War Of Honor

have been aboard Carson's freighters the outcome could have been very different. That was why Tourville had wanted to be certain Zrubek really was as ready for independent command as he'd thought he was.

Strange, he thought. All those years under StateSec's thumb, and I thought the worst thing that could happen to me was to get myself shot. Now StateSec is in the crapper, and instead, I have to worry about whether or not the people I send out with task groups are going to bring them back to me in one piece. Funny how much less sleep I lost over the possibility of getting shot.

He snorted a chuckle at the reflection, then frowned thoughtfully.

With Montague out of the way, Carson was reduced to only two star systems still under his direct control. Citizen Admiral Agnelli, Carson's theoretical ally currently controlled three more, but Agnelli and Carson had been strange bedfellows from the beginning. Both of them were ambitious, but Carson apparently retained at least some genuine loyalty to the New Order created by the Committee of Public Safety. That might have something to do with the high StateSec rank he'd attained under the previous management, and he was a thoroughly unpleasant individual, who remained addicted to brutality and terror as his preferred methods of crowd control. But for all that, there was at least some evidence he was motivated by something other than the possibility of personal gain.

No one would ever be foolish enough to believe anything of that sort where Federico Agnelli was concerned. Tourville reminded himself that he might be prejudiced by the fact that he'd known Agnelli for many years, and detested him for all of them. The reminder was strictly pro forma, however, because try as he might, he couldn't think of a single redeeming characteristic Agnelli might have possessed. The man was a marginally competent tactician, with a pronounced belief in his own infallibility. He'd climbed aboard the Committee's political bandwagon not because of any belief in what Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just had promised the Mob but because it had offered him the opportunity for personal power, and he'd played the political game with a skillfulness which somehow managed to elude him in the field of naval tactics. At least two other flag officers Tourville knew of had been shot because they'd stood in Agnelli's way and he'd convinced StateSec they were 'enemies of the People' to get rid of them.

Which meant that if Carson was in as much trouble as Tourville thought he was, especially after the loss of Montague, Agnelli would cut his losses in a heartbeat and abandon his 'ally' to his fate. Which was ultimately stupid of him, since it would leave him all alone to face Twelfth Fleet when Tourville got around to him, in turn. But no doubt he believed someone else would turn up for him to play off against the central government. He'd always been able to manage that before, after all, and he'd held off both all internal opposition and the Republican Navy for the better part of three and a half T-years in the process.

Unfortunately for him, that wouldn't be possible much longer, Tourville thought with deep, uncomplicated satisfaction. He, Giscard, and Thomas Theisman had faced a daunting task when they set about putting down all the Hydra-headed threats to the security of the new government. If he'd had any choice, Tourville would never have accepted any part of the responsibility for dealing with the snake pit of constantly changing alliances and betrayals between everyone who believed he or she had just as much claim to the rulership of the People's Republic of Haven as the people who'd overthrown the Committee. Unfortunately, he hadn't had a choice, any more than Tom Theisman had had one. And the good news was that very few of the warlords and would-be warlords who'd struck out for themselves were still on the board. Which was why Federico Agnelli was about to find himself extremely hard pressed to replace Carson as an ally.

It may just be that we're about to clean up this entire sector, Tourville allowed himself to think. And if we can do that here, we only have two or three more real trouble spots to deal with. My God. Tom and Eloise were right all along. We really are going to win this thing.

He shook his head, astounded by his own temerity in daring to contemplate anything of the sort, then looked up and handed the memo board back to Eisenberg.

'Thank you, Anita,' he said gravely. 'See that a copy of the Commodore's dispatch is downloaded to our next report to Nouveau Paris, would you please?'

'Of course, Sir.' The com officer clasped the board under her arm, snapped to attention with parade ground precision, turned on her heel, and marched back towards her station.

Tourville watched her go and tried not to smile too broadly.

