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# Chapter Sixteen

"I don't know what you did, Ma'am, but it certainly had some horsepower."

Captain (senior grade) Rafael Cardones smiled cheerfully and tipped back his chair while he nursed the stein of beer James MacGuiness had bestowed upon him. They sat in Honor's home office, and the sliding crystoplast wall of the bay window was open, turning it into a balcony onto the cool spring night. Night birds, both Manticoran and Old Earth imports, sang in the darkness, brilliant stars glittered above Jason Bay, and one of Manticore's moons poured silver light like syrup over the mansion's manicured grounds while the red, white, and green jewels of air car running lights drifted above the glassy smooth water.

"The last I'd heard," Cardones went on, "Werewolf was slated for a routine—and very boring—deployment to Trevor's Star. And then—"

He shrugged and waved his Old Tillman enthusiastically, and Honor used her stein to hide a smile as she sipped her own beer. She remembered rather clearly an inexperienced, overly anxious, bumbling, but extremely talented junior-grade lieutenant who'd suddenly found himself acting tactical officer aboard the elderly light cruiser Fearless. There was very little of that young man's anxiety or lack of confidence in the relaxed, handsome, competent-looking captain sitting across her coffee table from her, but the bright-eyed eagerness she also remembered was still very much in evidence.

"BuPers works in mysterious ways, Rafe," she said, after a moment, her expression serene. "I simply explained to Admiral Draskovic how badly I needed you, and she took it from there."

He cocked his head at her, his expression quizzical, and she tasted his amused disbelief. Apparently, he'd had the misfortune to meet Josette Draskovic, and he obviously suspected just how . . . congenial the Fifth Space Lord and Honor must have found one another's personalities. He started to say something, then visibly changed his mind and said something else entirely.

"Well, I can't say I'm going to miss Trevor's Star, Ma'am. It's a perfectly nice star system, and the San Martinos are perfectly nice people, but there's not a whole lot to do there except drill. And I hope you know without my saying it how pleased and flattered I am by the assignment. It's really good to see you again, and having you fly your lights aboard Werewolf—Well, that's something the entire ship's company was delighted to hear about."

"I'm glad . . . assuming you're not just buttering the Admiral up, of course," Honor told him with a grin, and he chuckled as he shook his head in denial of the charge. "Seriously," she went on, allowing her grin to fade, "I was really impressed by how well you and your ship performed in Operation Buttercup, Rafe. You did darned well, and your experience will stand us in good stead if it falls into the toilet in Silesia."

"How likely is that to happen?" her new flag captain asked. His expression was much more sober, and he sat forward in his chair, elbows on thighs and clasping his stein in both hands while he watched her face with sharp, dark eyes.

"I wish I could tell you for certain," Honor sighed. "ONI is supposed to be sending us complete copies of its analysis of Andy ship movements in and around Marsh. Our information on those should be pretty good for the immediate neighborhood, but from what I've seen so far, its reliability is going to fall off pretty steeply outside that area."

She paused and gazed at Cardones thoughtfully. She'd already decided not to discuss her confrontation with Draskovic with him, for several reasons. First, of course, it was her fight, and not his. Second, while she rather doubted even Draskovic would attempt to retaliate by wrecking the careers of the junior officers whose services Honor had requested, she couldn't be certain of that. And she could be certain that if Rafe upped the ante by choosing sides in his seniors' quarrel the consequences for his career would be catastrophic, at least in the short term. In the longer term, he would probably survive whatever happened, because eventually, Janacek was bound to lose his position at the Admiralty. When that happened, his successor's first priority was probably going to be the rehabilitation of the officers Janacek's administration had purged. But rehabilitation after the fact wouldn't make the sort of vengefulness in which someone like Draskovic would indulge any more enjoyable at the time, and she knew her Rafe Cardones. He gave his loyalty the same way he did everything else—with conviction, enthusiasm, and a hundred and ten-percent effort. Worse, he had a passion (carefully hidden, he fondly imagined) for dragon-slaying, which only reinforced her decision not to tell him everything. She didn't need anyone else to fight her battles for her, but if she wanted Rafe safely out of the line of fire, the only way to keep him there was never to tell him a battle was being fought.

Yet there were other unpleasant truths about the current Admiralty administration, and although she hadn't planned on going into them—not yet, at least—Rafe was going to be her flag captain. Her tactical deputy and right hand. Which meant she had no choice but to share her concerns with him. Not only was it absolutely essential for him to understand at all times what she was thinking and why she was thinking it, but she owed him that openness and honesty.

