Shadow of Freedom Read online

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Gervais nodded in understanding. “Do you want me to set up an electronic conference, or would you prefer to have them over for supper tonight?”

  “A rule I learned from Duchess Harrington a long time ago, Gwen,” Michelle said with a smile. “Two rules, actually. Never discuss electronically what you have time to discuss in person, and nothing builds a sense of teamwork and mutual trust like talking things over across a meal. You might want to write that down for your own later career.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I will,” Gervais replied. “So who do you want invited?”

  “Better make it all the task group and squadron commanders,” she said after a moment. “Talk to Chris, though. If there’s room in my dining cabin to fit in the divisional commanders, as well, that might not be a bad idea. And see to it that Commander Adenauer and Captain Armstrong are on the guest list. For that matter, let’s get Commander Larson into the mix, too.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Gervais nodded. “I’ll get right on it.”

  * * *

  Chris Billingsley had done his usual efficient job of arranging the dining cabin. They’d been able to fit in more people than Michelle would have thought possible, and all of her divisional commanders were present, after all. It made for a large crowd, and she doubted they were going to accomplish a great deal of detailed planning and organization for what she had in mind, but that wasn’t really why she’d called these people together. She and her staff had already completed most of that.

  She waited until the excellent supper had been completed, the deserts had been consumed, the dishes had been cleared away, and her subordinates sat back with their beverages of choice. Then she tapped her crystal brandy snifter lightly with a fork. It chimed musically, and she cleared her throat as heads turned towards her all along the linen-covered horseshoe of the supper tables.

  “I trust all of you enjoyed the meal?” she asked with a smile, and a rumble of approval came back. “Good.” Her smile grew broader. “I wouldn’t want Master Steward Billingsley to get a swelled head or anything, but he does set a nice table, doesn’t he?”

  This time the rumble was one of laughter, broken here and there by a few fervent declarations of agreement. She let it subside, then sat back in her chair and surveyed the officers of her fleet.

  She’d arrived at Tillerman only ten T-days ago, and she could have wished for a little longer to exercise with her complete order of battle—minus, of course, what she’d sent off to Mobius and what she’d left in Montana. Admiral Bennington had obviously kept his people on their toes, however, and the units she’d brought with her from Montana had slotted smoothly back into place with them.

  No admiral’s ever really satisfied with how much time she’s had to work up her command, Mike, she told herself. Or at least, no admiral worth her beret is ever satisfied, because you can always tweak things somewhere. But they’re good. They’re really good, and there’ll be time enroute for more exercises. If you screw up, it won’t be because of them.

  “I’m sure you’ve all had time to at least skim the dispatches we’ve received from Spindle,” she continued, her expression and voice both considerably grimmer than they had been. “And I’m also sure that, like me, you find it difficult to believe even a Solly flag officer could have been stupid enough to pull the trigger when Duchess Harrington had the deck so totally stacked against him. Nonetheless, he did, and that leaves me with some decisions to make.”

  She paused, and the dining cabin was silent, every set of eyes fixed upon her. Somehow the stars on her collar seemed heavier than they had when she sat down.

  “The Solarian League has now deliberately violated the territory of the Star Empire of Manticore twice. Both of those violations were clearly preplanned acts of military aggression in what the perpetrators believed would be overwhelming force. In both cases, the senior Solarian officer was offered multiple opportunities to rethink his or her actions and back off. In both cases, the officer in question chose not to do so. The Star Empire’s sought a diplomatic resolution to this confrontation—which, I remind all of us, began when a Solarian admiral destroyed a Manticoran destroyer division in time of peace and without warning—from the beginning. The Solarian League has declined to meet our efforts even halfway.

  “I realize there’s considerable evidence to support the idea that the League is being manipulated by this Mesan Alignment. In fact, I believe that to be true. But however it’s happened, we’ve been placed on a collision course with the Solarian League and it shows absolutely no sign of being willing to turn aside. Moreover, Mesa couldn’t manipulate the League into such actions if the League weren’t already primed for them and corrupt enough to find them a comfortable fit.”

  She paused once again, briefly, letting eyes like brown flint sweep the assembled faces.

  “What we face is a war against the largest, most populous, most powerful star nation in history. Not a confrontation, not a conflict, not a crisis. Not any longer. A war. And wars, as we’ve discovered against the People’s Republic of Haven, aren’t won by standing on the defensive. At the moment, we enjoy a crushing combat advantage. How long that advantage will last is impossible to estimate, and it seems evident to me that it’s our duty to our Empire and our Empress to use that advantage as decisively as possible and as quickly as possible. And it’s also this fleet’s specific responsibility to safeguard the star systems and citizens of the Talbott Quadrant. The best way to do both of those things, in my opinion, is to take the war to the Sollies. We didn’t start it; they did, and now they can deal with the consequences of their own actions.”

