Shadow of Victory - eARC (61 page)

“That sounds more than fair to me, Admiral,” Medusa said warmly. “And on behalf of myself, Prime Minister Alquezar and his Cabinet, and Admiral Khumalo and the Royal Manticoran Navy, I hereby invite you, your staff, and as many of your senior officers as you’d like to bring along for a banquet this evening. Regular service dress uniform will be fine. This isn’t going to be a tedious formal affair. Instead, Treasury Minister Lababibi has arranged the Spindle version of a clambake.” She smiled. “Be sure to warn your officers they’re likely to be wandering barefoot in the surf before the evening’s done!”

* * *

“Well, damn,” Craig Culbertson said mildly. “This is unexpected!”

“That’s one way to put it, Sir,” Helena Sammonds replied. The chief of staff stood at the seated admiral’s shoulder, gazing at the dispatch on his display. “Sort of wish we’d known it was coming before we sent off your ‘prospectors,’” she added.

“A valid point,” Culbertson acknowledged. “I wonder if we should send some of our new cornucopia after them?”

“Probably not a good idea, unless we can scare up enough escorts to look after them, Sir,” Commander Fremont said from the other side of Culbertson’s desk. The admiral looked at him, and the ops officer shrugged. “Given the way our ‘visits’ are going to be stomping on Solly toes left and right, having an unarmed, unescorted transport full of troops turn up on their doorsteps after our task groups have moved on might get messy.”

“Something to that, Sir,” Sammonds said. “Quite a lot, actually.”

Culbertson nodded, and he knew they were right, but the temptation was still hard to resist.

He punched a key and shifted his screen to the direct feed from the main display in the big carrier’s combat information center. It was currently configured to show the entire Montana System to five light-minutes beyond the hyper limit. The green beads of three fleet transports accelerated steadily across it towards Montana orbit, and he shook his head. None of them were exceptionally large—the biggest probably massed no more than a couple of million tons—but according to the dispatch they’d transmitted ahead of themselves, they carried upwards of fifty thousand trained combat personnel and their equipment, including light ground armor, elderly but still effective sting ships and atmospheric aircraft, and copious amounts of ammunition.

“I sure wish Lady Gold Peak had known this was coming before she headed off for Madras,” he said.

“And all God’s children said ‘Amen!’” Lieutenant Commander Gert Spinrad, Culbertson’s astrogator put in fervently. At thirty-six, Spinrad was the youngest member of his staff, only about five years older than his flag lieutenant, and he’d spent two years with the Grayson Space Navy.

There were times Culbertson suspected it had affected his brain.

Nonetheless, he had a point. Those fifty thousand troops would have been worth their weight in any commodity anyone cared to nominate when Admiral Gold Peak crossed the Meyers alpha wall. But the rest of the dispatch—!

“Do you think they can really come up with that many more men?” he asked, looking up at Sammonds and Fremont. “A million of them?”

“Well, Admiral Khumalo did say they’d turned up more manpower than they expected,” Sammonds pointed out with a crooked smile. “And he won’t be providing them to anyone until and unless he can scare up the transport for them. On the other hand, I have to say this does offer a certain…greater flexibility going forward, shall we say?”

Helena, Culbertson reflected, had quite a way with words.

* * *

“That’s an impressive list of ‘supporting elements.’” Captain Edie Habib, Luiz Roszak’s chief of staff, sat back in her chair, left elbow on the chair arm while she rested her chin on that palm and her right hand toyed with a lock of dark brown, reddish hair. “First time I ever heard of three complete squadrons of wallers ‘supporting’ a dozen battlecruisers!” she said wryly.

“Agreed.” Roszak sat in his own chair, tipped back while the two of them studied the force analysis on the briefing room’s main wall screen. “Ellingsen and Abernathy actually offered us a fourth squadron, but I didn’t want to impress our new allies as being overly greedy, so I declined with becoming modesty.”

Habib chuckled, then sat straighter and looked at her admiral.

“This is going to make our job a lot easier, Luiz,” she said much more seriously. “When do we get to sit down with them and start serious planning?”

