Honor had felt ridiculous flaunting her GSN rank that way, however legal it might be and however thoroughly she’d earned it, but only until she met Styles for herself. After no more than five minutes, she’d decided that the People’s Navy had done the Alliance an immense favor by capturing Harry Styles and putting him safely on Hell where he couldn’t do the war effort any more damage. She had no idea what he was doing here instead of a regular navy-run POW camp somewhere, unless, perhaps, his rank had led StateSec to see him as some sort of prize catch to be kept in its personal trophy case. He was, after all, not merely the highest-ranking Manticoran officer yet captured by the People’s Republic but also the only flag officer they’d captured in the entire first six and a half years of the war. They’d had him for over eight T-years, since the day they’d destroyed his entire picket squadron in the Yalta System in one of the probing attacks with which they had opened the present war. They’d actually caught him with cold impellers—which said a great deal about his competence right there—and his subsequent attempt to defend himself had been nothing to write home about.

Not that he saw it that way, of course. As far as he was concerned, he’d simply been the unfortunate victim of Peep treachery, attacked in time of peace and without a formal declaration of war. Apparently he had failed, in those long ago days of peace, to note the minor fact that the Legislaturalists who had run the People’s Republic had never once bothered to alert a potential victim by declaring war before they hit it. He didn’t seem to have learned much since, either. Added to which, he was arrogant, opinionated, full of his own importance, conceited, and stupid. And those were his good points, she thought acidly.

“I have put up with all the insubordination I intend to tolerate, Admiral Styles,” she said into the fragile silence. Her voice was still cold, the words precisely enunciated, and she felt his tooth-grinding hatred flowing over her. “I am in command in this star system, and you, Admiral, are not. You will remember that at all times, and you will address not simply myself but any personnel on this planet who have voluntarily placed themselves under my command with proper courtesy at all times, or by God I will have you thrown back into the jungle to rot! Is that clear, Admiral Styles?”

He glared at her, then nodded curtly.

“I didn’t hear you, Admiral,” she said icily.

“Yes,” he grated, and flushed still darker as her glacial eye jerked a “Ma’am!” from him, as well.

“Good,” she said in a slightly less frozen voice. She knew he hadn’t really given up. The fact that he’d been captured so early meant he’d been on Hell since before even the Battle of Hancock or her duel with Pavel Young. More recently captured personnel could have brought him up to date—in fact, for all Honor knew some of them had tried to do just that—but it hadn’t taken. In his mind, the Grayson Space Navy was still some sort of comic opera, local-defense fleet and Honor was a mere commodore with delusions of grandeur. He didn’t appear to believe that the Fourth Battle of Yeltsin—or, for that matter, the Battle of Hancock—had ever even happened, and he regarded her claim to admiral’s rank as an outright lie. As far as he was concerned, it was nothing more than a ploy to allow her to retain the command which should rightfully have been his, and her senior subordinates were all in cahoots with her to make it stand up.