“In some ways, that’s good, from our perspective. No matter what they do, these purges of theirs will bite their military efficiency right on the ass, because it’s costing them so many experienced senior officers. But if he manages to make this new regime of his stand up, then eventually he’ll start building up a stable of new commodores and admirals. And if he demonstrates that he’s totally prepared to shoot anybody who fails to perform adequately, they’ll be motivated as hell.” She shook her head again. “We’ve got a window—the time it’ll take him to do that—in which their Navy’s in disarray, during which their efficiency will go straight into the crapper. It’s not going to last, but it’s starting to open even wider right now.”

  “And if we can see the writing on the wall, their senior officers certainly can, too,” Caparelli mused. “I’m sure the ones he hasn’t already gotten around to shooting or arresting have to be looking over their shoulders.”

  “You might say that.”

  Something about Givens’ tone raised Caparelli’s eyebrows, and she snorted harshly.

  “We’re starting to pick up what are probably feelers from some of the Peep system picket commanders,” she said. “They’re being cautious and circuitous as hell, but I think where some of them are headed is an offer to surrender their command areas to us if we promise we won’t shoot them.”

  “Seriously? And if so, why is this the first I’m hearing about it?”

  “This is the first you’re hearing about it because yesterday afternoon was the first time I heard about it. And I have to point out that even if that’s really what’s happening, I doubt the offers will come from any of the truly critical systems. The ones farther inside the frontier, closer to Nouveau Paris, for example. Partly that’s because the COs in those systems have much larger covering forces, which means they’d have to figure out how to convince a lot more officers and enlisted to go along with them. But there are also indications that when Pierre and his Committee sent dispatches to people outside the home system to tell them what had happened to Harris they sent orders to arrest as many senior officers as possible right along with them. And they made sure those dispatches—and orders—went to the most critical systems—like Barnett and Trevor’s Star—first. If they’d given somebody like Parnell a couple of weeks—hell, just a few days!—to really think about what happened in Nouveau Paris, he’d have organized the Navy to shoot every one of the bastards dead. In fact, I think the . . . expeditious way he and his senior officers were taken into custody is one more straw in the wind pointing to how carefully somebody—somebody named ‘Pierre’—planned and orchestrated this entire thing.”

  “Damn.” Caparelli shook his head. “I wouldn’t have shed a single tear if White Haven had blown Amos Parnell straight to hell in Yeltsin. But he never deserved this, if you’re right about what’s going on.”

  “I know.” Givens nodded. “And then there’s the minor fact that revolutionary regimes—especially those who need to prop up their authority at home—tend to be one hell of a lot more ruthless and extreme than regimes which are simply venal and corrupt. They may not be doing it right this instant, because they really want to buy as much time as they can before we amp up to full naval operations against them, but I guarantee you they’ll go the full press ‘foreign threat’ route as soon as they think they can. And the fact that the Legislaturalists’ propaganda’s painted us as the enemy for so long will only make that even easier for them.”

  “Oh, thank you for pointing that out!”

  “Unfortunately, it comes with my job description.”

  “I know—I know!” Caparelli shook his head. “But hearing what you’ve just said doesn’t make me one bit happier with the political equation right here in Landing.”

  “I haven’t been paying as much attention to our politics as I have to the Peeps’, but from what I have seen, I’d have to agree with you. What does Baroness Morncreek think is happening with the declaration?”

  Lady Francine Maurier, Baroness Morncreek, was First Lord of the Admiralty, although, technically, in her case it was First Lady of the Admiralty. Regardless of the finely parsed nuances of her title, she was the civilian head of the Royal Navy. Under another constitution, she would have been the Minister of the Navy, which, given the Navy’s status as the Star Kingdom’s senior service, made her the equivalent of most other star nations’ ministers of war.

  She was also a very smart woman who happened to be extremely unhappy at the moment.

