you've deduced the reason for this meeting?'
'Yes, Milady, I'm afraid we have.' Caparelli towered over Morncreek, even seated, but there was no question who was in charge. 'At least, I believe we have.'
'I expected you would.' Morncreek crossed her legs and leaned back, then looked at Cortez. 'Has the court's board been selected yet, Sir Lucien?'
'It has, Milady,' Cortez said flatly.
Morncreek waited, but the admiral said nothing more. Officially, no one outside his own Bureau of Personnel, which included the Judge Advocate General's Corps, was supposed to know who would sit in judgment on Pavel Young until the court actually convened. For that matter, no one was even supposed to know a court had been recommended. The fact that they did know, that information Cortez was sworn to keep privileged had become common knowledge among those 'in the know,' infuriated not just the admiral but most of the rest of the Navy. Cortez had no intention of feeding any more leaks, and since recent events had proved no secret was leak proof, his sole defense was a stubborn refusal to divulge information to anyone without a clear need to know it.
Morncreek knew exactly what the Fifth Space Lord was thinking, and why, but her mouth tightened and her dark eyes hardened.
'I'm not asking out of morbid curiosity, Admiral,' she said coldly. 'Now tell me who's on it.'
Cortez hesitated a moment longer, then sighed.
'Very well, Milady.' He drew a memo pad from his pocket, keyed its display, and passed it across to her. He still didn't mention any names aloud, however, and Caparelli hid a sour smile. He didn't really object to Lucien's hanging onto his secrets, but it was a bitter sign of just how bad things had become that Cortez had brought the memo along despite his obvious intention not to discuss the court's membership with anyone.
'We had to throw out three initial selections because the officers in question are out-system, Milady,' Cortez said as Morncreek scanned the names, and she and Caparelli both nodded. By long tradition, the Bureau of Personnel's computers randomly selected the members of a court-martial sitting on a capital offense from all serving officers of sufficient rank. Given the Manticoran Navy's current deployments, they were hitting well above the average if only three of the initial choices had been unavailable.
'The members of the court, in order of seniority, are listed there. Admiral White Haven—' Cortez glanced sideways at Caparelli '—will be senior officer, assuming he returns from Chelsea in time. We anticipate that he will. The other members are all in-system now and will remain here.'
Morncreek nodded, then winced as she read the other names.
'Should any of those listed become unavailable for any reason, we've selected three alternates, as well. They're listed on the next screen, Milady.'
'I see.' Morncreek frowned and rubbed the fingers of her right hand together as if they were covered in something sticky. 'I see, indeed, Sir Lucien, and there are times I wish our procedures were a little more... discretionary.'
'I beg your pardon, Milady?'
'The problem,' Morncreek said with slow precision, 'is that our scrupulously fair selection process has just presented us with one hell of a dogfight. I don't know about Captain Simengaard or Admiral Kuzak, but all four of the others are going to have their own axes to grind.'
'With all due respect, Milady,' Cortez said stiffly, 'these officers all know their duty to be fair and impartial.'
'I'm sure they do.' Morncreek's smile was wintry. 'But they're also, unfortunately, human beings. You know better than I how White Haven has been shepherding Lady Harrington's career. I happen to agree with you that he'll do his utmost to remain impartial and unbiased, but neither that nor the fact that her record has amply justified his support will prevent his inclusion on the court from infuriating Youngs partisans. As for these other three—' She shuddered. 'Given the current situation in the Lords, this court-martial has a frightening potential to turn into a fight between political factions, not an impartial legal proceeding.'
Cortez bit his lower lip. Clearly, he wanted to dispute Morncreek's gloomy assessment; equally clearly, he was afraid she was right, and Caparelli shoved himself deeper into his own chair. He didn't know who else was on the list, and, frankly, he didn't want to know. He had fuel for enough nightmares without adding that to it.
The People's Republic of Haven's recent attack on the Star Kingdom of Manticore had been driven back in disarray by a combination of skill and old-fashioned, barefaced luck. The People's Navy had suffered shattering losses to both arms of its opening offensive, and the Royal Manticoran Navy's quick ripostes had taken half a dozen of the Peeps' forward bases. Unfortunately, the People's Navy still outnumbered the RMN by a terrifying margin, and events on the PRH's capital planet had produced a blizzard of political dispute and infighting on Manticore.
No one knew where the People's Republic was headed. Available reports suggested that the Navy had attempted a coup following its initial defeats, but if it had, it certainly hadn't done so very effectively. The attack that wiped out the entire Havenite government—and the heads of most of the prominent Legislaturalist families which had ran it—had been as brilliant as it was savage, but there'd been no effective follow-through, and it had provoked the formation of a Committee of Public Safety in the People's Quorum. That committee now controlled the central organs of the PRH, and it was moving with merciless dispatch to assure that no military coup could succeed.
The result was chaos within the Havenite military. No one yet knew how many officers had been arrested, but the arrest—and execution—of Admiral Amos Parnell, the PN's chief of naval operations, and his chief of staff had been confirmed. There were also confused reports of resistance and infighting as the new committee pressed ahead with its purge of 'unreliable' senior officers, and one or two of the Republic's member systems seemed to have seized the chance to rebel against the hated central government.
Every strategic bone in Caparelli's body cried out to ram the Star Kingdoms current advantage home. The enemy was in disorder, savaging himself internally, some, at least, of his star systems in open rebellion and his senior officers more than half paralyzed lest any act of initiative be misconstrued as treason against the new regime. God only knew how many of them might actually come over to Manticore's side if the RMN pressed a heavy offensive now!
The thought of watching such a chance slip through his hands turned Caparelli's stomach, but he hadn't been allowed to do anything about it. In fact, he might never be allowed to, and the reason was politics.
Duke Cromarty's majority in Parliament had disappeared with the defection of both the Conservative Association and Sir Sheridan Wallace's 'New Men' to the side of the Opposition. The Government's support in the Commons was solid; in the Lords, it was well short of a majority... and there'd been no formal declaration of war.
Caparelli's teeth ground together in acid frustration. Of course there hadn't! The People's Republic had never declared war during its half-century of conquest; such formal niceties would only have served to warn its victims. The Star Kingdom, unfortunately, didn't do things that way. Without a formal, legal declaration, carried in both houses, the Constitution empowered the Cromarty Government only to defend the integrity of the Star Kingdom. Anything more aggressive required the declaration of a state of war, and the Opposition leaders insisted the letter of the law be obeyed.
Their solidarity was unlikely to last, for their philosophies and motives were too fundamentally contradictory, but for the moment those motives were reinforcing one another, not clashing.
The Liberals hated the very thought of military operations. Once their initial panic had passed, they'd responded with a spinal reflex opposition to all things military that never consulted the forebrain at all. They knew better than to publicly restate their long-standing position that Manticore's military buildup was an unnecessary provocation of Haven—even they saw the suicide potential in that, given the public reaction to recent events—but they'd found another way to justify resistance to sanity. They'd decided what was happening inside the People's Republic represented the birth of a reform movement committed to the overthrow of 'the old, militaristic regime' in recognition of 'the uselessness of resorts to brute force,' and they wanted 'to help the reformers achieve their goals in a climate of peace and amity.'
Their allies in Earl Gray Hill's Progressive Party no more believed in the pacifism of this Committee of Public Safety than Caparelli did. They wanted to let the PRH stew in its own juice—after all, if the Republic self-destructed, there'd be no need for further military operations—which made them even stupider than the Liberals. Whoever the brains behind the Committee of Public Safety was, he'd acted with dispatch and energy to secure control. Unless someone from outside toppled him, he was going to hang onto it, and sooner or later he'd finish crushing the last
