In Enemy Hands hh-7

by David Weber

  And so did you, in a way, didn't you, Warner? his brain sneered. You could have been heroic and defied the new regime. You could have refused to sully your hands or compromise your principles and honor, couldn't you? They would have shot you for it, but you could have done it... and you didn't. So don't be so damned holier-than-thou about a man like LePic.

  "You sent for me, Citizen Admiral?" he asked, trying to bury the echoes of anger in crispness, and Theisman nodded.

  Something had changed in the citizen admiral's face. There were no new lines on it, yet it seemed as if Theisman had aged years in the space of hours. And as he saw the change in his commander, Caslet realized that what had happened to the prisoners must have been worse even than had been reported to him. Or perhaps it hadn't been. Perhaps Theisman had simply been too close, seen the events, and their implications, too clearly.

  "I'm afraid I did, Warner," Theisman said after a moment.

  "No doubt you've heard about the... disgraceful events of this morning."

  He asked the question of Caslet, but he glanced at LePic as he spoke. The people's commissioner said nothing, yet something flickered in his eyes. His lips tightened and his nostrils flared, but then he gave a brief, unwilling nod, as if to endorse Theisman's adjective. It was a small thing, yet its significance struck Caslet like a shout, for it ranged the people's commissioner, for the moment at least, alongside the military officers upon whom he was supposed to spy.

  "Yes, Citizen Admiral. I did." The citizen commander spoke quietly, and not just because he, too, agreed with Theisman's choice of adjectives. There'd been no discussion of the citizen admiral's reasons for sending him on the inspection trip from which he'd just returned, but he'd guessed what they were, and he was torn between gratitude and a sense that he'd somehow been absent from his post. That he'd evaded his responsibility to be present when Honor Harrington faced Cordelia Ransom.

  "Well, I'm afraid there are going to be some repercussions from them," Theisman told him, and glanced at LePic again, as if he was considering just how open he could be. Well, Caslet could understand that. Temporary ally or no, there was a limit to the frankness Theisman dared risk in front of the commissioner. He saw the same thoughts flicker across his CO's face, but then the citizen admiral tossed his head like a horse shaking off flies, or a bull preparing to charge.

  "In particular," he said, "Citizen Committeewoman Ransom feels the military has failed to properly embrace the realities of total war against our class enemies. She believes too many of our officers continue to cling to outmoded, elitist concepts of so-called 'honor.' While such a carryover may be understandable in the abstract, she feels the time has come to break such habits of thought, which create a dangerous sense of sympathy for the enemies of the People who are currently attempting to undermine our will to fight as part and parcel of their efforts to defeat and destroy the Republic."

  Despite his own anger, Caslet's eyes widened at the sheer vitriol of Theisman's tone, and his gaze darted to LePic. No one could have faulted the citizen admirals words, but the voice which had delivered them shouted a contempt and disgust which cut at least as deep as Caslet's own. The people's commissioner shifted unhappily, yet he said nothing. And that, Caslet realized, was because he was less unhappy with Theisman's tone than with the fact that he knew it was justified.

  "In light of her conclusions," the citizen admiral went on in that same voice of supercooled acid, "the Citizen Committeewoman considers that her duty as a member of the Committee of Public Safety requires her to begin addressing the officer corps' failings. Accordingly, she's decided that although the prisoners are now in the custody of the Office of State Security, a delegation of military officers should be temporarily attached to State Security to observe the manner in which such enemies of the People are properly treated. For this purpose, she has instructed me to detach the Count Tilly to escort Tepes to Cerberus so that Citizen Rear Admiral Tourville and his staff can form the core of that delegation. In addition..." Theisman's eyes narrowed and bored into Caslet's like twin laser mounts "...she has specifically requested your presence."

  "My presence, Citizen Admiral?" Caslet's surprise was genuine, and he blinked as Theisman nodded in confirmation. "Did the Citizen Committeewoman explain why she wishes me to accompany her?"

  "No," Theisman replied, but his flat voice said he suspected the reason. And after a few seconds' thought, Caslet realized he did, as well.

