TEN
DUELLOS had escorted Geary to Inspire’s shuttle dock, then paused at the end of the shuttle’s entry ramp, giving Geary a pleading look. “You know what will happen to me if anything happens to you.”
“Tanya wouldn’t hurt you.”
“How can you be married to her and not know what the woman is capable of?” Duellos asked. “Please, Admiral. Take a squad of Marines along. No one will blink at their accompanying you.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “No. I’m not some Syndic CEO who needs bodyguards everywhere he goes.”
“Captain Desjani said you might feel that way, her exact words were something along the lines of he’ll probably be a stubborn ass about it, and requested that I remind the Admiral that various parties attempted to kill him while he was in Sol Star System.”
“I haven’t forgotten that,” Geary said. “But, while there, Captain Desjani reminded me that Black Jack is an important symbol. What he does matters. How would it look, what message would it convey, if Black Jack thought he needed personal protection while walking around a planet of the Alliance among the people of the Alliance?”
“There is that. But you had agreed there was a trap waiting for you here,” Duellos reminded him.
Geary laughed, surprising his companion. “There isn’t a trap. Not like what we thought. Why do we have to worry so much about that battleship in the hands of Tiyannak? Because the defenses here and at Yokai have been gutted, right?”
“Right,” Duellos agreed. “Not that a battleship could be discounted even if the defenses at Yokai were fully active.”
“Who must have approved those drawdowns in forces and fixed defenses?”
“Fleet headquarters for our units, ground forces headquarters for—” Duellos ceased speaking, then smiled sardonically. “Admiral Tosic and General Javier. Who now find themselves in a lot of trouble because of those decisions. They have at least a hint of the threat from Tiyannak, don’t they?”
“I’d bet on it,” Geary said. “It’s an awful mess as a result of their actions. They need someone to handle it, someone to bail them out.”
“And who better than Black Jack?” Duellos frowned. “But if they knew about the battleship, why authorize only one division of battle cruisers to come with you to Adriana?”
“Because they can’t admit that they know about the threat. They can’t admit that they need a fire brigade in here to put out the blaze caused by their earlier decisions. If I put out the fire, they get to avoid awkward questions. If I fail, then, hey, they sent Black Jack with what should have been more than enough warships for the refugee return mission, didn’t they? How can it be their fault that he failed?”
“Clever,” Duellos admitted. “And the tendency of the press and the government and the citizens to focus on you would help ensure no one looked back to whatever actions various headquarters commanders had taken.”
“Exactly. This isn’t some great scheme to sabotage the Alliance or undermine the government. It’s just good old-fashioned political maneuvering to protect the butts of the brass.” Geary smiled again. “But it may serve a higher purpose than they plan.”
Duellos looked around with exaggerated surprise. “I don’t see that Rione woman anywhere, but I swear I could feel her presence.”
“Working with her has given me some ideas,” Geary admitted. “Tanya gave me more ideas. This will still be a tough operation if Tiyannak has the battleship operational. But it’s the kind of tough I can handle.”
? ? ?
COLONEL Galland was waiting at the landing pad where Geary’s shuttle set down. She saluted him with an admiring smile. “I have seen people throw their weight around before, Admiral, but you take the cake.”
“I’m not that bad,” Geary said, returning the salute. “Not usually, anyway. Have the aerospace forces begun saluting again, too?”
“We’re seriously considering it.” Galland fell in alongside Geary as they walked toward a group of governmental dignitaries awaiting them. “When they take away your people and your aerospace craft and your training time and your lunch money, tradition is about the only substitute for those things that you can afford. Just so you know, nine months ago Adriana petitioned to have its contributions to the Alliance reduced. They have unilaterally reduced those payments by half while awaiting a response.”
“And they’ll probably be shocked to hear that Alliance spending on defending them has been cut.” Geary looked around. “I don’t see any ground forces officers. Nor any military police for security. General Sissons had better show up for this meeting.”
“There’s some regular police farther out occupying a security perimeter. Military police don’t usually handle this sort of thing,” Colonel Galland advised. “They’re more focused on internal security.”
Geary was so shocked that he came to a momentary halt. “Internal security.”
“Yes.” Galland eyed him. “I guess that’s a change from your days. They look for threats from foreign powers in Alliance territory.”
A military force conducting internal security operations? That explained why the MPs had been equipped with the sort of gear someone who broke into buildings would need. “Yes. That’s a change from my days.” Geary looked around, at the blue sky, at the utilitarian buildings clustered around the landing pad, at the citizens awaiting him. None of it looked strange, but suddenly it all felt alien. He had been stunned to learn the sort of tactics the fleet had adopted when fighting the Syndics, but it had never occurred to him that similar anger, fear, and desperation could have altered the behavior of forces inside the Alliance.
Colonel Galland watched him, puzzled, then with slowly dawning understanding. “It wasn’t that way? At all?”
“No. What about ground forces intelligence?”
“Same thing. Monitoring internal threats and watching for external threats.”
Ancestors preserve us. “In my time, the military, the intelligence services, were outward focused. They never would have been aimed at Alliance citizens. We had laws that prevented that.”
