House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (3 page)

And then, with the new constitution safely in place to rescue the Republic from insolvency and ruin, the first budget passed under it had actually
increased
the deficits, raising them to a level which could only lead to outright collapse within the next fifty T-years. Everyone had believed that eventually the Legislaturalists would be forced to bite the bullet, to reform their system before it fell apart under them, but the Legislaturalists had had another solution in mind, and the reason for those increased deficits had become clear as the Peoples Navy’s tonnage began to increase steadily.

It hadn’t happened overnight. In fact, they’d managed to hide their increased military spending well enough no one had even noticed for the first ten or fifteen T-years, and once people did start to notice, they’d managed to pass it off as a means to “prime the economic pump” through government funded “jobs production” and “skill training programs.” Oh, there’d been “wild rumors” about huge numbers of Havenite battleships being secretly constructed, but no one had believed them.

Despite everything, Haven was still the golden image. Its economic and fiscal woes
had
to be only temporary, just until the Republic caught its breath and got its house back in order. It was impossible for it to work any other way, and despite any transitory fiscal dislocations, its laudable commitment to economic fairness remained the model everyone else wanted to emulate.

Several of the other star nations in the Haven Quadrant had done just that, following the Republic into statist economies and guaranteed standards of living. And to be fair, most of those other star nations’ governments had avoided the death spiral of the People’s Republic for the simple reason that they’d been relatively
honest
governments. They’d managed to provide their own equivalent of the Havenite Basic Living Stipend without completely destroying their economies’ competitiveness and productivity, and they’d managed to pay for their social programs without plunging themselves ever further into debt, but they’d done it only by radically changing their spending goals and policies. Unable to pay for everything without destroying their own economies, they’d cut back even further on military spending, relying for protection against outside aggression on Haven, the traditional guarantor of interstellar peace and order in the Haven Quadrant. In fact, many of them had actually been
relieved
by the expansion of the Peoples Navy, since its ability to protect them provided such a hefty “peace dividend” for the rest of their national budgets.

Until 1846, that was.

Less than eighteen T-months after Roger’s letter to the
Proceedings
, the rest of the Haven Quadrant—or as much of it as was willing to face reality, at least—had discovered the real reason for the People’s Republic’s military buildup.

In the last four T-years, the People’s Republic had “annexed” no fewer than eleven independent star systems. Most of them had been Havenite daughter colonies, and the majority of them had “spontaneously sought” inclusion in the new, greater,
interstellar
People’s Republic of Haven. The thing that amazed Samantha was that there were actually people—quite a lot of them, in fact—who accepted the “spontaneous” nature of those star systems’ eagerness to join the PRH. Obviously even the analysts who’d worried about the Havenite military buildup had missed the Legislaturalists’ accompanying investment in espionage and subversion, although they hadn’t really needed all that much subtlety in many cases. A quiet ultimatum here, a private conversation between the Havenite ambassador and a system president there, an offhand reference to the heavy task forces waiting to sweep in and take control by force of arms if an invitation wasn’t forthcoming in another case, had proved quite effective.

It wouldn’t take very much longer for
all
of Haven’s daughter colonies to be gathered to her bosom, Samantha Winton thought grimly, her mouth tightening despite Magnus’ comforting, buzzing purr. And if there was anyone in the entire galaxy who believed the People’s Republic would stop then, she had some magic beans she wanted to sell them.

“We’re running out of time, Roger,” she told her son quietly. Monroe stopped nibbling on his bacon and looked up, grass-green eyes dark, ears flattening as he, too, sensed Samantha’s emotions. “Our Navy’s bigger and stronger than anything else in the Quadrant, but it’s not big enough to stand off the entire Havenite fleet, and I can’t get those
idiots
in Parliament to realize it!”

“I know.” Roger nodded, and it was a sign of his mother’s distress, he thought, that she should be telling
him,
of all people, that. “But that’s why I have to stay where I am. I can’t wrangle politics the way you can. I don’t know how—yet—and I don’t know where enough of the political bodies are buried. Worse, I’m only the Heir. Nobody in the House of Lords has to take me seriously yet any more than those fossilized jackasses in uniform do.”

