Insurrection
Page 17
Whatever the immediate cause of the secession, the speed with which the Fringe had closed ranks behind the Kontravians spoke volumes for the degree of clandestine communication which must have been established long since among the Outworld governments. Yet no whisper of any of it had reached the Assembly, which pointed to a massive intelligence failure.
"I see." He regarded Sanders thoughtfully.
"In that case, with your permission, Mister President, I'd like to ask Admiral Sanders a few questions before I give you my decision." "I assumed you would. That's why I arrangbledd to have the military represented," Zhi said dryly, waving a hand to proceed.
"nank you. Admiral, I suspect the situation is even worse than most of my colleagues realize. Am I correct?" "That depends, Mister Dieter," Sanders said carefully, "on just how bad they think it is. Off the cuff, however, I would have to say yes." "Enlighten me, if you please." "All right." Sanders eyed him measuringly. "Sky Marshal Witcinski could probably give you better figures on precise Fleet losses, but ONI estimates that in addition to TF Seventeen at least fifteen percent of Battle Fleet has gone over to the rebels.
Additional units in Innerworld space have mutinied and attempted to join them, but we've been able to stop most of them. The cost in loyal units---was he met Dieter's eyes levelly, and Dieter felt an inner chill "mhas been high.
"At the same time," he went on even more dispassionately, "we don't really know what's happened to Frontier Fleet. No drones are getting through to us from any of our bases in the Fringe, which, since the rebels control the intervening warp points and Fleet relays, may or may not mean they've changed sides. On a worst-ease basis, we're estimating the loss of at least ninety percent of Frontier Fleet." Dieter was staggered, though he tried to hide it.
"Fortunately," Sanders continued, "our large Innerworld bases have remained loyal and the rebels have to set up their command structure from scratch, which gives us time to activate the Reserve while they get themselves organized. On the whole, and given the greater mass of Battle Fleet's capital units, the tonnage balance probably [avors the rebels by as much as thirty percent, but the ratio of firepower is a bit in our favor when Fortress Conmand is allowed for." "I see. And Zephrain RDS?" "Unknown, Mister Dieter," Sanders admitted.
"The only hopeful news is that one of our Battle Fleet battlegroups may have gotten through to it." "May?" Dieter asked sharply.
"May. Vice Admiral Trevayne's BG Thirty-Two was cut off at Osterman's Star when the mutinies began, and we've received an official Orion complaint of a TFN border violation at Sulzan, about four transits from there. In all probability, that was Trevayne, and ff it was, and if he managed to avoid internment, and if the Orion district governor at Rehfrak was willing to let a force that powerful pass through his bailiwick, then he may have reached Zephrain.
Unfortunately, the Orions have since closed their borders completely. Any sort of confirmation from them will be a long time coming." Sanders shrugged, and Dieter nodded again. He'd met lan Trevayne exactly once, when he appeared before the Oversight Committee, but the incisive man he remembered just might have taken a chance on violating Orion space... and he would have known exactly how important Zephrain was.
"But that's only the present situation," Witeinski said, breaking the brief silence. "It doesn't address the future." "No," Sanders agreed, "and that's really Susan's area."
He nodded to Krupskaya, and her dark blue eyes met Dieter's as she took her cue.
"As you know," she said, "the Innerworlds have a tremendous industrial advantage over the Fringe, but more than seventy percent of all our warships came from Galloway's World." Dieter felt his nerves tighten. He'd known this was coming, but that made it no more palatable.
"The Jamieson Archipelago attack may have been a mistake, politically speaking," Krupskaya continued, "since its 'barbarism" has generated such widespread shock and repugnance among the Innerworlds, but militarily it was brilliant. They knocked out more than ninety percent of the civilian yards as well as the Yard and all Reserve units mothballed there. We estimate that it would take two or three years for the rebels to set up any substantial yard capacity of their own, but we need time to rebuild Galloway's World. We can put the facilities there back into service faster than we could build new yards and their infrastructure on other planets, but it will be at least eighteen monthsmore probably two years--before we can even begin laying down new ships there.
