Shadow of Freedom

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!”

July 1922 Post Diaspora

“Why is it that people like you always think you’re more ruthless than people like me?”

—Commodore Sir Aivars Terekhov,

Royal Manticoran Navy

Chapter Thirty

Lieutenant Commander Hiroshi Hammond, SLNS Oceanus’ tactical officer, had the watch. At the moment, he was tipped back in the chair at the center of the light cruiser’s command bridge, trying unsuccessfully to think about nothing at all as yet another late-night watch crept towards its end with all the fleetness of a crippled snail. There hadn’t been anything for Oceanus to do over the last local week or so, thank God, but he hated nights light this. Sitting in orbit around a backwater planet like Mobius Beta with nothing to do had to be the most mind-numbingly boring duty in the entire galaxy even at the best of times, far less times like these, and he hated the way it turned his mind inward, left him no choice but to contemplate things he’d far rather not think about at all.

Still, thinking about some things damned well beat hell out of actually doing

them. Hiroshi Hammond had been called upon to do some pretty crappy things during his career. That happened a lot in Frontier Fleet, whatever the recruiters said, and Hammond came from a well-established naval family. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t known that was the case going in. But the first week or so after their arrival in-system…that had been bad.

At least it’s going to be over soon, he told himself, gazing up at the deckhead, trying to close his mind to what was happening on the planet so far below his ship. One way or the other, it’s going to be over. And I’m not going to have to kill any more towns before it is.

Now if he could only figure out some way to absolve himself of his crushing sense of guilt for what he’d already done.

God damn Brigadier Yucel. The thought rolled through the back of his brain with the cold, measured precision of a prayer. His had been the hand that pressed the button, but the order had come from her, and if there was any justice in the universe—