David Weber - Honor Anth. 3 - The Service of the Sword

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The Service of the Sword:

Worlds of Honor #4

David Weber

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are

fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-3599-0

Cover art by David Mattingly

First printing, April 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The service of the Sword / [edited] by David Weber.

p. cm. — (Worlds of Honor ; #4)

"A Baen Books original"—T.p. verso.

Contents: Promised land / Jane Lindskold — With one stone / Timothy

Zahn — A ship called Francis / John Ringo & Victor Mitchell — Let's go

to Prague / John Ringo —Fanatic / Eric Flint — In the service of the

Sword / David Weber.

ISBN 0-7434-3599-0

1. Science fiction, American. 2. Harrington, Honor (Ficticious character)—

Fiction. I. Weber, David, 1952–

PS648.S3S385 2003

813'.0876608—dc21 2002043997

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

BAEN BOOKS by DAVID WEBER

Honor Harrington:

On Basilisk Station

The Honor of the Queen

The Short Victorious War

Field of Dishonor

Flag in Exile

Honor Among Enemies

In Enemy Hands

Echoes of Honor

Ashes of Victory

War of Honor

edited by David Weber:

More than Honor

Worlds of Honor

Changer of Worlds

The Service of the Sword

Empire From the Ashes (omnibus)

Mutineers' Moon

The Armageddon Inheritance

Heirs of Empire

Path of the Fury

The Apocalypse Troll

The Excalibur Alternative

Oath of Swords

The War God's Own

with Steve White:

Insurrection

Crusade

In Death Ground

The Shiva Option

with John Ringo:

March Upcountry

March to the Sea

March to the Stars

with Eric Flint:

1633

Promised Land

by Jane Lindskold

Judith had been very young when the raiders took the ship, young, but not too young to

remember. There had been explosions, the shrill scream of tearing metal, the insidious tugging of

air leaking from a ruptured compartment before someone slapped on a patch.

The battle had been muffled, somehow less than real, made distant by the swaddling vac suit

two sizes too big, but the best they'd had intact. It had been muffled, less than real, but that didn't

save the child.

Reality came through later, came through with a vengeance.

* * *

Despite everything he'd been through, all the time and energy he'd put into his training, into

getting marks that wouldn't shame his family, when it came time for his middy cruise, someone

had gotten cold feet. Michael Winton first heard the rumor that they were going to put him on a

system defense ship near Gryphon from his roommate, Todd Liatt.

Todd was one of those people who always heard things before anyone else. Michael had

teased Todd, that he, not Michael, was the one who should be specializing in communications.

"You wouldn't even need a com set, Toad-breath. Information seeps directly into your

nervous system. Think of the savings in time and resources that would be."

Todd had laughed, even played along with the joke, but there'd really never been a question

where he would concentrate. Tactics was the best specialization for those who hoped for a ship of

their own someday, and Todd wanted command.

"Hey," Todd said, mock serious, "I've got four older sisters and three older brothers. I've

taken other people's orders all my life. It's time I get a turn, right?"

But they'd both known Todd's desire was motivated by an overwhelming sense of

responsibility, a desire to make things right. Michael was certain that the white beret would fit

Todd as naturally as his skin.

And himself? Michael didn't want command. He hadn't even wanted a career in the Navy, not

at first, but now he was as devoted to the service as Todd was. He just knew he didn't want to

command a vessel. Michael would never say so to Todd, but he knew too much about the cost of

command to long for it.

Communications appealed to Michael: the rapid flow of information, the need to weigh and

measure, to sort and balance, were all as familiar to him as breathing. He'd been playing some

version of that game all his life.

He was good at it too. His memory was excellent. Pressure didn't fluster him. It seemed to

focus him, to make things clearer, contrast more acute. He felt sure that no one who'd gone

through a training sim with him had any doubt that he'd earned his standing on graduation.

Michael was proud of that class standing. It's very hard to be judged on your own merits

when you're so highly born that people are automatically going to figure you were being carried.

That's what made Todd's news almost more than he could take.

"You heard what?" Michael said to Todd, his voice taut with anger.

"I heard," Todd replied stiffly, unintimidated, "that you are going to be assigned to the Saint

Elmo for her Gryphon deployment. Apparently, your singular ability to process information came

to the attention of BuWeapons. They're working on some top secret sensor technology and they

want the best people they can get for the trial runs."

