Not all of them saw it that way, of course. Some had been delighted at being granted even a slim chance to escape Hell and strike back at the New Order and all its minions. A surprisingly large majority of Delta Forty’s inmates, however, had wanted no part of the escape effort. In some cases, that was because they expected the attempt to fail and preferred to survive, but most of them remained genuinely loyal to the Republic (if not necessarily to the Committee of Public Safety) despite all that had happened to them. By refusing to cooperate with Honor’s efforts, they demonstrated that loyalty with the clear hope that if and when the PRH retook Hell, they would be given a chance for rehabilitation among their own people, not foreigners.

McKeon could respect that… but he respected Longmont more. The Peep admiral (actually, she still insisted on being addressed as “Citizen Admiral Longmont”) found her own loyalties badly torn. In the end, McKeon suspected, she would be one of the ones who threw in with Admiral Parnell and went into exile in the Solarian League. But unlike Parnell, who had declined any role in the trials for much the same reasons as Ramirez and Benson, Longmont had chosen to serve, and she had made no bones about her reasons.

“What’s happened here on Hades have been atrocities, and the guilty parties must be punished,” she’d told Honor frankly, brown eyes bleak in a face of stone, when she accepted a position on the court. “But that doesn’t mean you and your people have carte blanche to convict and hang everyone who comes before your tribunal, Admiral Harrington. I will serve on your court, but on only one condition: any guilty vote on a capital offense must be sustained by a unanimous vote, not a simple majority.”

“But that’s—” Jesus Ramirez had begun, only to close his mouth with a click as Honor raised her hand without ever looking away from Longmont’s granite expression.

“I agree that it has to be a court, not a source of hunting licenses,” she’d said quietly, “but I’m not prepared to give you a license to hang any verdict that comes along, either, Citizen Admiral.”

“Nor would I ask you to,” Longmont had replied. “I will give you my word—under a lie detector, if you wish—that I will vote in accordance with my honest understanding and interpretation of any evidence presented to me. If I believe a death sentence is merited under our own Uniform Code of Conduct and the Field Regulations, I will vote to impose it. But I won’t lie to you, Lady Harrington. I am willing to accept this role only because I believe that it is also my responsibility and duty to be the voice of doubt, the one who speaks for the accused at least until your prosecutors and the evidence absolutely convince me of their guilt.”

McKeon hadn’t known how Honor would respond to that. He’d sat beside her at the conference table, trying to ignore the silently fuming Rear Admiral Styles at the table’s foot, and watched the composed expression on the living side of her face while she considered what Longmont had said. She’d scooped Nimitz up in the crook of her arm, holding him to her chest while she gazed at the Peep officer, and McKeon had been able almost to feel the intensity of her regard. And then, to the amazement of every other person in the conference room, she’d nodded.