Other Opinions
Kerin sighed as she came within sight of Aunt Mae's. A simple three story affair of brick, with an old-fashioned sign of neon showing the all-seeing eye, the store would look right in any back alley of the last three thousand years. The sign was lit, so Maw pulled open the door and held it for Kerin to enter.
Inside, the shop was old wood, well-waxed against the humidity, residual incense, and hand-woven area rugs over some of that old wood. Pics of book covers lined the walls, and a closed cabinet held real printed books, all of them appearing quite old. A few tables, positioned in accordance with revised feng shui, were positioned strategically to display the esoteric wares they supported; a knowing eye would note the sculptures on each table - all of them depictions of the Worried Man, who never can know enough. Pride of place at the counter went to a statue of Old Mother May Eye in her rocking chair, tending to her knitting.
Aunt Mae was seated at her usual table to the right of the counter. A cup of tea sat on the purple covered table, and her working deck was beside the pot on the other side. Her lined face lit with joy at the sight of Kerin, and she rose to accept Kerin's hug easily
"Welcome back, daughter! Oh, glad I am you've come to see me so soon; I was afraid I was going to have to go chase you down. Can you talk about it?"
Kerin nodded, and got herself a cup and saucer from behind the counter. "Yes, Tante Mae, I can talk about it." I need to talk about it she thought to herself. "What's in the pot, ma'am?"
Aunt Mae reseated herself. "Good Anar black tea, child. I knew you would come tonight, or else not at all. No!" She held up a hand, forestalling Kerin's explanation. "Be seated, child, and welcome, as always. Shuffle, and cut for me?"
Kerin sat, and shuffled the cards three times while Aunt Mae poured her tea. The she placed the deck squarely in the center of the table, and cut it, laying the top beside the bottom. Then she sat back, picked up her tea, and blew on it before sipping.
Aunt Mae picked up the bottom, placed it on top of the former top, and the entire deck came to her hand. Three cards she dealt, one two three.
"Mmm... The Hanged Man, the Tower, and the five of Staves. Daughter, from tragedy, you proceed into conflict. You can't be what you were, or what you are now; You must be more. Why did Berry come down the hill for you?"
Kerin sipped her tea and willed calm. "Because they think I am the only trained xeno-biologist and xeno-geneticist on the planet who is at loose ends and has taken the Oath. Even though I told them I haven't even my Master's, let alone my Doctorate."
"Who is they? And why did Berry come for you?"
Kerin sipped again. "They is Ruth Winton, and a foreigner named Jaime Mac, who thinks that the spider-wasps are actually a bioweapon." She put her cup down as her hands began to tremble. "And Berry came because Jaime tried to tell me he knew people, and I didn't believe him."
Aunt Mae leaned back and sighed. "The spiderwasps. They've located them, clearly. Good; that is an issue that has festered for far too long."
Kerin leaned forward. "I know, right? I told Jaime they need to be destroyed. They want to work with them, tame them, believe it or not!"
Aunt Mae sighed. "Daughter... have you meditated upon this at all?"
Kerin flopped back in her chair. "No. I don't need to to know what needs to be in this case."
Now Aunt Mae leaned forward. "Foolish girl. On so many levels, you have not thought this through. You let old grief and horror blind you. I expect better of you than this!" She thumped her cane of the floor in emphasis. "You will tell me why you think those poor tortured creatures deserve annihilation. Tell me why you would expunge, rather than heal." her voice lowered, becoming almost a hiss. "Why you would kill, rather than protect. That is not the act of a devotee of Yo."
Kerin stared at her, eyes wide. "You, of all people, know what those things can do. How many of their victims did you know? This man Jaime thinks they might be a biological weapon system run amok. If that's so, then they're even worse than we thought. How can you heal something made to kill?"
Aunt Mae was undaunted. "Child, do you think they like being what they are?" She leaned back and took up her cup, her voice becoming more serene, almost as though another was seated in her flesh. "Do you think they asked to be made into what they are? They kill because they are crazed, maddened by what has been done to them. Evil they are not." She sipped, and eased in the chair.
"Destroying them is the simplest, easiest solution. And how often is that the best course of action? To say nothing of the observable fact that whatever is begun in anger, more often than not ends in shame and regret." She turned another card over. "Ah. King of Blades. Good evening, Georgi."
