Free Spinneret by Timothy Zahn

repulsers the Ctencri sold us are about five generations behind state of the art.”
    â€œProbably both.” Meredith felt drained, as if he’d just spent the morning before a hostile congressional committee. “Well, I guess that’s our taste of diplomacy for the week. Let’s get back to work, shall we?”

Chapter 5
    B EAEKI’S DEPARTURE COINCIDED WITH the beginning of over a week of relative quiet on Astra, a breather that allowed Meredith to finally get the colony back on some sort of schedule. Whether it was the small concessions he’d thrown to the militants in Ceres or whether the adjustment to Astra’s twenty-seven-hour day had simply worn everyone out, he didn’t know. Whatever the reason, though, he was grateful.
    News from other fronts was somewhat less encouraging. The fields at Crosse had finally been enriched enough for planting to begin, but they were still losing metals too fast. Proposals for countermeasures began to clog Meredith’s desk, and he had to pull two of Major Brown’s engineers off construction work to do cost/practicality studies on all of them. The offshore mining had begun, but it was quickly becoming evident that unless the Rooshrike could be induced to buy some of the final products, the whole scheme was going to be a gigantic waste of money. Given the lackluster support the UN was giving the colony already, a failure of its one potential money-making project might induce them to simply throw in the towel. To Meredith that would be nearly equivalent to losing a war, a scenario of national dishonor that he had no desire to preside over. But if there were any other way for the colony to help support itself, neither he nor any of the scientists he’d put the problem to had been able to find it.
    The only real bright spot amidst the gloom was that by the end of the week the two remaining flyers were back in the air again. The techs at Martello had finally concluded that Hafner’s earlier guess was correct, that some outside electric field in exact resonance with the repulser confinement fields had allowed the plasma to leak out. Where such a field could possibly have come from was a question no one could answer; but as the flyers continued to crisscross the area without the slightest hint of trouble, even Meredith was finally able to hear their characteristic whistle overhead without wincing.
    And on the tenth day the quiet was shattered.
    â€œNow you listen to me, Major: you will stay put. Is that clear? No sweeps, no stunner spray; nothing.”
    Sitting in Meredith’s office, Carmen waited for the colonel to finish his conversation, her fury at Cristobal Perez a churning knot in her stomach. Yes, the colonel’s phone had an unlisted number, and yes, her office was just down the hall from his—but Perez still should have called the listed duty officer number instead of putting her in the middle of something that wasn’t any of her business.
    â€œNot unless they start breaking more than windows,” Meredith growled into his phone. “Just go back to observing and keep me informed, okay? … Right; out.” Muttering a curse, the colonel flipped off his phone. “Idiot,” he growled, shaking his head. “The planet’s practically made of silicon and he’s worried about a few windows.” Looking back at Carmen he almost visibly shifted gears. “Right, now. You were saying you had a message from Perez?”
    â€œYes, Colonel.” Gritting her teeth, she plunged in. “Mr. Perez called me a few minutes ago with a couple of suggestions—”
    â€œYou mean demands, don’t you?” Meredith interrupted.
    â€œI don’t know, sir. They did sound more like suggestions to me.
    Meredith dismissed the point with a grunt. “All right. Let’s hear them and be done with it.”
    â€œFirst of all, he again says that Major Dunlop should be relieved of command in