"Which means, Mister Dieter, that--assuming the reb- els have seized most of our bases in the Fringe-- our current building capacity gives us no more than a twenty percent advantage over them. We believe we can expand existing yards faster than they can build new ones, but for the foreseeable future we are going to have to be very, very careful about risking losses, particularly, in light of their long construction times, among our heavy units." "I see," Dieter said again, and another silence fell. God, it was even worse than he'd feared.
"But you asked why the government resigned," Zhi said finally. "Beyond the obvious erosion of its majority--comof which, I am sure, you are aware--comand general military situation, we have suffered yet another reverse." Dieter wondered ff he really wanted to hear any more bad news, but he nodded for Zhi to continue.
Yet it was Witcinski who took over again.
"This morning, we received a message from Admiral Pritzcowitski at Cimmaron," he said. "He and Admiral Waldeck had initiated local operations to suppress the rebellion in the immediate vicinity. Unfortunately, their first effort, directed against Novaya Bodina with light units, was badly defeated by some sort of jury-rigged defensive force. Admiral Waldeek proceeded at once with his entire task force to retrieve the situation. As of the time Admiral Pritzcowitzkfs message was dispatched, Admiral Waldeek's next scheduled report was seventy-two hours overdue." Dieter closed his eyes. It got worse and worse. No wonder Minh had resigned! When the Assembly learned all that he'd just learned, Minh would be lucky to escape impeachment.
"So that's the situation, Oskar," Haley said quietly. "We've had our differences, but I hope you know how much I've admired you in the past few months--and that I hate to ask this of you. But we need you." Dieter didn't even open his eyes, and behind his lids he saw every agonizing step which had led him and the Federagon to this pass. The military position was grimmer than even he had feared, and he knew how the Assembly would react when they discovered the truth. The existing fury over the "sneak attack" and "massacre" at Galloway's World would mix with panic. The war fervor which already gripped the Innerworlds would intensify, rather than ease as they drew together in the face of danger--and so would the extremity of the Federation's war aims.
If he accepted Zhfs request and formed a government, it would be a war government. It could be nothing else, and he would have to prove his own determination to achieve victory or go the way Minh had already gone. It would be the final, bitter irony of the political odyssey he'd begun when he broke with Simon. He, who had thrown away his career in an effort to preserve the peace, would be elevated to the highest ofi@e of the Assembly and charged with fighting the very. war he'd tried to prevent!
"I realize we are asking you to make bricks with a very limited supply of straw, Mister Dieter," Zhi said, even more quietly than Haley, "but Speaker Halev is right. We need yon. The Federation needs you--as the'one man who may (e able to form a stable government and as the one prime minister who may be able to control the extremism already rampant in the Assembly." Dieter winced, for that was the argument he'd most feared to face. Zhfs violation of the president's traditional neutrality in such matters only underscored the point; if any of Taliaferro's old associates took the premiership, any chance for moderation would vanish... and he still had not paid his debt to Fionna.
He drew a deep breath. His wildest dreams had never included becoming prime minister--and certainly never like this! And yet, ironic as it was, he had no choice. He opened his eyes and looked at President Zhi.
"Very well, Mister President," he sighed.
"I would have expected the convention to convene on Beaufort," she said calmly. "Beaufort is, after all, the home of the rebellion." It was like her, Ladislaus thought wryly, that she never resorted to euphemisms.
"Aye, I can see why you might be thinking that, but Beaufort is too far from the frontiers. We've no command structure at all the now, and until we've had the creating of one, we're to need the shortest courier drone routes we can be finding. Novaya Rodina's well located for that." "Yes, I can see that. But I think perhaps there is more to it than that, Mister Skjorning." "Aye, there is. As you've said, Beaufort's to be a logical place--comff it were a Kontravian rebellion we're after having. But we're after making this a Fringe-wide movement, so holding our convention somewhere else should be helping
along a sense of unity, you see. I've the thinking it's Beaufort's to be the capitol of whatever it is we're to have the buiffeading of, but it's not the place to be declaring what we are.
"That seems sensible," Ashigara said, nodding slowly.
"Aye. But there's to be another reason.