Georgi Mikhailovich, called the Dracul, or Dragon, appeared to have a strong Scrag extraction. He was tall and lithely muscular, with a complexion that suggested it was not wise to expose himself to the sun much. His hair was black, and militarily short; his eyes were a peculiarly pale blue shading to grey. He did not smile, and his voice, when he spoke, was a quiet baritone that demanded one's attention. "Good evening, Aunt Mae. I made use of your key, as you see."
"So I see." Aunt Mae's voice was calm and accepting. "How much of our conversation did you overhear?"
"All of it; I came in right after she did. I have a number of other reasons to lay before you as to why the spider-wasps must be brought under control, Ms. Cleartraine." Georgi laid a chip case on the table. "That is for Jaime Mac and Ruth Winton, Ms. Cleartraine. It contains what I have concerning the spiderwasps, including some data that is speculative, but I am reasonably sure is germane." He drew a stool out from under the counter and perched on it, fluffing his coat over it and easing the sword he was never without.
"Generalist Mac is quite correct, in my opinion; the spiderwasps are biologically engineered. Whether or not they were intended to be a weapon system is somewhat problematic; they appear to be uncontrollable, which is a serious flaw in a weapon - unless you want a Doomsday weapon, which I rather doubt was the intent." Georgi stretched out an arm, snagged the teapot, and poured himself a cup. "Ah, Darjeeling. I want to plant tea here, see how it does..." He sipped appreciatively.
"First you learn types of tea before planting." Aunt Mae snorted. "Or you end up with Chicory instead of coffee as well." He merely shrugged at the rebuke.
"To continue. The Mesans certainly know of the spiderwasps existence; the fact that their honey has been off the market suggests they did not have any interest in recreating them. But now that Vista Verde has become Torch, that might well change. I offer for your contemplation, Ms Cleartraine, the interstellar political firestorm Torch would find itself in if spiderwasps were deployed anywhere in the known universe. Properly stage-managed, it could conceivably lead to the Sollies arriving here, in force, with the intent of pacifying the planet and handing it off to the OFS, in the interests of interstellar public safety, to say nothing of discouraging anyone else from similar tactics." He sipped again, and calmly regarded Kerin, who felt like she had been punched in the stomach.
"I would also suggest that since Mesa probably made the damned things, they likely have a better idea than we do of how to eradicate them after such a deployment without irretrievably destroying the environment. Which, if true, begs the question of why haven't they used them here, on the mainlands yet?" He sipped again.
"Which, of course, leads me at least to wonder if they haven't already done so, and we just haven't noticed yet." He finished his cup, set it aside, and stood.
"Commerce and questions of morals and ethics are all very well, Ms. Cleartraine, and I shall leave them to Aunt Mae, who is infinitely more experienced in those subjects than I. I will confine myself to issues of survival and political self interest. If we don't get a definitive handle of those damned things, sooner or later they will become a menace - to us, our interstellar allies, and all the innocent bystanders - that will require absolutely Pyrrhic solutions. I would prefer not to have to destroy a planet in order to save it."
First the stick, then the carrot...
Conner Wittman raised his hands like a boxer as the last tallies came in. His district here in Beacon- Port-town, had come through with more than 70 percent of the vote. The Progressive Party ('The Wave of the Future!') looked to have eighteen seats, with five different parties splitting the others. None of them had a coherent plan though, like him.
Wittman was a rarity on Torch. He wasn't an ex slave or the child of one, though he had told several reporters that he was. When he'd left Vaterland four years ago, it had been right before warrants could be served for a lot of different charges that would have had him in jail until even Prolong might not be long enough. That is, of course if the Fuhrer hadn't merely sent him off to one of the reeducation camps, or into the Nacht Und Nebel. It had taken all of his money to buy his new identity, and Torch looked to be perfect.
He could push to become Prime Minister, though if he suggested Tomas Waverly of the Central Party instead, he could become the assistant to the Prime Minister until the time came to change the leadership... He'd studied Reich history very carefully. People forget that Adolf Hitler had been vice chancellor to the ailing Hindenberg, and had replaced him when the old man finally admitted he was too old.
