by David Weber
"No. No, they haven't," Elizabeth agreed finally, and sighed. "I wish the Constitution gave me the authority to dissolve Parliament and call new elections myself."
"So do I," Honor said. "But it doesn't, so you can't. Which brings us back to me. Because unlike you, High Ridge can call for new elections whenever he decides to, and if he can use Hamish and me to keep this bloodfest alive long enough, he may be able to push the public opinion polls far enough in his favor to decide the time is right."
"Maybe you're right," Elizabeth conceded, obviously against her will. "But even if you are, I don't think going 'home' to Grayson is the answer, either, Honor. Bad enough that it would look like they'd run you out of town, but domestic politics aren't all we have to worry about here, are they?"
"No." Honor shook her head, because this time, the Queen had a point.
The Star Kingdom's mores were essentially liberal, and Honor and Hamish's "crime" in Manticoran eyes was that any affair between them would have violated the sanctity of a personal oath White Haven had chosen to swear in a particular sacrament of marriage. Other religions and denominations accepted other, less restrictive versions of marriage, and each of them was just as legally binding and just as morally acceptable in the eyes of society as a whole. In many ways, that made his alleged offense even worse, because he had voluntarily bound himself to a particular, intensely personal union with his wife when there'd been no social or legal requirement that he do so. If he'd now chosen to offer his love to another woman, then he had evaded a personal responsibility he'd chosen freely to accept. That was bad enough, but on Grayson, where there actually was—or had until very recently been—a universal religious and social code and a single institution of marriage, the damage was even worse.
What surprised Honor about the Graysons' reaction wasn't its strength, but the fact that such a small percentage of them put any stock at all in the allegations. She'd thought, especially after her relationship with Paul, that most of the population would be ready to believe the worst and to condemn her for it. But the reverse was true, and it had taken her a while to realize why that was.
White Haven enjoyed immense public respect on Grayson in his own right, yet that was almost beside the point. It was Honor who mattered, and they knew her. It was really that simple. They actually knew her there, and they remembered that she'd never denied she and Paul had been lovers, never tried to pretend she was anyone but who she was. Even those who continued to hate her for who she was knew she would have refused to deny the truth, and because of that, they recognized the lie when they heard it.
Which was precisely why the damage was even worse. The Graysons weren't angry at her over any allegations of impropriety which they knew were false; they were furious at Manticore for allowing those allegations to be made. They saw the entire agonizing ordeal as a public insult and humiliation to the woman who had twice saved their world from conquest, and at least once from nuclear bombardment by religious fanatics. Honor had always felt horribly embarrassed by the Graysons' unabashed hero worship of her, not least because she felt it denigrated the sacrifices made by so many others in the battles she'd fought at Yeltsin's Star. But her worst nightmares had never envisioned anything like this.
Grayson's attitude towards the Star Kingdom had shifted dangerously over the last three T-years. There were still immense reservoirs of gratitude, admiration, and respect for the Royal Navy, for the Centrists, and—especially—for Queen Elizabeth, herself. But there was also a deep, seething rage directed at the Kingdom's current government and the arrogant fashion in which it had arbitrarily and unilaterally accepted Oscar Saint-Just's truce offer when unequivocal victory had been within the Alliance's grasp. That decision was widely regarded as a betrayal of all of the Star Kingdom's allies, and especially of Grayson, which had made by far the greatest contribution—and sacrifices—of all those allies.
Nor had High Ridge's subsequent policy mitigated that outrage in any way. It was as obvious to Grayson as it was to the Havenites themselves that High Ridge and Descroix had no intention of negotiating in good faith. There might be different interpretations of the reasons for that, but recognition of their duplicity was virtually universal. High Ridge hadn't made things any better by continuing as he had begun, simply announcing his decisions to those who were supposed to be his treaty partners rather than consulting with them and acting in concert. Partly, Honor suspected, that insensitivity resulted from his intense focus on his purely domestic concerns, but it was also an inescapable reflection of his own personality. He considered Manticoran yeomen and commoners his infinite inferiors, and foreign commoners, by definition, were even less worthy of the expenditure of his precious time.