“I guess the laws changed.” Galland bit her lip as she gazed into the distance. “And I guess we got used to it. I just realized that while active military forces have been drawn down a lot recently, the forces aimed at internal threats haven’t been. Maybe we need to start thinking about that.”
“Maybe we do,” Geary agreed as he began walking again.
The most senior leaders of Adriana’s government were here, as well as a general whom Geary didn’t recognize. “Yazmin Shwartz,” she introduced herself. “Chief of Staff for Adriana Star System Self-Defense forces.”
President Astrida led Geary to one of the ground vehicles that would transport them to the meeting place. During the short trip, Geary tried to study the interior of the vehicle without being obvious about it, noting fairly luxurious fittings and what seemed to be impressive active and passive defenses.
General Shwartz noticed his interest in the vehicle. “We haven’t made any unauthorized modifications,” she said, sounding defensive in the manner of someone expecting criticism.
“This is a standard government vehicle?” Geary asked.
“Yes. Standard specifications,” she repeated. “Required for all governmental officials at star system senate level and higher.”
There must have been a huge number of luxurious and heavily protected limos like this bought for officials, Geary realized. He had a suspicion that the spending cutbacks hadn’t affected those purchases. “Are you related to Dr. Shwartz of the University of Vulcan’s Nonhuman Intelligence Studies Department?”
“Not that I know of.”
Neither General Shwartz nor most of the others in the limo appeared ready to relax, making it hard for Geary not to tense up as well. Apparently, they expected the worst from him.
Colonel Galland, though, leaned back in her seat and looked inquiringly at Geary. “Nonhuman intelligence? We’ve recently seen a lot of press reports about those you found, and what the ones with you did at Old Earth.”
“That’s all officially classified,” General Shwartz cautioned.
“Everyone here is cleared, aren’t they?” Geary asked. “You have as much need to know as anyone.”
“Can you tell us more about them?” President Astrida asked eagerly.
It was a nice opening to break the ice before the meeting. He owed Colonel Galland for offering it.
Especially since they were going to be getting some pretty bad news at the meeting.
? ? ?
“GENERAL Sissons was unavoidably detained—” the colonel began.
“What?” Geary interrupted. He hadn’t thought he had given the word any particular force, but the colonel paled and had trouble speaking again.
“The general will attend via conferencing software,” the colonel got out this time, his words falling over themselves in haste.
Geary found the seat with the elaborate placard saying “Commander, Alliance Fleet Forces, Adriana Star System” and refrained from pointing out that it should have identified him as commander of the First Fleet. He stood, waiting, as the others took their seats, and the virtual presence of General Sissons appeared in his seat.
President Astrida looked around the table, clenched her jaw in a way that stood out clearly on her aged face, then gestured to Geary. “Admiral. You said this meeting was urgent.”
He paused only to bring up the star display over the table around which everyone sat, momentarily startled when no less than four aides, military and civilian, rushed to do the job for him. Waving them off, Geary pointed to the region around Adriana. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
“Your orders, as I understand it,” an officious man in a suit worthy of a Syndic CEO noted, “are to return the refugees here to Syndic space. Why is that our problem?”
Enough other people around the table seemed to share in the sentiment that Geary decided to go straight to the heart of the matter. “Because if a battleship belonging to a hostile power arrives at Adriana, you’re all going to get your butts blown off.”
He gestured again in the sudden silence. “The battleship is owned by Tiyannak. That star system,” he said, pointing to the display. “Tiyannak has indicated an intention to conquer Batara, where the refugees came from. That will make Tiyannak your next-door neighbors.”
Someone finally found their voice. “The Syndics signed a peace treaty!”
“Tiyannak is in revolt. They’re not a Syndic star system anymore.”
“How did you learn all this?” President Astrida asked as she cast accusing looks at some of her own officials. “I have heard nothing of this.”
“The refugees told me,” Geary said.
“They’ve told us nothing!” one of those subject to the president’s glower insisted. “I’ve been up to some of those freighters myself. All they would talk about is finding jobs.”
“Is that what they said?”
“They said . . . they said they could work. They were looking for somewhere they could work. They wouldn’t tell us anything else! I asked for military assistance in interrogations, but we couldn’t get any because I was told the refugees were a civil problem! I threatened the Syndics, I told them what we would do, and they didn’t say anything else.” The woman focused on Geary. “What did you do? What interrogation tricks did you use? What finally scared them into cooperating?”
“I talked to them,” Geary said. Those around the table stared back, uncomprehending. “That’s all. I talked to them. It is possible to talk to Syndics. And these aren’t even Syndics any longer. But we have to talk to them. Not interrogate them, not threaten them, just talk to them. Those people have spent their lives being threatened by their own leaders,” Geary added, “and by an internal security service that had almost unchecked power. Our threats seem like child’s play to them. They’ve learned how to avoid answering questions, how to avoid saying things, how to avoid any truth that might focus attention on them or get them into trouble. They would only talk to you about the work they could do because they thought that was the only safe topic—because they think that we are just like their own leaders.”
“So, they’re stupid,” someone said scornfully.
