“I’m pretty sure he does,” Honor said, “but…Lord! I don’t know if the galaxy’s ready to have both of them working together permanently, Elizabeth!”

  “With treecats thrown into the mix, too,” Elizabeth said with a louder chuckle. “Don’t forget that!”

  Honor shook her head, and Elizabeth grinned at her.

  “Anyway, what we’re hoping is that our research establishments will cross-fertilize and we can create a commonality of weapons clear across the board. And, of course, strategic and tactical doctrine to go with it. I expect that’ll require at least as much work as the hardware side.”

  Honor nodded yet again, and Elizabeth shrugged.

  “One thing we’re planning on is to operate permanently integrated Manticoran and Havenite formations in areas which are clearly of vital interest to us both. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to cycle up and coming commanders through those sorts of slots. And we’re also thinking about modifying our academies’ curricula so that our midshipmen and their officer cadets each spend one full year in the other’s academy.”

  Honor’s eyes widened with respect for that notion, but then she frowned.

  “All that sounds wonderful, Elizabeth. And I’m pretty sure our current crop of senior officers could make it work, at least at the macro level. Mike and Lester, for example, or L’anglais and Alice. But it’s going to tend to fly apart at what I think of as the micro-level. The training level, the level where logistics officers and yard dogs get to stick their oars in. Or the level where people who feel their unspeakable talents were underrecognized when someone like that hack Tourville got the choice assignment and all the glory can do their best to pour sand into the gears. That’s one of the things I worry about on the political side, but that’s not my real forte. The military side, though—” She shook her head. “Tom can probably handle it from his side, at least as long as Eloise is in office, but we’ve got plenty of arrogant, chauvinistic Manticorans who’ll require a little…attitude adjustment from time to time while all this is getting set up. Once it’s up and running, maybe not, but in the early stages—?”

  She rolled her eyes. Then she stopped, and those eyes narrowed as she tasted Elizabeth’s mind-glow.

  “Oh, no!” she said sharply. “Don’t even think about it, Elizabeth!”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up,” the empress said, “but since you have, there’s really only—”

  “I said no, and I meant no,” Honor said flatly. “I’m done, Elizabeth. I told you that.”

  “I know you did,” Elizabeth said in a softer voice.

  “Well I damned well meant it,” Honor said. She tucked her right arm around Katherine and reached out her left to take Hamish’s hand. “I’ve been on active duty since the day I graduated from Saganami Island, and since Basilisk, I’ve been on active operations without any real break—aside from the time I spent on medical leave or hauled off to Cerberus! Oh, and I’ll give you the time I spent on the beach after the duel or during the High Ridge fiasco, although I wouldn’t exactly call either of those ‘restful.’ But that’s forty-three T-years, Elizabeth. Forty-three. And I have a family, and I’m going to spend time with that family.”

  Her eyes burned, her hand tightened on Hamish’s, and she realized her lips wanted to quiver. She blinked back tears and looked quickly at him, tasting his support, feeling his love, then turned back to Elizabeth.

  “I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” she said softly. “I know how badly you think you need me. I can taste it. But I’ve given everything I’ve got. I’m…tired. And Hamish and I went to Briarwood last week for Dr. Illescue to implant the zygote—Emily’s zygote. The day I told her about Beowulf, the day she died, that was the day it was fertilized.”

  She shook her head fiercely.

  “And I know now, Mom,” she said, turning to her mother, “why you said I’d understand why you carried me to term when it was my turn. I didn’t have that with Raoul, but I’ll have it with this child. With Emily’s child. And when this child is born, my children—and hers—will have a mother.”

  She turned back to Elizabeth.

  “So, I’m sorry Elizabeth,” she repeated, her eyes misty, “but there are some things in this universe that are more important. And I am finally going to give them—give the people I love—the time they deserve. Emily taught me that, and I’m going to do it.”

  There was silence for a long moment, and then Elizabeth Winton reached out and laid one gentle hand on Honor Alexander-Harrington’s knee.

  “Of course you are,” she said softly.

  “Your Majesty,” Prime Minister Grantville said with unaccustomed formality some hours later, “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t go there, Willie,” Elizabeth said with an off-center smile.

  Honor and Hamish and their entire family—two-legs and treecats alike—had departed twenty minutes ago, after a private dinner with the royal family. There weren’t that many people Elizabeth Winton could invite over for dinner without its turning into a state occasion or a political horse-trading session, and she deeply treasured the people with whom she could do that.

  She didn’t need Honor’s ability to taste other people’s emotions to know Grantville had simply been biding his time, though. Now she faced him squarely, and he gave her one of those stubborn Alexander looks.