Have you had the hearing of the term 'bloody shirt," Admiral Ashigara?" "'Bloody Shirt"? No, Mister Skjorning, I cannot say that I have." "It's to be an old Terran political term, Admiral, and what it's to mean is appealing to emotions on the basis of lost lives and hatred." Ladislaus" face was grim. "It's not a tactic I'm proud to be using, but it works; and Novaya Rodina's after being the best place to be doing it." Analiese' Ashigara shook her head slowly.
"I am more happy than ever to be a simple Fleet commander, Mister Skjorning. My mind does not work the way this business of creating a government appears to require." "Don't be feeling any loss over it," Ladislaus said very quietly. "It's not to be something I ever thought to have the doing of, either." He fell silent, watching the planet a moment longer, then to eft the bridge, and Admiral Ashigara turned her attention to the final approach maneuvers of her under-manned task force. No, she thought. She did not envy Ladislaus Skjorning at all.
The horde of delegates crowded the huge auditorium, their rumbling voices filling it like a solid presence, and the surviving Dmna stood behind Ladislaus on the stage, surveying their visitors with slightly dazed eyes.
Magda Petrovna stood at his elbow, her mobile face quite still. Only Ladislaus knew she intended to resign from the Duma to accept a commission in whatever they were going to call their navy., and only Magda sensed how much he envied her freedom to do just that. But it wasn't freedom for her; it was flight.
She knew her own strengths: a flair for organization, to evel-headedness, moral courage, and compassion. But she also knew her weaknesses: blunt-spokenness, a tendency towards autocracy with those unable to keep up with her thoughts, and a well-developed capacity for hatred, and she felt tlat hate within her now, though few of her friends saw it or recognized it as the inevitable by-product of her compassion.
She'd been able to accept her own sentence of death, but not the brutality of Pieter's murder.
Not the cruelty which had nearly snapped Tatiana Illyushina's sanity. That had been too much, yet as long as she'd believed that only Waldeck's madness was responsible, she'd maintained a degree of detachment.
But then the provisional government had found the special instructions from the Assembly in his safe.
Waldeck need not have acted on them, but giving men like him such an option was like giving a vicious child a charged laser, and she would never forget that the Assembly had done so. She would never be able to flush the hatred from her mind ff ever she must deal with that governmbledtiont. Besides--she felt herself smile affectionately--there was a better choice to head the Duma now. Well, two, perhaps, but Fedor would kill himself first! No, only one person had emerged from the day of the riots as Pieter's true successor, and that person was Tatiana Illyushina.
Magda glanced at the slim young woman.
Daughter of one of Novaya Rodina's very few wealthy families, Tatiana had never faced the hard side of life before the rebellion. Then the earthquake shocks had come hard and fast, but Tatiana, to her own unending surprise, had met them all. Her oval face was still as beautiful, she looked as much like a teen-aged child as ever, but there was flint behind those blue eyes now.
Flint and something else, something almost like Magda's own compassion, but not quite.
But now, as acting Duma President, Magda had been granted a unique moment in history, and she stepped up to the lectern at Ladislaus' tiny nod. She drew a deep breath, and her gavel cracked on the wooden rest under the microphone. The sound echoed through the auditorium.
"rhe first session of this convention of the provisional governments of the Fringe will come to order," she said.
"Well, Ladislaus, what do you think?" Magda refilled their vodka glasses and hid a smile as he picked his up cautiously. "Will it work?" "Aye, I'm thinking it will." Ladislaus sipped his second glass far more slowly as Magda threw back her own in approved Novaya Rodinan fashion.
"It's not as if any of us have the thinking we can go back again." He looked meaningfully around the small gathering of the Convention's crucial leaders.
"But it doesn't necessarily follow we can act together," Tatiana said. "Agreeing to hate the Corporate Worlds, yes." She smiled tightly.
"But we're all so different! What else do we have in common?" "Don't be underestimating the strength of hate, Ms Illyushina." Ladislaus' answering smile was bleak. "But that's not all we're to be having. I'm thinking we're to have a better understanding of what the Federation is supposed to be than the Rump has. We're agreed in that." "True." Magda's cold voice raised eyebrows, but she leashed her rage and leaned back.
Then she laughed. "Has it occurred to anyone else that we're not the radicals? We're the conservatives--they're the ones who've played fast and loose with the Constitution for over a century!" "Aye, so Fionna had the saying, often enough," Ladislaus nodded. "And we've no hope of building something really new--not in the time we're to have.