Geary felt his face flush with anger. “No. They’re survivors. They’re operating according to the rules they know. They don’t trust anyone. But when I put the discussion in terms of self-interest, both ours and theirs, then they understood. My fleet database had enough information about Tiyannak and the Syndic-controlled star system at Yael to confirm part of what the refugees told me. Tiyannak is a resource-poor star system that was positioned well for a big Syndic ship refit and repair base just behind Syndic front lines. Now they’re not under Syndic control, and they’re still resource-poor, but they’ve got the warships the Syndics had at that base. The refugees didn’t understand the significance to us of the battleship that Tiyannak has. They just saw it as a threat to Batara. But if the battleship is at Batara, it’s a threat to Adriana.”
President Astrida glared at the star display. “The defenses at Yokai cannot stop it? Why not?”
“Because there are no defenses at Yokai. They’ve all been shut down. The star system has been totally abandoned by the Alliance.”
General Sissons spoke loudly. “That information is classified. It should not—”
“Everyone here should be authorized to see it,” Geary broke in. “I’m releasing it to them on my authority.”
“But . . . for a hundred years we have been on the front lines . . . all right, near the front lines,” a government official complained plaintively. “Right behind them. And the Alliance has been here to defend us.”
“The Alliance government has been cutting expenditures right and left as the amount of revenue flowing in has dwindled,” Geary said. “I shouldn’t have to explain that. I know that some senators in other star systems who argued for the need for maintaining more revenue to the central government for Alliance-wide priorities were defeated in elections. I also know that everyone is tired of war, tired of the endless fighting and deaths and destruction. Ending the war has reduced the scale of the threat to us. But it didn’t make it go away, and it has created some new threats.”
He paused to look around the table, catching the eyes of each person in turn, except for General Sissons, who kept his gaze fixed firmly on the table before him. “You know my fleet was sent out far beyond the frontiers of the Alliance. You must have heard that we took losses. Ships. Sailors and Marines. Men and women.”
President Astrida held up her hands in a gesture of half surrender. “You don’t need to lecture us on the sacrifices demanded of the armed forces, Admiral. Too many of us have lost people close to us. Have you looked at the economies of the star systems in the Alliance? Very few are doing well right now. We are willing to pay . . . what is necessary to the common good, to the common defense. But it is very hard to know what is necessary when so much is kept secret from us. Colonel Galland told us when her wing was threatened with removal, and we moved to save them. We were not told of these other reductions. We were not given a voice in the decision.”
“Why weren’t we told?” someone else demanded.
Colonel Galland shook her head. “Your president already said why. Secrecy.”
“Did you know?” the president demanded of General Shwartz.
“No, Madam President,” Shwartz denied, her eyes on General Sissons revealing anger and betrayal.
“It had nothing to do with defenses in this star system!” Sissons snarled.
“What about the status of your forces in this star system?” Geary asked. “Has that been shared with those responsible for local defense?”
Sissons didn’t answer, glaring down the table in such a way that he avoided eye contact with everyone.
“General Shwartz?” President Astrida asked.
“All I know is that a couple of joint training exercises have been canceled in the last few months,” Shwartz said. “Lack of funding was given as the reason.”
“There have been persistent rumors that ground forces units were leaving the star system,” a short, thin man said. “We were told they were rotating into Yokai.”
“They weren’t,” Geary said. “My best information is that Alliance ground forces in Adriana now measure about two brigades. Total.”
President Astrida slammed her fist onto the table hard enough to make the stars themselves vibrate inside the display for a moment. “Why weren’t we told? Why weren’t we told? What excuse does the Alliance have for leaving us exposed this way?”
Geary spoke with slow clarity, driving home his point. “I understand that Adriana is one of the many star systems in the Alliance petitioning to have their payments to the Alliance reduced. Who did you think was going to pay for the defense of your own star system if you wouldn’t?”
A long silence was broken by the president, who glared at Geary. “Adriana contributed a tremendous amount to the defense of the Alliance during the war.”
“With all due respect, Madam President, I know what was at Adriana before the war, and I can see what’s here now. Other star systems, a lot of them, must have contributed a lot of money that was used to defend this star system.”
She smiled back at him, a thin-lipped expression without much humor to it. “I forgot who I was dealing with. You passed through Adriana in those days? Before the war?”
Everyone got that look as they stared at him, the one he hated.
Geary nodded, gazing steadily back at the president. “Star systems complained about their taxes to the Alliance back then, too. They paid a lot less, but they still complained.”
“Why do we need to discuss money?” a woman demanded. “You are here, Admiral, with three battle cruisers. Surely you can defeat a single battleship with that force.”
Geary made an uncertain gesture with one hand. “Probably. But even with three battle cruisers it won’t be easy. And I am not authorized to stay here any longer than necessary to get those refugees back to Batara. Fleet accounts have been hit by serious funding reductions. I’m scrambling to keep as much of my fleet operational as possible.”
“Surely there is still enough money for the most important purposes!”
“I can’t swear that what money is left is being spent wisely,” Geary said. “I can only say that any money being spent on my fleet is being used as carefully as possible, and there isn’t enough. More to the point, I’ve got orders to take care of the refugee problem here, then leave. If we don’t figure out how to not only neutralize the refugee problem but also that battleship, you are very likely to be facing it alone when it finally comes here.”