  Of course. The reports he'd already heard had warned him that Shannon's lack of caution had finally landed her in the disaster he'd tried so hard to protect her from, and it was unlikely someone like Ransom would have failed to check Shannon’s record. After all, how could she have risen to her present rank without StateSec's detecting her unreliability unless her naval superiors had covered for her? And if Ransom had checked, she knew Caslet had not only been Shannon’s CO but also recommended her promotion, twice. Another check would have revealed his own absence on his "inspection trip," and while there was no official reason for her to question his orders from Theisman, she wouldn't have hesitated to add two plus two. In light of the connection between him and Shannon, that was all she would have required, and she wasn't the sort to commit excesses by halves. If Caslet could have tolerated an officer like Shannon under his command, then no doubt he, too, harbored dangerous elitist sympathies. And it was entirely possible that Ransom also saw this as a way to slap Theisman’s hand for sending Caslet away in the first place. She could hardly have Navy officers sticking together to protect one another from their so-called government, now could she?

  The bitterness of his own thoughts frightened Caslet, for it took him towards a destination he was afraid to reach, and he deliberately refused to look too closely at it.

  "I see," he said after another brief pause. "When are we scheduled to leave, Citizen Admiral?"

  "The Citizen Committeewoman intends to depart for the Cerberus System at nineteen-thirty hours this evening," Theisman said. "Can you be packed by then?"

  "Of course, Citizen Admiral. Will Citizen Lieutenant Commander Ito assume my duties in my absence?"

  "I expect so, yes."

  "In that case, I should confer with him before I go aboard Count Tilly and be sure he's up to speed on everything you, Citizen Commissioner LePic, and I have discussed," Caslet began, then paused, eyebrows rising, as Theisman’s expression registered.

  "You do need to discuss matters with Ito," the citizen admiral sighed, "but you won't be going aboard Count Tilly."

  "I won't, Citizen Admiral?"

  "No, Citizen Commander. Citizen Committeewoman Ransom has requested that you be temporarily attached to her staff to serve as military liaison to the prisoners until their formal delivery to Cerberus."

  "To serve as...?" Caslet began before he could stop himself, and then clamped his jaw, chopping off the question, while his hands fisted at his sides.

  "With all due respect, Citizen Admiral, I don't feel I'm the best choice for that duty," he said after several tense seconds, and his eyes met Theisman’s pleadingly. "I don't have any security experience, and I've never even been attached to Naval Intelligence, much less State Security. Surely there are other officers better qualified for dealing with captured enemy personnel."

  Theisman didn't look away, but he shook his head. Not to reject Caslet’s estimate of his experience or qualifications, but gently, and the citizen commander's gaze switched to LePic. The People's commissioner met it steadily, then sighed.

  "I'm afraid Citizen Committeewoman Ransom insisted, Citizen Commander," he said. His tone was less corrosive than Theisman’s, but its quiet anger, and sympathy, cut even deeper coming from him. Not just because he was a direct representative of the Committee of Public Safety on which Ransom served, but because he'd chosen to be one, and as Caslet heard the commissioner's disapproval, he wondered if Ransom even began to recognize how much potential harm she'd inflicted upon her own cause that morning.

  But whatever damage she mi
ght have done for the future, it wasn't going to save Warner Caslet from her vengeance in the present, he realized.

  "I understand, Sir," he told LePic heavily, and the People's commissioner's unhappy expression actually made Caslet feel oddly sympathetic for him. "I can be ready to brief Ito by thirteen hundred, Citizen Admiral," he went on. "Two or three hours should be ample time. Will you be able to sit in with us?"

  "I intend to," Theisman agreed, and stood behind his desk, holding out his right hand. Caslet straightened his back and reached out to shake his CO’s hand firmly, and Theisman gave him a smile which held both sadness and warning.

  "In the meantime," he said, "you'd better go and see to your packing. Citizen Chief Maynard is already working on your orders, and he should have everything tied up by the time you and I meet with Ito."

  "Yes, Citizen Admiral." Caslet gave Theisman's hand a final squeeze, nodded respectfully to LePic, and turned for the door. It opened before him, and he started to step through, only to pause and look back as Theisman cleared his throat.

