"We're all going to be shuffling chips." Captain Chantal Soheile was the CO of HMS Lancelot. Now she leaned forward and brushed back her dark hair. "Assuming we're lucky, and we don't have an 'accident.' And the rumors in the Fleet about what's happening to the Empress—I've never seen spacers so angry."
"Marines, too," Brailowsky said. "Sir, if you're going to make a grab for the Empress... Home Fleet Marines are on your side."
"What about Colonel Ricci?" Atilius asked.
"What about him, Sir?" Brailowsky asked, his eyes like flint. "He's a Defense Headquarters pussy shoved down our throats by the bastards who have the Empress. He's never had a command higher than a company, and he did a shitty job at that. You think we're going to follow him if it comes to a dynastic fight, Sir?"
He shook his head, facial muscles tight, and looked at Kjerulf.
"Sir, you really think that jerk Roger is alive?"
"Yes." Kjerulf shrugged. "Something in the eyes when O'Casey was dropping her hints. And I don't think O'Casey is the woman who left Old Earth, Sergeant Major. If the Prince has changed as much as she has... well, I'm going to be interested to meet him. Roast the fatted calf, indeed."
"Are we going to?" Soheile asked. "Meet him?"
"I doubt it," Kjerulf said. "Not before whatever's going down, anyway. I think they're getting ready for something, and since they seem to be planning on its happening soon, I'd say around the Imperial Festival."
"And what are we going to do?" Fenrec asked, leaning forward.
"Nothing. We're going to do nothing. Except, of course, to make sure the rest of Home Fleet does nothing. Which is going to take some doing."
"Hell, yes, it is," Atilius said, throwing up his hands. "We've got four carriers! We're talking about four carriers from three different squadrons taking on six full squadrons!"
"We're liable to get some help," Kjerulf said.
"Helmut," Captain Pavel of the Holbein said. He'd been sitting back, quietly observing.
"Probably," Kjerulf agreed. "You know how he is."
"He's nuts for Alexandra," Pavel said.
"So are you—which is why you're here."
"Takes one to know one," Pavel said, his face still closed.
"You in?" Kjerulf asked.
"Hell, yes." Not even the most charitable would have called the expression which finally crossed Pavel's face a smile. "I figure someone else will get Adoula's balls before I get there. But I'm still in."
"I'm in," Fenrec said. "And my officers will follow me. Regular spacers, too. They've heard the rumors."
"In," Soheile said. "If Roger doesn't move—and, frankly, I'd be astonished if he's changed enough to grow the balls for that—I say we do it ourselves. The Empress is better dead than what's going on, if the rumors are true."
"They are," Kjerulf said bleakly, looking at Atilius. "Corvu?"
"I've only got two more years to pension," Atilius said unhappily. "A desk is looking good about now." He looked miserable for a second, then straightened his shoulders. "But, yeah, I'm in. All the way. What's the line about sacred honor?"
"'Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,'" Pavel said. "That's what we're putting down for sure. But this had better be about restoring the Empress, not putting that pissant Roger on the Throne."
"If any of us survive, we'll see to that," Fenrec said. "But how are we going to signal commencement? I assume the idea is to keep the fleet from getting close enough to support Adoula's forces with kinetics and Marines."
"Ain't one damned Marine going to board a shuttle, Sir," Brailowsky said. "Except to kill Adoula."
"The Marines are going to have another job, Sergeant Major," Kjerulf said. "What the Marines are going to do is put down an attempted mutiny against the Throne by their own ships."
"Damn," the sergeant major said, shaking his head. "I was afraid it would be something like that."
"That, and certain duties on the Moon," Kjerulf said, and looked around at the others' faces, his own grim. "I don't know everything Greenberg and that weasel Wallenstein have been up to. I may be chief of staff for the fleet, but they've cut me out of the loop on a lot of stuff, especially right here on Moonbase. I've got a really bad feeling that Greenberg's changed the release codes on the offensive launchers, for instance, but there's no way to check without his knowing I've done it. If he has, I'll be locked out for at least ten to twelve hours while we break the lock. That's if everything goes well. And it's also why I need you and your ships in close to the planet."
"Speaking of Greenberg..." Soheile murmured, and Kjerulf smiled thinly.
"I have it on the best of authority that he won't be a factor. Ever again," he said.
"Oh, good," she said softly, showing her teeth.
"But for right now, he definitely is a factor," Kjerulf continued. "On the other hand, there are a few things I can get away with—routine housekeeping sorts of things—without mentioning them to him, either. Which is how the four of you got detached from your squadrons. I picked you because I figured I knew which way you'd jump, sure, but sliding you and Julius both out of CarRon 13 is also going to make a hole in one of the squadrons Greenberg's been counting on, Chantal."
"Umf." Soheile frowned thoughtfully, then nodded. "Probably the right call," she agreed. "I was thinking that having the two of us in the middle of his squadron might make La Paz think twice about jumping in on Adoula's side when he couldn't be sure who we'd fire on, but you're going to need us here worse, especially with the way Gianetto's reinforced Fourteenth."
"And not knowing which way Twelfth's going to jump," Fenrec agreed sourly, and looked at Kjerulf. "Any read on that?"
"No more than you've got," Kjerulf admitted sourly. "The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that Prokourov's captains will back him, whatever he decides. And whatever I may think, Gianetto trusted him enough to give him the outer slot covering Old Earth."
"Yeah, but the one thing Gianetto's dispositions prove is that as an admiral he's a freaking wonderful ground pounder," Laj Pavel pointed out.
"That's true enough, and one of the few bright points I see," Kjerulf agreed. "We're still going to get the piss knocked out of us holding on, even if Prokorouv decides to sit it out with Twelfth. If I can get the launchers on line, Moonbase can cover the outer arc while you people fend Gajelis off, but in the end, they'll plow us under no matter what unless Helmut gets here on schedule."
"He will," Fenrec said, then barked a harsh laugh. "Hell! When was the last time any of us ever saw him miss his timing, however complicated the ops schedule was?"
"There's always a first time," Atilius pointed out dryly. "And Murphy always seems to guarantee that it happens at the worst possible time."
"Granted." Kjerulf nodded again. "But if I had to pick one admiral in the entire Navy to depend on to get it right, Helmut's the one, when all's said. No one ever called him a sociable soul, but no one's ever questioned his competence, either. And if he comes in where I expect he will, and if Thirteenth is already down fifty percent..."
"I see your logic," Chantal Soheile said, and gave him a tight smile. "You really are killing as many birds per stone as you can, aren't you?" She grinned at him again, then frowned. "But this is all still way too nebulous to make me what you might call happy. I know a lot of it has to stay that way, under the circumstances, but that brings us back to Julius' point about the signal to start the op. Was O'Casey even able to set up a channel to tell us when to move?"