Shadow of Freedom

That was the starting point of his entire strategy: to act boldly on the information fortune had given him and preempt the Manties’ plans. By moving quickly, proactively, he’d managed to stop the Carolyn and Argonaut before their ships’ companies had a clue what was happening, and then Dubroskaya’s battlecruisers had turned up, like a gift from God Himself, to supplement the miserable trio of destroyers he’d expected to have on hand. He’d been perfectly positioned to demonstrate that the League wasn’t going to stand for such blatant economic aggression without retaliating…and to draw the Manties into showing their true colors and then forcing them to back down in the face of Solarian resolution and strength.

Which would just happen to make the career of one Damián Dueñas in the process.

And he’d been right, he told himself. He’d been right all along about what the Manties were really like, and Zavala’s actions here in Saltash proved it! He just hadn’t realized how insanely far they were truly prepared to go, and Dubroskaya’s clumsy and complete incompetence had let the Manties get in another lucky—and treacherous—blow. But that wasn’t how it was going to look back in Old Chicago. No, what Old Chicago was going to see was the destruction of four battlecruisers and whatever ass-covering version of events Tiilikainen turned in. She’d lay at all off on him in her report—he could see that already!—and MacArtney would throw him out of the air car at five thousand meters to keep any of this from spattering Frontier Security’s upper echelons.

Give it up, that little voice said. Give it up before it gets even worse

.

He wavered, but then he clenched his jaw and stiffened his spine. That was the kind of voice losers listened to. The kind of voice that ended with a man’s career shuffled off forever into meaningless, dead-end assignments. What he needed was to demonstrate resolve. To show that no matter what the odds, he recognized the need to uphold the Solarian League’s authority! Dubroskaya might have let herself be defeated by five stinking little light cruisers, and Tiilikainen might let herself be panicked into forgetting her responsibilities, forgetting that OFS’ ability to do its job depended on facing down upstarts like the Star Empire of Manticore when they got above themselves. But Damián Dueñas wasn’t going to forget!

“It may be that this Manticoran butcher is a big enough lunatic to attack civilians under the Office of Frontier Security’s protection,” he said coldly. “The Solarian League’s made its position on this sort of action very plain, however, Lieutenant Governor Tiilikainen. We do

not bargain with, and we do not make concessions to, neobarbs who threaten or even commit acts of terroristic violence against us or against the civilians we’re charged to protect. You know as well as I do that that’s been League policy for over two T-centuries!”

“You’re even crazier than Zavala.” Tiilikainen shook her head. “Look around you, Damián! What the hell are you going to use to stop him from doing whatever he wants?!”

“Maybe I won’t

be able to stop him,” Dueñas said, settling back in the comfortable chair behind his huge desk and squaring his shoulders resolutely. “But unlike some people, I’m going to do my job. If he chooses to push this still further, then any additional consequences will be his responsibility, not anyone else’s! I’ll go far enough to agree to ask for instructions from higher authority, but that’s as far as I’ll bend. Anything else would be a violation of standing policy, as well as an act of abject cowardice.”

Tiilikainen looked at him for a long moment. Then she shook her head again. There was something almost like pity under the anger in her eyes…and a lot more of something that looked a great deal like contempt to keep it company.

“You may think you’ll be able to sell that to the Ministry,” she said finally. “You may even think you’ll be able to sell it to the newsies as a way to keep MacArtney from hammering you for this. But you’re wrong. You won’t be able to, and it won’t save you. The only thing you’re going to manage is to get still more people killed.” The last four words came out with a slow, measured emphasis, and her eyes were deadly. “You may be going to take my career down the toilet with you, and I can’t stop you from doing that. But I, for one, refuse to be responsible for still more death and destruction. You do whatever you want to, Governor. I’m out of here.”