Shadow of Freedom-eARC by David Weber Read Free Book Online Page B

have done it before he knew they’d pulled it off. And he wouldn’t have gone about this way it even if they’d managed to turn Torch into a cue ball. It’s not the way he thinks, not the sort of thing he’d involve himself with.”
    “Grief and hatred can make someone do terrible things,” Gervais pointed out gently, and Helen surprised him with a snort of laughter.
    “You don’t have to tell me that. Remember what happened to me on Old Terra? Or what happened to my Mom? Or the way I met Berry and Lars, for that matter? But Daddy is a very…guided weapon, Gwen. He’s got really good target discrimination, and he’s just as good at holding down the collateral damage. Besides, nuking a park? A park full of kids? ” She shook her head. “He’d die first. Or, for that matter, kill anybody else who thought that would be a good idea! I’m not saying my Daddy’s a saint, because he’s not. I love him, but nobody who knows him would ever claim he’s an angel. Or, if he is, he’s one of those avenging angels with a really sooty halo, anyway. And I could see him not worrying a whole lot about the tender sensibilities of a bunch of slave-trading Mesans. I could even see him using a nuke against some kind of hard target, the kind that wouldn’t kill a stack of civilians when it disappeared in a mushroom cloud. But not this. Never a park.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Gwen, I’m damned sure Daddy didn’t plan and carry out this strike. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know why he hasn’t spoken up yet. And, yeah, I’ll admit that scares the shit out of me. He’s got to know how Mesa’s using Green Pines as a club to beat both the Star Empire and the Ballroom, and he’d never let them go on doing it if he could do anything—like surfacing to refute their version—to stop it. But it’s not his style. Oh, yeah, if they’d actually managed to genocide Torch, then he might’ve gone after them on Mesa. He wouldn’t have done it until he knew they’d gotten through to Torch, though, and he wouldn’t have done it this way even then. He’d’ve been looking for another target, and when he was done, there wouldn’t be any question about who’d been responsible for it.”
    “Why not?” Helga asked, her tone one of fascination despite the topic of the conversation, and Helen gave another, harsher snort of laughter.
    “Because if my Daddy had gone after a target on Mesa, he wouldn’t have wasted his time on Green Pines. If he was in city-killing mode, he’d’ve gone after Mendel and their entire system government, not some lousy bedroom community. And, trust me, the hole would’ve been a hell of a lot deeper!”

Chapter Four
    Fine, misty rain drizzled down from a dim, gray sky. The brisk wind drove the droplets in billowing waves, almost (but not quite) like fog, and the air was cold, its edge sharpened by the approach of winter. The battered old ground car’s side windows had been patched with tape, drafts probed through its interior, and its aged heater’s valiant battle against the chill was dwindling toward defeat. Water splashed against the vehicle’s underside as it jolted down the potholed surface road, and the passenger side’s old-fashioned wiper blade was frozen uselessly in place.
    Indiana Graham hunched forward in the driver’s seat, leaning over the wheel and bending down to peer through the lower portion of his side of the windshield where the equally old-fashioned fan-powered defroster had actually managed to produce a very inconveniently placed clear patch. His coat was thick and reasonably warm, although it was also badly worn, but he wore neither hat nor gloves. The slender young woman huddled in the passenger’s seat who looked enough like him to have been his sister (because she was) was wearing gloves, but she had her hands tucked into her armpits, anyway. Her breath steamed slightly, and she looked thoroughly miserable.
    The car splashed through a deeper, wider puddle,