Shadow of Freedom

“As I say, I was about to write him off when Ensign Zilwicki suggested a third possibility to me. I realize some people”—he carefully refrained from looking in Admiral Munming’s direction—“may be inclined to wonder if her father’s…radicalism, let’s say, might affect her judgment. I don’t happen to think that’s very likely in her case, but even if it were, her suggestion still made a lot of sense to me.”

“And that suggestion was, Sir Aivars?” Munming asked, but she was eyeing him intently, and her tone suggested she’d already figured out where he was headed.

“Ensign Zilwicki suggested that it’s possible we—and, for that matter, the resistance people in Mobius—are being set up, but not by Frontier Security. As she pointed out, it’s obvious from Crandall’s movements that Mesa must have put her into play at the same time they started providing battlecruisers to Monica. Which, just coincidentally, would have been about the same time Ankenbrandt says his resistance organization was initially contacted by ‘Manticore.’ Or, for that matter, the time somebody began talking to Mr. Westman here on Montana and Nordbrandt in Kornati.”

“You’re suggesting it’s actually this Mesan Alignment, Commodore?” Roddick said slowly.

“The original notion wasn’t mine, Admiral, but I think it makes a lot of sense. Especially if the rather sketchy information we have so far from home is accurate and Mesa’s been maneuvering us into a shooting confrontation with the League all along. If one of the local régimes or OFS itself were to break a resistance movement, all of whose leaders genuinely believed they’d been instigated, coordinated, and supplied by the Star Empire, how do you think the League would have reacted even before our current confrontations?”

There was silence for several seconds. Then Oversteegen nodded.

“Always did think Helen had a pretty good head on her shoulders,” he drawled. “An’ sometimes a little paranoia’s a useful thing. And speakin’ about bein’ paranoid, does anyone think—assumin’ this little scenario holds atmosphere—that the bastards would’ve stopped with settin’ up one resistance movement?”

“I don’t know about ‘anyone,’” Michelle said, “but I don’t. Assuming, as you say, Ensign Zilwicki’s hypothesis holds atmosphere. And I’m very much afraid it could. For that matter, I’m afraid there’s still worse to come” She cocked her head at the commodore. “Would you care to go ahead and share the rest of your unpleasant ruminations with everyone else, as well, Aivars?”

“I wouldn’t like to take complete credit for them, Ma’am,” Terekhov pointed out. “In fact, once Helen—Ensign Zilwicki, I mean—had gone that far, another rather nasty thought occurred to her. If this really is Mesa, and if they’ve contacted not just Mobius but other independent or protectorate star systems out this way, what happens when the balloons start going up? When OFS and Frontier Fleet move in to put down the ‘rebellions’ and the blood starts to flow? It wouldn’t just be a matter of the PR damage we’d take in the League. Bad enough hundreds or thousands of people would be killed, but if dozens of resistance movements start sending us messengers like Mr. Ankenbrandt, expecting the open assistance and support they’ve been promised, and we don’t deliver, what happens to the tendency for independent star systems to trust us more than the Sollies?”

“Those fucking bastards,” Ruddock said softly, then shook himself. “Sorry about that, Milady,” he said apologetically, “but I believe Commodore Terekhov and—Ensign Zilwicki—have just converted my skepticism into something else.” His eyes hardened dangerously. “You’ve almost got to admire them. Aside from the time they’ve invested in it, look how little it’s cost them to set all this up!”

“That thought occurred to me, too, when Commodore Terekhov first shared this whole fascinating train of thought with me,” Michelle said sourly. “And it leads to an interesting quandary, doesn’t it?”

Heads nodded all around the table, and she inhaled sharply.

“All right.” She sat up straighter, tapping an index finger on the table for emphasis as she continued. “All of this is hypothetical, of course. I’m not going to pretend I don’t think there’s something to it, though. And, to be honest, there are some potential upsides to the situation. For one thing, although I don’t think the strategy ever actually occurred to anyone on our side, it really is a damned good way to force the League to disperse its efforts. That’s one of the things that’s going to make our supposed complicity so convincing to the Sollies when the shit finally gets around to hitting the fan. At the same time, we don’t have any way to know how many other Mobiuses may be ticking away out there. And the truth is that Ensign Zilwicki’s final hypothesis is downright scary. The damage this could do to the Star Empire’s reputation outside the League doesn’t bear thinking about.”

She looked around the table again.