  Her voice was ribbed with battle steel, and her face might have been carved out of obsidian. Most of the officers listening to her knew she had been given no new orders along with the dispatches. That what she was truly proposing was to act entirely upon her own initiative. Yet they also knew the Manticoran tradition was that flag officers were expected to exercise their initiative. Not normally in situations with the potential consequences this one offered, perhaps, but still…

  “I propose to move upon the Meyers System as soon as possible,” she said flatly. “Tenth Fleet will depart Tillerman no later than thirty-six hours from now. Our mission will be to force the surrender of Commissioner Verrochio and the entire Madras Sector. My intention is to neutralize this sector as a potential base for operations against the Talbott Quadrant and to position ourselves to threaten the League’s flank in order to force them to split their attention between us and any additional future operations against the old Star Kingdom or our allies. I’ve already dispatched a request to Spindle to send forward additional ground forces from the Quadrant Guard’s new training programs as quickly as possible to serve as garrisons. With them to provide a ‘boots on the ground’ occupying force and LACs and missile pods to provide a space-based deterrent to anything short of a heavy Solly battle squadron, we should be able to secure the sector and thus protect the Talbott Quadrant and cover our backs. I anticipate that once we’ve done that, we will move on towards additional objectives in the Verge or even into the Shell.”

  She paused once more and inhaled deeply. It was very quiet in the dining cabin as the weight of her measured words sank home. As her subordinates grappled with the realization that their admiral truly did intend to take the war to the Solarian League.

  “In a few moments,” she said finally, “we’ll begin discussing the nuts and bolts of that movement. My staff has already completed the plans to get us underway and for our initial entry into the Meyers System. We’ve put together several possible scenarios for operations there, and we’ll spend the trip gaming them out in the simulators. But before we get to that—”

  She gathered up her brandy snifter and looked down the table to her flag lieutenant. He looked back at her, and she nodded slightly.

  Gervais Archer rose, gathering up his own wine glass, and raised it.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, “I give you the Empire, the Emp
ress, and the Navy. And damnation to the Sollies!”

  July 1922 Post Diaspora

  “Why is it that people like you always think you’re more ruthless than people like me?”

  —Commodore Sir Aivars Terekhov,

  Royal Manticoran Navy

  Chapter Thirty

  Lieutenant Commander Hiroshi Hammond, SLNS Oceanus’ tactical officer, had the watch. At the moment, he was tipped back in the chair at the center of the light cruiser’s command bridge, trying unsuccessfully to think about nothing at all as yet another late-night watch crept towards its end with all the fleetness of a crippled snail. There hadn’t been anything for Oceanus to do over the last local week or so, thank God, but he hated nights light this. Sitting in orbit around a backwater planet like Mobius Beta with nothing to do had to be the most mind-numbingly boring duty in the entire galaxy even at the best of times, far less times like these, and he hated the way it turned his mind inward, left him no choice but to contemplate things he’d far rather not think about at all.

  Still, thinking about some things damned well beat hell out of actually doing them. Hiroshi Hammond had been called upon to do some pretty crappy things during his career. That happened a lot in Frontier Fleet, whatever the recruiters said, and Hammond came from a well-established naval family. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t known that was the case going in. But the first week or so after their arrival in-system…that had been bad.

  At least it’s going to be over soon, he told himself, gazing up at the deckhead, trying to close his mind to what was happening on the planet so far below his ship. One way or the other, it’s going to be over. And I’m not going to have to kill any more towns before it is.

  Now if he could only figure out some way to absolve himself of his crushing sense of guilt for what he’d already done.

  God damn Brigadier Yucel. The thought rolled through the back of his brain with the cold, measured precision of a prayer. His had been the hand that pressed the button, but the order had come from her, and if there was any justice in the universe—

  “Hyper footprint! Multiple hyper footprints!”

  The sudden announcement from the senior tactical rating of the watch twitched Hammond up out of his bleak reverie. He snapped his chair upright and turned towards, Lieutenant Gareth Garrett, Oceanus’ junior tactical officer, who was holding down the tac section at the moment.

  It was obvious Garrett had been just as surprised as Hammond, but the JTO was already leaning forward, hands moving across his console as the icons from the combat information center appeared upon his display.

  “CIC makes it thirteen sources, Sir,” the lieutenant reported after a moment, and Hammond felt his muscles tighten. “They’re half a light-minute outside the hyper limit,” Garrett continued. “That puts them at a range of two-one-five-point-nine million klicks. Current closing velocity niner-one-three KPS. Acceleration five-point-seven KPS squared.”

  “Class IDs?” Hammond asked.

  “We won’t have anything lightspeed for another twelve minutes or so, Sir,” Garrett replied in a curiously flat voice. “But from the footprints, CIC is calling it twelve cruisers…and a superdreadnought.”

  “A super—?”

  Hammond cut off the automatic—and stupid—repetition and closed his mouth tightly. Garrett was young, but not young enough to make that kind of mistake. If he said CIC had identified a superdreadnought, then that was what CIC had told him.

  Even if the massive ship’s observed acceleration was a full KPS2 higher than Oceanus could have turned out with a zero safety margin on her inertial compensator.

  Manties, Hammond thought while icicles formed in his bone marrow. With that kind of accel, it’s got to be Manties. And if it is…

  He decided not to think about that as his thumb reached for the general quarters button.