Michael's response was long, eloquent, and suggested that he'd hung around with Marines at

some time in his life. That was true. His sister was married to a former Marine, but Justin Zyrr

had never used language like that in Michael's hearing.

Todd listened, his expression mingling shock and grudging admiration.

"Two years," he said. "Two years I share a room with you, and never do I learn that you can

swear like that."

Michael didn't answer. He was too busy grabbing various items of clothing, obviously

preparatory to storming out of the room.

"Hey, Michael, where're you going?"

"To talk to someone about my posting."

"You can't! It isn't official yet."

"If I wait until it's official," Michael said, his voice tight, "then it's going to be too late.

Insubordination at least. Now I might be able to do something."

Todd was too smart to fight a losing engagement.

"Who're you going to talk to? Commander Shrake?"

"No. I'm going to screen Beth. If this is her idea, I need to know why. If it isn't her idea, I

need to know so someone can't try to convince me that it is. When I know that, then I'll try

Shrake."

"Forewarned is forearmed," Todd agreed.

Michael nodded. One thing his com training had taught him. Find a secure line if you want to

discuss a sensitive matter.

He guessed it was pretty sensitive when you were going to place a person to person call to the

Queen.

* * *

The ship that had captured theirs had been from Masada. Judith had been too young to

understand the difference between pirates and privateers. When she was old enough to know, she

was also old enough to know that when it came to Masadans preying on Graysons the distinctions

were so much fertilizer.

Her father had been killed helping to defend the ship. Her mother had died trying to defend

her child. Judith only wished she could have died with them.

At twelve standards Judith was married to a man over four times her age. Ephraim Templeton

had captained the Masadan privateer that had taken the Grayson vessel, and he claimed the girl

child as part of his prize. If this was somewhat irregular, there was no one left alive to protest

when Judith was not repatriated to her own people.

Even disregarding the difference in their ages—Ephraim had seen five and half decades by

standard reckoning—Judith and Ephraim were not at all alike. Where Ephraim was heavily built,

Judith possessed a light, gazelle's build. Her hair was dark brown, sun-kissed with reddish gold

highlights. His was fair, silver mixed in increasing proportion to the blond. The eyes Judith

learned to carry downcast lest Ephraim beat her for impudence were hazel, brown ringing vibrant

green. Ephraim's eyes were pale blue and as cold as ice.

At thirteen Judith had her first miscarriage. When she had her second miscarriage six months

later, the doctor suggested that her husband stop trying to impregnate her for a few years lest her

reproductive equipment suffer permanent damage. Ephraim did as the doctor suggested, though

that didn't mean he stopped exercising his conjugal privileges.

At sixteen Judith was pregnant again. When tests showed that the unborn child was a girl, her

husband ordered an abortion, saying he didn't want to waste the useless bitch he'd been feeding

all these years to no purpose, and what was more purposeless than breeding a girl child?

If before Judith had hated and feared Ephraim, now that emotion transformed into loathing so

deep she thought it a wonder that her gaze did not sear Ephraim to ash where he stood. Her sweat

should have been acid on his skin, her breath poison. That was how deeply she hated him.

Some women would have committed suicide. Some might have resorted to murder—which in

Masadan society was the same as suicide, though a bit more satisfactory in that the murderer

achieved something in return for her death. But Judith did neither.

She had a secret, a secret she held onto even as she bit her lip to keep from crying out when

her husband used her again and yet again. She held onto it even when she saw the grudging pity

in the eyes of her co-wives. She held onto it as she had from the moment she watched her mother

bleed her life out onto the deck plates, remembering that brave woman's final warning.

"Never let them know that you can read."

* * *

It hadn't been Elizabeth's idea to have him posted to a lumbering superdreadnought that

would never even leave the Star Kingdom's home binary system. Michael's relief when he

learned this was boundless. Even before their father's death, Beth had encouraged Michael to find

his own place, to push his limits. Distracted as she had been by the heavy responsibilities she

assumed after their father's tragic death, Beth still had made time for Michael, listening to the

problems he couldn't seem to discuss with their mother, the dowager Queen Angelique.