  “Given what you said a few minutes ago about those statements Pierre’s issuing, it’s probably not surprising the Liberals are dug in to delay any formal declaration of war,” Caparelli said. “And without one, of course, I can’t authorize any offensive operations outside Riposte Gamma’s immediate moves. Those were already in the pipeline under our prewar standing orders and authorizations; anything more really requires a declaration of hostilities. Oh, I can take some additional steps, make a few more moves, close in on some of the forward bases we know the Peeps’ve been staging strikes through, but we’d be getting into a really iffy situation if we violated their prewar territory instead of just sparring between our borders. And let’s not forget the minor inconvenience that our peacetime budget couldn’t sustain actual combat operations for more than a couple of months, so without additional funding . . .”

  He shrugged, and Givens nodded gloomily. It wasn’t as if he was telling her anything she didn’t already know.

  “Duke Cromarty, Chancellor Alexander—and the Crown—are leaning on New Kiev and her idiots for all they’re worth, but it looks to me like the idiots in question are too busy posturing for their political base to get on with the minor matter of actually fighting a war. To be fair—which, mind you, is the last thing I want to be—part of that’s because they’re stupid enough, or at least sufficiently ill-informed about us Neanderthal militarists and how wars work—that they think there’s plenty of time. They think the Peeps self-inflicted wounds are doing so much damage that we’ll be able to kick their asses without breaking a sweat whenever they finally get around to letting us. And as far as I can tell, they don’t think there’s any expiration date on that credit chip.”

  “Oh . . . my . . . God.”

  “Exactly,” Caparelli said harshly. “Even worse, as far as I can tell, at least some of them—like that idiot Reginald Houseman and his merry band of ‘military experts’—genuinely believe that if we only ‘give peace a chance’ Pierre will realize he’s done so much damage to his own military that the only smart thing for him to do is to stand down. Which is even stupider of them, in a lot of ways, even leaving aside that bit about his needing an external enemy. Exactly how they expect him to sustain the People’s Republic’s economy after the way it’s been run into the ground for the last T-century or so without conquering new revenue sources is beyond me, but, then, I’m only an ignorant knuckle-dragging naval officer.”

  “How long does the Baroness think this is going to drag out?” Givens’ tone betrayed her anxiety, and Caparelli snorted.

  “Not a whole lot longer.” He allowed his chair to come upright. “The Duke still commands a working majority in the Lords. It’s not sufficient to prevent the Liberals’ filibustering, and he doesn’t have enough votes to invoke cloture, but once they finally stop gassing away, he’s got enough peers behind him to carry the declaration. His Centrists have an absolute majority in the Commons, too, and whatever people like Dabney and Winstainley may think, New Kiev realizes it would be suicidal for their lower house representation if their peers don’t eventually at least stop delaying the declaration vote. They don’t have to vote for it and alienate their hardcore base, but they’re going to piss off enough swing voters and independents to get killed in the next general election if they delay things much longer. Especially”—his expression hardened—“when the fighting does go full bore, the casualty totals start coming back, and anyone with a functional brain realizes how much lower they would’ve been if we’d been able to begin full-scale offensive operations now, before Pierre has a chance to consolidate.” He shrugged. “Lady Morncreek’s best guess is that it’ll probably be another week to ten days.”

  “Well, we’ve already lost enough opportunities that another couple of weeks probably won’t hurt us a lot worse,” Givens said. “I’d hate to see it get stretched out any farther than that, though!”

  “Me, too.” Caparelli nodded. “In fact I—”

  His desktop com chimed, and he broke off to glance at his chrono. Then he grimaced and tapped to accept the call.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” his flag secretary said from the com, “but Admiral Cortez is here for his thirteen hundred meeting.”

  “Thank you, Chris. Ask him to come on in, please.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Caparelli stood and extended his hand to Givens.

  “As always, concise and to the point,” he said. “I won’t pretend I enjoyed hearing most of that, but that’s hardly your fault.”

  “Fair’s fair, Sir.” Givens smiled crookedly. “I didn’t much like hearing Baroness Morncreek’s take on the declaration.”

