War Of Honor

"That's because you're thinking with your emotions again," Georgia told him. She stood, ru

"I know," Young repeated, his expression still surly. "But I wasn't the one who came up with the idea in the first place, you know."

"No, you weren't. I was," she agreed in that same clinical tone. "On the other hand, you grabbed the concept and ran with it the instant I suggested it, didn't you?"

"Because it sounded like it would work," he replied.

"Because it sounded like it would work . . . and because you wanted to hurt them," she corrected, and shook her head. "Let's be honest, Stefan. It was more important to you personally to make them both suffer than it was for the strategy to work, now wasn't it?"

"I wanted it to work, too!"

"But that was secondary, as far as you were concerned," she said inexorably, and shook her head again. "I'm not saying it was unreasonable of you to want to punish them for what they both did to Pavel. But don't make the same mistake he made. People have a perfectly natural tendency to strike back at anyone who hurts them—the fact that you want to punish Harrington and White Haven is proof enough of that. Unfortunately, Honor Harrington isn't exactly noted for moderation. White Haven is a civilized person. He's going to feel bound to play by the rules, but when she strikes back, people have a habit of finding themselves ankle-deep in bodies, and I'd just as soon not be one of the corpses."

"I'm not going to do anything stupid," he growled.

"And I'm not going to let you do anything stupid," her eyes were as cool as her voice. "That's why I asked you to suggest the approach to High Ridge and let him set up the hatchet men. If she decides to come back after anyone, she'll be looking at Hayes first, and then our beloved Prime Minister. Besides," the countess chuckled humorlessly, "not even she can kill off the entire Government. She'd have to stop before she worked her way all the way down to the Office of Trade!"

"I'm not afraid of her," Stefan shot back, and his wife's eyes hardened.

"Then you're an even bigger fool than your brother was," she said in an even, deadly dispassionate tone. His face tightened angrily, but she met his hot glare with an icy calm which shed its heat effortlessly.

"We've had this discussion before, Stefan. And, yes, Pavel was an idiot. I warned him that going after Harrington, especially the way he did it, was like following a wounded hexapuma into the underbrush with a butter knife. But he insisted, and I was only an employee, so I set it up for him. Now he's dead . . . and she isn't. Not only that, but she's enormously more powerful now than she was then, and she's learned how to use that power. Pavel underestimated her then; if you're not afraid of her now, with all the power and allies she's gained since and the evidence of what happened to him in front of you, then you are a fool."

"She wouldn't dare come after me," North Hollow protested. "Not after the way she shot Pavel. Public opinion would crucify her!"

"That didn't stop her in Pavel's case. What in the world makes you think it would stop her now? The only two reasons she hasn't gone after you already are that her political allies, like William Alexander, have been restraining her from going after anyone at all and that she doesn't know—not for certain—that you were the one who suggested this particular line of attack to High Ridge. If she were certain of that, I'm not at all certain even Alexander or the Queen herself could stop her, given all the history between her and your family. So be afraid of her, Stefan. Be very afraid, because you're never going to meet a more dangerous person in your life."

"If she's so dangerous, why's she been so meek and mild? There are ways she could have counterattacked without resorting to violence, Georgia! So why hasn't she come out swinging and used all that power you say she's got somehow?" Stefan demanded, but the questions came out petulantly, not challengingly.

"Because we hit her with the kind of attack she's most vulnerable to," the countess told him patiently. "She doesn't have the experience to respond in kind to this sort of assault. She's been mostly on the defensive from the outset, because it's not her sort of battlefield. That's precisely why they went out and recruited Emily Alexander to serve as her general. But if you push her too hard, or make the mistake of coming into the open and hurting someone she cares about when she knows who did it, she won't waste any more time even trying to fight your kind of battle, Stefan. She'll come after you directly, her way, and hang the consequences. Your family should know that better than anyone else."

"Well, we're just going to have to come up with something else, then, aren't we? If Plan A isn't going to put her down for the count after all, what do we suggest to High Ridge for Plan B? Now that Emily Alexander's busted our columnists' balls for daring to suggest that her husband and her 'dear friend' Harrington could be humping each other, how the hell do we get the two of them off our backs? You know they're going to be harder to handle than ever now that we've pissed them off!"

"There's probably something to that," Georgia agreed. "And I'm not sure what to propose as Plan B—not just yet, anyway. I'm confident something will suggest itself to me as the situation clarifies. But whatever it is, Stefan, it's not going to be anything she can trace directly back to you or to me. You may not care if she decides to rip your lungs out, but I like mine just fine where they are, thank you."

"I got the message, Georgia," North Hollow half-snapped. His expression was surlier than ever, but there was fear behind the surliness, and Georgia was relieved to see it. On the other hand . . .

Fear might keep him from doing something outstandingly stupid, but she'd used enough stick for one night, she decided. It was time for the carrot, and she touched the neck of her robe.

It floated down to puddle about her ankles, and suddenly Honor Harrington was the last thing on Stefan's mind.

Honor stood beside the lectern, hands clasped behind her, and gazed up at the huge lecture hall's tiers of seats as they filled.

The Tactical Department's D'Orville Hall home boasted every modern electronic teaching aid known to man. Its simulators could re-create anything from the flight deck of a pi

Saganami Island made full and efficient use of all those capabilities. Yet the Royal Manticoran Navy was a great believer in tradition, as well, and at least once per week, lecture courses met physically in their assigned lecture halls. Honor was perfectly willing to admit that the tradition was scarcely the most modern possible way to transmit knowledge, but that was fine with her. As she herself had discovered as a child, too great a reliance on the electronic classroom could deprive a student of the social interaction which was also a part of the educational process. The electronic format could serve as a shield, a barricade behind which a student could hide or even pretend to be someone else entirely . . . sometimes even to herself. That might not constitute a serious drawback in the education of civilians, but Navy and Marine officers couldn't afford walls of self-deception about who and what they were any more than they could afford to leave their social skills underdeveloped. Their professional responsibilities required them not only to interact with others in a corporate, hierarchical service, but to exude confidence and competence when exercising command in situations in which their ability to lead quite literally might make the difference between life and death. Or, even more importantly sometimes, between success or failure. That was the major reason Saganami Island relentlessly stressed traditions and procedures which forced midshipmen and midshipwomen to deal with one another, and with their superiors and instructors, face to face, in the flesh.