“That’s the one fly buzzing around in my ointment,” Roszak said. There was just a hint of sourness in his tone, and Habib’s brown eyes narrowed.

“Abernathy says that in the wake of Filareta’s attack on the Manties’ home system, they’re concerned by potential SLN action against Beowulf or the possibility Kingsford and the Mandarins will be stupid enough to mount another, even bigger attack on Manticore. He also told us their intelligence is picking up rumors that someone—probably Technodyne and this ‘Alignment’—is promising to provide the Navy with—and I quote—‘second-generation improved shipkillers superior to anything you saw at Torch.’” He shrugged. “Given those circumstances, he says, at the moment their planning focus is on nailing down as many loose ends as they can in their own defenses—including the Haven System’s, just in case anyone in Old Chicago’s feeling that crazy. It’ll probably be at least a couple of months before they could shake loose enough staff to do any sort of serious joint planning. So what they’d really prefer is to make a virtue out of necessity and give us a free hand in formulating our joint ops plans on the basis of this force structure.”

He twitched his head in the direction of the wall display.

“They’re giving us carte blanche?” The brown eyes which had narrowed widened in surprise, and Roszak nodded.

“Abernathy was authorized to tell us they’re prepared to conform to our planning unless they see some serious problem in it. Apparently, since we’re going to be the ‘public face’ of our little secret alliance, they’re willing to let us call the shots. Ellingsen also pointed out that since we’ll be the ones most exposed to risk in this instance—and since they assume we have to be more familiar with the local strategic situation than they are—it’s only reasonable to let us put our imprint on the planning from the earliest stage. And, as I say, they figure we’ll probably be less distracted by other pressing operational concerns. Like whether or not someone’s planning on invading our home star system.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Habib said. “Mighty generous of them even so, though.” Then she snorted. “Well, I guess anyone who’s ready to send us three squadrons of SD(P)s has already demonstrated her ‘generosity’!”

“I know. It’s just…” Roszak shook his head. “It’s just that Abernathy seemed…less nuts-and-bolts oriented than I would have expected from someone in his position.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had the feeling he was more of a spook than a shooter, I guess,” the admiral replied. “I really wish I’d had Jiri there to take a read on that. He’s got good instincts for that kind of thing.”

Habib nodded in understanding. Commander Jiri Watanapongse, Roszak’s staff intelligence officer, was one of the sharpest “spooks” the chief of staff had ever met. Meticulous and logical to a fault, he also knew when to trust his instincts.

“You could be right about that,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “About his being a spook, I mean. You did say their Foreign Office’s taking lead on this. It’d make sense, if it’s as tightly held on their side as they’ve indicated, to grab somebody seconded to diplomatic service, or maybe from ONI, for this.”

“I know. In fact, that’s what I told the Governor, because it does make sense. In a way, at least. Personally, though, I’d’ve found a shooter with the right security clearance and sent him, instead. I’d’ve wanted to be sure my shooters’ perspective was represented from the get-go. And I would’ve done my damnedest to keep compartmentalization on my side from throwing any grit into the gears.”

“Grit?” Habib cocked her head. “That sounds like you’re thinking about more than just the fact that they sent an intelligence guy on what was primarily a diplomatic mission anyway, Boss.”

“I suppose it does, and it may just be pre-opening-night nerves on my part.” Roszak smiled suddenly. “After all, we’ve been working towards this for a long time, Edie. We’ve known exactly what we wanted to do, and we planned accordingly. So when Santa Claus suddenly sweeps down the chimney and offers to open his pack when we’re finally on the verge of pulling the trigger, my first reaction is to worry about anyplace it might cause potholes in all that planning.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

“It’s not getting any better, Karl-Heinz,” Adam Šiml said somberly.

He and Karl-Heinz Sabatino sat in the Zlatobýl Tower penthouse, once again looking out over the Velehrad skyline and the canyons of its streets. There were no thunderstorms this time, but a cold, dreary, gray rain sifted down, enough to chill the soul even from the penthouse’s warm luxury.

And all too accurate a reflection of the planetary capital’s mood.

