And that bit about forbidding any nuclear or kinetic strikes on the capital—that was downright brilliant! It snatched the moral high ground right out from under his feet, and at the same time it posed a threat which was almost certain to hold his own SS-crewed warships at bay. Citizen Commodore Helft had already destroyed two superdreadnoughts which had looked like moving to support McQueen, and at the moment, the rest of Capital Fleet’s ships were under the guns of Helft’s battle squadron. He could undoubtedly destroy dozens of them before they could bring up their sidewalls, but there were too many of them for him to count on getting all of them before the survivors got him. And thanks to McQueen’s orders, it was virtually certain that at least some of them would try to stop him from bombarding the capital, even at the risk of their own near-certain destruction. And once he started killing them in large numbers, their consorts would almost certainly react, for how could they know where Helft would stop if they didn’t stop him.
Someone else knocked on the frame of his open office door, and he looked up to see a citizen colonel whose name he could not recall.
“Yes?”
“Sir, we just got another report from Citizen General Bouchard.” The citizen colonel paused, and cleared his throat. “Sir, the Citizen General says that his attack has been stopped. I’m… afraid they took heavy casualties, Sir.”
“How heavy?” Saint-Just’s expressionless tone never wavered, and the citizen colonel cleared his throat again.
“Very heavy, I understand, Sir. Citizen General Bouchard reports that both of his lead battalions are falling back in disorder.” The citizen colonel inhaled deeply, and straightened his back. “Sir, it sounds to me like what he really means is that they’re running like hell.”
“I see.” Saint-Just regarded the citizen colonel with a sharper edge of interest. “What actions would you recommend, Citizen Colonel?” he asked after a moment, and the officer met his eyes squarely.
“I don’t have any firsthand information, Sir.” The citizen colonel spoke with much less hesitation, as if what he’d already said had broken some inner reserve. “From the reports I’ve seen here, though, I don’t think Citizen General Bouchard is going to get through on the ground. They’ve got too much manpower and firepower, and, frankly, Sir, they’re much better trained for this sort of standup, toe-to-toe fight than we are.”
“I see,” Saint-Just repeated in a somewhat colder tone. “Nonetheless, Citizen Colonel,” he went on, “and notwithstanding the inferiority of our own troops, this mutiny must be suppressed. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course I do, Sir! All I’m saying is that if we keep hammering straight down the same approaches into their teeth, we’re going to take insupportable casualties and fail to achieve our objective, anyway. At the same time, Sir, it looks to me as if they can’t have much of a central reserve within the Octagon itself—not of ground troops, anyway. They’ve got more forces moving towards them from half a dozen Marine and Navy commands, but their reinforcements aren’t there yet. I believe that the organized units we retain on the ground in the vicinity would be better occupied throwing a cordon around the Octagon to keep additional mutinous units from reaching it. While they do that, we should move Citizen Brigadier Tome’s brigade up to support Citizen General Bouchard while we bring in reinforcements from outside the capital. If we have to, we can put in a frontal assault once we have the manpower to carry through with it despite our losses. In the meantime, Sir, I would recommend that we keep as much pressure on them with air attacks as we can, but without committing ourselves to a serious attack and the losses it would inevitably entail.”
Saint-Just regarded the other man thoughtfully. No doubt there was a great deal of military logic to what the citizen colonel had just said. Unfortunately, this was as much a political confrontation as a military one, and every hour that McQueen continued to pour her appeals into the listening ears of the regular military units in the Haven System moved the political balance further in her favor.
“I appreciate your candor, Citizen Colonel… Jurgens,” he said, squinting a bit as he read the name off of Jurgens’ name patch. “And if Bouchard’s people are falling back anyway, then no doubt ordering them to assume a defensive stance, at least temporarily, makes sense. But there are other factors to consider here, as well.”
The citizen secretary rubbed his forehead—the equivalent in him of another man’s raging tantrum—then shrugged.
“Please pass my instructions to Citizen General Bouchard to hold his positions and use his reserves to seal the approaches to the Octagon while he reorganizes,” he went on after a moment. “Then ask Citizen Brigadier Mahoney to step back in here.”
“Yes, Sir! At once!”
“General Conflans reports that his forces have linked up with Brigadier Henderson’s and that the enemy has broken off the attack!”
Someone in the War Room raised a half-cheer at the news before he could stop himself, but McQueen only nodded calmly. A part of her wanted to cheer herself, for Conflans’ report was the best news she’d gotten since the last of the Committee’s members had been rounded up. His attempt to take the StateSec intervention battalions in the flank must have succeeded, and that meant that the ground forces immediately available to Saint-Just had been effectively neutralized.
She glanced at her chrono. Strange. Time had felt as if it were dragging past with glacial slowness, yet over five hours had passed since her commando teams kicked off the operation.
Five hours, and I’m still alive. Now that I’ve gotten this far, I guess I can admit to myself that I hadn’t expected to be alive by now. But if Gerard is right and Bouchard really is pulling back, then it sounds as if the momentum is by God slipping over to our side after all!
She recognized a familiar danger sign, and made herself step back from her own enthusiasm.
Careful, woman! Get yourself all overconfident and stupid, and Saint-Just will put your head on a pike in the People’s Square by evening!
She turned to Bukato.
“Tell Gerard to turn over to Henderson the moment he feels sufficiently confident to do so, and to get himself back here to the Octagon,” she said crisply. “And tell him to bring as big a reinforcement with him as he thinks he can without weakening Henderson dangerously.”
“Of course, Ma’am,” Bukato replied. “You think it’s time to begin thinking about planning an offensive of our own?”
“No,” she said grimly. “I think it’s time that we reinforced the Octagon’s ground forces as much as we can.” Bukato’s eyes widened in surprise, and she laughed harshly. “If Gerard and his people have convinced him he can’t get through on the ground, Ivan, then he’s going to try something else. He has to, because the clock is on our side.”
“But that’s crazy, Ma’am,” Bukato objected, less like a man who thought she was wrong than like one who truly believed she was. “The defense grid would blow them apart!”