Ashes Of Victory

"Citizen Chairman," Theisman said levelly, and Saint-Just bared his teeth in a gore-streaked grimace.

"Citizen Admiral," he got out in return.

"You made two mistakes," Theisman said. "Well, three actually. The first was choosing me to command Capital Fleet and not assigning a different commissioner to keep an eye on me. The second was failing to have Admiral Graveson's data base completely vacuumed. It took me a while to find the file she'd hidden there. I don't know what happened when McQueen made her move. Maybe Graveson panicked and was afraid to move when McQueen didn't get you along with Pierre in her initial sweep. But whatever happened, the file she left behind told me who to contact in Capital Fleet when I decided to pick up where McQueen left off."

He paused, and Saint-Just stared at him for a heartbeat, then tossed his head.

"You said three mistakes," he said. "What was the third?"

"Ending hostilities and ordering Giscard and Tourville home," Theisman said flatly. "I don't know what's happened at Lovat, but I know Tourville and Giscard. I imagine they're both dead by now, but I doubt very much that either of them just rolled over and played dead for your SS goons, and I imagine you've suffered a few losses of your own. But more importantly, by issuing those orders, you warned every regular officer that the purges were about to begin all over again... and this time, we're not standing for it, Citizen Chairman."

"So you're replacing me, are you?" Saint-Just barked a laugh. "Are you really crazy enough you actually want this job?"

"I don't want it, and I'll do my best to avoid it. But the important thing is that the decent men and women of the Republic can't let someone like you have it any longer."

"So now what?" Saint-Just demanded. "A big show trial before the execution? Proof of my `crimes' for the Proles and the newsies?"

"No," the citizen admiral said softly. "I think we've had enough of those sorts of trials."

His hand rose with Saint-Just's pulser, and the Citizen Chairman's eyes widened as the muzzle aligned with his forehead at a meter's range.

"Good-bye, Citizen Chairman."

AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD

One of the problems with creating background for a series as long as this one is the difficulty in maintaining continuity and internal consistency. I know of a few places where I've failed in that regard (most of them, fortunately, minor), and I feel quite certain that there are those among Honor Harrington's readers who could point out several more instances to me.

In the course of writing this novel, unfortunately, I discovered yet another, all on my own.

In the background notes, which were published as part of the appendix in More Than Honor, page 331, it is specifically stated that the Prime Minister of Manticore must command a majority in the House of Commons. This is inaccurate. When I first created the Star Kingdom's political structure, I had envisioned the framers of its Constitution as kinder, gentler, more enlightened souls than they turned out to be once I got into actually writing them. In fact, they were much more interested in maintaining their monopoly on political power than I had initially envisioned, and I decided that they would have deliberately written the Constitutioon to give themselves and their descendants (i.e., the House of Lords ) control of the premiership. I had changed the relevant section in my tech bible for the series by the time I write Flag in Exile, but somehow an earlier version of the tech bible got sent to Baen for the More Than Honor appendix... and I never noticed it when I proofed the galleys.

So those of you who thought to yourselves, "Hey! This is wrong!" when Elizabeth was forced to accept a governent formed by the Opposition deserve a pat on the back for catching the inconsistency between what happened in the book and what had previously been published.

Or, as Sha

"Oops!"

Ships