Flag In Exile

"I..." Matthews paused and rubbed an eyebrow. "May I speak frankly?"

"Of course you may."

"Thank you." Matthews rubbed his eyebrow a moment longer, then lowered his hand. "I've discussed my desire to offer you a commission with Protector Benjamin, My Lady, and he gave me permission to do so. I'm sure he considered your responsibilities as Steadholder Harrington before he did so."

"No doubt he did, but I have to consider them, as well. And they're only one consideration. There are others."

"May I ask what they are?"

"I'm an officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, for one." Honors mouth twitched with an edge of bitterness as she said it. "I realize I'm on half-pay now, but that could change. What if they recall me to active duty?"

"If they do, you would, of course, be free to leave Grayson service, My Lady. And, if I may anticipate a part of your point, I should point out that Manticore has a tradition of detaching officers to assist allied powers, and they've already lent us a large number of perso

Honor grimaced and chewed her lower lip. The offer had completely surprised her, and her own reaction to it puzzled her. A part of her had leapt in instant excitement, eager to get back into the one job she truly understood. But another part of her had responded with an instant stab of panic, an instinctive backing away in something uncomfortably like terror. She gazed deep into Matthews' eyes, as if what he saw when he looked at her could somehow tell her what she truly felt, but there was no help there. He simply returned her gaze, politely but directly, and she turned away from him.

She took a quick turn about the salle, arms folded, and tried to think. What was wrong with her? This man was offering her the one thing she'd always wanted most in the universe, in the Grayson Navy, not the Manticoran, perhaps, but she was a Grayson herself, as well as a Manticoran. And he was undoubtedly correct. Political pressure might make it impossible for the Admiralty to find her a ship, but the Navy would certainly be willing to "loan" her to the Graysons. In fact, it would be an ideal solution, so why did her throat feel so tight and her heart race so hard?

She stopped, facing out the salle's windows across her mansion's manicured grounds, and realized what it was.

She was afraid. Afraid she couldn't do it anymore. Nimitz made a soft sound, and his tail tightened about her throat. She felt his support flow into her, but her eyes were bitter as she stared out the windows. It wasn't like other times, when she'd been nervous at the thought of assuming new duties, greater responsibilities, in her Queen's service. There was always a lurking anxiety when the push of seniority thrust her into some fresh, more demanding assignment. A tiny fear that this time she might prove unequal to those demands. But this was darker than that, and it cut far deeper.

She closed her eyes and faced herself, and dull shame burned deep inside as she admitted the truth. She'd been... damaged. Memories of all her uncertainties, of her nightmares and unpredictable bouts of paralyzing grief and depression, flashed through her, and she shied away from the half-crippled portrait they painted. An officer who couldn't control her own emotions had no business commanding a ship of war. A captain wallowing in self-pity couldn't offer people who must live or die by her judgment her very best. That made her more dangerous than the enemy to them, and even if that hadn't been true, it was, but even if it weren't, did she have enough left inside to lay herself open to still greater damage? Could she live with herself if still more people died under her command? And perhaps more dangerous even than that, could she make herself let them die if the mission required it? People were killed in wars. If anyone in the universe knew that, she did. But could she live with sentencing her own people to death yet again if she had to? Or would she flinch away, fall short of her duty because she was too terrified of bearing more blood on her conscience to do what must be done?

She opened her eyes and gritted her teeth, taut and trembling, and a seething uncertainty not even Nimitz could ease filled her. She fought it as she might a monster, but it refused to yield, and her reflected face looked back from the window before her, white and strained, with no answer to the questions that lashed her mind.

"I'm... not certain I should be an officer anymore, High Admiral," she made herself say at last. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but she knew it must be said.

"Why?" he asked simply, and the wounded part of her flinched at the lack of judgment in his quiet voice.

"I ... haven't been exactly..." She broke off and inhaled deeply, then turned to face him. "An officer has to be in command of herself before she can command others." She felt as if she were quivering like a leaf, yet her voice was level, and she made the words come out firm and clear. "She has to be able to do the job before she accepts it, and I'm not sure I can."

Wesley Matthews nodded, and his hazel eyes were intent as he studied her face. She'd learned, over the years, to wear the mask of command, he thought, but today the anguish showed, and he felt ashamed for inflicting it upon her. This woman wasn't the cold, focused warrior who'd defended his home world against religious fanatics with five times her firepower. She'd been afraid then, too; he'd known it, even though the rules of the game had required them both to pretend he hadn't. But she hadn't feared what she feared today. She'd been afraid only of dying, of failing in the near hopeless mission she'd accepted, not that the job was one she lacked the courage to do.

She gazed back at him, meeting his eyes, admitting that she knew what he was thinking, refusing to pretend, and he wondered if she'd ever faced this particular fear before. She was three years older than he, despite her youthful appearance, but three years either way mattered very little, and in this moment he felt suddenly as if she were truly as young as she looked. It was her eyes, he thought; the pleading look in them, the honesty that admitted she no longer knew the answers and begged him to help her find them. She was ashamed of her indecision, her "weakness," as if she didn't even realize how much strength it took to admit she was uncertain rather than pretend she wasn't.

He bit his lip and realized how right the Protector had been to stop him from offering her a commission months ago. Not because she couldn't do the job, but because she was afraid she couldn't. Because she would have refused it, and that refusal would have ended her career forever. Inability, real or imagined, could never truly be overcome once an officer accepted deep inside that he could no longer hack it. That damage was almost always permanent, for it was self-inflicted and no one else could heal it for him.

Yet Lady Harrington's i

But he had.

"My Lady," he said quietly, "I can only respect the courage it takes for an officer of your caliber to admit to uncertainty, but I believe you've been too harsh on yourself. Of course you 'haven't been yourself.' How could you have been? You've seen your entire personal and professional world torn apart and been pitchforked into a totally different society and forced to become not simply a tourist there but one of its rulers. You know our beliefs, that God tests His people, that it's by rising to the Test of Life that we nurture and develop all we can be. Your Test has been far harsher and more demanding than most, My Lady, but you've risen to it as you always have, with a courage any Grayson not poisoned by bigotry and blind fear of change can only admire. It may not seem that way to you at this moment in your life, but just this once, trust our judgment more than your own, please."