David Weber - Honor 04 - Field of Dishonor

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FIELD OF DISHONOR

David Weber

[16 dec 2001—scanned by an anonymous saint]

[18 dec 2001—reformatted for #bookz]

"It is always a bad thing when political matters are allowed to affect ... the

planning of

operations."

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 160 Ante-Diaspora (1943 C.E.)

PROLOGUE

It was very quiet in the huge, dimly lit room. The Advanced Tactical Training

Course's main lecture

hall boasted the second largest holo tank of the Royal Manticoran Navy, and

the rising, amphitheaterlike

seats facing the tank seated over two thousand at full capacity. At the

moment, thirty-seven people,

headed by Admiral Sir Lucien Cortez, Fifth Space Lord, and Vice Admiral The

Honorable Alyce

Cordwainer, the RMN's Judge Advocate General, sat in those seats and watched

the tank intently.

The image of a tall, strong- faced woman floated in it, sitting erect and

square-shouldered yet calmly

in her chair, hands folded on the tabletop before her beside the white beret

of a starship's commander. The

golden planets of a senior- grade captain gleamed on the collar of her space-

black tunic, and she wore no

expression at all as she faced the HD camera squarely.

"And what, precisely, happened after the task group's final course change,

Captain Harrington?" The

voice came from off-camera, and a blood-red caption in the holo tank

identified the speaker as

Commodore Vincent Capra, head of the board of inquiry whose recommendations

had brought the

audience here.

"The enemy altered course to pursue us, Sir." Captain Harrington's soprano was

surprisingly soft and

sweet for a woman of her size, but it was also cool, almost remote.

"And the tactical situation?' Capra pressed.

"The task group was under heavy fire, Sir," she replied in that same,

impersonal tone. "I believe Circe

was destroyed almost as we altered course. Agamemnon was destroyed

approximately five minutes after

course change, and several of our other units suffered both damage and

casualties."

"Would you call the situation desperate, Captain? "

"I would call it... serious, Sir," Harrington responded after a moments

thought.

There was a brief silence, as if her invisible questioner were waiting for her

to say something more.

But her detached calm was impregnable, and Commodore Capra sighed.

"Very well, Captain Harrington. The situation was 'serious,' the enemy had

altered course to pursue

you, and Agamemnon had been destroyed. Were you in contact with Nike's flag

bridge and Admiral

Sarnow?"

"Yes, Sir, I was."

"So it was at this time he started to order the task group to scatter?"

"I believe that was his intention, Sir, but if so, he was interrupted before

he actually gave orders to

that effect."

"And how was he interrupted, Captain?"

"By a report from our sensor net, Sir. Our platforms had picked up the arrival

of Admiral Danislav's

dreadnoughts." "I see. And did Admiral Sarnow then order the task group not to

scatter?"

"No, Sir. He was wounded before he could pass any other orders," the quiet,

unshadowed soprano

replied.

"And how was he wounded, Captain? What were the circumstances?" The off-camera

voice was

almost irritated now, as if frustrated by Harrington's clinical

professionalism.

"Nike was hit several times by enemy fire, Sir. One hit took out Boat Bay One,

CIC, and Flag Bridge.

Several members of the Admiral's staff were killed, and he himself was

severely injured."

"He was rendered unconscious?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And did you pass command of the task group to the next senior officer?"

"I did not, Sir."

"You retained command?" Harrington nodded wordlessly. "Why, Captain?"

"In my judgment, Sir, the tactical situation was too serious to risk confusion

in the chain of

command. I was in possession of knowledge—the fact that Admiral Danislav had

arrived—which might

not be known to Captain Rubenstein, the next senior officer, and time was very

limited."

"So you took it upon yourself to assume command of the entire task group in

Admiral Sarnow's

name?" Capra's question was sharp—not condemnatory, but with the air of making

a crucial point—and

Harrington nodded once more.

"I did, Sir," she said, without even a flicker of emotion as she admitted

violating at least five separate

articles of war.

"Why, Captain?" Capra pressed. "What made the situation time critical enough

to justify such an

action on your part?"

