by David Weber
Tonkovic inclined her head in a gracious nod. Anything more would have been too effusive, given that Ranjina was the ranking Reconciliation Party member of the Special Committee. Under Parliament's rules, that made her Gazi's Vice Chairwoman, although it was extremely unlikely Andrija had maintained anything closer than a politely frosty relationship with her. Personally, Tonkovic considered Ranjina a nonentity. It had always puzzled her why someone who'd once enjoyed a secure niche within the Social Moderate Party should have shifted her allegiance to the Reconciliationists.
"Madam President," Ranjina continued now, her tone pleasant, "I listened with considerable interest to your account of your representation of Kornati at the Constitutional Convention. There are, however, one or two points upon which I still remain just a little bit confused. Perhaps you could illuminate my confusion for me?"
"I'll certainly be happy to attempt to, Madam Vice Chairwoman."
"Thank you. There was one minor element about your other-wise comprehensive report which struck me as a little odd, Madam President. I refer to the fact that Baroness Medusa, Queen Elizabeth's Provisional Governor, repeatedly and specifically informed you that your delaying tactics at the Convention were threatening to derail not simply the Convention but the entire annexation effort and that you didn't see fit to report that information to this committee. Could you possibly explain why that was?"
Ranjina's pleasant voice never changed. The smile never left her face. Yet her question hit the hearing room like a hand grenade. Gazi's face turned an alarming shade of puce. Two of the other committee members appeared as dumbfounded-and enraged-as their chairman, and a single heartbeat of silence hovered in the question's wake. Then the stunned silence vanished into a rising turmoil of whispered agitation among the staffers sitting behind the committee members and those sitting behind Tonkovic herself.
For her own part, Tonkovic felt herself staring in sheer, incredulous shock at the woman on the other side of the horseshoe. She couldn't believe Ranjina had possessed the unadulterated gall to make such an outrageous statement in an open committee hearing. It simply wasn't done. One didn't seek to ambush and humiliate the Planetary President! It was obvious from Gazi's reaction that Ranjina had given him no hint of what she intended to say. Clearly the treacherous bitch had realized the chairman would have muzzled her-or, at the very least, warned Tonkovic-if he'd dreamed she was about to launch such a crude, bare-knuckled assault on the dignity of Tonkovic's office.
It took the President several seconds to be certain she had control of her own temper. She bitterly begrudged the delay, the way it made her look unprepared and caught off guard, but she knew the one thing she couldn't afford to do in front of the news services' cameras was to give the impertinent bitch the tongue-lashing she so abundantly deserved.
"Madam Vice Chairwoman," she said then, coldly, "Spindle is seven and a half days away from Split, even by dispatch boat. Given that communications delay-fifteen days, I would remind you, for two-way message transmission-it was my responsibility as Kornati's representative to the Convention, and as Planetary President, to determine how best to proceed in negotiations with the other delegates and with Baroness Medusa. It wasn't possible for me to confer with this committee or with Parliament as a whole before deciding upon my responses to specific situations as they arose. That, if you will recall, was one of the primary reasons it was decided to send the Planetary President herself to head our delegation."
"Forgive me, Madam President," Ranjina said calmly, apparently totally unaffected by the icy precision and coldly focused fury of Tonkovic's reply, "but I didn't ask you about responses to specific situations at the Convention . I inquired as to why you hadn't seen fit to inform us of Baroness Medusa's communications to you."
"As I have just explained," Tonkovic said, aware that she was biting off the edges of her words but unable to completely stop herself, "it requires fifteen days for a message to travel from Split to Spindle and back again. It wasn't practical to, nor, I submit, would anyone have expected me to attempt to, communicate to Parliament every exchange between myself and members of other delegations or the Provisional Governor herself."