To have found that Beth had suddenly changed would have been a new orphaning, worse in

many ways, for on some level Michael expected it—indeed, knew he should strive for it, since it

was his place to support his Queen, not hers to support him.

Now that he knew that he would not be undermining his Queen's policy, Michael made an

appointment to see the Fourth Form dean. That he could almost certainly have demanded an

appointment with the commandant of the Academy and been granted it occurred to him, but the

option was as quickly rejected. The Navy could be—and was—officially unyielding where

matters of birth and privilege were concerned. That didn't mean strings weren't quietly pulled in

the background, but anyone who too blatantly abused his position could expect to pay a price

throughout the entire course of his career. Besides, it would have been self-defeating. The

appointment would have been granted to the Crown Prince, not to Midshipman Michael Winton,

and being seen as Crown Prince Michael rather than Midshipman Winton was precisely what

Michael was trying to avoid.

However, if his appointment with the dean came rather more promptly than even a fourth

form midshipman who stood in the top quarter of his class could usually hope for, Michael wasn't

fool enough to refuse it. He arrived promptly, sharp in his undress uniform, every button, and bit

of trim in as perfect order as he and Todd could make them.

Michael saluted crisply when admitted to his superior officer's presence. Indeed, though there

had been those who had expected the Crown Prince to indicate in fashions subtle or less so that in

the past these same officers had bent knee before him, Michael had never given them reason. He

knew, as those who were not close to the Crown never could, how human monarchs were, how

an accident could make an eighteen-year-old queen . . . could make a thirteen-year-old crown

prince.

Michael wondered how many of those officers who expected him to slight them realized how

greatly in awe of them he stood. They had earned their ranks, earned their awards and honors.

The long list of titles Michael heard recited on formal occasions had nothing to do with him,

everything to do with his father.

He thought that Commander Brenda Shrake, Lady Weatherfell, might actually realize how he

felt, for there was a warmth in her pale green eyes that spoke of understanding that in no way

could be confused with indulgence or laxity. The dean's title identified her to Michael as the

holder of a prosperous grant on Sphinx, but long ago Lady Weatherfell had decided that her

calling was in the Navy.

Even the battle that had left traces of scaring on rather stark features, that had bent and

twisted two fingers of her right hand, had not made her renounce her decision. Instead

Commander Shrake had moved with all the wisdom of her long years shipboard to the academy,

where, in addition to her administrative duties, she taught some of the toughest courses in fusion

engineering.

Commander Shrake was a leader within an academy responsible for turning out competent

naval officers on what anyone with any sense must realize was the eve of war. There was no

room for indulgence in her job, but there was room for compassion.

"You wished to see me, Mr. Winton?"

Michael nodded stiffly.

"Yes, Ma'am. It's about a rumor."

"A rumor?"

Suddenly Michael felt the speeches he had been rehearsing since Todd's revelation the day

before dry up and flake away. After a panicked moment, he forced himself to begin afresh and

was pleased to find words came smoothly.

"Yes, Ma'am. A rumor about Fourth Form postings."

Commander Shrake smiled. "Yes, those rumors would be starting about now. They always

do, no matter how carefully we keep the information to ourselves."

She didn't ask how Michael had heard and for that Michael was grateful. Getting Todd into

trouble was not on his agenda, but neither was lying to the Fourth Form dean.

"And whose posting is it you wish to speak about?" Commander Shrake continued.

"My own, Ma'am."

"Yes?"

"Commander Shrake, I have heard that I am to be posted to the SD Saint Elmo."

The dean didn't even make a show of consulting her computer. Michael respected her for it.

Doubtless the matter had been discussed, maybe even debated. Someone at Mount Royal Palace

might even have leaked back news of Michael's call to Beth last night.

"That matches my own information," Commander Shrake replied. "Is that what you wished to

know?"

"Yes, Ma'am, and no, Ma'am. I did wish to have the rumor confirmed, Ma'am, but I," Michael

took a deep breath and let the rest of his words hurry out on its eddy, "also wished to request

another posting, Ma'am. One that isn't so close to home."

"You have a desire to see more of the universe, Mr. Winton?" asked the dean with a

dangerous twinkle in her eyes.

"Yes, Ma'am," Michael replied, "but that isn't my reason for requesting a change of posting."

"And that reason is?"