“Maybe not,” Samantha said. “But however much all of us may think Sir Casper isn’t the sharpest possible stylus in the box, he’s a good man, and
he
does understand what we’re up against. That’s one of the reasons he’s as worried as he is. And I think he does have a good point, as much as you’re going to hate hearing this, about assignments that deploy you outside the home system.”

Roger stiffened. He’d finally attained lieutenant commander’s rank and command of his first hyper-capable ship. He was reasonably sure, despite his well-known attitude towards nepotism and “family interest,” that who he’d been born helped explain why that first hyper-capable command had been a modern destroyer instead of one of the RMN’s more elderly frigates, but he knew he’d done well in his two deployments to Silesia. Three pirates, one “privateer,” and two slave ships would cause no more harm thanks to Captain Winton and HMS
Daimyo
.

“I said you weren’t going to want to hear it,” his mother continued, holding his eyes levelly across Magnus’ prick-eared head, “but I’m afraid we don’t have a choice. And part of the reason for that is the fact that you
don’t
have an heir of your own, aside from Caitrin, of course. And since
she
hasn’t married anyone yet, either,” the Queen gave her daughter an only half-humorous glare, “Sir Casper’s quite right to be worried about what might happen to the succession if you . . . suffered a mischief in Silesia.”

Roger looked rebellious, and Monroe’s tail twitched, his ears flat, as he tasted his person’s emotions. But the crown prince kept his mouth firmly closed, and Samantha smiled at him, hoping he saw her gratitude.

“You’re right, Mom,” he said finally. “I don’t like it one bit, but I don’t suppose there’s much point my arguing about it, is there?”

“No, there isn’t,” Samantha said. “I’m sorry, but it’s one of those unpleasant consequences of the nice house and all the people so eager to take care of us.” She smiled just a bit crookedly. “And I’m not asking you to resign your commission, or even to go onto half-pay. We just need to find something—something worthwhile, not just make work—you can do here in the home system. And I’m afraid that while you’re doing it, Sir Casper’s going to insist on your being a bit more hands-on in the political arena, as well.”

“Wonderful,” Roger muttered, his tone dark, although it seemed to his mother that his heart wasn’t fully in it.

“I know you don’t want me speaking directly about this to Abner Laidlaw or Sir Frederick,” she went on, “but there’s no point pretending this is really a ‘routine’ personnel decision.”

“No, I suppose there isn’t,” he agreed, trying not to shudder at the thought of his mother talking to Sir Frederick Truman, the Star Kingdom of Manticore’s First Space Lord. The uniformed head of the Royal Manticoran Navy was one of the “fossils” he’d mentioned earlier. Well into his seventies and facing mandatory retirement within the next four T-years, Truman wasn’t fond of people who rocked the boat and threatened his own orderly plans for the expansion of the Navy’s mission in Silesia. He’d be simply delighted to suggest—with infinite respect, of course—that perhaps the simplest solution would be for Crown Prince Roger to leave active duty entirely.

Sir Abner Laidlaw, the Baron of Castle Rock, on the other hand, was the First Lord of Admiralty which, given the Navy’s primacy, made him the civilian cabinet officer responsible for the Star Kingdom’s overall military posture. He was two T-decades younger than Truman, and he’d been Queen Samantha’s choice for his present position for several reasons. She’d had to fight hard against entrenched opposition in the House of Lords, where an unlikely alliance of the Conservative Association and the Liberal Party had viewed him with dark suspicion. His earlier career as an intelligence officer, rising at last to head the Special Intelligence Service, would have been enough to make the Liberals distrust him. The fact that as a junior analyst he’d been one of the first to point out the shift in Havenite military spending only confirmed that distrust, and somehow people like Second Space Lord Havinghurst—who, as a far from junior analyst at ONI, had brushed off his “inconclusive and alarmist” analyses—weren’t all that fond of him either. Nor did the Conservative Association, whose members’ spinal reflex opposition to anything that threatened the stability of their own star nation—and their position within it—take kindly to the suggestion that it might be wise to start mucking about with that stability in the name of defensive preparedness. Besides, ships cost money. The Conservatives were against spending money on general principles, and the Liberals had all sorts of deserving social programs in direct competition with any increased military spending. The fact that quite a few of those deserving social programs had been inspired by progressive Havenite notions before the Republic’s fiscal wheels started coming off only made them even more mulishly opposed to building up the Navy in the face of a purported
Havenite
threat.

