Shadow of Freedom: Chapter Eight

    “You know,” Michelle Henke said thoughtfully, tipped back in her chair with her feet propped somewhat inelegantly on the coffee table, “these Sollies are beginning to severely piss me off.”

    “No, really?” Captain Cynthia Lecter raised her eyebrows. “I find that difficult to believe, Ma’am.”

    Michelle chuckled, although the sound was a bit sour, then glanced up as Chris Billingsley appeared with Lecter’s whiskey glass and Michelle’s own bottle of beer. Over the years, she’d developed a pronounced preference for Honor Harrington’s favorite Old Tillman. In fact, her friend had actually converted her to the barbarism of drinking it chilled, and she smiled as she accepted the cold bottle from her steward, then made a face as Dicey hopped up into her lap. The cat landed with a pronounced thump, butted her chest twice with his broad, scarred head, then settled down possessively with a deep, rumbling purr.

    “This monster is your cat, isn’t it, Chris?” she demanded.

    “Yes, Ma’am,” Billingsley acknowledged imperturbably.

    “I just wondered,” she said, rubbing Dicey between the ears in token of abject surrender. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

    “You’re welcome, Ma’am.” Billingsley smiled benignly and withdrew, and Michelle shook her head and returned her attention to Lecter.

    “As I was saying, these Sollies are beginning to get on my nerves. And I wish to hell I understood what Dueñas thinks he’s going to accomplish with this.”

    “Assuming our information about what he’s supposed to’ve done is correct, of course, Ma’am,” Lecter pointed out.

    “I realize we have to keep our minds open to all possibilities, Cynthia, but say that again with a straight face,” Michelle challenged. “Just what mistake have the Sollies passed up making that would encourage that sort of optimism?”

    “I can’t think of one right off hand,” Lecter acknowledged, “but that’s not to say they couldn’t have avoided at least one somewhere without our noticing.”

    “Maybe so, but I’m not inclined to believe it was in Saltash.”

    Michelle’s tone was darker, her expression less amused, and her chief of staff nodded in less than delighted agreement.

    Michelle nodded back and sipped beer, continuing to rub Dicey’s head, as she contemplated the latest unpleasant decision to land on her desk.

    I suppose we’re lucky Lörscher was on his way to Montana anyway and decided to share the news with us, she thought.

    Michelle and her detachment of Tenth Fleet had arrived in Montana less than three days ago, and she was still in the process of settling down to her new duty station. She’d visited Montana before, on her initial swing through the Talbott Quadrant back before everything had gone to hell in a handbasket, but it had been a brief visit, little more than a quick look in. This time, unless (or, rather, until) something else went wrong, she’d be here for a while, and she’d plunged into a round of courtesy calls with the local system government and the local business sector. Along the way, she’d met — briefly — the infamous Stephen Westman. Abbreviated although their meeting had been, she’d recognized a kindred soul in Westman; they were both the sort of people who had a tendency to demolish obstacles with the handiest blunt instrument. Stubborn, too, the both of them.

    She was also getting a better feel for the system’s economy, and she’d begun to understand why Montana had been one of the more affluent of the old Talbott Sector star systems. Montana beef was among the best Michelle had ever tasted, and the system’s location put it within a couple of hundred light years of over a dozen other star systems. For that matter, it was only two hundred and ten light-years from the Mesa Terminus which had given it direct access to the heart of the Solarian League and the Core Worlds’ spoiled, wealthy gourmands even before the Lynx Terminus’ discovery. Two light-centuries wasn’t all that far for the fast freighters which served the meat packing trade, and Montana shipped literally millions of tons of beef a month. None of which even considered the ranchers’ ability to penetrate new markets now that Lynx had been discovered.

    Always assuming the entire explored galaxy didn’t decide to blow itself straight to hell, of course.

