Ashes Of Victory hh-9

by David Weber

  "There's some truth in that, I suppose. But that's partly because you did such a good job of pointing... and partly because of how motivated they were. Both before you ever got your hands on them — we set a new record for middies who requested a single instructor — and after you had a chance to put your stamp on them." He chuckled again. "I understand you're not particularly fond of the nickname, but when the student body heard `the Salamander' was going to be lecturing, the registrar's office was almost buried under transfer slips from people trying to get into your sections."

  "The 'faxes had a lot more to do with that sort of hero worship than anything I ever did," Honor insisted.

  "Perhaps." Caparelli allowed her the last word on that topic and took a sip from his chilled glass. Honor drank from her own, then set it down and offered Nimitz a celery stick. He took it and crunched cheerfully away, and she turned back to Caparelli as the First Space Lord returned his moisture-beaded glass to its coaster.

  "Even more than the Academy, however, I wanted to thank you for the job you did at ATC," he said more seriously. "For two things, really. One is the nature of the changes you made to the Crusher. The other is using the opportunity to salvage Commander Jaruwalski's career. I ought to've seen to that myself."

  "You're the First Space Lord of the Queen's entire navy, Sir. You've got more than enough on your plate without dealing with individual commanders. I, on the other hand, happened to have served under Santino early in his career. I knew what a vindictive idiot he was, and that gave me a personal motive for looking more closely than most at what happened in Seaford. But I am glad Andrea's turned her career back around. She's good, Sir Thomas. Very good, indeed. It's only my opinion, but I think BuPers should be looking closely at the notion of promoting her to captain jay-gee outside the zone."

  "I think you can safely assume that's being seen to. Jackson Kriangsak's already spoken to Lucian, and I understand she's being slipped onto the next list."

  "Good," Honor said firmly, and suppressed a mental snort at her own actions.

  She'd always hated the way some officers played the patronage game, and she'd always felt that such a system, by its very nature, was subject to serious abuse. Elvis Santino and Pavel Young were telling cases in point. But, then, she'd never really considered the possibility of having sufficient power to play it herself, and now, in the best tradition of rationalizers the galaxy over, she saw some advantages to it. Andrea Jaruwalski's career had been headed for the ash heap, and its salvage, which was certainly a plus for the Navy, stemmed entirely from the fact that Honor had made her own first investment in the patronage system. Perhaps those who'd played the game the way Hamish Alexander did (she scarcely even noticed the familiar little pang that name sent through her) had had a point all along. The nurturing of junior officers not because they were relatives — or the children of friends or relatives, or of people who could repay you with favors of their own — but because they were outstanding officers, truly was a form of payback. Not to any individual. Not even to the individual you took under your wing. It was payback to the Navy, and to the Star Kingdom at large.

  "I have to admit, though," Caparelli went on, "I never anticipated what you'd do at ATC. I should have, I suppose, given your background and career track, but I didn't. Maybe we've all been suffering a bit too much from the `not-invented-here' syndrome to see a lot of things that need doing."

  "I wouldn't go that far, Sir. I do think the RMN suffers from a bit of, well, call it tunnel vision. There's definitely a sense of superiority, which is fair enough, I suppose, when we compare ourselves to the Peeps, or the thugs we keep running into in Silesia. We are better than they are. And, for that matter, we do have more experience than any of our allies as a deep-space force. But I do believe the Service needs to be more awake to the fact that there are other ways — some better, some worse — to do the same things."

  "I agree entirely. And that's especially true now that we're running so many non-Manticoran officers through the Crusher. Not only do we need to be aware that we may have something to learn from them, but we damned well ought to be making sure we don't step on their toes by talking down to them. No doubt there will always be a certain inescapable edge of, um, institutional arrogance, perhaps. That's probably a healthy thing, and I imagine most of our allies will understand and accept it in the Alliance's senior partner. But bringing in Allied flag officers to help design and build the training programs was a stroke of genius, Your Grace. And building scenarios which require Manticoran officers to follow foreign doctrine and operate with Zanzibaran or Grayson or Alizonian hardware was another. I understand several of our aspiring COs found it a humbling experience, and forcing them to recognize that a lot of our supposed `officer superiority' actually rests on the superiority of our hardware was a very good thing. Besides, we've already picked up several useful notions from the Graysons. I'll be very surprised if we don't pick up a few more from some of our other allies, as well... now that you've started us listening to them."