He gestured to the nameplate at his seat, proclaiming him commander of fleet forces in this star system. “Adriana is used to having fleet forces committed to its defense. That has changed. I’m not happy to be the one who has to tell you that. I’m going to work to get some fleet units positioned near here again full-time, but I don’t know when that will happen or how strong they will be.”
“Colonel Galland,” one of the government men spoke in pleading tones, “your craft can stop a Syndic battleship, right?”
Galland laughed briefly, as if she were genuinely amused. “Under ideal conditions, if the battleship came into low orbit, and if I have every single craft under my command available to me, there would be about a twenty-five percent chance that we could cripple or destroy a battleship. Our losses under those conditions would run between seventy and ninety percent.”
“And, if conditions are not ideal?” the man pressed. “What are your chances of success under other situations?”
“How many ways can you say zero?” Galland replied. “My FACs are not designed to engage something like a battleship. That’s not their function. We’ll do it. Do not mistake me on that.” She looked somberly around the table. “If a hostile battleship shows up here, my people will go out to engage it to the best of their ability. They’ll do that knowing that the odds of success are tiny and the chances of death are very high. But their sacrifices will not guarantee victory. Far from it. They can buy time, they can harass, they can disrupt attempts by the battleship to bombard targets on this planet from low orbit. But they can’t win. Not under almost every possible scenario.”
“Ground forces can’t make any difference at all against that kind of threat,” General Sissons broke in. “That does not fall under my responsibilities. It is the duty of the fleet to stop major enemy warships from ever reaching this star system.”
President Astrida sighed, shaking her head. “Admiral, you’ve given us a lot of bad news. But, if even a small part of your reputation is true, you must have some ideas, some plans for defending us.”
Almost everyone cheered up at those words, looking to Geary with the sort of hope he remembered seeing too many times before. That faith in him, that hope centered on him, had often threatened to unnerve him, but this time he just met it. His growing sense of confidence, of purpose, was crystallizing. This is just like commanding a ship, or the fleet. They need to see confidence, they need to see competence. And it’s my job to give them those things. I’ve been lucky so far. I haven’t let anyone down. Someday, I’m going to fail. It has to happen. But not this day.
“The fleet will stop this threat,” Geary said, seeing the immediate elation his words generated. “But I need the help of Adriana to do it. As far as the refugee problem, Adriana can help with that, too. Otherwise, I can take those people back to Batara, but they’ll just show up here again.”
“What can Adriana do?” the thin man asked.
“I need three things. I need some ground forces in enough numbers to board all of the refugee ships, maintain order aboard them, and ensure that they all come along when we go back to Batara. I also need ground forces to back up our demands to Batara’s current government that they stop shoving people toward Adriana and provide security on the ground while we’re dropping off the refugees. Those ground forces will need transport.” They were already adding that up, some looking unhappy once more, but Geary plowed ahead. “And we need something at Yokai to stop threats coming this way before they get here.”
“And you have no extra funding,” President Astrida said.
“I have no extra funding. You can request reimbursement from the Alliance government, but I cannot promise that you will be repaid.”
“What exactly do you need from us?” the old woman asked. “How many ground forces?”
“I need two regiments of ground forces, fully combat outfitted, and I need shipping sufficient to carry those ground forces.”
“You said one regiment would be dispersed among the refugee ships to keep them under control while you take the Syndic refugees back to Batara,” the very well dressed officer protested. “They won’t need separate shipping.”
“They will if you want me to bring that regiment home once we drop off the refugees and let those beat-up ships the refugees are on go about their business,” Geary said.
“The request is impossible,” General Sissons said. “I don’t have the available assets to spare. My soldiers are committed to defense of this star system.”
“General,” the president said in something very close to a growl, “if the Alliance ground forces in Adriana are incapable of offering any support to an Alliance military operation in defense of this star system, I can promise you that information will be widely reported and discussed on the floor of the Alliance Senate at Unity. Are you prepared to answer the questions that will be asked by the Senate if that happens?”
Sissons got the look of a deer in the headlights as he saw his career being threatened. “That isn’t needed. We’re on the same team. What you were told isn’t entirely accurate. That’s all I was trying to say.”
“What was inaccurate?” President Astrida pressed him.
“I still have personnel equivalent to two brigades. I don’t have two combat brigades,” Sissons explained hastily. “There are support personnel, my headquarters, intelligence, military police—”
“What can you provide?”
“A regiment. One regiment. I can provide that.” Sissons smiled as if expecting praise.
Astrida turned to General Shwartz. “Do we have a regiment from the self-defense forces that can go on this mission?”
Shwartz pursed her lips and looked unhappy. “As you know, Madam President, our self-defense forces have also suffered from significant spending reductions in the last several months.”
“I know we still have an entire division on the books, General Shwartz.”
“Yes. But self-defense, and deployment on an offensive mission, are two different things,” Shwartz explained. She took a deep breath, then nodded. “We can provide a regiment. I’ll build it out of smaller units with the necessary training. But, Madam President, I must advise you that there may be political costs involved with deploying so many of our forces.”
“I’ll take those costs,” the president said. “At least we know that the men and women we send on this mission will be under the command of Black Jack and not at the mercy of one of the clumsy, dim-witted butchers who never seemed to care how many died.”
No one looked at General Sissons, and he once again avoided looking at anyone else.
