Shadow of Freedom полностью

They’d been in-system for almost two and a half hours now. In fact, they’d made their turnover and begun decelerating forty-eight minutes ago. The range was down to thirty-one million kilometers—under two light-minutes—and he’d started sweating the moment it dropped to forty million. If they’d brought along any of the missile pods they’d used on Admiral Crandall, he was inside their envelope, and they were still better than twenty million kilometers outside his.

He knew everyone else on his command deck could do the math as well as he could, and he seen the tension growing in his officers’ faces as the minutes crawled past. Yet there was something about Shang’s announcement…

“Calm down, Branston!” Watson said. “Let’s not get too excited here.”

“But, Sir…they’re asking specifically for you. And they’re transmitting from less than forty thousand kilometers out!”

“What?” Watson straightened in his command chair. “What do you mean, specifically for me? By name?”

“Not by your name, Sir, but they’re requesting SLNS Oceanus’ commanding officer.”

Watson stared at the communications officer. None of his ships had activated their transponders, so how the hell could the Manties possibly know his flagship’s name? And what was that about forty thousand kilometers? How could anybody get a communications relay that close without any of his sensors even noticing it on its way in? And why should they bother to, even if they could?

My God. The thought hit him like a sudden bucket of ice water. My God, they didn’t just get a com relay that close; they got sensor platforms that close—close enough to read ships’ names off our goddamned hulls—and we never saw a frigging thing!

The implications were terrifying, and he suddenly wished Francisca Yucel was up here in orbit and he was safely down on the planet.

“Very well, Branston,” he said as calmly as he could, suppressing a sudden urge to lick his lips. “Put it on my display here.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The small communications screen deployed from his command chair came to life with the face of a dark-haired, olive-complexioned young woman in the black and gold uniform of the Star Empire of Manticore. For a moment, nothing about struck him as peculiar, until he suddenly realized she was in uniform, not wearing a skinsuit.

“I am Lieutenant Atalante Montella, Royal Manticoran Navy,” she said. “Am I addressing the commanding officer of SLNS Oceanus?”

“You are,” he said, his mind still grappling with the absence of that skinsuit. It was like a deliberate declaration that the lieutenant on his display was beyond any range at which he could possibly have threatened her. Which was true enough, he supposed, but still…

“I’m Commander Tremont Watson, Solarian League Navy,” he continued. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?

He sat back to wait out the two hundred-second lightspeed delay, but—

“Please stand by for Commodore Terekhov,” she said, less than two seconds later.

He twitched, his eyes flaring wide open. That was impossible! They were still more than thirty million kilometers away! Nobody could—

Oh, shit, a little voice said almost calmly deep down inside. They do haveFTL com capability! And if they’ve got recon platforms that close, platforms that can send back targeting data faster-than-light…

He closed his eyes for a moment as the implications crashed over him.

“Good evening, Commander Watson.” A blond haired, bearded Manticoran officer replaced Montella on his display. The Manty wore a commodore’s insignia, and his blue eyes were remarkably cold. “I am Sir Aivars Terekhov, Royal Manticoran Navy.”

Every Solarian officer in the Madras Sector knew that name, and Watson felt a solid lump of ice materialize in the pit of his stomach as he recognized it and remembered a star system named Monica.

We are so fucked, that same little voice whispered.

“Commodore,” he replied out loud, fighting to sound normal…and knowing he’d failed. “May I ask what brings you to Mobius, Sir?”

“Yes, you may.” Terekhov smiled thinly, and his voice was cold. “We’re here in response to an urgent request for humanitarian assistance.”

“Humanitarian assistance?” Watson heard the faint, sickly edge in his own voice as he repeated the words.

“I think that’s a suitable way to describe it,” Terekhov said. “Certainly in light of the ‘news broadcasts’ we’ve been monitoring for the past couple of hours.”

Sweat beaded Watson’s hairline, but this time he said nothing. There was nothing he could say, really.