“At least no one’s getting killed in the streets,” Sabatino said, equally somberly, and Šiml nodded.

He still despised everything Sabatino stood for, and the man’s callous, calculating manipulation of the Chotěbořian economy appalled him. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking Sabatino would let anything stand in the way of his Solarian masters’ plans, either. Yet the anger in Sabatino’s eyes seemed genuine. Perhaps, Šiml thought, because his normal calculations didn’t think about Chotěbořians as people. He thought of them as game pieces, market forces, and political tokens to be maneuvered for Frogmore-Wellington and Iwahara Interstellar’s benefit. The riots—and the death toll—had reminded him of the flesh and blood human beings behind those game pieces and tokens.

Or maybe he’s just pissed off because he can see it’ll be bad for business in the long run, the Chotěbořian reminded himself.

Either way, his displeasure with the Cabrnoch administration was obvious.

“No, no one’s dying in the streets…right now,” Šiml let some of his own bitterness show. “There will be soon enough, though. Daniel’s managed to clamp down the lid, but there’s a lot of pressure underneath it, and keeping it clamped down is another matter entirely.”

“I know.” Sabatino shook his head. “Gunnar’s people are telling me the same thing you are. For that matter, it’s what that pain in the ass Holowach’s telling Luis Verner. In fact, he’s insisting there’s some kind of organized resistance to Cabrnoch bubbling away under the surface.”

“Really?” Šiml frowned, if not for exactly the reasons Sabatino might have expected.

He’d always suspected Major Holowach was a lot smarter—or at least more effective—than Gunnar Castelbranco. It was unlikely Holowach had as many sources and paid informants as the corporate security chief did, but all indications were that the Gendarmerie major and Captain Price, his senior analyst, were less likely to accept a thesis because it happened to agree with what their superiors wanted to hear.

“Has System Administrator Verner said what kind of ‘resistance’ Major Holowach’s worried about?”

“No, not specifically.” Sabatino shrugged irritably. “Besides, if there was any organized movement out there, it would’ve taken advantage of the football riots!”

“Yes, I suppose it would have,” Šiml agreed. “Assuming it was ready to move when the riots erupted, of course.”

“Well, if it wasn’t ready to move then, then it’s never going to be ready!” Sabatino said dismissively. “Which doesn’t alter the accuracy of your observation.” He shook his head. “I’ve been worried about Cabrnoch’s judgment for some time, but even so, I never expected him to order the CPSF into the streets that way. What the hell was he thinking?”

“Probably the same thing he was thinking fifteen months ago in Náměstí Žlutých Růží,” Šiml replied tartly. “I know I have a lot of personal reasons to detest the man, Karl-Heinz, but all personal animosity aside, it’s beginning to look to me like the only response he knows is to bring the hammer down on anything that might threaten his power base. And in the long run, that’s only going to make it worse. If you compress a spring too far, when the pressure releases there’s no telling how far it’s going to recoil!”

Sabatino nodded glumly, looking down into his wineglass. Then he looked up and squared his shoulders.

“The truth is, Adam,” he said, “that when he ordered the clampdown on those demonstrators, I thought it was the right move, too. Given what was happening in Talbott, it seemed like a really bad time to actively encourage political unrest. God only knew where it might’ve ended! But since then—and particularly, to be honest, since I became acquainted with you—I’ve realized you’re right. I may not like Holowach, but he had a point when he said the political system here on Chotěboř’s lost its ‘elasticity.’ I asked him what the hell that meant, and he said that when a government’s unable to allow any public expression of discontent, it means two things. First, it means that government’s lost the ability to respond effectively to the causes of that discontent. A response doesn’t necessarily have to consist of making concessions, he pointed out, but the causes themselves have to be addressed and the pressure has to be relieved somehow, and when a government can’t do that, it’s in trouble. But, second—and I think this may be what you’re getting at where Cabrnoch’s concerned—it means the government in question is operating in what he calls a ‘fortress’ mentality. It’s drawn its lines, and anything at all that threatens its position has to be hammered. And that, as he pointed out, only creates martyrs.”