But one of the female officials spoke up. “The Admiral is a fleet officer, not a ground forces commander. How do we know—?”
“We know,” another official broke in. “A couple of the Marines who accompanied Admiral Geary’s fleet have families in this star system. When I learned that Admiral Geary was here, I talked to those families. I asked them what they had heard, and they told me it sounded like every Marine in the Admiral’s fleet would go through hell for him.”
“It’s not easy to impress Marines,” Colonel Galland said. “I know I’ve never managed to do it.”
The laughter helped to cover up Geary’s embarrassment at the earlier statement. That’s one more I owe you, Colonel. “And the transport for those ground forces?”
President Astrida spread her hands with an irritated expression. “Yes. We don’t have much choice, do we?”
“You have a choice,” Geary said. “I think there’s only one good choice, but I can’t compel you to take it.”
“Actually,” Colonel Galland said, “you could. Compel them, I mean. TECA.”
“TECA? What’s TECA?” He had surprised Galland, and the others, with the question.
Galland laughed again. “You were gone for a century! Temporary Emergency Command Authority. Part of the Temporary Emergency Defense Act.”
“Which,” the old president said, “is a temporary measure that has been in effect for longer than I’ve been alive. It gives you the authority to draft any self-defense forces or other resources from any star system in defense of the Alliance. Even though the war is over, we haven’t been told that it has been repealed. I was grateful that you offered us a choice on whether to support your mission, but now I see that you didn’t know that you did not have to ask.”
Geary shook his head. “Yes, I did. I’m . . . old-fashioned when it comes to coercive measures aimed at the Alliance’s own people.”
Astrida smiled. “I’m sure our ancestors would approve of such an attitude. Thank you for asking instead of taking. There was one thing more. You mentioned stopping any more refugees or other problems from coming through Yokai.”
“Yes. We’ve got what’s needed here. The question is whether you’re willing to commit to paying for deploying some of it, not knowing whether the Alliance will pick up the costs later. I think they will because it is necessary, but I can’t guarantee it.”
Colonel Galland shook her head. “Adriana’s self-defense forces don’t have anything that could effectively screen traffic through Yokai.”
“No, they don’t,” Geary agreed. “But you do. If you could rotate one of your squadrons through Yokai—”
“Keep a squadron at Yokai? There’s no money for that! Not in training, not in operating funds, and not in anything else available to me. And I have no authorization to expand my mission! I’d get relieved of command as soon as headquarters heard what I was doing, and I’d probably get put on the hook to personally pay back unauthorized expenditures.”
“I think I know where this is going,” President Astrida remarked. A couple of her associates appeared about to protest until her sharp gaze silenced them. “The Admiral wants Adriana to pay for that.”
Galland eyed her skeptically. “It wouldn’t be anything like war costs. I’d need a lift to get a squadron of FACs and personnel to Yokai and back. A heavy-equipment transport of some kind. But once I had a squadron out there, I could leave the equipment and only send in replacements when necessary. Then there’d have to be logistics support, getting food and other necessities out to the deployed forces, and to rotate people in and out. That would be a recurring cost.”
“What about the operating costs?” the thin man asked. “And your orders?”
Galland frowned in thought. “I could justify a lot of it as training. Flying patrols and deploying equipment are all part of that. Even being at Yokai fits that because one of my secondary missions is to deploy there if required. That means we have to be familiar with operating in Yokai, right? We could reactivate one of the bases. A single squadron can live for a long time off everything that was probably mothballed at Yokai. As long as my spending doesn’t exceed authorized funding, no one back at aerospace forces headquarters is likely to notice or care what’s going on.”
“We can move some money around in the budget,” the thin man told the president. “I think this is doable.”
“And then we’d have defenses at Yokai again,” the president said with obvious satisfaction.
“Yes, but,” Colonel Galland added as just about everyone began looking relieved, “while we can stop refugees in civilian shipping, and a squadron can stop Syndic Hunter-Killer ships, if Syndic light cruisers or heavy cruisers show up, all a single squadron of my craft can do is harass them. That kind of threat requires fleet support to handle, and I don’t mind admitting it.”
“You will be working to get us that support, long-term?” the president asked Geary.
“I’ll do my best,” Geary said.
“A promise from Black Jack is no small thing.” She gazed at him, her thoughts unreadable. “We haven’t heard everything about the losses suffered during the final campaigns of the war and during your subsequent missions, but they are rumored to have been substantial.”
Geary nodded, letting his own eyes rest upon the star display to avoid looking directly at anyone else as the memories hit him. “The fleet took massive losses before I assumed command. We took more getting home, while the fleet units left to defend the Alliance were badly hurt fighting off Syndic attacks as I was getting the fleet home. Since then, we have had to fight the Syndics again and have fought the alien enigmas several times, as well as the alien Kicks.”
“It’s the sort of thing that has happened many times before in the last century,” Colonel Galland sympathized. “To the fleet, to the ground forces, and to the aerospace forces. Massive losses and constant streams of rebuilds and reinforcement. The difference is that this time, replacements stopped coming.”
“I understand the why of that,” Geary said. “But we can’t let our forces get too small, or we’ll end up with more and more situations like this one.”
