Title: Beowulf's Honor, Manticore's Shame - Fearless bound to Silesia
Fandom: Honor Harrington Series - David Weber
Rating: PG
Length: ~ 350 words
Characters: Michelle Henke
Content notes: Part of an AU tentatively titled Beowulf's Honor, Manticore's Shame. This pair of drabbles currently bracket this section. Basic premise of the AU is that Honor was court-martialled for an incident prior to the first novel in the series (there's a prequel short story called "Let's Dance" where she allies herself with a group considered terrorists by most of the galaxy to liberate a lot of slaves. In the short story, several high powered people burn a lot of favours to keep her in the Navy. In this AU, they couldn't for various reasons. Honor's mother is from a very high ranking family on Beowulf, and they do approve of what she did, so they offer her refuge - and something to do).
Summary: Communicating with Honor is a bit risky for Mike these days.

Mike sits and stares and the image on the screen, and can barely stop herself reaching out to touch it. Instead she balls up the archaic parchment she was writing out her resignation letter on.

She'll stay because Honor asked her to - because despite the way they treated her, Honor's a better woman and doesn't want Manticore to fall. Mike's ashamed of her peers and some of them, like Lord Pavel Young make her ashamed to wear the uniform of her cousin's Navy. For the moment Mike can't afford to remind certain factions in her cousin's Navy that she's ever been Honor's friend and replying to this message will do just that.

The next time she gets a message from Honor, it's delivered by an admiral's tree cat and her best friend is wearing a maroon and grey uniform (that of Beowulf's System Defence Force) and the nameplate on her uniform says Chou-Harrington the broad stripes of a senior-grade Captain decorate her sleeve, but the bridge of the ship she's on is barely bigger than that of most dispatch boats (Mike hadn't known the BSDF had frigates).

"Mike, rumour says that you're about to take HMS Fearless into the Confederacy. There's a few people you might find it useful to speak to while you're there - ids, planets etc on the chip - you know the encrypt key I'm using, I'm sure. And try to avoid shooting up any frigates you see you - we've got a few running round your AoR." Nimitz raises his head from Honor's lap, and waves a paw at the camera. "We may run into each other while you're there; if we do, I owe you a drink and a story, but I'm afraid my state room isn't very big these days."

Mike barely avoids touching the screen again. She has hope.