Shadow of Freedom

“The schedules aren’t cast in ceramacrete, if that’s what you mean,” Mackenzie said. “They usually hit within, oh, a local week or so of their regular departure times, though.” She shrugged. “That’s for the freighters, of course. The dispatch boats are on a lot more irregular schedule.”

“But you could count on getting one off within a one-T-month window?”

“Oh, that we could do,” Indiana assured him.

“All right. I’m going to give you a code phrase for Admiral Gold Peak. When she hears it, she’ll know I sent you, and on that basis, she’ll be prepared to dispatch an appropriate naval force to support you immediately.” Actually, it would probably finish off any chance Gold Peak might believe them. Since there was no such code phrase, she’d have to take it as proof that their messenger was an imposter, but there was no point worrying them with that, he thought. “With that in mind, would you be prepared to go ahead and kick off your ‘short-range’ plan within, say, two T-months of having sent off your messenger?”

“I don’t know,” Mackenzie said hesitantly. “Without having coordinated directly with Gold Peak, without knowing support is on its way, we’d be asking our people to take an awful risk.”

“I realize that, but this is the kind of business risks have to be taken in,” Harahap pointed out. “And you’d be in complete control of whether or not you sent the messenger in the first place. It would be a case of your having looked at the situation here in Seraphim and decided you really can pull it off, assuming you get Admiral Gold Peak’s naval support before anybody from OFS or Frontier Fleet could respond to McCready. If you aren’t satisfied you can do that, then you never send your messenger off in the first place.”

Indiana was nodding thoughtfully, and Mackenzie looked at her brother with a worried expression. He saw it and smiled at her.

“I’m not going to rush off into anything without your support, Max,” he reassured her. “But Firebrand has a point. We’d be the ones calling the shots.”

“Could we do that and then wait until Admiral Gold Peak actually gets here?” Mackenzie asked.

“I suppose.” Harahap injected a doubtful note into his tone, and both Grahams looked at him. He shrugged. “Look, I understand your concerns. But the Star Empire’s up against it, too, you know. We’ve supported you this far, as the weapons shipments you’ve already received indicate. We’d like to support you further, and as I explained to you the first time we met, it wouldn’t be in our interest to encourage people to revolt and then stand back and watch them get the chop.

“All of that’s true, but I also have to say that we’ve got to allocate our resources carefully. Not things like weapons shipments. Those we can arrange basically whenever and wherever we need to. But we’re talking about warships, about naval support, and we’re up against the Solarian League, the biggest navy in the history of the galaxy. If you can’t commit to a specific date for your own organization to strike until you’ve actually got Manticoran warships in orbit around the planet, you’re probably going to get pushed further down the priorities queue. I’m not trying to make any kind of threat here, or give you any kind of ultimatum. I’m just saying that if Admiral Gold Peak is looking at requests for support, she’s probably going to give priority to the people running the greatest risks. And if she’s strapped for light units, she’s probably not going to give very much priority to somebody who tells her they can’t take action until they have Manticoran units actually in their skies. She’ll figure that if you’re waiting for that kind of response, you won’t be coming into the open until you get it, and if you’re not out in the open, you’re probably not going to take any heavy hits from the scags, so she can afford to let you wait while she deals with more pressing commitments.”

“You’re saying she’d refuse to send us support?” Indiana asked.

“No, I’m saying there’d be a good chance she’d move you down the list.” Harahap shrugged. “She’d probably send word back by your contact telling you how soon she’d be able to free up units to send in your direction. It might not be very long. On the other hand, given how other operations go, it could be you’d be looking at your original two or three-T-year timeframe. More probably, it would fall somewhere in the middle.”

The Grahams looked at each other again. Indiana raised one eyebrow, and Mackenzie shrugged. Then he turned back to Harahap.

“We understand what you’re saying. We understand the logic behind it, too. And the truth is, as I’m sure you realized before you said it, that there’s no way we want to leave our dad—or anyone else—rotting in Terrabore Prison one minute longer than we have to. We’ll look at our options, and at our communications channels, and see what we can do. I don’t think there’s any way we could possibly give you an answer before you have to leave the system, but we will make our minds up as quickly as possible.”