Bachfisch looked back up at her for a moment, and then smiled crookedly.

“You always were a stubborn woman,” he murmured. “All right, I’ll go. But since you’re here now…” He looked past her, indicating her staff officers with his eyes, and she nodded.

“I gathered from Commander Gruber’s message that you were going to insist on a bedside debrief,” she said serenely. “Now, if I were inclined to indulge in calling any kettles black, I might comment on the stubbornness involved in that. Since I’m far too broad-minded to do anything of the sort, however, why don’t we just get started?”

Bachfisch’s chuckle might have been tight with pain, but it was also genuine, and she tasted his gratitude for her manner.

“Commander Gruber,” she waved at the exec, “already told us about your decision to shadow the Peep-Hecate, wasn’t it?” She glanced up at Gruber, who nodded, and Honor looked back down at her old captain. “He told us you’d decided to, but what he couldn’t tell us was what the hell you thought you were doing?”

Bachfisch’s eyebrows flew up, and Honor tasted the surprise of all of her officers at hearing even that mild an oath out of her, but she never took her own eyes from Bachfisch’s. She was willing to be calm and collected about his state, but she wanted him to cherish no illusions about her opinion of the sanity involved in getting himself and his ship mixed up in something like this.

“What I thought I was doing,” he told her after a moment, “was trying to figure out what a Havenite fleet might be doing in your bailiwick, young lady. And I might point out that I’ve been old enough to make decisions for myself for quite some time. Why, just last week I picked out which shirt I wanted to wear without any help at all.”

Their eyes held, and then, almost against her will, she smiled.

“Point taken,” she told him. “On the other hand, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t try quite so hard to get yourself killed next time. You think we could compromise on that?”

“I’m certainly willing to take it under advisement,” he assured her.

“Thank you. Now, getting back to business. You followed Hecate until she left the grav wave.”

“Yes.” Bachfisch leaned back against his pillow. “We hit a bad patch. Particle densities went way up, and I had to close up on her if I wanted to hold her on sensors. From what her survivors say, that was probably what drew her attention to us. At any rate, she was waiting when we transitioned to wedge.”

“And she ordered you to stand by for boarding?”

“Yes.” Bachfisch grimaced. “I wouldn’t have been too crazy about that under the best of conditions, but out in the middle of nowhere, dealing with a Havenite warship, I really didn’t want an armed boarding party to discover that the ‘merchie’ who’d been shadowing them was armed to the teeth. Besides, there wouldn’t have been much point in following her if we’d just let ourselves be hauled off and incarcerated.”