Shadow of Victory - eARC (70 page)

“Why don’t you go have a seat over there by the musicians, Grzegorz?” he suggested, and Zieliński nodded. That sounded like an excellent idea, he decided. He was a little tired and a bit dizzy, and it would be good to get off his feet for a few minutes. He nodded to Nowak again, grateful for the suggestion, and headed off across the dance stage, walking a little carefully.

* * *

Tomasz Szponder watched the
Przewodniczący
’s chief bodyguard cross the stage, find a chair, and sit down, smiling at nothing in particular, his head moving gently in time with the music. Then Szponder turned his own head to find Nowak near the portable wet bar, and Nowak raised the glass in his hand.

Szponder drew a deep breath, squeezed Grażyna’s suddenly tense hand under the cover of the tablecloth, stood, and tapped his goblet with a spoon. The sweet chiming sound was surprisingly audible through the breeze and the background surf of voices, and faces turned in his direction.

He tapped again, and the side conversations died as all the guests gave him their attention.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, “when I invited you, I promised fireworks and a surprise announcement in honor of this Dzień Przewodniczącego. To be honest, I trust the fireworks will be a bit less spectacular than they might be under other circumstances, but it’s time for my announcement.

“This is the hundredth anniversary of the birth of my dearest friend and mentor, Włodzimierz Ziomkowski. Forty-two years ago today, here, in this villa, we wrote out and signed the Karta of the Ruch Odnowy Narodowej. The RON was Włodzimierz’s life’s dream, his life’s work. Nothing was more important to him than its ideals, the need to improve the lives of every Włocławekan man, woman, and child. I can’t tell you how honored I was that he chose this island, and this villa, as the place where the words enshrining those ideals, those commitments, were put into words for all time.”

He paused, and a spatter of applause turned into a rolling ovation. More than half his guests rose, applauding still harder, and he smiled and raised his hands, waving them back into their seats.

“But the truth is,” he continued once quiet had returned, “that no task is ever completely finished. There’s always more to be done, more to accomplish, and that’s true here in Włocławek. And because it is, I invited all of you here on the centenary of Włodzimierz’s birth to begin the next step in fully realizing his dream for our star system.”

He paused once more. There was another splatter of applause, but one or two of his guests looked a bit confused and he heard a quiet mutter of whispered conversation. He waited another ten seconds, until the unobtrusive earbug in his left ear chimed, then straightened his spine, and his voice was harder when he spoke again, with an edge of steel none of them had heard from him in decades. Not since the violent, street-fighting days of the Agitacja.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please direct your attention to the villa,” he said…just as fifty heavily armed men and women came through the French doors and spread rapidly around the perimeter of the terrace.

Shocked silence spread with them, but only for another ten or twenty seconds.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” Agnieszka Krzywicka demanded sharply. She half-rose, staring about her, and her face tightened as she realized neither her security detachment nor Ziomkowski’s was anywhere to be seen.

“The meaning, Ms. Sekretarz,” Szponder said calmly, coldly, turning to face her as Grażyna rose to stand proudly at his side, “is that we’re taking back the movement you and your aparatczycy hijacked twenty T-years ago. Hopefully, we can accomplish that without bloodshed. However,” he met her stunned, furious eyes very, very levelly, “if you insist on watering the tree of liberty, we can do it that way, too.”

Chapter Sixty-Two

“Alpha translation in fifteen minutes, Ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander Saint-Germain announced.

“Thank you, Ulrich,” Captain Amanda Belloc replied, watching her plot as Task Group 10.2.7 approached the alpha wall.

Captain Belloc’s task group was twenty-three days out of Montana, and she felt the tension ratcheting up within her. She had no qualms about the capability of the task group Admiral Culbertson had built around the heavy cruiser Madelyn Huffman to perform the first part of her mission orders. Backed by Captain Leah Piekarski’s division of Rolands, the older but still capable light cruiser Huang Zhen, and the five Culverin-class destroyers of Captain Zachariah Lewis’ Destroyer Division 102.1, she had more than enough firepower to deal with anything she couldn’t outrun effortlessly.

