Tourville grimaced. There'd been a lot of that going around lately, and he supposed he had to consider it a good sign, over all. But that didn't make the scenario Zrubek was describing any less ugly.

"At any rate, Sir," the commodore went on, "we've got the merchantmen, and what looks like the better part of three of the old StateSec intervention battalions that were serving as Marines—more or less, anyway. Some of the StateSec goons may have been conscripts since Saint-Just got the boot, but it looks to me like the bulk of them are pretty hard core. One or two of them actually wanted to put up a fight when we boarded, and I've got my staff spook running them through the database now. I'm not going to be surprised if some of them turn up on the 'shoot on sight' list.

"In the meantime, we're firmly in control of all six ships, with what I'd estimate to be the equivalent of two or three superdreadnought load-outs worth of missile pods on board. My people are vacuuming the computers now, and the previous owners were too busy bargaining for their lives and surrendering to worry about data dumps. We've got our crypto teams ready for a preliminary run at the secure portions, and I'm having complete downloads prepared to send over to the flagship.

"My present estimate is that Carson sent these poor turkeys out to slow us down because his cupboard is bare of real warships. I wouldn't be surprised if we're able to get our hands on the IFF codes for his minefields, as well. On the other hand, he might be smart enough to plant fake ones on us, so I'm not planning on having any sudden inspirations without clearance from you. I should have the situation here completely squared away within the next five to six hours. I'll put prize crews aboard the merchies and send them back to Haven, and barring anything untoward, I should rendezvous with the rest of the fleet no later than seventeen hundred hours on the twenty-third. The locals seem pretty glad to see us, and I don't think we're going to need much in the way of a garrison to hang onto the planet, so I don't expect anything to delay me.

"Zrubek clear."

The screen blanked, and Tourville nodded in approval. Zrubek was one of the new crop of junior flag officers he and Javier had been grooming for the past three years. The assignment to clear the Montague System of the ragtag remnants of Citizen General Adrian Carson's forces had been the commodore's first real solo operation, and it sounded as if he'd passed his graduation exercise with flying colors. Which was exactly what Tourville had anticipated when he sent the youngster off. In many ways, Montague had been something of a training operation with teeth, but if Zrubek had gotten cocky and strayed into range of the sort of missile firepower which seemed to have been aboard Carson's freighters the outcome could have been very different. That was why Tourville had wanted to be certain Zrubek really was as ready for independent command as he'd thought he was.

Strange, he thought. All those years under StateSec's thumb, and I thought the worst thing that could happen to me was to get myself shot. Now StateSec is in the crapper, and instead, I have to worry about whether or not the people I send out with task groups are going to bring them back to me in one piece. Funny how much less sleep I lost over the possibility of getting shot.

He snorted a chuckle at the reflection, then frowned thoughtfully.

With Montague out of the way, Carson was reduced to only two star systems still under his direct control. Citizen Admiral Agnelli, Carson's theoretical ally currently controlled three more, but Agnelli and Carson had been strange bedfellows from the beginning. Both of them were ambitious, but Carson apparently retained at least some genuine loyalty to the New Order created by the Committee of Public Safety. That might have something to do with the high StateSec rank he'd attained under the previous management, and he was a thoroughly unpleasant individual, who remained addicted to brutality and terror as his preferred methods of crowd control. But for all that, there was at least some evidence he was motivated by something other than the possibility of personal gain.

No one would ever be foolish enough to believe anything of that sort where Federico Agnelli was concerned. Tourville reminded himself that he might be prejudiced by the fact that he'd known Agnelli for many years, and detested him for all of them. The reminder was strictly pro forma, however, because try as he might, he couldn't think of a single redeeming characteristic Agnelli might have possessed. The man was a marginally competent tactician, with a pronounced belief in his own infallibility. He'd climbed aboard the Committee's political bandwagon not because of any belief in what Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just had promised the Mob but because it had offered him the opportunity for personal power, and he'd played the political game with a skillfulness which somehow managed to elude him in the field of naval tactics. At least two other flag officers Tourville knew of had been shot because they'd stood in Agnelli's way and he'd convinced StateSec they were "enemies of the People" to get rid of them.

Which meant that if Carson was in as much trouble as Tourville thought he was, especially after the loss of Montague, Agnelli would cut his losses in a heartbeat and abandon his "ally" to his fate. Which was ultimately stupid of him, since it would leave him all alone to face Twelfth Fleet when Tourville got around to him, in turn. But no doubt he believed someone else would turn up for him to play off against the central government. He'd always been able to manage that before, after all, and he'd held off both all internal opposition and the Republican Navy for the better part of three and a half T-years in the process.

Unfortunately for him, that wouldn't be possible much longer, Tourville thought with deep, uncomplicated satisfaction. He, Giscard, and Thomas Theisman had faced a daunting task when they set about putting down all the Hydra-headed threats to the security of the new government. If he'd had any choice, Tourville would never have accepted any part of the responsibility for dealing with the snake pit of constantly changing alliances and betrayals between everyone who believed he or she had just as much claim to the rulership of the People's Republic of Haven as the people who'd overthrown the Committee. Unfortunately, he hadn't had a choice, any more than Tom Theisman had had one. And the good news was that very few of the warlords and would-be warlords who'd struck out for themselves were still on the board. Which was why Federico Agnelli was about to find himself extremely hard pressed to replace Carson as an ally.

It may just be that we're about to clean up this entire sector, Tourville allowed himself to think. And if we can do that here, we only have two or three more real trouble spots to deal with. My God. Tom and Eloise were right all along. We really are going to win this thing.

He shook his head, astounded by his own temerity in daring to contemplate anything of the sort, then looked up and handed the memo board back to Eisenberg.

"Thank you, Anita," he said gravely. "See that a copy of the Commodore's dispatch is downloaded to our next report to Nouveau Paris, would you please?"

"Of course, Sir." The com officer clasped the board under her arm, snapped to attention with parade ground precision, turned on her heel, and marched back towards her station.

Tourville watched her go and tried not to smile too broadly.

Admiral Michel Reynaud, Manticore Astro Control Service, missed his old office. Not that anyone seemed about to offer him a great deal of sympathy over its loss, he admitted, and that was probably fair enough. After all, his new, magnificent, huge, luxurious, and all those other superlatives office aboard Her Majesty's Space Station Hephaestus was only one of the perks which had come with his recent promotion, so he should undoubtedly stop whining and enjoy it. It was just that splendid though it was, it wasn't the one he'd spent the last fifteen T-years arranging exactly the way he wanted it.