He waved to his supporters, shaking hands with any who came close enough. If you were looking for anything that showed he was evil, you would have seen nothing. He didn't have perfect hair, narrow eyes, an oily complexion, all of the things people used in bad HD dramas to show the bad guys. He was attractive, but could walk through a crowd unnoticed. It was his mind that made him what he was, and it was his destiny to become so much more.
He closed the door of his office, turned and stopped.
"Hello, Conner. Or should I say Michel?" Berry sat behind his desk, looking at the speech he had intended to read when his opponent finally admitted defeat. His eyes narrowed. If she knew that... curse that Winton Bitch! "You know, when WEB commented on what you were intending to do, frankly I wondered how anyone could be so stupid. Tell me, Michel Adolf Wittman, once of Vaterland, have you ever read the history of the Japanese Emperors?" He shook his head.
"A fascinating study. I actually asked WEB about them but he didn't have a great deal about them before the Tokugawa Shogunate. So I asked Queen Elizabeth, and she got records from Beowulf, where a lot of Earth's history was stored during the period right before and after Earth's Last War. While the Imperial line stretches back all the way to the 7th century BCE, starting in the 8th century CE, the Emperors had become nothing but figureheads. All lands; the source of a monarch's personal wealth, were in the hands of his nobles.
"Every time some new thug, either a commoner with money, or a noble of the Samurai class came to power, they would go to the Emperor, and 'beg to be given' the title, whether it was Shogun for a noble, or Supreme Military Dictator for a commoner. By the 16th century CE, they had been reduced to very well dressed beggars. Imperial Court officials routinely had to sell their signatures on important documents just to have enough for their households to eat.
"Yet their people followed these leaders because the Son of Heaven, the Emperor, gave them his imprimatur." She leaned forward. "For that matter, have you studied the present government in Manticore?" At his blank look she grinned.
"An obvious attempt to keep political power after a plague pretty much wiped out the original settlers. They created their aristocracy to keep that power when the new wave of colonists arrived. In fact they had to alter their Constitution several times during the next 50 T years to keep that control. Something we don't need here, regardless of the 'new order' you want to create." She picked up the speech so carefully crafted. "You know, except for not using the words German and Reich, this is almost exactly a knockoff of the acceptance speech given by Adolf Hitler in 1933. And you even named your suggested national police the SA, for Special Action instead of Sturmabteilung, Assault or Storm Division in German."
Then she threw the pages onto the desk. "If you decide to give that speech, I want you to consider this. I am not the Son of Heaven. I'm the Bitch from Hell, Michel. I know exactly what you're trying to do in that oh sweetly worded document. So I will cover your points in my own order.
"Do away with the Lords? Not going to happen. While two elected houses worked for the old United States, it had problems. The lower house," she motioned to him, "was always linked to the population, so the 1st Congress was weighted heavily toward the American Northeast from the start, 38 0ut of the 65. By the time of their War Between the States, it had jumped to 190, seven of whom were non-voting. 88 of them were from the Northeast, 65 for the South, but almost all of those seats were vacant, because the South was beginning to secede, so 88 out of 119, with most of the remainder agreeing with the Northeast. They decided, using the 'Fourth Guarantee', that even though they voted sometimes overwhelming to secede, that those people did not have the right to leave unless the government they left also agreed. So that War happened.
"The Senate was supposed to balance this, but again, more Senators from the Northeast than there were from the South. But the Lords," She gave him a smile that made him want to back away. She had watched her husband very carefully. He was of one of the Manpower 'heavy labor' lines; huge and imposing. He had a way of smiling that to the the person he was smiling at said, I am going to enjoy ripping your fool head off that stopped most Sollie businessmen from making stupid threats before they were even uttered. "We only have four so far, and three have either minor or unborn child to take those seats. So the parents of Sam Morgan will take his seat until he reaches his majority, Paul Andretti's widow will take his child's seat, and an adviser will be appointed by the Citizen's House to vote for Felicia. But that adviser will be at my agreement. After all, what government can honestly say they are a better role model than a child's parents?
"And they are for life. It gives the government a view beyond petty party politics until there are a lot more of them. That is why the power of the purse will remain in the lower house with the right to amend or veto in the Lords, and a majority needed in both to pass any legislation. Frankly we don't have enough Lords with a long enough time in office to even have most of them understand what we need, and we don't even have enough to fill out the Lords we will need for the Admiralty, which is why Jeremy will still be doing that for the time being. Which means the Prime Minister will be of the lower house for at least a century, and all bills must be passed through both houses with a clear majority before being handed to me.
