The Service of the Sword

9

The rating's face was pale as a sheet. "The task force is back in the system. We just got a message from the Citizen Admiral. They expect to be back in orbit inside five hours."

Easy-going as Yuri was, the rating's lack of basic military courtesy was just too extreme to let pass unreprimanded. Yuri wondered what was wrong with the woman. The task force's return was hardly unexpected, after all.

"What is your name, Citizen Rating?" he demanded frostily.

The woman had apparently taken leave of her senses. She didn't even have the excuse of being a young recruit. From her age and the two hash marks on her sleeve, she'd been in StateSec service for at least six T-years. Even a wet-behind-the-ears newbie knew enough to recognize a superior officer's you-are-about-to-be-fried-alive tone of voice.

Utterly oblivious, it seemed. "You don't understand! The SI sent a message too. Ordering Citizen Captain Gallanti to disregard the message from the merchant ship—"

Yuri felt his stomach drop out from under him. He had a very bad feeling that the sensation was much like that of a man feeling the trapdoor open under the gallows.

"What message from a merchant ship?"

"—and stand down the impellers and sidewalls."

Citizen Lieutenant Commander Saunders bolted upright in his chair, his head cocked as if straining all his senses. He stretched out a hand and laid fingertips delicately against a bulkhead.

"She's right. The ship's getting under way. What the hell—?"

Impellers couldn't be detected in operation inside a ship. They were not reaction engines and produced no discernible noise or vibration. But the impeller rooms were close to Yuri's cabin and although Yuri himself still couldn't sense anything, Saunders was apparently picking up the subtle vibrations created by the various auxiliary engines. That was Saunder's specialty—although even he hadn't noticed until the rating brought it to his attention. Yuri didn't think to doubt him.

What was Gallanti doing? There was no logical reason for the Hector Van Dragen to be leaving orbit. And even if she were, why bring up the sidewalls unless...

Yuri forgot all his own by-the-regs proscriptions. "Jesus Christ," he whispered. Then, firmly, to the still-jittery rating:

"You're making no sense at all, woman! Settle down!"

That seemed to calm her, finally. She swallowed and then nodded abruptly. "Com Tech first-class Rita Enquien, Citizen Assistant Investigator. Sorry for the discourtesy. It's just—I'm not supposed to be here—the Citizen Captain finds out I left the bridge I'm dead meat—"

The sensation in Yuri's stomach was now definitely one of free fall. He wondered how long a man dropped before the rope ran out and the noose broke his neck.

"No problem, Citizen Tech Enquien," he said soothingly, in his best confessional tone of voice.

He realized, finally, what was happening. In general, if not the specifics. Something had completely panicked the rating and, in her confusion, she'd broken discipline and gone to the one person in the ship she'd come to trust in a pinch. Given that Yuri didn't know her, the woman's estimate was obviously based on what she'd heard from her shipmates.

Which meant...

The falling sensation vanished. Dr. Johnson's hangman be damned. Yuri had set out weeks ago to steal a capital warship right out from under its own captain, hadn't he? Just in case all hell broke loose.

All hell had broken loose, clearly enough. But the ship was there for the taking.

"Now, Enquien. Let's start from the beginning. What merchant ship are you talking about? And what message did it send?"

The woman's mouth made an "O" of surprise. "Oh. How stupid of me." Then, in a rush:

"A merchant ship arrived in the system just half an hour before we got the message from the Citizen Admiral. It's from Haven. There's been—a revolution, I guess. Coup d'état, whatever you call it. Citizen Admiral Theismann's taken over, they say. And—"

She swallowed. Yuri suddenly knew what was coming next. Exultation flooded over him. Yet at the same time, oddly, a wave of fear also.

At least the Devil you know is the one you know.

"Citizen Chairman Saint-Just is dead. Nobody knows exactly how, I guess. Well, by whom exactly, I mean. They know how, that's for sure. The merchant ship sent us the recording, it was played all over Nouveau Paris' HD networks. I saw it myself. It was Oscar Saint-Just all right. The face wasn't touched. Just a great big pulser dart hole in the middle of his forehead."

The rating shook herself, as if chilled. "He's dead, Sir!" she cried.

And, in her voice also, Yuri Radamacher could sense the same conflicting emotions. His eyes scanned the room, seeing them on every face.

Exultation. The cold, gray, heartless man who had loomed over the Republic for years as the incarnation of murderous ruthlessness was finally gone. Dead, dead, dead.

Terror. And now what?

The paralysis lasted for perhaps five seconds. Then Yuri slapped his knees and rose abruptly.

