by David Weber
"Oslabya's missiles mst'ye been under shipboard control, sir! They're going to a standard dispersion pattern]" Naomi's heart chilled as she stabbed a quick look at Battle Two. It was true. With her computers out of the circuit, Oslabya's missiles were spreading to cover the target with maximum devastation, and what was supposed to be a precision strike had become an atrocity. They were only actical nukes, but they'd land all over the Reservation and dependent housing.
"Good hits on target." Gunnery's almost droning report jerked her eyes away from the horror unfolding on Battle Two. "She's streaming air, sir]" And then Krsts found the range.
Pommfrn screamed as the lasers raped her.
Naomi had always known ships had souls--comshe felt it now, in her own soul, as the cruiser's armor puffed to vapor and vanished under the radiant energy.
"Forward launchers gone!" Gunnery's professional calm had disappeared. "Laser One destroyed!" Naomi turned towards him, but she never completed her order. Krsts found them again, her hetlasers knifing through armor and plating and flesh. Naomi gasped involuntarily as air screamed from the holed compartment and her suit puffed tight, and Pommern lurched as a drive room died, and then another. She was toothless and naked, but Krsts was badly hurt herself, and the Jamieson Archipelago was a forest o pounds oisonous mushrooms as Toshiba blasted the shipyards and her crew's homes and families burned.
Naomi looked away from her looming executioner, her own eyes burning as Oslabya's missiles ('aid their artificiMore suns across the Navy base. How many were dying down there? How many whose husbands and wives and fathers and mothers wore the same uniform as she? Yet they were only a few more deaths against the civilians dying around the other yards. How many would there be? A million? Two million?
Three? Against that kind o pounds devastation, what could a few thousand Navy dependents matter?
Kris slid alongside at point-blank range, and Naomi watched almost incuriously in an outside screen as the battle-cruiser's surviving hetlasers swiveled across her ship. Kris poured fire into the gutted, mutinous cruiser.
Naomi had a tiny fraction of a second to see the end of her bridge explode into vaporized steel. Only a fraction of a second before the fury came for her--but long enough to feel the mark of Cain in her soul again and know that death would be sweet.
DISASTER "Mister Speaker," Simon Taliaferro said somberly, "I take little pleasure in being vindicated in such fashion." He looked around the Chamber of Worlds and shook his head sadly. "We sluld have known it would come, I suppose, when so many Fringe World delegates resigned their seats to protest the "severity" of a decision far more merciful than just. Barbarism, Mister Speaker--the acts of little, frightened minds which must not be allowed to destroy all the Terran Federation stands for." Oskar Dieter sat quietly, listening to the beautifully trained voice, wishing he possessed some of the same histrionic ability. But he didn't; all he could do was tell the truth, and where was the appeal of truth when ties were so convincingly presented?
"I ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," Taliaferro went on, "where is the reason in thsts?" He waved his hard copy of the report which had originated this secret session.
"Even if, as I do not for an instant believe, amalgamation is an unmeant threat to the Fringe Worlds' representation, is this the way to contest it? Where are the Fringe World delegates, ladies and gentlemen? Where are the petitions? We see none of them. Instead we see this!" He crumpled the sheet of paper contemptuously, and Dieter winced as the theatrical gesture evoked a spatter of applause.
It was sadly scattered applause, for the Chamber of Worlds was sparsely populated, the blocks of assemblymen and women separated by the empty delegation boxes of Fringe Worlds no longer represented here.
The Fringer delegations had been small, but there were many Outworlds, and their absence cut great swathes through the larger, less numerous Innerworld delegations. And it was Simon Taliaferro and others like him who created this absence, Dieter reminded himself, staring at the heavy-set Gallowayan with a hatred it no longer shocked him to feel.
"They have made no effort to oppose amalgamation," Taliaferro went on.
"They have not even bothered to discover whether or not it has in fact been ratified! They have fastened upon it--fastened upon it as a cheat and a pretext for treason, and let us not delude ourselves, my friends] The act of the Kontravian Clustersts treason, and when Admiral Forsythe has brought these traitors to their knees, we must show them that the Federation is not prepared to brook such criminality." Here it came, Dieter thought grimly.
Taliaferro had spent forty years maneuvering for exactly this slash at the Fringe's jugular.
"My friends," Taliaferro said soberly, "we must face unpleasant facts. The Kontravian rebels are not the only treasonously inclined members of the Fringe.. If we falter, ff we show weakness or hesitation, the Federation will vanish into the ash heap of history. Only strength impresses the immature political mind. Only strength and the proven will to use itl We must demonstrate our will power, whatever it may cost us in anguish and grief.
We must punish ruthlessly, so that a few salutary lessons will prevent the wholesale bloodshed which must assuredly follow weakness. I therefore move, ladies and gentlemen, that we draft special instructions to Fleet Admiral For-sythe and all other commanders, instructing them to declare martial law and empowering them to convene military courts to try and punish the authors of this treason. And, ladies and gentlemen, I move that we inform our eom-manders that the sentences of their courts martial stand approved in advance!" Dieter was on his feet in a heartbeat, fists clenched in shocked outrage. He'd known Taliaferro was ruthless, prepared tO provoke civil war to gain his own ends-but this was simple judicial murder!