  “Then we’re even,” Caparelli told her. “And”—the First Space Lord turned his head to smile a greeting at Admiral Sir Lucien Cortez, the Fifth Space Lord—“I don’t expect I’ll much like hearing what Lucien has to say, either.” He grimaced. “There’s a lot of that going around right now.”

  Givens’ smile got a little more crooked, but then it faded as she saw Cortez’s expression. The one thing the Fifth Space Lord didn’t look even remotely amused by was Caparelli’s quip.

  “Lucien?” she said.

  “Pat.” Cortez nodded to her, but his eyes were on Caparelli. “I’m afraid you’re really not going to like this, Sir,” he said.

  “Why?” Caparelli asked.

  “Excuse me,” Givens interrupted before Cortez could reply. “Is this something the two of you need to discuss privately? I mean, personnel isn’t really my bailiwick, and if you’ll forgive me, Lucien, you look like a man who’s about to drop a tactical nuke.”

  “I see what makes you such a keenly observant intelligence analyst, Pat,” Cortez said. “But it’s not like what I’m about to say won’t be public knowledge entirely too soon. And I’m thinking the Admiral can probably use all the input he can get before he takes it to Baroness Morncreek . . . and she takes it to the Prime Minister.”

  Caparelli’s eyes widened. So did Givens’, and the two of them looked at one another for a moment. Then Caparelli inhaled and pointed at the chairs facing his desk.

  “Sit back down, Pat. It sounds like something new has been added.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  She sank back into her chair, and the diminutive Fifth Space Lord settled into the one beside hers. Actually, he perched on the edge of the cushion and leaned forward, his expression intent.

  “All right, Lucien,” Caparelli said, and made a beckoning, go-ahead gesture with his right hand.

  “Yancey Parks’ official report is finally in.” Cortez’s voice was flat, harsh. “I’ve just come from Long Hall. Alyce Cordwainer and I used the ATTC’s holotank to view his inquiry’s findings and the accompanying sensor records.”

  Caparelli’s expression congealed into a mask. The Fifth Space Lord commanded the Bureau of Personnel, which made him responsible for the management and administration of the Navy’s manpower. Just as Naval Intelligence came under the Second Space Lord’s oversight, the office of the Judge Advocate came under the umbrella of BuPers. And Vice Admiral The Honorable Alyce Cordwainer happened to be the Royal Manticoran Navy’s Judge Advocate General, its highest ranking jurist.

  Given the preliminary reports Caparelli had already viewed . . .

  “How bad is it?” he asked after a moment.

  “I don’t think it gets any worse,” Cortez said grimly. “It’s taken too damned long—mostly because the combination of the operational tempo and transit times kept him from freeing up the number of captains Regs required to seat a board on Young’s actions. But now that it’s been seated and had a chance to look at the testimony and the records, it’s confirmed everything we’d heard about Young. The miserable bastard panicked. He pulled out—he ran. Hell, he not only ran, he ignored a direct order from the task group flagship to return to formation. One his exec clearly heard because we have him on record trying his damnedest to shame Young into getting back on station! Which, of course, Young also ignored so he could keep on running. And the fact that he did contributed directly to the loss of at least three more ships and almost all of the damage Cassandra suffered. God only knows how many of our people got killed because of it, but Parks’ minimum estimate is that it cost us at least seven hundred KIA.”

  “Shit,” Caparelli said flatly.

  “Oh, yeah.” Cortez nodded. “You know Alyce isn’t the sort to go off half-cocked, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her as pissed as she was after we finished reviewing the statements, testimony, and, especially, the tac data and com traffic. As she sees it, we have no choice but to charge Young under Articles Fourteen, Fifteen, Nineteen, Twenty-Three, and Twenty-Six.”

  Cortez winced.

  The Twenty-Third and Twenty-Sixth Articles “only” defined the crimes of breaking off action with the enemy without orders . . . and disobedience to the direct orders of a superior. An officer could be shot for either offense, although the Navy would probably settle for simply cashiering him. But the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Articles of War defined “desertion in the face of the enemy” and formally categorized it as high treason.