  "I hope so, Sir Thomas," Honor said very seriously. "They do have things to teach us, and admitting that — to them, as well as to ourselves — seems to me to be one of the better ways to motivate them to learn from us, as well."

  "Agreed, Your Grace. Agreed." He nodded vigorously, then leaned back in his chair and gazed out over the sun-drenched, afternoon capital.

  "I understand you'll be returning to Grayson shortly," he observed, and Honor nodded at the change of subject.

  "I've been here for almost a year, Sir. It's time I got back to my responsibilities as Steadholder Harrington. Besides, Willard Neufsteiler has a batch of papers I need to sign."

  "I can certainly understand that, Your Grace. But I also understand the new session of the Conclave of Steadholders will begin a few weeks after you get back."

  "That's another reason I need to get home," Honor agreed, then paused and smiled crookedly. " `Home,' " she repeated quietly. "You know, that word's gotten just a little complicated for me over the last few years."

  "That would seem to be a bit of an understatement," Caparelli agreed. "But I suppose the reason I asked was that I was wondering what your plans for the future are. Specifically, what your plans for returning to active duty might be."

  "My plans?" Honor cocked an eyebrow. "I rather assumed that was up to the Bureau of Personnel, Sir," she said, and he shrugged.

  "Your Grace, you're an admiral in the Queen's Navy, and a duchess. You're also an admiral in the Grayson Navy, and a steadholder. That means Grayson and the Star Kingdom can both make legitimate claims on your services, and we're both clever enough to want to claim them. But given your status, the decision of which of us actually gets you is going to be up to you, so I thought I'd just get my bid in early."

  "Sir Thomas, I—" she began, but a wave of his hand interrupted her.

  "I'm not trying to put pressure on you yet. If for no other reason, because I've spoken to BuMed and I know Admiral Mannock wouldn't even let you go back on full active duty status in our uniform for another three or four months. I just want you to think about it. And, I suppose, I wanted to be sure you realize you're at a stage in your career which gives you a great deal more control over your future and your future assignments than you may have noticed. You need to be prepared to deal with that fact."

  "I—" Honor paused once more, then shrugged. "I suppose you're right, Sir Thomas. And you're also right that it hadn't occurred to me to think of it that way."

  "Oh, I think you were headed in that direction, and rightly so. I just thought I'd mention it as something you should specifically consider."

  It was his turn to pause, and Honor turned to look more directly at him as she tasted the turn of his emotions. They'd grown suddenly pensive, yet there was an excitement — an anticipation — and perhaps just a small edge of fear in them. He turned his head to gaze out over the city once more, then drew a deep breath.

  "In addition to the points we've already discussed, Your
Grace, there was one other thing I wanted to tell you when I asked you to visit me this afternoon." He turned back to her, and she raised her eyebrows in polite question.

  "I activated Operation Buttercup yesterday," he told her, and she felt herself sit straight upright in her chair. She knew about Operation Buttercup. She and Alice Truman had gamed out several variant strategies for it using the main tactical simulator at ATC, and the final ops plan had Honor's fingerprints all over it.

  "Alice Truman will be leaving for Trevor's Star next week," Caparelli went on quietly. By the time you get back to Grayson, Eighth Fleet should be ready to move. At the moment, we seem to have the Peeps strongly committed to an offensive against Grendelsbane Station, and I had to divert some of the SD(P)s to bolster the station's defenses. But we managed to hit the basic force levels specified by the final ops plan. Some of the LAC wings are still a lot greener than I could have wished, but—"

  He shrugged slightly, his emotions laced with the regret any good commander felt at sending his men and women into harm's way.

