War Of Honor

Chapter Fifteen

"I can't believe you're serious!"

Hamish Alexander shook his head sharply and glared at Honor. They sat in the study of his Landing mansion, with Samantha stretched across the back of his chair, resting her chin on the backs of her true-hands. Nimitz lay across Honor's chair back, and she could taste the cats' unhappiness, their grief at the prospect of a lengthy separation. But she also tasted their acceptance.

There was no trace of that emotion in the Earl of White Haven.

"I'm completely serious, Hamish," she said, far more calmly than she felt. "And before you say it, of course I realize that at the very least this is a political Trojan Horse from High Ridge's perspective. But you and Willie have the situation as well in hand in Parliament as anyone could expect to, under the circumstances, and whatever we may think of Janacek, this is a job that needs doing. And given Sidemore's involvement in it, I feel a certain personal responsibility to do whatever I can to keep Marsh from getting run over in the scrimmage."

"Damn it, Honor, of course you do! And they know exactly how your head works when somebody punches the responsibility button. They're manipulating you into taking this on, and you know it as well as I do!"

"Maybe they are," she agreed evenly. "And certainly I can see a lot of advantages for them in getting me out of the Star Kingdom. But let's be honest, Hamish. There could be some advantages for us in getting me off of Manticore, as well."

"Somehow I don't expect Willie to think that," White Haven said tartly. "And even if he did, I—"

"Willie might surprise you," Honor interrupted. "And I asked you to be honest. When I said 'advantages for us' I wasn't thinking about Parliament."

He closed his mouth abruptly, biting off whatever he'd been about to say, and something inside her flinched from the sudden pain, almost betrayal, that flickered in his ice-blue eyes. But she couldn't afford to show that, and so she made herself return his gaze levelly. Silence crackled between them for several seconds, and then she smiled sadly.

"We need some space between us, Hamish," she said gently. He started to speak again, but her raised hand stopped him. "No. Don't say anything. I didn't come here to argue with you, or even to debate my decision. I came because I've already decided to accept the command, and I needed to tell you that myself. It wasn't an easy decision, and I'm fully aware that Janacek didn't offer it to me out of the goodness of his heart. But that doesn't keep it from being a godsend."

"But—"

"No, I said," she cut him off quietly. "Hamish, we've danced around this for years now, and it's killing both of us. You know it, Nimitz and Samantha know it. So do I . . . and so does Emily."

His face went bone-white, and she felt his instant need to deny her words, to back away, to somehow pretend it wasn't so. But his own honesty was too deep for that, and so he said nothing, and she tasted his shame that it had been left to her to finally openly face the truth for them both.

"I love you," she said very, very softly. "And you love me, and you love Emily. I know that. But I also know that especially after what High Ridge and his cronies tried to do to us, we don't dare do anything about the way we feel. We can't, Hamish, whatever we want, or however desperately we want it. Only I'm not strong enough to stop wanting it." Tears prickled at the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them spill over. "I don't think I'll ever be that strong. But that doesn't change anything, so I have to find another way. And this is the only one I see that doesn't carry an unacceptable political cost for everyone."

"But they're only offering you the job in the hope that it will blow up in your face," he said.

"I don't know if I'd put it exactly that way myself," she replied. "They've got a genuine problem. They need someone to solve it for them, and whoever that someone is, a solution short of total disaster still has to be their ultimate objective. But you're right that they also need someone to scapegoat if it does turn into a disaster, of course. And to be honest, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't be thinking that way if they didn't expect it to do just that. They may be right about that, too. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a job someone has to do . . . and that it will let me put some space between us. Please, Hamish. It's important to me for you to understand. I can't be this close to you, not knowing exactly what you feel, and not knowing what I feel. I just can't. It's not your fault; it's not my fault. It's just the way it is."

She felt his pain, and his anger . . . and his shame. But under those emotions, she also tasted his understanding. It wasn't a happy understanding, and it wasn't really agreement, but in its own way, it was more precious to her than either of those things could possibly have been.

