Shadow of Freedom

“Damián, he just took out four battlecruisers! You think the destroyers we’ve got left are going to faze him?”

“He wouldn’t dare!”

“Damn it, what universe are you living in?!” Tiilikainen stared at him. “There were eight thousand spacers on those battlecruisers, and he just blew them the hell away. He may be crazy, but based on his actions to date, don’t you think we’d better assume he’s willing to go right on doing exactly what he’s said he’ll do?”

“He won’t.” Dueñas shook his head stubbornly. “It’s one thing to attack warships, Cicely, but there’s no way he’d dare to attack the civilian infrastructure of a star system under the League’s protection. He knows what we’d do to his pissant ‘Star Empire’ if he did anything like that!”

“You’re delusional,” Tiilikainen said flatly.

“You watch your tongue, Lieutenant Governor Tiilikainen!” Dueñas snapped.

“All right.” Her voice was tight, but she nodded choppily. “You’re the Governor, Sir, and this is your plan. So you tell me why you think he won’t escalate this to whatever level he thinks he has to to get what he wants?”

“I already did,” he grated. “The Manties are trying to sell themselves to the rest of the galaxy as the innocent victims of the piece, the plucky little guy willing to stand up against the big bad bully of the Solarian League. God knows they’ve been telling anyone who’d listen how all of those poor, oppressed citizens of the Talbott Cluster begged for admission into the Star Empire and whining about the way they’ve been ‘forced’ to defend themselves to protect their citizens! They may think they’ll be able to sell that load of bullshit as far as confrontations with the Navy are concerned, but as soon as they start inflicting civilian casualties all their noble innocence goes right out the damn window, and they know it.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Tiilikainen’s tone was flatter than ever and she locked gazes with him. “I think this Zavala’s not going to take any crap, Damián. And I think he just showed us exactly why we better not try to hand him any more of it. You know as well as I do that he’s got you dead to rights on the provisions of the Treaty of Beowulf. We’re in the wrong under interstellar law—you know that as well as I do—and he’s going to push it however far and hard he has to to get what he was sent here to get. And after he does, the Manties are going to tell the entire galaxy that whoever got hurt along the way, it was our fault.”

“No!”

She maintained lock with his eyes, both of them ignoring Kodou as he watched them from Dueñas’ com. Silence hovered for several seconds, and then, finally, Tiilikainen drew a deep breath.

“You’re going to insist on turning this into a complete disaster, aren’t you?” she said almost conversationally.

His jaw muscles tightened, but she went on in that same, calm tone before he could respond.

“Well, I can’t stop you. As you just pointed out, I’m only the Lieutenant Governor, and you’ve got the authority to do whatever you want to do. But I’m going on record now, officially, as recommending we give the Manties what they want and don’t provoke them into killing anyone else. I won’t be a party to any more insanity.”

“You’ll follow my instructions!” Dueñas snapped.

“Oh no, I won’t.” She shook her head. “You’ve gotten enough people killed for one day—you and Dubroskaya between you. I’m not going to help kill any more of them. And before you go charging off to make things even worse, I recommend you think about what Zavala told you in the beginning. MacArtney’s going to want your head for a paperweight already. You really want to make him more pissed off at you?”

Under the surface of Dueñas’ rage—and panic—a little voice whispered that Tiilikainen was right. It would be insane of Zavala to push the League even harder, but he’d already demonstrated the extent of his craziness. And the rest of the frigging Manties were just as crazy as he was.

This was all because of his sister’s letter, he thought now. Given the system’s isolation and the slowness with which interstellar news moved, Saltash was almost completely out of the loop. But Dueñas’ sister had married a senior assistant undersecretary of the interior, and her last, gossipy letter (outpacing official correspondence, as private mail had a tendency to do) had mentioned rumors the Star Empire might recall its merchant fleet from Solarian shipping lanes. That would have been a blatantly hostile act—an economic act of war, really—against the entire League, and he’d found it difficult to believe even the Manties might do something like that. But then he’d realized they really might…and that because of Manuela’s letter, he probably knew something the Manties out here didn’t know yet themselves.