    What mattered at the moment, however, was that it was Montana’s beef production which had brought Captain Li-hau Lörscher, of the Andermani freighter Angelika Thörnich to the star system. He hadn’t expected to see a full squadron of Manticoran ships-of-the-wall — not to mention battlecruisers, CLACs, cruisers, destroyers, and supply ships — waiting for him here, but he’d grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

    “You know, Ma’am,” Lecter said after a moment, “it could all be misinformation.”

    “I thought about that,” Michelle acknowledged, sipping more beer, but then she shrugged. “Lörscher seems to be exactly who he says he is, though. And he’s got a half dozen regular suppliers here in Montana who’re prepared to vouch for him.” She shook her head. “Someone who’s been on the same run for over ten T-years isn’t likely to be a plant, and he’s got a wife and family back in the Empire. It’s not as if he could just disappear afterward if he’d decided to sell us a bill of goods. Besides, I don’t think Emperor Gustav would be especially happy with him if it turned out he was deliberately passing us false information. It might land not only us but the Andermani in the middle of a fresh manipulated incident with the Sollies, and I sort of doubt Gustav’s going to be real eager about joining an anti-League crusade even if he is currently our ally against Haven. For that matter, there’s the question of who’d want to ‘misinform’ us about something like this. I agree healthy suspicion is indicated, especially given everything that’s already gone down out here, but still…”

    She shrugged again, and her chief of staff nodded slowly. Lecter’s expression remained troubled, though, and her eyes were thoughtful as she took a sip of whiskey.

    “I agree Lörscher’s probably exactly who he says he is, Ma’am, and I’ll agree that I wouldn’t want to be the Andermani merchant skipper who pissed off the Emperor by lying to his allies. That doesn’t automatically mean he isn’t, though. And what sticks in my mind is that if Manpower or Mesa really has been manipulating things out this way, feeding us something that would draw us into a potential — another potential — incident with the Sollies might suit their playbook just fine.”

    “The thought had crossed my own mind,” Michelle agreed.

    “Well, if that’s what this is, then Lörscher very probably could be telling us the truth…insofar as he knows it, that is. He could have been lied to and sent out to lie to us. though. For that matter, if the Saltash System governor’s in Mesa’s pocket like Verrocchio — or even like New Tuscany was, when you come down to it — Lörscher could be telling us the truth about what actually happened and it could still be a trap designed to draw us into yet another confrontation with the League.”

    “Agreed.” Michelle nodded more grimly, but her tone was firm.

    It was one of Lecter’s functions to look for the hidden hook inside any potential bait that came Tenth Fleet’s way. And God knew there’d been enough skullduggery over the last several months to turn anyone paranoid. In fact, the truth was that despite her own comment to Lecter, she could readily see how whoever was manipulating the situation might relish the possibility of piling another incident with the Solarian League onto the fire. Unfortunately…

    “I think we have to assume Lörscher’s telling the truth,” she said. “And one of the reasons I’m inclined to think this isn’t deliberate misinformation on anyone’s part is that Montana’s where Lörscher was headed all along, but no one could’ve known we’d be here when he got here. He’d probably have passed the information along anyway, but it would’ve taken two weeks for a dispatch boat to get word back to Spindle even if Montana had one ready to go on zero notice. If they wanted to draw us into doing something unfortunate, I think they would have sent their messenger directly to either Spindle or Lynx, where they could’ve been sure of finding the Navy waiting for them and drawing a quicker response.”

    “There is that, Ma’am,” Lecter acknowledged.

    “And, frankly, the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter whether or not this is a set up,” Michelle said in a harsher tone. “Either Dueñas really has impounded one of our merchies, or he hasn’t. Whoever we send is going to have to mind his feet and be sure he doesn’t step on any tender Solly sensibilities if this is some sort of misinformation. But if it’s not — if Dueñas has done what Lörscher says he has — then I really don’t care who put him up to it.”

    Lecter’s eyes widened in alarm, and Michelle chuckled coldly.