"This stays in this room unless I tell you differently, Rafe," she said after a moment, and watched him settle deeper into his chair. It was a subtle thing, more sensed through her empathic link than seen, but his shoulders squared ever so slightly and his eyes narrowed intently.

"I don't trust our intelligence assessments," she said quietly, meeting his gaze levelly. "Just between the two of us, Admiral Jurgensen isn't the right man for ONI. He's always been an administrator, a bureaucrat and not an actual 'spook.' And my impression is that he has a tendency to . . . shade, let's say, his analyses to suit his superiors' needs. Or desires."

She raised her artificial left hand, palm uppermost and slightly cupped in a questioning gesture, and Cardones nodded slowly.

"I'm not comfortable about the sources our assessments are apparently based on, either," she went on. "ONI is always reticent about naming sources, and rightly so. But from reading between the lines, and especially from looking at what isn't there to be read at all, it looks to me like our human resources are thin on the ground in both Silesia and the Empire right now. Admiral Jurgensen has assured me that my concerns in that area were unnecessary, and I certainly don't have any hard evidence that he was wrong. But I've deployed to Silesia several times, Rafe, and there's a distinctly different feel between these assessments and the ones my captains or I were given then. I can't explain the difference exactly, but they feel . . . unfinished. Incomplete.

"The Foreign Office assessments aren't a lot better, either. In their case, however, it's not because of any lack of sources. Actually, it's almost a case of information overflow. There's too much detail, too much minutiae and not enough hard indicators of what it is the Andermani are up to. The official Foreign Office position at this moment is that the Andies themselves aren't certain just what they have in mind. That they're testing the waters, as it were, with these shows of force around Sidemore Station. The official opinion is that the Empire's position hasn't yet hardened, and that there's an opportunity for us to shape the ultimate Andermani intentions by demonstrating 'firmness and consistency.' "

"Excuse me, Ma'am," Cardones said, "but have any of these Foreign Office types ever actually been to Silesia? Or the Empire?"

Honor's lips twitched at his plaintive tone, and even more at the emotions behind it. But she ordered herself sternly not to smile and shook her head at him.

"I'm sure some of them have," she told him with admirable restraint. "At some point in their lives, at least."

"It certainly doesn't sound like it," Cardones said frankly. "You and I have both been there before, Ma'am, and somehow I don't think either of us believes that anyone this side of the Devil himself is going to do much 'shaping' of Gustav XI's foreign policy."

"I'll concede that the Emperor tends to exercise very direct control of the Empire's policy. For that matter, my own opinion is that he probably knows exactly what it is he has in mind. Unfortunately, he's always been a bit on the unpredictable side."

Cardones looked as if he wanted to interrupt, and she shook her head quickly.

"All right, not just unpredictable. Stubborn and obstinate to the point of bloody-mindedness, too. But those other qualities just make him even more unpredictable. I think he tends towards pragmatism, and it's obvious that there's nothing wrong with his IQ, but once he convinces himself to do something, no one's going to be able to talk him out of it, however hard they try. So figuring out what he ought to be doing is frequently worse than useless, because it can leave you making perfectly logical assumptions that bear absolutely no relationship to what he's actually going to do. All of which means that Imperial policies have also been unpredictable from time to time, given his control of them. And, no, Rafe, I don't think the Foreign Office analysts have it right this time. They're not particularly interested in hearing my opinion of their opinions, however. You might say that the current Government and I aren't exactly on the same page of the playbook."

Cardones turned a snort of laughter into a particularly unconvincing coughing fit, and this time Honor went ahead and smiled, although she personally didn't find the situation especially amusing.

"The point is, Rafe," she went on more briskly, "you have a right to know that we're sailing straight into a minefield here. Our intelligence is less than complete and, frankly, the motives of the people analyzing it are suspect, in my opinion. The Government has a very strong vested interest in keeping the lid on in Silesia, and I'm very much afraid that that means Foreign Secretary Descroix is pushing her people, if only by example, into making what I consider to be grossly over optimistic assumptions. I hope I'm wrong, but I think the Andies are about ready at last to push outright territorial demands on Silesia. That's what I think their shows of force and beefed up presence throughout the Confederacy are all about, and the fact that ONI is beginning to suggest that there may have been a few 'unspecified upgrades' in the IAN's weapons technology doesn't make me feel any better."

"This doesn't sound like fun, Ma'am." Cardones' earlier amusement had vanished. He didn't seem frightened—just focused and very thoughtful, his eyes dark with professional concern. "Have we been given any new policy directives?"

