Changer of Worlds

losses it would inevitably entail.”

Saint-Just regarded the other man thoughtfully. No doubt there was a great deal of military logic to what the citizen colonel had just said. Unfortunately, this was as much a political confrontation as a military one, and every hour that McQueen continued to pour her appeals into the listening ears of the regular military units in the Haven System moved the political balance further in her favor.

“I appreciate your candor, Citizen Colonel… Jurgens,” he said, squinting a bit as he read the name off of Jurgens’ name patch. “And if Bouchard’s people are falling back anyway, then no doubt ordering them to assume a defensive stance, at least temporarily, makes sense. But there are other factors to consider here, as well.”

The citizen secretary rubbed his forehead—the equivalent in him of another man’s raging tantrum—then shrugged.

“Please pass my instructions to Citizen General Bouchard to hold his positions and use his reserves to seal the approaches to the Octagon while he reorganizes,” he went on after a moment. “Then ask Citizen Brigadier Mahoney to step back in here.”

“Yes, Sir! At once!”

“General Conflans reports that his forces have linked up with Brigadier Henderson’s and that the enemy has broken off the attack!”

Someone in the War Room raised a half-cheer at the news before he could stop himself, but McQueen only nodded calmly. A part of her wanted to cheer herself, for Conflans’ report was the best news she’d gotten since the last of the Committee’s members had been rounded up. His attempt to take the StateSec intervention battalions in the flank must have succeeded, and that meant that the ground forces immediately available to Saint-Just had been effectively neutralized.

She glanced at her chrono. Strange. Time had felt as if it were dragging past with glacial slowness, yet over five hours had passed since her commando teams kicked off the operation.

Five hours, and I’m still alive. Now that I’ve gotten this far, I guess I can admit to myself that I hadn’t expected to be alive by now. But if Gerard is right and Bouchard really is pulling back, then it sounds as if the momentum is by God slipping over to our side after all!

She recognized a familiar danger sign, and made herself step back from her own enthusiasm.

Careful, woman! Get yourself all overconfident and stupid, and Saint-Just will put your head on a pike in the People’s Square by evening!

She turned to Bukato.

“Tell Gerard to turn over to Henderson the moment he feels sufficiently confident to do so, and to get himself back here to the Octagon,” she said crisply. “And tell him to bring as big a reinforcement with him as he thinks he can without weakening Henderson dangerously.”

“Of course, Ma’am,” Bukato replied. “You think it’s time to begin thinking about planning an offensive of our own?”

“No,” she said grimly. “I think it’s time that we reinforced the Octagon’s ground forces as much as we can.” Bukato’s eyes widened in surprise, and she laughed harshly. “If Gerard and his people have convinced him he can’t get through on the ground, Ivan, then he’s going to try something else. He has to, because the clock is on our side.”

“But that’s crazy, Ma’am,” Bukato objected, less like a man who thought she was wrong than like one who truly believed she was. “The defense grid would blow them apart!”

“You know that, and I know that, but does Saint-Just know that?” she returned with a shark-like grin. “And even if he does know, does he care? Bottom line, Ivan, he still has a hell of a lot more firepower planetwide to draw upon than we do. I don’t think he could get through the grid, either, but we might both be wrong, and he only has to get lucky once. Besides, they’re only people, and he’s got plenty more where they came from if he breaks this lot.”

Bukato looked at her for a moment longer, as if he wished that he could disagree with her assessment, then nodded.

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll pass those orders right away.”

“We’ve got the airstrike and assault echelon organized, Citizen Secretary.”

Saint-Just looked up as another of his senior staffers stepped through the office door to make the report.

“They’ve been fully briefed?” the citizen secretary asked.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then send them in.”

“Immediately, Sir!”

The staffer hurried away, and Saint-Just looked down at his desk and its sophisticated communications panel once more. He hoped the assault shuttles and sting ships he was about to commit to battle could do the job, just as he hoped their pilots truly accepted that they had no choice but to fire on the other members of the Committee of Public Safety. Whatever happened, the integrity of the state must be maintained. He was in a fight for his own personal survival, for Esther McQueen could never afford to leave him alive after this, any more than he could have afforded to leave her alive. But there was more at stake here than mere survival. McQueen might well prove as effective as a political leader as she had proven as a military leader. In the judgment of history, it was entirely possible that she would be considered a far better head of state than Oscar Saint-Just could ever hope to be. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had killed Rob Pierre. That wherever she might lead the People’s Republic, it would not be to the destination Pierre had chosen, and Rob Pierre had been not simply Saint-Just’s friend, but his chieftain.

Perhaps Esther McQueen had never fully understood that, but it would have changed nothing if she had. For all of his blandness, all of his famous lack of emotion, Oscar Saint-Just had the soul of a feudal clansman, and he would have his vengeance.

“Tango Flight, this is Tango One Lead. The mission is a go. I say again, we are go for the attack.”

Citizen Lieutenant Angelica Constantine closed her eyes in pain as the strike leader’s voice came over the com. She couldn’t believe it. No, that wasn’t right. She could believe it; she simply didn’t want to.

She opened her eyes once more and watched her HUD as the icons began to shift and change. Forty StateSec atmospheric sting ships just like her own formed the true heart of the strike’s power, although a dozen pinnaces would lead the way. She didn’t envy the flight crews of those lead ships. They were individually far more capable—and dangerous—than any sting ship, but that scarcely mattered, because there was virtually no chance that any of them could survive to penetrate the Octagon’s defenses, and their crews knew it. Their true function was simply to draw the defenses’ fire. To distract and confuse the tracking and fire control crews in hopes that a handful of the despised sting ships might get through.

Constantine knew all about the attack plan, and she gave it no more than a twenty percent chance of success. And even that estimate, she knew, might well be wildly over optimistic. The attack had been ordered and organized with ruthless, reckless haste in a desperate effort to get it in while McQueen and her accomplices might still be in the process of securing control of the grid. If they hadn’t gotten control of it, or if their control was still less than complete, then at least some of the attackers might manage to get through. But if they did have full control of it…

Not even the Levelers had dared to challenge the Octagon’s on-site defenses, and she wondered now why Citizen Secretary Saint-Just had never had the defense grid disabled or at least placed under SS control. A lot of people, all too probably including Angelica Constantine, were about to die because he hadn’t, and fear flickered and simmered in her mind like some dark fire.

Yet however frightened she might be, fear explained only a part of the knot of despair resting in her chest