"How long will you need space?" he asked, and reached up to stroke Samantha.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "Sometimes I think there isn't enough space in the entire universe. Other times I hope that a break, long enough for both of us to catch our breaths, may be all we really need. But whether it is or not, it's the best I can do. If there's an answer, some sort of solution, I know I can't find it while I'm so busy fighting against letting myself love you."

He closed his eyes, his face tight, and she felt how passionately he longed to find some way to disagree with her. But he couldn't. And so, after an endless moment of silence, he opened his eyes and looked at her once more.

"I don't like it," he told her. "I'll never like it. But that doesn't mean I have any better answer than you do. But for God's sake, be careful, Honor! Don't go jumping into any more furnaces, because God help us all, but you're right. I do love you. Put space between us if you have to, but every time you go out and pull one of those 'Salamander' death-rides of yours, something dies inside me. There are limits in all things, love. Including the number of times you can dance on the razor and still come back to me."

She couldn't quite stop the tears now. Not after he'd finally admitted what they both knew. She started to speak, but this time it was his turn to raise one hand and stop her.

"I know you're right," he said. "We can't be together—not really. But I can't lose you, either. I thought I had once, when the Peeps told everyone they'd hanged you, and I can't do that again. So you come back, Honor Harrington. You come back from Silesia, and you come back alive. We'll find some answer, somehow, and you'd damned well better be here when we do!"

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Your Grace, but it simply won't be possible."

Honor leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, and her chocolate-brown eyes were on the cold side of cool as she gazed at the woman on the other side of the desk. Admiral of the Red Josette Draskovic was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, slender woman about thirty-five T-years older than Honor. She possessed an overabundant supply of nervous energy, and often gave the impression of fidgeting even when she sat completely still. She was also the woman who had replaced Sir Lucius Cortez as Fifth Space Lord, in charge of the Royal Navy's personnel and manpower management, and though she hadn't let a muscle in her face move even a millimeter, Honor felt her smiling in triumph deep down inside.

"Then I suggest that you make it possible," Honor recommended in an even tone.

"I beg your pardon?" Draskovic stiffened, bristling almost visibly, and Honor allowed herself to smile very slightly as she tasted the other woman's emotions. Nimitz was curled neatly in her lap, and the 'cat looked totally relaxed, almost sleepy. But Honor knew better than that; she could feel his seething anger as clearly as she could feel Draskovic's petty sense of power.

Honor and Admiral Draskovic had never met before Sir Edward Janacek returned as First Lord of Admiralty. Since then, they'd crossed swords twice, and Draskovic had not enjoyed either of her appearances before the House of Lords' Naval Affairs Committee one bit. She owed most of that lack of enjoyment to one Duchess Harrington, who'd turned up for the first one armed with her own analysis of the personnel figures included in the current naval estimates. The bare numbers Draskovic had reported to Parliament hadn't exactly been a lie, but the way she'd presented them had been. And Honor had not only caught her in the act but given the admiral enough rope to hang herself before she produced the actual breakdown between active duty and half-pay personnel.

It had not been Draskovic's best day, and her second appearance had been little better. She hadn't been caught in any lies that time, but Honor's devastating, relentless questions had driven her into near incoherence trying to defend basically indefensible Admiralty policy. She'd looked like a total incompetent—an amateur, competing out of her class—and she'd resented her humiliation even more because, unlike Honor, she'd always been one of the coterie of "political" admirals who'd made their careers out of negotiating the halls of political patronage. Which was undoubtedly the reason she held her present position.

Now it was Draskovic's turn to pay Honor back. As Fifth Space Lord, decisions on personnel assignments were ultimately her responsibility, and those assignments included things like the staff officers and flag captains assigned to fleet and task force commanders. The Royal Navy tradition was that a flag officer being sent out to command one of the Service's fleet stations had broad authority to select her own choices for those positions. The Bureau of Personnel had to sign off on her nominees, but that was only a formality. Traditionally, the only limiting factor was the availability of the officers in question, but Draskovic clearly wasn't a great believer in tradition. Especially not when ignoring it let her get her own back on someone who'd helped her humiliate herself so thoroughly.

