Shadow of Victory - eARC Read Online Free
Author: David Weber
the League—or the people who run it, anyway—considerable embarrassment, and Kolokoltsov and the others would throw him to the wolves in a heartbeat to prevent that. Besides, Kalokainos has more than enough enemies among the other transstellars. They’d make it worth Kolokoltsov’s while to hammer him on any pretext that offered.”
“And Jessyk and Manpower don’t have any enemies, I suppose?”
“Of course they do, but they aren’t Solly-based, either. The League doesn’t really have a hammer to bring down on them—not legally, anyway. The only people they have to worry about at the moment live in star nations that begin with the letter ‘M,’ Captain.”
“I imagine they do,” Harahap acknowledged after a moment and sat back in his seat. “All right, Mister Chernyshev. Take me to this safe house of yours.”
“Already on our way, Captain.” Chernyshev smiled broadly. “And, please, call me Rufino. I suspect we’ll be working closely with one another.”
March 1921 Post Diaspora
“Dust off your researching skills, Professor. Figure out where we can buy what I need to rip the throat out of my best friend’s political monument.”
—Tomasz Szponder,
Krucjata Wolonści Myśli
Chapter Two
“It’s your move, Edyta,” the blond, blue-eyed girl said, tapping the portable chess set squeezed into the armrest space between her seat and the next. “You do plan to move sometime today, don’t you?”
“Of course I do!” Edyta Sowczyk, four centimeters shorter, with dark eyes and bright chestnut hair, tore her attention away from the window beside her. “But there’s plenty of time for that! I want to see the spaceport!”
Karolina Kreft sighed and shook her head with an air of martyrdom. It wasn’t a very convincing sigh, all things considered. At fifteen, she was barely a year older than Edyta, and she rather suspected that her younger friend was quite a bit smarter than she was. Not that Karolina was a dummy, by any means. She wouldn’t have been invited on this special tour of the spaceport if she hadn’t been in the top two or three percent of her class. But Edyta had been accelerated a full year ahead of her age-mates, and she was still in the top two or three percent of their class.
She also regularly beat Karolina’s socks off at chess…when she could keep her mind on the game, anyway. And that, little though Karolina cared to admit it, was one reason she wanted Edyta to go ahead and move now. The trap she’d set for her opponent’s queen’s knight wasn’t something Edyta was likely to miss under normal circumstances. Under these circumstances, though…
“We’ll get to the spaceport when we get to the spaceport,” she said. “In the meantime, let’s go ahead and try to finish up this game.”
“Oh, all right.”
Edyta flounced around in her seat—she was small-boned and petite enough she actually had space to do that, despite how tightly packed the airbus was—and looked down at the chessboard. She reached out impatiently, then paused, fingertips millimeters away from her king’s bishop. She stayed that way for a moment, then withdrew her hand and settled back in her seat.
“That was sneaky, Karolina,” she said, toying with one of her pigtails’ cheap but pretty green ribbons. The holo pattern printed on it flashed in the sunlight, and she tilted her head to one side, considering the board. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re trying to pick on my poor little knight.”
“Who, me?” Karolina tried her very best to sound innocent, not that she expected Edyta to buy it for a moment.
“Unless it was someone else who moved your queen,” Edyta said almost absently, her eyes very thoughtful. Then she reached out again, not for the bishop this time, but for her king’s knight, and Karolina puffed her lips in frustration as her trap fell apart.
* * *
“How much longer, Andrzej?”
Lukrecja Wolińska had to raise her voice to be heard over the
“And Jessyk and Manpower don’t have any enemies, I suppose?”
“Of course they do, but they aren’t Solly-based, either. The League doesn’t really have a hammer to bring down on them—not legally, anyway. The only people they have to worry about at the moment live in star nations that begin with the letter ‘M,’ Captain.”
“I imagine they do,” Harahap acknowledged after a moment and sat back in his seat. “All right, Mister Chernyshev. Take me to this safe house of yours.”
“Already on our way, Captain.” Chernyshev smiled broadly. “And, please, call me Rufino. I suspect we’ll be working closely with one another.”
March 1921 Post Diaspora
“Dust off your researching skills, Professor. Figure out where we can buy what I need to rip the throat out of my best friend’s political monument.”
—Tomasz Szponder,
Krucjata Wolonści Myśli
Chapter Two
“It’s your move, Edyta,” the blond, blue-eyed girl said, tapping the portable chess set squeezed into the armrest space between her seat and the next. “You do plan to move sometime today, don’t you?”
“Of course I do!” Edyta Sowczyk, four centimeters shorter, with dark eyes and bright chestnut hair, tore her attention away from the window beside her. “But there’s plenty of time for that! I want to see the spaceport!”
Karolina Kreft sighed and shook her head with an air of martyrdom. It wasn’t a very convincing sigh, all things considered. At fifteen, she was barely a year older than Edyta, and she rather suspected that her younger friend was quite a bit smarter than she was. Not that Karolina was a dummy, by any means. She wouldn’t have been invited on this special tour of the spaceport if she hadn’t been in the top two or three percent of her class. But Edyta had been accelerated a full year ahead of her age-mates, and she was still in the top two or three percent of their class.
She also regularly beat Karolina’s socks off at chess…when she could keep her mind on the game, anyway. And that, little though Karolina cared to admit it, was one reason she wanted Edyta to go ahead and move now. The trap she’d set for her opponent’s queen’s knight wasn’t something Edyta was likely to miss under normal circumstances. Under these circumstances, though…
“We’ll get to the spaceport when we get to the spaceport,” she said. “In the meantime, let’s go ahead and try to finish up this game.”
“Oh, all right.”
Edyta flounced around in her seat—she was small-boned and petite enough she actually had space to do that, despite how tightly packed the airbus was—and looked down at the chessboard. She reached out impatiently, then paused, fingertips millimeters away from her king’s bishop. She stayed that way for a moment, then withdrew her hand and settled back in her seat.
“That was sneaky, Karolina,” she said, toying with one of her pigtails’ cheap but pretty green ribbons. The holo pattern printed on it flashed in the sunlight, and she tilted her head to one side, considering the board. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re trying to pick on my poor little knight.”
“Who, me?” Karolina tried her very best to sound innocent, not that she expected Edyta to buy it for a moment.
“Unless it was someone else who moved your queen,” Edyta said almost absently, her eyes very thoughtful. Then she reached out again, not for the bishop this time, but for her king’s knight, and Karolina puffed her lips in frustration as her trap fell apart.
* * *
“How much longer, Andrzej?”
Lukrecja Wolińska had to raise her voice to be heard over the
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