No, the problem was exactly how she went about executing the second part of her orders. Her task group was essentially a commerce raiding force, with the capacity to leave a fairly capable system-defense force in perhaps two of the four star systems on her list, but she had no capacity at all to occupy any of them. That meant she couldn’t go around, kicking in Frontier Security’s doors dirtside or issuing demands to independent governments, however deep in bed with the League they might be. She could—as her orders specified—contact any independent (or nominally so) system government after removing any Solarian forces in deep space with a message of friendship and a request to establish formal—and friendly—relations with the Star Empire. But even if the aforesaid nominally independent governments were in bed with the League, that was about as far as she could go. Unless the Mesan Alignment had been fomenting rebellion against those nominally independent governments and promising Manticoran support, the Star Empire had exactly zero moral justification for demanding their capitulation, at any rate.

She really wished it could be as simple as settling into orbit and posting something like “Hey! Any revolutionaries down there expecting Manticoran assistance? Here we are!” to the planetary boards. Somehow, though, that seemed a little lacking in…subtlety. Worse, it might very well spark a rebellion which wouldn’t have occurred otherwise. That could get a lot of people killed unnecessarily, not to mention undermining the Star Empire’s assertion that someone else had been promoting violent rebellion and only pretending to be Manticore. The admiral’s orders covered her if something went wrong, but it wasn’t the job of a Queen’s officer to let things go wrong, and Amanda Belloc had no intention of allowing anything of the sort to happen.

Now if the rest of the universe would just cooperate.

* * *

“Well, I’ve got some good news, or I’ve got some bad news. The only problem is I don’t know which it is.”

“Been a bit of that goin’ around, Vinnie.”

Floyd Allenby’s weathered face was as unwaveringly determined as ever, but he’d lost a lot of weight. The promised Manticoran naval support was three weeks overdue, and they hadn’t heard a single word from Harvey Eldbrand to explain where it was. By his most optimistic estimate, Frontier Fleet had had plenty of time to respond to the escaped Tallulah freighter’s demands for SLN and OFS to restore the situation in Swallow. In fact, by any reasonable estimate, Frontier Fleet should have arrived at least five days ago. According to some hints picked up from their “discussions” with Alton Parkman and Sheila Hampton, his chief of staff, Frontier Fleet was in the process of reorganizing its deployments. That might explain the delay, but nothing was going to delay it much longer.

“S’pose you’d best tell us what it is so’s we can all figure out which it is,” he continued, twitching his head at the other men and women in the conference room. Jason MacGruder sat at the far end of the long, polished table, flanked by Joyce Allenby and Truman Rodriguez, and his own sister, Gemma, sat at Floyd’s right hand.

“Well,” Frugoni said, “according to Nathan, Dumber Ass has picked up a batch of hyper footprints. They don’t have military grade sensors up there, so they can’t be certain, but when sixteen ships come over the alpha wall at the same time and head in-system, I think it’s probably safe to say they aren’t a batch of freighters that all just happened to arrive at the same time.”

“S’pose not,” Floyd said quietly. He sat back in his chair and looked around the conference table, then returned his gaze to Frugoni. “So why aren’t you sure this is bad news, seein’s how we haven’t heard squat out of the Manties?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Frugoni replied. “They’ve been in normal-space for the better part of thirty minutes, and they haven’t said a word. I’ve got to wonder why a Frontier Fleet commander wouldn’t be blistering our ears already.”

“Might just want us t’ have time t’ work up a good sweat ’fore they get around t’ tellin’ us why they’re here,” MacGruder suggested. Floyd and Frugoni looked at him, and he shrugged. “Think they call that ‘psychological warfare,’” he elaborated.

“That could be it,” Rodriguez agreed. “And it could be that they want to wait until we know they’re in missile range before they start issuing any demands. They might figure we’d be less likely to do anything stupid—like, oh, I don’t know…threatening to blow up Tallulah’s infrastructure if they don’t go home and leave us alone—if we know they’re in position to blow the crap out of all the rest of our infrastructure.”