"Madam President, I'm afraid you're either missing my point or deliberately seeking to evade it." This time Ranjina's own voice had become the blade of a frozen knife. "You were informed over four T-months ago by Baroness Medusa that the continued deadlock in the Constitutional Convention-which all reports available to me suggest stemmed primarily from the deliberate efforts of the Constitutional Liberal Party, which you organized in Spindle-was threatening the annexation effort. You were informed by Baroness Medusa three T-months ago that the Star Kingdom of Manticore would no longer consider itself bound to honor its agreement to annex the Talbott Cluster if a draft constitution wasn't voted out of the Convention within a reasonable time. And you were informed two T-months ago that a hard and fast time limit of one hundred fifty standard days existed, after which, in the absence of a draft Constitution, Queen Elizabeth's Government would either withdraw the offer of annexation in its entirety or else submit a list of star systems which the Star Kingdom would exclude from any future annexation, and that the Split System would appear on that list."
The whispered exchanges which had been provoked by Ranjina's initial assault had vanished into a rising tide of consternation as the Vice Chairwoman's ice-cold voice rolled on. Tonkovic's expression was mottled with the ivory-white of shock and the deep crimson of rage. She couldn't believe it. She could not believe that even a Reconciliation Party hack like Ranjina would do something like this! It violated every aspect of the code against washing political dirty laundry in public. Even the most bitter partisan conflicts between the established parties had some rules, some limits. The reaction of the reporters behind her made it all too clear the substance of Ranjina's coldly enumerated accusations had never been made public, and the Planetary President ground her teeth together in mingled humiliation and fury.
She glared at Gazi, her blazing green eyes demanding that he call Ranjina to heel, but the committee chairman appeared as stunned as Tonkovic herself. He was dazed, trying to think of a way to derail Ranjina, but obviously without success. He didn't know how to deal with it, because this sort of brutal frontal attack simply wasn't done by a member of the Kornatian political establishment. He reached for his gavel, yet he hesitated, trying to find an acceptable pretext for shutting her up. But there wasn't one. However crude, however vicious, her attack, she'd remained totally within her right to use her allocated time in any fashion she chose. And she wasn't finished yet
"It's all very well to talk about delegated authority and communications delays, Madam President. But by your own admission, the maximum delay for an exchange of views was only fifteen days. Not one hundred forty days, not ninety-two days, not even sixty-one days- fifteen days. I submit to you that it's one thing to speak of the need to deal with immediate crises as they arise, but that it's quite another to knowingly commit your entire government to a policy of your own creation without so much as warning a single soul on this planet that you were doing so. A policy you've been specifically warned may very well end in the exclusion of our star system from the annexation which over seventy percent of our registered voters approved. That isn't simply arrogance, Madam President. It verges upon the assumption on your part of dictatorial powers and the patent abuse of your office."
Tonkovic's jaw dropped in sheer disbelief. That wasn't a question, wasn't even a disguised policy position statement on Ranjina's part. It was an indictment. One delivered in an ambush such as no Planetary President of Kornati had walked into in well over two hundred T-years.
The hubbub behind her rose to a confused roar, and Gazi's gavel was finally hammering, pounding thunderously. But it was too late. The damage was done, and Aleksandra Tonkovic watched the solemn hearing disintegrate into a shouting match between her allies and her enemies within the Special Committee while the cameras watched every detail of the fiasco.
"Captain Terekhov, Mr. Van Dort, the Montana System owes the two of you a debt which I doubt we'll ever be able to repay," President Warren Suttles said. The President was a politician, but just this once, at least, there was nothing but sincerity in his face and voice. "Stephen Westman and the entire rank and file of the Montana Independence Movement have agreed to surrender to the Marshals Service and to turn in all their heavy weapons. The threat of guerrilla warfare and insurrection on this planet, with all of the damage and deaths that might have entailed, has just been removed thanks to your efforts."
Terekhov, Van Dort, and a still-subdued Helen Zilwicki sat in the President's office along with Chief Marshal Bannister. The captain waved one deprecating hand, but the President shook his head.
"No. You can't just wave it off, Captain. We do owe you an enormous debt. I wish there were something we could do to at least begin paying down some of the interest!"
"Actually, Mr. President," Terekhov said diffidently, "there is one little thing you could do for us."
