Shadow of Freedom

“Governor, if I was prepared to engage your battlecruisers, what makes you think I won’t engage your destroyers, as well? At my present deceleration, I’ll enter their powered envelope in four minutes, and I’m no more prepared to allow them to shoot at my vessels than I was to permit Vice Admiral Dubroskaya to do the same thing. Given the piss-poor performance of your missiles and the obvious inadequacy of your antimissile defenses—not to mention your delay in bothering to reply to me—I will give your crews five minutes to begin abandoning ship. I don’t intend to go any deeper into their engagement basket than that, however, no matter how crappy their weapon systems are. If they haven’t begun evacuating their ships within that time limit, they’ll receive the same treatment Vice Admiral Dubroskaya’s battlecruisers received.”

“Captain Zavala, the Solarian League doesn’t respond well to threats, and even less well to the unprovoked massacre of its military personnel! You and you alone bear full responsibility for everything that’s happened since you intruded into the sovereign territory of an independent star system under the protection of the Office of Frontier Security. Don’t think for one moment that the League is going to overlook what you’ve done here today! Your actions have just enormously decreased any possibility of a peaceful resolution of the tensions between your star nation and mine. I have no doubt whatsoever that one of the Solarian League’s demands if Manticore wishes to avoid the devastating war it’s invited will be your surrender to face trial as a war criminal!”

“You’ve just used up forty-five seconds your destroyers don’t have,” Zavala replied in a voice of iron. “They now have four minutes and ten seconds.”

“Are you totally insane?” Dueñas demanded. “Aren’t you listening to a thing I’m saying?”

“Four minutes, Governor. And you might want to ask Vice Admiral Dubroskaya—or her ghost—if I abide by my time limits.”

Their eyes locked, and Zavala found himself wondering just how pigheaded a single human being could be.

“Sir, I have another com request!” Lieutenant Wilson said quickly over his earbug. “It’s a Captain Myau of the destroyer Avenger.”

“Put it through—now!” Zavala said, and Dueñas’ face vanished from his display, replaced by that of a tall, thin woman in the uniform of the Solarian League Navy. Her expression was hard, stony with hate as her eyes burned out of the com at him, but she had herself under better control than he would have expected.

“Captain Zavala?” she said flatly.

“Speaking.”

“I am Captain Myau Ping-wa,” she said in that same iron voice. “I feel certain the consequences of your actions are going to be profound, far-reaching, and ultimately disastrous for your star nation and your navy. Unfortunately, at this moment I’m forced to concede my tactical inferiority. It’s obvious your weapons far outrange my own, and it’s equally obvious you’re prepared to use that advantage. I have to assume you’re not prepared to enter my missile envelope before you do so, either. In your position, I certainly wouldn’t be.” Her lips might have twitched with the faintest shadow of a bitter smile. “That suggests you intend to destroy my destroyers as you did Vice Admiral Dubroskaya’s battlecruisers unless I accept your previous terms and stand down before you do enter my range. In light of how little time that leaves, as the senior officer—the senior surviving officer, at any rate—present, and absent instructions from the civilian authority in this star system,” this time the flicker in her eyes was unmistakable, Zavala thought, “I’m ordering my personnel to abandon ship.”

A diamond-dust glitter of life pods began to spill away from the destroyers’ larger icons on Zavala’s plot, and he felt a tremendous sense of relief.

“Be advised,” Myau continued, “that my engineering officers have programmed remote self-destruct commands into my destroyers’ fusion plants. Should any of your small craft approach within five thousand kilometers of any of my units, the enabling code will be sent and the ship—and any of your personnel who may happen to be aboard it—will be destroyed.” She bared her teeth. “You won’t be capturing any classified data in this star system.”

“First, Captain Myau,” Zavala told her, “I’m relieved to discover that someone in this star system has the mother wit to step away from avoidable bloodshed. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but I respect how difficult your decision was, and I commend you for having the moral courage to ignore that idiot in the governor’s office and save your people’s lives. I take no more pleasure in killing people than the next man.