    “I’m not going all berserk on you, Cynthia,” she said. “But the bottom line is that one of our primary missions ever since there’s been a Navy has always been the protection of Manticoran commerce. Nothing in any orders I’ve seen has changed that. And they haven’t put any limitations on who we’re supposed to protect our commerce and our merchant spacers from, either. I don’t know if this was Dueñas’ own brainstorm or if someone put him up to it, and it doesn’t matter, when you come down to it. Maybe it is an effort to create a deliberate provocation, but even if it is, it’s one we can’t ignore or back away from. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to, either.” She showed her teeth. “In fact, that’s one of the main reasons I haven’t already jumped on it. I wanted to make sure I had myself on a short enough leash to give some thought to it, first.”

    “I’ve known you a while, Ma’am,” Lecter observed. “And if you’ll pardon my saying so, it sounds to me like you’ve done most of the thinking you intend to do.”

    “Yep.” Michelle gave Dicey’s head another rub and nodded her own. “I think this should be right up Zavala’s alley. And a destroyer squadron — especially one that’s a little understrength — will be a lot less threatening than a division of battlecruisers.”

    “Do you think five tincans will be enough to convince a Solly system governor to back down?”

    “When they’re bigger than most Solly light cruisers, I think the odds are probably pretty damned good,” Michelle said. “And I’d prefer to tailor our response to the nature of the mission. I don’t want to use any bigger club than we have to, which is one reason I’m thinking Zavala would be a good choice. He won’t take any crap, but he’s not going to come in throwing around threats until he’s at least tried to get them to see reason. And, to be honest, I can’t really afford to start slicing off detachments of cruisers or battlecruisers — not when the whole notion is to maintain a concentrated force here in Montana.”

    And not when I don’t know when the next Lörscher’s likely to turn up with somewhere else I need to send a detachment, she added silently.

    “I follow your logic, Ma’am,” Lecter said, which wasn’t precisely the same thing as saying she agreed with it, Michelle noted. “Should I assume you want to speak to Zavala personally before we send him off?”

    “I definitely do.” Michelle nodded firmly. “This isn’t something you send someone off to do without making damned sure she understands her orders, and that those orders are going to cover her backside if it all goes south on her.”

    “Understood, Ma’am,” Lecter replied, although the chief of staff could think of quite a few flag officers she’d known who would’ve been more concerned with covering their own backsides than that of the officer they’d designated to carry out a mission like this one.

    “Good.” Michelle took a final pull at her beer, then leaned forward and set the empty bottle on the coffee table. Dicey gave her a disgusted look as her lap moved under him, then relented and gave her a parting head butt of affection before he hopped down. She smiled as the cat meandered out, then looked back at Lecter. “I’d like to have him underway within the next twelve hours.”

    “I’ll see to it, Ma’am.” The chief of staff tossed back the last of her whiskey and set the glass beside Michelle’s bottle. Then she rose, nodded respectfully to Michelle, and headed for the day cabin’s door.

    Michelle watched her go, then she climbed out of her own chair and keyed the holo display above her desk, frowning at the steadily blinking icon of the star called Saltash.

    I sure as hell hope it isn’t some kind of set up, Cynthia, she thought after her vanished chief of staff. I talk a good stiff upper lip and all that, but I really, really don’t want to step into it all over again with the damned Sollies.

    It was like picking her way without a map through a waist-deep swamp she knew was filled with patches of quicksand and poorly fed alligators. There was so damned much treachery, so many crosscurrents of deception, so much Solarian arrogance and resentment, and so many things which could go disastrously wrong. The temptation was to fort up, go strictly onto the defensive to avoid the kind of mistakes which could only make the situation worse. But as she’d told Lecter, that wasn’t an option in this case. If Lörscher was right about what was going on in Saltash, Michelle had to act.

    And I hope to hell this doesn’t go as badly for Zavala’s squadron as things went for it in New Tuscany, too, she thought.