"Advise and consent granted to the Citizen's House? Give up the right of refusal for my ministers and the right to cast out the lot of you on my own whim? The Constitution my people voted on gives those powers to me in Article Eleven, and there will be a ice skating, outside, with fur coats on the equator here before you get me to agree to change that. Remember, I have the right of veto, and without a three quarter majority, you're not going to override that, even if it's just the annual budget. You'll need the same to get the Citizen's House to back you, and while we both know you're close if we poll them when they are first seated, you will probably lose. But if you try, I will go on the air publicly, and demand a referendum; something no amount of votes can stop or override under Article Two. It will state, 'shall we throw out our queen; chosen by acclamation, because some politician thinks he is smarter?'."
She smiled. "If you get ten percent agreeing, it will be because people weren't paying attention. I was queen for six months before you arrived, before over half of our population arrived, and they stopped slaughtering people because I asked. I don't think they'd even hesitate to string up your lot if I show them exactly how fucked they were if you got your way.
"Judges to be elected?" She snorted. "The worst part of party politics in the old United States was that you either have one party controlling the lion's share of the judges, or the weaker party trying to pass bills to 'rationalize' why they should get equal proportions. That is why judges are and will always be appointed, that appointment passing either the local selections for their judges, or both houses for appellate and Queen's Bench again before I see all of the names for acceptance.
"Replace my ministers now rather than after the original five year period specified in the Constitution for my original ministers? Oh I'll admit there are a few we can do without, but if you even try to touch WEB, Jeremy, Thandi or Ruth. you will run right into a Bitch by the name of Berry Zilwicki. The five of us held this nation together before you arrived!
"I may be some 'silly bitch' from the gutters of Old Chicago as one of your associates said, but I lived through worse than your lot before Helen found me. When I got the chance to get an education, I used it. The Constitution of Torch may look like a knock off of everything from the Magna Carta to the old US Constitution, to the Fundamental Declarations of the Luna Colonies on to the Manticoran one, but Article Two was designed by me!" She laughed. "I checked with lawyers and Constitutional scholars when I wrote it, and the right to resist the government when a citizen believes it is taking away his rights is not only words, it is their right and under law can only be taken away from them by me with their informed consent. I personally have to convince them to agree that what my government doing is right. Not someone I give that right to, but me alone. So no 'Fourth Guarantee' to force them to bow to the Houses with me rubber stamping it.
"Investigating my privy purse because I am so wasteful? Go right ahead. Try going from dirt poor to filthy rich in weeks. I spent more time my first year with momma trying to find how much I could hide away in case it was all some dream. It took me a couple of years before I was willing to spend half of what I did have to spend then. Try a thousand dollars a month compared to three million a year. So except for 30,000 dollars before we made the Shekel the official currency, every cent of the privy purse has been invested in infrastructure, and has been every year. Even a good chunk of my profits from it were also plowed back in to first building then expanding the mining facility orbiting Liberia, so a millennia or more from now when every scrap of land is given away, the Crown will still have an independent income.
"Going over the decrees from myself or my 'cabal'? WEB knows more about how a government is set up than you do, or will ever know. Why do you think we set the base tax at 1% of the proceeds from industry with no income tax to speak of beyond capital gains? So that we could expand it at need, not have to reduce it later, or pork barrel projects the Citizen's House might come up with in the interim.
"You can't even wait a few years then go to the courts once they are fully assembled, to overrule me because again, I can refuse to seat any judge I do not think is competent, and if they start following anyone's party line without good reason, I will order them removed. And the punishment for a violation of their charge is very draconian, so they won't be accepting bribes or perks for about a century, because if there is even a whiff of the possibility, Shin Bet will investigate, and it will be hard to say I don't have the legal right since it is clearly defined in Article Eleven, where it gives the Crown's powers. Getting the Articles I thought were most important passed is why we didn't have a constitution sooner. If you decide to get crossways with me from the start, unless you read the Constitution very carefully, you might, as the Grayson's say, step on your sword if you push it."