“There should still be enough money available to fund a better defense than we’ve been left with,” one official protested. “Where is it going? We have a rough idea of how much contributions to the Alliance have been held up from other star systems, and from this one, I admit that, and if the cutbacks here are any indication, the cuts have exceeded what I admit are large cuts in funding.”
“I don’t know where it’s all going,” Geary said. “Your senators may not know. I would recommend you task them with finding out. Waste and . . . ill-considered programs are not something we can afford. Not if we want to keep faith with our people, whether civilian or military.”
“Be assured that we will look for those answers,” President Astrida said. “Colonel Galland, members of my staff will contact your staff to work out the details of your, um, extended training maneuvers at Yokai. Admiral Geary, we will notify you of the shipping, which will be leased to convoy the ground forces to Batara. General Shwartz, I want you to take the lead for getting the two ground forces regiments ready to go as soon as possible. Let me know immediately if you run into problems.” This with a dagger-sharp look at General Sissons. “Is there anything else?” she asked of the room.
“Just one thing,” Geary said. “A small thing,” he added quickly, as tension suddenly began ramping up again. “I had promised to visit a place on this world that’s not far from here. Could I get some ground transport there?”
President Astrida nodded. “The Academy? Of course. I am sure you will be very welcome there, and I thank you personally for visiting those children.”
Colonel Galland stopped Geary before he got into one of the limos. “You’ve made my life a lot more interesting, Admiral.”
“Not as interesting as it would have been if that battleship had shown up here and surprised everyone,” Geary reminded her.
“No argument there. I just wanted to point out that my FACs might be useful at Batara.”
Geary let his puzzlement show. “How would I get them there?”
“You’ve got battle cruisers. Have they just got the regulation two shuttles each? One FAC can be crammed into a battle cruiser shuttle dock along with them. It’s a real tight fit, but it can be done. If those shuttles need to make drops in a hostile environment, or if you just want a strong escort accompanying your shuttles to impress the locals, my boys and girls could really help out.”
“Another training mission?” Geary asked.
“How did you guess?” Galland said with a grin.
“I’m probably going to take you up on that offer, Colonel. We’re doing this on a shoestring, and every bit of capability we can add will give me a better chance of getting it done right. Thank you.”
“No, sir. Thank you. It can be hard to keep the faith sometimes, you know? You work with guys like Sissons, and after a while, you wonder what the point is. But there is a point.” She stepped back, saluted again with the care of someone who had recently learned the gesture, then waved farewell as Geary got into the vehicle.
? ? ?
BEING around civilians made him nervous.
It wasn’t because he had spent so much time in the company of military personnel whose uniforms had not undergone radical changes in the century he had been frozen. No, it was because civilian clothing had undergone the usual shifts of taste and fashion, altering with the years and the decades. Granted, because of the long war, some of those fashions had borrowed much from uniforms. But other fashions clearly avoided any hint of the uniform or the functional in their designs. Among the military, he could pretend that not all that much time had passed since the battle at Grendel. Among civilians, he couldn’t avoid seeing in the styles of clothing they wore how much time had passed.
“We’re very grateful that you could come, Admiral,” the man in charge of the Academy beamed. “My mother used to tell me about Grendel when I was a little boy, and I worried that the Syndics would come attack us in our homes. She would say that Black Jack would never let that happen, that he would come back to prevent it.”
Geary cleared his throat, even more uncomfortable. “Well, I . . . um . . .”
“I admit I had stopped believing! We were all in despair. The fleet was gone. That’s what everyone was saying even though the government claimed the fleet was all right. But everyone knows you can’t believe official announcements. And, then . . .” The man actually put his hand to his heart, gazing into the distance with a wondering smile. “You brought the fleet back safe, and you had hurt the Syndics worse than anyone ever had, and then you won the war.”
Everyone else was smiling, either at him or at the man enraptured by his memories. The media was here, of course, recording every moment for posterity and soaking up the raw sentiment on display.
Geary looked ahead to the doors of the orphanage, functional metal entrances adorned only by what looked like amateur paintings of the seals of the Alliance Armed Forces, paintings he felt certain had been done by the children who had lost their parents to those armed forces. He felt bitterness rising to mask his discomfort. “I wish I could have ended the war while these kids’ parents were still alive.”
The man’s smile changed to a solemn nod. “Don’t we all, Admiral. But that’s not what the living stars decreed. We are grateful that there won’t be any more orphans. That’s a big thing.”
“People are still dying,” Geary said, thinking of the ships he had lost, of Orion being blown apart at Sobek Star System. He noticed the uncertainty and the concern appear in the man’s eyes and tried to rally his own spirits. “I’m sorry. My fleet has been through some very serious fighting even though the war is over.”
“Serious fighting?” a woman reporter called. “The government hasn’t said much about that.”
Geary saw police moving to silence her and held up a hand to halt them. “I’ll be happy to answer questions later. My first responsibility here is to the children.”
“Do you still support the Alliance?” the woman persisted.
He waited a moment to answer, feeling tension filling the air like something tangible. “Yes. I support the Alliance, I support the government, I support those things our ancestors believed in, and those principles so many men and women of the Alliance died for.”
“How strong is that support?”