Personally, Honor found that the admiral's sense of humiliation left her completely unmoved. Draskovic had made the decision to prostitute herself professionally by agreeing to serve under High Ridge and Janacek, and any embarrassment that brought her was entirely her own fault.

Obviously, Draskovic didn't see it that way, but unfortunately for her, Honor wasn't prepared to acquiesce in the other woman's small-minded vengeance. A fury every bit the equal of Nimitz's blazed behind her hard eyes. She was well aware that that fury owed as much of its strength to her own pain and anger over the wreckage the Government's attacks on her and Hamish had made of her life as to any professional concerns she might have had, and she didn't much care.

No, she thought, be honest Honor. You do care. Because the fact that Draskovic is enough of a political whore to make herself an accomplice of that sort of scum makes her an entirely appropriate target for how mad you are.

She allowed no trace of her own emotions' blazing power to touch her expression, but her eyes hardened still further, and that thin smile was very, very cold.

"I suggested that you make it possible, Admiral," Honor repeated coolly. "I've given you a list of officers whose services I'll require to discharge my responsibilities as the commander of Sidemore Station. Given the decreased tempo of our operational status against Haven, coupled with the recent drastic downsizing of our wall of battle, I cannot believe that the officers whose services I've requested can't be spared from other duties."

"I realize you consider yourself something of an expert on personnel management, Your Grace," Draskovic said tightly, her tone ugly. "Nonetheless, I suggest to you that I am in a somewhat better position to judge the availability of serving officers in Her Majesty's Navy."

"I have no doubt that you're in a better position to judge . . . should you choose to do so," Honor replied flatly.

"And what, precisely, is the meaning of that, Admiral Harrington?" Draskovic snapped.

"I thought my meaning was quite clear, Admiral. I meant that it's entirely evident to me that you have no intention of considering the actual availability of the officers I've requested. In fact, I very much doubt if you've checked their personnel files at all."

"How dare you?" Draskovic sat bolt upright in her chair, and her eyes blazed. "I'm quite well aware that you don't believe the rules of us petty mortals apply to the great 'Salamander,' Admiral Harrington, but I assure you that they do!"

"I'm quite sure they do," Honor conceded calmly. "That, however, has nothing whatever to do with the topic of our current discussion, Admiral. You're as well aware of that as I am."

"However grossly overinflated your self-image may be, Admiral, I remind you that I'm not merely a Space Lord but senior to you by a good fifteen T-years," Draskovic grated. "And I also remind you that neither an admiral's rank nor a peerage nor even the Parliamentary Medal of Valor gives you immunity from charges of insubordination!"

"I don't expect them to . . . normally." Even now, in the grip of her own anger, a small corner of Honor was astonished by her own words. Was it possible that Draskovic's implication that she'd somehow come to see herself as special truly was behind her confrontational attitude? She couldn't completely rule that out, much as she might have liked to, but at the moment it didn't really bother her all that much.

"Meaning what?" Draskovic snarled, leaning forward over her desk to glare at Honor.

"Meaning that I'm as aware as you are—or, as aware as Sir Edward Janacek is, for that matter—that this command wasn't offered to me because of the enormous respect in which the current Admiralty administration holds me. It was given to me in no small part as a deliberate maneuver contrived to remove me from the political equation here in the Star Kingdom."

Draskovic sat abruptly back in her chair, her expression stunned. Clearly, she hadn't anticipated Honor's bareknuckled attitude, and the thinnest possible edge of true humor crept into Honor's smile as she tasted the other woman's astonishment. The fact that Honor had never once played the political game in her own career didn't mean she hadn't known how it was played, though it appeared that possibility had never crossed Draskovic's mind. But if Honor was going to play it at last, she would play it her way—head on, and damn the consequences. Let Draskovic react to it however she wished; they were never going to be anything except enemies, anyway.

