All squandered by her failure. "Here most of all, dear sister. Madam Guillotine and the Citizen have no idea what sort of war they will be entering against Britannia and Manticoria. They are sharpening a blade that will kill many of mine children. And I must not lift my hand to stop it. How terrible it is, dear sister, to leave my children to such a dark fate. Evil behind them and implacable foes at their front."

"Is there nothing you can do?" the soft-hearted daughter of Athena asked as she pushed her dark-brown curls behind her ear.

"I must find someone that has not given up on the Republic. I must protect him so that liberty does not fail." And in a flash of light so bright and terrible it was seen from space, she disappeared.

That caused a cry of alarm, but by the time anyone managed to come outside to look for the disturbance, there were only pigeons on the balcony.