  And the penalty for that crime happened to be death, without provision for “or such lesser penalty as the Court shall decree.”

  “Well, isn’t that lovely,” Givens murmured.

  “It’s a sack of snakes, is what it is,” Cortez said. “North Hollow will pull out all the stops to save his worthless scum of a son. And Janacek and that entire crowd will line up to help him. It’s going to be a three-ring circus. Or maybe a Roman circus, complete with gladiators!”

  “I know.” Caparelli pinched the bridge of his nose, then lowered his hand. “I know. But we’ve got it to do, assuming Parks’ report is as conclusive as you seem to be saying, Lucien.”

  “It doesn’t get much more conclusive, Sir.”

  “Great.”

  Caparelli laid his hands flat on his desk with an expression of disgust. And of self-recrimination.

  “This is our fault,” he said bitterly. “Yes, it’s going to be a mess, but we should have put Young on half-pay years ago. There was plenty of evidence that he was a waste of oxygen, and we should have acted on it long before we ever got to this point. Right after that business in Basilisk, at the very latest! If there’s ever been a better example of an overbred cretin using his family connections to cover his incompetence, I’ve never seen it.”

  “With all due respect, Sir, you weren’t sitting in that chair when Young did his damnedest to put a knife in Captain Harrington’s back,” Cortez pointed out.

  “No, but I’ve been sitting in it for a while since then. And I should have—for that matter, Jim Webster should have—sent him dirtside and kept him there to rot instead of just shuttling him off to places where we figured he couldn’t do much harm. We’d never’ve gotten away with it when Janacek was First Lord, but Morncreek would’ve backed us. And don’t bother telling me we had bigger fish to fry than worrying about one incompetent, self-serving senior-grade captain. I seem to recall that you actually recommended putting him on half-pay, Lucien. And I let it drop, because trying to get the Navy back onto a war-fighting footing and keep it there once we got rid of Janacek was more important than the dogfight I knew North Hollow would organize if we decided we couldn’t find a ship for his precious baby boy.”

  Cortez had started to interrupt, but he closed his mouth and sat back after Caparelli’s last two sentences.

  “You know, I agree with everything you just said, Tom,” Givens said, “but the really ironic—in the most bitter possible sense of the word I can imagine—aspect of this whole thing is that it’s Harrington he tried to shaft both times.”

  “It’s personal for him,” Cortez said. “For both of them, by now, although I’ve never seen Harrington deviate one centimeter from her duty to do anything about it. But Basilisk wasn’t the first time he tried to ruin her career, Pat. It goes all the way back to the Academy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty common knowledge in certain circles that there’s bad blood between them, but it goes a lot deeper than just ‘bad blood.’ I don’t think most people know how it all started, but the records over at BuPers are pretty clear for anyone who knows how to read between the lines. He and his family have been trying to derail her career ever since Saganami Island, and I got curious enough to go back and try to figure out why.” His grimace was heavy with disgust. “Let’s just say it’s pretty clear she kicked his ass—literally—in the women’s showers one night.”

  Givens’ eyes widened, then narrowed, and he nodded grimly.

  “She never filed official charges against him. Probably because she figured no one would take her word—or admit they did—if she accused the son of someone like North Hollow of attempted rape. She was wrong about that. I hope she realizes that now, and I wish to hell she had filed charges, but she was only eighteen at the time.” Cortez grimaced again, this time angrily. “But even if she didn’t report him, she definitely sent him to the infirmary that night, unless we want to believe the official story that he fell down a flight of stairs. Two or three tunes, judging by the damages.”

  Givens snorted in obvious satisfaction, and Cortez shrugged.

  “I’m pretty sure you can imagine how someone like a Young took that. Worse, every time he’s gone up against her directly since, he’s gotten his ass kicked all over again, if with a little less . . . ah, direct physical contact. And all three of us know how her career’s taken off since Basilisk, while his went straight into the crapper, where it belonged. All of which only makes someone like him even more determined to ‘get even.’