David Weber: Ashes of Victory

He knelt before the foot, unable to comprehend what was happening, and more feet crunched through the wreckage of his office door. Smoke was blowing in from the outer office, and he heard distant shouts and screams, all overlaid by the unmistakable sounds of small arms and heavy weapons fire, but the sound of those feet seemed to flow straight into his brain with a perfect, crystal clarity that didn't even need his ears. There were more sets of the feet this time: three more in battle armor, and one in regulation Navy boots.

An exoskeleton whined, and a battle-armored hand twisted itself in Saint-Just's collar. It picked him up effortlessly and set him on his feet, roughly but without brutality, and he wiped blood from his face and blinked, trying to clear his vision. It took several seconds, but he managed finally, and his mouth tightened as he looked into Thomas Theisman's eyes.

The Citizen Admiral was flanked by four towering sets of the People's Marines' battle armor, and Saint-Just's eyes narrowed as he saw the pulser in Theisman's hand. It was the same weapon the Citizen Chairman had dropped, and his fingers curled, as if trying to close around the butt of the gun he no longer held.

"Citizen Chairman," Theisman said levelly, and Saint-Just bared his teeth in a gore-streaked grimace.

"Citizen Admiral," he got out in return.

"You made two mistakes," Theisman said. "Well, three actually. The first was choosing me to command Capital Fleet and not assigning a different commissioner to keep an eye on me. The second was failing to have Admiral Graveson's data base completely vacuumed. It took me a while to find the file she'd hidden there. I don't know what happened when McQueen made her move. Maybe Graveson panicked and was afraid to move when McQueen didn't get you along with Pierre in her initial sweep. But whatever happened, the file she left behind told me who to contact in Capital Fleet when I decided to pick up where McQueen left off."

He paused, and Saint-Just stared at him for a heartbeat, then tossed his head.

"You said three mistakes," he said. "What was the third?"

"Ending hostilities and ordering Giscard and Tourville home," Theisman said flatly. "I don't know what's happened at Lovat, but I know Tourville and Giscard. I imagine they're both dead by now, but I doubt very much that either of them just rolled over and played dead for your SS goons, and I imagine you've suffered a few losses of your own. But more importantly, by issuing those orders, you warned every regular officer that the purges were about to begin all over again... and this time, we're not standing for it, Citizen Chairman."

"So you're replacing me, are you?" Saint-Just barked a laugh. "Are you really crazy enough you actually want this job?"

"I don't want it, and I'll do my best to avoid it. But the important thing is that the decent men and women of the Republic can't let someone like you have it any longer."

"So now what?" Saint-Just demanded. "A big show trial before the execution? Proof of my 'crimes' for the Proles and the newsies?"

"No," the citizen admiral said softly. "I think we've had enough of those sorts of trials."

His hand rose with Saint-Just's pulser, and the Citizen Chairman's eyes widened as the muzzle aligned with his forehead at a meter's range.

"Good-bye, Citizen Chairman."

One of the problems with creating background for a series as long as this one is the difficulty in maintaining continuity and internal consistency. I know of a few places where I've failed in that regard (most of them, fortunately, minor), and I feel quite certain that there are those among Honor Harrington's readers who could point out several more instances to me.

In the course of writing this novel, unfortunately, I discovered yet another, all on my own.

In the background notes, which were published as part of the appendix in More Than Honor , page 331, it is specifically stated that the Prime Minister of Manticore must command a majority in the House of Commons . This is inaccurate. When I first created the Star Kingdom's political structure, I had envisioned the framers of its Constitution as kinder, gentler, more enlightened souls than they turned out to be once I got into actually writing them. In fact, they were much more interested in maintaining their monopoly on political power than I had initially envisioned, and I decided that they would have deliberately written the Constitution to give themselves and their descendants (i.e., the House of Lords ) control of the premiership. I had changed the relevant section in my tech bible for the series by the time I wrote Flag in Exile , but somehow an earlier version of the tech bible got sent to Baen for the More Than Honor appendix... and I never noticed it when I proofed the galleys.

So those of you who thought to yourselves, "Hey! This is wrong !" when Elizabeth was forced to accept a governent formed by the Opposition deserve a pat on the back for catching the inconsistency between what happened in the book and what had previously been published.

Or, as Shannon Foraker might have said:

"Oops!"

Shrike LAC(1) Point Defense Laser Cluster(2) GRASER main armament(3) Anti-ship Missile Tube(4) Anti-ship Missile "Revolver" Magazine Cell(5) Point Defense Missile Tube(6) Small Craft Hangar(7) Folding Wing Cutter/Lifeboat(8) Anti-ship Missile(9) Sidewall ("Bow Wall") Generator

Engineering Details(1) Point Defense Laser Cluster Emitters(2) Standard Beta Node(3) New "Beta-Squared" Beta Node(4) Alpha Node(5) Graser Broadside Armament

HMS Minotaur(1) Shrike LAC (shown for scale)(2) Gravitic Detection Array(3) Weapon Ports(4) Missile Tubes(5) Phased Radar Array(6) Lidar Array(7) Life Pod Escape Hatches(8) Life Pod Escape Tubes(9) LAC Bay Hatch(10) LAC Bay(11) Personnel/MissileLoading Tubes(12) Docking/Umbilical Cradle(12A) Docking Arms(13) Life Pod(14) Isler Corporation GRAVMAK (Gravity-Magnitnaya)Fusion Reactor Burning Hydrogen/Boron-11 Mix15) Hydrogen/Boron Feed Channels(16) Gravity Generators(17) Magnetic Field Housing(18) Boat Bay(19) Radiation/Particle Shield Generator(20) Sidewall Generator(21) Vectored Thrust Auxiliary Fusion Reactor Thruster(22) After Impeller Ring(23) Broadside Phased Array Radar(24) Broadside Gravitic Array