  * * *

  “Anything from them?” Commander Tremont Watson demanded as he strode explosively onto Oceanus’ bridge.

  “No, Sir.” Lieutenant Branston Shang, the light cruiser’s communications officer, had managed to beat the CO to the command deck. Now he looked over his shoulder at Watson and shook his head. “Given the range, there won’t be for at least another three minutes, even assuming they know we’re here to be transmitting to, Sir,” he added respectfully.

  Watson nodded curtly and crossed to the command chair Hammond had abandoned upon his arrival. It was an indication of the CO’s state of mind that he’d asked the question in the first place, Hammond thought. Or perhaps the original range figures simply hadn’t registered with him. Of course, if that was true, it was a pretty significant comment on Watson’s state of mind all by itself, he reflected as the CO dropped into the chair he’d just vacated.

  “Any more details on them, Hiroshi?”

  “Not really, Skipper.” Hammond shrugged unhappily. “They only made their alpha translation nine minutes ago, so we still don’t have any lightspeed confirmation, but CIC’s confident about their mass estimates and wedge strengths.”

  “And about the acceleration numbers, I presume,” Watson said grimly.

  “Yes, Sir.” Hammond wasn’t looking—or feeling—any happier. “They’re up to a closing velocity of just under four thousand KPS. GG”—he nodded at Garrett—“makes it three hours and fourteen minutes to a zero/zero intercept with the planet…and us, of course. Turnover in about an hour and a half. Velocity at turnover will be right on thirty-five thousand KPS.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Watson punched controls on the command chair armrest, deploying his own displays, then looked back up at Hammond.

  “All right. You’re relieved. Take your station and send GG off to the Exec.”

  “I stand relieved,” Hammond said formally, and twitched his head at Garrett. “You heard the Skipper, GG. I’ve got it; shag your butt down to Command Bravo.”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  Garrett popped up out of his station chair and left for the cruiser’s backup command deck at a run. Hammond settled into his place, taking over the tactical console and wishing he could believe anything he might do could make any difference at all to what was about to happen.

  * * *

  “I don’t suppose anyone’s tried to contact us yet, Atalante?” Sir Aivars Terekhov asked.

  “No, Sir.” Lieutenant Atalante Montella looked up from her console and shook her head, her expression grim. “I wish someone would,” she added. “I’d a lot rather be dealing with that than listening to this, Sir.”

  She gestured at the small display in front of her, where a man in the uniform of the Mobius Presidential Guard sat at a desk in front of crossed planetary flags, reading from his prepared notes. The sound was muted, but she’d shunted the feed to her earbug. Commander Pope, Terekhov’s Chief of Staff, and Lieutenant Commander Mateuz Ødegaard, his staff intelligence officer, were listening along with her over their own earbugs, and their expressions were as grim as her own.

  Terekhov nodded in understanding. He’d listened to five or six minutes of the “news” transmissions from Mobius himself before he’d handed it off to Pope and Ødegaard. He’d felt guilty about doing that, but he’d also decided it would be far better to distance himself from it, at least for now. The last thing he needed was to be listening to that kind of crap when he might very well be making decisions about who lived and who died in the next few hours. He couldn’t afford to open himself to that sort of rage, however deserved it might be, so he turned to Commander Stillwell Lewis, instead.

  “How much longer for the platforms to give us a good look at the planetary orbitals, Stilt?” he asked.

  “Not long, Sir,” his operations officer replied. “They’re only about ninety-six light-seconds from Mobius Beta, now. In fact, if there’s anything in orbit with active impellers, it’s got to be on the far side of the planet from us at the moment, or we’d already have picked it up.”

  “Good.”

  Terekhov tipped back in his command chair, gazing
at the master plot. Quentin Saint-James had reentered normal-space twenty-six minutes earlier. During that time, she’d increased her n-space velocity to just over ninety-four hundred kilometers per second and traveled just under 7.8 million kilometers towards the planet officially designated Mobius Beta. During that same interval, the Ghost Rider recon platforms they’d deployed as soon as they’d made their alpha translation had traveled ten and a half light-minutes—almost 200 million kilometers—at their vastly higher acceleration. In fact, they were already decelerating towards a zero/zero rendezvous with the planet.

  He had a pretty good idea what those platforms were going to find. The “news” transmissions to the Delta Belt habitats which Quentin Saint-James had intercepted since translating back into normal-space made it abundantly clear that the Solarian intervention battalions the MLF had feared were underway had beaten his own force to the Mobius System. And that meant there had to be—

  “We’ve got them, Sir,” Lewis said suddenly, and Terekhov’s eyes narrowed as a quartet of impeller signatures appeared on the plot, creeping around the icon of the planet. “The platforms are still ninety-two light-seconds out, but we should be getting good visual in another minute or so,” the ops officer continued. “CIC is calling them destroyers for now, but—”

  He paused again for a moment, studying his displays carefully, then looked back at Terekhov.

  “Correction, Sir. It looks like a Morrigan-class light cruiser and a trio of War Harvest-class destroyers. One of the tin cans could be a Rampart, though. With all the refits Frontier Fleet’s destroyer fleet’s been through—”