Shadow of Freedom

He moved from his observation post to the French doors that gave access to the apartment’s small balcony. The protective sandbags piled just inside them weren’t visible from ground level…and neither was the heavy, tripod-mounted tribarrel behind them. The field of fire wasn’t perfect, and MacLay was under no illusions about what the Uppies heavy weapons teams would do to his improvised perch once they located his position. But a man couldn’t have everything, and he expected he’d probably get to add at least a round dozen of them to his family’s vengeance first.

* * *

“It’s time for you to go Megan,” MacFadzean said flatly as she hung up the phone. “They’re headed straight for us, and we don’t have a prayer of stopping them.”

“And where do you expect me to go, Erin?” MacLean asked almost whimsically. “You want me to go hide in the logging camps? Put other people at risk for helping hide me?” She shook her head and reached for the pulse rifle leaning in the corner behind her. “I think not.”

“Don’t be stupid!” MacFadzean’s voice was sharper and she glared at the other woman. “You’re the League chairwoman—the one who can speak for us! Get the hell out of here, lie low, and then find a way to get off-world.”

“And do what?” MacLean demanded. “We’re done, Erin—we’ve lost, and nobody else in the entire galaxy gives one single solitary damn what happens here on Halkirk!”

“That’s not true,” MacFadzean said. MacLean stared at her in disbelief, and she shook her head. “I…didn’t tell you everything,” she said after a moment, looking away rather than meeting her friend’s eyes. “Our supplier for the weapons…he offered more than just guns, when the time came.”

“What are you talking about?” MacLean’s eyes had narrowed.

“He told me he could get us naval support.” MacFadzean turned back to face her fully. “When we were ready, if I got word to him, he was going to arrange things so we’d be the ones with starships in orbit.”

“That’s crazy! How was he supposed to do that? And why didn’t you tell me about it?!”

“I didn’t tell you about it because you already didn’t trust him,” MacFadzean’s voice was flatter than ever. “You may even have been right. Probably he and his friends were only helping us for their own ends, but he told me he wasn’t really a freelance arms dealer after all. That that was just his cover, a way to provide deniability if the wheels came off. He told me he was actually speaking for his own government, that his queen was ready to come into the open to support us if it looked like we might pull off our end of it, and I believed him. Hell, maybe I just needed to believe him! But if you can get off-world, find a way to contact him, maybe—”

She broke off, tears spangling her eyes, then shook herself savagely.

“Goddamn it, Megan! It’s all we’ve got left! You’re our chairwoman, if anyone can speak for us, you can! At least get out there and see to it that someone hears our side of what happened here. Don’t let the bastards just sweep us and Conerock and all the rest of this shit under the rug like it never even happened!”

MacLean stared at her for a moment, shaken to the marrow of her soul by the raw appeal in MacFadzean’s last sentence.

“I wouldn’t even know how to contact him,” she said finally. Something exploded in the near distance, the sound muffled but clear through the apartment building’s walls. “And that’s assuming I could get off-world in the first place.”

“Here.” MacFadzean tossed her a data chip. “The contact information’s on there.” She smiled crookedly. “It’s in my personal cipher, but you’ve got the key.”

MacLean caught the chip. She looked down at it for a moment, then clenched her fist around it.

“I’m not running out and leaving you and everyone else behind, Erin. I’m just not doing it.”

“Yes, you are,” MacFadzean told her as more explosions began to shake the command post. “You owe it to us.”

She locked eyes with the other woman, and it was MacLean’s gaze that fell.

“Jamie will get you out through one of the tunnels,” MacFadzean said then. “If the two of you can get out of Elgin, head for Haimer. I think our cell’s still secure there. Lie low for a few weeks, and Tobias MacGill—he’s the cell leader in Haimer—will fix you up with new papers. Then he and Jamie will get you onto one of the timber shuttles. From there…from there you’ll have to play it by ear, but you can do it, Megan. You have to.”

“I—”

MacLean tried to find one last argument, but she couldn’t, and there wasn’t much time. She looked at her friend, the friend she knew was about to die with all those other friends, and she could hardly see through the blur of her tears.

“All right,” she whispered. “I’ll try.”

“Good.” MacFadzean stepped around the table and enveloped her in a brief, crushing hug. “Good. Now go!”