Shadow of Freedom Read online

  “Factors such as…?” Montview raised his eyebrows as he allowed his voice to trail off.

  “At the moment, Mr. Prime Minister, no one outside the Meyers System knows what’s happened here. No hyper-capable unit made it out, which means it will be some time—probably T-months, in fact—before anyone else realizes anything’s happened at all. That gives us some time to work with. Unfortunately, we’re in what you might call a…dynamic situation, and my military capabilities are a bit lopsided.” Michelle showed her teeth briefly. “I’ve got oodles—that’s a technical term, Mr. Prime Minister; it means lots and lots—of naval combat power, but I’m severely strapped for ground combat power.”

  Montview nodded gravely, although Michelle doubted that he truly realized just how short of ground troops she actually was. Colonel Liam Trondheim, the senior Gendarmerie officer present, had surrendered the system to her as soon as her ships entered Meyers planetary orbit. He hadn’t had a great deal of choice about that, under the recognized interstellar laws of war. For that matter, Michelle had been perfectly willing to take out every Gendarmerie base on the planet from orbit (also as the interstellar laws of war permitted for planets which didn’t surrender), and he seemed to realize that fact.

  She rather regretted that Brigadier Yucel hadn’t been here to do the surrendering herself. Everything she and Cynthia Lecter had been able to dig up on the brigadier suggested she was an ugly piece of work, even by the standards of the Solarian League Gendarmerie. On the other hand, according to Trondheim, one reason he’d been so quick to surrender was that Yucel had taken two full battalions of her best troops (although Michelle doubted Yucel’s definition of “best troops” would have matched her own) off to the Mobius System. She didn’t like to think about what someone like Yucel might have been doing with those troops, but she felt confident, somehow, that Sir Aivars Terekhov would experience no insurmountable difficulty in dealing with the brigadier.

  Here in Meyers, however, Michelle was left with the problem that she simply didn’t have the troop strength to garrison what she’d captured. The planet Meyers itself was home to 3.6 billion people. Another thirty-two thousand lived on the next planet out, Socrates, which was very like the Sol System’s Mars but with a slightly thicker atmosphere. The Truman Belt was home to another 843,000 people, most committed to routine mining and other resource extraction. And then there were the two hundred thousand living on the moons of the gas giant Damien, mining the planetary atmosphere for hydrogen and rare gases.

  That wasn’t very many people by the standards of one of the League’s Core Worlds, but it very nearly equaled the total population of the Manticore Binary System, and there was no way in the universe her own limited Marine strength could possibly hope to control them.

  On the other hand, Frontier Security hadn’t been able to ship in enough troops to actually garrison the system, either. The Sollies had been forced to rely on local police forces to maintain public order and enforce civil law. That was always the case, of course, but generally those local police forces took their cue from the OFS administration which had co-opted their services. That was one reason Michelle had dreaded what she’d find when they reached Meyers, given Yucel’s reputation.

  To her surprise, however, local law enforcement appeared to have avoided the brutality and repressiveness she’d anticipated. Partly that was because Yucel had been assigned to the Madras Sector fairly recently. Another part of it, she’d been forced to admit—grudgingly, grudgingly!—was probably due to Lorcan Verrochio and Junyan Hongbo. In fact, she suspected more to the vice commissioner than to Verrocchio, although it was early to be drawing that sort of conclusion. But even more of it, she thought—hoped—stemmed from the example of King Lawrence and his family.

  Michelle Henke wasn’t about to conclude that the Meyers police forces were miraculously free of the corruption which followed Frontier Security like a pestilence. But they clearly took their responsibility as the guardians of public order and safety seriously, and because they did, she was inclined to cut them a substantial amount of slack. The question was who they ultimately answered to.

  “I anticipate receiving additional ground troops as soon as they can be forwarded from the Talbott Quadrant,” she continued. There was no need to tell him just how long “soon” might be. “In the meantime, however, we have to make do out of the forces currently available to me, and most of my ground personnel are trained as Marines—as combat troops—not law enforcement personnel. Under the circumstances, I think it would be to everyone’s advantage to keep a trained and experienced police force on the job. Assuming, of course,” she looked into Montview’s eyes again, “that I could come to some sort of mutually acceptable arrangement with some local authority who could command that police force’s loyalty and obedience.”

  “Actually, Milady,” Montview said after a moment, “our law officers’ formal oaths of office are sworn to the House of Thomas, not to the Solarian League or Frontier Security.” It was his turn to show his teeth. “An unfortunate oversight on their part.”

  “Yes, it was,” Michelle agreed.

  It was also fairly standard operating procedure for OFS, however. The legal fiction that the Protectorates were still independent star systems simply “under the protection” of the beneficent Solarian League required local régimes. Those régimes were well aware of the fact that they actually possessed no authority of their own, yet the forms were important. Michelle sometimes thought that was due to the Solarian League’s unhealthy worship of bureaucratic paperwork, but it was also a fig leaf which could be hauled out if some Solarian newsy muckraker started poking about. Imperialism? Oh, my, no! Perish the very thought! We’re simply here as advisers to support yet another neobarb star system in its painful march towards truly representative and democratic government! See? We can’t even give any direct orders to the local police force. They all have to go through the local, duly elected government.