Benjamin IX and his Council, as well as a working majority of the Grayson Keys, recognized the unique and dangerous balance of political power within the Star Kingdom. They knew what was happening, and they were no strangers to complex internal political battles of their own. Yet even with that knowledge, it was difficult for them to restrain their anger and to remember to direct it against High Ridge and his cronies, rather than at the Star Kingdom as a whole. For the elected members of the Conclave of Steaders—and especially for the vast bulk of the Grayson population, who were not only less "sophisticated" but also less fully informed about the ramifications of which Benjamin was only too well aware—it was even more difficult.
And now the same people who'd already infuriated Grayson public opinion had falsely and publicly attacked their greatest planetary hero, who was also the second ranking officer of their navy, the Protector's Champion, only the second person in history to have received the Star of Grayson not merely once, but twice, and one of their eighty-two steadholders.
And a woman. Even now, the surviving strictures of Grayson's pre-Alliance social code absolutely precluded public insult to a woman. Any woman. And especially this woman.
Which meant that the very tactics which had so thoroughly neutralized Honor in the domestic Manticoran political calculus had produced exactly the opposite effect on Grayson. Public opinion and support there had rallied about her even more fiercely than before, but it was an angry public opinion. A rising sea of infuriated outrage which had turned her into a symbol which threatened the outright disruption of an alliance Benjamin was already holding together by his fingernails.
She had nowhere to go. She could accomplish nothing on Manticore, and her very presence here, combined with the High Ridge Government's determination to keep her neutralized, only kept the scandal alive and fanned the furnace of Grayson anger. Yet if she fled to Grayson, she would only make it worse, because the Graysons would undoubtedly decide (with justification) that she'd been hounded out of the Star Kingdom. The damage which had already been done would be multiplied, and her presence on Grayson would keep the planet's rage alive by keeping her very much in the public eye, and so she drew a deep, unhappy breath, and shook her head.
"No," she repeated to her monarch, "domestic politics aren't all we have to worry about."
* * *
"I don't like what we're hearing about Silesia." Sir Edward Janacek tilted back in his chair while he regarded the two men sitting on the far side of the magnificent desk he'd had moved into his office to replace the smaller, plainer one which had served Baroness Mourncreek.
Admiral Francis Jurgensen, Second Space Lord of Admiralty, was a small, neat man. His uniform, as always, was impeccable, and his brown eyes were open and guileless. Admiral Sir Simon Chakrabarti was much taller and broad shouldered. His complexion was almost as dark as Elizabeth Winton's, but aside from that he actually reminded people a great deal of Sir Thomas Caparelli—physically, at least, and at first glance. Any similarity was illusory, however. Chakrabarti had managed to attain his present very senior rank without ever commanding in combat. He'd last seen action as Lieutenant Commander Chakrabarti, executive officer in the heavy cruiser Invincible, against Silesian pirates, over thirty-five T-years before. Since that time, his career had been dev
oted primarily to administration, with a detour for a brief stint at BuWeaps.
Some might have questioned how that sort of career qualified a man to be First Space Lord, but as Janacek saw it, at this moment the Navy had less need of some grizzled veteran of a warrior than it did of a superior administrator. Anyone could win battles when his wall of battle held such a decisive qualitative edge, but it required someone who understood the ins and outs of administrative decisions and budgetary realities to balance the requirements of the Service against the need to downsize the Fleet. Chakrabarti had that understanding, not to mention exemplary political connections. His brother-in-law was Adam Damakos, the Liberal MP who was the ranking member of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, but he was also the cousin of Akahito Fitzpatrick, the Duke of Gray Water, one of Baron High Ridge's closest allies in the Conservative Association. That would have made him the perfect choice for such an important position even without any other recommendations. And at least Janacek had been able to pick the man himself, instead of having someone foisted off on him the way that idiot Houseman had been chosen as Second Lord!