They would keep pushing that point, apparently. Geary turned to face the crowd. “I support the Alliance and the government. I have made my stand on those grounds. I will not retreat from where I stand, and I will not retreat from those words.”
As he headed for the doors of the Academy amid the buzz of conversation following his statement, Geary found himself walking beside one of the teachers. Her face held the telltale smoothness that hinted at age held back by modern science, so that she could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty years old. However, a prominent burn mark marred one side of that downy face. It was the sort of disfigurement that could have been easily removed, but the woman had chosen to keep it. “I served in the fleet, Admiral,” she said in a low voice that just carried to him. “I had six ships shot out from under me. I know it’s hard to lose men and women, but don’t forget how many you’ve saved by winning those battles as well as you have. No one else may tell you this, but this Academy and the others have been told to plan for consolidation and closing as the children in them grow up and leave. Do you understand? Don’t dwell here on those who died. Dwell on the fact that this place and similar ones will no longer be needed. Thanks to you.”
“Thank you,” Geary said. “That does mean a lot. And thank you for helping to hold the line with your own service during the war.”
Then he was inside the utilitarian building, functional enough and nice enough but without any frills or extravagance evident in the entry. It felt military. Not lavish-headquarters military, but field-offices military. He wondered how many of the furnishings here had come from the same contracts as fulfilled military requirements.
A short walk led to the entrance of a large multipurpose room filled with children standing in ranks, the smallest in front. They gazed back at him with a solemnity not in keeping with their ages. They were serious in the way of children who had experienced terrible blows at a young age, and as Geary looked at them, he wondered how he could possibly speak to them in any way that mattered.
A young girl spared him the need to search for words. “Did you talk to them?” she cried, as teachers tried to hush her. “The eldest ones? Did you?” Her eyes were too dark in a face too thin, but now hope had given her expression a measure of serenity.
Thank you, Tanya, for warning me to expect that question. Geary knelt, so his head was on a level with that of the child. “Do you mean on Old Earth?”
“Yes. The oldest ancestors of us all. What did they say?” Her eagerness almost caused her words to trip over themselves.
“I’m still trying to understand what I saw and heard on Old Earth,” Geary said, having decided that a literal truth was the best answer for a question he would otherwise have to lie about. “It was . . . a remarkable place.”
A boy, older, almost a teenager, spoke abruptly, anger clear in his voice. “Why didn’t you come back sooner? Why did you wait?”
Geary stayed kneeling and looked up at the boy, knowing the unspoken part of the question. Why didn’t you come back before my parents died? Once again, he answered with the only truth he knew. “I don’t know. It wasn’t up to me. I don’t know why I was found when I was, and not before. I wish . . . If it had been sooner . . . My parents died while I was asleep. Everyone I knew died while I was in survival sleep. I woke up, and everyone was gone.”
“You know how it feels, then,” another girl said somberly.
“I think so. Not as bad as you. I got into the escape pod just before my ship was destroyed, and the survival sleep process immediately put me to sleep because the escape pod had been damaged and couldn’t keep me alive any other way. I thought it wouldn’t be long, but when I woke up . . .” He looked down as the old emotions flooded through him. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have saved everyone. I can’t. I’m just an ordinary man. I’m doing my best, but I can’t save everyone.”
“You saved us.”
He raised his head, meeting the gaze of another boy who had spoken.
“We won’t have to die in the war. Not like our parents did.” He pointed upward. “I want to explore. I can do that now.”
“How many Syndics have you killed?” another boy demanded. “Did you kill a whole lot?”
Another adult moved to intercept the boy with a haste Geary recognized. The boy was asking the wrong questions. “Hold it,” he said, then focused back on the boy. “I don’t know how many I killed. But I do know that I did not kill one more than I absolutely had to, and I hope that I never have to kill another even though I know the odds are very much against that.”
“They killed my family!”
“I can’t bring your family back by killing Syndics,” Geary said. “I can stop the Syndics from killing any more, but I can’t undo the harm that was done.”
“They all need to die!” the boy insisted, oblivious to the tears welling from his eyes and running down his face. “They need to know they can’t treat us that way, that our honor will not allow us to be hurt like that, and we will kill anyone who hurts us or . . . or . . . insults our honor! We—”
“Stop.” Geary saw the reactions of the children and adults, heard the sudden silence fall, and wondered just how forcefully he had said that one word. He stood up, looking around at the boys and girls surrounding him. “Honor? You think honor is about killing people? That’s not what your ancestors believed.”
“But—” someone began.
“He knows,” a girl cried. “He listens to the ancestors and he . . . he is one of them. He came back from the dead! Listen!”
Geary didn’t want to claim such a role, but he knew it was the strongest argument backing his words. “Honor isn’t about how others treat you. Honor is about how you treat others. The only way to gain true honor is to respect and honor other people. The only true way to defend your own honor is to defend the rights and persons of other people. Treat others as you would wish to be treated. Do they still teach that Truth? It’s easy to say. It can be very hard to do. But, if you don’t, if all you think about is your own self-interest, about killing to get what you want, then you’re just like the worst of the Syndics. Their leaders didn’t care how many might die in the war they started. All they cared about was what they personally might gain from it, and what they wanted, and what they could do. And we all paid for that.”