She motioned to the scattered sheets of foolscap. "So you can write and give whatever speech you want. But I give you fair warning now. If any of that ends up in it, or comes up within the next, oh twenty T years from any quarter, I will have to assume you are being as stupid as you think I am, and you will have me as a mortal enemy. You cannot have yourself or Waverly chosen as Prime Minster and force me to accept, even with an override of my veto, because every cabinet minister serves at my pleasure; I can refuse if I don't trust them, and prorogue the entire Citizen's House if I must, because frankly, the only people I hate more than you right now are all working for Manpower."
She walked around the desk, waiting until he moved away from the door. "Believe it or not, Conner, considering who I have as a 'cabal', this was the easy way to get you to behave. Hugh wanted to come over and see how many bones he could break before you died and stuff your carcass into an eight liter bucket to deliver to the House as a none to gentle warning. Even his way is easy compared to what I can do if you force the issue. You really don't want to see the hard way." She opened the door, and Yanna stood there grinning. "Oh, and congratulations on your victory. I am sure we'll butt heads occasionally from here on, but any intelligent politician, or queen, expects that. Good evening."
She stalked away from the jubilant celebration, her three Amazon 'travel team' forming around her. They had gone barely ten paces when Yanna gave a braying laugh. "The hard way? Smashing him small enough to fit in a bucket isn't the hard way?" Yanna asked.
"Oh much less strict, Yanna." Berry waved it off. "Jeremy added the stricture that I have the right to banish one person a year in Article Nine, and there is no appeal. He might have thought it was a joke, but when I get mad it's one hell of an excellent weapon. If I banished him, we could let Vaterland know where he goes from here; They are still very interested in getting their hands on him and are very vindictive. But if he really pisses me off enough, I make him one of the Lords."
"And this is bad, why?" Yanna asked.
"First because if you are nominated, which only I or the House of Citizens can do, you are legally enjoined from voting or lobbying regarding it, on either side. So he can't try to convince the other ministers to block it. More importantly, anyone elevated to the Lords as the first of their house is enjoined by the Constitution from holding any other office under Article Seven unless called by me to serve." Berry said. "WEB and I believe that a nobleman must first become fully conversant with their new demesnes and people before their heirs try for further office. Last, unlike Elizabeth's House of Lords, they cannot refuse to seat him without a super-majority." She gave a smile a treecat would have loved. "Like I told him, you have to read very carefully to see that Croc before it bites your balls off."
Preparations just in case
Berry walked back into her kitchen, and Hugh immediately hugged her. The others had noticed the tightly bound fury of the girl, but only Hugh could have done that to sooth her gentle temperament.
"The Admiral will be here to see you, in a few minutes, Berry." Jeremy said softly.
WEB coughed delicately. "You did place the picador darts as I suggested?"
"Yes, WEB. Why tomorrow I fully intend to seal my own shoes without asking Hugh for help."
"You wear shoes?" Hugh asked lighty. She slapped the tree trunk arms of her husband playfully. "God, I found meeting him in person made me loathe him even more." She looked to Ruth. "All your facts are solid, Ruth?"
"Having every new immigrant checked for genetic diseases is a godsend in this situation. DNA doesn't lie, Berry. You know I would not have brought the data to you and said it was true unless I was sure." Ruth shrugged. "I tell my people to look for the clues, then make determinations, then tell me what they think it means, and be ready for me to shoot those assumptions full of holes. If they are right and I am wrong, I will admit it later. That's why our search for the 9th spider-wasp source is still up in the air. Most of the records were destroyed back before the discovery of the Victim Islands. But Helena is looking into other possible clues."
"Where? If I were creating some bioweapon from hell, I'd not only destroy the records, I'd destroy the whole bloody computer system they were on just to make sure!" Thandi said.
Ruth smiled. "If they did it your way, Thandi, you'd be right. But regardless of whatever plots Mesa has been creating, Manpower is a business, and a business creates almost as much paperwork as any government. You have to explain where every cent goes, and expect that the government, or corporate headquarters is going to want to audit those books occasionally." She set down her ale glass, and held up her closed fist.
Index finger. "First you have marketing. They were selling spider-wasp honey for two T years, three months and fourteen days." She looked around the table. "Did I tell you Ms Stavrakas is a bit anal retentive?" They chuckled appreciatively. "So during that time they had to have shipping manifests, and we found them."