  "I understand, Sir," Honor said, her voice equally quiet, and she thought about some of the men and women she knew in the ships committed to Buttercup. Scotty Tremain and Horace Harkness. Alice Truman. Rafael Cardones, who commanded one of Alice's CLACs, and Rear Admiral of the Red Alistair McKeon, one of her division commanders. There were dozens of others beyond those names, and she felt a momentary stab of fear, an echo of the gut-deep awareness that people died in battle.

  "Thank you for telling me," she said after a moment, and forced a smile. "I never realized how much harder it is to send people off to fight when you can't go with them."

  "One of the hardest lessons to learn... or accept, at least," he agreed, gazing back out over the city once more. "Here I sit, on a beautiful summer afternoon, and out there—" he twitched a nod at the deep blue vault of the sky "—hundreds of thousands of men and women are heading off into battle because I told them to go. Ultimately, whatever happens to them will be my responsibility... and there's not a thing in the universe I can do from this point on to affect what does happen to them."

  "Whatever they pay you, Sir, it isn't enough," Honor told him, and he turned to grin wryly at her.

  "Your Grace, they don't pay any of us enough, but if we can't take a joke, then we shouldn't have joined."

  The hoary, lower-deck proverb took Honor completely by surprise coming from him, and she giggled. She couldn't help it, and his smile of delight as he startled the schoolgirl sound out of her only made it worse. It took her several seconds to get herself back under control, and she gave him a severe look once she had.

  "I can think of one or two other cliches which might appropriately be applied to you, Sir Thomas. None of them, at the moment, complimentary, I'm afraid."

  "Ah, well! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. And I'm used to the abuse by now. Very few people seem to appreciate what a fine, stalwart sort of fellow I actually am."

  " `Fine' and `stalwart' are not the first two adjectives which spring to mind when I think of you, Sir," she told him severely, and he chuckled again. "However, I did want to take this opportunity to invite you to a small get-together Miranda and my mother are planning for next month. I understand it will be a modest little affair — no more than two or three hundred on the guest list — to clear the decks here in the Star Kingdom before we head back to Grayson. Her Majesty has consented to attend, and I hope you will, too."

  "I would be honored, Your Grace," he said seriously.

  "Good. Because between now and then, I'm going to put Nimitz, Farragut, and Samantha up to devising some proper greeting for a fine, stalwart sort of fellow like yourself." She smiled seraphically at him. "And knowing the three of them, Sir Thomas, you may just discover that you'd have been better off in the lead wave of Buttercup!"

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  "How about taking a walk with me, Denis?"

  People's Commissioner Denis LePic looked up quickly. Citizen Admiral Thomas Theisman's voice could not have been more casual, but LePic had known Theisman for many years, and over that time, he'd come to understand the citizen admiral as well as any of his StateSec superiors could possibly have desired.

  In fact, he'd come to know Thomas Theisman rather too well for his superiors' taste... had they known it. But LePic had gone to some lengths to insure that they didn't know, and especially over the last three years. It hadn't been an easy decision, for he was a man who believed passionately in the need to reform the old system. Yet despite that, it had still been easier than it ought to have been. He'd begun to have quiet doubts, so quiet he'd almost managed to conceal them even from himself, long before Cordelia Ransom gloatingly condemned Honor Harrington to death and used the occasion to grind home her contempt for the Navy's uniformed personnel. And any concept of common decency.

  The two years after that had been especially hard on LePic and his conscience. He'd tried to tell himself Ransom had been an aberration, that the rest of the Committee wasn't like her, and to an extent, that was true. Ransom had been a sadist who actually drew some sort of warped sustenance from degrading and breaking her victims before she had them killed. Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just weren't like that. But Ransom had forced LePic to truly think about all the New Order's leaders, not just her, and when he looked at them with open eyes, he'd discovered he was even more terrified of Citizen Secretary Saint-Just than he'd been of Ransom. Because Saint-Just didn't act out of personal hatred or pique. He never even raised his voice. Yet compared to the thousands upon thousands of men and women — and sometimes children — whom he'd dispassionately blotted from the face of the universe, Cordelia Ransom had been no more than a spoiled child petulantly striking out at her classmates for not giving her their toys.