"Oh, bullshit," he said, softly but firmly. "Now's the same as it always was. We do the best we can, that's all, with what we've got."

He looked at the rating. "I take it the Citizen Captain's gone berserk?"

Enquien jerked a nod. "Yes, Citi—uh, Sir. That's why I snuck out when she wasn't looking and came here." She hissed in a breath. "I'm scared, Sir. I think the Captain's really lost it."

Yuri sighed and shook his head. "I don't think she ever really had it, Enquien." Then, much like a priest might bestow absolution:

"Relax, you did the right thing. I'll take care of it."

The rating's taut face eased. Yuri turned to the other people in the room.

"Will you follow me?"

There was no hesitation. Five heads in unison—StateSec and Marine alike—jerked their own nods.

"Good. Citiz—the hell with it, the rating's got it right. Saint-Just is dead and his petty regulations went with him. Lieutenant Commander Saunders, I want you to return to your post and take control of the impeller rooms. Use whatever force you need to, in the event of resistance. Major Lafitte, you and Major Citizen go with him and see to it. Round up whatever Marines and reliable StateSec troopers you can. Whatever else, I want those impellers taken out of Gallanti's control. Understood?"

"Yes, Citizen Assistant Spec—uh, Sir." The stumbled phrase came in unison, and so did the rueful little laughs which followed.

The StateSec major grinned at her Marine counterpart. "This'll be worth it just so people won't keep making jokes about my last name." More seriously: "You're senior to me, Khedi. In years of service, anyway, and I don't know how else to figure this. Besides, you've got experience in boarding operations and I don't. So you take the lead and I'll follow."

Lafitte nodded. An instant later, the three officers were out into the corridor and hurrying in the direction of the impeller rooms.

Yuri looked to the two sergeants. A quick glance at their hips confirmed the fact that neither was armed. There had been no reason for them to be, of course. In fact, it would have been against regulations. Aboard a StateSec ship, unless expressly ordered otherwise, only StateSec officers were permitted to carry sidearms. And they were required to carry them. From old habit, in fact, Yuri had a pulser on his own hip, even though the regulations were not entirely clear as to whether the provision applied to an Assistant Special Investigator.

He was hoping that single pulser would be enough. But given Gallanti's temper...

He'd planned for that eventuality also. "Come here," he commanded, stepping over to a locker along one wall. Quickly, his fingers punched the combination and the locker opened. Inside—

Ned Pierce whistled admiringly. "Hey, that's quite an arsenal. Uh, Sir. You allowed to have this?"

Yuri shrugged. "Who knows? You wouldn't believe how vague the regulations get when it comes to specifying what Special Investigators—their assistants too, I presume—can and can't do."

He stepped aside from the locker. "This really isn't my line of work. So I'll let the two of you choose whatever weapons you think most suitable."

Pierce reached eagerly for a light tribarrel—about the heaviest man-portable weapon made (short of a plasma rifle, at any rate)—with a thousand-round ammunition tank. The tank was coded for a mixed flechette, armor-piercing, explosive belt, and the Marine's eyes glowed with anticipation. But—

"For Pete's sake, Ned!" Rolla protested. "You'll slaughter everybody on the bridge with that thing. You know how to fly a seven-million-ton SD? I sure as hell don't."

"Oh." Pierce's face looked simultaneously embarrassed and frustrated. "Yeah, you're right. Damn. I love those things."

"Just take a frickin' flechette gun, if you really need to splatter people wholesale," growled the StateSec sergeant, plucking a hand pulser out of the locker himself. "At least that way you won't blow any essential hardware apart, too! Or have you forgotten how to aim at anything smaller than a moon?"

"Teach your grandmother how to suck eggs," retorted Pierce. Quickly, easily, the Marine sergeant took out a flechette gun, examined and armed the weapon.

Then, he and Rolla studied each other for a moment. It was an awkward moment.

Yuri cleared his throat. "Ah, Sergeant Pierce, I believe you're senior to Sergeant Rolla. In terms of service, certainly—and, as Diana said, I don't see any other way to settle these things at the moment. Nevertheless—"

To his relief, Ned just shrugged. "Yeah, sure, Sir. Hey, look, I ain't stupid." He nodded at Rolla. "Jaime can have it. I really don't care."

"Good. What I hope we'll be dealing with is really more a police matter than a military one. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Sergeant Rolla has experience making arrests. Whereas, ah, you—"

Pierce's piratical grin was on full display. "I blow people apart. Don't worry about it, Sir. Mama Pierce's good little boy will follow orders."