"We were approaching our preplanned scatter point, Sir. Admiral Danislav's

arrival gave us the

opportunity to lead the enemy into a position from which he could not escape

interception, but only if we

remained concentrated and offered him a target worth pursuing. Given the

damage I knew Captain

Rubinsteins' com facilities had suffered, I judged there was too great a risk

that the task group would

scatter as previously planned before Captain Rubenstein could be fully

apprised of the situation and assert

tactical control."

"I see." There was another lengthy moment of silence, broken only by what

might have been the soft,

off-camera sound of snuffling paper. Then Capra spoke once more.

"Very well, Captain Harrington. Please tell the Board what happened

approximately fourteen minutes

after Admiral Sarnow was wounded."

The first, faint trace of emotion crossed Captain Harrington's calm face. Her

almond-shaped eyes

seemed to harden with a cold, dangerous glitter and her mouth tightened. But

only for an instant. Then all

expression vanished once more, and no hint of whatever had glittered in her

eyes colored that

dispassionate soprano when she replied with a question of her own.

"I assume, Sir, that you're referring to the actions of CruRon Seventeen?"

"Yes, Captain. I am."

"It was at approximately that time, Sir, that CruRon Seventeen scattered and

detached from the

remainder of the task group," Harrington said, and her voice was colder and

even more emotionless than

before.

"On whose responsibility?"

"That of Captain Lord Young, Sir, acting squadron CO following Commodore Van

Slyke's death

earlier in the action."

"Did you instruct him to detach?" "No, Sir, I did not."

"Did he inform you of his intentions before he detached his squadron?"

"No, Sir, he did not."

"So he acted entirely on his own initiative and without orders from the

flagship?"

"Yes, Sir, he did."

"Did you instruct him to return to formation?"

"Yes, Sir, I did."

"More than once?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And did he obey your instructions, Captain?" Capra asked quietly.

"No, Sir," Harrington replied like a soprano-voiced machine. "He did not."

"Did the remainder of CruRon Seventeen return to its station when so

instructed?"

"Yes, Sir, they did."

"And Captain Lord Young's own ship—?"

"Continued to withdraw, Sir," Honor Harrington's recorded image said very,

very softly, and an echo

of that hard, frightening glitter gleamed in her eyes as the HD tank froze.

then the tank blanked. The lights

came up, and all eyes turned to the JAG Corps captain standing behind the

speakers lectern as she cleared

her throat.

"That completes the relevant portion of Lady Harrington's statement to the

Board of Inquiry, ladies

and gentlemen." Her crisp alto carried well, with the easy courtroom manner of

the experienced lawyer

she was. "The entire statement, as well as all other testimony taken before

the Board is, of course,

available. Would you care to review any further portions of it before we

proceed?"

Admiral Cordwainer glanced at Cortez and crooked an eyebrow, wondering if the

Fifth Space Lord

had caught the same nuances she had. Probably. She might be a jurist by

training, more alive to the things

that weren't said—and the way they weren't—than most people, but Sir Lucien

Cortez was a line officer

who'd seen combat, and it had showed in his eyes and the tightening of his

lips as he listened to Lady

Harrington's cold, bloodless recitation of events.

Bat Cortez shook his head, and the JAG looked back at the woman behind the

lectern.

"If there are any questions, we can view the rest of the transcript following

your brief, Captain Ortiz,"

she said. "Carry on."

"Yes, Ma'am." Ortiz nodded and glanced down, tapping keys to scroll through

the notes in her memo

pad, then looked back up. This next portion is the real reason I asked ATC to

make the main tank

available to us, Ma'am. What you're about to see is a recreation of the

relevant portion of the actual

engagement, drawn from the sensor logs of all surviving units of Task Group

Hancock-Zero-Zero-One.

There are holes in the data, due to the task group's heavy losses, but we've

been able to fill most of them

by interpolating captured data from Admiral Chin's dreadnoughts. Using that

information, ATC's

computers have generated the equivalent of a combat information center display

at a time compression

of—" Ortiz glanced back at her memo pad "—approximately five-to-one, beginning

shortly before

Admiral Sarnow's death."

She pressed buttons, and the lights dimmed once more. There was a brief blur

of light in the

stupendous HD tank; then everything snapped into sharp focus once more, and

Cordwainer felt Cortez

stiffen beside her as the glowing icons of a battle display burned before

them.

