“Well, I can’t say I’m going to miss Trevor’s Star, Ma’am. It’s a perfectly nice star system, and the San Martinos are perfectly nice people, but there’s not a whole lot to do there except drill. And I hope you know without my saying it how pleased and flattered I am by the assignment. It’s really good to see you again, and having you fly your lights aboard Werewolf—Well, that’s something the entire ship’s company was delighted to hear about.”

“I’m glad… assuming you’re not just buttering the Admiral up, of course,” Honor told him with a grin, and he chuckled as he shook his head in denial of the charge. “Seriously,” she went on, allowing her grin to fade, “I was really impressed by how well you and your ship performed in Operation Buttercup, Rafe. You did darned well, and your experience will stand us in good stead if it falls into the toilet in Silesia.”

“How likely is that to happen?” her new flag captain asked. His expression was much more sober, and he sat forward in his chair, elbows on thighs and clasping his stein in both hands while he watched her face with sharp, dark eyes.

“I wish I could tell you for certain,” Honor sighed. “ONI is supposed to be sending us complete copies of its analysis of Andy ship movements in and around Marsh. Our information on those should be pretty good for the immediate neighborhood, but from what I’ve seen so far, its reliability is going to fall off pretty steeply outside that area.”

She paused and gazed at Cardones thoughtfully. She’d already decided not to discuss her confrontation with Draskovic with him, for several reasons. First, of course, it was her fight, and not his. Second, while she rather doubted even Draskovic would attempt to retaliate by wrecking the careers of the junior officers whose services Honor had requested, she couldn’t be certain of that. And she could be certain that if Rafe upped the ante by choosing sides in his seniors’ quarrel the consequences for his career would be catastrophic, at least in the short term. In the longer term, he would probably survive whatever happened, because eventually, Janacek was bound to lose his position at the Admiralty. When that happened, his successor’s first priority was probably going to be the rehabilitation of the officers Janacek’s administration had purged. But rehabilitation after the fact wouldn’t make the sort of vengefulness in which someone like Draskovic would indulge any more enjoyable at the time, and she knew her Rafe Cardones. He gave his loyalty the same way he did everything else—with conviction, enthusiasm, and a hundred and ten-percent effort. Worse, he had a passion (carefully hidden, he fondly imagined) for dragon-slaying, which only reinforced her decision not to tell him everything. She didn’t need anyone else to fight her battles for her, but if she wanted Rafe safely out of the line of fire, the only way to keep him there was never to tell him a battle was being fought.