David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

It had even looked as if that much was happening… until that even more unmitigated bastard Van Dort and the fucking Royal Manticoran Navy moved in and smashed Nordbrandt's hidden weapons cache. Only fifteen days ago. Was it really only fifteen days since that devastating blow had staggered not simply Nordbrandt's murderous organization but the entire political calculus of Kornati?

The sheer, stunning scope of the defeat inflicted upon the FAK and, even more importantly, its future capabilities, had enormously strengthened Rajkovic's hand. Especially after Nordbrandt's resurrection and the terrorists' resurgence. Even people who might otherwise have remained calm and collected enough to recognize that the Reformation Party's platform was just as dangerous, in the long run, as any terrorist bomb, thought he could walk on water! The idiots ought to have realized Nordbrandt was only the tip of an iceberg, no more than the first outrider of the barbarian invasion Rajkovic's entire political philosophy was busy opening doors for.

Even after Nordbrandt was defeated-as Tonkovic had never doubted she inevitably would be-she'd serve as an incendiary example to all of those useless, lazy, underproductive parasites who wanted to overturn the established bastions of society and loot the economy in some sort of crazed redistribution campaign. And the " rights " Rajkovic kept telling those same parasites they had would be the justification the Mob used to sanctify its demolition work! Unless the sane elements of Kornatian society were very, very lucky, they'd find themselves facing an entire succession of Nordbrandt clones. Tonkovic doubted any of them would possess the venomous capability of the original, but that wouldn't prevent them from doing enormous damage.

Which was why it was more important than ever to ensure that Kornati retained the law enforcement and economic mechanisms to guarantee another Nordbrandt couldn't succeed where the FAK failed. That was why she'd decided against passing on that insufferable prig Medusa's arrogant and humiliating demand that she surrender the principles she'd come to Spindle to fight for.

Even now, she couldn't believe Medusa was so foolish as to believe she could convince anyone who knew how the game was played that the Alexander Government's warnings about a set deadline were anything but a ploy. A bluff. One more attempt to browbeat her into surrendering Kornati's essential sovereignty. The Star Kingdom of Manticore had invested too much prestige in this annexation. Allowing the annexation to fail and Frontier Security to snap up the Cluster after all would be a devastating blow to its interstellar credibility. If she only stood her ground-if those cowards back on Kornati only let her call Manticore's bluff-Prime Minister Alexander would find some perfectly logical "reason of state" to extend the deadline.

And even if he didn't, how much worse off could they be? If they surrendered their full sovereignty, then everything that mattered about Kornati would be destroyed, possibly within months, certainly within years. Far better to hold their position on the basis of principle. And if the Manticorans carried out their cowardly threat and specifically excluded the Split System from their precious Star Kingdom because Split refused to cave in, she and her government could face the people of Kornati with their heads high. The fault would lie elsewhere, and Kornati would be free to pursue its own destiny. Best of all, the Star Kingdom which had refused to grant them membership as if they were some sort of moral pariahs would protect them from State Security after all by its simple presence.

So of course she hadn't told anyone back home about Medusa's insulting, intolerable demands. If she had, some of the weaklings in Parliament might have been panicked into insisting that they throw away the last shreds of self-determination. And if she never told anyone, the government would at least have plausible deniability. They could blame their homeworld's exclusion from the Star Kingdom on her. On a single, courageous woman who'd taken it upon herself to save her planet's ancient liberties. It might be hard on her, initially. But ultimately, her actions would prove justified, and she would return once more to her rightful place in the world of the Kornatian politics.

But did Rajkovic understand that? Of course he didn't! Or, even worse, he didn't care. It well might be that his own vengeful political ambitions drove him to seize this opportunity to destroy her, regardless of the ultimate cost to Kornati.

She looked at the letter-the official letter, on official parchment, not a simple electronic message-once more, and her jaw clenched. It was very short and to the point.

Madam President,

At the command of Parliament, I must request you to return to Kornati by the first available transportation. Your presence before the Special Committee on Annexation and the Standing Committee on Constitutional Law is required.

By command of the Parliament and people of -Kornati,

Vuk Ljudevit Rajkovic

Planetary Vice President

The sentences, the phrasing, were purely formal, defined by centuries of custom and law, yet she heard Rajkovic's gloating triumph in every syllable. He hadn't been able to defeat her at the polls, and so he'd embraced this sordid maneuver to steal the office he'd been unable to win.

She inhaled another deep breath and gave herself a fierce mental shake.

This wasn't the end. Yes, she'd been recalled to appear before Parliament, and the phrasing made it clear it would be an adversarial proceeding. And, yes, Parliament had the authority to remove her from office if it determined she'd violated the constitutional limits upon her powers as Planetary President and Special Envoy, or failed to discharge her responsibilities to either office. But her Democratic Centralists and their allies still commanded a majority in Parliament, and it would require a two-thirds vote to sustain an impeachment. Rajkovic and his cronies would never be able to muster that many votes for what was so obviously a partisan effort to steal the presidency.

She looked at the letter one last time, then stood and tossed it contemptuously onto her desk.

She had people to see before she returned home to confront that pygmy Rajkovic and his contemptible allies.

Forty- five days after leaving the Montana System for Split, and twenty-two days since the destruction of the FAK base, HMS Hexapuma came back over the Montana alpha wall 19.8 light-minutes from the system primary. The spectacular blue radiance of a hyper-transit radiated from her sails like sheet lightning, and she folded them back into an impeller wedge and began accelerating in-system from a base velocity of just under fifteen thousand kilometers per second.

Aivars Terekhov sat on his bridge, watching the G1 star grow before his ship, and then looked at Amal Nagchaudhuri.

"Record a message to Chief Marshal Bannister, please," he said, and Nagchaudhuri touched a control stud.

"Live mike, Skipper."

"Chief Marshal," Terekhov began. "Mr. Van Dort and I have returned to Montana after uncovering information on Kornati which, we believe, should have a significant bearing on Mr. Westman's opposition to the annexation. We would greatly appreciate it if you could contact him and inform him that we would like to speak to him again. We should enter Montana orbit in approximately two hours and twenty-five minutes, and Mr. Van Dort and I are both looking forward, on a personal level, to seeing you again. If it would be convenient, we'd very much enjoy having dinner with you at, say, the Rare Sirloin. If that would be possible, would you care to make reservations for our regular table, or should I?"