* * *

Admiral Michel Reynaud, Manticore Astro Control Service, missed his old office. Not that anyone seemed about to offer him a great deal of sympathy over its loss, he admitted, and that was probably fair enough. After all, his new, magnificent, huge, luxurious, and all those other superlatives office aboard Her Majesty's Space Station Hephaestus was only one of the perks which had come with his recent promotion, so he should undoubtedly stop whining and enjoy it. It was just that splendid though it was, it wasn't the one he'd spent the last fifteen T-years arranging exactly the way he wanted it.

Besides, he'd liked his old job much better than his new one. Or, no, that wasn't quite true. He'd just liked the people he'd worked for better.

He tipped back in the sinful comfort of his automatically contouring chair and ostentatiously planted the heels of his boots squarely in the middle of his huge desk's blotter. Then he clasped his hands behind his head and gazed up at the deckhead while he contemplated the perversity of success.

When he'd first been sent to the Basilisk System as a relatively junior officer, it hadn't precisely been a plum assignment. As a matter of fact, no one had been certain the Star Kingdom of Manticore was even going to keep the place, and if the Liberals and the Conservative Association had had their way, Manticore wouldn't have. But those ill-matched partners in isolationism hadn't had their way, and over the next half T-century, Basilisk had become an immensely important and valuable possession. The traffic through the Basilisk terminus of the Manticore Wormhole Junction had grown by leaps and bounds, until it accounted for almost a third of all traffic through the Junction, and Lieutenant Reynaud had advanced steadily through Commander Reynaud, to Captain Reynaud, to Admiral Reynaud, commanding officer, Basilisk Astro Control.

And then, of course, the Peeps had blown the entire Basilisk infrastructure to Hell.

Remembered pain twisted Reynaud's face as he recalled the devastating Havenite raid which had utterly demolished a half-century of investment and development. Warehouses, repair facilities, building slips, solar power satellites, orbital farms, transient housing, orbital factories and refineries ... It had been the single most successful Peep attack of the entire war, and Reynaud had gotten entirely too close a look at it. Indeed, Astro Control had been on the Peep list as well, and only the fact that Eighth Fleet had gotten there in time had saved it. And, he conceded, that was probably the only thing that had saved his own life, as well.

But that had been five T-years ago. Basilisk was rebuilding now, and much more rapidly than anyone— including Reynaud—would have believed possible before the attack. Partly he supposed that was because the original infrastructure had grown only as the demand for it grew, whereas the replacement installations had been designed and constructed to meet an established and clearly understood need. And another factor, he acknowledged unhappily, was that the High Ridge Government had seen the reconstruction of Basilisk as a perfect opportunity to pour vast sums into public projects. Not only did it create jobs, not a minor consideration now that the military was downsizing and demobilized Navy personnel were glutting the job market, but it fitted perfectly with the High Ridge slogan: 'Building the Peace.'

Damned straight they're 'building the peace,' Reynaud thought disgustedly. The idiots certainly couldn't have fought the war! But I guess Basilisk is probably less of a scam than some of their other programs.

And that, he acknowledged, if only to himself, was the real reason he disliked his present job. Not just because it had taken him away from Basilisk while the star system was still climbing back to its feet, but because in his opinion the entire program he'd been tapped to command had been authorized only because High Ridge and his stooges saw it as one more PR-rich boondoggle.

Be fair, he scolded himself. They may be padding the budget, and they're certainly playing their brainchild for all it's worth politically, but it really is about time someone got behind Kare and pushed. I just hate all the hoopla. And then there's the fact that I don't happen to think the government is the best entity to be doing the pushing. And the fact that I really, really don't like having people like Makris hanging over my shoulder ... or harassing the people who work for me. And—

He made himself stop adding to the laundry list of things he didn't much like about the situation. Besides, he admitted very, very privately, a lot of them simply added together and boiled down to how much he hated the fact that Baron High Ridge and his cronies would see to it that they got any credit that came of it.

He glowered at the deckhead for several more seconds, then glanced at his chrono, sighed, returned his