  Denis LePic had looked into what passed for the soul of Rob S. Pierre's People's Republic and discovered a monster. A monster he had served willingly, even eagerly, since the day the old regime's Navy attempted to seize power. And the people he'd watched and guarded for the monster had too often been men and women like Thomas Theisman. Good men and women, as dedicated to the Republic and basic human dignity as Denis LePic had ever been, but more honest than he. Clearer-eyed. People who'd recognized the monster before he had, and whose discerning vision had placed them in mortal peril if the monster ever realized they had pierced its disguise.

  Faced with that discovery, LePic had wanted to resign his post and return to private life. But his superiors at StateSec would have wondered why he wanted out. They would have demanded answers, and the one answer he could never have given them was the truth, for if they were savage to their enemies, they were utterly merciless when their own fell into apostasy. Besides, even if he could have resigned and lived, that would have been the easy way out. A way to walk away from the consequences of his own actions, like the ancient Pilate, washing his hands and proclaiming his personal innocence. No, there'd been only one thing a decent man, which was what he'd always hoped he was, could do under the circumstances.

  He'd stayed right where he was and sent his reports in right on schedule. And over the weeks and months, he'd gradually shifted the emphasis of those reports, ever so carefully, to shield the people he ought to have been denouncing. He knew, for example, that the repugnance Citizen Admiral Theisman had always felt for the Committee's excesses had turned into cold, bleak hatred when it allowed Ransom to ordain Harrington's judicial murder. The citizen admiral and Harrington had a history, and Theisman believed he owed her a debt of honor for the way she'd treated him and his people when they'd been her prisoners. It was a debt he'd been unable to repay, and that had both infuriated and shamed him, but not even that, bitter though it must have been for a man like him, explained the implacable depth of his hate.

  It was the hatred of a moral man for a system so twisted that it allowed someone like a Cordelia Ransom (or an Oscar Saint-Just) to practice butchery. One that shot its own officers and their families not for treason but for failing to execute
orders whose authors had known they were impossible when they gave them. That drove men like Lester Tourville to the brink of open rebellion and destroyed men like Warner Caslet simply because they were decent, honorable men, and so a danger to the "New Order."

  Tourville had survived, but only because Ransom had died before she could have him purged. And Warner Caslet had also survived... but only after the monster had driven a man who should have been — who'd tried, desperately, to be — one of the Republic's most loyal and skilled defenders into defecting. LePic knew Caslet's defection had hurt Theisman deeply, but not because Theisman blamed the citizen commander for it. It had hurt because he understood exactly why Caslet had done it, even knowing that it meant burning all of his bridges behind him. That even if the Committee somehow fell, he would never be able to come home again.

  And then had come the stunning revelation that Harrington was alive. That she'd actually managed to escape from Cerberus with half a million other prisoners, including Warner Caslet... and Admiral Amos Parnell.

  That had been the final straw. Like most of the Navy's pre-Coup officer corps, Theisman had respected Amos Parnell deeply. Almost as deeply as he'd respected Captain Alfredo Yu. Yet Theisman's loyalty to the Republic had managed to survive Yu's defection to the Grayson Space Navy, largely because he knew it had been the Legislaturalists' search for a scapegoat after the botched Masadan operation, not the Committee, which had driven Yu into exile.

  It had not survived Parnell's revelations about who had actually murdered Hereditary President Harris. And who'd done so as a cold-blooded, carefully thought-out maneuver to brand the Navy, Thomas Theisman's Navy, as traitors in order to discredit and paralyze it while they seized power for their own ends.

  Who had deliberately and premeditatedly created the reign of terror which had enveloped Theisman's entire world, destroyed so many people for whom he'd cared, and stripped him of his own honor, his own dignity.