His parents had grown up on a farm planet. He’d always been faintly embarrassed among his more sophisticated colleagues by his “sod-buster” origins and his parents’ parochial turns of speech, yet he understood one of his mother’s favorite clichés at last, because there was no other way to describe it as his mind skittered around like Elizabetta Dueñas’ cow on ice, trying to grasp the immensity of the disaster which had just overwhelmed his career. There had to be some way to salvage the situation—there always was—but how?!
“I—” he began, then realized he was just sitting there behind his desk with his mouth hanging open, waiting for words which refused to come.
“We’re going to have to release their freighters,” Tiilikainen said.
“No!” The single word jerked out of him without conscious thought, and Tiilikainen’s lips tightened.
“We don’t have a choice,” she said harshly. “The man’s a lunatic! We can’t take a chance on what he’ll do next if we don’t let them go!”
“No!” Dueñas repeated, and his palm smacked down on his desk. “I’m not going to let some neobarb prick push the Solarian League around! I don’t give a damn who he thinks he is!”
“Damián, he just took out four battlecruisers! You think the destroyers we’ve got left are going to faze him?”
“He wouldn’t dare!”
“Damn it, what universe are you living in?!” Tiilikainen stared at him. “There were eight thousand spacers on those battlecruisers, and he just blew them the hell away. He may be crazy, but based on his actions to date, don’t you think we’d better assume he’s willing to go right on doing exactly what he’s said he’ll do?”
“He won’t.” Dueñas shook his head stubbornly. “It’s one thing to attack warships, Cicely, but there’s no way he’d dare to attack the civilian infrastructure of a star system under the League’s protection. He knows what we’d do to his pissant ‘Star Empire’ if he did anything like that!”
“You’re delusional,” Tiilikainen said flatly.
“You watch your tongue, Lieutenant Governor Tiilikainen!” Dueñas snapped.
“All right.” Her voice was tight, but she nodded choppily. “You’re the Governor, Sir, and this is your plan. So you tell me why you think he won’t escalate this to whatever level he thinks he has to to get what he wants?”
“I already did,” he grated. “The Manties are trying to sell themselves to the rest of the galaxy as the innocent victims of the piece, the plucky little guy willing to stand up against the big bad bully of the Solarian League. God knows they’ve been telling anyone who’d listen how all of those poor, oppressed citizens of the Talbott Cluster begged for admission into the Star Empire and whining about the way they’ve been ‘forced’ to defend themselves to protect their citizens! They may think they’ll be able to sell that load of bullshit as far as confrontations with the Navy are concerned, but as soon as they start inflicting civilian casualties all their noble innocence goes right out the damn window, and they know it.”
“I think you’re wrong.” Tiilikainen’s tone was flatter than ever and she locked gazes with him. “I think this Zavala’s not going to take any crap, Damián. And I think he just showed us exactly why we better not try to hand him any more of it. You know as well as I do that he’s got you dead to rights on the provisions of the Treaty of Beowulf. We’re in the wrong under interstellar law—you know that as well as I do—and he’s going to push it however far and hard he has to to get what he was sent here to get. And after he does, the Manties are going to tell the entire galaxy that whoever got hurt along the way, it was our fault.”
“No!”
She maintained lock with his eyes, both of them ignoring Kodou as he watched them from Dueñas’ com. Silence hovered for several seconds, and then, finally, Tiilikainen drew a deep breath.
“You’re going to insist on turning this into a complete disaster, aren’t you?” she said almost conversationally.
His jaw muscles tightened, but she went on in that same, calm tone before he could respond.
“Well, I can’t stop you. As you just pointed out, I’m only the Lieutenant Governor, and you’ve got the authority to do whatever you want to do. But I’m going on record now, officially, as recommending we give the Manties what they want and don’t provoke them into killing anyone else. I won’t be a party to any more insanity.”
“You’ll follow my instructions!” Dueñas snapped.
“Oh no, I won’t.” She shook her head. “You’ve gotten enough people killed for one day—you and Dubroskaya between you. I’m not going to help kill any more of them. And before you go charging off to make things even worse, I recommend you think about what Zavala told you in the beginning. MacArtney’s going to want your head for a paperweight already. You really want to make him more pissed off at you?”
Under the surface of Dueñas’ rage—and panic—a little voice whispered that Tiilikainen was right. It would be insane of Zavala to push the League even harder, but he’d already demonstrated the extent of his craziness. And the rest of the frigging Manties were just as crazy as he was.
This was all because of his sister’s letter, he thought now. Given the system’s isolation and the slowness with which interstellar news moved, Saltash was almost completely out of the loop. But Dueñas’ sister had married a senior assistant undersecretary of the interior, and her last, gossipy letter (outpacing official correspondence, as private mail had a tendency to do) had mentioned rumors the Star Empire might recall its merchant fleet from Solarian shipping lanes. That would have been a blatantly hostile act—an economic act of war, really—against the entire League, and he’d found it difficult to believe even the Manties might do something like that. But then he’d realized they really might…and that because of Manuela’s letter, he probably knew something the Manties out here didn’t know yet themselves.
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 dow
n 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.”
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.
“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.”