"No," Honor admitted with a grimace. "According to my briefings from both the Admiralty and the Foreign Office, it would be 'premature' to formulate new policy at this time. Which means that our traditional policy—that we aren't prepared to countenance any violations of Silesian territorial integrity by outside powers—remains in force. We're supposed to make that stand up . . . without, of course, provoking any confrontations with the Empire."

"And if they want a confrontation with us?"

"In that case, we do the best we can." Honor sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "To be completely honest, Rafe, what I'm afraid of is that the Government will continue to refuse to enunciate clearly and concisely what its intentions are for the benefit of Gustav XI. In the absence of clear, unambiguous signals from the Star Kingdom, he may just find himself encouraged to push even harder and further than he originally had in mind. And if that happens, we're going to find ourselves squarely in the path of a situation which can all too easily slide right out of control."

"With all due respect, Ma'am, what in the world possessed you to accept this command? You know Silesia, probably better than ninety percent of the Navy's officer corps, much less the bureaucrats over at the Foreign Office. And you know the Andies, too. Unless they're ready to give you a lot bigger stick than anything I've seen yet suggests, we're going to come up mighty short if the Empire gets aggressive. And as you say, you and the Government aren't exactly on the same frequency."

He started to say something more, then stopped himself, but Honor knew what he hadn't said.

"It's entirely possible that you're right," she said quietly. "I won't go so far as to say that anyone in the Government actively wants a major deterioration in our relations with the Empire. If that happens, though, I don't doubt that at least some members of the current Government would be less than displeased to find themselves in a position to hang me out to dry. But I can't just sit by and watch the wheels fall off. There are too many innocent bystanders, and we have a responsibility to the Sidemorians. For that matter, we have a responsibility to the Silesians, as well."

"It's not your job to make the Star Kingdom's foreign policy make sense, Ma'am."

From anyone Honor hadn't known so long and so well, that statement might have carried overtones of disapproval. From Cardones, she didn't even need her sensitivity to emotions to know he meant exactly the opposite. It wasn't disapproval of her egotistical assumption that she might somehow make a difference; it was concern that if she tried and failed, she would find herself caught in the gears.

"No, it's not," she agreed. "But it is my job to do what I believe is right, and what I think the Queen would expect one of her officers to do. Sometimes that isn't the easiest thing in the universe, and sometimes it carries consequences we shouldn't have to face. But no one said it would be easy, and if we can't take a joke, we shouldn't have joined."

Cardones' mouth quirked in a smile at the hoary lower-deck proverb, and she smiled back crookedly.

"At the same time," she said seriously, "I'll understand if you have some reservations about accepting the flag captain's slot." He started to reply quickly, but she raised her hand. "I'm serious, Rafe. This could turn very ugly for everyone concerned. I believe you're still junior enough that no one's likely to be interested in making an example of you if things come completely apart. I can't guarantee that, though, and I want you to think very seriously about whether or not you're prepared to run that risk just because I think I'm a female reincarnation of Don Quixote."

"I don't need to think about it at all, Ma'am," he told her. "You're probably right that no one's going to be looking to pin the blame on a lowly captain if it all falls into the crapper. But even if they were, I can think of lots worse company to be in. And you're also right that I don't remember anyone at Saganami Island telling me they paid us our lordly salaries for doing the easy jobs. If you're crazy enough to take this one on, I'd be honored to take it on along with you."

"I knew you were going to say that," she said. "And I suppose I ought to be a little ashamed for having counted on it. But I'm not."

"I should hope not. For that matter, it's probably your fault, now that I think about it," he replied. "There I was, a young and impressionable lieutenant, and you went and set a completely unrealistic example for me." He shook his head mournfully. "When I think of how much simpler my life might've been if I'd never gone to Basilisk Station with you it just completely exhausts me."

"I don't know about simpler, but it probably would have been safer," she said wryly. "I don't think it's all my fault, though. You never were very smart about keeping your head down."

"Now that's not fair, Ma'am," he said severely. "It's not that I'm not very smart about keeping my head down—it's just that I'm not very smart. Period."

Honor chuckled, then lifted her stein in a brief salute. He responded in kind, and leaned back once more.

"Now that that's more or less settled, Ma'am, where do we go next?"

"I understand that Werewolf is just completing a refit cycle." Honor made the statement a question, and he nodded.

"Yes, Ma'am. The yard dogs are supposed to turn us loose in about two weeks. I think we're going to run a little longer than that, though. All of the yard work dropped back to a slower tempo once the peace talks began, and it's dropped even further now that we've formally begun to build down our force levels."

