David Weber & Steve White - Starfire 1 by Insurrection

Author:Insurrection
Language: eng
Format: epub

She and Tomanaga had argued that her actions had been good and prudent tactics, precluding any possibility of further treachery on Ruyard's part and so terrifying the pirates still on the planet as to prevent any last minute atrocities.

Nevertheless, Han had been officially censured, though the First Space Lord had told her privately that he approved her handling of the battle.

Personally, Han had never considered the episode "battle" at all, though it was now officially called the Battle of Siegfried. From her perspective, it had been a case of vermin extermination.

Silence stretched out across the desk as Trevayne toyed with a stylus, and Han sensed an unaccustomed hesitance, even an awkwardness, on his part.

"Admiral," she asked tentatively at last, "may I go?" "Eh?" He looked up quickly, as if caught off balance while trying to formulate a statement or question. "You may," he said gruffly.

Han stood and walked toward the doors. Then she stopped and turned back to face him.

"Admiral, if I may ask... why did you bring me here to tell me this, instead of simply sending word through Commandant Chanet?" Trevayne glanced back down at his desk for a moment, seeming to gather himself. Then he looked back up at her.

"Admiral Li,"" hb almost blurted, "were you, by any chance, involved in the raid on Galloway's World?"

Han eyed him sharply. Now why, she'wondered, did he want to know that? There'd been some ugly repercussions over the strike, she recalled, despite the fact that every strategist had always known the Jamieson Archipelago was a primary strategic target. Still, both sides had been horrified by the heavy civilian casualties, and the raid had led to the de facto agreement banning nuclear strikes on inhabited planets. But why... his Understanding struck. Her glance switched quickly to the holos as she remembered a conversation in Admiral Rutgers" office, and her eyes widened in horrified understanding.

And then her gaze met Trevayne's.

His eyes were almost beseeching, and he read the shocked compassion in hers. For an insbled'ant, there was an intangible bond between them.

Han needed to say something--she knew not what-- to reach out to this man who'd lost so much. She opened her mouth to speak.

... and remembered the Second Battle of Zephrain, when Fourth Fleet hung beyond weapon range and the deadly HBM'S kept coming in spite of her desperately repeated surrender signals. As the missiles which had already been fired looped impossibly back, closing through the storm of counter missiles and point defense lasers, joined by fresh salvos from the enemy fleet, Han had sat in her command chair, giving her orders calmly, holding her people together even as she waited to die with them.

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And now she looked at the dark, menacingly bearded face across the desk and saw not a man whose family had died but the callous, murderous commander who had been willing to butcher her helpless crews.

"No, Admiral." Her voice rang in the still room. "I had no part in that heroic

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