"Such a clever person you are," Emily told her distant cousin, and Elizabeth chuckled.
"I have it on the best of authority that all queens named 'Elizabeth' are clever."
"Ha! Probably that sycophantic Crown Prince you're married to currying favor with you!" Emily retorted.
"Thereby proving," the maligned Crown Prince in question said equably, "how clever he is."
Chapter Forty-Two
"Congratulations, Your Grace," Mercedes Brigham said with a huge smile, waiting just inside the hatch as Honor and Nimitz swam the transfer tube between the shuttle from Manticore and her pinnace. Andrew LaFollet and Spencer Hawke followed the two of them, and Brigham chuckled as Honor raised an eyebrow at her greeting.
"The news is all over the Fleet by now." The chief of staff gestured at the ring glittering on Honor's right hand. "I was actually a bit surprised by how many people were surprised, if you know what I mean."
"And the reaction?" Honor asked.
"Ranges from mere approval to ecstatic, I'd say," Brigham told her.
"No concerns over One-Nineteen?"
"Of course not." Brigham chuckled again. "You know as well as I do that One-Nineteen is probably the most winked at of the Articles. Even if it weren't, nobody's going to suggest it applies to you and Earl White Haven. Or," Brigham cocked her head, "is he Steadholder Consort Harrington now?"
"Please!" Honor gave a deliberate shudder. "I can hardly wait for the Conclave of Steadholders to start in on this one! I seem to spend most of my time trying to find ways to give the real conservatives apoplexy."
"One can only hope it carries some of them off," Brigham said tartly, with all the fervor of the years she'd spent in the Grayson Space Navy.
"A most improper thought-with which I agree completely, however unofficially."
Honor looked demurely over her shoulder at LaFollet, who returned her gaze with a deadpan expression. Then she held out her arms, and Nimitz swarmed down into them from her shoulder as she moved towards her seat. Brigham followed her, and seated herself across the aisle as the flight engineer sealed the hatch and the transfer tube detached. She and Honor and Honor's armsmen were the pinnace's only two-legged passengers, and LaFollet and Hawke chose seats two rows in front of Honor, between her and the flight deck.
It wasn't their usual position, and Honor's cheerfulness dimmed slightly as she tasted their emotions. Simon Mattingly's death, and Honor's narrow escape, had left their mark. Her armsmen's professional paranoia had risen to new heights, and she didn't much like the hairtrigger on which they were poised. She made another mental note to discuss the situation with LaFollet, then returned her attention to Brigham.
"What's the word on our repairs?"
"Imperator's going to be in yard hands for at least another month, Your Grace." Brigham's expression sobered. "Probably more, actually. None of the damage may've gotten through to the core hull, but her after graser mounts took a lot heavier beating than we thought before the yard survey. Agamemnon's going to be out of service even longer than that. Truscott Adams and Tisiphone should be returning sometime in the next three to six weeks."
"I was afraid of that when I saw the preliminary yard surveys," Honor sighed. "Oh, well. What can't be cured must be endured, as we say on Grayson. And it's not as if repairs are the only thing that's going to be slowing us up."
"Your Grace?"
"I spent three days at Admiralty House, Mercedes. The situation after Zanzibar is even worse than we'd thought. The Caliph is apparently considering withdrawing from the Alliance."
"What?" Brigham sat upright abruptly, and Honor shrugged.
"It's hard to blame him, really. Look at it. His star system's been hammered flat twice, and he joined the Alliance in the first place for protection. It's kind of hard to argue we've protected his people successfully."
"And it's his own admiral's damned fault!" Brigham said hotly. "If al-Bakr hadn't overruled Padgorny and given the Peeps a roadmap of the system defenses, it never would have happened!"
"I know that's the general view in the Fleet, but I'm not sure it's fair."
Brigham looked at her semi-incredulously, and Honor shrugged.
"I'm not saying al-Bakr made the right decision, or that the decision he did make didn't help the Havenites considerably. But if they'd sent in the same attack force against our original defensive deployment, it would have steamrollered anything in its path anyway. Sure, the missile pods would've hurt them more than they did, but not enough to stop an attack that powerful under Lester Tourville's command. The fact that they knew what we'd originally deployed may have inspired them to send a heavier force in the first place, but once they'd made that level of commitment, our original setup wouldn't have stopped them even if it had taken them completely by surprise."
"Maybe you're right." Brigham's concession was manifestly unwilling. "But even if you are, our losses would have been a lot lighter if we hadn't had to throw good money after bad by reinforcing."
"Mercedes," Honor said just a bit sternly, "we have an alliance. That implies mutual responsibilities and obligations-and I might remind you that High Ridge's idiotic failure to remember that has already cost us Erewhon. If we find our obligations under the treaty too onerous, then we should be happy to see Zanzibar withdraw from it. If we don't, then the Star Kingdom-and the Queen-have a direct, personal responsibility to discharge them. And that means reinforcing a threatened ally to the very best of our ability."
Brigham looked at her rebelliously for just a moment, then sighed.
"Point taken, Your Grace. It's just-" She broke off, shaking her head.
"I understand," Honor said. "But the Fleet's angry enough as it is. You and I have a special responsibility to avoid pumping any more hydrogen into that particular fire."
"Understood, Ma'am."
"Good. Having said that, however," Honor continued, "there are some members of the Government-and a few people at Admiralty House, for that matter-who think we should actually be encouraging Zanzibar, and possibly Alizon, as well, to declare nonbelligerent status."
"They what?" Brigham blinked. "After all the trouble we went to to build the Alliance in the first place?"
"The situation was a bit different then," Honor pointed out. "We were on our own against the Peeps, and we were looking for strategic depth. Zanzibar and Alizon have both been net contributors to the Alliance-or would have been, if the need to rebuild both of them after McQueen's Operation Icarus hadn't cost so much-but what we really wanted them for was forward bases when everyone was still thinking in terms of system-by-system advances."
She shrugged.
"Strategic thinking's changed, as our own ops-and Tourville's attack on Zanzibar-demonstrate. Both sides are thinking in terms of deep strikes now, operating deep into 'enemy territory,' and simple strategic depth, unless you've got one heck of a lot of it, is looking less and less important. Not only that, but with Zanzibar effectively knocked out of the war for at least eight T-months to a T-year, the system's become a defensive obligation which offers no return. And Alizon, which also got hammered by Icarus, really only offers us the capacity to build a few dozen battlecruisers or lighter units at a time.
"So the new school of thought argues that freeing ourselves of the defensive commitments to protect relatively minor star systems would actually allow us to concentrate more strength in Home Fleet and here in Eighth Fleet. At the same time, assuming the Republic's willing to accept their neutrality and leave them alone, it gets them out of the line of fire. And the important allies at this moment are Grayson and the Andermani. We can protect Grayson more strongly if we can recall the forces currently tied down by commitments like Alizon, and the Andermani are effectively secure against direct attack simply because of how far away they are."