"Material Support." She put up her middle finger. "Though slaves aren't paid, you have to replace them when they get used up," She grimaced at the euphemism, but no one complained. "and since they thought of the slaves as replacement parts, their Material Support division handled ordering more. She ran an analysis of replacements ordered for losses of workers compared by facilities, and there wasn't a major spike in any of them before processing the honey began or during the actual marketing, and Helena told me the number of slaves lost jumped by only two or three dead during that period; and those were over in Research eleven, North up the coast 200 kilometers from Lumiere. Not two or three percent, but two or three bodies. Not to mention the wrong ocean, since the Islands are in the other ocean and south of us.
"But every time they opened a new facility before, there were major spikes when they started, followed by smaller numbers after the defensive systems were put in place. For example, the monthly loss of slaves for Beacon when it was still Research 19 dropped 15% when they started using Tank armor boots, and another 22% when they began arming the slaves with those boar spears of theirs. There were increases when they began harvesting the Godcrocs and Sea Dragonss for meat and leather; 21% for the crocs, 19% for the Sea Dragons; though adding the 20mm rifles used by the overseers reduced that to 11% for Croc harvesting, and adding the autoguns reduced it 8% for Sea Dragons.
"Also, Material Support listed those losses as part of Research Facility 11B initially. But except for that original mention there is no other. It's like..." she paused. "Like the Union in the War Between the States allowing the representatives who remained from Virginia to vote for the entire state rather than creating the State of West Virginia in 1863CE."
Ring Finger. "Repair and Maintenance section reported an additional two shuttle missions per month during that time only, all headed from Research 11 to an undisclosed planetary location, then to a production facility in orbit, and transport from that facility to the space station. Then nothing. Then Material Support ordered the construction of a new honey production facility at the same orbital location, without explaining where the original facility went. It wasn't repaired, it was replaced, with no mention of what happened to the original. Someone had to account for what happened to the original station and why. But there is no record in our computers here."
Little finger. "And there is personnel. Right before those beach party shots were made, a team of genetic engineers led by a man named Sol Palaster arrived; nothing beyond a name, vague description and one pic taken when he arrived. No mention of a department except that he and his team traveled on a Manpower transport as passengers. They spoke with the main company representative, and he authorized a shuttle and crew assigned to them. But eight months before the locals began processing honey again, Palaster left. The shuttle crew and the remaining members of the genetics team were listed as dead. But where they were located, how they died, or what they were working on was not.
"We can't ask the man who authorized that deployment; the Main Rep and his family tried to escape in a shuttle when the Liberation began. One of the locals on Dejima activated the anti Dragon guns in air defense mode and shot them up on takeoff. The ship crashed out near the sonic fence that keeps the Tutzelwurms away. Three of the four are known dead in wurm attacks from the DNA found where the shuttle crashed. The last is still missing and presumed dead."
"And we can't very well pick up Palaster. I assume he went home to Mesa?" Thandi asked.
Ruth snickered. "Remember the old saying about 'assume'. No, he bought a ticket on a tramp freighter headed for Erewhon. The man disappeared over five years ago. He could have been taking vacation time and just decided to hit Wages of Sin before going home. He could have decided to take a slow boat the long way and gone through to Manticore, then to Beowulf and home. He was of no interest to us before, so unless we have data that identifies him on Mesa or inside the League in our more recent downloads, we have no clue where he is on Mesa. And if he was running like hell for whatever reason, he can be anywhere in human space by now assuming he is still alive." She put up her thumb.
"Finally there's the accounting department. You have eleven of their own dead, the scientists and the flight crew, yet there were no explanations as to where they died or how; no mention of where the shuttle went down. In fact we have the paper trail where the local head of accounting sent an angry message to Mesa itself, and was told by the Board of Directors to shut up, and just list them as dead, and declare the shuttle a loss." She looked around the table. "So at present, we're back to square one."
Inge stuck her head in. "Admiral Brown to see you, Berry."
Like Jeremy, Admiral John Brown was on the Entertainment Line. He was a jolly faced man who was a little overweight. In fact in the right costume with a fake beard (His line was unable to grow one), he would have been the epitome of a pint sized Santa Claus. Unlike Jeremy however, his jolly visage was a mask. If you looked in his eyes, you would see the cold blooded warrior he had trained to be. If he had been slightly more politically correct, he would have been on the short list for Commodore when the High Ridge government took over. But his outspoken reaction when that government took over had put him on the beach.