"I don't like it at all," he went on. "What the hell do the Andies think they're doing?" He looked pointedly at Jurgensen, and the admiral shrugged.
"The information we've been able to put together so far is still pretty self-contradictory," he said. "In the absence of any official explanations—or demands—from their foreign minister, all we can do is guess about their final intentions."
"I realize that, Francis." Janacek spoke mildly, but his eyes narrowed. "On the other hand, you are the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Doesn't that mean you're sort of in charge of guessing about these things?"
"Yes, it does," Jurgensen replied calmly. "I simply wanted it on the record that our analysts are scarcely in possession of the sort of hard information which would allow us to make definite projections of the Andermani's intentions."
He regarded the First Lord levelly, with the confidence of decades of experience in seeing to it that his posterior was safely covered before sticking his neck out. He waited until Janacek nodded understanding of the qualification, then shrugged again.
"Bearing that proviso in mind," he said then, "it does appear that the Andies are engaged in a systematic redeployment intended to encircle Sidemore Station from the north and northeast, interposing between the station and the rest of the Confederacy. We have no indications as yet that Emperor Gustav is contemplating any sort of operations against us, although that possibility can never be completely discounted. It seems more likely, however, that what he has in mind—so far, at least—is basically to put on a show of force."
"A show of force to accomplish what?" Chakrabarti asked.
"There's a lot of debate about that," Jurgensen told him. "The majority opinion at the moment is that the Andies will probably be approaching us sometime soon through diplomatic channels to put forward territorial claims in Silesia."
"Bastards," Janacek said conversationally, and grimaced. "Still, I suppose it makes sense. They've had their eye on Silesia for as long as I can remember. I can't say I'm surprised to hear that the opportunistic sons-of-bitches think the time has come to start carving off the choicer bits."
"We've made our position on that quite clear, historically speaking," Chakrabarti observed, and cocked his head at the First Lord.
"And that position hasn't changed—yet," Janacek replied.
"Will it?" Chakrabarti asked with atypical bluntness, and it was Janacek's turn to shrug.
"I don't know," he admitted. "That decision would have to be made at the Cabinet level. At this point, however, and absent any instructions to the contrary, our policy remains unchanged. Her Majesty's Government—" he used the phrase without even a flicker of irony "—is not prepared to accept any acquisition of territory, by the Andermani Empire or anyone else, at the expense of the present government of the Silesian Confederacy."
"In that case," Chakrabarti said pragmatically, "we probably ought to reinforce Sidemore to offset this 'show of force' of Francis's."
"It's not my show of force, Simon," Jurgensen calmly corrected.
"Whatever." Chakrabarti waved a dismissive hand. "We still ought to consider deploying at least a couple of more battle squadrons to Sidemore, whoever's show of force it is."
"Um." Janacek rubbed an index finger in slow circles on his desktop and frowned down at it. "I can follow your thinking, Simon, but coming up with that much tonnage isn't going to be easy."
Chakrabarti looked at him for a moment, but decided against pointing out that finding the necessary ships of the wall might have been easier if the Government hadn't just decided to scrap so many of them. For all his bureaucratic career track, he'd spent too many decades as a naval officer not to recognize the bitter irony of the situation. He was also too experienced as a uniformed politician to make the point.
"Easy or not, Sir Edward," he said instead, his voice just a tiny bit more formal, "if we're going to stand by our current policy to discourage Andie adventurism, then we need to beef up Sidemore. We don't have to use the new pod superdreadnoughts, but we have to deploy something that would at least be more than purely symbolic. If we don't, we're effectively telling them we're not prepared to go to the mat."
Janacek looked up, and the First Space Lord met his gaze levelly. Then Jurgensen cleared his throat.
"Actually," he said carefully, "it might be wiser to send some of the SD(P)s, after all."
