Flag In Exile

deliberately sabotage the project?' he asked, and he was no longer rejecting the notion; he was looking for answers. 'What sort of evil monster would murder children, Adam?'

'I don't know the answer to that yet, Sir...but I intend to find out,' Gerrick said grimly.

'How can you?'

'The first thing we'll do,' Gerrick said, turning to his staff, 'is put the visual records through the computers. I want an exact analysis of what happened. The collapse started in the alpha ring of the east quadrant, I saw it go myself, but I want a detailed breakdown of every step of the process.'

'I can handle that,' one of the others said in the voice of a man thankful for a task he could perform. 'It'll take ten or twelve hours to break down all the visual records, but I'll guarantee what we get will be solid.'

'All right. Once we have that, we model every possible combination of factors that could have caused it. Somebody get us the Mueller met records for the last three months. I don't see how it could have happened, but it's just possible some sort of freak weather effect could have contributed.'

'Not likely, Adam,' someone else objected.

'Of course it isn't, but we need to consider every possibility, and not just for our own analysis. I want the sick son-of-a-bitch who did this. I want him in front of a court of law, and I want a front row seat for his hanging. I saw those kids die.' Gerrick shivered, and his face was drawn and even older for just a moment. Then he shook himself. 'I saw them die,' he repeated, 'and when we find the man who murdered them, I don't want there to be one scrap of doubt about it.'

A low, harsh growl of agreement answered him, and then Clinkscales frowned thoughtfully.

'You're right, Adam. If, and at this point it's only an if, but if someone deliberately caused this, then our data has to be absolutely solid. No loose ends anyone can question.' Gerrick nodded sharply, and the regent went on in that same, thoughtful tone which did nothing to hide his own anger. 'And there's something else you need to consider. You and your staff may be able to tell us what happened, and how, but there's still the question of who and why, and we have to nail that down just as tight.'

'That may be harder, Sir, especially the 'why,'' Gerrick cautioned.

'Adam,' Clinkscales said with a cold, frightening smile, 'you're an engineer. I used to be a policeman, and, I like to think, a pretty good one. If there's a who and a why, I'll find them.' He turned his gaze on another man, at the far end of the table. 'Chet, I want the personnel records on that work crew. While you start your analysis of what happened, I'm going to be looking at every single human being who had a hand in the construction. If this was deliberate, then somewhere, somebody left a fingerprint. When you people can tell me what they did and how they did it, I'll know where to look for the person or persons behind it. And when I find them, Adam,' he said with an even more terrifying smile, 'I promise you'll have that front row seat you wanted.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Citizen Rear Admiral Thomas Theisman stepped into PNS Conquistador's flag briefing room with Citizen Commissioner Dennis LePic at his heels. Theisman didn't much care for LePic, but he knew most of that stemmed from his dislike for carrying a constant political anchor around with him. He'd seen the consequences of political interference in military operations often enough without ferrying politicians to the very site of the action so they could screw things up even faster.

On the other hand, he also knew how fortunate he was to be here himself. He'd survived Haven's original fiasco in Yeltsin only because he'd been lucky enough (and luck, he knew, was precisely the right word for it) to damage several of Honor Harrington's ships before his destroyer was forced to surrender to her. Only that achievement, coupled with the distraction of Captain Yu's defection to Manticore, had saved him from the Legislaturalist admirals seeking a scapegoat for that particular screw-up. And, he admitted, only the destruction of the old regime had saved him from the consequences of what had happened to the Ninth Cruiser Squadron in the opening moves of the current war. He'd made his Legislaturalist commodore look like an idiot, and her patrons would have squashed him like a bug for daring to be right when she was wrong. But the new regime had been looking for Legislaturalist scapegoats, so Commodore Reichman had been shot and Captain Theisman had been promoted.

The universe, he reflected, was not precisely overrunning with fairness, but it did seem that what went around came around. A point the Committee of Public Safety might want to bear in mind.

He shook off his thoughts as he took his seat at the conference table and LePic slid into the chair beside him. Citizen Vice Admiral Thurston and Citizen Commissioner Preznikov were already ensconced at the head of the table, and Meredith Chavez, Task Group 14T1’s CO, nodded to Theisman from across the table. Theisman didn't know George DuPres, Chavez's commissioner, but he was rumored to be more willing than most to let the professionals get on with their profession, which probably helped explain Meredith's cheerful demeanor. Citizen Rear Admiral Chernov and Citizen Commissioner Johnson of TG 14.3 arrived less than three minutes after Theisman, and Task Force Fourteen's command team was complete. Except, of course, for their chiefs of staff, whom what passed for Fleet HQ these days had decreed could not be informed of the details until Operation Dagger was actually launched. Not the most promising of preparations for an op this complex, although, to give the staff pukes their due, Dagger should be a piece of cake if Stalking Horse had succeeded.

Of course, 'if' wasn't a word Thomas Theisman had ever been particularly happy about including in operational planning.

'I see we're all here,' Thurston remarked. 'And since we are, I can tell you that Stalking Horse seems to have worked out quite nicely.'

Chavez and Chernov grinned, but Theisman contented himself with a nod. 'Seems.' Another of those words with unfortunate connotations.

Thurston activated the holo display, and a star map appeared above the table. He manipulated controls briefly, and Minette and Candor blinked red. A moment later, Casca, Doreas, and Grendelsbane also began flashing, but their lights were amber, not red.

'All right,' he said. 'You all know Citizen Admiral McQueen and Citizen Admiral Abbot have secured control of Minette and Candor. McQueen took a heavier hit from the Manty pickets than we anticipated, but they burned off all their missiles to do it. All they can do now is stooge around the outer system and watch her, and they took losses of their own. What they've got left couldn't take her on even with full magazines.

'Citizen Admiral Abbot's in even better shape. He got in without a shot, and the Manties don't have anything heavier than a battlecruiser to picket him.'

Thurston paused and looked around the table to make sure everyone was with him, then used a cursor to indicate Grendelsbane.

'As you also know, we've had light, covert pickets in place around Grendelsbane and Casca for over a month, and Admiral Hemphill seems to be playing it very cautiously in Grendelsbane. She's retained her ships of the wall there, probably to be sure we don't make another flank pounce if she uncovers it, but she's dispatched a heavy battlecruiser force to support the Doreas pickets. In addition, some of her light units have joined the Manty picket still in Minette. That suggests her attentions focused there while she waits for reinforcements before going in to take it back... just as we want her to do.

'More to the point,' the cursor swooped up to Casca, 'our scouts up here report the arrival of a pretty damned powerful task force. I wonder where they came from?'

Thurston bared his teeth, and this time even Theisman smiled back. Damn, he thought. The man's a calculating son-of-a-bitch, but he does know how to work a crowd!

'We didn't get as good a read on them as I'd like,' Thurston admitted, 'but what we did get seems to indicate they've done what we wanted. We have positive confirmation of at least five ex-PN prize ships there, and their arrival time works out right for an immediate response from Yeltsin to Stalking Horse. In addition, the entire force arrived as a single unit, which indicates it was pulled out as a unit. This isn't something they put together by scraping up ships from other locations, people.'

Theisman nodded, but something about Thurston's confident explanation nagged at him, and he raised a