  “Should I take it, Mr. Prime Minister, that if I were to recognize—provisionally, of course; as I say, any decision I make would be subject to review by higher authority—King Lawrence as the local, legitimate head of state and charge him with creating a provisional government for the entire star system, he would be prepared to accept that responsibility under the protection of the Star Empire of Manticore?”

  Montview’s eyes flickered. For a moment, Michelle wondered why. Then it hit her.

  “Forgive me.” She shook her head. “That was clumsily phrased, especially in light of your star system’s experience of Frontier Security’s notion of ‘protection.’” She shook her head again. “Allow me to clarify what I actually meant.”

  Montview took a slow sip of coffee, then set the cup on the saucer in his lap and nodded.

  “While many of my decisions will be subject to review, Mr. Prime Minister, one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty at this time is that my Empress and her government have no intention of adding independent star systems forcibly to the Star Empire. Nor are we interested in controlling nominally independent star systems through puppet governments and protectorate arrangements. In fact, our recent expansion is going to leave us with some significant problems when it comes to integrating our new citizens into our existing political and economic system. We still don’t know how those problems are going to work out, although I’m optimistic that they will work out, but no one in the Star Empire’s government is eager to add still more potential headaches to the list. Holding down forcibly annexed populations would probably rate pretty on anyone’s list of headaches, I’d think, and that doesn’t even consider the fact that we literally cannot afford to fritter away the military resources we need against something the size of the League by tying them down on occupation duty just to keep our boot on the neck of someone who doesn’t want us running their star system.

  “Because of the nature of our conflict with the Solarian League, however, it’s inevitable that we’re going to find ourselves doing very much what we
did here—taking star systems away from Solarian control. When that happens, we automatically assume a moral responsibility for the future well-being of those star systems. We don’t want our actions to lead to wholesale violence, political instability, or the emergence of warlordism, and that means we can’t simply pull back out as soon as the local Sollies surrender. For that matter, if we did any such thing, it would simply invite the Sollies to return to the vacuum we’d leave behind us.

  “As I see it, that means our best course of action is to encourage the formation of stable system governments. Independent stable system governments. In many cases, that’s going to be very difficult, for reasons I’m sure you understand.” Michelle’s Brown eyes turned grim. “Frankly, Mr. Prime Minister, the Meyers System’s been incredibly fortunate compared to the vast majority of protectorate systems. That’s the reason you and I are having this conversation. I believe there’s an excellent chance King Lawrence can form a genuine, popularly accepted government with our support, and I’m prepared to offer that support as long as he’s committed to forming a government prepared to safeguard its citizens’ fundamental civic rights and safety. I am not prepared to support him in the formation of any government which does not safeguard those rights and that safety.”

  She paused to let that last sentence sink in, then leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs and clasping her hands under her chin.

  “Should King Lawrence be interested in forming such a government, and should he be prepared to demonstrate guarantees for his subjects’ rights and safety, I’m prepared, provisionally, speaking for the Star Empire of Manticore, to acknowledge him as the rightful sovereign of the Meyers System, and to offer him a military and economic alliance with the Star Empire. We’re not interested in policing, occupying, or owning your planets, Mr. Prime Minister. We are interested in depriving the Solarian League of a foothold here or elsewhere in the Madras Sector, and our experience has been that offering a potential ally a helping hand instead of an iron fist is the best way to achieve a stable, long-lasting relationship. You might want to study the relationship we’ve achieved with the Yeltsin System and the Protectorship of Grayson.”

  Montview sat silent, gazing into her eyes very intently for several seconds. Then he drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

  “Obviously, I’ll have to discuss this with His Majesty, Milady. I believe, however, that you’ll discover this is no more than what he’s always wished it had been within his power to accomplish. I don’t say there won’t be problems. Among other things, I expect the Damien Moons to argue in favor of independence from the Kingdom. That’s where the most…recalcitrant of our people have relocated since Frontier Security’s arrival. They haven’t thought much of our ‘inner world’ softness and collaboration.” He smiled briefly. “Hard to blame them, really, but I’ve often wondered if they realized how much that ‘collaboration’ of the King’s had to do with Frontier Security’s leaving them alone out there.

  “Aside from that, I think the political equation would work itself out much more smoothly than you might have anticipated. I also think our local police forces would be extremely grateful if we could establish a clear-cut source of local authority as quickly as possible. At the moment, everyone’s operating in something of the vacuum, and that means all of them are also looking over their shoulders, wondering what’s going to happen if and when you and your ships pull out.”

  Michelle had gazed attentively at—and past—him while he was speaking. She’d watched Alfredo the entire time, and the treecat had sat upright on his perch, his full attention focused on Montview. Now he looked away from the prime minister, directly at Michelle, and nodded slowly.

  “In that case, Mr. Prime Minister,” Michelle said, “I think it would be a good thing if you could arrange a direct meeting between me and the King, don’t you?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “I think we should have another little chat with Vice Commissioner Hongbo, Ma’am,” Cynthia Lecter said.

