Shadow of Freedom-eARC (24 page)

“You’ve just used up forty-five seconds your destroyers don’t have,” Zavala replied in a voice of iron. “They now have four minutes and ten seconds.”

“Are you
totally
insane?” Dueñas demanded. “Aren’t you listening to a thing I’m saying?”

“Four minutes, Governor. And you might want to ask Vice Admiral Dubroskaya—or her ghost—if I abide by my time limits.”

Their eyes locked, and Zavala found himself wondering just how pigheaded a single human being could be.

“Sir, I have another com request!” Lieutenant Wilson said quickly over his earbug. “It’s a Captain Myau of the destroyer
Avenger
.”

“Put it through—now!” Zavala said, and Dueñas’ face vanished from his display, replaced by that of a tall, thin woman in the uniform of the Solarian League Navy. Her expression was hard, stony with hate as her eyes burned out of the com at him, but she had herself under better control than he would have expected.

“Captain Zavala?” she said flatly.

“Speaking.”

“I am Captain Myau Ping-wa,” she said in that same iron voice. “I feel certain the consequences of your actions are going to be profound, far-reaching, and ultimately disastrous for your star nation and your navy. Unfortunately, at this moment I’m forced to concede my tactical inferiority. It’s obvious your weapons far outrange my own, and it’s equally obvious you’re prepared to use that advantage. I have to assume you’re
not
prepared to enter my missile envelope before you do so, either. In your position,
I
certainly wouldn’t be.” Her lips might have twitched with the faintest shadow of a bitter smile. “That suggests you intend to destroy my destroyers as you did Vice Admiral Dubroskaya’s battlecruisers unless I accept your previous terms and stand down before you
do
enter my range. In light of how little time that leaves, as the senior officer—the senior
surviving
officer, at any rate—present, and absent instructions from the civilian authority in this star system,” this time the flicker in her eyes was unmistakable, Zavala thought, “I’m ordering my personnel to abandon ship.”

A diamond-dust glitter of life pods began to spill away from the destroyers’ larger icons on Zavala’s plot, and he felt a tremendous sense of relief.

“Be advised,” Myau continued, “that my engineering officers have programmed remote self-destruct commands into my destroyers’ fusion plants. Should any of your small craft approach within five thousand kilometers of any of my units, the enabling code will be sent and the ship—and any of your personnel who may happen to be aboard it—will be destroyed.” She bared her teeth. “You won’t be capturing any classified data in this star system.”

“First, Captain Myau,” Zavala told her, “I’m relieved to discover that
someone
in this star system has the mother wit to step away from avoidable bloodshed. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but I respect how difficult your decision was, and I commend you for having the moral courage to ignore that idiot in the governor’s office and save your people’s lives. I take no more pleasure in killing people than the next man.

“Second, I have no intention of interfering with your destroyers in any way so long as they pose no threat to my own vessels or personnel. Had Governor Dueñas been willing to approach this situation with a modicum of rationality, I wouldn’t find myself forced to require you to abandon ship in the first place…and Vice Admiral Dubroskaya and several thousand of your fellow spacers would still be alive.”

He held her eyes for another moment, letting her see the truth—and the flinty determination—in his own. He chose not to mention the fact that the Royal Manticoran Navy already had more captured information and hardware to play with than it could possibly use. Three obsolescent destroyers in a nowhere star system like Saltash wouldn’t be worth the trouble to board. Nonetheless, he had to respect Myau’s determination to see to it that they
wouldn’t
be boarded.

“And now, Captain,” Zavala resumed, “without any desire to appear disrespectful, I think I’d better return to my conversation with Governor Dueñas. I’m assuming you’ll be in charge of search and rescue operations here in Saltash. While I can’t allow your destroyers to participate, for obvious reasons, I give you my word that any civilian vessels you may dispatch for that purpose will be unmolested. And if you require any sensor assistance to locate survivors, I’ll gladly provide it. In fact, we’ve dropped remote platforms at the site of the engagement and we’re running a plot on all your pods, small craft, skinsuit transponder beacons, and debris. If you’ll hold this circuit for a moment, I’ll have my ops officer arrange a direct feed from our CIC to provide you with that information and keep it updated.”

“Thank you,” Myau said stiffly.

