Changer of Worlds

“I realize that, Captain,” McQueen said after a moment. “But it was a forlorn hope from the beginning, and whoever actually ordered those shuttles in should have realized that the instant we mowed down the sting ships. And if she did, and if she’d had an ounce of moral courage, she would have told Saint-Just that sending those shuttles into the same defenses was nothing but an act of murder. It never had any real chance of succeeding as a serious attack, and if it was only a probe, he’d already drawn the response that should have told him everything he needed to know with just the sting ships. There was absolutely no point in taking the additional casualties.”

“Which doesn’t even consider how many civilians must’ve been killed or injured when the wreckage landed,” Bukato pointed out grimly.

“No, it doesn’t,” McQueen acknowledged. “But we can’t really get too sanctimonious about those casualties, Ivan. We’re the ones who fired the missiles that brought them down, after all. And I suppose that in the ultimate sense, we’re at least as responsible as Saint-Just for any civilians that got killed. If we hadn’t made our move, he would just have had us quietly rounded up and shot and none of this would have happened.”

“I know that, Ma’am. But at least we’re trying to minimize collateral casualties.”

“True, and it’s also true that Saint-Just and Pierre between them have killed more of the Republic’s citizens than the entire Manty Alliance put together, so replacing them as the new management has to be an improvement any way you slice it. But we do have a certain selfish interest at stake here, as well, don’t we?”

She smiled thinly, and to his own immense surprise, Ivan Bukato actually chuckled.

“What’s the latest status report from the port?”

Saint-Just’s conversational voice had the impact of a screamed obscenity in the silent, lingering aftermath of the destruction of Citizen Brigadier Tome’s entire brigade. All eyes snapped to him, and then a staffer shook herself and cleared her throat.

“I’m… afraid the news isn’t good, Sir,” she admitted. “We’ve got a little more information now, and it looks like McQueen managed to get Citizen General Conflans slipped into the spaceport garrison’s chain of command without our noticing. The latest estimate is that virtually the entire garrison went over to him in the first twenty minutes—that’s where they got the manpower to stop Citizen General Bouchard’s attack.” The staffer paused, then drew a deep breath. “And I’m afraid that’s not all, Sir,” she went on in a slow but determined tone. “Communications reports that Citizen General Maitland has just joined Citizen Colonel Yazov in announcing his open support for the mutineers.”

“I see.”

Saint-Just refused to allow his voice to show it, but the news about Maitland and Yazov hit him hard. Yazov had been the first StateSec officer to declare his support for McQueen. A mere citizen colonel might not seem all that significant in the great scheme of things, but no one knew better than Saint-Just how much success or failure at a moment like this hinged on perceptions and the reactions of frightened, confused human beings to those perceptions. And that had made Yazov’s defection a body blow. The citizen colonel had been handpicked for his apparent loyalty and devotion, as much as for his capability, when he was assigned to be in Nouveau Paris spaceport as the competent executive officer that the political appointee who officially commanded the capital city’s primary space-to-ground link required. As such, his defection raised frightening questions about what other “handpicked” officers McQueen might have reached.

That was bad enough, but now Yazov seemed to have convinced his titular CO to join him, and their joint public endorsement of McQueen’s version of what was happening was even worse. If even StateSec officers claimed to believe that Saint-Just was truly the traitor and that McQueen represented the legitimate Committee and its interests, then the steady, ultimately fatal erosion of his position would become inevitable.

They’re driving me to it, he thought almost calmly. They’re not going to leave me any choice. And if I do it…

He closed his eyes for a moment and made himself face the implications of the decision rumbling down upon him with the inexorable power of Juggernaut. It represented what was probably his only hope of crushing McQueen before the balance of power slid too far in her favor. He dared not wait while even more of the regular armed forces stationed here in Nouveau Paris went over to her, and especially not if more of his own StateSec personnel began to follow Yazov’s example.

This thing had to be settled now, before it got completely out of control. In a worst-case scenario, the fighting could drag on for days or weeks, and every hour would increase the odds that still more of the Navy and Marines would throw their allegiance to the Octagon. Even if they didn’t go over to McQueen, other officers might began to get ideas of their own. An ambitious man might very well see an opportunity to carve out a power base of his own while Saint-Just and McQueen were locked in a death grapple which would prevent either of them from dealing with him. And even if that didn’t happen immediately, and even if Saint-Just managed ultimately to suppress McQueen’s rebellion, the damage would still have been done as far as any hope for his own legitimacy was concerned. The longer this dragged out, the more people would be tempted to believe her version of what had happened. Some of that was going to happen whatever he did, but at least a rapid and ruthless resolution might help to minimize the damage.

And what happens when everyone realizes just how far you’re prepared to go, Oscar? Will it frighten them into behaving themselves? Or will they wonder just how much they really have to lose with you in charge?

Oscar Saint-Just stared into the pitiless unknown of the future, and if a man with so much blood already on his hands had dared to believe in God, he would have prayed to be spared what he saw there.

“I may be overly optimistic, Ma’am,” Ivan Bukato said, “but I believe we may just have turned the corner.”

He and McQueen stood side-by-side, gazing into an immense viewscreen that showed a panoramic view of the smoke and wreckage strewn about the Octagon’s approaches. Morning had given way to afternoon. Now afternoon was slowly yielding to a red-tinged and bloody evening lit by the pyres of two more waves of assault shuttles and strike aircraft. They had been blown apart by the defense grid just as efficiently as their predecessors, and General Conflans had cut his way through the confusion to the Octagon with the equivalent of almost a complete Marine regiment.

“I think the timing of Maitland’s announcement may have been decisive,” the admiral went on. He waved one hand at the main plot, where the spaceport now showed a solid, friendly green, then jabbed a finger at another block of green. This one indicated one of the neighboring administrative towers, and it had been the blood red of State Security less than five minutes before. “When an entire SS intervention HQ decides to ‘support the legitimate members of the Committee’ against its own commander, it actually begins to look like we’ll pull this off after all.”

“I’d hesitate to start making any long-term retirement plans just yet,” McQueen said with a wry smile, “but it does look as if the momentum is slipping over to our side. Maybe I should go have another discussion with Fontein.”

“All joking aside, Ma’am, that might not be a bad idea,” Bukato said seriously. “Like you, I expected him to cave in sooner than this, but now that rank and file StateSec people are coming over to us, maybe you could convince him that endorsing your position is the best way to minimize the ultimate bloodshed.”

“You may have a point,” McQueen conceded. “Erasmus and I are never going to feel all warm and fuzzy about each other, but I believe the man is genuinely committed to stability and the minimization of wholesale destruction. And I think he’s hardheaded enough to recognize the inevitable when it looks him right in the eye.”

“I’m afraid I’m a bit more cynical about his ultimate motivations, Ma’am. But it’s beginning to look to me like the tide is coming in, and whatever his commitments may be, I don’t think he wants to drown.”

“You could be right to be cynical. And the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter whether he signs on with us