Shadow of Freedom

She turned on her heel and stalked out, slamming the old-fashioned door behind her, and a scalding tide of fury darkened Dueñas’ face. He came halfway to his feet, mouth opening to order her back into his office, but he stopped himself in time. She obviously wouldn’t obey him, and there was no point letting her make her defiance even clearer. Besides, he could use this when it was time for him to write his report. Evidence of still more disloyalty, cowardice, and incompetence from his subordinates would only underscore his own determination and refusal to yield to a homicidal maniac’s demands.

He settled back into his chair and inhaled deeply. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, willing his temper back under control, commanding himself to focus. When he was confident he had himself back in hand, he opened his eyes once more and looked at Kodou’s holographic image.

“Put Captain Zavala through, Maxence,” he said coldly.

* * *

The official wallpaper of the Saltash System’s governor’s office disappeared—finally—from Jacob Zavala’s display, replaced by the same fair-haired, hazel-eyed Solarian to whom he’d already spoken. There was something different about that face this time, though, and there damned well should be. The idiot had taken over ten minutes to respond, and it wasn’t as if he had time to burn. DesRon 301 was only thirty-two minutes from Cinnamon orbit now, its velocity down to 10,568 KPS, and the range to Cinnamon was barely more than thirty-three light-seconds. Zavala would have thought that someone who’d just gotten the better part of six thousand of his own men and women killed might have felt a little urgency about keeping any more of them from dying, and he felt anger seething up inside him as he glared at the other man.

Just sit on that, Jacob, he told himself harshly. Yes, he fucked up and got a lot of people killed, but so did you. You didn’t have to sequence those launches that closely together. You could’ve put a couple of minutes between the first one and the second one—given Dubroskaya more time to react. But you didn’t, did you?

No, he hadn’t, and he doubted anyone would ever fault him for it…except himself. Any board of inquiry would consider his actions and decisions fully justified by the disparity between his squadron’s ability to absorb punishment and its adversary’s potential firepower. And the accuracy of his own fire—and the sheer destructiveness of the Mod G laser heads—had taken him by surprise. He’d anticipated that it would take at least two salvos to completely cripple or destroy one of his adversaries. That was why he’d targeted one salvo on each battlecruiser, expecting to hammer it with enough damage even a Solly had to take note of it and consider that it might be wise to surrender quickly. He’d certainly never expected to blow up battlecruisers with a single launch each!

All of that was true, but he’d still had time. Perhaps he hadn’t had the ammunition to justify going for Fire Plan Zephyr and simply wasting an entire double broadside that didn’t inflict any damage at all. But he could have stretched Sledgehammer out, launched the first salvo with exactly the same targeting but waited a full minute, or even two, before launching the follow on salvos. If he’d done that, that first launch would have turned into a far more emphatic sort of Zephyr and given Dubroskaya one last chance to recognize the truth…and the time to save more of her people’s lives.

He hadn’t, and he knew that was one reason he felt such stark, murderous fury when he looked at Damián Dueñas.

“I trust you realize you’ve just murdered several thousand Solarian military personnel,” Dueñas said without preamble. “I assure you the Solarian League isn’t going to forget it!”

“Vice Admiral Dubroskaya—and you, Governor—were given ample opportunity to stand down and avoid any casualties,” Zavala replied flatly, stepping on his own anger yet again. “And speaking of avoiding casualties, there’s the small matter of those destroyers you’ve got hiding behind Cinnamon’s moon.”

“What about them?” Dueñas sounded like a man biting pieces out of a sheet of copper, and Zavala’s eyes hardened.