“You’re welcome. As I said, I truly would prefer for no search and rescue operations to have become necessary.” He looked over his shoulder at Lieutenant Commander Gabrowski. “Arrange it, please, Alice.”

“Of course, Sir.” Gabrowski nodded from her position outside his com pickup’s field of view. She also raised one hand and pressed the palm lightly across her eyes for a moment, then grinned, and Zavala nodded back. He’d known Gabrowski would make certain the sensor feed provided nothing but the most basic, essential information to the Sollies. It would never do to give Myau a look inside the RMN’s actual capabilities.

“Good day, Captain Myau,” Zavala said, and his mouth tightened as the Solarian officer’s image disappeared.

“I suppose we’d better get the asshole back, Abhijat,” he told Lieutenant Wilson.

* * *

Fresh fury throbbed somewhere deep down inside Damián Dueñas as he stared at the wallpaper on his com. How
dared
Zavala simply put him on hold in the middle of a conversation?!

He sat in his comfortable chair, fists clenched on the blotter in front of him, and the anger within was welcome. It fired his determination and buttressed him against fear, and however little he wanted to admit it, he needed that buttressing. He had to be strong, show his determination, if he wanted to spin this situation into something besides a disaster when the smoke cleared. The back of his brain was already busy with ways he could demonstrate that it was actually Tiilikainen’s lack of support and Vice Admiral Dubroskaya’s wildly inaccurate assessment of the military situation and her poor and aggressive advice as his senior military officer and expert which had created this disastrous situation. Bad as it was, it still wasn’t something a skilled operator couldn’t recover from, and whatever happened, Zavala’s actions made it obvious he’d been right all along about the need to demonstrate the Manties’ rogue behavior. So—

A symbol flickered in the corner of his display, and he scowled as he recognized Kodou’s personal attention icon. He growled in irritation, but Kodou had been with him long enough to know how he’d react to any intrusion that wasn’t amply justified, and he punched to accept the call.

“What?” he snapped, not trying to hide his anger at the interruption.

“Governor,” his assistant said, “I’ve just received a report that Captain Myau’s personnel have abandoned ship.”

“
What?!
” Dueñas barked with a very different emphasis.

“The report came in from system traffic control,” Kodou’s struggle to keep his own voice calm was evident. “They’re arranging atmospheric clearance for the pods to planet here at Kernuish Spaceport.”

“That
bitch!
” Dueñas snarled, betrayed by the Navy yet again. Myau had no business—no authority!—abandoning her command!
He
represented the Solarian League’s authority in Saltash, not her! But what else should he have expected? Dubroskaya had been a fool, promising him victory over the Manties, so why shouldn’t Myau turn out to be a coward too terrified even to
face
them?!

He closed his eyes once more, nostrils flaring, and made himself suck in a deep lungful of oxygen. He stayed that way for a handful of seconds, then reopened his eyes and forced his hands to relax before his fingernails dug bleeding gouges in his palms.

Actually, this could work in his favor, he realized as the automatic spike of fury subsided.
He
hadn’t ordered her to stand down; she’d done it unilaterally, without so much as consulting him, far less any
order
to do so! It was a clear case of cowardice in the face of the enemy, one which couldn’t possibly be charged to him, since she hadn’t even consulted him…and it could only emphasize how poorly he’d been served from the very beginning by the naval forces assigned to support him here in Saltash. It was scarcely his fault the Navy had first misled and misadvised and then betrayed him.

His mind flickered through the best ways to make the Navy’s culpability clear without looking as if he were trying to alibi his own actions. Fortunately, he and Dubroskaya had discussed his original plans privately, face-to-face, here in his office. He’d have to review the records of their later com conversations, verify exactly what had been said so he could be certain his account of those initial conversations jibed with it, but he was an old hand at crafting properly phrased memoranda, and—

The wallpaper in his display—and Kodou’s image—disappeared, replaced by Jacob Zavala’s face.

“I apologize for the delay, Governor,” the Manticoran said without any discernible sincerity, “but I had to take another call. Something about saving lives, I’m afraid.”

“Should I assume you’re referring to Captain Myau’s cowardly decision to surrender to your threats?”

“No. You should assume I’m referring to Captain Myau’s sanity and moral courage in refusing to see her personnel killed because of your pigheaded, fatuous arrogance.”

