Ashes Of Victory

"I'll certainly try, as time permits, anyway," Honor said, and then grimaced as her chrono beeped all too appropriately from her wrist. "And speaking of time," she went on regretfully, "I'm afraid I'm due over at ATC for a conference in twenty minutes."

"I understand, Your Grace."

Maxwell rose, and Honor came to her own feet to escort him to the door. Nimitz curled in the crook of her arm, and LaFollet brought up the rear, as usual.

"Thank you again for coming. And for accepting the job," Honor told him seriously as they headed across the echoing foyer of her preposterous mansion.

"You're very welcome. I look forward to the challenge, and to working with you and Willard," Maxwell replied. "I'll write up my acceptance and send it to Willard with a copy routed to you."

"That sounds fine," she agreed, and paused at the door. She couldn't offer him her hand with an armful of treecat, and he smiled as he recognized her problem.

"I see who really runs this household," he murmured, and Honor laughed.

"You only think so. You won't see who really runs it until you meet his wife!"

"Indeed?" Maxwell cocked his head, then chuckled. "I look forward to meeting her... and their children." He shook his head. "I must say, Your Grace, this looks like it may turn out to be even more interesting than I'd thought it might."

"Oh, it will, Mr. Maxwell. I feel quite sure it will... in the ancient, Chinese sense of the word."

"I beg your pardon?"

"An ancient Chinese curse," Honor explained. " `May you live in interesting times.' Think about it."

"I don't have to," Maxwell said. "And with all due respect, Your Grace, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that we wish you'd try to find something just a little less `interesting' to do with yourself for the next decade or so."

"I'll try. Really I will," she assured him. "It's just—"

She shrugged helplessly, and Maxwell laughed.

"I imagine I'll get used to hearing that sort of thing from you, too, Your Grace," he observed, and nodded farewell as MacGuiness opened the door for him.

Andrew LaFollet watched the door close behind him, then chuckled softly. Honor turned to him, one eyebrow raised, and he shrugged.

"I was just thinking how nice it was that you were able to hire a prophet for your chief counsel, My Lady," he explained.

"A prophet?" Honor repeated in a slightly puzzled tone.

"Yes, My Lady. It's obvious he must be one."

"And why, though I'm sure I'm going to regret asking, might that be?"

"Because he is going to get used to hearing you promise to try to be good, My Lady," LaFollet said i

"Are you suggesting my promises are less than sincere?" she demanded.

"Oh, no, My Lady! They're as sincere as they could possibly be... when you make them."

Honor gave him a very old-fashioned look, but he only gazed back i

"It's all right, My Lady," her armsman said soothingly. "We know you try."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Citizen Captain Oliver Diamato punched the button to adjust the captain's chair on the bridge of the brand-new battlecruiser PNS William T. Sherman. The chair assumed the angle he wanted (or, rather, that his aching back and shoulder demanded in the wake of yet another physical therapy session), and he swiveled in a slow circle to contemplate his new domain.

In some respects, he rather regretted being elevated to his new rank and given his splendid, shiny toy. Not that he was tempted to give it back. Navies, even revolutionary ones, tended to agree that an officer who felt he was incapable of command was undoubtedly right. That being so, his superiors wouldn't dream of arguing with him... or ever offering him a command, or any other worthwhile duty, again. There were probably some exceptions to the rule, but Diamato couldn't think of a single one.

Besides, he knew Sherman was a sign the Navy in general, or at least Citizen Secretary McQueen in particular, approved of him, and he was honest enough to admit that his own ambition was gratified by it. But he remembered his own last captain, and he knew he still had a long, long way to go before he could hope to match Citizen Captain Hall's worthiness to command a warship in the Republic's defense.

He was good, with a better technical background than usual in the People's Navy and a natural gift for tactics. He fell short of Citizen Captain Hall's stature as a tactician, but Citizen Captain Hall had been a natural herself, one who'd spent decades honing her inborn talents, and she'd showed him the way to hone his own. He would miss her tutelage, but she'd given him the critical guidance which would let him someday match her ability as a tactician.

He knew that, too. But he also knew that when it came to motivating a crew, to melding the individuals of its human material into one finely whetted weapon, he fell even further short of her stature. Mostly, he told himself as honestly as he could, because, like so many of the PN's officers, he'd been forced up the rank ladder too quickly by the joint pressures of internal revolution and external war. He simply hadn't had time to amass the experience Joa

But because he was self-honest, Diamato also admitted doubt he ever would have that magic touch. He hoped, someday, to learn to imitate it well enough that others would be impressed by his command presence, but he would never have that... something. That ability to reach out to her subordinates even as she clung to all the old, outmoded, elitist formalities of naval command, ignoring all of the egalitarian changes which the New Order had wrought, and inspire them to follow her straight into the fire.

Of course, that may be because not all of those "outmoded" formalities and concepts are quite so outmoded after all, Diamato thought very quietly, in a hidden corner of his mind, and carefully did not glance at the man standing beside his command chair. It wouldn't do to let Citizen Commissioner Rhodes know what dangerous, counter-revolutionary ideas might be flowing through his brain. On the other hand, Rhodes might yet turn out to be another Citizen Commissioner Addison and actually end up supporting a more traditional discipline structure aboard Sherman, much as Addison had for Citizen Captain Hall. The problem was that he hadn't yet given any indication that he might, and Diamato dared not come right out and ask.

Which was the final reason the citizen captain was less than completely delighted with his own promotion and new ship, for command of one of the People's battlecruisers was not the best imaginable job for someone whose faith in the Revolution — or its leaders, at least — had taken a pounding in the eighteen months since Operation Icarus.

It wasn't something Diamato allowed himself to contemplate often, even in the privacy of his own thoughts, but it was there. Indeed, it was the reason he hadn't been more aggressive in sounding out Rhodes' attitudes. And try though he might, Diamato still couldn't eradicate the festering doubt that haunted him.

Nothing had happened to change his commitment to the ideals officially espoused by the Committee of Public Safety. Or, for that matter, his sense of personal loyalty to Citizen Chairman Pierre. But he'd discovered too much about the empire building, and the mutual suspicion and hostile camps, which divided the people who should have been the New Order's paladins. And he'd seen too much — too terribly, ghastly much — of what that empire building could cost.