Ashes Of Victory

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