His fury turned icy as the full implications registered. If one could only be as conscienceless as Taliaferro himself it was almost admirable. Killing the Beaufort "ringleaders" would, at one stroke, remove the Fringe leaders best able to oppose him, inflame the extremists on both sides, and stain the hands of the Assemblymen with blood. Even if their ardor cooled, even if they later realized Taliaferro had used them, they would be his captives. They would share his guilt, and so would perforce becomes his accomplices in future crimes, as well.
Dieter forced himself to use his anger, burning the fury. from his system and replacing it with frozen calm. He must speak out, must inject an element of opposition and carry at least a minority with him, so that when the fit passedeathere would be someone free of Taliaferro's blood guilt.
He drew a deep breath and touched his attention button as David Haley opened debate on Taliaferro's motion.
"The Chair recognizes the Honorable Assemblyman for New Zurich," Haley said, and Dieter heard the relief in his voice.
"Thank you, Mister Speaker." Dieter's huge face stared out over the delegates, showing no sign of his inner turmoil. How should he address them? With fu, denouncing Taliaferro as a madman? Or would that merely brand him another hothead? Sbouffd he, then, try cold lcgic? Or would that stand a chance against the hysteria Taliaferro had been fanning for so many months? Derision, perhaps? Would mockery achieve what head-on opposition could not? He shook his thoughts aside, knowing he must play it by feel.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," he heard his own stiffness and prayed no one else did.
"Mister Taliaferro proposes to recognize the depth of this crisis by enacting extraordinary legislation. He argues--and rightly so--comt this is a moment to show strength. The Federation has withstood many external threats, yet today we face an internal threat to our very existence. Indeed, Mister Taliaferro may well be too optimistic, for he overlooks the composition of our militar.v. As chairman of the Military Oversight Committee, I can assure you there are enough Fringe Worlders in the military to make the ultimate loyalty of our own armed forces far from assured." He felt the surprise as he admitted even a part of the Gallowayan's arguments. The Dieter-Taliaferro enmity had been a lively topic of Assembly gossip for months, and he
knew the wagers in the ante-rooms were heavily against him. But they'd reckoned without the years of favors he'd desperately called in among the hierarchy of his homewodd. And without the recorder his briefcase had concealed during his final, parting-of-the-ways meeting with the Taliaferro Machine's leadership. He'd hung on, emerging as Taliaferro's only real opposition, and though his Assembly membership still hung by a thread, that thread grew steadily stronger as his warning penetrated deeper into the fundamentally conservative minds of the bankers who owned New Zurich.
His secretly made recording had helped immensely, for he knew some of the New Zurich syndics shared his private opinion that Taliaferro was no longer sane. They were willing to keep him on as a counterweight--at least until they knew whether the Gllowayan would succeed. And ff Taliaferro did, Dieter knew, he would be the sacrificial lamb offered by the New Zurich leaders as they sought rapprochement with Galloway's World.
He shook such thoughts aside and forced his mind back to the present. His increasingly frequent woolgathering mental side-trips worried him.
"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mister Taliaferro is quite correct--and he is also entirely wrong. He would have you believe the only strong reaction is to crush the rebels, that the only strength is the iron fist of repression. Ladies and gentleman, there are more strengths than the whip hand!
Let us acknowledge that this is an unprecedented crisis. Let us admit that what we face is mass treason--treason not of a single person, or a single clique, or even a single world, but of an entire cluster! Let us ask ourselves wht eight star systems and eleven inhabited worlds and moons would simultaneously take such a drastic step! Has some mysterious madness gripped them all? Or is it, perhaps, much as we would hate to admit it, we who have driven them to it?"
He pausestt, feeling the hovering resentment like smoke. Some would hate him for opposing their carefully laid plans, and others for saying what they themselves had thought without admitting. Only a tragically small few would understand and support him.
But it had to be enough. It must be.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly, I oppose this motion. I oppose the creation of kangaroo courts whose only possible verdict can be death. I oppose the institutionalization of the fracture lines splitting our polity at this critical moment. Let us demonstrate that we are strong enough to be reasonable and wise enough to be rational.
Let us show the Fringe that we are willing to listen to grievances and, for a change, to act upon them. It is time for compromise, ladies and gentlemen, not for judicial murder." He sat clown abruptly, feeling his last two words ringing in a suddeh silence that proved some, at least, had heard. But not enough, he thought grimly.
Not enough.
Indeed, he was surprised only by the extent of his support, for as delegate after delegate rose to speak, almost a third supported him. He would have wagered on less than a quarter, and he was gratified to see so much sanity, even as he recognized his failure to stop Taliaferro. The motion passed by slightly less than a two-thirds majority, and a license to kill was dispatched to the Federation's far-flung commanders.
Dieter prayed they would have the moral courage to ignore it.
"Chieiq. Mister Dieter! Wake up sir!
Please wake up!" The grip on Dieter's shoulder wrenched him awake, and his hand darted under the pillow to the pistol butt which had become so unhappily familiar in the past fourteen months.