"I want . . ."

Michael hesitated. He'd been over this so many times he'd lost count, and he still couldn't find

a way to state his case without sounding pompous.

"Ma'am, I want to be a naval officer, and I can't do that if people start protecting me."

Twin silver arches of raised eyebrows made Michael flush.

"It is not the Navy's habit to protect her officers, Mr. Winton," Commander Shrake said

coolly, and the scarred hand she rested on the desk in front of her was mute testimony to her

words. "Rather it is those officers' job to protect the rest of the kingdom."

"Yes, Ma'am," Michael said, pressing on through he felt he'd doomed his case. "That's why

keeping me back here isn't right. The Queen's brother . . ."

The damned words fell from his lips like bricks.

"The Queen's brother might have right to protection, but when I entered the academy I gave

that up. It shouldn't start again now that I'm about to leave."

Commander Shrake steepled her fingers thoughtfully.

"And that's what you think this posting is, Mr. Winton?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And if I told you that Admiral Hemphill herself had heard of your qualifications and

requested you?"

"I would be pleased, Ma'am, but that wouldn't stop others from thinking that I was being

protected."

"And it matters to you what others think?"

"I'd like to say that it didn't, Ma'am," Michael said earnestly, "but I'd be lying. I could live

with it if it was only me. I've done that before, but I don't like what it might make others think

about the Navy."

"Oh?"

"Yes, Ma'am. If the Queen's brother is given a posting where he's not subjected to as great a

risk of combat, then how long will it be before some other nobles start thinking that's their right,

too?"

Michael paused, not knowing if he'd overstepped himself, but the dean nodded for him to

continue.

"The Navy needs recruits, Ma'am," Michael continued, "from all elements of our society. I

don't like to think what will happen if the word gets around that certain people are too valuable

for dangerous postings—and that by implication other people are considered more disposable."

"Mr. Winton, surely you realize that this has always been the case. Frankly, certain people

are more valuable."

"Yes, Ma'am, but they are valuable because of what they know, because of what they have

learned, because of what they can contribute to the conduct of naval operations. They are not,"

Michael concluded, unable to keep a trace of bitterness from his voice, "considered more

valuable due to an accident of birth."

"I see," Commander Shrake said after an uncomfortably long pause. "I see, and I believe I

understand. What, then, are you requesting, Mr. Winton?"

"A more usual midshipman's posting, Ma'am," Michael said. "If the Navy truly believes I can

be of greatest service in an SD orbiting Gryphon then I will give that posting everything I have."

"But you would prefer, say, a battlecruiser heading out to deal with Silesian pirates."

"I believe that is more usual, Ma'am," Michael said.

"I see," the dean repeated. "Very well. You have made your case. I will consider it and

perhaps present the matter to the Commandant. Is there anything else, Mr. Winton?"

"No, Ma'am. Thank you for hearing me out, Commander."

"Listening is part of being a good commander," Shrake said, sounding rather like she had

returned to the lecture hall. "Then if you are finished, you are dismissed."

* * *

Grayson and Masada shared certain attitudes towards women, a factor that was not at all

surprising since the Masadans had originally been part of the Grayson colony. Both societies

refused women the vote and the right to own property. Both considered women inferior to men,

seeing as their main role supporting and upholding their homes and husbands. Both societies, to

be blunt, considered women property.

But property can be valued and valuable. The Graysons came to see their women as treasures.

Grayson men might refuse their women numerous rights and privileges, but in return they were

enjoined to love and protect them. The protection might be smothering and binding, but usually it

was not damaging.

The Masadans, after their separation from Grayson, grew to see women in a different light.

Since the Masadan attempt to gain control of Grayson society had been thwarted by a woman—

even as God's plan for Man had been thwarted by Eve—so women were perceived as the visible,

living embodiments of sin and suffering. Few actions were considered out of line when inflicted

on such creatures. Indeed, a woman might work her way toward redemption by accepting

whatever was done to her.

On Grayson a man did not mistreat a woman because she was precious. On Masada,

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摘要：

TheServiceoftheSword:WorldsofHonor#4DavidWeberThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©2003byDavidWeber."PromisedLand"©2003byJaneLindskold,"WithOneStone"©2003byTimothyZahn,"AShipNamedFrancis"©...

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