Can’t very well go around admitting their inspiration is in the process of turning Conquistador on them, can they?
Roger thought with an edge of bitterness.
Why, that would require them to engage in at least twenty or thirty seconds of actual critical thought! God only knows where
that
might end!

He knew he was being at least a little unfair, but he didn’t really care. Most members of the Conservative Association were a selfish, small-minded waste of perfectly good oxygen, as far as he was concerned. He had much more sympathy for the rank-and-file members of the Liberal Party, but their refusal to look beyond their own narrow political horizons was eroding that steadily. Marisa Turner, the Earl of New Kiev’s older daughter, was a case in point. The only thing wrong with her brain, in Roger’s opinion, was her refusal to actually
use
it, yet her birth, her wealth, and her father’s position in the party meant she was inevitably going to become one of the Liberals’ leaders over the next ten or fifteen T-years, and she flatly refused to admit Haven could possibly have any territorial interests outside its immediate astrographic neighborhood. Which was, after all the better part of three
light-centuries
from the Manticore Binary System!

“It’s going to be a little tricky, however we come at it,” he told his mother. “Truman would love to see me dirt-side and out of uniform. If you bring it up with him, he’ll jump at the opportunity to accomplish just that, and if we fight him on it, we’ll be just as guilty of using patronage to get what we want as someone like Janacek or Low Delhi. But if Laidlaw makes the suggestion, it’ll automatically put Truman’s back up as yet another example of ‘civilian interference’ in the Service’s internal affairs. He might go as far as making his opposition to that interference part of the public record. And even if he didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be surprised if he—or Havinghurst—leaked the fact that he and Spruance had been pressured by Laidlaw. At which point, the idiots in the Conservative Association and the Liberals who already don’t like Sir Abner will start demanding all sorts of Parliamentary inquiries into it.”

“Like everyone
else
isn’t using family pull to get what they want?” Caitrin demanded, and Roger shrugged.

“I’m not in Mom’s league as a politician yet, Katie, but since when has consistency dared to rear its ugly head where partisan politics are concerned? They don’t care what
their
friends and families may be doing, but they’ll scream to high heaven about Laidlaw’s seeming to do it in
my
case if it lets them embarrass him.”

“Roger’s right, Caitrin,” Samantha said, looking approvingly upon her son. “And don’t overlook the possibility of embarrassing
me
, at least indirectly, as well. They won’t come right out and say it, but anything they can use as an obstacle for those ‘alarmist’ policies I’m trying to ‘ram through’ without due respect for their own august views would be like manna from heaven.”

“There’s a reason I really, really don’t want to have anything more to do with politics than I have to,” Caitrin said sourly.

“Not an option, in our case, I’m afraid, Sis.”

Roger’s eyes were sympathetic, but his voice was firm before he turned back to their mother.

“Actually, I think the best way to do this might be to approach Sir William very quietly,” he said.

Samantha cocked her head, eyebrows rising inquisitively, and he shrugged.

“I’m not saying Sir William isn’t half convinced that I’m at least a third as much of an alarmist as Truman thinks I am, but he’s also at least a little more receptive. And the truth is, it would make a lot of sense for him to come to the same view Sir Casper’s come to. I think if he was properly approached he might be willing to claim ownership of the idea and play godfather for it.”

“Really?” Samantha sounded just a bit skeptical, and Roger smiled.

Rear Admiral of the Green Sir William Spruance was Fifth Space Lord, the head of the Bureau of Personnel. As such, he’d have to sign off on any reassignment, especially one which cut short a programmed tour of command for someone as . . . visible as a member of the Winton dynasty, no matter where the idea for it had come from. And if
he
proposed the change, it would be impossible for Truman—or anyone else—to blame it on Laidlaw.