“Could be you’re both right,” Floyd said after a moment, “but damned if I’m gonna get on the com t’ them any sooner’n I have to.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Might be pointless as all hell, but I’m not goin’ t’ give the bastards as much as the time of day till I have to.”

* * *

“Something strange about this, Ma’am,” Commander Frieda Mawhinney said.

She and Commander Lawrence Hillshot, Madelyn Huffman’s XO, stood on either side of Captain Belloc’s command chair, watching the main plot. At the moment, it was configured to show the entire inner system, fed by the Ghost Rider drones which had been sent speeding ahead.

“Enlighten me, Frieda,” Belloc said, and her tactical officer shrugged.

“We’ve been in-system over an hour now, and that’s long enough for even Sollies to get around to challenging us, Ma’am,” she pointed out. “The fact that they haven’t is odd enough, but what’s really strange is how little traffic there is. We’re only tracking three impeller signatures bigger than small craft in the entire inner system, and there’s no sign of collector ships moving along the asteroid belt, either. According to our intel, Tallulah has at least a hundred asteroid extraction ships, and they’re supposed to do a lot of gas mining from Bigsby, the system’s gas giant, too. But we don’t see any sign of that, and it’s not like they all went scurrying for home the instant we turned up, either. For that matter, they couldn’t even all have shut down and gone doggo without our having picked up at least some impeller signatures first.”

“Guns is right, Ma’am,” Hillshot said. “Especially about the challenge side. For that matter, Astro Control should’ve contacted us a good twenty minutes ago even if they were stupid enough to think we’re just a convoy of merchies.”

“Agreed.”

Belloc tipped back in her chair, fingers of her right hand drumming lightly on the armrest while she considered the situation.

There was no legitimate reason for an entire star system to decide to turn off its com net, yet that appeared to be exactly what these people had done. Which suggested a reason that was less than legitimate, and an unpleasant possibility suggested itself to her. If this was another Saltash, with a Solarian squadron or task force hiding in stealth somewhere, prepared to pounce from ambush, that ambush’s commander might have decided to go to com silence. The only reason she wasn’t certain that was what was happening was that a Solly naval commander with a clue would have ordered Astro Control to hail them in a normal, routine welcome. She would not have opted for a silence which was likely to make her intended victims suspicious.

The only flaw in that analysis, Amanda, is that you’re thinking about a Solly naval commander with a clue, and so far no one’s ever met one.

She smiled sourly at the thought, then let her chair come back upright.

“All right. I think you’re onto something. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what ‘something’ is. Frieda, I want a second shell of Ghost Rider drones, and I want the first shell to sweep all the way to the hyper limit on the far side of the system. If this is another Saltash and there’s someone hidden out there, I want her found.”

“Aye, aye, Ma’am.” Mawhinney started back to her own console, but Belloc’s raised hand stopped her. “Ma’am?”

“Just in case there are any unfriendly individuals thinking homicidal thoughts out there, I think it would be a good idea to bring the task group to Condition One. I don’t want to deploy any Mark 23s yet, but inform Captain Piekarski that we may be looking at a Mark 16 engagement. And inform Captain Lewis that I want his destroyers to hold here, close to the hyper limit, with Veerle Vosburgh. If there’s any shooting, I want that freighter over the wall into hyper before any bad guys even think of getting close to her. The last thing we need is to lose the pods in her holds. Then I want a launch of decoys prepped.”

“Aye, aye, Ma’am.”

“And as for you, Aquilino,” Belloc continued, turning to Madelyn Huffman’s communications officer, “I’d like you to warm up your little com. I’m sure I’ll feel a need to talk to these people…eventually.”

“Not now, Ma’am?” Lieutenant Aquilino Demeter asked, and Belloc shook her head.

“No. If they’re not friendly enough to talk to us, I don’t see any reason we should be in a rush to talk to them.” Belloc smiled unpleasantly. “We’ll wait until we hit turnover and they know for sure—Sollies can be a little slow on the uptake, I’ve heard—that we’re headed for a zero-zero with the planet. That’ll give the TO time to get all her ducks in a row, anyway.”

