“Technically,” Honor repeated, and he smiled. “And practically speaking?” she inquired.

“Practically speaking, the Confed Navy’s official warrants are nothing but ways around the prohibition against armed merchantmen which are available to those with sufficiently well-placed government patrons. Everyone knows the auxiliaries will never be called upon in their naval capacity. For that matter, at least some of them are pirates themselves!” He seemed, she noted, to actually find that amusing, in a grim sort of way.

“May I ask who your patron is?” she asked in a carefully neutral voice, and he chuckled.

“I believe you’ve probably met her, at some point,” he told her. “Her name is Patricia Givens.”

“Admiral Givens?” Honor stared at him, startled by the name.

“Indirectly speaking,” Bachfisch qualified. “Mind you, I probably would have reached the same point eventually on my own—or I like to think so, anyway. I’d already acquired a half-ownership in Ambuscade, and to be completely honest, I’d already armed her on a minor sort of scale. My partner wasn’t entirely happy about that, but we both understood that if the Sillies ever complained about it, I’d take the fall by claiming full responsibility. At least a half dozen Confed skippers—and, for that matter, at least one flag officer—knew she was armed, of course, but by then I’d been out here long enough that I was considered a Silly myself, not one of those pushy Manticoran interlopers.

“Actually, there’ve always been more more or less honest private armed vessels in Silesia than most people realize. I’m sure you’ve encountered quite a few of them yourself, during your deployments here?” He raised his eyebrows at her, and she nodded. “The problem, of course, has always been telling the good guys from the bad guys,” he went on, “and for whatever reason, the Confed Navy had decided I was one of the good guys. It may have had something to do with the first couple of pirate vessels which suffered a mischief when Ambuscade was in the area.”

“I hope you won’t take this wrongly, Sir, but why did you stay out here in Silesia at all?” He looked at her, and she waved one hand in the air above her desk. “I mean, you’ve done well, but surely you had more and better contacts in the Star Kingdom then you did out here, and the Confederacy was scarcely the most law-abiding environment available.”

“I suppose shame might have been a part of it,” he admitted after a moment. “The language in which the court of inquiry couched its verdict was actually pretty moderate, but the subtext was clear enough, and there was a part of me which wanted sympathy about as little as it wanted condemnation. So there was certainly an element of starting over somewhere where I’d have a clean page.”

“Then again, I was one of the Navy’s old ‘Silesian hands.’ Like you, I’d been deployed out here several times in the course of my career, and there were people who knew me, either personally or by reputation. They don’t get to see too many Manticoran officers of my seniority or experience in private service out here, so in some ways it was easier for me to write my own ticket in the Confederacy than it would have been in the Star Kingdom.”