"I know. And to be honest, I'm not going to be upset if your refit does run a little over. My impression is that things are coming to a head in Silesia, but there's still some time in hand. I don't want to lose any time getting on station, but it's going to take the Admiralty the better part of a month to assemble the other reinforcements we're supposed to take out to Sidemore with us, anyway."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said frankly, "because I was sweating it just a little, actually."

"No flag captain wants her admiral to think she's slack, Rafe. But I've been a flag captain, too, you know. There's not a lot you can do to make the yard dogs turn your ship loose any sooner than they're good and ready to."

"Actually," he admitted, "that's not the only problem I have. Captain Thurmond, my COLAC, was just detached for compassionate leave. His wife was killed in a boating accident on Gryphon, and they have—had—three children. My understanding is that he won't be returning. Certainly not before we complete the refit and begin working up again."

"I know," Honor repeated. "I wouldn't worry about it, though. While Admiral Draskovic and I were discussing other personnel assignments, I requested a new COLAC for you. I believe you know him. A Captain Jay-Gee . . . Tremaine, I think it was."

"Scotty? You got Scotty for me?" Cardones' white teeth flashed in an immense grin. "Dare I hope that you got me Harkness, as well?"

"Where one of them goes, the other is certain to turn up," Honor said dryly.

"Outstanding!" Cardones grinned at her for another second or two, then shook his head. "I'm beginning to think you must have been exceptionally persuasive with Admiral Draskovic, Ma'am."

"You might say that," Honor allowed.

"And who else did you get for us, if I may ask?"

"Well, let's see. I got a task group commander named Truman, and another one named McKeon." Honor looked up at the ceiling and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "And at my urgent request, High Admiral Matthews has agreed to release a Commodore Brigham to serve as my chief of staff. And for an ops officer, I got Captain Andrea Jaruwalski. I don't know if you know her, but she's good, Rafe. Very good. Oh, and I got Fritz Montoya as our senior medical officer, too." She shrugged. "There may be—oh, one or two other officers I specifically requested, but those are the high spots."

"It's going to be like old times, isn't it?" Cardones observed.

"Not too much like 'old times,' I hope." Honor frowned ever so slightly. "I think it's a good, solid team, but when I sat down to put it together, I couldn't help remembering the old Fearless."

"I'm not surprised, Ma'am. And we did lose some people in Basilisk. And at Yeltsin's Star, too, for that matter. But we also did what we set out to do both times, didn't we?" He held her eyes until she nodded, almost against her will. Then he shrugged. "Well, we'll just have to do it again, then. And at least we're all practiced up at it!"

"More practiced than I'd like," Honor agreed ruefully.

"That's the name of the game, Ma'am."

"I suppose it is."

Honor took a long pull at her beer, then made a face as her wrist chrono beeped.

"Rafe, I'm sorry, but I've got an appointment with Richard Maxwell and Merlin Odom. I've simply got to get some management details nailed down here in the Star Kingdom before I go haring off to Silesia!"

"Not a problem, Ma'am. I imagine you've got a whole bunch of 'details' to deal with, given the number of hats they've got you wearing these days."

"You're not wrong there," she agreed feelingly. "In fact, I'm going to have to make a quick run to Grayson to settle the same sorts of details there. I'm planning on taking the Tankersley, and I hope I'll be back by the time Werewolf gets out of the slip, but I can't guarantee it."

"We'll survive until you do get back," he assured her.

"I know. I'll be bringing Mercedes back from Grayson with me when I come. According to the last update I got from BuPers, Alistair should be arriving at Hephaestus day after tomorrow, before I leave, though. And Captain Jaruwalski is already here in the Star Kingdom. You should meet her tomorrow. I'm hosting a small dinner here at the house, and you're both invited." Cardones nodded, and she shrugged. "Alice may be here in time for dinner as well; if not, she'll be on hand within another day or two, and hopefully, between the four of you, you can handle almost anything that comes up before Mercedes and I get home. If not, just put it on hold. I explained to the Admiralty that my responsibilities as Steadholder Harrington were going to cause some delays in how quickly I could get up and running, so no one should be breathing too hard on the backs of your necks while I'm gone."

"I'm sure Admiral McKeon and Admiral Truman will be able to deal with any bureaucratic types in your absence, Ma'am," Cardones agreed.

"And if they can't, I know who can," Honor assured him with a chuckle. "Scotty and Sir Horace should be at dinner tonight, as well. So if things get too out of hand, just remember that Harkness has a certain way with computers and sic him on the Admiralty database."

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