David Weber - Ashes of Victory

"Good enough," Harkness said with obvious satisfaction, then grinned. "You know, Sir, I think the thing I may like best about this job is the machine shops. I got all those gorgeous new toys to play with, and the Navy actually pays me to do it! It don't get a lot better than that, Skipper."

"If you're happy, I'm happy, Chief," Tremaine told him expansively. "Just don't get too carried away. This monster of Roden and Bolgeo's isn't going to be cheap, and if it doesn't work, I'm going to have a real hard time explaining to the LogCom people where all the parts for it went."

"Don't worry, Sir. If I build the thing, it'll damned well work. And if it don't, I'll personally take Bolgeo's spades' deck away from him until he makes it work!"

"And it's been one thing after another for months now," the slender, dark-faced woman on the display groused. "We're still catching flak from the attack on Zanzibar. The Caliph's ambassador was in here just yesterday to see Dame Elaine and press for 'clarification' on the status of the reinforced picket. Which really meant he wanted her to swear a blood oath to leave it there forever. Which she couldn't, of course. They needed to talk directly to the Earl, not to one of the permanent undersecretaries. And even if Dame Elaine had the authority to make official policy commitments, the Duke's made it clear to everyone in the Alliance that something like that is a military decision, which means Ambassador Makarem ought to have one of his attachés sounding out your bosses' staff over at Admiralty House, not us!"

Rear Admiral Aristides Trikoupis, GSN (who had been a captain junior-grade in the Royal Manticoran Navy just over three years before) reclined on the couch in the admiral's day cabin aboard GNS Isaiah MacKenzie and wiggled his sock toes in shameless luxury as he viewed the letter from his wife. Mirdula Trikoupis was a senior-level member of the Foreign Office's permanent staff, and the expression on her lively face was just a tad on the disgusted side.

"And then certain individuals who shall remain nameless started trying to pressure us for details of privileged communications between the Earl and the Graysons—and hinting at all sorts of dire consequences the next time the government changes hands if we didn't cough up what they wanted!" She grimaced with more than a hint of true anger. "I swear, Aristides, sometimes I want to run out into the street and strangle the next three politicians I meet with my bare hands!"

Trikoupis chuckled aloud at that. Not because he didn't share her longing to permanently remove certain of those "nameless" individuals— I wonder if they were staffers for High Ridge, New Kiev, or Descroix? Had to be one of them —but at the image that flashed through his brain. Unlike most of the Manticoran officers on loan to the Grayson Space Navy, Trikoupis, at just a hair over a hundred and seventy centimeters, did not tower over the native Graysons of his crews... but he looked downright tall next to his diminutive wife. Mirdula was fourteen centimeters shorter than he was, and the thought of her strangling politicians—preferably one with each hand, simultaneously, while holding their toes well clear of the ground—appealed mightily to him.

Strictly speaking, Mirdula had no business sharing that sort of information with anyone outside her office, but she'd been careful to use their private encryption (which was supplied by the Foreign Office), and her letters to him traveled only aboard high-security Navy courier boats. Besides, he'd spent three prewar years as a naval attaché on Haven, and his Foreign Office and ONI clearances remained in force. Still, he made a mental note to suggest that she might want to tone down the inside info in her next letter.

"I really don't know how the Earl puts up with it, even with us to run interference for him," Mirdula went on more seriously. "I suppose he must be used to projecting a pleasant mood even when he wants to shoot people. And he has to be used to people trying to buttonhole him for personal favors, too; he is the Queen's uncle, after all. But this place has been a madhouse, and he and Lord Alexander are taking the brunt of it."

Trikoupis grunted, his humor souring as he contemplated the truth of yet another of his wife's observations. His Grayson commission had taken him out of the mainstream of the Star Kingdom's political life, but Mirdula's insights and a thoughtful study of the 'faxes (plus the analyses Grayson Naval Intelligence circulated to its senior officers) kept him abreast of what was happening, and he didn't like some of what he was hearing.

Trikoupis had met Countess New Kiev during his stint assigned to the FO, and he hadn't much enjoyed the experience. He was willing to accept that she held her beliefs sincerely, and honest enough to admit he'd met Centrists and Crown Loyalists who were just as officious and nearly as strident. But her towering faith in her own rectitude was so sublime as to elevate her to a status all her own. No doubt the fact that he shared so little of her view of the universe made it seem even worse, but she reminded him irresistibly of the witch-hunters of ancient Terra who had dragged their victims out, tortured them into confessing, then burned them alive... all strictly for the good of the sinners' immortal souls. The Countess had that same zealous streak, and she was just as determined to do what was "best" for people whether they wanted it done for—or to —them or not.

Given the uproar over the Peeps' resumption of the offensive, it was probably inevitable for New Kiev and her allies to gain more credence with the electorate. Less because they'd done anything right where the war was concerned (because even the stupidest voter knew they hadn't), but because they led the opposition to the government on whose watch things had gone wrong. Human nature's desire to find someone upon whom to blame disasters had operated faithfully and efficiently... and in their favor.

Much of the furor had faded when the Peeps failed to follow up with more deep raids, and Duchess Harrington escaped from Cerberus. But the public wanted the Navy to do more than just stop the Peeps. It wanted the Navy to resume the offensive—without running any risks, of course, or exposing any more core systems to attack—and push the Peeps back where they belonged so the Allies could end the war once and for all. Worse, the military budgets were beginning to bite truly deep, and the taxpayers who felt that bite failed to understand that their increased tax burden was actually a good sign.

Trikoupis switched off the viewer, puffed his cheeks, and swung into a sitting position. This was his third time through Mirdula's letter, and he knew he'd view it several more times before he recorded his response. Just at the moment, though, the direction of his own thoughts had soured his enjoyment of it, and he rose to pace, still in his sock feet, on the carpet covering his day cabin's decksole.

Isaiah MacKenzie (known to her crew as Izzie when they figured no spies from the Office of Shipbuilding might overhear) was part of the taxpayers' pain, although the taxpayers in her case were Graysons and not Manticorans. Despite an exponential increase in effective firepower, Izzie actually had only about forty percent as much crew as her older consorts, thanks to the sophistication of her automation, and the same trend towards lower crew numbers obtained across the board in all the new classes being designed by BuShips and the Grayson Office of Shipbuilding. Trikoupis rather doubted that the average Manticoran civilian would have understood what that meant even if the Government had been in a position to share such sensitive information with anyone. But what they did know about the Navy's new ships was quite simple enough for the voters to grasp: they cost a lot.