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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 wa
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 ru
Good question, thought Yuri.
"And what are we all supposed to do now?" Sergeant Rolla continued.
And that's an even better one.
10
Cachat didn't even hesitate, and Yuri damned him again. All the unfairness of the universe, in that moment, seemed concentrated in the fact that a twenty-four-year-old fanatic—even now! —never seemed to have any doubts about anything.
"I think the situation is clear enough, Sergeant—ah?"
"Rolla, Sir. Jaime Rolla."
"Sergeant Rolla. As for titles, I think we can all dispense with the curlicues." Cachat's razor-thin smile appeared. "I'll confess that I get tired myself of all those longwinded syllables. My standing rank in State Security is Captain, so I'll go with that. As for the rest—"
Cachat's eyes moved slowly across the people on the bridge of the Hector; then, briefly, at those he could see in his display on the sister SD; finally, at greater length, he looked at the naval officers standing next to him. Especially Admiral Chin.
Then he looked back at Rolla.
"Here's what I think. We have no real idea what's happened—or is happening—on Haven. The news brought by the merchant ship is simply too garbled. The only two things which seem clear at the moment are that Saint-Just is dead and Admiral Theisma
Genevieve's lips tightened. "I'll go with Theisma
Yuri could sense the StateSec officers on the bridge of the Hector stir a little. Not for the first time in his life, he found himself wishing that Admiral Chin would learn to be a little more diplomatic.
"Would you, Admiral?" Cachat demanded. "You know absolutely nothing about what sort of regime Admiral Theisma
"It's better than Saint-Just!" she snarled.
Cachat shrugged. "Perhaps. And perhaps not. But Saint-Just is dead anyway, so he's irrelevant. Let's not all forget that our first responsibility—all of us—is to the republic and its people. Not to any organization within it."
"Fine for you to say! StateSec man!"
Yuri was practically grinding his teeth. For Christ sake, Genevieve! We just barely averted disaster because one woman couldn't control her temper. Are you going to blow it now? In case you hadn't noticed—Admiral!—we've still got two fully armed StateSec SDs in this system. Yeah, sure, I might be able to control this one, seeing as how I've effectively created my own command staff. Except it's a jury-rigged hybrid staff, and if you start giving the StateSec people the idea that the Navy and Marines are going to start a counter-purge . . . Jesus, the whole thing could dissolve into a civil war!
He broke off the angry, desperate thought. Cachat was addressing Chin again, still in that same calm, cold, controlled tone of voice.
"Yes, I am State Security. But tell me, Admiral, what is your grievance with me?"Cachat glanced at the screens. "Or Commissioner Radamacher. Or Commissioner Justice."
That—finally!—seem to rattle Chin. "Well . . . you had my people beaten up!"
Cachat's eyebrows rose. "Your people? Admiral Chin, I ca
If Yuri had had any doubts whether he loved Sharon Justice, she resolved them right then and there. She gri
Pierce gri
Sharon's head swiveled a little, to bring Chin's image into view. Yuri was getting a little dizzy with this three-way holographic discussion.
"Genevieve, cut it out," she said forcefully. "For six years now, you've rebuilt your career—and probably saved your life—by trusting StateSec people you thought you could trust. Why are you screwing around with it now? For years now, we've all managed to spare La Martine from the worst of what happened, by working together. I say we stick with it."