join me aboard my flagship immediately, pursuant to the orders of Citizen Chairman Saint-Just.'
'Are we going somewhere?' Tourville's heart thundered, and he discovered his palms were sweating heavily. Odd. The terror of combat had never hit him this hard.
'We will be returning to Nouveau Paris,' Heemskerk told him unflinchingly, 'there to consider the degree of your complicity in Citizen Secretary McQ—'
His voice and image cut off, and Tourville blinked. What the—?
'
Twelve glaring spheres of unendurable brightness spalled the velvety blackness of deep space. They were huge, and so hellishly brilliant it hurt to look at them even with the display's automatic filters. And even as he stared at them, he saw
Lester Tourville wrenched his eyes back to the fading balls of plasma which had been the ships of Citizen Rear Admiral Heemskerk's squadron. The silence on his flag bridge was total, like the silence a microphone picked up in hard vacuum, and he swallowed hard.
And then the spell was broken as Shannon Foraker looked up from the console from which she had just sent a perfectly innocent-seeming computer code over the tactical net to one of the countless ops plans she'd downloaded to the units of Twelfth Fleet over the last thirty-two T-months.
'Oops,' she said.
Oscar Saint-Just finished yet another report, scribbled an electronic signature, and pressed his thumb to the scanner. It had been a productive morning, he thought, checking the time readout in the corner of his display, and not just for him.
Kersaint was doing wonders on the diplomatic front. He'd talked the Manties into holding the first round of negotiations here on Haven, and he had the fools High Ridge and Descroix had sent tied up in endless discussions over the shape of the damned conference table! The Citizen-Chairman allowed himself a rare chuckle and shook his head. At this rate, it would take six months to get anywhere close to a substantive issue, and that was fine with him. Just fine. Much of the PRH was in a state of shock at the abrupt pause in hostilities, and some people were probably going to be upset, at first, at least, over the Republic's 'surrender,' which was how the Manties and the interstellar news services all seemed to view what was happening. But those upset individuals were going to discover very shortly that what was
And in the meantime, the People's Navy — or, rather, the unified armed services which would absorb and supplant all the regular services under SS command — was already making some progress on ways to handle the new Manty weapons. Or at least to mitigate their effectiveness. In fact, Citizen Admiral Theisman was about due for the regular Wednesday conference, and Saint-Just permitted himself a brief moment of self-congratulation. Theisman had turned out to be an inspired choice for Capital Fleet. He'd reassured the regulars, his obvious lack of political ambitions had calmed the frenzied speculation about yet another coup attempt, and he understood perfectly that he would remain in command of Capital Fleet, and alive, only so long as he kept Saint-Just happy.
Once Saint-Just got Giscard and Tourville home and tidied up those loose ends, he could turn to the general military housecleaning, and—
The universe heaved madly.
It was like nothing Saint-Just had ever experienced. One moment he was seated in his chair behind his desk; the next, he was
He struggled to his feet, clinging to his desk to stay there, and an entire series of lesser shocks jolted his body. They seemed to be running away into the distance, and he coughed on the haze of dust suspended in his office's air. It must have come out of the carpet, he thought, amazed his brain could function well enough to figure that out. And there was a second band of dust, higher up, which must have come from the ceiling. How fascinating. He watched the upper band drift downward, settling towards the lower one.
He didn't know how long he'd stood there before a sudden, fresh disturbance yanked him out of his semistupor. Something crashed into the side of the building, sending a fresh shock through the structure. This one was much weaker than the others, but it was repeated again and again, at least a dozen times, and then he heard the whine of pulse rifles and the lethal, hissing roar of tri-barrels, and he knew what those weaker shocks had been.
Assault shuttles. Assault shuttles blowing breaches through the tower's outer skin and then crunching into the holes to disgorge assault troops.
He spun to his desk and yanked the drawer open, snatching out the pulser he kept there for emergencies, then turned and raced for the office door. He had no idea what was happening, but he had to get out of here before—
The door vanished in a cloud of splinters a moment before he could reach it. The force of the explosion hurled him backwards, sending him sprawling, and the pulser flew out of his hand as he lost his grip on it. The weapon thudded into the wall and tumbled to the carpet beside the doorway, and Saint-Just shook his head and levered himself back up onto his hands and knees. Blood coated his face, oozing from the countless shallow cuts and scratches the disintegrating door's fragments had clawed into his skin, but there was no time for that. He began to crawl doggedly towards the pulser. His entire universe was focused on reaching the gun, then getting to his feet, and from there escaping down the corridor outside his secretary's office to the secret lift shaft to the roof hangar.
A foot slammed into the floor before him, and he froze, for the foot was in battle armor. He crouched there, staring at it, and then, against his will, his eyes traveled up a soot-black leg of synthetic alloy. His gaze reached a point twenty-five centimeters above his head, and there it stopped, focused on the muzzle of a military-issue pulse rifle.
He knelt before the foot, unable to comprehend what was happening, and more feet crunched through the wreckage of his office door. Smoke was blowing in from the outer office, and he heard distant shouts and screams, all overlaid by the unmistakable sounds of small arms and heavy weapons fire, but the sound of those feet seemed to flow straight into his brain with a perfect, crystal clarity that didn't even need his ears. There were more sets of the feet this time: three more in battle armor, and one in regulation Navy boots.
An exoskeleton whined, and a battle-armored hand twisted itself in Saint-Just's collar. It picked him up effortlessly and set him on his feet, roughly but without brutality, and he wiped blood from his face and blinked, trying to clear his vision. It took several seconds, but he managed finally, and his mouth tightened as he looked into Thomas Theisman's eyes.
The Citizen Admiral was flanked by four towering sets of the People's Marines' battle armor, and Saint- Just's eyes narrowed as he saw the pulser in Theisman's hand. It was the same weapon the Citizen Chairman had dropped, and his fingers curled, as if trying to close around the butt of the gun he no longer held.
'Citizen Chairman,' Theisman said levelly, and Saint-Just bared his teeth in a gore-streaked grimace.
'Citizen Admiral,' he got out in return.
'You made two mistakes,' Theisman said. 'Well, three actually. The first was choosing me to command Capital Fleet and not assigning a different commissioner to keep an eye on me. The second was failing to have Admiral Graveson's data base completely vacuumed. It took me a while to find the file she'd hidden there. I don't know what happened when McQueen made her move. Maybe Graveson panicked and was afraid to move when McQueen didn't get you along with Pierre in her initial sweep. But whatever happened, the file she left behind told me who to contact in Capital Fleet when I decided to pick up where McQueen left off.'
He paused, and Saint-Just stared at him for a heartbeat, then tossed his head.
'You said three mistakes,' he said. 'What was the third?'
'Ending hostilities and ordering Giscard and Tourville home,' Theisman said flatly. 'I don't know what's
