Ashes Of Victory

Theisman wasn't prepared to hazard any guesses on what it was instead. She stared at him for perhaps three extra heart beats, then expelled her breath in a harsh, angry grunt.

'Citizen Chairman Pierre is dead,' she told him flatly.

Theisman heard someone gasp behind him, and knew his own face had turned to stone. He hadn't liked Pierre. Indeed, he'd learned to loathe everything the man stood for. But Rob Pierre had been the Titan looming over the pygmies who served with him on the Committee of Public Safety. His had been the guiding hand behind the People's Republic since the Coup, and especially since Cordelia Ransom's death had removed the one true challenge to his power from within the Committee itself. He couldn't be dead!

But he could, and Theisman felt a fresh stab of fear when he put that together with Shumate's hair-trigger balance... and apparent hatred for officers of the People's Navy.

'I'm sorry to hear that, Citizen Captain,' he said quietly, and to his surprise, he meant it, if not for the same reasons Shumate might have.

'I'm sure.' Shumate didn't sound anything of the sort, but at least she mouthed the words, and her tight shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. Theisman felt someone step up beside him and realized it was LePic. The people's commissioner had obviously arrived in time to hear Shumate's announcement, for his face was pale. He moved into the range of the pickup and addressed the StateSec citizen captain.

'Citizen Captain Shumate, I'm Denis LePic, Citizen Admiral Theisman's commissioner. This is terrible news! How did the Citizen Chairman die?'

'He didn't `die,' Citizen Commissioner. He was murdered. Shot down like an animal by one of that bitch McQueen's staffers from the fucking Octagon!'

All the hatred which had faded from her face and voice was back, redoubled, and Theisman suppressed an urge to wipe sweat from his forehead. No wonder Shumate was so antagonistic.

He started to speak, but LePic's hand squeezed his shoulder, and he made himself sit silently, leaving the conversation to the commissioner who had become his friend.

'That sounds terrible, Citizen Captain,' LePic said. 'Still, the fact that you and your ships are on patrol out here suggests to me that the situation is still at least marginally under control. Can you tell me anything more about it?'

'I don't have all the details, Sir,' Shumate admitted. 'As far as I know, no one does yet. But apparently that bi—' She stopped and made herself draw another deep breath. 'Apparently McQueen,' she went on after a moment, 'had been plotting with her senior officers over at the Octagon for some time. No one knows why they moved when they did. It's obvious their plans weren't fully mature — which is probably all that saved any of the situation. But they'd still managed to put together one hell of an operation.'

'What do you mean?'

'There were at least half a dozen assault teams. Every one of them was made up of Marines, and McQueen had insured that they had access to heavy weapons. Most of them had battle armor, and they went through the quick-reaction security forces like a tornado, starting with the Citizen Chairman's. One of their teams wiped out a platoon of Public Order Police, rolled right over three squads of the Chairman's Guard, and eliminated his entire StateSec protective detail in less than three minutes, and the Citizen Chairman was killed in the fighting. We think that was an accident. There are indications McQueen wanted him and as much of the Committee as she could capture alive, if only to try to force him to name her his `successor.' But whatever their intentions, he was dead in the first five minutes. Citizen Secretary Downey, Citizen Secretary DuPres, and Citizen Secretary Farley were also killed or captured by the insurgents in the first half hour. As nearly as we can make out, Citizen Secretary Turner had thrown his lot in with McQueen. Apparently they intended to make themselves the core of a smaller Committee they could dominate while presenting the appearance that it was still a democratic body.'

Shumate's expression didn't even flicker with the last sentence, and Theisman had to control his own face carefully. 'Democratic body' was not a term he would have applied to the Committee of Public Safety, but perhaps she honestly believed it fitted. And whether she did or not, this was hardly the time to irritate her by calling her on it.

'The only one of their initial targets they didn't get was Citizen Secretary Saint- Just,' Shumate went on, and this time her tone carried bleak satisfaction that her own chief had eluded McQueen's net. 'I don't think they realized how good his security really was, but it was a hell of a shootout. His protection detail took ninety percent casualties, but they held until a heavy intervention battalion took the attackers in the rear.'

'My God,' LePic said softly, then shook himself. 'And Capital Fleet?'

'Didn't make a move, for the most part,' Shumate replied. Her distaste at having to do so was manifest, and she went right on, 'Two SDs did look as if they might be about to intervene on McQueen's behalf, but Citizen Commodore Helft and his State Security squadron blew them out of space before they even got their wedges up.' She smiled with bleak ferocity. 'That took the starch out of any other bastards who might've been tempted to help the traitors!'

And from the sound of it, the kill-happy, murderous son-of-a-bitch killed them when there was absolutely no need to, Theisman thought with sick loathing. Nine or ten thousand men and women, wiped out as if they were nothing at all, when all the bastard had to do was order them to stand down— if they were really thinking about supporting McQueen to start with! If he caught them with their wedges still down, there wouldn't have been anything they could've done but obey him. And if they'd been stupid enough to refuse his orders, then he could have blown them away. But that's not what happened, is it, Citizen Captain Shumate?

'The situation was pretty much deadlocked in Nouveau Paris by that time, though,' Shumate went on more heavily. 'The Citizen Chairman was dead, and McQueen had control of the Octagon. She probably had five or six thousand Marines and Navy regulars siding her, and she and Bukato had gotten control of the place's defensive grid. Worse, they had at least half a dozen members of the Committee in there with them, where they were effectively hostages. We tried to land intervention units on them, and the grid blew them away. Same thing for the air strikes we tried. And the whole time, McQueen was on the air to the rest of the Navy and Marine units in the system, claiming she was acting solely in self-defense against some sort of plot by the Chairman and Citizen Secretary Saint-Just to have her and her staff arrested and shot. Some of them were beginning to listen, too.'

'So what happened?' LePic asked when she paused once more.

'So Citizen Secretary Saint-Just did what he had to do, Sir,' she said in a cold voice. 'McQueen and Bukato might've gotten control of the defensive grid, but they didn't know about the Citizen Secretary's final precaution. When it became obvious it was going to take us days to fight our way in, and with reports more and more Marine and Navy units were beginning to turn restless, he pressed the button.'

'The button?' LePic asked. The citizen captain nodded, and LePic scowled. 'What button?' he demanded with some asperity.

'The one to the kiloton-range warhead in the Octagon's basement, Sir,' Shumate said flatly, and Theisman's belly knotted. 'It took out the entire structure and three of the surrounding towers. Killed McQueen and every one of her traitors, too.'

'And civilian casualties?' Theisman asked the question before he could stop himself, but at the last moment he managed to make it only a question.

'They were heavy,' Shumate admitted. 'We couldn't evacuate without giving away what was coming, and the traitors had to be stopped. The last estimate I heard put the total figure somewhere around one-point-three million.'

Denis LePic swallowed. The casualties had been even worse in the Leveler Rising, he knew, but another million civilians? Killed simply because they happened to be too close to a building Saint- Just had decided had to go... and warning them might have warned McQueen what was coming?

'So how much of the Committee is left, Citizen Captain?' he heard himself asking, and Shumate looked at him with some surprise.