Shadow of Freedom полностью

“Let me put this as clearly as I can, Commander,” Terekhov continued after a moment. “I intend to put a stop to the butchery the Solarian League has been actively abetting in this star system. I intend to put a stop to it now, and I intend to take whatever steps are necessary to accomplish that objective. Which brings me to you.”

“In…what way?” Watson asked, cursing the slight catch in his voice.

“As I see it, you’re part of the problem,” Terekhov told him flatly. “You escorted the intervention battalions currently operating on Mobius Beta from the Madras Sector, and you’ve been supporting them since your arrival.” Those icy blue eyes turned even colder. “We’ve already recorded the evidence of kinetic strikes, Commander Watson, so let’s not waste anyone’s time pretending you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m willing to assume—for the moment, at least—that you’re not the senior officer of this abortion of an operation. As such, I presume you were following someone else’s orders, which gives you at least some legal cover. As one serving officer to another, however, we both know exactly what you should have said when given that order, don’t we? So I’m afraid the technicalities of your chain of command don’t buy you a whole lot with me.”

Something shriveled inside Tremont Watson—in shame, this time, not in fear—but Terekhov gave him no opportunity to defend himself.

“You have two options, Commander, but only one chance to pick between them,” the Manticoran said. “You can choose to take to your escape pods and small craft and scuttle your ships. Or you can choose not to, in which case I will blow them, and you, and every other man and woman aboard them, straight to hell from a range at which you won’t even be able to scratch my paint. As a general rule, I don’t much like butchering people who can’t fight back. Given what’s been happening on this planet, I’m willing to make an exception.”

Those ice-blue eyes bored into Tremont Watson’s soul.

“You have ten minutes to decide whether or not I do. Terekhov, clear.”

Sir Aivars Terekhov watched his tactical plot as his flagship and the other units of his small task group settled into orbit around Mobius Beta. HMS Cloud’s LACs spread out around the planet, and Colonel Alex Simak’s Marine assault shuttles moved out of the big CLAC’s boatbays behind them. The bulk of the task group’s small craft were otherwise occupied, however. They were busy collecting the lifepods of the Solarian personnel whose ships had blown themselves up an hour and a half before.

“All right, Atalante,” he said. “Given how well Helen’s prescription worked out with Commander Watson, I think we’ll just let President Lombroso and Brigadier Yucel and friends sweat for a little bit before we talk to them, too. See if you can get a response over Ms. Summers’ link, instead.”

“Yes, Sir.” Lieutenant Montella turned to her console, and Terekhov folded his arms across his chest as he gazed into the master visual display at the blue, green, and dun colored planet so far below.

Commander Pope stepped up beside him.

“Do you really think Breitbach’s going to be in a position to answer, Sir?” the chief of staff asked softly.

“I don’t know, Tom,” Terekhov replied. He twitched his shoulders. “Given what these people have been up to, I just don’t know. If his security held, maybe. But…”

His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. The news reports had been bad enough on the way in; now that they’d entered orbit and deployed air-breathing recon platforms, it was even worse. Several square blocks of Landing lay in charred, flattened ruins. Most of the destroyed structures—which happened, just coincidentally of course, to lie in the middle of the capital city’s low income housing, far away from the important corporate assets downtown—seemed to have been old-style construction, possibly left over from the city’s earliest days and built out of native materials. Few of those buildings had been more than five or six stories tall, but two much more modern towers had been caught in the holocaust and towered over the ashes at their feet like burned out Sphinxian crown oaks.