Shadow of Freedom полностью

“It’s classified top secret, but there’s nothing in the classification to preclude someone like President Suttles sharing the information with any member of his system government. Obviously Baroness Medusa and Prime Minister Alquezar expect them to show discretion, but they are the local civilian authorities, so I don’t really see how she could have restricted it any more tightly than that, Sir.”

From Oversteegen’s expression, it was evident he could have imagined Medusa and Alquezar clamping an airtight lid on something like this quite easily. And, for once, a part of Michelle found itself in grudging agreement with him. Still…

“I don’t think they really had a lot of choice about that,” she observed. “If there’s anything to this ‘Mesan Alignment’ business, then everyone’s got to be on her guard. My feeling is that we took them so badly by surprise with our original expansion into the vicinity that they’re probably still playing catch-up, at least to some extent. I mean, not even a diabolical centuries-old conspiracy could have anticipated our stumbling across the Lynx Terminus! And I don’t think it could have had anything to do with Dueñas’ little brainstorm in Saltash, either. You’ve all read Zavala’s report, and I don’t see how anybody could have counted on him to decide to seize our merchantships.”

Several heads nodded. DesRon 301 had rejoined Tenth Fleet at Montana a month ago, and if one or two of Michelle’s more senior officers could have wished for a less spectacular resolution of the problem, none of them had questioned Zavala’s actions given the situation he’d discovered.

“But if Pat Givens’ guess is right”—Michelle continued, one index finger tapping the message on the display in front of her—“and they not only managed to get Byng and Crandall deployed out this way more or less on the fly—and meant for both of them to get reamed all along, just to put us exactly where we are with the League—then they’re entirely too good for my peace of mind. We need all the eyes we can get looking for what else they may be up to.”

“As long as those eyes don’t start seein’ things that aren’t actually there, Ma’am,” Oversteegen replied with an unusual note of diffidence. He raised one hand in a pacific gesture before anyone could respond. “I’m not tryin’ t’ suggest that th’ Quadrant’s civilian leadership’s a batch of alarmist paranoiacs, because I don’t think it is. And if anyone does think he’s seen anythin’ that could be this Mesan Alignment’s doin’, then I hope t’ hell he tells someone about it! But we’ve got a very finite amount of naval and military strength here in Talbott. We can’t afford t’ waste any of it on somethin’ that turns out not t’ve been hostile action, after all.”

“Agreed.” Michelle nodded. “Trust me, Michael, as the person whose resources are ‘very finite,’ that’s not something I’m likely to forget. All the same, I think we probably need our ’cat whiskers spread as far and as sensitively as we can get them. It’s even more important to be sure we don’t miss something that does turn out to have been hostile action, and we’re just going to have to hope our filtering and evaluation are up to discriminating between real threats and false alarms.”

Oversteegen nodded back soberly.

“One thing I’d like to do, Ma’am,” Munming said, “is to spend some time brainstorming. I know I just said we had to be cautious about how we factor this into our planning, but I don’t think it would hurt a thing for us to start considering what we might do if we were Mesa and it turns out this information about the ‘Alignment’ is accurate after all. Let’s kick out some possibilities—think about worst-case scenarios they might spring on us—and start thinking of ways we might deal with them.”

“I’m in favor of that, Ma’am,” Oversteegen agreed, nodding vigorously. “Th’ only resource that’s likely t’ use up is brainpower, which just happens to be one of th’ few resources I’m familiar with that only reproduces itself th’ more you use it!”

“Well, in that case,” Michelle replied, “does anyone have any ‘worst-cases’ they’d care to throw out before the meeting?”

* * *

“I wish I was more confident this was a good idea,” Sector Governor Verrochio admitted quietly as he stood on the reviewing stand beside Junyan Hongbo.

Hongbo refrained from pointing out that he’d raised that same point when the deployment was first suggested.

It’s too late to change our minds, anyway, he thought. Besides, I’m not sure Yucel didn’t actually have a point this time. It’d be a first, but even unlikely things happen…sometimes.