MacGruder’s eyebrows rose. Sometimes, listening to his cousin speak, Allenby’s rustic mountain accent could fool even him into forgetting the acuity of the brain behind those brown eyes. But then Floyd would come up with a piece of analysis like that and remind him.
“I’m not saying the Manties are going to back us out of the pure goodness of their hearts any more than I think OFS is backing Tallulah because they love Parkman so much,” Allenby continued. “I’m just saying we both have reasons to be pissed off as hell at Frontier Security, and if it makes sense to the Manties to go after Schuman and Karaxis—and Parkman—here in Swallow, it makes sense to me to let them help us do it.”
“Put that way, makes sense to me, too,” MacGruder admitted after a moment. He considered what his cousin had said in silence for several seconds, then cocked his head.
“So when do we expect to hear back from Vinnie?” he asked.
“Sometime in the next week or so.” Allenby refilled his coffee cup again. “I don’t think Karaxis even realizes Vinnie’s back on-planet, but the only place he could make contact is in Capistrano, so we’re not going to know how it went until he’s had time to get back here without attracting anyone’s attention. So”—he shrugged—“about a week or so.”
“And just how are the Manties planning on getting weapons shipments through to us when Tallulah controls all the traffic into and out of Swallow?” MacGruder sounded as much honestly curious as skeptical, and Allenby snorted a laugh.
“Damned if I know!” he admitted cheerfully. “That’s up to Vinnie and this Manty super secret agent he’s hooked up with.” He shrugged. “If Mister ‘Firebrand’ can come up with a way to get the guns to us, though, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to figure out what to do with them after he does.”
Chapter Ten
“Well, Hosea, I hope you’ve completed your homework assignment,” Naomi Kaplan said dryly as HMS Tristram bored through hyper-space, twelve hours after leaving Montana orbit. “I’d like to sound like I’ve got some clue what I’m talking about for the Commodore’s conference.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m happy about the amount of detail I’ve managed to turn up, Skipper,” Lieutenant Hosea Simpkins, Tristram’s astrogator replied with a wry smile. “I’ve pulled everything I could find out of the files, but Tester knows it isn’t much.”
“Somehow, I’m not surprised.” Commander Kaplan shrugged and leaned back in her chair at the head of the briefing room’s conference table. “Go ahead and give us what you’ve got, though.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Kaplan’s Grayson-born astrogator didn’t bother to consult his notes. “Technically, Saltash’s an independent star system. Actually, it’s been an OFS client for about sixty T-years. The single habitable planet is called Cinnamon. Orbital radius is about nine light-minutes, population’s just under two-point-five billion. Planetary diameter’s only point-nine-six Old Earth, but gravity’s almost a full standard gravity, so it’s obviously a little denser than most. Hydrosphere is right on seventy-three percent, and its axial inclination’s only nine degrees, so it sounds like a fairly nice place to live.
“Unfortunately, the local political structure was a real mess sixty or seventy T-years back. The Republic of McPhee and the Republic of Lochore both claimed to be the sole legitimate system government, and they’d fought two or three wars without settling things. They were headed towards another war, and all indications were it was going to be a really ugly affair this time around, when the president of MacPhee called in Frontier Security to play referee.”
“Where have we heard this story before?” Lieutenant Commander Alvin Tallman muttered with a scowling expression.
“I hate to say it, Sir,” Simpkins told Tristram’s executive officer, “but in this case OFS really did end up doing one of the things it was ostensibly created to do. I’m not saying it did it out of the goodness of its heart, you understand, but if the League hadn’t intervened, McPhee and Lochore were probably getting ready to pretty well sterilize Cinnamon. That’s how bitter the situation had gotten.”
“Any idea why things were that bad, Hosea?” Kaplan asked, her eyes intent, and Simpkins shrugged.
“Not really, Ma’am. Given the intensity of the last war they actually fought, these people were as unreasonable as we Graysons were before we exiled the Faithful to Masada, but it doesn’t seem like religion was behind the antagonism in Saltash’s case. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the two sides had obviously hated each other for a long time, and it looks like they’d simply reached the point of being so pissed off, if you’ll pardon my language, that they were ready to pull the trigger even knowing there was a pretty good chance they’d wreck the entire planet.”
“Well, that sounds promising as hell,” Lieutenant Vincenzo Fonzarelli sighed.
“It might not be that bad, Vincenzo,” Abigail Hearns said, smiling slightly at Tristram’s chief engineer. Fonzarelli looked back at her skeptically, and she shrugged. “We’re not really here to deal with the Saltashans directly, so it doesn’t matter if they’re as crazy as the Faithful…or even Graysons.” Her smile turned dimpled. “All we have to worry about is the OFS presence in the system.”
“That’s a reassuring thought,” Lieutenant Wanda O’Reilly observed waspishly. The communications officer’s resentment of Abigail’s promotion and (in her opinion) privileged status had abated—slightly—but it still rankled, and no one was ever going to accuse O’Reilly of giving up a sense of antagonism easily.
“I could wish we weren’t here to confront the Sollies, too, Wanda,” Kaplan said mildly. “Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be making the trip if there weren’t Sollies at the other end of it, now would we?”
“No, Ma’am,” O’Reilly acknowledged.
“So how much system infrastructure is there, Hosea?” Kaplan asked, turning her attention back to the astrogator.
“Not much, actually.” This time the Grayson did look down at his notes. “There’s some mining in the Casper Belt between Saltash Delta and Himalaya, the system’s only gas giant, although the total belter population—work force and dependents, combined—is way under a half million. And there’s a gas extraction plant orbiting Himalaya itself. There doesn’t seem to be much local heavy industry, though, and the system’s only real cargo transfer platform is Shona Station. Which also happens to be Cinnamon’s only significant orbital habitat.”