When Torch had been liberated, he had immigrated, taken the Oath, and become the first Admiral of the newly forming navy. He had constantly refused higher rank. As commander of less than a squadron of Frigates, he had assumed the rank of Rear Admiral, and when the Mayan Sector gave them the cruisers and destroyers that used to belong to the People's Navy in Exile, he had stayed a rear admiral; that is what the senior officer of such a tack group would have been, and that was good enough for him.
When Grayson at the behest of Steadholder Harrington had donated the cruisers and battlecruisers of her Elysian Navy, he had finally accepted Vice Admiral, and again when Queen Elizabeth gave Berry the two squadrons of Super Dreadnoughts, he finally accepted the rank of Admiral. No one would have said for a moment that he was giving himself a rank he didn't deserve. Not to his face.
"Your Majesty." He looked at the others, then back to his queen.
Berry stood, walked around the table and stood before him. "Hand." He held it out and she swatted it. "I won't take it from any of my people, I won't take it from you, John. Now that I have chastised you, sit down. We have something to talk about. Something to drink? Coffee, tea, cocoa?"
"If it's all the same to you, yo- Berry. I'd rather splice the mainbrace with a double shot of rum."
"What the hell is a mainbrace anyway?" She asked. Hugh had gotten up, and poured the requested drink.
"Back in sailing days, it was the primary support line for the mainmast. Splicing one, usually done in the heat of battle, was one of the most dangerous evolutions aboard ship since you had to run a line from the rails to the block, then from the block to the mast, under fire." He took the tumbler, drained it in a single draught, setting the glass down. "You sent for me?"
"We have a possible problem, and unfortunately we need a point man to send into fire."
Wittman." He commented. She nodded. "There were feelers from that Progressive Party of his since the Constitutional Conference ended." He snorted. "Let's just say if we wanted a military dictatorship, they would have been happy to let us have one; until the Night of the Long Knives." He looked at the blank looks, (Of course Ruth understood). "Historical reference." He looked to Berry. "Let's just say, their unspoken attitude was, 'if you're not for us, you're against us'."
"All right then, question; is there someone who could replace you they would consider politically reliable?"
"Captain Gunter would have appeared to be acceptable to them. Old school Andermani, hates Manticore's guts and hasn't really changed since he came here. But he's a dyed in the wool monarchist. Thinks democracy or autocracy is stupid. He'd have done just long enough for them to purge the navy before having an accident. But he came to me when they made their offer."
"Then this might be easier than we thought. We expect him and his associates to start pushing their own agenda, and while they are seated we can do nothing unless I am willing to throw the first seated House into the street. There are maybe fifteen or twenty of them who might have a chance to grow into their new roles, and I am not going to take the chance that they will merely get voted back in." Berry told him.
"Ruth knows and the others here agree, that the two places he might be able to find to attack successfully is the Navy, and in the intelligence field. Both have too many operatives or personnel that are loaners."
"That would be correct. Something like 45% of my own people are loaners from six different polities, even during the war that just ended we didn't kick either side out. All have done sterling service too."
"And thanks to the need for analysts, mine runs almost 85% of loaned personnel." Ruth admitted.
"And either of those can be blown out of proportion. How short are you on manning all of our ships, Admiral?"
"Over a hundred twenty thousand people. We stripped everything but the LAC crews training here and the ships we sent to Good Times station for that mission. If there had been a serious force there, we would have been in trouble. We would not have been well enough trained to face them. If they had struck here while we were gone, they would have had a chance of destroying our home."
"You told me then what we risked, and I thought for the prize, it was worth the risk, Admiral. Do not take all of that blame from me."
He shook his head. "It was a bold stroke, I agreed, and we succeeded. But like any such trick, it would work only once." He looked up. "That is what they will use. A daring stroke that risked everything on the one throw of the dice. A brave plan that was obviously my own scheme for glory."
Berry wanted to cry. It had been her idea, her 'cabal' had come up with it, and while he had not led the attack, this man had planned it. "I swear I will not let them crucify you, John. I will keep you in my service, whatever it takes."