Dueñas felt his face darken again, and his jaw clenched.

He’s trying to make you lose your temper
, he told himself.
Trying to rattle you, make you look like some out-of-control hothead
.

“Personal insults to the official representative of another star nation may be typical of the ‘Star Empire of Manticore’s’ approach to interstellar relations, Captain,” he said coldly. “And I’m sure the Solarian League’s government is going to be deeply impressed by your bizarre version of diplomacy. No doubt the Solarian electorate will be equally impressed when the record of this conversation is released. Unfortunately, your insults are no more likely than your murderous actions have already been to cause me to comply with your outrageous and flagrantly illegal demands.”

Zavala cocked his head, eyes narrowed as he considered Dueñas from the com, and the governor looked back with a hard, steady gaze. They stayed that way for several seconds, and then Zavala shook his head.

“Governor, I’m at a loss to understand why you’re so determined to turn a disaster into a complete debacle. You’ve already gotten thousands of Solarian naval personnel killed. Now you’re proposing to get still more people killed in pursuit of an action you know perfectly well was illegal from the outset? Have you considered psychological counseling?”

“More insults, Captain?” Dueñas smiled thinly. “They seem to be getting a little less trenchant—are you running low on inspiration? Or perhaps you’re beginning to realize how the blood of the men and women you’ve murdered today is going to spatter your precious Star Empire once word of it gets back to the Sol System?”

“I’m not taking anyone’s blood lightly, Governor.” Zavala’s tone could have frozen helium. “I would very much prefer for no one to have been killed. Unfortunately, you and Vice Admiral Dubroskaya took that decision out of my hands. And I don’t think you quite appreciate the actual state of affairs between the Star Empire of Manticore and the Solarian League at this moment. The deaths of Vice Admiral Dubroskaya and so many of her personnel are a tragedy, and one which I deeply regret, but I doubt very much that they’re going to have any significant impact on Manticore’s relations with the League. Your career, yes; interstellar relations, no.”

“I assure you, you’re mistaken about that.”

“Governor Dueñas,” there was something like a note of pity in the Manticoran’s icy voice, “you’re clearly even more poorly informed about current events than I’d thought you could be. Just under three T-months ago, Fleet Admiral Crandall invaded the Spindle System. Twenty-three of her superdreadnoughts were effectively destroyed; another forty-eight surrendered, along with every screening and support unit. Over a
hundred thousand
of her personnel were killed, just about as quickly as Vice Admiral Dubroskaya’s people were killed here, and all of the rest—
all
of them, Governor; every single man and woman—are now POWs of the Star Empire of Manticore. As deeply as I regret the lives which have been lost today, they’re barely even a footnote to what’s already happened. The only questions you should be thinking about right now are how to keep anyone else who doesn’t have to die from being killed and how your own superiors are going to react to the consequences of your arrogant, high-handed, illegal, boneheaded actions in first seizing Manticoran merchant vessels, secondly refusing to release them, and thirdly provoking the engagement which ended so disastrously for Vice Admiral Dubroskaya’s squadron.”

Dueñas’ eyes widened, despite himself. There hadn’t been time for details of what had happened in Spindle to reach Saltash. All they’d had had been third-hand rumors and fragments carried by a single ship—a
merchant
ship, not a naval vessel or an official courier—which everyone had realized must be wildly exaggerated. Yet even those obviously inflated loss figures had fallen far short of what Zavala had just said.

You don’t have any corroboration of his story
, the governor reminded himself,
and he’s got every reason to lie to convince you to back down. Besides, that’s ridiculous! Almost
eighty
Solarian superdreadnoughts taken out by a neobarb navy with delusions of grandeur? Preposterous!

“I trust you’ll understand why I have to take that assertion with a grain of salt, Captain Zavala,” he heard himself say.

“You can take it with whatever you like, but that won’t change what actually happened. And in regard to that—and because this entire conversation is being recorded from my side and I intend to demonstrate that I did everything in my power to convince you to show a gram of rationality—I’m prepared to transmit to you copies of
Solarian
reporters’ accounts of the Battle of Spindle from League news services with correspondents in Spindle. You may not wish to take my word for it, and I’m sure you could convince yourself any Manticoran records I showed you had been falsified, but perhaps you’d be impressed by Solarian reportage of events there.”