Shadow of Freedom

Major Pole didn’t doubt the governor was already scheming to come up with an official explanation which would make the destruction of Vice Admiral Dubroskaya’s squadron entirely her fault. The idea was ridiculous, but in the competition between a dead Frontier Fleet admiral and a live Frontier Security governor, the one who was still breathing was almost certain to come out on top, regardless of any inconvenient little things like facts. Under the circumstances, the last thing Pole could afford would be to simultaneously disappoint Dueñas and give the governor an excuse to hang the League’s humiliating surrender on him. In the end, someone was going to be scapegoated for what had happened here, and whoever it was would be fortunate if all that happened was that his career came to an abrupt and ignominious end. More likely, the powers that were would decide an example had to be made, and John Pole had no intention of providing the example. The survival rate for ex-gendarmes who found themselves guests of the penal system was far too low for that.

The problem was that Ascher might well be right about whether or not Zavala was willing to push things. He truly might send in those boarders to reclaim the Manties by force. For that matter, he truly might be so crazy he really would treat Solarian gendarmes as common pirates if they fell into his hands!

“We can’t just play dead for him,” he said finally. “That’s completely unacceptable.”

Kristoffersen and Ascher glanced at each other, then back at him, and he bared his teeth.

“They may think it’s going to be easy to get into this module,” he said. “If they do, it’s up to us to demonstrate their error. We’ve probably got more troopers in here than they have boarders out there, there are only so many ways they can come at us, we know the station a hell of a lot better than they do, and we’ve also got the advantage of the defensive position. We’ve got a lot more heavy weapons than we saw in this, too.” He jabbed an angry finger at the recording they’d all just viewed. “If they try to fight their way in, we’ll massacre them!”

“And if they use their cruisers’ point defense to blow a way in from the outside, Sir?” Ascher asked.

“There’s no way even a maniac would do that.” Pole waved his hand dismissively. “You think they’re going to risk explosively depressurizing the entire module when they’re so anxious to get their people back unharmed?” He shook his head. “No, if they try to fight their way in here, they’re going to have to come to us on our terms. And when they do, we’ll bleed them.”

Ascher’s eyes looked doubtful, and the major glared at her.

“I’m not going to just hand over their spacers against direct orders without at least trying to hang onto them,” he said flatly. “And I think they may be more amenable to reason once they figure out how much trying to take them back by force is going to cost.”

Ascher still looked unconvinced, but Pole didn’t really care. He didn’t believe for a moment that he could hang onto the interned Manties indefinitely, but he was confident he could inflict heavy casualties on any Manty attempt to fight their way into Victor Seven, and when he did, they’d pull back to rethink. At that point, if he were this Zavala, he’d find a way to tighten the screws on Dueñas. There was no doubt in Pole’s mind that anyone with the only operable warships in a star system could find a way to convince that system’s governor to see reason sooner or later, especially when the governor in question was stuck out in the open where the Manties could get at him without killing the people they wanted to rescue themselves. And if Zavala convinced Dueñas to order Pole to hand the internees over, even it was obviously only under duress, the monkey was off the major’s back.