  “Your Majesty, I understand what she’s saying. And God knows I love her. For that matter, there’s nobody in the Star Empire who has a better understanding of how much she’s already given. How much she’s already sacrificed. But we need her. We need her as the First Space Lord everyone would respect. Not even the most chauvinistic Havenite officer in the universe would dare to…to disrespect her. And I can’t even imagine a Manticoran officer with the testosterone level to argue with her. We have to make this military partnership work, and without her—”

  “First, Willie,” Elizabeth interrupted firmly, “nobody is truly irreplaceable. Do I agree with you that she would be the absolutely ideal First Space Lord? Of course I do! The only slot she’d be more valuable in would be First Lord, but I sort of think we’ll be leaving Hamish in that one for a while. So, yes. I would really, really like to see First Space Lord Harrington working with First Lord White Haven and Secretary of War Theisman and CNO L’anglais or Tourville to make this work. You cannot imagine how much I would like to see that.

  “But, second, she’s absolutely right about how much she’s already given. How much her service to the Star Kingdom and the Star Empire’s already cost her. I don’t think I could even count the number of times she’s almost been killed, and the list of people she cared about who have been killed would be enough to give me nightmares if I knew all the names on it. She’s lost virtually all of her family on Sphinx, God only knows how many cousins she lost in the Beowulf Strike, and now she’s lost Emily. And I owe her. I owe her—me, personally, Elizabeth Winton, not just Queen Elizabeth or Empress Elizabeth. That woman has put herself through hell for me over and over again, and so this time, Willie—this time—I have her back for a change. I don’t really give a damn how badly we think we need her. You leave her be. That’s a direct royal command. And you make sure everyone else leaves her be, because I will be the worst nightmare of anyone who doesn’t. And, just to be sure we’re perfectly clear about this, that means you, too. And I don’t care if you are her brother-in-law. Do you read me on this?”

  Grantville looked at her for a moment, but then he sighed.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I just…I just can’t not want to see her where we need her so badly.”

  “That’s because you’re a prime minister,” she told him with a crooked smile. “Now, go home—both of you,” she reached out to give Tree Master a quick ear rub where he sat on Grantville’s shoulder, “and get a good night’s rest. Because tomorrow, while she and Hamish are out at White Haven packing for Grayson, you and I are going to be thinking about who we’ll grab for First Space Lord since we can’t have her. Got it?”

  “Got it, Your Majesty,” he said ruefully and gave the prince consort a slight bow. “Good night, Your Highness,” he said. “And to you, as well, Your Majesty.”

  “Good night, Willie,” Elizabeth said affectionately, and walked him to the door.

  It closed behind him, and Elizabeth tucked her arm through Justin’s elbow and led him out onto one of King Michael’s Tower’s balconies. They settled on a chaise lounge, and she leaned back, resting her head on his chest with a sigh of deep content as Ariel and Monroe draped themselves on perches.

  “I’ve got to say, Beth,” Justin said. “I really didn’t expect you to give up that easily. I mean, I agree with everything you just said, but I really, really didn’t expect you to let her go without more of a fight.”

  “Really?” She rolled her head, smiling at him in the moonlight. “What makes you think I gave up on anything?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he frowned down at her.

  “But you just said—”

  “I said she was right, and I said she deserves to be left in peace, and I said I’d protect her from everyone else.” Elizabeth’s smile softened and something like sorrow floated in her eyes. “And I will. And it won’t matter. Not in the end.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Why won’t it matter?”

  “Because I’ll need her,” Elizabeth said, almost inaudibly. “I’ll need her, and when I do, I’ll get her back.”

  “Elizabeth, you’re a queen, an empress,” he said gently, hugging her tight. “I know you care about her. But it’s your job—your duty—to put the people you have to have in the places where you have to have them, whatever it costs them. Whatever it costs you.”

  “Of course it is.” She looked up at him again. “But I’m not the one who’s going to make her come back, make her put herself on the line again.”

  He frowned in confusion, and Elizabeth reached up to touch the side of his face.

  “I can—and I by God will—protect her from everyone in the damned galaxy,” she said fiercely. “But there’s one person I can’t protect her from.” Elizabeth shook her head, her dark eyes glistening with unshed tears. “That’s the hell of it, Justin. I can’t protect her from herself. I’ll need her, and she’ll know it, and that will be all it takes. All in the world. Not because I try to force her into it, but because of who she is.”

  She arched her neck, raising her head to kiss him, and then settled back once again, her eyes closed.

  “Because she’s Honor Harrington,” the Empress of Manticore said softly. “Because she’s Honor Harrington.”

  AFTERWORD

  It’s been twenty-five years since I first sent a very young Commander Harrington and HMS Fearless off to Basilisk Station. I didn’t expect her journey to last for a quarter century when she and I first set out, but it’s been a fantastic voyage from my perspective.

  Way back in 1991, Jim Baen suggested that since every book I wrote seemed to spawn sequels, perhaps it would be a good idea to actually plan a series for a change, so I came up with ten proposals for possible series. One of them was Honor Harrington. Little did I know when I suggested that possibility that Jim had been looking for someone to write “Hornblower in space” for a long time. I’d already decided that if the series worked, the inevitable comparison was going to be to Forrester’s Hornblower novels, which was why Honor had the initials I’d given her, but I really wasn’t prepared for how enthusiastically Jim jumped on the proposal.

