Shadow of Freedom

“Well, after examining Brewster’s equipment, it’s obvious someone’s managed to stockpile even more off-world weapons than we thought. Given all of the deep cover informants we’ve got out there, that says more than I want to hear about how good the MLF’s security is. I know Friedemann’s just pointed out that we haven’t managed to get anyone inside the MLF itself, but we damned well ought to have enough surveillance system and human intelligence sources out there to at least be able to spot modern weapons moving in quantities like this.” She shrugged. “We didn’t.”

Lombroso suppressed a desire to throttle her. Strong as the temptation was, he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, what she’d just said was self-evidently true, and at least she’d had the nerve to say it.

“Friedemann?” he said, looking at Mátyás.

“Olivia’s right. We’ve always known they were better than anyone else who’s come along, but I’m beginning to think we’ve underestimated them for some time, anyway.”

Lombroso jaw muscles clenched as he glared at the two of them. They were his senior security officers. It wasn’t a case of “we’ve underestimated” the MLF; it was a case ofthe two of them underestimatingthe terrorist bastards, and he considered pointing that out. Unfortunately, it would have accomplished exactly nothing.

“All right,” he said once he was certain he had his voice under control. “So you’ve underestimated them.” He emphasized the personal pronoun only very slightly, but Yardley’s hazel eyes glinted with anger anyway. Mátyás had better control than that, probably because he wasn’t the one in the primary line of fire at the moment. “Obviously, it’s time you stopped doing that. So how bad does the situation look now?”

Yardley’s eyes didn’t soften. For a moment, she seemed to hover on the brink of something rash, but apparently she realized no one was genuinely irreplaceable when it came down to it.

“I’m not really certain,” she admitted levelly. “Things are clearly escalating since the riots last month. My best estimate is that the MLF leadership doesn’t want to escalate, though.”

“What?” Lombroso interrupted. He stared at her in disbelief. “They just fucking wrecked Trifecta Tower and killed Guernicke! Nobody’s ever done that kind of damage to use before!”

“Brewster and his team did,” Yardley acknowledged. “But there was no MLF statement about the attack until it was all over. And even then, their ‘Commandant Alpha,’ whoever the hell he is, didn’t claim direct credit for it.” She shook her head. “I think Brewster and the others put this together on their own. They were obviously MLF, because nobody else’s that good, and as far as we know, nobody else has the kind of off-world weapons support they seem to have. But I don’t think Commandant Alpha or the rest of his cadre knew anything about it before we did. And I don’t think they’d have okayed Brewster’s plan if he’d asked them to authorize it, either.”

Lombroso shook his head.

“I’d think those bastards would be getting behind and pushing for all they’re worth!” he said. “What the hell makes you think they aren’t?”

“Because they’re not ready,” Yardley said flatly. “That’s what Friedemann and I have been talking about. They’ve got some modern weapons on-planet, yes, but not anywhere near as many as they want. We’ve confiscated around a hundred pulsers—total—so far. Most of them aren’t new, but they’re all in first-class condition; it looks like they’ve been refurbished as needed by some very competent armorers. But we’ve been picking them up in ones and twos. Frankly, most of them got grabbed because someone just pretty much stumbled over them, and Brewster’s team is the first one we’ve seen armed entirely with military-grade pulse rifles. I think they’ve got more of them than we thought they had, but we’re still picking up substantially greater quantities of old-fashioned chemical-powered firearms. So they’ve made an off-world connection somewhere, but they still don’t have enough modern weapons to go around. And without more modern firepower, they’re going to be at a significant tactical disadvantage in any confrontation with us, much less any Solly intervention battalions. They know that.” She shrugged again. “That being the case, my analysts say the leadership cadre can’t be in favor of opening the dance this early.”

“Then what the fuck is going on?” Lombroso demanded. “We’ve got transit bombings, ambushes of isolated security forces, and more acts of minor sabotage and cyber attacks than I even want to think about. All in addition to what happened to Guernicke, of course!”