  “Not exactly the most enjoyable thing I could imagine doing,” Michelle Henke replied dryly.

  She reached out a long arm for the coffee carafe and replenished her cup. Then she sat back on her own side of the breakfast table, nursing the cup in both hands, and regarded her chief of staff through the wisp of steam rising from the black liquid. They’d been in the Meyers System for over two T-weeks now, and things had been going smoothly enough to make her nervous. In her experience, the calmer and more orderly things seemed, the more likely it was that something was lurking just beneath the surface to leap out and bite one on the posterior. And since Lecter was still wearing the intelligence officer’s hat as well as the chief of staff’s hat, she was the one responsible for digging under that surface and finding the lurker before it struck.

  “I presume you have a specific reason for that suggestion?” Michelle asked after a moment, and Lecter nodded.

  “We’re turning up some things I’d like to try on him.” The chief of staff was a fidgeter, and she picked up her grapefruit spoon, twirling it between the thumb and first two fingers of her right hand while she spoke. “I think he could tell us a few things we’d really like to know.”

  “I’m sure he could be a fount of information on any number of subjects.” Michelle shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “He was second in command of an entire protectorate sector. Somebody like that’s bound to know where a lot of bodies are buried.”

  “I know.” Lecter thumped the bowl of the spoon on the white breakfast tablecloth, drumming gently. “The thing is, we’re picking up some suggestions that he might have what you could call a friendly relationship with Manpower and Mesa in general.”

  “And?” Michelle’s eyes narrowed.

  “I know that’s hardly surprising.” Lecter grimaced. “I sometimes think the majority of Frontier Security officials have ‘friendly relationships’ with Manpower. Hell, Ma’am, they’ve got ‘friendly relationships’ with every dirty transstellar! After all, it’s the illegal transstellars—like Manpower and the rest of that bunch in Mesa—that pay the best when they manage to put somebody in their pocket.”

  “Exactly. So what is it about Hongbo that suggests we should pay special attention to him?”

  “Well, with Kowalski helping to point the way, our friends here in Pine Mountain have managed to break into a lot of people’s financial records. Specifically, they’re well on their way to opening up virtually all of Hongbo’s, Verrocchio’s, Palgani’s, and Kasomoulis’ private little books, and there’s some interesting reading in there.”

  “No! Really?” Michelle said dryly, and Lecter chuckled.

  Saverio Palgani was—or had been, at any rate, prior to Tenth Fleet’s arrival—the Meyers System manager for Brindle Star, Ltd., of Hirochi. His position in the sector capital meant he’d actually been in charge of all of Brindle Star’s operations in the entire Madras Sector, which had made him a very big fish, indeed.

  Theophilia Kasomoulis had fulfilled the same role for Newman & Sons, headquartered in the Core System of Eris, and Brindle Star and Newman & Sons had divided most of the Madras Sector between themselves as their private possession. Brindle Star controlled effectively the entire sector’s interstellar shipping and financial transactions, while Newman & Sons controlled resource extraction and consumer manufacturing and distribution. Palgani and Kasomoulis were undoubtedly the two wealthiest individuals in the entire Meyers System, but Michelle had to admit they seemed to have been less rapacious than their counterparts in many another protectorate star system. Apparently they’d at least been enlightened enough to realize that while the sort of slash-and-burn exploitation practiced in other portions of the Verge might return a higher short-term profit, long-term profitability required at least a modicum of local prosperity.

  Not that that made them any great paragons of virtue, she reminded herself.

  Yeargin Kowalski, on the other hand, was a local businessman and banker. He’d had to deal w
ith the transstellars, especially with Brindle Star, but he’d focused more on the more marginal deals too small to attract Palgani’s attention. In some ways, Michelle supposed, Kowalski had followed in Brindle Star’s wake, gleaning the predator’s leftovers. Another way to look at it, though, was that he’d provided capital to a host of locally owned entrepreneurships which would have been completely squeezed out by the transstellars without him.

  When Prime Minister Montview began constructing a genuine government, he’d needed a finance minister to replace the totally incompetent (and totally corrupt) crony Palgani had insisted hold that position in the “official” government. Kowalski had been on his short list from the outset, and nothing anyone had turned up in his background had disqualified him. In fact, he’d been a highly popular choice among those same local entrepreneurs, and there’d never been the least suggestion of dishonesty or corruption on his part.

  Because of his dealings with Palgani and Kasomoulis, on the other hand, Kowalski had had a very good idea of where to start when it came to exhuming the transstellars’ books. Not the official books which they’d kept primarily for tax assessment, shareholder earnings calculations, and writeoff purposes, but the real books, the ones which detailed every sordid detail of their actual operations.

  Helen Sanderson, originally the Pine Mountain Police Department’s second ranking officer, had been named to head the new Royal Police whose jurisdiction spanned the entire star system. Her immediate superior had been unavailable for the position, since he’d been under arrest at the time and was probably going to spend the next several T-years as a guest of the Meyers penal system. With Kowalski to guide her, and the enthusiastic support of Janice Hannover, a Meyers realtor and commercial farmer who’d been strong-armed into taking the position of attorney general, Sanderson had launched an aggressive probe of the entire “black economy.”