“Of course they are,” William replied, and it was Honor’s turn to snort bitterly.

It hadn’t surprised anyone when Janacek began his second tenure as First Lord of Admiralty by placing Hamish Alexander on inactive, half-pay status. The Earl of White Haven’s war record had been brilliant, but the combined reincarnation of Horatio Nelson, Togo Heimachoro, Raymond Spruance, Gustav Anderman, and Edward Saganami couldn’t have been brilliant enough to outweigh the bitter, personal animosity between himself and Sir Edward Janacek.

That much, at least, had been expected, however petty and vindictive it might have been. But Honor suspected that the rest of the Navy had been as surprised and dismayed as she had when Janacek decided Sir Thomas Caparelli and Patricia Givens also “deserved a rest.”

Actually, she reflected, Caparelli might truly have needed the break, after the massive strain of acting as the Star Kingdom’s senior uniformed commander for over a decade. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the real reason for his relief. She’d come to know the former First Space Lord fairly well following her return from Cerberus, and one thing Thomas Caparelli would never be was any political appointee’s yes-man. His integrity would never have permitted him to assist in Janacek’s downsizing of the Navy when the Government had simultaneously declined to bring the war against the Peeps to a true conclusion. And so, like White Haven, although for different reasons, he’d had to go.

Admiral Givens had gone for largely the same reasons as Caparelli, despite her phenomenally successful record as Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Her loyalty to and close working relationship with Caparelli would probably have required her dismissal in Janacek’s eyes as part of his “clean broom” theory of personnel management under any circumstances. There were also rumors about fundamental disagreements between her and Janacek over his plans to restructure the Navy’s intelligence priorities, but her greatest sin had been her refusal to slant her analyses at ONI to say what her civilian superiors wanted them to say. So, she too, had found herself on half-pay as her reward for helping to preserve the Star Kingdom.

One thing of which no one would ever be able to accuse her replacement was excessive independence. Admiral Francis Jurgensen had become something of an anachronism in the war-fighting Royal Navy: a flag officer who owed his exalted rank far more to political patronage than to any personal ability. Such officers had been depressingly common before the war, although they’d been weeded out ruthlessly since, usually by Caparelli, but far too often (and painfully) by enemy action. Unfortunately, they were making a comeback under the Admiralty’s new management. However disgusting she might find that, Honor supposed it was inevitable. After all, Sir Edward Janacek had been exactly that sort of officer throughout his own career.

What mattered in Jurgensen’s case, however, was that he understood precisely what Janacek and his political superiors wanted to hear. Honor wasn’t prepared to accuse him of actually falsifying evidence, although she was far from certain he would refuse to do so. But it was widely known within the Service, and especially within the Intelligence community, that Jurgensen had a long history of interpreting evidence to suit his superiors’ requirements.