  I wrote the first two novels—Basilisk Station and Honor of the Queen—back-to-back, and Jim released them about a month apart, which I think played a significant role in the series’ early success. But I don’t think that was the only reason it succeeded. I think it succeeded because Honor Harrington as a character speaks directly to her readers. She possesses qualities which I—and, I suspect, the majority of my readers—wish we and, especially, our leaders possessed. The greatest of those, of course, is that Honor Harrington takes responsibility. She takes responsibility for her own actions, yes, but it goes farther than that, because she assumes the responsibility of fixing other people’s problems, not because anyone else would have expected or demanded that she fix them. She fixes them because that’s what responsible adults do.

  You can see that in her from her earliest iteration in Basilisk Station, when a young, tactically brilliant, unwittingly charismatic, and politically naïve and inexperienced naval officer finds herself pitchforked into a political and moral minefield with which virtually every officer before her has resolutely declined to deal. It’s what follows her throughout her career, and I would argue that it’s what generates such unbreakable loyalty in both the people she commands and the readers who have followed her through the last twenty-five years.

  This book actually represents the culmination of two separate story arcs. I’ve explained elsewhere how the timing of the Mesan Alignment got pulled forward as the consequence of a couple of collaborative works with Eric Flint. That meant the originally planned ending for the story arc beginning at Basilisk had to be modified, because that story arc was supposed to end with Honor’s death in action against Lester Tourville’s fleet at the Battle of Manticore. Her death, and her dying message to Queen Elizabeth, “For God’s sake, let it end here,” was supposed to bring the war with Haven to a conclusion and cap that storyline. The next major story arc was supposed to begin twenty-five or thirty years later, when the Mesan Alignment intruded into the light and Honor’s children carried the torch forward while the junior officers introduced in Shadow of Saganami provided the ship commanders under whom they and their friends served.

  I can’t pretend I’m sorry Honor didn’t die, because the character became even more important to me than I anticipated she might, and her death, however fitting and purposeful it might have been, wouldn’t simply have grieved her fans; it would have grieved me, as well. It did create some significant logistical problems, however, including the fact that the Solarian League was supposed to have had another couple of decades to “get a clue” where its technological inferiority was concerned, but I’m actually very satisfied with how the combined story arcs have ended in Uncompromising Honor. Although, of course, as anyone who’s been reading the books undoubtedly understands, there is still plenty of skullduggery to come where the Alignment is concerned. In fact—

  But that would be telling, wouldn’t it?

  If any single poem sums up Honor Harrington’s entire life, it would undoubtedly be Rudyard Kipling’s “If.” She’s grown from that earnest, determined, focused, apolitical professional officer—the daughter of a yeoman, who didn’t have a clue how politics worked…and even less desire to find out how politics worked—into a great noblewoman. Into a head of state in her own right on Grayson, a duchess in Manticore, commander of the Grand Alliance’s primary striking force, one of her star nation’s leading strategists, and the confidante, advisor, and personal friend of monarchs, presidents, and protectors. She’s acquired the poise and the confidence to face the responsibilities that go with who she’s become as fearlessly as she ever faced a salvo of incoming missiles, and she’s still willing to make the right choice—the hard choice—regardless of the personal cost to her. She has, indeed, met with Triumph and Disaster and treated those two imposters just the same, just as she’s “filled the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.”

  I’m satisfied with where she is, with who she is, and who she intends to be going forward. She didn’t die on her “quarterdeck,” as I’d originally intended, but like Horatio Nelson, she can say “Thank God I have done my duty.” And so, at the end of this book, I’ve sent her off to the honorable retirement my original plan for the series had denied her, and I’m glad it’s so. She deserves it.

  Of course, people are already asking me if there will be additional “Honor” novels. I may be willing to see her in peaceful retirement; quite a few of her readers aren’t. I make no promises, but I very, very much doubt we’ve seen the last of Honor. I know we haven’t seen the last of the Honorverse, although I’m now at a point which lets me explore some other portions of it that I’ve wanted to explore for a long time. And in the course of those future explorations, I’m sure Lady Dame Honor Alexander-Harrington, Duchess and Steadholder Harrington, will return to the stage. I doubt the Salamander will find herself in the heart of the furnace again; she’s too senior for ship command—even for fleet command, in many ways—but, then again, she’s also grown beyond a simple ship commander, a simple fleet CO. And whatever I may want for her in terms of “peaceful retirement,” it does seem unlikely she’ll be able to stay there forever.

  As Empress Elizabeth says, the time is bound to come when her monarch, her star nation, her duty needs her once again. And if that time comes, she’ll answer the call of responsibility the way she always has because, in the end, however she may have changed in the course of her journey from Basilisk to Operation Nemesis, at the core of her, she is still who she always was.

  She’s still Honor Harrington.

 

 

  David Weber, Uncompromising Honor

 

 

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