War Of Honor

"You're outnumbered, Sir," Orndorff told McKeon now. "And it's not just the LAC jocks who need time to work up to full efficiency, is it?"

"We could take any batch of Andies I ever saw exactly like we are this minute," McKeon proclaimed.

"In your dreams, Alistair," Truman said dryly. McKeon looked at her, and she shook her head at him. "I make all due allowance for patriotism and esprit de corps, even parochialism, but you know better than that."

"Well, maybe," he conceded. "But the Andies aren't exactly four meters tall and covered with long, curly hair, either. And while I'm prepared to admit we have more than our fair share of rough edges, we also have a bunch of combat-experienced veterans, which is more than the Andies can say."

"That's fair enough," Honor acknowledged. "But you might want to think about the fact that before we and the Peeps started shooting at one another, they were the ones with all of the in-depth backlog of combat experience. We'd done our share of chasing down pirates and dealing with the occasional squadron of 'privateers,' but we didn't have any real, recent war-fighting experience to go with it. Which, if you think about it, is a pretty decent description of where the Andermani probably are right now."

"Maybe it is," McKeon agreed with a more serious expression, "but we're not exactly the Peeps. They might have had a lot of experience at knocking off single-star system opponents, but most of their 'wars' hadn't really amounted to all that much more than polishing off privateer squadrons of their own."

"Somehow I rather doubt President Ramirez would agree with your analysis where the San Martin navy was concerned," Truman pointed out in an even drier tone.

"Your ganging up on me," he complained plaintively.

"That's what happens when someone rushes in where angels fear to tread," Honor told him. "Besides, it's dangerous to draw too close an analogy between the prewar Peep navy and the one we actually wound up fighting. The officers who'd amassed all the experience tended to be Legislaturalists, and they disappeared in Pierre's purges without our having to face most of them in combat. The ones we did go up against, like Parnell—or Alfredo Yu, when he was still in Havenite service—certainly gave us a run for our money, even with our hardware edge."

"You're undermining your own argument," McKeon objected. "If we're supposed to be the overconfident Peeps and the Andies are supposed to be the underestimated but plucky underdogs, then pointing out how competent people like Parnell and Yu were sort of defeats your purpose, doesn't it?"

"Not really. Even Parnell clearly underestimated what we could do to him, and the fact that he was so good in so many ways only underscores how easy it is for it even a competent officer to get overconfident on the basis of his people's superior levels of experience. Which is what the lot of us are ever so gently suggesting to you that you might be doing, Alistair."

She smiled seraphically, and Truman snorted at his expression.

"Gotcha!" she a

"All right. All right!" McKeon surrendered. "I admit we can use the additional training time. But all joking aside, I really am more than a little . . . irked to see a Manticoran task force sneaking around through the backdoor route this way."

"I know," Honor acknowledged. "And I know you're not alone in feeling that way, either. But remember that our most recent reports on what's going on in Marsh were three weeks old before we even left Manticore. I don't want to appear any more provocative than we can help. If Emperor Gustav really is pla

"I understand entirely," McKeon said, and this time there was no humor at all in his expression or tone. "And I don't really disagree with you. That's the main reason I'm so irritated. We shouldn't have to be so worried about provocations that we go thirty-five light-years out of our way just to avoid the possibility. Much as I may complain about it, I understand exactly why no responsible station commander would be in a position to make any other routing decision. But understanding it doesn't mean I have to like the circumstances which make it the responsible thing to do."

"No," Honor agreed. "And on that level, I have to agree with you. But Alice and Wraith are right about how much we can use the additional time for training."

McKeon nodded, and she tasted the agreement behind the gesture. It was a bit grudging, but that wasn't because Alistair rejected her position. It was because he didn't like the reasons her ships' companies needed the additional drill time any more than he liked the reasons she felt no choice but to avoid actions which might be—or might be construed as—provocative.

And he's right, she reflected. It's absolutely ridiculous for the Queen's Navy to have gotten so . . . out of shape in barely four T-years. I suppose this is what Hamish meant when he started talking about "victory disease." But I know darned well that it never would have happened if Baroness Mourncreek were still First Lord and Sir Thomas were still First Space Lord.

But that was the real crux of the matter, when she came right down to it. Any military organization had a pronounced tendency to take its direction from the attitudes of its senior commanders, and the complacency and arrogance of the political admirals currently ru

It wasn't anything overt enough for the officers who hadn't been affected to effectively combat. It was just . . . sloppiness. It was the Navy's smugly comfortable belief in its own God-given superiority to anyone who might be foolish enough to cross swords with it. The belief that the inherent supremacy of the RMN would suffice to crush any opponent . . . which made the unrelenting drills and training exercises which had always been so much a part of the Royal Navy seem superfluous.

The inexperience of the LAC crews which had been assigned to Alice Truman's CLACs was one thing. The huge expansion in LACs which the Janacek Admiralty had undertaken as its low-cost answer to rear area security had spread the surviving combat-experienced LAC crews all too thin, and the LAC groups had taken their own losses of experienced perso