So it's something old we must be building on." "So that's why you brought this along," Li Kai-lun mused, tapping the sheet of facsimile on the table and nodding slowly. His reaction pleased Ladislaus. Hangchow's diminutive chief convention delegate was not only her planetary president but a retired admiral, as well. His support--political and military--would be literally priceless in the weeks ahead.
"Aye." Ladislaus ran a fingertip over the ancient lettering. "It's a federal system we're needing, Kai-lun. Centralization was the Corporate Worlds real error. It's to give the government the most power, but it's to concentrate too much authority in one place and even with relays, slow communications are to make it clumsy in responding to crises.., or people." "Agreed," Li said, then smiled. "And at least this constitution's got a good track record. If I remember my history,, the United States did quite well for itself before the Great Eastern War." his... ad ff fight we must, let it be under a common standard! I move to appoint a committee to select a suitable device for our batfie flags." The stocky delegate from Lancelot swirled the brilliant cloak of his hereditary rank and sat, and Magda sighed. She found the barons and earls of Durandel rather wearing, but he might have a point--even ff he was inclined towards purple prose.
"Very well. It has been moved that we appoint a eom-mittee to design a flag for our new star nation," she said. "Is there a second?" "I second the motion, Ms Chairman." Magda blinked as Li Kaiolun spoke up.
Now why was he supporting a
motion which could only waste precious time and energy? She shrugged mentally.
Undoubtedly he had a reason.
"V.well. It has been moved and seconded that we appoint committee to design a flag. All those in favor?" A rumble of "Ayes" answered.
"Opposed?" There was not a sound. "Fhe motion is carried. Mister Li, would you be so kind as to take charge of the matter?" "Of course, Ms Chairman." "Good. Now, to return to our agenda.
"But why, Ladislaus?" Tatiana demanded.
"We have so many other things to do, why waste time designing aflag, of all things?" "Well," Ladislaus rumbled, "you might be noticing who Kai-lun had the recruiting offor his committee." "What? Who?" Tatiana asked, but Magda laughed suddenly.
"Now I understand! Very neat, Lad! And how did you put Baron de Bertholet up to it?" "Jean de Bertholet isn't after being the worst sort, Magda.
It's on our side he is, and he understands entirely." "Well I don't," Tatiana said.
"You would ff you'd seen the membership of that eom-mittee," Magda chuckled. "Between them, Lad and Kai-lun have shunted most of the 'noblemen" in the Convention "Aye," Ladislaus nodded. "Not that I really think they're after creating a new hereditary aristocracy for us all, hut it's not to be hurting a thing to be certain of it when the constitution's debated, now is it?" "Ladislans," Tatiana said sternly, "you're an underhanded, devious man." "Aye," Ladislaus agreed calmly. 'lhat I am." "Ladislaus," Magda said, "I'd like you to meet Rupert M'tana." Ladislaus looked up from his paperwork and frowned at the dark-skinned officer. M'tana returned an equally measuring look, and Ladislaus propped one elbow on a chair "Captain M'tana," he rumbled thoughtfully, "you're to be the senior prisoner, I'm thinking?" "Yes, sir. I was Admiral Waideck's flag captain." "I see." Ladislans' lips twisted in distaste despite himself. "Just a moment, Lad," Magda said quietly. "I think, perhaps, you don't entirely understand. At the time of Pieter's execution, Waldeck had placed Captain M'tana under close arrest." "Aye?" Ladislans' blue eyes returned to M'tana's face, even more thoughtful now. "And why might that have been, Captain?" "I... disagreed with his decision, Mister Sorning." "I see," Ladislaus said in an entirely different tone. He waved at two chairs and M'tana and Magda sank into them. "I've memory enough of my time in the Fleet to be understanding how far you must have pushed him, Cal tain. But, ff I may have the asking, what's to be bringing you here?" lhe captain has a suggestion, Lad--coma good one, I think," Magda said. "He approached me with it because we're both Navy or ex-navy and we've come to know one another pretty well." "Ah?" Ladislaus cocked a bushy eyebrow.