Ashes Of Victory

someone had been inclined to, as you say, he was dead. It would have been my unsupported word against that of an officer who'd been so disgusted by my lack of nerve that he'd taken time to make my cowardice and incompetence a part of the official record even as he headed into battle against hopeless odds.'

She shrugged with hard-edged helplessness, and Honor nodded.

'That was what I thought. I could just see Santino's face as he dictated that message, and I knew a little too much about his `lack of offensive-mindedness.' And his laziness. And his habit of looking for scapegoats.'

It was her turn to shrug, with a very different emphasis, and silence stretched out between them. It radiated from Honor's desk like ripples of quiet, flowing over them both, and she tasted the relief, almost worse than pain, as Jaruwalski realized there truly was one person in the universe who believed what had actually happened.

The commander picked up her stein and took a long swallow, then inhaled deeply. Her face was closed off no longer, and in its relaxation it lost its masklike discipline. Now it was almost gaunt, sagging with the weariness and pain its owner had hidden for so long, and her eyes were intent as she studied Honor's expression.

'Your Grace, I can never tell you how much it helps to hear you say what you've just said. It's probably too late to make any difference where my career is concerned, but just knowing one person understands what really happened, is—' She shook her head. 'I can't begin to say how important that is to me. But grateful as I am, I can't help wondering why you've bothered to take the time to tell me.'

'Because I have a question for you, Commander,' Honor said. 'A very important one, actually.'

'Of course, Ma'am.' There was a faint edge of fresh fear in the taste of the commander's emotions, a worry that whatever Honor wanted to know would destroy her sense of understanding. But even though she waited with inner dread for the second shoe to drop, her voice was steady and she met Honor's gaze without flinching.

'What advice did you give Admiral Santino?' Honor asked very quietly.

'I advised him to withdraw immediately, Your Grace.' Jaruwalski never hesitated. She knew Honor's reputation, and Honor felt her fear as if it were her own — the fear that the one person who'd guessed what had happened would decide that perhaps the admiral's allegations had been accurate after all. That Jaruwalski had given in to the counsel of her own fears. The fact that Honor had obviously considered Santino a feckless incompetent didn't necessarily mean the woman the newsies called the Salamander wouldn't have looked for some intelligent form of offensive action rather than supinely surrender her command area. But Honor had asked a question... and Andrea Jaruwalski had answered it honestly, despite her dread that her honesty would cost her the only sympathetic ear she'd found in almost a T-year of bitter humiliation.

'Good,' Honor said softly, and smiled crookedly as the commander twitched.

She didn't know whether she would have called Jaruwalski's answer 'good' if not for her link to Nimitz and her ability to experience the commander's emotions and honesty directly. She liked to hope she would have, yet her own nagging honesty made her wonder if she really would have been able to look at the reply with sufficient dispassion for that. But it didn't really matter at the moment.

'I'm glad to hear you say that,' she went on after a moment. 'Glad because it was the right decision, given the value — or lack of value — of Seaford Nine's facilities and the weight of metal you faced. And glad because you didn't waffle when I asked. I rather suspected what sort of person would make Elvis Santino feel so small he would overcome his own terror long enough to ensure the destruction of her career. Now I've had an opportunity to see for myself, and I'm glad I have.'

'You are, Your Grace?' Jaruwalski sounded stunned, as if she were unable even now to fully credit what she was hearing, and Honor nodded.

'We assume a certain level of physical courage in a Queen's officer, Andrea,' she said. 'And usually, by and large, we find it. It may not say great things for human intelligence that our officers are more concerned with living up to the Saganami tradition, at least in the eyes of their fellows, than of dying, but it's a very useful foible when it comes to winning wars.

'But what we ought to treasure far more deeply is the moral courage to shoulder all of an officer's responsibilities. To look past the `Saganami tradition' and see the point at which her true responsibility as a Queen's officer requires her to do something which may end her career. Or, worse, earn her the contempt of those whose good opinion she values but who weren't there, didn't see the choices she had to make. I ordered one of my closest friends to surrender his ship to the Peeps. He was fully prepared to go out fighting, just as I suppose I might have been in his place. But my responsibility was to see to it that his people's lives weren't sacrificed in a battle we couldn't possibly win.

'That was hard. One of the hardest things I've ever done, and it almost got me hanged. But even knowing what the Peeps planned to do to me, personally, my responsibility, in the same situation, would be to give the same order again.'

She looked deep into Andrea Jaruwalski's eyes, and her own softened with approval for what she saw there.

'I believe you advised Admiral Santino to withdraw, and I believe you did it for the right reasons. Not out of fear, but out of common sense and sanity. And that was no easier for you than ordering Alistair McKeon to surrender was for me, because it does cut against the tradition. But there comes a time when we have to look past the form of a tradition to the reason it came into existence in the first place, and throwing away a task force, and all the lives that go with it, in a futile gesture of defiance is not what Edward Saganami did or would have expected those who followed him to do. If there's even the remotest chance of victory, or if other, overriding considerations, like the honor of the Star Kingdom or the risk of losing an ally's trust, make it necessary, that's one thing. But to take a force that badly outnumbered into the teeth of that much firepower in defense of a star system that was of absolutely no use to us in the first place... ?'

She shook her head firmly.

'You saw that, and you advised your admiral to see it for himself. He failed because he lacked the moral courage you displayed in advising him, and his failure killed him and every man and woman aboard his flagship... and most of the people aboard all the other ships of his command. When it comes to choosing between two people who demonstrate those patterns of behavior, I know which one I want in the Queen's service. Which is why I asked you to come see me.'

Jaruwalski's eyebrows rose in silent question, and Honor smiled.

'I've been in command of ATC for less than two weeks now,' she said. 'I've got three very capable deputies, plus my own experience with the Crusher, and despite the extra load Admiral Caparelli saw fit to assign me as a Tactics 101 lecturer, I've already identified several changes I want to make. Places I want to tweak the program just a bit, or change its emphasis slightly. And I want you to help me do that.'

'Me, Your Grace?' Jaruwalski was obviously certain she'd misunderstood, and Honor chuckled.

'You. I need an aide, Andrea. Someone whose judgment I trust, who'll understand what I'm trying to do and see to it that the effort gets organized effectively. And someone who can stand in for me in the simulators, and in the classroom sessions, when I can't make it myself. And someone, if you don't mind my saying so, who can serve as a living example of how to do it right... despite the price they may have to pay afterward.'

Jaruwalski's dark face had paled, and she blinked hard, lower lip trembling ever so slightly.

'Besides,' Honor went on in a deliberately lighter tone, 'I've got at least one much less laudable reason to offer you the slot.'

'Y-you do, Ma'am?' The commander's soprano was husky, and it stumbled just a bit over the first word, but Honor pretended she hadn't noticed.

'Of course I do!' she said, and her smile was her best 'cat-in-a-celery-patch grin. 'Just think of it — this gives me the opportunity to poke that jackass Santino right in the eye even after he's gone by `rehabilitating' the officer whose career he tried to wreck out of sheer spite and spleen. Heavens, woman! How could I possibly pass up an opportunity like that?'