Shadow of Freedom

“It’s not.” He shook his head. “What’s going to happen is that Admiral Gold Peak is about to launch an offensive out of the Talbott Cluster in the next month or so.” He met Mackenzie’s eyes levelly, confident in his ability to lie convincingly. “Her main objective is going to be the Madras Sector,” he continued, blithely ignoring the fact that Gold Peak almost certainly wasn’t going to do anything of the sort. “That’s going to require most of her heavy units, but it should leave plenty of cruisers and destroyers available for…other duties, let’s say. Like turning up here in Seraphim to provide you with some orbital support. And to make sure Frontier Fleet doesn’t provide any orbital support to McCready and O’Sullivan.”

Mackenzie looked at him for several moments before, finally, she nodded slowly. It actually made sense, she thought. Assuming Gold Peak managed to meet the schedule Harahap had described. And assuming there was some way to coordinate properly.

“Do you need an answer tonight?” she asked.

“To be honest, I’d prefer one as soon as possible,” Harahap said, and this time he was telling the truth. “On the other hand, I know this came at you completely cold, and the last thing either of us needs is for you to rush into something that’s just going to get you all killed without accomplishing anything for us. I’ll be on-planet for another couple of days, so you’ve got that long to think about it, but then I’m going to have to move on to my next destination.”

“I don’t know if we can have a decision for you that quickly,” Indiana put in. He looked across the table at his sister, then back at Harahap. “We’d be putting a lot of people at risk, and we’re going to have to go back and evaluate the assumptions of our contingency plans.”

“I can understand that. But if I head out of the Seraphim System, I take your communications link with me.” He grimaced. “Once I’m out of here, I won’t be able to communicate with Admiral Gold Peak to warn her you’re planning to move.”

“We might be able to work around that,” Mackenzie said slowly, and Harahap’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t expected to hear that.

“How?” he asked. He’d hoped giving them a two-day window would push them into making a decision, and he was none too delighted by the suggestion that there was a factor in the equation that he hadn’t known about.

“Mendoza of Córdoba imports beef from Montana,” Mackenzie said. “They make regular trips, and they maintain an irregular schedule of dispatch boats between here and Meyers. About half the time, the boat stops off in Montana to check on market conditions, see about renegotiating contracts if the market price’s changed, that sort of thing.” She shrugged. “We’ve got contacts in the crews of some of the freighters on the Montana run. For that matter, we’ve got contacts on at least two of the dispatch boat crews. It’s about twenty-eight T-days from here to Montana by dispatch boat; more like six T-weeks for one of the high-speed freighters. If we can use the dispatch boat, we could get a message to Meyers in a couple of T-months. If we have to use the freighter and arrange a message relay from Montana, we might be looking at as much as four T-months. Maybe even longer.”

“I didn’t know about that,” Harahap admitted truthfully.

And I wish you didn’t know about it, either, he added silently. On the other hand, as far as I know Gold Peak isn’t going anywhere near Meyers without direct orders from home. So, worst-case scenario, you get a message to Montana in two months. Hmmm…

He thought about it. The odds were that any messenger from Seraphim would be regarded as a nutcase, if not a Solarian agent provocateur, by any Manticoran naval officer. The Manties certainly weren’t going fall all over themselves dispatching warships into Solarian territory on some wild goose chase substantiated by nothing more than somebody who claimed his revolutionary organization had been in contact with them all along! In fact, he could probably help that reaction along just a bit.

“All right,” he said, nodding with an expression of profound relief. “Actually, I’m relieved to hear you have another means of communication. I’d still prefer to know what your plans are before I have to leave, for a lot of reasons, but I can understand why you’re going to have to think about this, and at least you’re not as dependent on us as I thought you’d be to communicate with Admiral Gold Peak. Is your contact arrangement such that you know now if you’d be able to send a message off?”