Flag In Exile

You've done it to me again, My Lady, he thought at the oncoming, damaged superdreadnoughts. I could still have you, we both know that, don't we?, but I'm afraid I'm not quite as eager to die today as you are. Another time, Lady Harrington.

'They're breaking off!' Bagwell said sharply. 'My Lady, they're breaking off!'

'Are they?' Honor leaned back in her command chair and felt a deep, painful shudder of relief go through her very bones. She hadn't really expected her threadbare bluff to work, but she had no intention of complaining, and she gazed down at her com link to Alfredo Yu. 'It seems wars are still fought by human beings, Alfredo,' she murmured.

'Indeed they are, My Lady,' Yu replied with a smile, 'and some of them aren't quite as good at calling the cards as others are.'

'You knew,' Bagwell said softly. Honor turned to look at him, and the fussy ops officer's brown eyes positively glowed as he stared at her. 'You knew they'd break off, My Lady.'

Honor started to reply, then stopped herself with a tiny headshake. Let him keep his illusions, she thought, and shoved up out of her command chair. She gathered Nimitz up and crossed to the master plot with slow, careful steps, mindful of her unreliable knees, and gazed down into it. The Peeps were running flat out for the hyper limit at right angles to their original course, and already Mark Brentworth and Courvosier were turning to pursue, though there was absolutely no chance of overhauling them. She could trust Mark to rotate replacement decoy drones into place smoothly enough for no one to notice when the new ones took over from the old, and with eight 'superdreadnoughts' in pursuit, the Peeps wouldn't stop running now that they'd started.

Despite all she could do, her knees started to go, and she caught her weight on one hand, leaning against the plot for several seconds, then forced herself back upright once more.

'I believe I'll go to my quarters, Mercedes,' she said.

'Of course, My Lady. I’ll buzz you if we need you,' her chief of staff replied quietly. Honor nodded gratefully to her, then made her way to the flag bridge lift. Simon Mattingly followed her without a word, and she felt the admiring gazes of her staff and felt dishonest for not telling them the truth, not admitting how desperate, how frightened, she'd been. But she didn't, for that wasn't how the game was played.

She stepped into the lift and made herself stand upright until the doors closed, then sagged heavily against the bulkhead. Simon stood close beside her, ready to support her if she needed it, and she felt nothing but gratitude, unflawed by any trace of resentment or shame, for his attentiveness.

The lift stopped, and somehow she managed the short, rubbery-legged walk down the passage to her quarters. Mattingly peeled off to take his place beside the hatch, and she staggered across her cabin to the huge, comfortable couch and let herself collapse across it, cradling Nimitz to her chest.

Just a few minutes, she thought drunkenly. I'll just sit here a few minutes, only a few. Just a few minutes.

Five minutes later, James MacGuiness walked soundlessly into the cabin, and Admiral Lady Dame Honor Harrington didn't even stir as he eased her down to lie flat on the couch and tucked a pillow under her head.

EPILOGUE

'...own casualties until we receive Lady Harrington's final report, My Lords,' Chancellor Prestwick said 'They appear to be severe, if far lower than we might have anticipated. But we do know the enemy's losses were many times our own and that, with the Tester's help, Lady Harrington has once more decisively defeated a Havenite attempt to seize our star system.'

A roar of approval went up from the gathered Steadholders, and Samuel Mueller was the first to stand. He clapped his hands loudly, slowly, as was the Grayson way; and other Keys rose to join him. Their hands found the rhythm he'd set, copied it, clapped with him, and Mueller beamed with pleasure at the news while the percussive beat echoed from the Chamber walls and his mind spewed silent curses.

Damn the woman! Burdette must have been right about her after all, the idiot. Only Satan himself could have arranged this! They'd had her, he thought almost despairingly. They'd had her, actually managed to turn the people of Grayson against her, and now this! Damn it to Hell, she must be the very spawn of Satan! How else could she have survived the dome collapse, being shot out of the sky, a second assassination attempt at point-blank range, a duel with one of Grayson's fifty best fencers, and then defeated yet another invasion of Yeltsin? She wasn't human!

But she'd done it, he told himself grimly while the applause reached its thunderous crescendo. And the fact that she'd come back from public disgrace to accomplish it all in the space of three bare days only made the mindless public love her even more. It would be suicide to attempt anything further against her, or Benjamin Mayhew, now. Especially until he was certain he'd covered all traces of his connections to Burdette and Marchant.

A hint of true satisfaction crept into his assumed smile of pleasure at that thought. His 'insurance policy' had already accounted for twenty-six of its thirty targets, including both Marchant and Harding, the only ones he was certain could have testified against him. It was fortunate Mayhew had delayed any move against them until after Harrington had been given her chance to confront Burdette, not that he'd had much choice. Planetary Security had to notify any steadholder before they made arrests in his steading, and Mayhew could scarcely have notified Burdette of his plans to arrest Marchant and his cousin without warning the Steadholder. But unlike Mayhew's men, Mueller's had already been in Burdette, and they'd acted with skill and dispatch. Indeed, Mueller thought with a grim chuckle, they'd made Marchant's death look like the vengeance of outraged private citizens, while Harding had 'thrown himself to his death' from a tenth story window.

So he was safe, probably. And it was time to begin playing the compassionate elder statesman, determined to bind up Grayson's wounds, to make sure he stayed that way.

The thundering ovation died at last, and Mueller raised his right hand to attract the Speakers attention. The Speaker pointed to him, yielding him the floor, and Mueller turned to his fellow steadholders.

'My Lords, our world and people have been the victims of a disgusting and cowardly plot against a person our Protector so rightly called a good and a godly woman. To my own shame, I, too, believed the initial reports. I actually held Grayson Sky Domes, and Lady Harrington, responsible for the deaths of my steaders, and in my anger, I did and said things which I now deeply regret.'

He spoke quietly, sincerely, bending his head to acknowledge his fault, and the other Keys gazed at him in silent understanding and compassion.

'My Lords,' he resumed after a moment, 'I, as many of us, have done grievous damage to Sky Domes by canceling contracts and initiating litigation against them. For my own part, and on behalf of the Steading of Mueller, I now publicly renounce that litigation. I invite Sky Domes to resume construction of the Mueller Middle School Dome, and I pledge the privy purse of Mueller to cover any reasonable expense in clearing the site so that work may begin anew.'

'Hear, hear!' someone cried. 'Well said, Mueller!' another shouted.

'In addition, My Lords, and in view of the guilt of one of our own members in organizing this despicable plot, I hereby request this Conclave to consider the rectitude, no, our moral responsibility, to reimburse Grayson Sky Domes and Lady Harrington for all legal costs stemming from any litigation arising from the false panic generated against them.'

'I second the motion!' Lord Surtees said loudly, but Mueller raised a hand, for he wasn't quite done yet.

'And finally, My Lords,' he said quietly, 'in light of the way she has yet again saved our star system and our planet, I move that this Conclave, as the formal representative of the people of Grayson, steadholder and steader