Shadow of Freedom-eARC (16 page)

Some of the CMM’s members wanted to open a large-scale campaign of attacks on the Tallulah Corporation’s infrastructure, but for the moment, Allenby was restricting their operations to keeping their mountainous stronghold free of the system security forces. There’d been perhaps a dozen serious clashes between his people and Karaxis’ over the last local year or so, and their frequency seemed to be accelerating, yet they were still the exception, not the rule. In fact, most of them had been the result of accidental collisions between the two sides, not something either of them had planned.

Things had begun to accelerate in other ways, though—especially since First Sergeant Vincent Frugoni, Solarian Marine Corps (retired) had returned to Swallow. Frugoni shared his dead sister’s blond hair and blue eyes, and his face, while undeniably masculine, was an almost painful reminder of Sandra. He was also—as his sister had been—a prolong recipient, which neither Allenby nor MacGruder was. Twenty years older than either of them, he looked more like someone’s adolescent brother than the tough, decidedly nasty character he was, and he kept a well honed artfully innocent expression ready for instant use at need.

He’d also spent twenty-seven T-years in the Solarian Marines, rising to the second highest noncommissioned rank available, and under his tutelage the four hundred members of the CMM had attained a level of training and tactical sophistication light-years ahead of the majority of Felicia Karaxis’ so-called soldiers.

That wasn’t enough to offset the imbalance in the equipment and technical capabilities available to the two sides, of course. Although…

“Tell me true, Floyd,” MacGruder said finally, his expression unwontedly sober. “You know I’m with you all the way, however it works out. Bastards’ve got it coming, and I’m ready to give it to them, however it comes out at the finish line. But do you really think these people—these ‘Manties’—are ready to help out?”

“I don’t know. Not really,” Allenby admitted, returning honesty for honesty. “If half the stuff we’re hearing is true, they’re going to need every edge they can get, though. Makes sense to me they’d want to…distract the Sollies’ attention, and you know as well as I do how it really works out here. Frontier Security’s not backing Tallulah just because of that asshole Parkman’s beautiful eyes! They’re getting a cut from every credit Tallulah rakes off from Swallow, and if the League’s got a real war on its hands for the first time in its life, it’s going to need all the cash it can squeeze out of the Protectorates…and us. So if the Manties can make it hard for them to do that, it’s got to help Manticore, right?”

“Even I can get that far,” MacGruder said dryly. “What bothers me is whether or not they’re going to give a fart in a windstorm what finally happens to
us
.”

“Fair enough.” Allenby nodded. “And while I’m being fair, why
should
they give a fart in a windstorm? They don’t know us, and they sure as hell don’t
owe
us anything! But the truth is, it’s not going to take a lot of effort on their part to provide us with the guns and the support weapons we’d need to take Karaxis on. It’s not like we’re going to be some kind of long-term heavy burden on them. In fact, this is about the cheapest way they can get into the Sollies’ henhouse, when you come down to it. And if they promise to help us and then don’t come through—if they don’t provide what they’ve agreed to and just leave us hanging—it’s going to get out. I’m thinking anyone ballsy enough to take on the League isn’t going to want the rest of the galaxy to think they just use up allies and throw them away. Might make sense to them in the
short
term, but in the long term it’d do them a
lot
of damage with all the independent star systems. And if they’re going to survive facing up to the League, they can’t afford to piss off the independents, Jason. They’re going to need access to markets out here to replace the ones they’re going to lose in the League. And they’re going to need allies, not just trading partners. Somehow I don’t think someone who goes around screwing people over and then throwing them to the ogre wolves is going to find a lot of people willing to stick their necks out for them against something like the League.”

MacGruder’s eyebrows rose. Sometimes, listening to his cousin speak, Allenby’s rustic mountain accent could fool even him into forgetting the acuity of the brain behind those brown eyes. But then Floyd would come up with a piece of analysis like that and remind him.

“I’m not saying the Manties are going to back us out of the pure goodness of their hearts any more than I think OFS is backing Tallulah because they love Parkman so much,” Allenby continued. “I’m just saying we both have reasons to be pissed off as hell at Frontier Security, and if it makes sense to the Manties to go after Schuman and Karaxis—
and
Parkman—here in Swallow, it makes sense to me to let them help us do it.”

