David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

"We agree so far," Alquezar said as Krietzmann paused to sip beer. "But that still doesn't explain why you should think Westman's more dangerous than Nordbrandt."

"Oh, don't be Socratic, Joachim!" Krietzmann said a bit impatiently. "You know as well as I do that Aleksandra Tonkovic and Samiha Lababibi have absolutely no intention of actually blocking the annexation. If they do kill the Constitution, it'll be by accident, because they genuinely believe that line Aleksandra was spouting right after Nordbrandt's first attack-that Manticore won't let the process fail. I think they're both-especially Aleksandra-too prone to view the Star Kingdom through the distortion of their domestic political experience, but that's how they see things. At the moment, at least. But if anything ever happens to crack that sublime confidence of theirs, they'll probably stop holding out for impossible demands and settle for the best fast, down-and-dirty compromise they can get.

"But if Westman pisses off enough of your oligarchs-the ones you and Bernardus roped up and convinced to support the annexation in the first place-we're screwed. If he ever convinces enough of them that he and people who think like him can inflict serious damage on everything the Trade Union's managed to build up, a significant percentage of them-possibly an outright -majority-would switch over to Tonkovic's side in a heartbeat, and you know it. And if they do, they'll shift the balance drastically. Not just here at the Convention, either. If Rembrandt and San Miguel and the rest of the RTU planets start opposing annexation, instead of supporting it, it's going to fail."

"You're right," Alquezar sighed after a moment. "That's another reason Bernardus went home to Rembrandt. He wanted Vaandrager out of the chairmanship before she could build a support bloc strong enough to challenge his control or get herself too deeply burrowed into the system government. Because she's exactly the sort to do what you're afraid of, especially if Westman can convince anyone outside his home system to throw in with his Montana Independence Movement."

"So," Krietzmann said, "what do we do about it?"

"If I had the answer to that one," Alquezar replied sourly, "I wouldn't need to worry about Aleksandra and Samiha. I could just wave my magic wand and fix everything!"

"Well, we're going to have to come up with something ."

"I know. I know." Alquezar drew on his cigar again. "I sent a memo to Baroness Medusa this afternoon, right after the dispatch boat from Montana got here. I expressed very much the same concerns you just have, and I suggested to her that it might be time for Her Majesty's official representative here to take a more… direct approach."

Krietzmann looked at him with a hint of uneasiness, and the San Miguelian shrugged irritably.

"It's not an ideal solution, even if she does step in, and I know it. The problem is, I think we're fresh out of ideal solutions, Henri."

"… not an ideal solution, Milady," Gregor O'Shaughnessy said, "but I'm afraid of the way the situation's escalating."

"Madam Governor," Rear Admiral Khumalo said heavily, "I must reiterate my concerns about becoming overly involved on the local level in the Cluster's politics."

"With all due respect, Admiral," O'Shaughnessy shot back a bit sharply, "you were the one who wanted to intervene against Nordbrandt after the first Kornati bombing in Karlovac."

"Yes, I was, Mr. O'Shaughnessy," Khumalo rumbled. "But that was rather a different situation from this, as I hope you'll admit. Nordbrandt is a killer, a murderess on a mass scale. Dropping Marines onto Kornati, assuming the local planetary government invited us to do so, to hunt down a cold-blooded, calculating killer would be one thing. Dropping Marines onto Montana to go after one of its most prominent citizens, who's apparently well on his way to becoming some sort of folk hero-or antihero-and hasn't killed a a stray dog yet, much less members of the local parliament, would be another thing entirely."

"But we're already engaged there on a day-to-day basis," O'Shaughnessy said. "We've had a presence in the system-and, arguably-a responsibility to support President Suttles' government ever since he gave us permission to station your support ships there. For that matter, we could provide the support direct from those ships."

"Those ships are neither designed for nor capable of providing that sort of support," Khumalo said frostily. " Ericsson is essentially nothing more than a freighter hull wrapped around machine shops and storage for spare parts. Her entire complement's under two hundred-technicians, not combat personnel. And Volcano 's only an ammunition ship, with an even smaller crew. They've got military-grade impellers, compensators, and particle shielding and minimal sidewalls, but they aren't warships and they are totally unsuited to this sort of task. Even assuming that asking any of our ships to perform that task was a good idea. Which it isn't."

"I think- " O'Shaughnessy began, but Dame Estelle raised her hand. He closed his mouth, looking at her, and she smiled crookedly.

"In this instance, Gregor, Admiral Khumalo has a point," she said. "A very good point, in fact. There'd be substantial local popular support if we intervened in Split. So far, Nordbrandt's still at the stage of evoking far more horror, revulsion, and repugnance than widespread support. She's done a lot more damage to her own planet than Westman has, and she's made it perfectly clear she's escalated her strategy of pure terror to go after anyone who 'collaborates' with us or the elected Kornatian government on any issue, not just the annexation.

"She's using a sledgehammer, a brute force approach. Westman's using a rapier. So far, at least, his target selection's had exactly the opposite effect from Nordbrandt's. As far as I can see, there's no immediate danger of his turning around Montana's support for the annexation, but he's more likely to have that effect in the long run than she is. More to the point, from the perspective of the Convention, he's more likely to generate a significant shift in the balance of power between Alquezar's Constitutional Unionists and Tonkovic's Constitutional Liberals. But from our tactical perspective, the most significant difference between him and Nordbrandt is that we're the air cav, rushing to the rescue, if we go after her, whereas we become the sinister foreign conquerors on Montana if we intervene in their local affairs to go after him and make even the tiniest mistake."

"But, Milady," O'Shaughnessy protested respectfully, "I'm afraid we'll be making a mistake anyway, and not a tiny one, if we don't take action in regard to Montana."

"Personally," Khumalo said, "I'm still in favor of dropping a battalion or so of Marines on Nordbrandt's head. Let's go in fast and hard, yank her up, and hand her worthless, murderous ass to the Kornatian courts. Let them execute her after a scrupulously fair trial before a jury of her fellow citizens-God knows they've already got enough evidence to hang her two or three times! All we'd do would be to apprehend her, then stand aside and let the local legal establishment do its job. As you say, she's hardly a poster girl for the orderly political process on Kornati, and this steady expansion of her 'manifesto' shows a degree of creeping extremism that comes pretty damned close to classic megalomania. She's starting to remind me of Cordelia Ransom!"

He snorted, and several of his listeners, including Dame Estelle Matsuko, winced at the all too apt comparison.

"Dispose of her, first, and we free ourselves to go after Westman in the most effective manner and without distractions. And as a bonus, when we do, we'll already have buffed up our halo by helping take out someone who's obviously a stone-cold terrorist and assassin."