The larger portion of the two- level projection displayed the inner system of

the red dwarf star called

Hancock, as far out as the eleven- light- minute hyper limit. The widespread

light codes of planets and the

green dot of the fleet repair base that was the heart of Hancock Station

blazed within it, but three brighter, flashing light codes drew the eye like

magnets. Not even ATC's huge tank was able to display individual

warships on such a scale, but only one of the flashing lights was the bright

green of friendly units; both of

the others glared the sullen crimson of hostiles, and funnel- like cores of

light joined each of them to

exploded-view projections which could display individual ships and their

formations.

The JAG was no trained tactician, but it didn't take one to understand

Cortez's sudden tension. One

crimson smear—the larger, by far—hung all but motionless, barely halfway from

the hyper limit to

Hancock Station, and the icons of the projection linked to it identified a

blood-chilling number of

superdreadnoughts of the People's Navy. But the second enemy force was far

closer to the repair base,

closing on it rapidly even as it slowly overhauled Task Group H-001, and the

handful of green dots

representing Manticoran units was horribly outnumbered—and even more horribly

outgunned—by the

glaring red dots of the warships pursuing them. The heaviest Manticoran units

were six battlecruisers,

three of them already circled by the flashing yellow bands of combat damage,

and six super-dreadnoughts

led the Peeps charging up their wakes.

Cordwainer winced as the glittering sparkles of missiles streaked back and

forth between the two

formations. The Peeps poured fire into TG H-001 on at least a three- for-one

ratio. It was hard to be

certain—the compressed time scale reduced missile flight times drastically and

made any real estimate of

numbers impossible—but it looked as if the Manticorans were scoring at least

as many actual hits.

Unfortunately, the Peeps could take a great many more hits.

"The task group has already lost two battlecruisers at this point," Captain

Ortiz's detached, invisible

voice said from of the darkness. 'The Peeps have lost much more heavily thanks

to Admiral Sarnow's

initial ambush, but it's important to note that the Admiral has lost both his

senior divisional commanders

and Commodore Van Slyke. In short, there are no surviving flag officers, other

than Admiral Sarnow

himself, in the task group at this time."

Cordwainer nodded silently, listening to Cortez's harsh breathing beside her,

and winced as another

Manticoran ship—this one a light cruiser—vanished from the display with heart-

stopping suddenness.

Two of the damaged battlecruisers took more hits, as well. The yellow band

around one of them—she

squinted her eyes to make out the name AGAMEMNON beside its icon—was tinged

with the red of

critical damage, and she shuddered as she tried to imagine how it must feel to

know eight or nine times

your own firepower had you in killing range.

"We're coming up on the task group's final course change," Ortiz said quietly,

and the JAG watched

TG H-001's vector suddenly angle away from its previous course by at least

fifteen degrees. She bit her

lip as the Peep dreadnoughts turned to cut the chord of the angle, and the

tank suddenly froze.

"This is the point at which Admiral Sarnow made his final bid to draw the

enemy away from the

repair base and its personnel," Captain Ortiz said, and the tank flickered

once more. The exploded-view

formation displays burned unchanged, but the system-scale display shrank into

a tiny fraction of its

former volume to make room for three new projections. Not of battle codes and

warships, this time, but of

command decks and Manticoran officers eerily frozen in midmotion, as if

awaiting the restoration of the

time stream.

"We're now approaching the actions significant to the board of inquiry's

determinations," Ortiz went

on. "A perusal of Admiral Sarnow's pre-battle briefings and discussions with

his squadron commanders

and captains will, I feel, make it abundantly evident that all of them

understood his intention to divert the

enemy from the base by any means possible, specifically including the use of

his own ships as decoys. At

the same time, in fairness to Lord Young, I should perhaps also point out that

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FIELDOFDISHONORDavidWeber[16dec2001—scannedbyananonymoussaint][18dec2001—reformattedfor#bookz]"Itisalwaysabadthingwhenpoliticalmattersareallowedtoaffect...theplanningofoperations."FieldMarshalErwinRommel160Ante-Diaspora(1943C.E.)PROLOGUEItwasveryquietinthehuge,dimlylitroom.TheAdvancedTacticalTrainin...

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David Weber - Honor 04 - Field of Dishonor

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