War Of Honor

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 fa

"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 devoted 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 co

"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 cha

"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 to

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.