Šiml nodded, honestly impressed by both the caliber of Holowach’s analysis and by Sabatino’s willingness to admit it might be valid.

“So what do we do about it?” he asked quietly.

Sabatino gazed out the windows for a long moment, then stood. He walked to the windows and turned his back to them to face Šiml.

“Cabrnoch has to go,” he said flatly. “Verner doesn’t begin to have the Gendarmes—or the fleet support—to forcibly suppress any sort of general insurrection. And, frankly, given the way the galactic situation’s developing, it’d be a frigging disaster even if he could. The probable damage to the system’s infrastructure would represent a significant economic hit for Frogmore-Wellington and Iwahara, which wouldn’t make the home office happy. The number of people who’d probably get killed would be even worse, from my perspective. And with the Manties only sixty-four light-years away, the chance of keeping that kind of public unrest nailed down without someone’s inviting them in a là Talbott would be pretty low.”

Šiml nodded again, hoping his surprise didn’t show. That was about the clearest—and most accurate—estimate of the situation in Kumang he’d ever heard out of Sabatino.

“I know you figured out from the very beginning that I wasn’t throwing money at Sokol only because I like football and swimming pools,” the system CEO said wryly. “I also know you’ve done well financially out of our…relationship. And I strongly suspect you also realized from the beginning that I visualized you as a…political counterweight, call it, for Cabrnoch. It’s been apparent for several years that public support for his administration’s been eroding. So, yes, I invested in Sokol—and in you—to have that counterweight ready if I needed it. And I won’t pretend I did it because I’m a great humanitarian and philanthropist. I did it because it made cold, hard sense from a pragmatic business viewpoint.

“Having said that, though, and bearing in mind what happened out there in the streets last month, I think you may represent the best chance Chotěboř has.”

Silence fell. It hovered for the better part of a minute, then Šiml climbed out of his own chair and crossed to the windows, looking out across the city from Sabatino’s side.

“Let me be clear on this, Karl-Heinz,” he said quietly. “Are you seriously suggesting removing Jan from office and putting me in his place?”

“Yes,” Sabatino said simply.

“And how do you expect to do that? Even if elections meant anything, he doesn’t have to face one for another two T-years. And if System Administrator Verner doesn’t have the…coercive power to suppress a popular insurrection, where does he get the coercive power to forcibly disarm the Public Safety Force?”

“It won’t come to that.” Sabatino’s tone was flat, confident. “I can make Cabrnoch what they used to call ‘an offer he can’t refuse.’ And I can do the same for Vice President Juránek.” He shrugged. “First, I’ve got a lot of money, Adam. I can probably buy Juránek for less than one year of what we’ve been paying Cabrnoch. Cabrnoch may be a little more expensive—or want to be, anyway—but I expect he’ll change his mind when I explain the alternatives to him. Alternative One is that he accepts my offer, resigns gracefully, receives a luxury villa on the Cragmore Ocean beachfront in the Boyle System, and a lifetime income at about fifty percent of what he’s getting now. Alternative Two is that he rejects my offer, at which point I withdraw all financial support, begin supporting public demands for a recall election, and drop evidence of several T-decades of political corruption, malfeasance, human rights abuses, and other illegal activities into the news channels before you, as the spokesman for the recall referendum movement, request System Administrator Verner to petition the Office of Frontier Security to oversee the referendum’s vote in order to assure that it’s fair, open, and represents the actual desires of the people of Chotěboř.”

He smiled thinly.

“Which do you think he’ll choose?”

* * *

“Do you think he’s serious?” Zdeněk Vilušínský asked.

“Yes, I think he is,” Šiml replied. “He wants my answer within twenty-six hours.”

“Damn,” Vilušínský said almost prayerfully.

