David Weber - Ashes of Victory

He trudged along beside the citizen admiral, waiting. Not patiently, exactly. More with a sense of resignation. To be honest, LePic didn't really want to hear whatever Theisman had to say. He only knew he had no choice but to listen... assuming he wanted to be able to look himself in the mirror tomorrow.

Wonderful. I'll be able to look at myself in the mirror tomorrow. And the day after. Maybe even the day after that. But eventually someone back home is going to hear about this, and once that happens, I won't be in any position to be looking into any damned mirrors ever again!

"Thank you for coming with me, Denis," Theisman said at last. His deep, low-pitched voice was half lost in the louder voice of the wind.

"I don't know if you ought to thank me for anything... yet," LePic said tartly. "I'm sure this is a conversation we shouldn't be having. And you may as well know I'm not prepared to guarantee that it won't go any further than you and me, Citizen Admiral."

"It sounds as if you automatically assume I want to discuss 'treason against the People,' " Theisman observed, and the people's commissioner snorted.

"Of course you don't! You just wanted to let me know about your undying loyalty to Citizen Secretary Pierre and Citizen Secretary Saint-Just, who you think are the two greatest leaders in human history. But you didn't want to embarrass them with your fulsome praise. That's why you dragged me out on this balmy evening instead of into your office where the microphones could get every word of it down for the record!"

Theisman blinked at him, taken aback by his fear-inspired asperity. But then the citizen admiral chuckled.

" Touché , Citizen Commissioner! But if I may be so bold, if you assume I'm thinking treasonous thoughts, why come with me? Unless you've brought along your handy little pocket recorder to catch me in the act."

"If I wanted to do that, I could have done it any time in the last three years, and you know it," LePic said, looking away a bit uncomfortably. Theisman studied his profile, recognizing the citizen commissioner's discomfort. In many ways, it was the mirror image of his own unhappiness, for neither of them were men to whom defiance of civilian authority came easily.

"I suppose I do know that," he said after several moments of silence. "In fact, that's why I invited you on this little walk." He stopped, and LePic paused in automatic reflex, turning to face him. "What I want to know, Citizen Commissioner LePic," he asked levelly, "is what you're going to do when we get back to Nouveau Paris."

"When we what ?" LePic's heart began to pound once more. Back to the capital? Had his superiors realized he'd been covering for Theisman and the others like him on Enki? Were he and the citizen admiral being recalled to be turned into horrible examples?

"You didn't know?" Theisman sounded surprised.

"Know what?!"

"I'm sorry, Denis." Theisman sounded genuinely contrite. "The orders came from the Octagon, but I'd assumed you'd already heard about them." LePic felt his muscles quiver with the need to reach out and shake a straight answer out of the other man, but the citizen admiral went on quickly. "I'm—we're—being recalled to Haven so I can assume command of the Capital Fleet, with you as my People's Commissioner."

"So you—?"

LePic stared at him. The Capital Fleet? They wanted Thomas Theisman to command the Capital Fleet ? They had to be insane! That was the People's Navy's most sensitive post, the one naval command perpetually poised above the Committee of Public Safety's head like some megaton Sword of Damocles. The person who commanded it had to be totally trusted by the Committee, and Theisman was—

But then his thoughts slithered to a stop. Yes, Theisman had come to hate the Committee. But the Committee didn't know that. Oscar Saint-Just and StateSec didn't know that... because one Denis LePic had made a point of not telling them.

His shock began to fade a bit, and something very like awe replaced it.

My God, he thought. They're putting a loaded pulser into the hands of one of their most deadly enemies and then turning their backs on him, and they don't even know it!

And then another thought came. He'd accepted months ago that the time would come when Theisman would be found out and, by extension, when LePic would be found out right beside him. And when that day rolled around, the two of them would die. But if they were in command of the Capital Fleet ...

"You want to know what I'm going to do?" he demanded finally. "My God, man! I ought to be asking you that! You're the one who's been turning steadily into a loose warhead for the last two or three years!"

"If I were a loose warhead, I'd already have done something stupid," Theisman replied reasonably. "In which case we wouldn't be freezing our asses off out here. As to what I'm planning to do, I honestly can't tell you. I have no more desire to die than the next man, Denis, and the admiral in me gets really pissed off at the thought of dying without accomplishing anything in the process, which is exactly what would happen if I—if we —went off half-cocked. But as you've obviously figured out, I'm not exactly in the mood to just keep on obeying orders like a good little boy."

"Meaning?" LePic asked nervously.

"Meaning that if an opportunity presents, or if one can be created, I might just reach for it," Theisman said flatly. LePic winced, and the citizen admiral raised one hand. "I haven't done anything yet. Haven't even breathed a word of it to anyone but you. But you need to know the way my head is working on this. You deserve to know, because I do realize you've been covering for me... and what that will mean for you, and possibly for your family, if I try something and blow it. But more than that, I need you. I need you to go on covering for me, and if the coin drops, I'll need you right there beside me."

He paused, gazing into the citizen commissioner's eyes, and his voice was very level when he went on.

"I won't lie to you, Denis. Even with me in command of the Capital Fleet, the odds against being able to accomplish anything other than getting ourselves and a lot of other people killed are high. The most likely outcome would be for StateSec to catch us and shoot us early on. Next most likely would be for us to try something and fail, in which case we either get killed in the fighting, arrested and shot afterward, or start a civil war that leaves the entire Republic wide open for the Manties. The least likely outcome would be for us to actually take out the Committee. On the other hand, the chance of managing that from the capital is a hell of a lot better than from here, and if we can..."

He let his voice trail off, and Denis LePic met his eyes in the cold and windy dark. Met and held them... and then nodded very slowly.

"Citizen General Fontein is here, Sir."

Oscar Saint-Just looked up as Sean Caminetti, his private secretary, ushered a colorless, wizened little man into his office. No one could have looked less like the popular conception of a brilliant and ruthless security agent than Erasmus Fontein. Except, perhaps, for Saint-Just himself.

"Thank you, Sean." He nodded permission for the secretary to withdraw, and then turned his attention fully to his guest. Unlike most people summoned to Saint-Just's inner sanctum, Fontein calmly walked across to his favorite chair, lowered himself into it with neither hesitation nor any sign of trepidation, waited while its surface adjusted to the contours of his body, then cocked his head at his chief.

"You wanted to see me?" he inquired, and Saint-Just snorted.