Yuri's fears that they might face opposition on their way to the bridge proved to be unfounded. All they encountered, here and there, were a few small knots of StateSec ratings huddled and whispering. Clearly enough, some scraps of the news had begun percolating through the ship. Just as clearly, the scraps were just that—murky, muddled, impossible to make any clear sense from. The huge size of the superdreadnought added to the confusion. Wild rumors in a smaller ship might have stayed concentrated long enough for people to boil down the truth from them. In an SD juggernaut, rumors echoed down endless passages, becoming completely distorted and incoherent the farther they went.

He was a bit puzzled, at first. He would have expected Gallanti to have at least stationed StateSec guards at the critical access routes to the bridge. But... nothing, until they finally reached the hatch leading into the bridge itself.

By then, Yuri had figured out the reason, and so it was armed with that knowledge that he marched forthrightly toward the two StateSec security ratings standing guard by the hatch. The two guards were not from a special unit, summoned by Gallanti for the purpose. They were from the unit which was routinely stationed there—and these two happened to have the bad luck to be on shift when the crap hit the fan. They looked as nervous as mice when cats are on a rampage.

Gallanti was just a stupid, self-centered, hot-headed bully, that's all. The explanation was no more complicated than that. A woman who'd gotten her way for so long simply because of her rank and her overbearing personality that she wasn't giving a second's thought to the fact that she might be facing a tactical situation.

He was almost surprised he couldn't hear her screaming even through the closed hatch.

The Boss is blowing her stack, and when the Boss blows her stack everybody has to stand around and eat her shit. A law of nature, like gravity.

Idiot.

"Stand aside," he commanded, as soon as he came up to the guards. The words were spoken in a mild tone, but a very self-assured one.

The guards didn't think to question him. In fact, they were obviously relieved that he was there. Yuri jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Sergeant Rolla.

"You're now under the command of Citizen Sergeant Rolla. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Citizen Assistant Special Investigator." The replies came simultaneously. Then, seeing the figure of the commo rating following gingerly at the rear, their eyes widened.

Yuri opened the hatch and stepped through, followed by the two sergeants. Behind, he could hear one of the guards hissing to the commo rating.

"Jesus, Rita. You told us you were just gonna be gone for a minute. The Citizen Captain's ready to skin you alive. She finds out we let you pass—"

"Piss on Gallanti," Enquien hissed back. "I went and got the People's Commissioner. He's here now—and that bitch's ass is grass. You watch."

The phrase she used made Yuri pause in midstep. Not "the Citizen Assistant Special Investigator." Just...

The Citizen Commissioner. No. Simply the People's Commissioner.

He found it all, then. All he needed for what had to be done. In that moment, for the first time in his life, he thought he understood that bizarre self-assuredness possessed by fanatics like Victor Cachat.

The People's Commissioner.

Indeed, it was so. For ten years he had carried that title, and made it his own. He had absolutely no idea what the future was going to bring, either for himself or anyone else, except for one thing alone. Whatever else happened, he was quite certain that the title "people's commissioner" was going to go down in history draped in the darkest of colors. As dark, he knew, as the term "inquisitors."

And rightly. Whatever the promise, the reality had turned it inside out. A post created to shield a republic from the possible depredations of its own military had been turned, not only against the military, but the republic itself. The old conundrum, reborn again. Who will guard the guardians?

Yet, he remembered reading of an inquisitor in the Basque country, in that ancient era when humanity had still lived on a single planet. Sent there by the Spanish Inquisition at the height of its power to investigate the truth behind a wave of accusations of witchcraft, the inquisitor had stopped the witch-burnings. Indeed, had insisted upon proper rules of evidence at all subsequent trials—and then released every supposed witch for lack of any such evidence.

Yuri had run across the anecdote in his voluminous reading. Years ago, that had been; but he'd taken a certain comfort from it ever since.

He even managed a chuckle, at that moment. Yuri Radamacher did not believe in an afterlife. Yet, if there was one, he was quite sure that at that very moment in Hell, some good-natured, round-faced, overweight, apprehensive little devil was being chewed out by Satan for "slackness."

It was time for the People's Commissioner to do his duty, then. The people of the republic needed protection against an officer run amok. Yuri advanced onto the bridge, with resolute steps.

The bridge was... quite a scene.

Citizen Captain Gallanti was standing in the center of it, glaring red-faced at a display split into two screens. One screen showed the bridge of Admiral Chin's flagship. Yuri could see Genevieve herself standing there, along with Commodore Ogilve and Commissioner Wilkins. At their center, seeming to be in the forefront, stood Victor Cachat.