  "Ito will do just fine while you're away, but Citizen Commissioner LePic and I expect you back as soon as possible, Warner," the citizen admiral said. "I expect the military situation to start heating up in the next few weeks, and given how much the Citizen Commissioner and I will need your talents if it does, we've asked the Citizen Committeewoman to expedite your return."

  Caslet's hazel eyes widened, then softened as LePic nodded. If he was in as much trouble with Ransom as he feared, his superiors had run serious risks in making any such request of her. It was the kind of risk he might have expected a man like Theisman to run, but the fact that LePic had signed off on it as well put a surprised lump in his throat, and he had to swallow hard before he could reply.

  "Thank you, Citizen Admiral. I appreciate that vote of confidence. From both of you," he said finally, his voice just a bit husky.

  "It's no more than you deserve, Citizen Commander," LePic said.

  "I appreciate it anyway, Sir. And I'll try to get back just as quickly as I can."

  "I'm sure you will, Warner," Theisman said quietly. "Godspeed."

  "Thank you, Citizen Admiral."

  Caslet gazed into his CO's eyes one last time, nodded, and stepped through the waiting door. It slid noiselessly shut behind him, and Thomas Theisman and Dennis LePic looked at one another in silence.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The yard which built PNS Tepes had altered her basic design to better fit her to her role in State Security's private navy. The most important of those changes was obvious to Warner Caslet as his cutter approached the ship, for Tepes had three fewer grasers and one less missile tube in each broadside than the original plans for the Warlord class had specified, and the tonnage saved had been expended in providing life support for a double-sized "Marine" contingent and two additional, and very large, boat bays.

  The alterations gave the battlecruiser a superdreadnought's small-craft capacity, which seemed excessive until the tractors drew his cutter into one of those cavernous bays and he saw what was already docked there. No less than three outsized heavy-lift assault shuttles, each better than half again the size of a pinnace and up-armored and gunned to match, hung in the docking buffers, and his mouth twisted as he gazed at them.

  This ship would never be attached to any normal task force of the People’s Navy, which meant those shuttles would never be used against the PRH’s enemies. They were to be used against the Committee of Public Safety's enemies, which wasn't quite the same thing. Their purpose was to land assault forces on the Republic's own planets in order to take them away from the Republics own citizens, and he wished he could believe their presence represented simple paranoia. But it didn't. Whatever one might think of the Committee or State Security, the fact that they had real, and violently inclined, enemies was indisputable, and the thought added still more weight to his bleak depression.

  Things didn't get any better when the boat bay officer greeted him. In another divergence from naval practice, no one requested formal permission to board a StateSec ship. Instead, it was just one more papers check, with armed guards waiting to shoot down anyone foolish enough to try to sneak aboard with forged ID. Logically, Caslet had to admit that as long as the bay officers kept track of who was aboard and who wasn't, the tradition of formal arrivals and departures was merely that, a tradition. But that didn't keep him from feeling it ought to be honored, and the arrogant-eyed guards and the boat bay officer's leisurely manner grated on his nerves. Not that the lieutenant in question seemed to care particularly if Caslet had a low opinion of him and his ship. Like everyone else in Tepes' company, he was State Security, not Navy, and his lip curled as he surveyed the new arrival. Caslet might be two ranks senior to him, but they were only Navy ranks. Besides, the rumor mill had been at work for over six hours now, and the SS officer knew Caslet was on Citizen Committeewoman Ransom's shit list. Added up, those factors made Caslet an object for contempt, not respect.

  "You Caslet?" he demanded, extending an imperious hand for the newcomers ID.

  The question came out in a voice somewhere between surly and bored, with more than a dash of insolence, and Caslet turned slowly to face him. There was no point in reacting to the insult, but the other man's tone had kicked the embers of his earlier anger back into full flame. He was on thin enough ice without confrontations with the SS, and sanity and self-preservation told him to let it pass. Yet there was something almost liberating in knowing how much trouble he was already in. In a way, it left him with the sense of having nothing to lose, and he set his carryall on the deck and turned ice-cold hazel eyes on the StateSec man, ignoring the outstretched hand.

  The boat bay officer flushed as that chill gaze considered him from head to boot heels with boundless contempt, and Caslet’s lips twitched in what might have been called a smile if it hadn't bared quite so many teeth.