"Anything!" Suttles said expansively, and Bannister closed his eyes in momentary pain. He'd helped craft this particular ambush himself, but it still hurt to see its intended prey walk into it with such utter innocence.
"Well, Mr. President," Terekhov said, "there's a Solarian-registry freighter, the Copenhagen , in Montana orbit, and…"
"My God, Aivars! What we just did to that poor man!" Van Dort shook his head, trying hard-and unsuccessfully-not to laugh as their pinnace returned to Hexapuma .
"What?" Terekhov replied innocently. "He did owe us a favor, Bernardus, you know."
Chapter Fifty
"You do realize, Skipper, that you're shooting craps with your career?"
"Nonsense, Ansten." Terekhov shook his head with a half-smile, but FitzGerald wasn't buying it.
"You told me, once, that you might need me to warn you that what you had in mind was a little risky," the XO reminded him. "Well, the Sollies're going to go ape-shit… and that may be the good news!"
The captain and his exec sat in Hexapuma's number two pinnace, and FitzGerald pointed out the viewport at the mountainous bulk of the Kalokainos Shipping-owned freighter Copenhagen .
"I think the admiralty courts call this 'piracy,'" he said.
"Nonsense," Terekhov replied airily. "This is a simple and obvious case of salvage of an abandoned vessel."
"Which you arranged to have 'abandoned' in the first place!"
Terekhov was gazing out the viewport, watching Copenhagen draw steadily closer. Privately, he was prepared to admit FitzGerald had a point. Several of them, in fact. But what he was prepared to admit to himself was quite different from what he was prepared to admit to anyone else.
"Another thing you might want to think about, Skipper," FitzGerald said, in the tone of the man looking for a telling argument, "is the amount of grief you may be buying for Montana when the Sollies find out the part Suttles agreed to play in this little charade."
"President Suttles is showing a perfectly reasonable and prudent concern, under the circumstances, Ansten." Terekhov's expression was that of someone widows and orphans could safely trust with their final penny. FitzGerald's expression, however, only got more skeptical, and Terekhov smiled again, a bit more broadly than before.
"Given the fact that a Solarian-registry vessel was apprehended in the very act of supplying illegal weapons to terrorists on his planet, President Suttles has every right to be concerned. Since there was a second Solarian-registry vessel in orbit at exactly the same time, and since Kalokainos Shipping and the Jessyk Combine are known to have coordinated their interests in several areas of the Verge, the discovery that Marianne belonged to Jessyk amply justifies his decision that Copenhagen merits investigation, as well. And since the entire Montanan navy consists of LACs, without a single hyper-capable unit, he obviously couldn't count on preventing Copenhagen from fleeing the system to avoid investigation if, indeed, her ship's company had been involved in this nefarious plot. So he clearly had no choice but to remove Copenhagen's crew for interrogation."
"And you think that… fairy tale is going to convince the League Suttles didn't have a thing to do with the rest of this?" FitzGerald gestured at Copenhagen again, as the pinnace decelerated to rest relative to the big freighter.
"I think that, either way, it isn't going to matter," Terekhov said much more seriously. FitzGerald looked at him, and he shrugged. "If the annexation goes through, the League won't be looking at a single, unsupported Verge system; it'll be looking at a member system of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. At which point, it will become our responsibility to protect Suttles from Frontier Security. And," his tone turned more serious still, almost grim, "if you people find what I'm very much afraid you're going to, Suttles and everyone else who ever favored the annexation are going to find themselves in much worse trouble than anything this could produce unless we do something about it."
The pinnace pilot was playing his maneuvering thrusters with a skill which reminded Terekhov of Ragnhild Pavletic. The memory sent a fresh stab of pain through him, but he allowed no trace of it to shadow his expression as he gazed back out through the port again. He watched as the pilot carefully aligned the pinnace's airlock with the freighter's emergency personnel hatch. A single skinsuited crewman stepped through the airlock's open outer hatch and drifted gracefully across to Copenhagen's hull, where he opened a small access cover and tapped a command sequence into the keypad behind it. The personnel hatch considered the command ("unofficially" acquired from Trevor Bannister after Copenhagen's crew accepted his invitation as involuntary guests of Montana) and obediently extruded its boarding tube to mate with the pinnace's lock.