Cachat, as always, was an imposing figure. Even through a holodisplay, the young man's intensity seemed to burn. But Yuri's eyes were immediately drawn to the other screen. Sharon Justice was in that screen, which was showing the bridge of the other StateSec SD, the Joseph Tilden. So he assumed, anyway, given that the SD's captain Vesey was standing next to her.

He was relieved to see that Sharon seemed in fine health. Even in good spirits, for that matter. Her facial expression was one of solemnity, but Yuri knew her quite well after all these years and could detect the underlying...

Excitement? Maybe. It was hard to tell. But whatever else, she certainly didn't seem gloomy.

Captain Vesey, on the other hand, did look on the gloomy side. The words "nervous, worried, and more than a little depressed" might capture the expression on his face a bit better.

One thing was clear, just from the body language of the two people alone. Whatever was happening on the Tilden, it was obvious that Sharon was calling the shots and not the superdreadnought's nominal commander.

That was good enough, for the moment. Yuri looked away from the screens and quickly examined the bridge of the Hector itself. All of the ratings and as many of the officers as could possibly manage it had their heads buried as far down as they could get them into their work stations. As long-beaten underlings will do, when their mistress is having another temper tantrum, trying their very best to be inconspicuous.

That was not possible, of course, for some of the officers. The nature of their duties required them to be directly attentive to the citizen captain.

The Hector Van Dragen's executive officer was standing not far from Gallanti, bestowing upon her his well-practiced look of fawning vacancy. The man's name was as comical in its own way as that of the long-suffering Diana Citizen. Kit Carson, no less. Fortunately for him, Yuri Radamacher was one of the few people in the task force who had the historical knowledge to understand how ridiculous the name was, given the man's nature.

Yuri dismissed him from consideration. Carson was a nonentity. Of the other top ship's officers on the bridge, most of his attention went to the tac officer, Edouard Ballon. Partly that was because of the nature of a tac officer's duties, since Ballon controlled the ship's armament. Mostly it was because Yuri knew that if there was going to be trouble from anyone other than Gallanti herself, it would come from Ballon.

The tac officer was not precisely a StateSec "fanatic." Certainly not one cut from the same cloth as Cachat. Ballon had no particularly strong ideological convictions. But he was the type of sour, nasty, mean-spirited person who tended to gravitate naturally to an organization like StateSec. Not a sadist, no. Just cut from the same cloth as the grim villagers who were always the first to raise the cry of "witchcraft!"—and always took satisfaction in the punishment of others. As if that validated their place in the world.

Neither Gallanti nor Ballon was watching him. Neither of them, in fact, had even noticed Yuri coming onto the bridge, they were so fixated on the screen. Yuri took the opportunity to nod toward Ballon while giving both the sergeants standing behind him a meaningful look. Sergeant Rallo nodded back, relaxed; Ned Pierce just smiled thinly and hefted the flechette gun in his hands a centimeter or two higher.

It's time, then. Do it.

Yuri turned back to face Gallanti. And suddenly—did life always have to be ridiculously awkward?—realized that the first obstacle he faced was simply the pedestrian problem of getting the damn woman to hear him. She was making enough of a racket herself to drown a bugler.

"—at's pure horseshit, Cachat! I don't give a flying fuck what fancy titles you carry around! I'm the captain of this ship and what I say goes! And if you think when there's treason all about I'm going to disarm a StateSec capital ship, you're out of your fucking mind! The impellers and the sidewalls stay up—and I'll tell you what else, wet-behind-the-ears errand boy. Your sugar daddy Saint-Just isn't around any longer to cover your ass. You're on your own now, punk. You try shooting me in the head with that piddly pulser of yours, I'll show you just what kind of hell on earth a superdreadnought can unleash! Go ahead, try me!"

Yuri saw Captain Vesey wince. To the man's credit, he tried to intervene. "Jillian, please. Until we find out what's really happening on Haven—"

"Fuck off, you gutless bastard! What? Does that bitch Justice intimidate you? She doesn't intimidate me! Nobody does—and that includes you. That scow of yours may technically be a sister ship of mine, but command is what matters, don't think it doesn't. If the gloves come off here—and we're getting real close—I'll tear that thing down around your ears before I turn Chickenshit Chin's task force into so much dog food. You'll see an SD turned into a funeral pyre faster than you can believe!"

Yuri had always heard about Gallanti's temper tantrums, but this was the first time he'd ever personally witnessed one. How in the world had this woman ever been given command of a capital ship? Even State Security should have had enough sense to realize she was unfit for such responsibility. If he wanted to be charitable about it, Yuri would have likened Gallanti to a spoiled five-year-old child throwing a fit.

