Honor didn’t mind. She looked down at the ribbon of the Manticore Cross, the Kingdom’s second highest award for valor, gleaming blood-red against her space-black tunic. She had that to signify the Navy’s and her Queen’s opinion of her, just as she had her new ship, and she’d made list at last. Her feet were firmly on the ladder to flag rank, and no one—not Pavel Young, not the Republic of Haven, and not Countess New Kiev or Sir Edward Janacek—could ever knock her off it again.

She sighed and raised a hand, pressing it to the plastic as if to bid Fearless farewell, then turned to leave, only to pause as someone called her name.

“Captain Harrington?”

She turned back to see a portly commodore puffing his way along the gallery towards her. She’d never seen him before, but he came to a halt before her and beamed, almost as if he intended to throw his arms about her.

“Yes, Sir?” she replied in a puzzled voice.

“Oh, excuse me. You wouldn’t know. I’m Andrew Yerensky.” He held out his hand, and Honor took it.

“Commodore Yerensky,” she said, still wondering why he’d obviously sought her out.

“I wanted to talk to you about your action in Basilisk, Captain,” Yerensky explained. “You see, I’m on the Weapons Development Board down at BuShips.”

“Oh.” Honor nodded. Now she understood; it was about time somebody finally took official notice of the stupidity of Fearless’s armament alterations.

“Yes, indeed,” Yerensky beamed. “I’ve read your combat report. Brilliant, Captain! Simply brilliant the way you sucked Sirius in and took her out! In fact, I’m hoping that you’d be willing to address a formal meeting of the board about your action and tactics next week. Admiral Hemphill’s our chairman, you know, and she’s placed consideration of the demonstrated effectiveness of the grav lance/energy torpedo weapons mix on the agenda.”

Honor blinked. Admiral Hemphill? He couldn’t possibly mean—!

“We were delighted by the outcome of your action, Captain,” Yerensky burbled on. “It was a brilliant vindication of the new armament concept! Just think—your old, undersized little cruiser took on and defeated an eight-million-ton Q-ship with the armament of a battlecruiser! Why, when I think how impossible that would have been with one of the old, traditionally-armed cruisers, I can hardly—”

Honor stared at him in disbelief as he babbled on and on about “new thinking” and “proper weapon systems for modern warships” and “gave you the edge you really needed, didn’t they?”—and something hot and primitive boiled deep within her. Her eyes hardened, and Nimitz hunkered down on her shoulder and bared his fangs while her fingers twitched with the physical urge to throttle the pompous twit. His “new thinking” had gotten over half her crew killed or wounded by forcing her to close straight up Sirius’s wake, and it wasn’t “proper weapons” which had saved what was left of Fearless—it had been Honor’s people, their guts and blood and pain, and the definite partiality of Almighty God!