The weapon was out, safety catch released, before his sleep-dazed mind recognized Heinz von Rathenau, his security chief.
Rathenau stepped back quickly, and Dieter lowered the needler with a twisted grin and a shrug of apology. Since the first attempt on his life, he'd found himself uncomfortable without a weapon to hand.
"Yes, Heinz," he said. "What is it?" He glanced at the clock and winced. Four caret disM. He'd been asleep less than two hours.
"A priority message, sir." Rathenau looked desperately unhappy in the light of the bedside lamp. "From the Lictor General's office." "The Lictor General?" Dieter rose quickly, shrugging into a robe even as he headed barefooted for the door. "What priority?" "Priority One, sir." "Oh, God! Not again!" Dieter bit offfurther comment as he walked quickly down the hall beside Rathenau.
The armed New Zurich Peaceforcers at the elevators snapped to attention as Dieter passed, and Rathenau noticed that his normally affable superior didn't even acknowledge the courtesy.
They reached the communications room, and Rathenau stopped outside as Dieter stepped through the heavy security door. His predecessor would have walked through at Dieter's elbow with a calm assurance of his right to be there, but Rathenau felt no desire to appear even remotely akin to Francois Fouchet. Fouchet had mistaken Dieter's trustfulness for weakness... and paid for it, Rathenau thought with grim satisfaction. For himself, he would follow Oskar Dieter back to New Zurich without a murmur when the axe fell. It wasn't often a Corporate World security man found himself serving a chief worthy of personal loyalty.
Dieter shut the door without sparing Rathenan a thought.
He had eyes only for the flashing red light on the panel, and his blood ran cold. The last time he'd seen that light had been three months ago to receive news of the Kontravian secession.
He presented his eye to the retinal scanners, automatically suppressing the blink reflex. It took thirty seconds to satisfy the brilliant lights; when he finally read the message, he wished it had taken thirty years.
He stared at the screen, his mind encased in ice. God, he thought. Please, God. Why are You letting this happen? But there was no answer. There would be none.
He rose finally, like an old, old man, switching off the communicators and wishing he could switch off his mind as easily. He opened the door and saw young Rathenau's face tighten at his own expression.
"Chief?." "Heinz--was Dieter's hands moved for a moment, as ff trying to recapture something that was irretrievably shattered.
"What is it, Chief?." Rathenau's voice was much softer, almost gentle.
"Wake the others, Heinz." Dieter drew a deep breath, but the oxygen was little help. "Get everyone assembled in conference room one in--was he glanced at his watch his--comtwenty minutes. Tell them to forget dressing." "Yes, sir. May to ask why, sir?" "I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the briefing. There'll be an emergency session at 0600 hours, and I have calls to "Yes, ir." Rathenau watched Oskar Dieter move brokenly down the corridor, and his heart was cold within him.
The Chamber of Worlds was hushed, wrapped in a silence it had not known in deeades--comff ever.
Dieter looked around the shocked faces and wondered ff even the Battle of VX-134 had produced such an effect. Howard Anderson's battle had been Man's first with a rival stellar empire; this news was worse.
He glanced up as Taliaferro walked briskly to his seat. He wanted nothing else in the Galaxy so much as to see Taliaferro's expressSon, to read the emotions in the dark, arrogant face of the man who'd orchestrated this disaster. The man whom he, God help him, had helped create this catastrophe.
Taliaferro dropped into his chair almost as the chime struck, and Dieter understood. He'd timed his late arrival to preclude any buttonholing, but how would he deal with it? How would he manage this session?
"Ladies and Gentlemen." David Haley's voice sounded as ff it had been pulverized and glued unskillfully back together. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly, the Legislative Assembly is in session." He paused and cleared his throat, his face pale in the vast screen.
"I am certain all of you have been apprised of the reason for this emergency session. However... however, for those of you who may not be fully informed, I will summarize." His hands trembled visibly as he adjusted his terminal, but Dieter was certain he didn't really need any notes. Like himself, he no doubt found the information burned into his quivering brain.
"On February 12, 2439, Terran Standard Reckoning," Haley said slowly, as ff seeking protection in the formality of his phrasing, "Task Force Seventeen of the Terran Federation Na
vy Battle Fleet entered the system of Bigelow in the Kontravian Cluster for the purpose of suppressing the secessionist elements therein. It was hoped--was his voice broke, then steadied.
"It was hoped this force was strong enough to overawe the rebels. It was not. The Kontravians refused to surrender, and, after the failure of lengthy negotiations, Fleet Admiral Forsythe moved against them." He drew a deep breath, and a strange strength seemed to possess him, the strength which comes only to those who have faced the worst disaster they can conceive. When he continued, his voice was cold and clear.
"Task Force Seventeen," he said quietly, "no longer exists. Apparently--the message is not entirely clear, ladies and gentlemen--but apparently mutiny first broke out aboard the flagship. It spread. Within a very sort space, virtually every ship was involved. Most--was he drew another breath his-comwent over to the Kontravians." They'd known, but the shock which ran through his audience as the words were finally said was actually visible. Dieter looked away from Haley, fixing his gaze on Taliaferro, willing the man to show some reaction, but the Gallowayan had himself under inhuman control.