“Put that way, makes sense to me, too,” MacGruder admitted after a moment. He considered what his cousin had said in silence for several seconds, then cocked his head.

“So when do we expect to hear back from Vinnie?” he asked.

“Sometime in the next week or so.” Allenby refilled his coffee cup again. “I don’t think Karaxis even realizes Vinnie’s back on-planet, but the only place he could make contact is in Capistrano, so we’re not going to know how it went until he’s had time to get back here without attracting anyone’s attention. So”—he shrugged—“about a week or so.”

“And just how are the Manties planning on getting weapons shipments through to us when Tallulah controls all the traffic into and out of Swallow?” MacGruder sounded as much honestly curious as skeptical, and Allenby snorted a laugh.

“Damned if I know!” he admitted cheerfully. “That’s up to Vinnie and this Manty super secret agent he’s hooked up with.” He shrugged. “If Mister ‘Firebrand’ can come up with a way to get the guns to us, though, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to figure out what to do with them after he does.”

Chapter Ten

“Well, Hosea, I hope you’ve completed your homework assignment,” Naomi Kaplan said dryly as HMS
Tristram
bored through hyper-space, twelve hours after leaving Montana orbit. “I’d like to sound like I’ve got
some
clue what I’m talking about for the Commodore’s conference.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m happy about the amount of detail I’ve managed to turn up, Skipper,” Lieutenant Hosea Simpkins,
Tristram
’s astrogator replied with a wry smile. “I’ve pulled everything I could find out of the files, but Tester knows it isn’t much.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised.” Commander Kaplan shrugged and leaned back in her chair at the head of the briefing room’s conference table. “Go ahead and give us what you’ve got, though.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Kaplan’s Grayson-born astrogator didn’t bother to consult his notes. “Technically, Saltash’s an independent star system. Actually, it’s been an OFS client for about sixty T-years. The single habitable planet is called Cinnamon. Orbital radius is about nine light-minutes, population’s just under two-point-five billion. Planetary diameter’s only point-nine-six Old Earth, but gravity’s almost a full standard gravity, so it’s obviously a little denser than most. Hydrosphere is right on seventy-three percent, and its axial inclination’s only nine degrees, so it sounds like a fairly nice place to live.

“Unfortunately, the local political structure was a real mess sixty or seventy T-years back. The Republic of McPhee and the Republic of Lochore both claimed to be the sole legitimate system government, and they’d fought two or three wars without settling things. They were headed towards another war, and all indications were it was going to be a really ugly affair this time around, when the president of MacPhee called in Frontier Security to play referee.”

“Where have we heard this story before?” Lieutenant Commander Alvin Tallman muttered with a scowling expression.

“I hate to say it, Sir,” Simpkins told
Tristram
’s executive officer, “but in this case OFS really did end up doing one of the things it was ostensibly created to do. I’m not saying it did it out of the goodness of its heart, you understand, but if the League hadn’t intervened, McPhee and Lochore were probably getting ready to pretty well sterilize Cinnamon. That’s how bitter the situation had gotten.”

“Any idea
why
things were that bad, Hosea?” Kaplan asked, her eyes intent, and Simpkins shrugged.

“Not really, Ma’am. Given the intensity of the last war they actually fought, these people were as unreasonable as we Graysons were before we exiled the Faithful to Masada, but it doesn’t seem like religion was behind the antagonism in Saltash’s case. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the two sides had obviously hated each other for a long time, and it looks like they’d simply reached the point of being so pissed off, if you’ll pardon my language, that they were ready to pull the trigger even knowing there was a pretty good chance they’d wreck the entire planet.”

“Well, that sounds promising as hell,” Lieutenant Vincenzo Fonzarelli sighed.

“It might not be that bad, Vincenzo,” Abigail Hearns said, smiling slightly at
Tristram
’s chief engineer. Fonzarelli looked back at her skeptically, and she shrugged. “We’re not really here to deal with the Saltashans directly, so it doesn’t matter if they’re as crazy as the Faithful…or even Graysons.” Her smile turned dimpled. “All we have to worry about is the OFS presence in the system.”

“
That’s
a reassuring thought,” Lieutenant Wanda O’Reilly observed waspishly. The communications officer’s resentment of Abigail’s promotion and (in her opinion) privileged status had abated—slightly—but it still rankled, and no one was ever going to accuse O’Reilly of giving up a sense of antagonism easily.

