In Enemy Hands

"Yes, Citizen Admiral." Caslet gave Theisman's hand a final squeeze, nodded respectfully to LePic, and turned for the door. It opened before him, and he started to step through, only to pause and look back as Theisman cleared his throat.

"Ito will do just fine while you're away, but Citizen Commissioner LePic and I expect you back as soon as possible, Warner," the citizen admiral said. "I expect the military situation to start heating up in the next few weeks, and given how much the Citizen Commissioner and I will need your talents if it does, we've asked the Citizen Committeewoman to expedite your return."

Caslet's hazel eyes widened, then softened as LePic nodded. If he was in as much trouble with Ransom as he feared, his superiors had run serious risks in making any such request of her. It was the kind of risk he might have expected a man like Theisman to run, but the fact that LePic had signed off on it as well put a surprised lump in his throat, and he had to swallow hard before he could reply.

"Thank you, Citizen Admiral. I appreciate that vote of confidence. From both of you," he said finally, his voice just a bit husky.

"It's no more than you deserve, Citizen Commander," LePic said.

"I appreciate it anyway, Sir. And I'll try to get back just as quickly as I can."

"I'm sure you will, Warner," Theisman said quietly. "Godspeed."

"Thank you, Citizen Admiral."

Caslet gazed into his CO's eyes one last time, nodded, and stepped through the waiting door. It slid noiselessly shut behind him, and Thomas Theisman and De

Chapter Twenty-Three

The yard which built PNS Tepes had altered her basic design to better fit her to her role in State Security's private navy. The most important of those changes was obvious to Warner Caslet as his cutter approached the ship, for Tepes had three fewer grasers and one less missile tube in each broadside than the original plans for the Warlord class had specified, and the to

The alterations gave the battlecruiser a superdreadnought's small-craft capacity, which seemed excessive until the tractors drew his cutter into one of those cavernous bays and he saw what was already docked there. No less than three outsized heavy-lift assault shuttles, each better than half again the size of a pi

This ship would never be attached to any normal task force of the People’s Navy, which meant those shuttles would never be used against the PRH’s enemies. They were to be used against the Committee of Public Safety's enemies, which wasn't quite the same thing. Their purpose was to land assault forces on the Republic's own planets in order to take them away from the Republics own citizens, and he wished he could believe their presence represented simple paranoia. But it didn't. Whatever one might think of the Committee or State Security, the fact that they had real, and violently inclined, enemies was indisputable, and the thought added still more weight to his bleak depression.

Things didn't get any better when the boat bay officer greeted him. In another divergence from naval practice, no one requested formal permission to board a StateSec ship. Instead, it was just one more papers check, with armed guards waiting to shoot down anyone foolish enough to try to sneak aboard with forged ID. Logically, Caslet had to admit that as long as the bay officers kept track of who was aboard and who wasn't, the tradition of formal arrivals and departures was merely that, a tradition. But that didn't keep him from feeling it ought to be honored, and the arrogant-eyed guards and the boat bay officer's leisurely ma

"You Caslet?" he demanded, extending an imperious hand for the newcomers ID.

The question came out in a voice somewhere between surly and bored, with more than a dash of insolence, and Caslet turned slowly to face him. There was no point in reacting to the insult, but the other man's tone had kicked the embers of his earlier anger back into full flame. He was on thin enough ice without confrontations with the SS, and sanity and self-preservation told him to let it pass. Yet there was something almost liberating in knowing how much trouble he was already in. In a way, it left him with the sense of having nothing to lose, and he set his carryall on the deck and turned ice-cold hazel eyes on the StateSec man, ignoring the outstretched hand.

The boat bay officer flushed as that chill gaze considered him from head to boot heels with boundless contempt, and Caslet’s lips twitched in what might have been called a smile if it hadn't bared quite so many teeth.

"Yes, I'm Citizen Commander Caslet. And you are?" His voice was colder than his eyes, with a scalpel's edge, and he was furious enough, and felt reckless enough, to let that edge bite deep. The SS officer started a quick, angry response, then paused. He'd seen his share of desperate men and women, and the icy glitter in Caslet’s eye worried him. There was too much anger and not enough panic in it. The rumor mill might have this man on a one-way ticket to ruin, but he seemed unaware of it... and the rumor mill had been known to be wrong. It probably wasn't, but if it was, Caslet was likely to emerge in a stronger position, not a weaker one. He was already the staff operations officer for the second most important naval command in the Republic, after all. If he returned to that post unscathed, he'd have access to very highly-placed ears, and as the SS officer looked into those icy eyes, it suddenly struck him that this particular Navy officer wouldn't turn out to be the sort to forgive and forget.

"Citizen Lieutenant Janseci, Citizen Commander," he replied much more crisply. Caslet nodded curtly, and Janseci braced to almost-attention. He considered actually saluting, but that would have been too obvious an admission that he should have done so at the begi

Caslet reached slowly inside his tunic for his ID folio. He passed it to Janseci and felt an i

The boat bay officer examined his ID quickly, then closed the folio and handed it back to Caslet. The citizen commander gazed down at it, his eyes still cold, for perhaps three seconds. Then he reached out, took it, and slid it back into his tunic.

"Well, Citizen Lieutenant Janseci," he said after a moment, "does anyone happen to know where, exactly, I'm supposed to go?"

"Yes, Citizen Commander. Your guide is on his way here now, and I expect..." Janseci broke off and raised a hand, beckoning to a petty officer who'd just stepped out of one of the two lifts serving the outsized boat bay. "Here he is now," he told Caslet with a sense of relief. "Citizen Chief Thomas will escort you to your quarters."