"Oh?" Chakrabarti looked at the Second Space Lord and frowned.
"Yes," Jurgensen said. "I've been conducting a general review of our intelligence on the Andermani over the last week or two, and I've come across a few . . . disturbing reports."
"Disturbing reports about what, Francis?" Janacek asked, joining Chakrabarti in frowning at him.
"They're not very specific," Jurgensen replied. "That's the main reason they haven't already been passed along to you, Edward. I know you prefer hard data to vague speculation, so we've been trying to confirm them first. Under the circumstances, however, even though they're still unconfirmed, I think we have to take them into account when we consider what sort of reinforcements Sidemore might require."
"Which would be much easier to do if you'd tell us what they say," Chakrabarti pointed out.
"I'll have a precis to you by the end of the day," Jurgensen promised. "Essentially, though, we've had some indications—none of them, as I say, confirmed—that the Andies may recently have begun deploying some new weapons systems of their own. Unfortunately, we don't have very many details about just what sort of hardware we may be talking about."
"And you didn't see fit to bring this information to our attention?" Janacek inquired ominously.
"I wasn't even aware of its existence until two weeks ago," Jurgensen said. "And prior to this meeting, the possibility of deploying additional forces to deter the Andies hadn't even been discussed. Under the previously existing circumstances, I felt that it would be advisable to attempt to confirm the information one way or another before bringing it to your attention."
Janacek frowned at him for several seconds, then shrugged.
"Either way, there wouldn't have been much we could have done until you did confirm it," he conceded, and Jurgensen nodded calmly. "But I can't say I'm happy to hear about it, whether it's confirmed or not," the First Lord continued. "The Andies' hardware was almost as good as ours before the war; if they've improved theirs since, we may have to seriously reconsider force levels in Silesia. The Prime Minister isn't going to like hearing about that less than four months after we finished telling Parliament we're making further reductions in our wall."
Jurgensen and Chakrabarti nodded solemnly, secure in the knowledge that they had proposed nothing of the sort, whatever the civilian lords of Admiralty might have had to say about it. Of course, neither of them had protested the reductions, but that was entirely different from bearing responsibility for them.
"What
sort of details do you have?" Chakrabarti asked after a moment.
"Almost none, actually," Jurgensen admitted. "A Sidemorian analyst claims that visual imagery of one of the IAN's new Thor-class battlecruisers shows fewer missile ports than the class is supposed to have. Exactly what that might mean, we currently have no idea, and we haven't yet confirmed his claim with an independent analysis of the imagery. The raw visual take is on its way here, but we won't see it for another week or two.
"In addition, we have two reports from merchant skippers suggesting that the Andies may have managed at least some improvement in their inertial compensators. The evidence is extremely sketchy, but both of the captains involved report observing Andermani ships pulling accelerations considerably higher than they should have been."
"Merchant skippers!" Chakrabarti snorted, but Jurgensen shook his head.
"That was my own initial reaction, Simon, which is one reason I wanted to get confirmation before reporting it. But one of the merchant captains involved is a half-pay admiral."
"What?" Janacek eyes sharpened. "Which half-pay admiral?"
"An Admiral Bachfisch," Jurgensen replied.
"Oh, him!" Janacek snorted. "I remember now. A fuck-up who almost got his ship blown out of space!"
"Not, perhaps, the best possible reference for someone's resume," Jurgensen agreed. "But he is an experienced man, with over thirty T-years on active duty before he, um, left active naval service."
Janacek snorted again, although with a bit less panache this time. Chakrabarti, on the other hand, suddenly looked more thoughtful, and Jurgensen twitched one shoulder.
"There are a half dozen other reports, most of them from independent stringers run by our naval attaches in the Empire, that indicate the Andies have at least been experimenting with longer ranged missiles, and we've known for years now that they've been developing their own pods. What we don't know, and what I haven't found a way to confirm one way or the other yet, is whether or not they've begun laying down SD(P)s of their own."
