“All right. All right!” Canning waved a hand in a gesture midway between anger and placation and bit his lip. “We can’t undo it, and at least the fucking Manticorans killed him for us. But you must have known some of the rifles were in the area, Colonel.”

“I swear to God I didn’t, Sir.” Westerfeldt’s face was taut. “As far as I know, every one of the rifles we’ve delivered is still cached in the Shaman’s caves. In fact, I ordered a count made at Site One as soon as the shit hit the fan. They haven’t completed it yet, but so far the numbers have checked perfectly. I don’t think those rifles were ours at all, Sir.”

“Oh, crap!” Canning muttered, dragging his hands through his hair and staring at the blotter.

“They must have been Stilty-made, Sir,” Westerfeldt said more calmly. “The Shaman’s had to hand them out for training sessions. We collect them all afterward, but maybe one of the damned abos took the idea home with him. If we’re going to give them weapons that look like they’re native-built, then they have to be ones the natives can build, after all. It just never occurred to anyone they might figure out how to make their own gunpowder as well and set up a shop of their own.”

“Oh, this is just fucking wonderful.” Canning groaned. He closed his eyes in pain, then opened them and impaled Westerfeldt with a glare. “Even if you didn’t give the order to blow the lab, Colonel, the field op is your responsibility. This is your mess—you clean it up!”

“But how?” Westerfeldt took a step closer to the desk, his voice almost pleading.

“I don’t know.” Canning pounded a fist gently on the blotter for a moment, then sucked in a deep breath. “All right. The NPA knows it was an off-world operation, but they still don’t know it was us. And that maniac didn’t blow the power relays, so when they track them back at least that evidence will still point to a domestic Manticoran operation, right?”

Westerfeldt nodded silently, and Canning’s jaw worked in thought. He ought to report this. He knew he should. But if he did, upstairs would probably cancel the entire op, and if he couldn’t hang it all on Westerfeldt, the admiral and ONI would crucify him. On the other hand, as he’d just told the colonel, there was still no direct evidence linking Haven to the massacre.

All right. If Harrington and Matsuko didn’t know Haven was behind it, what did they know that could hurt him? The rifles. They knew about the fucking rifles, and neither of them were likely to miss the potential danger they represented. So that meant they might try to make some sort of contingency plans, but if they didn’t know about the scope of Haven’s own plan, then their precautions could hardly be enough to stop it.

He gritted his teeth, knowing full well he was grasping at straws. Yet straws were all he had. If he reported back and the operation was scrubbed, then his career was scrubbed with it. He’d find himself hauled home and buried in one of the Prole housing units on Haven, drawing a Basic Living Stipend right alongside all the other Dolist scum as an example to other fuck-ups, and he came from one of the aristocratic Legislature families. All of his friends, all the other useless drones drawing the BLS with him—everyone—would know about his disgrace. They’d laugh at him, mock him, and he couldn’t face that. He couldn’t.