“I could wish we weren’t here to confront the Sollies, too, Wanda,” Kaplan said mildly. “Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be making the trip if there weren’t Sollies at the other end of it, now would we?”

“No, Ma’am,” O’Reilly acknowledged.

“So how much system infrastructure is there, Hosea?” Kaplan asked, turning her attention back to the astrogator.

“Not much, actually.” This time the Grayson did look down at his notes. “There’s some mining in the Casper Belt between Saltash Delta and Himalaya, the system’s only gas giant, although the total belter population—work force and dependents, combined—is way under a half million. And there’s a gas extraction plant orbiting Himalaya itself. There doesn’t seem to be much local heavy industry, though, and the system’s only real cargo transfer platform is Shona Station. Which also happens to be Cinnamon’s only significant orbital habitat.”

“How big a population does it have, Hosea?” Abigail asked with a frown, and Simpkins checked his notes again.

“Almost a quarter million,” he said, and Abigail’s frown deepened.

“Something bothering you, Abigail?” Kaplan inquired, and Abigail gave herself a slight shake.

“Only that that’s a lot of civilians to be potentially getting in harm’s way, Ma’am,” she said. “I was just thinking about how ugly things almost got in Monica.”

Kaplan gazed at her for a moment, then nodded.

“I see your point. Hopefully nobody’s going to be stupid enough for us to have to start throwing missiles around this time, though.”

“Hopefully, Ma’am,” Abigail agreed, and Kaplan turned back to Simpkins.

“Should I take it there’s no indication that this Shona Station’s armed?”

“Not according to anything in the files, Ma’am.”

“Then given the Sollies’ well demonstrated ability to screw things up by the numbers, I suppose we’d better hope the files are accurate in this case,” Kaplan said dryly.

A flicker of laughter ran around the conference table, and Tallman cocked his head at his commanding officer.

“Do we actually know whether this Dueñas character is likely to be reasonable or not when we turn up, Skipper?”

“That
is
the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Kaplan’s smile was thinner than ever. “And the answer, I’m afraid, is that we don’t have a clue. Our bio data on him is even thinner than Hosea’s info on the star system. Officially, he’s not the system’s governor—legally it’s only a ‘courtesy title,’ it says here—” she tapped her copy of the squadron’s orders from Michelle Henke and rolled her eyes, “but from what Hosea’s said, when he says ‘jump’ the only question anyone in Saltash asks is ‘how high.’”

“That’s about right, from everything I’ve been able to find, Ma’am,” Simpkins put in. She cocked an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. “Under the terms of the Frontier Security ‘peacekeeping agreement,’ OFS was assigned responsibility for managing the system’s local and interstellar traffic. Just to make sure no one was sneaking any warships into position for attacks, you understand. Of course, it was necessary for Frontier Security to levy a slight service fee for looking after Saltash’s security that way.”

“How big a service fee?”

“Try thirty-five percent…of the gross, Ma’am,” Simpkins replied grimly, and Kaplan’s lips pursed in a silent whistle. That was steep, even for OFS.

“Do you know if that level was part of the original agreement?” she asked. “Or did Dueñas and his predecessors crank it up to give them a better level of graft after they were in place?”

“That I couldn’t tell you, Ma’am. Sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Kaplan shook her head. “You’ve actually done better than I expected, given how small—and how far from home—Saltash is. I didn’t think you’d be able to pull this much out of the files.”

Simpkins’ smile showed his pleasure at the compliment, and she smiled back at him briefly. Then she returned her attention to Tallman.

“Like I say, Alvin, we don’t really have a good enough feel for Dueñas to make any predictions on how he’s likely to react when we turn up on his doorstep. Unless he’s a fool, he has to’ve known word of his activities was going to get to the Talbott Quadrant sooner or later, though, so I’m not exactly inclined towards wild optimism about how reasonable he’s likely to be. Captain Zavala checked with everybody in Montana who’s had dealings with Saltash, but he’s only held the governorship for less than a T-year. That’s not long enough for anyone to’ve gotten a real handle on his personality. On the other hand, he was sent out here specifically to replace his predecessor
after
things started going into the crapper between us and the League, and try as I might, I can’t convince myself that’s a
good
sign.”