FitzGerald sat studying the captain's profile and trying to think of a fresh argument which might bring Terekhov to his senses. It wasn't that he didn't understand what the other man had in mind, or even that he disagreed with Terekhov's suspicions or the captain's conviction that something had to be done to prove or disprove what he feared. It was the method Terekhov had selected… and, perhaps even more, what FitzGerald suspected the captain had in mind if his investigation confirmed his worst fears.
The green light came on above the airlock's inner hatch, indicating a good seal and pressure in the tube, and Terekhov nodded.
"Time to get your people on board."
"Skipper, at least send one of the other ships straight to Spindle," FitzGerald half-blurted, but Terekhov shook his head.
He was gazing back along the center aisle, watching Aikawa Kagiyama. The midshipman looked better, but his shoulders still hunched, as if they were bearing up under a burden of guilt, and Terekhov was worried about him. That was one reason he'd assigned Aikawa to FitzGerald's party.
Lieutenant MacIntyre would be along as FitzGerald's engineer, with Lieutenant Olivetti as his astrogator and Lieutenant Kobe to handle his communications. That was as many officers as Terekhov could spare, but it was still going to leave FitzGerald shorthanded, since only Olivetti was watch-qualified. MacIntyre and Kobe were both junior-grade lieutenants, capable enough in their specialties, but with limited experience. In fact, MacIntyre had something of a reputation for being sharp-tongued and waspish with enlisted personnel and noncoms. Terekhov suspected that it sprang from her own lack of self-confidence, and he hoped this assignment might help to turn that around. But he'd also decided FitzGerald needed at least a little more support, so he'd attached Aikawa. The midshipman wasn't watch-certified, yet, but he was a levelheaded sort who was actually better at managing enlisted personnel than MacIntyre was. He could take on at least some of the load… and getting him out of Hexapuma would also get him out of an environment where every single sight and sound and smell reminded him of Ragnhild's death.
"Admiral Khumalo's going to think you should've sent word directly to him, Sir," FitzGerald said flatly, in his strongest statement of disagreement yet.
Terekhov looked back at him, touched by the concern in his execut
ive officer's expression.
"Thank you for worrying, Ansten," he said quietly, "but the decision's made. I only have three hyper-capable units, aside from Hexapuma herself-and, of course, Copenhagen . I can't spare any of them for a direct flight to Spindle, but Ericsson will continue on to Spindle from Dresden. She'll deliver my complete report to the Admiral and the Provisional Governor."
"But- "
"I think we should move on to something else," Terekhov said firmly, and FitzGerald closed his mouth. He looked for a moment at the CO about whose resolution he'd nursed such reservations when they first met, six months before, and knew there was no point in arguing.
"Yes, Sir," he said finally, and Terekhov smiled gently and patted him on the forearm.
"Good. And now, let's get your people aboard your new command. You've got a lot to do before you break orbit."
* * *
Aleksandra Tonkovic stood with a welcoming smile as her butler ushered Tomaz Zovan into the library of her Karlovac townhouse.
"Tomaz," she greeted, holding out her hand.
"Madam President," he replied as he took it, and her smile turned into a slight frown at the unexpected formality. Zovan was a Democratic Centralist and a forty-T-year veteran of Parliament. She'd known him literally since childhood, and if he'd never been one of the most brilliant intellects Parliament had ever known, he'd always been a loyal, dependable wheel-horse for the Party and her own administration. As such, he was accustomed to addressing her by her given name, at least in private.
"Why so formal, Tomaz?" she asked, after a moment. "I understood this was to be a social visit."
"I wasn't fully confident of the security of my com when I had my secretary make the appointment, Madam President," he replied, and grimaced. "Rajkovic and Basaricek swear they aren't using Manty technology to monitor all calls from the Nemanja Building, but-"