“Don’t get carried away,” Šiml said more sharply. Vilušínský looked at him, and he shrugged. “I’ll admit I actually find myself liking Sabatino—a little, at least—and that what he’s talking about here probably does represent the best way to engineer some sort of soft landing for the anger out there.” He twitched his head at the window and the nighttime city streets beyond it. “But he’s still the local representative for Frogmore-Wellington and Iwahara, and he has absolutely no intention of taking his—their—hand off the economic throat of this star system. I think he’s genuinely unhappy about the number of people who were killed and injured last month. In fact, I don’t think he ever remotely imagined something that bad was likely to happen. After all, the casualties from the riots were thirty or forty times as bad as those from the Náměstí Žlutých Růží demonstrations. I think that shook him—maybe even badly—but ultimately, he’s loyal to the people who pay him.”

“Are you saying he expects you to simply take over from Cabrnoch and be a new face doing the same things?”

“No. I think he expects me to come in and make at least some genuine reforms. But he doesn’t want anything more than a façade democracy, Zdeněk. I think I might even be able to get him to open the spigots a little bit where the system’s economic health is concerned, but that’s about as far as it’s going to go.”

“I have to say, even that would be a vast improvement over where we are now,” Vilušínský said. “And if it let you get your foot in the door, gave you a base to work from, then—”

“No,” Šiml said again, more forcefully. He shook his head. “Gradualism might work, but historically, that fails more often than it succeeds in a situation like this. And there’s going to be an enormous amount of inertia in the existing system. I couldn’t go in and rip out all of the present power structure by the roots. Even if Sabatino was willing to let me do that, the people running the current establishment wouldn’t. If he gives us ‘a foot in the door,’ we have to put our shoulder into it and drive that door all the way open. Not sometime in the future—immediately.”

“How?”

“Between Michal Pastera’s acquisitions and Martin Holeček’s…creative manifesting, we’ve got enough modern small arms here on-planet to equip two thirds of our Jiskry. After what happened last month, I don’t think we’d have much trouble motivating our people if we saw an opportunity.”

“What kind of ‘opportunity’ do you have in mind?” Vilušínský asked warily.

“Cabrnoch resigns, Juránek does the same, there’s a special election to replace them, and I win, courtesy of Sokol and Sabatino’s backing.” Šiml paused and Vilušínský nodded, watching his face closely. “I take office and spend a week or so, maybe a month, settling in. Then I invite Daniel Kápička and, possibly, Sabatino to a meeting—not in the Presidential Palace, but a quiet meeting at my house. They attend the meeting, a couple of hundred of our armed Jiskry take them into custody—hopefully without killing anybody—and I go on the air, announce Daniel’s resignation, and order the dissolution of the CPSF. At which point, a few hundred more Jiskry immediately move in and take over the CPSF armories and the main barracks in Velehrad.”

“You really think Kápička’s people would lie down for that?”

“I think there’s a chance they would,” Šiml said. “I don’t know how good a chance, but definitely a chance. And if the Velehrad riots showed anything last month, it’s that there really are people—a lot more of them than I thought there were, frankly—willing to take to the streets even without any organized leadership. If we offer them that leadership, if we tell them they’re defending the new, reform government, and if our Jiskry—and, for that matter, the people we already have inside the CPSF—are there to provide leadership and an armed cadre, I think they’ll respond. It may not be the bloodless coup you and I would prefer, but I think we could probably hold bloodshed to a minimum, and I believe—genuinely believe, Zdeněk—that it would work.”

“And do you have a page in this plan for Verner, Frontier Security, and Frontier Fleet? You know Frogmore-Wellington and Iwahara are going to scream that Sabatino’s being unlawfully detained and that your ‘seizure of personal power’ is flagrantly illegal under our own Constitution!”

“Yes, I do,” Šiml acknowledged. “And I do have a page in my plan for it.” He smiled coldly. “As Karl-Heinz pointed out to me just this evening, Montana—and the Star Empire of Manticore—are only sixty-odd light-years away.”

* * *

“Excuse me, Governor,” Julie Magilen said, “but there’s someone I think you’d better see.”

Oravil Barregos looked up from the never ending flood of paperwork with raised eyebrows. Magilen had been with him for almost thirty T-years, and she was his personal secretary and office manager, definitely not his receptionist. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d told him someone wanted to see him, especially someone without an appointment, and something about her tone…

“By all means, Julie,” he said, bookmarking his place and closing the file he’d been perusing. “Who is it?”