But she was a warship’s captain. Personal feelings and gratitude, however deep or deserved, took second place to that. They must. And so she cleared her throat and spoke in a soft, impersonal tone.

“No, Mr. McKeon,” she said. “You haven’t.” She watched him flinch, saw his shoulders tighten, and wanted to reach out to him. But she didn’t. She simply sat there, waiting.

The silence stretched out, tight and painful, and McKeon’s hands washed themselves in his lap. She could hear him breathing, listened to the throb of her own pulse, and still she waited. She could feel his need to say something more and knew he needed time to say it in, and that at least she could give him, however long it took.

“I know I haven’t, Ma’am,” he said finally. “And… I’m sorry.” He twitched a shrug and looked up at her face. “It’s not much, but it’s all I can say. I’ve let you down—let the ship down—and I’m sorry.”

“Why, Mr. McKeon?” she asked softly. He winced at the compassion in her voice, but he understood her question. For a moment she thought he might thrust himself up out of the chair and flee, but he didn’t.

“Because—” He swallowed and looked around the briefing room without really seeing it. “Because I let my personal feelings get in the way of my duty, Ma’am.” He made himself face her as he admitted it, and in that moment their ages were reversed. The tall, powerful executive officer seemed suddenly young and vulnerable, for all his years of experience, while he met her eyes almost desperately, as if begging her to understand.

“You came aboard, and you looked so damned young,” he went on in a voice of wretched self-loathing. “I knew you deserved the command. God, I only had to check your record to know that! But I wanted it so badly myself. I didn’t have the seniority for it—” He broke off and laughed harshly.

“I’ll probably never have the seniority. I’m a hack, Captain. A plodder. The kind who refuses to stick his neck out. But, God, how I wanted this ship. More than I’d ever admitted to myself. And there you were—five years younger than me with one hyper-capable command already under your belt, walking through the hatch straight from ATC and wearing the white beret I wanted.”

His hands fisted in his lap, and then he did rise. He paced up and down the small briefing room like a caged animal, and Honor felt his anguish and self-condemnation. She could almost see the fog of his misery, wrapped around him like poison, but she sat on her sudden desire to break his monologue, to stop him or defend him from himself. She couldn’t. He needed to say it—and she needed for him to say it, if there was any hope the barriers between them would truly come down.

“I hated you.” His voice was muffled, bouncing back from the bulkhead as he looked away from her. “I told myself I didn’t, but I did. And it didn’t get better. It got worse every day. It got worse every time I saw you do something right and realized I’d wanted you to do it wrong so I could justify the way I felt.