  "Yes, I'm Citizen Commander Caslet. And you are?" His voice was colder than his eyes, with a scalpel's edge, and he was furious enough, and felt reckless enough, to let that edge bite deep. The SS officer started a quick, angry response, then paused. He'd seen his share of desperate men and women, and the icy glitter in Caslet’s eye worried him. There was too much anger and not enough panic in it. The rumor mill might have this man on a one-way ticket to ruin, but he seemed unaware of it... and the rumor mill had been known to be wrong. It probably wasn't, but if it was, Caslet was likely to emerge in a stronger position, not a weaker one. He was already the staff operations officer for the second most important naval command in the Republic, after all. If he returned to that post unscathed, he'd have access to very highly-placed ears, and as the SS officer looked into those icy eyes, it suddenly struck him that this particular Navy officer wouldn't turn out to be the sort to forgive and forget.

  "Citizen Lieutenant Janseci, Citizen Commander," he replied much more crisply. Caslet nodded curtly, and Janseci braced to almost-attention. He considered actually saluting, but that would have been too obvious an admission that he should have done so at the beginning... and that Caslet had intimidated him. "I need to check your ID, Citizen Commander," he added almost apologetically.

  Caslet reached slowly inside his tunic for his ID folio. He passed it to Janseci and felt an inner amusement, harsh as lye, as the armed guards in the background did come to attention. And all for a mere naval officer. How flattering.

  The boat bay officer examined his ID quickly, then closed the folio and handed it back to Caslet. The citizen commander gazed down at it, his eyes still cold, for perhaps three seconds. Then he reached out, took it, and slid it back into his tunic.

  "Well, Citizen Lieutenant Janseci," he said after a moment, "does anyone happen to know where, exactly, I'm supposed to go?"

  "Yes, Citizen Commander. Your guide is on his way here now, and I expect..." Janseci broke off and raised a hand, beckoning to a petty officer who'd just stepped out of one of the two lifts serving the outsized boat bay. "Here he is now," h
e told Caslet with a sense of relief. "Citizen Chief Thomas will escort you to your quarters."

  "Thank you," Caslet said, his tone now cool but correct, and turned away as the petty officer arrived and saluted.

  "Citizen Commander Caslet?" Caslet returned the salute and admitted his identity. "If you'll come with me, Citizen Commander, we'll get you squared away," Thomas said, and gathered up two of the three bags the cutter crew had towed through the access tube while Janseci and Caslet were concentrating on one another.

  "Thank you, Citizen Chief," Caslet said, much more warmly than he'd spoken to Janseci. He scooped up the third bag, slung his carryall's strap over a shoulder, and followed Thomas towards the lift, wondering what the citizen chief was doing aboard Tepes. Unlike Janseci, Thomas carried himself like someone who'd served in the real Navy and done it well, and Caslet couldn't imagine what could have tempted someone to transfer from that to... this.

  He didn't ask, however. Partly because it was none of his business, and partly because he was half afraid of what he might hear. Good, fundamentally honorable men like Dennis LePic had become People's commissioners, and, technically, high ranking officers in State Security, because they believed in what the Committee of Public Safety had promised, and Caslet could half-way understand that. He could even respect it, however mistaken he thought them, but he didn't want to be able to understand what could cause someone, anyone, to enlist with StateSec's field forces.

  Although the quarters he'd been assigned were smaller than they would have been for someone of his rank aboard a Navy ship, at least they weren't a cell. In his current situation, that had to be considered a good sign, but he reminded himself not to indulge in too much optimism as he thanked Thomas and set about settling himself into them. He opened his various bags and stowed their contents with the quick efficiency of someone who'd spent the last twenty years of his life moving from one shipboard assignment to another and tried not think about the fact that the Cerberus System was over a hundred and sixty-eight light-years from Barnett. Even for a battlecruiser, the voyage would last almost a month each way, which would give Ransom plenty of time to decide he should be in a cell. And if you don't get yourself squared away and at least pretend to be a good little boy, that's exactly what she will decide, idiot! Either that, or she'll just decide not to bring you home from Hades at all.