Unfortunately, five-year-old children, no matter how spoiled, never had the terrifying power of a superdreadnought under their control. Gallanti did. Which made the situation deadly instead of simply pathetic. Under the circumstances, she was as dangerous as a maddened bear.

Gallanti finally took a breath, and Yuri began to speak. But before he managed to get a word out, Victor Cachat's audio-amplified voice filled the bridge.

As always, it was a cold voice. "What took you so long, Assistant Special Investigator? I was beginning to wonder if you were slacking off again."

Yuri suddenly realized that he'd advanced far enough onto the bridge to enter the field of the comm pickup and become visible to those on the other two ships. Even though Gallanti herself hadn't noticed him until that very moment.

God, he was tired of that arrogant young voice.

"Have a certain regard for natural law if nothing else, would you, Cachat?" He took an admittedly petty pleasure in neglecting all honorifics. "I just got the news myself and got here as soon as I could."

The fact that Cachat didn't seem to take any umbrage at the lack of honorifics—didn't even seem to notice, damn the man—just irritated Yuri still further.

"And if you don't mind"—making clear by his tone that he didn't care if he did—"I prefer the title 'people's commissioner.' I don't really see where there's anything left to investigate, anyway."

Cachat stared at him. In the big display a capital ship could manage, the young fanatic seemed even larger than life.

Then, to Yuri's surprise, Cachat gave him a deep, slow nod. It had almost the sense of a ceremonial bow to it. And when his head lifted, for the first time since Yuri had met the man, Cachat's dark eyes seemed a warm brown instead of an iron black.

"Yes," said Cachat. "You have the right of it, Yuri Radamacher. Now do your duty, People's Commissioner."

Gallanti was gawping at Yuri. Then, burst into the start of another tirade.

"What the hell are you doing here? I didn't give you permission—"

Yuri had no desire at all to listen to more of that screech. When he needed it, he could manage quite a loud voice himself.

"You are under arrest, Captain Gallanti. I am relieving you of your duties. You are unfit to command."

That cut off her off in mid-screech. Again, she gawped.

Yuri, at the end, tried one last time. He put on his most sympathetic smile and added: "Jillian, please, there's no need for this. Just let it go and I'll give you my word I'll see to it—"

It was no use, and Yuri had a sick feeling that in his effort he'd simply condemned himself. Gallanti's hand was already grabbing the butt of her pulser—and, like a slack idiot, his own pulser still had the flap fastened.

"You fucking traitor!" Gallanti screamed. Her weapon was coming out of the holster and Yuri had no doubt at all she intended to fire. The woman had completely lost it. Out of the corner of one eye, as he scrabbled to get the flap of his holster open, Yuri saw the tac officer starting to rise from his chair. Ballon was reaching for his own sidearm.

Then—

Whackwhack. Whackwhack.

Small holes appeared in the foreheads of both Gallanti and Ballon, and the entire backs of their skulls exploded in a gory spray of splintered bone and finely divided brain tissue.

Rallo's doing, Yuri realized dimly. He'd double-tapped both of them. Yuri hadn't known the StateSec sergeant was that quick and expert a shot.

Brrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Before Gallanti's body could even begin to slump, Sergeant Pierce's short, lethally accurate three-round burst flung her five meters against a bulkhead, the deadly flechettes literally shredding the body along the way. No one else was standing there, thank God. Thank Pierce, actually; even in the shock of the moment Yuri understood that the experienced veteran had made sure he had a clean line of fire. Although at least three of the bridge's officers and ratings were frantically scraping bits and pieces of Gallanti off of them—now one of the ratings started vomiting—nobody else had actually gotten hurt.

"Ned," Yuri heard Rolla complaining, "can't you do anything neatly? What do you use when you go fishing? Missiles?"

"Hey, Jaime, I'm a Marine. This is what we do. You wanna transfer? I'll put in a good word for you—so will at least ten other guys I know. Probably even be able to keep the same rank."

Rolla started to make one of his usual retorts about the mental deficiencies of Marines, but broke off before he got through the first four words. Then, after a moment's silence, said quietly: "Yeah, actually, I probably do. I've got a feeling State Security is about to get seriously downsized."

The StateSec sergeant had reholstered his pulser by now, there being clearly no other armed threat posed on the bridge. To Yuri's surprise, he pushed past him—not rudely, no; but firmly nonetheless—and came to stand at the center of the bridge staring at the figures in the display.

At Victor Cachat, to be precise.

"You tell me. Sir, or whatever else I'm supposed to call you. Who's running this show these days?"

Good question, thought Yuri.

"And what are we all supposed to do now?" Sergeant Rolla continued.

And that's an even better one.