Shadow of Freedom

“Assuming Thurgood’s sensor reports are accurate, I don’t see that we have a lot of choice, Lorcan,” Junyan Hongbo replied tartly from the com on the sector governor’s desk after a brief delay.

“The bastard could at least try to fight instead of just running away!”

“Why? What possible good could it do?” Hongbo asked bluntly. “We’re talking about twenty-eight ships-of-the-wall, Lorcan. Manty ships-of-the-wall!” He shook his head. “Thurgood’s ships would be toast against anybody’s wallers, but against Manties—?”

“But he’s just running for it!” Verrocchio half-wailed. “He’s abandoning the entire star system!”

“Which is the smartest thing he could possibly do, under the circumstances,” Hongbo shot back after another of those delays. “At least this way the Navy doesn’t lose his ships, too.”

Verrocchio started to say something else, then stopped, and his eyes narrowed suddenly. Unlike the sector governor, Hongbo wasn’t in the capital city of Pine Mountain. For that matter, he wasn’t even on the planet of Meyers. No, he was aboard Meyers One, the primary freight handling platform orbiting the planet. Or that was where he was supposed to be, anyway. But if he were on Meyers One, the com delay should be scarcely noticeable.

“Where are you, Junyan?” Verrocchio demanded.

“Why do you ask?” Hongbo responded.

“Just answer the damned question!”

“Well, as it happens,” Hongbo replied after that same brief but discernible delay, “I was aboard Wanderlust discussing those shipping arrangements of yours when Commodore Thurgood gave the alarm. I’m afraid Captain Herschel was adamant about getting underway immediately, and since her impellers happened to be hot at the moment—”

Hongbo shrugged, and Verrocchio’s jaw muscles clenched as his teeth ground together. Captain Martina Herschel of the merchant vessel Wanderlust had been the sector governor’s primary conduit for the clandestine movement of personal property acquired under…questionable circumstances for T-years. Hongbo had had some business of his own aboard Meyers One this afternoon, so Verrocchio had asked him to drop certain items off with Herschel before her scheduled departure.

A departure whose schedule had obviously been moved up substantially.

“Of course there wasn’t time for you to get back aboard the station,” he grated after a moment, and Hongbo shrugged again.

“The Captain was very insistent, Lorcan.”

“I see.”

Verrocchio glared at the vice commissioner, yet even as he did, he knew he would have done precisely the same thing in Hongbo’s place. Of course, Hongbo was abandoning a sizable chunk of personal wealth and possessions, but like every other Frontier Security commissioner or vice commissioner—including Lorcan Verrochio—he’d squirreled away the majority of his assets elsewhere. And it was unlikely any of his colleagues or superiors were going to fault his conduct in running for it if the opportunity presented itself. It wasn’t as if there were anything he could have accomplished by staying, especially if the system’s naval defenders had already decided to hightail it. And the final responsibility for what happened here in the Meyers System and in the Madras Sector generally was Lorcan Verrocchio’s, not his.

“Have a nice voyage,” the sector governor said sarcastically, and cut the connection.

Bastard, he thought, burying his face in his hands. Wonder how much he promised Herschel for his passage?

He sat that way for several seconds, then straightened. Unlike Hongbo, he was expected to ride the ship down in flames in a situation like this. Or that was what the rulebook said, anyway. But no Solarian sector governor had ever actually found himself in “a situation like this” before, so when it came down to it…

Verrocchio’s eyes narrowed. There hadn’t been very much hyper-capable shipping in Meyers when the sensor platforms picked up the Manties’ arrival, and Thurgood had ordered all of it to get underway and scatter towards the hyper limit as soon as possible. That was exactly what Wanderlust had done, but two other freighters had been in parking orbit at the same time, and he wondered suddenly if they’d be been able to get their impellers online quickly enough to run for it. According to Thurgood, the Manties were still three hours out. Assuming they opted for a zero-zero rendezvous with the planet, that was. Which they had to be planning on, didn’t they? But if either of those other two freighters could get their impellers up and running, it would be his duty as the Madras Sector’s governor to see to the protection and orderly governance of the rest of the sector, wouldn’t it? From one of the uncaptured and still-defiant star systems like, say…McIntosh. Which just happened to be fifty-plus light-years away from Meyers.

Of course it would!

He reached for his com again.

* * *