“I’m not prepared to condemn one of my captains’ actions without a lot more information than we currently have,” Honor said. “On the other hand, from the very limited data actually available to us, it would certainly appear that that may have been true. In the final analysis, it was Gortz who first fired on Jessica Epps, which certainly seems—from our perspective, at least—to have been a much more serious ‘lapse’ than anything of which Ferrero may have been guilty. That doesn’t mean both COs didn’t contribute to what happened, and I think we all need to be aware of the fact that we’re automatically prejudiced against the captain who killed one of our own ship’s entire company. Not to mention the depth of the anger and resentment we all feel because of the Andermani’s previous, deliberately provocative policy.”

“But the two key points at this moment, as I see it, are that we have a very serious shooting incident between our own forces and the Andermani Navy, and that we don’t have any way of knowing precisely what led up to it. The fact that it occurred in the territorial space of a third, neutral power complicates things even further, of course, but it doesn’t change those two considerations.”

She paused once more, surveying the faces and tasting the emotions about her, and behind her own calm façade she felt her own tension, her own anxiety. Her own sense of responsibility.

“I intend,” she said, “to send Chantilly’s sensor log to Sachsen for review by Admiral Sternhafen. I will point out to him that according to that log, his commander clearly fired on our vessel before Jessica Epps returned fire. I will suggest to him that it would be… appropriate for him to determine whether or not the ship identifying itself as Sittich was the ship which ought to have been squawking that transponder code, and I will share with him the intelligence we developed suggesting that the ship in question was in fact both a slaver and illegally squawking a fraudulent code. I will request that he thoroughly investigate these events, and offer to conduct such an investigation jointly with him. In particular, I will request access to Hellbarde’s surviving personnel—under Andermani supervision, of course—in an effort to obtain firsthand testimony from the only survivors.”

“Your Grace,” Reynolds said, “all of our information on Graf von Sternhafen suggests that he’s not going to pay you a great deal of attention. According to everything we have, he’s a card-carrying member of the anti-Manticore faction within the IAN. Not to put too fine a point on it, he hates the Star Kingdom’s guts.”

“I’m well aware of that, George. That’s one reason why I’ve been looking forward to Herzog von Rabenstrange’s arrival to replace him. And why I think the timing on this episode is particularly tragic. Nonetheless, I don’t see any way to justify not at least attempting to defuse this situation before it careens entirely out of control. If, in fact, this was an accident—if the Andies didn’t intend from the beginning to pull the trigger on a general war between the Empire and the Star Kingdom—then I have an absolute responsibility to do all I can to pull us back from the brink instead of simply plunging over it because I don’t expect my efforts to succeed.”