Shadow of Freedom

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“You know,” Michelle Henke said thoughtfully, “I’m beginning to wonder exactly what qualifications the Sollies look for in candidates for their naval academy. I mean there has to be a filtering process. You couldn’t just go out and pick middies at random and get such an invariably stupid crop of flag officers. There has to be some kind of system. If you just picked names out of a hat, for example, somebody would have to have a functional brain. Right?”

“You’d like to think so, anyway, Ma’am,” Gervais Archer replied. He’d been working quietly on his minicomp when the dispatches couriered to Tillerman from Spindle arrived. “May I ask what prompted the observation at this particular time, though?”

“Oh, you certainly may,” she said much more grimly, and entered a command. The dispatch she’d been viewing appeared on Gervais’ display, and his eyes widened slightly as he saw the security header. He started to ask her if she was sure about giving him access but quickly changed his mind. Countess Gold Peak didn’t make that sort of careless mistake. Besides, as her flag lieutenant, he needed access to all sorts of information that didn’t generally come the way of someone as junior as he was.

The message had come directly from the Lynx Terminus, relayed to the Tillerman System and addressed to Admiral Bennington for his information, since the Lynx CO hadn’t been aware the countess had moved to that system herself. The addressee list in the header showed the same message had been sent to Admiral Khumalo and Baroness Medusa in Spindle. It would have reached the Quadrant’s capital star system just over two weeks ago, but the decision to copy it to Bennington in Tillerman meant Tenth Fleet’s CO had gotten the information at least four or five days sooner than she would have if she’d had to wait for it to be relayed from Spindle. Now Gervais sat back, reading quickly, and his expression grew bleaker with every sentence. Then he came to the tabular data at the end.

“Shit.”

He blushed suddenly, that dark magenta shade only a true redhead could accomplish, and looked up.

“Sorry about that, Ma’am. But…but—”

“But shit,” she said, nodding. “I’ve heard the term before. Even used it on occasion, Gwen. And I can’t say I fault your word choice.”

“What was the lunatic thinking?” Gervais shook his head. “I don’t think even Crandall would’ve fired in a situation like that!”

“I’m not so sure there’s anything Crandall wouldn’t have done,” Michelle. “On the other hand, you may have a point. And apparently there’s been some speculation back in Manticore about just how he might have been ‘helped’ into doing it.”

“More of that mind control stuff, Ma’am?” Gervais’ tone mingled disgust, apprehension, and doubt, and Michelle shrugged.

“I didn’t know, Gwen. Nobody knows what the damn stuff is or exactly how it works, and we’re way behind the curve out here, thanks to how slowly information from home gets to us. According to the most recent speculation Duchess Harrington’s shared with me, it’s not really mind control, though, and I have to wonder whether or not it would be capable of arranging something like this.”

Michelle sat silent for a handful of seconds, eyes narrowed and lips pursed while she considered the possibilities. Then her eyes refocused and she shrugged again.

“I’m afraid the most important point isn’t why he did it but that he did it,” she pointed out. “The cat, as my mother was always fond of saying when someone screwed up, is definitely amongst the pigeons now. Pile this on top of what happened to Crandall, and everybody’s on the back of the hexapuma. So if we don’t want to end up inside—or to lose a few fingers and toes to it, at least—I think it’s time we do something a bit more proactive than just waiting around for the next Solly fleet to sail obligingly into disaster.”

“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 Empress, and the Navy. And damnation to the Sollies!”