David Weber - At All Costs

"My acceptance of your surrender," she told him, "is contingent upon the surrender of your ships-and their databases-in their present condition. Is that clearly understood, Admiral Tourville?"

He hovered on the brink of refusing, of declaring that he would scrub his databases, as was customary, before surrendering a ship. But then he looked into those icy eyes again, and the temptation vanished.

"It's... understood, Your Grace," he made himself say.

"Good. Decelerate to zero relative to the system primary. You'll be boarded by prize officers once you do. In the meantime," she smiled again, that same terrifying smile, "my ships will remain here, where we can... keep an eye on things."

"Your Grace," Andrea Jaruwalski said, as Honor turned away from her conversation with Lester Tourville.

"Yes, Andrea?"

Honor felt drained and empty. She supposed she should feel triumph. After all, she'd just destroyed almost seventy superdreadnoughts, and captured another seventy-five. That had to be an interstellar record, and for a bonus, her people had saved the Star Kingdom's capital system from invasion. But after so much carnage, so much destruction, how was a woman supposed to feel triumphant?

"Your Grace, we're getting IDs off Admiral Kuzak's surviving ships from the inner system recon platforms."

"Yes?" Honor felt herself tightening inside. The pitiful handful of icons where Third Fleet had been mocked her. If she'd been able to get her ships into position even a few minutes earlier, perhaps-

She forced that thought aside, and looked Andrea in the eye.

"Your Grace, most of our ships are gone," Jaruwalski said softly, "but I've got transponder codes on both Chimera and Intransigent."

Honor's heart spasmed, and the ice about her soul seemed to crack, ever so slightly. Nimitz stirred in her lap, sitting up once again, leaning back against her and reaching up to touch the side of her face with a long-fingered true-hand.

"I've been trying to contact them," Harper Brantley put in, drawing Honor's attention to him, and her eyes burned as she tasted his emotions. Like Jaruwalski, he wanted desperately to give her some sort of good news, to tell her someone she loved had survived. Something to balance at least some of the pain and the blood.

"I can't raise Chimera," Brantley continued. "It looks like she's actually in better general shape than Intransigent, but her grav com seems to be down. I've got Captain Thomas on the FTL, though."

"Put it on my screen," Honor said quickly, and turned to her com as it lit with the strained, exhausted face of Alistair McKeon's flag captain.

"Captain Thomas!" Honor said with a huge smile. "It's good to see you."

"And to see you, Your Grace," Thomas replied, and there was something just a bit odd about her voice.

"I've accepted the surrender of the remaining Havenite vessels," Honor continued. "Since you're so much closer to them than I am, it would make more sense to let Admiral McKeon or Admiral Truman handle the final details. Could I speak to Admiral McKeon, please?"

"I-" Thomas paused, then closed her eyes for just a moment, her weary face wrung with pain.

"Your Grace," she said softly, "I'm sorry. We took a direct hit on Flag Bridge. There were... no survivors."

It was very quiet in the nursery.

Her parents were downstairs, undoubtedly playing hearts with Hamish and Emily while they waited for her, and she didn't have much time. They were all due at Mount Royal Palace for a formal state dinner which was going to keep them out to all hours, and she'd come up to the nursery in uniform to save time changing later. In a lot of ways, she supposed, she really didn't have the time for this at all, but that was just too bad. The rest of the Star Kingdom-and the galaxy at large, for that matter-could just wait.

Lindsey Phillips had helped her get Raoul and Katherine changed and ready for bed while Emily supervised. Now she sat in her favorite chair-Raoul in her lap, Katherine asleep in the bassinet beside her-and adjusted the reading lamp, then looked at her sister and brother, curled like treecats on floor cushions in front of her.

"Are you ready?" she asked, and they nodded. "Where were we?"

"The pyre," Faith said, with a seven-year-old's assured, intimate familiarity with the story.

"Of course we were." She shook her head as she opened the book and began turning pages. "It's been so long, I'd forgotten where we'd gotten to."

Raoul began to fuss, with the quiet, stubborn, eyes-squeezed- shut intensity of a four-month-old. She reached out to his mind-glow, touching it gently, and smiled. He wasn't really unhappy, just... bored with a world which wasn't focused exclusively on him. "Bored" wasn't really exactly the right word, she thought, but a baby's emotions, though clear and strong, were still in a formative stage, and it was difficult-even for her-to parse them exactly.

She felt Nimitz, stretched out across the chair back, reaching for the baby with her. There was something just a little odd about Raoul's mind-glow. Most of the time, Honor was convinced it was her imagination, just a difference in the way babies' emotions worked. Other times, she was far less certain of that, and this was one of those times.

Nimitz touched the baby's mind-glow, and Raoul stopped fussing instantly. His eyes opened, and that sense of boredom vanished. Honor turned her head, looking at Nimitz, and the treecat's grass-green eyes gleamed at her from the semi-darkness beyond the reading lamp's cone. She felt him radiating gentle reassurance, and Raoul gurgled happily.

Honor smiled at her younger siblings, then laid the book down long enough to maneuver Raoul into a seated position, supported against her shoulder, and looked at Nimitz.

"Did you do that with me, too, Stinker?" she asked him quietly. "I know we started later, but did you?"

Nimitz gazed back at her, and she felt the thoughtfulness behind those green eyes. Then, unmistakably, he nodded.

"Oh, my," Honor murmured, then looked down into Raoul's wide-open eyes. The baby was intent, focused... listening, and she shook her head. "Sweet pea," she told him tenderly, "fasten your seat belt. It's going to be an interesting ride."

Nimitz bleeked in cheerful agreement, and she felt long, agile fingers tug at something on the back of her neck. Then Nimitz lifted the Star of Grayson over her head on its crimson ribbon and dangled it above Raoul.

The baby's attention sharpened. He couldn't tell exactly what the star was at this point, but the bright sparkles of light dancing on its golden-starburst beauty drew his eyes like a magnet, and he reached up with one tiny, delicate hand while Nimitz crooned to him.

Honor watched for a moment, trying to imagine how the more stodgy of Grayson's steadholders would have reacted to the thought of an "animal" using their planet's highest, most solemn award for valor as a toy to distract a baby. No doubt the heart attacks would have come fast and thick, and she smiled slightly at the thought.

Then she looked back at Faith and James, and her smile turned a bit apologetic.

"Sorry. But now that Nimitz is keeping Raoul occupied, we can be about it.

She opened the book again, found her place, and began to read.

"'Behold, my boy.' The Phoenix opened the boxes and spread the cinnamon sticks on the nest. Then it took the cans and sprinkled the cinnamon powder over the top and sides of the heap, until the whole nest was a brick-dust red.

"'There we are, my boy,' said the Phoenix sadly. 'The traditional cinnamon pyre of the Phoenix, celebrated in song and story.'

"And with the third mention of the word 'pyre,' David's legs went weak and something seemed to catch in his throat. He remembered now where he had heard that word before. It was in his book of explorers, and it meant-it meant-