* * *

Another ninety minutes dragged slowly past. Then Lieutenant Demeter cleared his throat without ever—quite—glancing at his captain.

“I haven’t forgotten, Aquilino,” Belloc said dryly, and the lieutenant nodded.

“Never thought you had, Ma’am.”

“Liars come to bed ends.” Belloc smiled briefly, then squared her shoulders. “All right, put me on.”

“Live mic, Ma’am,” Demeter said promptly, and the captain looked directly into the pickup.

“Astro Control, this is Captain Amanda Belloc, Royal Manticoran Navy, commanding officer, HMS Madelyn Huffman. I request approach instructions.”

TG 10.27’s units—minus Zachariah Lewis’ five Culverins and the Mark 23-packed Veerle Vosburgh—had maintained a leisurely 2.9 KPS
²
since crossing the alpha wall. Madelyn Huffman was still almost seven light-minutes short of planetary orbit and the improbably named Donald Ulysses and Rosa Aileen Shuman Space Station where this system’s astro control kept its headquarters, and she sat back to await a response. Fifteen minutes crept by, and then—

“I have a response, Captain,” Demeter announced. “It’s not from Astro Control, though.”

“No?” Belloc raised her eyebrows. “What a surprise. Who is it from?”

“It’s coming from the planet, Ma’am.”

“Not the space station at all?”

“No, Ma’am.”

Belloc nodded while she toyed absently with a lock of hair. According to the limited intelligence packet Admiral Culbertson had been able to put together for her, the real power in this system was supposed to be the system manager for a transstellar called the Tallulah Corporation. Tallulah couldn’t be a major player by Solarian standards, given that Belloc had never heard of it, but the system manager in question was supposed to have his headquarters aboard the space station. There was no official Solarian presence on the planet, either, so she’d assumed any response would come from someone pretending to be Astro Control or else from whatever force the Sollies had dispatched to ambush her here. In either case, the transmission should be coming from someplace in space, not on the planet.

“Well, I suppose you’d better put them through, Aquilino,” she said mildly.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

An instant later, a face appeared on Belloc’s com display. The stranger was brown-haired and brown-eyed, with a close-cropped beard and an eagle’s beak of a nose. His image was motionless until she tapped the key to play the transmission.

“Afternoon, Captain Belloc. My name’s Allenby—Floyd Allenby. And I b’lieve what you’re looking for is ‘Davy Crockett.’”

Davycrockett? Well, that was certainly unexpected, Amanda Belloc thought. What the hell is a “davycrockett”?

* * *

Floyd Allenby sat tautly, watching the com display with Frugoni at one shoulder and Jason MacGruder at the other.

The long, agonizing wait as the silent warships crept closer and closer had almost—almost—overcome his determination to wait them out. If they’d been Manties, they should already have contacted him…or the current commander of the Cripple Mountain Movement, assuming something unpleasant had happened to him. But no one had been able to think of a reason for Frontier Fleet to approach so slowly and wait so long before opening communication, either.

And then this Captain Belloc had finally contacted them…without asking for him, without asking for anyone from the CMM, without the code phrase announcing why she was here, and contacting Astro Control, instead.

Clearly, something was very wrong, yet he’d seen no option but to transmit the peculiar code phrase Eldbrand had given Frugoni and hope for the best.

’Sides, if this here’s a fleet of Sollies, ain’t gonna make a whole heap o’ difference what I say to ’em, now is it?

* * *

“Excuse me, Mister…Allenby, was it?” Belloc said. “I was expecting to contact Astro Control. Could I ask why I’m speaking to you, instead? And exactly what a ‘davycrockett’ is?”

* * *

“Y’know, this here’s getting’ stranger by th’ minute, Floyd,” MacGruder observed. “You reckon Manties could be as just plain dumb as Sollies?”

“Doesn’t seem likely,” Allenby replied, scratching his beard. “Mean, I hear they can count t’ ten with their boots on an’ everything.” He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Might’s well be hung for a snow bear as a house cat,” he said, and touched the transmit key again.