Ashes Of Victory

'I'm sorry, Sir. I thought I'd made that clear. The only surviving member of the Committee is Citizen Secretary — only he's Citizen Chairman now, of course — Saint-Just.'

* * *

Several hours later, a silent, hard-faced StateSec major showed Thomas Theisman and Denis LePic into an office in Nouveau Paris. The major was clearly unhappy about their presence, and the daggers his eyes kept shooting Theisman's way ought by rights to have reduced the citizen admiral to ribbons. Nor was his attitude unique. Hostile, hating StateSec eyes had followed Theisman all the way from his air car to this office, and an ominous quantity of firepower, from pulsers to plasma rifles, was on prominent display.

And all of them want to rip my head off and piss down my neck, Theisman thought mordantly. Hard to blame them, really. I'm a senior Navy officer, and they just blew up most of the command structure of the Navy and the Marines. They have to be wondering where I'd have stood if I'd been here. Or, for that matter, where I stand now.

The major opened the office door and stood aside with one last, distrustful glare for Theisman and a curt nod for LePic. Both of them ignored him and stepped into the office, and Theisman watched the small man behind the desk rise.

Funny. I was surprised Ransom was so much shorter than her HD imagery, and here Saint-Just is, almost as short as she was. Is there some sort of overcompensation for small size going on here?

'Citizen Commissioner. Citizen Admiral.' Saint-Just sounded weary, as well he might, and there were fresh, harsh lines in his face. For all that, however, he was still the same harmless-looking little man... with all the emotions of a cobra. 'Please,' he invited, waving at a couple of chairs. 'Sit.'

'Thank you, Sir.' By previous agreement, LePic took the lead as their spokesman. Neither of them wanted it to be too obvious that he was trying to protect Theisman, but it seemed wiser to avoid possible confrontations as much as possible.

The two visitors sat, and Saint-Just perched on the corner of his desk.

Remarkable, Theisman thought. This man started out as the second- in-command of Internal Security and betrayed the Legislaturalists to Pierre and helped him blow them up. Then he played second fiddle to Pierre for over a decade... and now he's the whole show, the entire 'Committee of Public Safety.' And all he had to do was blow up the rest of the Committee along with Esther McQueen. What a sacrifice. The citizen admiral snorted mentally. Wasn't there someone back on Old Earth who once said 'we had to destroy the village to save it' or something like that? Suits this cold-blooded little bastard to a 'T,' doesn't it?

'We were shocked to hear about what happened, Sir,' LePic began. 'Of course, we'd heard rumors about McQueen's ambitions, but we never dreamed she might try something like that!'

'To be honest, I didn't expect it either,' Saint-Just said, and to Theisman's surprise, he seemed sincere, even a little bewildered. 'Not out of the blue like this. I didn't trust her, of course. Never did. But we needed her abilities, and she'd turned the entire military situation around. Under the circumstances, I was prepared to take a few routine precautions, but neither the Citizen Chairman nor I had any intention of moving against her without much better cause than reports about her `ambition,' and I was certain she knew it. It's obvious now, of course, that she was plotting all along. Incomplete as her plans clearly were, she still came within millimeters of success. In fact, if Rob hadn't been killed, I don't know if I could have—'

He stopped and waved a hand, looking away from the other two men, and Theisman felt a fresh stab of surprise, this time at Saint-Just's obvious pain over Pierre's death. Thomas Theisman had been prepared to grant the commander of State Security many qualities; the capacity for close personal friendship had not been one of them.

'At any rate,' Saint-Just went on after a moment, 'she did act. We may never know what pushed her into it. I think it's pretty evident she wasn't ready yet, and that's certainly just as well. If she had been completely ready, I'd probably have been killed or captured just like Rob, and then she undoubtedly would have won. As it is...'

He shrugged, and LePic nodded.

'Which brings us to the reason I wanted to see you two,' the man who was now the dictator of the People's Republic said more briskly, and the look he directed at Theisman was not a particularly encouraging one. 'You both know McQueen had agreed to bring you two in to take over Capital Fleet. What you may not realize is that she did so only at my request and strong urging.'

Theisman felt his eyebrows rise, and Saint-Just snorted.

'Don't think it was because I believe you're a fervent supporter of the New Order, Citizen Admiral,' he said bluntly. 'I don't. Nor do I think you're another McQueen, however. If I thought you had the same ambition, you wouldn't be sitting in this office; you'd be dead. What I think you are, is a professional officer who's never learned to play the political game. I don't think you loved the Committee, and I don't really care as long as you settle for being loyal to the government and to the Republic. Can you do that?'

'I believe I can, Sir. Yes,' Theisman said. Or at least half of it, anyway. I'm loyal to the Republic, all right.

'I hope you can,' Saint-Just's voice was bleak, 'because I need you. And because I will not hesitate to have you shot if I come to suspect you are disloyal, Citizen Admiral.' Theisman looked into the emotionless eyes and shivered. 'If that sounds like a threat, I suppose it is, but there's nothing personal in it. I simply can't afford to take any more chances, and McQueen's conspiracy was built in the military. Obviously I'm going to be keeping an even closer eye on the officer corps of the Navy and the Marines.'

'Obviously,' Theisman agreed, and saw what might have been a flash of approval flicker across Saint-Just's face. 'I can't say I'm happy about the effect it will no doubt have on military efficiency, but frankly, Sir, I'd be astonished if you felt any other way. I certainly wouldn't in your place.'

'I'm glad you can understand that. It gives me some hope for our ability to work together. However, I also hope you understand why, under the circumstances, I do not intend to give any officer of the regular military the power to emulate McQueen. I intend to retain the office of the Secretary of War myself, along with StateSec and the chairmanship of the Committee. Lord knows I never wanted the top slot, mostly because I saw what it cost the people who had it, but it's mine now, and I'll do the job, finish what Rob started, however long it takes.

'But what you have to understand right now is that the Octagon is gone, and so are two-thirds of the planning staffs, virtually all of its central records, and a huge chunk of the senior officers of the Navy. More of them were killed in the fighting even before that, several of them because they sided with McQueen. It's fortunate the Manties are on the run right now, and that Operation Bagration should keep them that way, because our command structure has been pretty well pulverized, and I don't dare rebuild it out of regulars until I've had time to be absolutely certain of their loyalties. I tell you this not because I'm certain of your loyalty, but so you'll understand what's happening and why.'

He paused until Theisman nodded, then went on.

'As I say, I will retain the office of Secretary of War. I will also be creating a new general staff whose members will be drawn primarily from State Security. I realize they have only limited combat experience. Unfortunately, they're the only people whose loyalty I know I can trust, and that's going to have to be the overriding consideration, at least until we're sure the Manties have been whipped.

'But I'm not foolish enough to believe I can find fleet commanders among my SS officers. We saw entirely too much of how expensive `on-the-job training' in that slot can be in the first year or so of the war. So instead, I'll have to rely on regulars, like yourself, for that job, but with their people's commissioners' `pre-McQueen' powers restored and, probably, augmented. As you implied, it may cost us something in military efficiency, but I'm afraid I have no choice.

'And of all the fleet commands, the one most critical to the security of the state is Capital Fleet, which brings me back to you and Citizen Commissioner LePic. Your first job will be to restore some semblance of order and morale. There's a great deal of resentment over the destruction of Sovereignty of the People and Equality. Understandable, I suppose, but something which has