The Shadow of Saganami

suggests that even now, he's not going to relinquish control of the delegation without direct, nondiscretionary orders from home. And as long as he wants to stay obstinate, there's nothing the rest of the New Tuscan delegates here on Flax can do about it. I'd like to think the system government's bright enough to send instructions from home to override him, though.'

'You'd like to think that, but do you?'

The analyst sighed after considering it for several seconds. 'Not really.'

'I'm not overly optimistic myself. I thought Tonkovic was bad, but at least the Kornatians called her home and hammered her hard enough for her to resign.' The dispatch boat from Split had brought the news the day before. 'But I'm afraid the New Tuscan oligarchs are even more stubborn and a lot more monolithic than the Kornatians.'

'Yes, Milady, they are. My best prediction at the moment is that there's about an eighty percent chance they'll leave Yvernau here, still heading their delegation. I figure there's a seventy percent chance they won't send him any new instructions, either. They'll let him continue standing in front of the air lorry until it runs him down, hoping for the best. After that, though, I don't know what they'll do. That's why I was asking you. It looks to me as if it's too close to call at this point. There's almost an even chance they'll buy into this notion of his that they can do just fine without us, thank you.'

'That's my reading of the situation, too,' Medusa said. 'And he's probably right that we'll find ourselves obliged to prevent anyone else from moving in on them. But for the rest of it-' She shook her head. 'Either New Tuscany's going to turn into some sort of police state, or else the current management's going to get bounced out on its collective posterior when the New Tuscan electorate sees what's happening to the rest of the Cluster without their participation.'

'Which could be even messier than Nordbrandt's efforts on Kornati,' O'Shaughnessy said grimly.

'That's what happens to closed, exploitative ruling classes which insist on trying to tie the cork down more tightly instead of reforming themselves or at least venting the pressure in some controlled fashion,' Medusa agreed sadly. Then she shook herself.

'There's not much we can do if they're going to insist on some sort of mutual suicide pact,' she said. 'On the other hand, it looks like the rest of the Cluster's falling into line behind Alquezar and Krietzmann quite nicely.'

'Yes, it does.' O'Shaughnessy made no particular effort to hide his satisfaction, and the Provisional Governor returned his broad smile with interest. 'Given what Terekhov and Van Dort did to Nordbrandt and the FAK, and now the approval of the Alquezar draft Constitution virtually in its entirety, I'd have to say the annexation logjam seems to be breaking up. The one thing I was most worried about-once the Government finally decided to go ahead and impose a hard and fast deadline-was the effect all of the death and destruction on Kornati was going to have on domestic political opinion back home. Tonkovic and Yvernau's delaying tactics never had a hope of standing up to the threat of exclusion, but I had my doubts about whether or not Parliament would approve the annexation, even with the Queen getting behind and pushing hard, if it thought we were going to be looking at a constant, running sore in Split.'

'I think you might've been underestimating both Her Majesty's grip on the present Parliament and the electorate's intestinal fortitude,' Medusa said. 'On the other hand, you might not have been. Either way, I'm glad there's not going to be any more spectacular bloodshed and explosions coming out of the Cluster.'

* * *

'Very well, Amal,' Terekhov said. 'General signal to the Squadron. All units prepare to depart Montana orbit and proceed in company to Point Midway.'

'Aye, aye, Sir,' Lieutenant Commander Nagchaudhuri acknowledged, and Terekhov glanced around his bridge.

Hexapuma was understrength, what with the Marines she'd left on Kornati, the casualties she'd suffered when Hawk-Papa-One was destroyed, and the detachment of Ansten FitzGerald's party to Copenhagen . The same number of casualties and detached personnel would have made a relatively minor hole in the company of an older ship, like Warlock or Vigilant . Aboard Hexapuma , it represented a significant reduction in manpower. He'd been tempted to 'borrow' a few people from the other ships, but not very strongly. He knew the temper of his weapon. He preferred to see it slightly understrength rather than risk introducing flaws into it at this critical moment.

He turned his attention to the main plot. The green icons of twelve ships gleamed upon it now. In addition to Hexapuma's own, there were two other heavy cruisers— Warlock and Vigilant -and three light cruisers— Gallant and Audacious , both sisters of his dead Defiant , and Aegis , one of the new Avalon -class ships, almost as modern as Hexapuma . That was the core of 'his' squadron's combat power, but they were supported by four destroyers— Javelin and Janissary , both relatively modern, and the ancient (though neither of them was really any older than Warlock ) Rondeau and Aria . The ten warships were accompanied by the dispatch boat he'd impressed from its assignment to the Montanan government and by HMS Volcano .

He let his attention linger on Volcano's light code for a moment, then laid his forearms precisely along the armrests of his command chair and rotated it to face Lieutenant Commander Wright.

'All right, Tobias,' he said, his voice calm, unshadowed by any trace of uncertainty. 'Take us out of here.'

Chapter Fifty-Three

HMS Ericsson erupted over the hyper wall into the Spindle system in a starbust of blue transit energy twenty-seven days after leaving Dresden.

She sent her identity and notice that she carried dispatches to HMS Hercules via grav-pulse as soon as she made translation, and a trickle of consternation flowed uphill as the news of her arrival wended its way towards the superdreadnought's flag deck. Ericsson was a depot ship. She wasn't a dispatch boat, and she was supposed to be permanently stationed in Montana, supporting the Southern Patrol.

No one knew what she was doing here, but no one expected it to be good.

* * *

'Dispatches?' Captain Loretta Shoupe frowned at Hercules ' com officer. 'From Montana?'

'That's what I'm assuming at the moment, Ma'am,' the lieutenant commander said. 'But assume is all I can do. Unless you want me to send a query back?'

Shoupe considered. According to the time chop on the arrival message, it had been receipted nineteen minutes before it was actually delivered to her. Allowing for decryption time and the fact that the communications officer had hand-delivered it to her, which had required him to walk it up six decks and down the next best thing to a quarter-kilometer of passages, that wasn't too bad. But the total transit time for Ericsson from the hyper limit to Flax orbit would be approximately two and a half hours, which meant it would be another two hours and fifteen minutes before she reached Hercules .

She scanned the brief message again. Whatever dispatch Ericsson was carrying, it was obviously important, since she'd listed it as Priority Alpha-Three. That called for it to be delivered via secure recording medium rather than transmitted.