"It was also given to me," she continued in that same, chill tone, "because of Silesia's potential to turn into a major catastrophe. You may have believed I was unaware of the fact that this Admiralty is willing to deliberately select a flag officer with the express intention of making her the scapegoat if our relations with the Andermani collapse. If you did, you were in error.

"So under the circumstances, Admiral Draskovic, any violence your sense of authority may have suffered as a consequence of my attitude leaves me completely unmoved. You and I both know that the only reason my personnel requests are 'impossible to meet' is that you chose to deny me the traditional prerogatives of a station commander out of a petty sense of spite. I can't prevent you from abusing your authority in that manner, Admiral. But if you choose to continue to deny my requests, then I'm very much afraid you're going to have to inform the First Lord that it will be impossible for me to accept the command after all."

Draskovic had opened her mouth to snap back, but she closed it with an abrupt click at Honor's last sentence. Her emotions spiked suddenly, and a cold flash of trepidation burned its way through the heart of her fiery anger. Shock was also a part of that spike—disbelief that Honor should so contemptuously drag the cynical political calculation and manipulation at the heart of her assignment to Silesia out into the open. Things simply weren't done that way, and sheer surprise momentarily paralyzed the Fifth Space Lord's speech centers.

Honor tasted every nuance of Draskovic's reaction, and the vicious pleasure it gave her surprised her just a bit, even now. But she allowed no sign of that to cross her face, either. She simply leaned back in her chair, watching Draskovic as the other woman grappled with the fact that she was willing to call the combined bluff of the Government and Admiralty alike.

"I—" Draskovic started to speak, then stopped and cleared her throat.

"I don't care for your tone, Your Grace," she said, after a moment, but her voice was much weaker, almost lame. "Nor do I agree with your so-called analysis of this . . . situation. And I'm not prepared to overlook insubordination and insolence from anyone, regardless of who they are or what their accomplishments may be."

"Fine." Honor stood, lifting Nimitz in her arms. "In that case, Admiral, I'll remove myself from your presence before I give fresh offense. Please be good enough to inform Sir Edward that I must regretfully decline the command of Sidemore Station. I hope you'll be able to find some other competent officer to fill the position. Good day."

She turned and started for the door, and the combination of fury, consternation, and panic blazing up from Draskovic was like a forest fire behind her.

"Wait!"

The single word popped out of Draskovic almost against her will, and Honor paused. She turned in place, looking at the Fourth Space Lord, and arched her eyebrows in polite question. Muscles bunched in Draskovic's jaw as she clenched her teeth so tightly Honor could almost hear them grinding from five meters away, but Honor said nothing. She only stood there, waiting.

"I... regret any... misunderstanding which may have arisen between us, Your Grace," Draskovic got out at last, and each word was like pulling a barbed splinter out of her flesh. "It's apparent that tempers have gotten . . . out of control here. I regret that, also. The fact that you and I do not agree politically and have had our public policy disagreements shouldn't be allowed to impair our professionalism as Queen's officers."

"I couldn't agree more," Honor replied with lethal affability, savoring the other woman's internal apoplexy, and Draskovic managed a rictus-like almost-smile.

"Good. It's possible that I was just a bit hasty in my judgment of the availability of some of the officers you've requested, Your Grace," she said. "I believe that it might not be inappropriate for me to reexamine my decision in those cases."

"I would be most grateful," Honor said. "However, I would have to insist—respectfully, of course—that the availability of all of the officers in question be . . . reexamined. It would be most unfortunate if the nonavailability of any of them made it impossible for me to accept the honor of the Sidemore command."

Her voice was calm, almost tranquil, but her eyes were like brown flint, backed by battle steel, and she felt something wilt inside Draskovic.

"It's Admiralty policy to be as forthcoming as possible in meeting the personnel requests of station commanders, Your Grace," she said after only the briefest pause. "I assure you that I will give your requests my complete and serious attention."

"Thank you. I appreciate that very much, Admiral," Lady Dame Honor Harrington said softly.