War Of Honor

The election hadn't even been close, but Giancola had clearly emerged as the second most consequential figure of the restored Republic's youthful political establishment. That was precisely why Pritchart had chosen him for what was technically the number one position in her cabinet. In actual fact, Theisman's combination of the offices of Secretary of War and Chief of Naval Operations made him the de facto second- ranking member of the administration, but Giancola was definitely the third. And under the Constitution, it was he who would lead the three-month caretaker administration and supervise the special election to replace Pritchart if something happened to her.

To say she wasn't entirely happy to have him in that position would have been a gross understatement, yet she'd seen no viable alternative. His allies in Congress would have demanded some significant appointment for him even without his showing in the presidential elections, and she'd hoped to bind him to the new administration by giving him a voice in it. Ambitious though he was, he also saw himself as a statesman, and Pritchart was well aware that he truly believed in his own vision for the Republic's future. That genuine patriotism had made no small contribution to his ability to build his political alliances . . . and helped to encourage his personal ambition with a sense of mission. That was precisely what had made him so dangerous, and she'd hoped she could convince his patriotic side to rein in his ambitious side by supporting her in the interests of solidarity during the critical, early years of the restored Republic.

The Constitution had also just coincidentally required him to resign from the Senate to accept a cabinet- level post, and she'd calculated that he would be less dangerous in the cabinet where she could keep an eye on him and demand his loyalty than he would directly controlling a senate seat. But he'd foiled that part of her plans by securing his brother's election in his place in the special election his resignation had set up. Nor had her plans to co-opt him to support her policies proved an unadulterated success. As far as she could tell, he'd simply recognized that he had to work through a different set of rules and priorities in pursuit of his original ambition and policies, and he was building a steadily growing faction in Congress. The fact that he was also busy building support within the Cabinet for at least some of his policies had the potential to turn into a major nightmare, yet she couldn't demand his resignation. It was probably clear to everyone that he was maneuvering to put himself into position to challenge any reelection bid of her own when her term ended in another four T-years, but his alliances in Congress would provoke a bigger fight than ridding herself of him would be worth.

Or more than she thought it would be worth, anyway, she amended.

'That 'idiot' has plans of his own, Tom, and you know it,' she said aloud. 'I still cherish hopes he'll overstep and give me an excuse to bring the hammer down on him, but he's getting himself well enough entrenched to make it hard. And events are going to play right into his hands if the Manties persist in blowing off the negotiations.'

'Why?' Theisman's eyes narrowed. 'Giancola's been getting more and more pissed with the Manties for months. What makes that so much more important now?'

'The fact,' Pritchart sighed, 'that, as I should hardly have to remind you, of all people, Senator Jason Giancola became a member of the Naval Affairs Committee last week.'

'Oh, crap.'

'Precisely,' the President of the Republic of Haven agreed. 'It's obvious that the good senator could hardly wait to spill the beans about Bolthole to his brother.'

'After swearing to maintain complete confidentiality!' Theisman snapped.

'Of course he did,' Pritchart agreed with a sour chuckle. 'Come on, Tom! Half our new legislators are still afraid to sneeze for fear we'll turn out to be another Committee of Public Safety after all, and the other half is trying to pursue 'business as usual' Legislaturalist-style. It's just our bad luck that the Giancolas belong to the second group instead of the first. Kevin warned you there was no way Jason was going to keep his mouth shut if he learned anything Arnold could use, and you know it.'

'Yes, I do,' Theisman admitted unhappily, and ran his hands through his hair, glaring at nothing in particular for several seconds. Then he sighed and looked back at the President.

'How bad is it?' he asked.

'Not good, I'm afraid. Arnold's been a little more circumspect about dropping hints on me than I would have expected from him, but he's made it pretty clear he knows about the 'black' aspects of the budget, about the existence of the shipyards, and that you sent Shannon Foraker out to take charge of them. Whether or not he knows what's actually going on out there is a bit more problematical, but judging from his attitude, I wouldn't bet against it.'

'Crap,' Theisman repeated, even more sincerely, and it was his turn to lean back in his chair with a sigh.

There were very few things Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just had done with which Thomas Theisman found himself in complete agreement. Operation Bolthole was one of them, although Theisman was scarcely happy about the circumstances which had made Bolthole necessary.

The thing that most amazed him about Bolthole was that Pierre and Saint-Just had managed to pull it off in near total secrecy. Theisman himself hadn't heard so much as a whisper about it until he'd taken over as commander of Capital Fleet, and virtually no officer outside the project itself below the rank of vice admiral—and damned few senior to that—knew about it even now. Which was a state of affairs Theisman intended to preserve as long as possible.

'Tom,' Pritchart said, as if she'd been reading his mind—a possibility he wasn't prepared to discount, after watching her in action for over three years—'we're going to have to take the wraps off of Bolthole sooner or later, anyway, you know.'

'Not yet,' he replied with spinal-reflex promptness.

'Tom—'

'Not yet,' he repeated even more firmly, then made himself pause for a moment.

'You're right,' he acknowledged then. 'Sooner or later, we'll have to admit Bolthole exists. In fact, I doubt we'll be able to hide the funding for it for more than another year or two, max. But I'm not 'taking the wraps off' until we've produced enough of the new ships and hardware to deter the Manties from a preemptive strike.'

'Preemptive strike?' Pritchart arched both eyebrows at him. 'Tom, we can't even get them to respond to an offer of a formal peace treaty after better than three full T-years of trying! What in the world makes you think they care enough about what's going on inside the Republic to worry about preemptive strikes?'

'We've been over this before, Eloise.' Theisman said, then reminded himself that despite her long Navy association as Giscard's people's commissioner and even her own career as a guerilla commander, the President was essentially a civilian by inclination and orientation alike.

'Right this minute,' he went on after a second or so, 'the Manties are completely confident that no one poses a significant threat to their naval superiority. Their new missile pods, their new superdreadnoughts, and— especially—their new LACs give them a degree of tactical superiority which would make it suicide for any conventional navy to engage them. Janacek may be an idiot, and he may have brought in other idiots to help him run the Manty Admiralty, but it's obvious that they recognize their technical advantages. That's the only possible explanation for their build-down in conventional hulls. They're actually reducing their fleet to very nearly its prewar size, Eloise. They'd never do that if they weren't so confident of their tech edge that they figured they could hack extremely heavy numerical odds if they had to.

'But look at what that means. Their entire current strategic stance is built on that edge in technology, and their First Lord of Admiralty is stupid. He's going to be upset enough if he suddenly discovers Pierre and Saint-Just managed to build a shipyard complex even bigger than the one here in the Haven System without anyone in the Star Kingdom so much as suspecting it. But if he figures out what we've had Foraker and her people doing out there for the last couple of T-years, he's not going to be upset—he's going to panic.'

'Panic?' Pritchart shook her head. 'Tom, this is your area of expertise, not mine. But isn't 'panic' just a little strong? Let's be honest. You and I both know the Manties kicked our butt up one side and down the other. If Saint-Just hadn't managed to snooker them into 'truce talks,' White Haven would have smashed straight through Twelfth Fleet, punched out Capital Fleet, and dictated terms right here on Haven. I was there with Javier and Lester. I know there was nothing we could have done to stop him.'

'Of course there wasn't . . . then,' Theisman agreed. 'But that's my very point. We know that, and they know that. Worse, they're depending on it. Which means they have to be certain they maintain that technological edge, especially in light of the reduction in their total tonnage. So if they realize Foraker is busy building us an entire