The citizen lieutenant made himself wait two seconds longer, and then he stepped out into the corridor.

There was only one of them left, a corner of his brain noted with near-clinical detachment, and from the sounds of combat coming from behind him, whoever they’d left to cover their rear was in serious trouble as the StateSec reserves converged upon them. Which made the battle armored figure moving rapidly away from him the only real remaining threat.

He brought the plasma rifle up into firing position, and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He had time to realize that for some reason he didn’t even hate the person he was about to kill. He ought to, but he didn’t. Perhaps it was because at that moment he hated himself too much to spare any hatred for another.

But whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter.

Alina Gricou had one instant to realize she’d been fooled.

Her sensors detected the lone figure behind her the instant it stepped out into the corridor, but that wasn’t soon enough. She was still trying frantically to turn when the plasma bolt struck her squarely in the small of the back.

Esther McQueen looked up from the tactical holo display in front of her as a Marine captain and two corporals ushered two more “guests” into the Octagon Work Room. The cavernous chamber, with its huge holo displays, plots, and communications consoles, made a perfect CP for her, although she rather suspected that her lords and masters on the Committee of Public Safety couldn’t be too pleased at the use to which she was currently putting it. Citizen secretaries Avram Turner and Wanda Farley certainly weren’t, at any rate—not to judge by their half-murderous, half-terrified expressions. They made as mismatched a pair as ever, and the furious, frightened glares they turned upon her indicated that they were anything but glad to see her, but McQueen was delighted to see them. At least that part of her plans had gone off as scheduled. Aside from Oscar Saint-Just and Pierre himself, her commando teams had made a clean sweep of the entire Committee. She had all of its members, now, and she allowed herself to feel a faint glow of hope that she might just pull this off after all.

Might.

If only they’d managed to take Saint-Just out cleanly! Or at least to take Pierre alive. Esther McQueen had never understood the underlying dynamic which allowed a man like Saint-Just to feel personal friendship for anyone, yet she’d seen ample proof of the StateSec commander’s personal devotion to Rob Pierre. If she’d had Pierre in her hands, Saint-Just would have dealt. She knew he would have. But the Citizen Chairman’s bodyguards had put up too good a fight, and her people had been too rushed for time to avoid collateral damage. The Chairman’s Guard whose members mounted the normal sentries outside the People’s Tower were much too lightly armed to seriously threaten battle armored Marine Raiders, but the heavy StateSec intervention battalions were another matter entirely. That was why her planning had stressed the imperative need for speed, not numbers—for forces small and agile enough to get in and out again before the intervention battalions could arrive—from the outset. And that, in turn, was how Rob Pierre had wound up caught in the crossfire.

McQueen regretted that as she had regretted very few things in her life. Not because of any great love for the Citizen Chairman, and certainly not because she’d intended to spare him indefinitely. If one thing in the universe had been certain, it was that she would have had no choice but to stand him up against a convenient wall eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. Which was a pity, in many ways, because for all of his failings, Pierre truly had managed to turn the corner on the fundamental structural reforms the People’s Republic’s economy had needed so desperately. But he would simply have been too dangerous to be allowed to live, and having profited from that sort of mistaken judgment on the part of the Committee’s master, Esther McQueen would not make the error of extending it to anyone else.

Saint-Just would undoubtedly have realized that, but McQueen felt certain that he would have at least paused to negotiate if she’d managed to sweep up Pierre in her net. Not that anyone would ever know if she’d been right.

“Have we heard anything from Admiral Graveson?” she asked.

“No, Ma’am,” Lieutenant Caminetti replied. The young man looked remarkably calm, under the circumstances, but she could see the fear for his brother in his eyes. “She hasn’t responded at all.”

“She may not even have gotten the heads-up signal, Ma’am,” Ivan Bukato pointed out. “We never had an opportunity to test that com link.”

“I know. I know,” she agreed unhappily. And if Amanda didn’t get the word ahead of time, she almost certainly didn’t have time to warn anyone else before the shit hit the fan. Damn Saint-Just and his purges! All I needed was one more week, and Amanda would have known ahead of time.

“If Graveson didn’t get the word, then we can’t count on Capital Fleet at all,” she said aloud. “It’s almost certain that Saint-Just got the word to his SS units before anyone else in the Fleet realized what was happening. And if they’re just sitting there, cleared for action and ready to shoot, nobody could possibly come out on our side without being blown out of space before they even got their sidewalls up.”

“But at least they don’t seem to be coming in on Saint-Just’s side, either,” one of her other staffers pointed out.

“Of course not!” McQueen snorted. “You think anyone in StateSec is going to be crazy enough to let regular Navy units clear for action at a time like this? If they ever did manage to get their wedges and walls up, it’s a better than even bet that whoever they wound up shooting at, it wouldn’t be us!”

“Agreed.” Bukato nodded, but his face was tight with worry. “But it may not matter what the Fleet does. I don’t like the reports coming in from the western part of the city, Ma’am.”

“They’re not too good,” McQueen agreed, “but they’re actually better than I was afraid they might be.” She turned back to Caminetti. “What do we hear from General Conflans?”

“His last report was that all three battalions from the spaceport have come over, Ma’am,” the lieutenant replied quickly. “One of them is on its way here to reinforce the Octagon perimeter. The general is personally leading the other two to support Brigadier Henderson.”

“We just got word from Colonel Yazov, Admiral McQueen!”

McQueen turned towards the commander who had just entered the conference room, and despite the thick haze of tension hovering about her, she felt an undeniable urge to smile in satisfaction. One way or the other, no one in this room would ever use that stupid, sycophantic “Citizen” crap again, and it felt unspeakably good to put on the persona of an admiral once more instead of wearing the ill-fitting, quasi-civilian mask of secretary of war.

“The Colonel estimates that at least a third of the atmospheric defense units are coming over to our side,” the commander went on. “He says he thinks we can swing still more of them if we keep hammering away at our message. For now, he feels confident that he can at least keep any of the satellite bases from getting organized strike elements into the capital’s airspace.”

“And the units already in capital airspace that haven’t come over?” Bukato asked with poison dryness.

“Those the defensive grid will just have to handle,” McQueen told him. “And at least the bastards haven’t started lobbing nukes at us yet.”

“Yet,” Bukato agreed. “But do you really think Saint-Just won’t use them if he figures the situation is going south on him?”