“We paid too much,” an older girl said, looking at him with the eyes of an adult. “We see the news, and it’s all about people arguing and complaining, just as if we hadn’t won the war. Everyone talks about the price we paid, and the debts, and how hard things are. Sometimes . . . sometimes I want to speak to my ancestors, and I can’t feel that anyone is there. It is very hard to believe. I know that you are here. I don’t know if you actually were somewhere else all this time, if you saw or heard things we can only imagine, but how can we fix everything that was broken? How can we bring back what was lost?”
She faltered, swallowing, then spoke in a very low voice. “How can we even know what our parents would have wanted? The answer used to be, don’t give up. Keep fighting. But the war is over. What is the answer now? Do you know . . . Black Jack?”
“I . . .” He had no idea what to say, then suddenly he did. “Listen.” It hadn’t been necessary to say that. They were all hanging on his every word though he himself didn’t understand where these words were coming from. “There is one thing I did learn on Old Earth that I can tell you right now. Something I was shown there. You have heard some of ancient history, haven’t you? A little about the old days, before humanity reached the stars, when we were confined to one small planet in one star system? Did you learn about the wars? The disasters? I never really understood that when I studied it in school. It was too far away, lost in the far past.”
Geary paused, looking around at the children. “But I saw it firsthand recently, saw what Old Earth and our oldest ancestors had endured, and I finally understood. Old Earth is covered with ruins and wreckage and remnants of the past. But not one of those ruins is the last word. Our ancestors on that one, small planet never gave up. They rose again from every war, every disaster, every loss, and they built again and they kept rising and they kept building until they reached the stars. That’s why we’re here. Because our ancestors never stopped trying, never gave up.
“There was a town we visited. An old, ruined town in a place called Kansas. It had been abandoned because of the wars and other things too awful for the people there to endure. But when I was there, the people with us from Old Earth said the town would live again. I asked before we left Sol Star System. Is it true? Will that town live again? And I was told that yes, it would, that people whose own ancestors had lived there, and had never forgotten it, had already begun preparations to rebuild. Just a small town. But even it would not be allowed to die, to be forgotten.”
He had to pause again, overcome by emotions. “If the people of Old Earth, our ancestors and their descendants today who remain there, could keep building, could keep trying, how can we do less? We are their children, and while we brought to the stars with us all the faults and problems and flaws of the past, we also brought the good things, the determination, and the willingness to help others, and the imagination to build things greater than every shortcoming humanity has ever known. We, all of us, will save the Alliance, will rebuild and carry on. Because it is not in us to quit. Our ancestors gave us that gift. And you and I and everyone else will use that gift to honor them and to give our children a better future than we once believed possible.”
It was only then that he realized many of the children and adults in the room had phones and other devices with which they were recording his words. Very likely those words had already left this building and were flying around the planet on wings of light, soon to leave even this star, carried inside ships to go everywhere the Alliance mattered.
And he wondered who or what had given him those words and if those words would be good enough to help save what some thought already unsaveable.
The older girl was crying. “My grandfather was on Merlon. Thank you for saving him.”
Somehow, she was hugging him, face buried in his chest, tears wetting the fabric of his uniform, Geary feeling incredibly awkward and fighting back tears himself as other children came close to touch him and laugh or cry.
He had considered avoiding talking to the press again, considered finding a back way out and fleeing to the privacy to be found in the confines of a battle cruiser, but not now. He would face the press and everyone else, and say what he could say to them because he couldn’t be any less brave than these kids.
? ? ?
THE conference room once again felt uncrowded, with just Geary there along with Captain Duellos and the virtual presences of two ground forces colonels. Colonel Voston, the commander of the regiment very grudgingly provided by General Sissons, had that look Geary had seen so much of since being reawakened. It was the look of a man who had witnessed too many horrible things for too long. When a massive war went on for a century, many, many people had that look.
Colonel Kim, commanding Adriana Star System’s contribution to the ground forces, had a ready smile and a calm disposition. She had made no secret of her relative lack of combat experience and was paying close attention to everything said.
Searching for a means to open the conversation, Geary fell back on the old military standby of asking about prior service. “Have you been stationed at Adriana for long, Colonel?”
Voston paused to think. “About five years now. My unit was sent here to reconstitute after we got chopped up at Empyria.” He stopped speaking as if no further explanation was needed.
Geary chose his words with extra care. “There’s a lot of history I haven’t been able to fully familiarize myself with.”
“Oh.” Colonel Voston had the slightly puzzled expression of someone trying to explain something he had never before had to explain. “Empyria was Objective One for the Auger Campaign. It was a lynchpin for Syndic defenses in that region of space. We were going to go in with overwhelming force, take it, hold it, and move on to another star system deeper in. Hit one star system after another, going deeper and deeper into Syndic space, until we . . .” Voston hesitated, then smiled slightly. “Actually, I don’t know what we would have ultimately done. That was above my pay grade.”
“There were other campaigns like that, weren’t there?” Geary asked.
“Over the course of the war? Yes. Many. None of them had succeeded. But This Time Would Be Different,” Voston said, pronouncing all of the capital letters with extra, mocking emphasis. He paused once more, a shadow crossing over his face. “The entire Third Army was sent in against Empyria. We took half a million casualties during the landings, then lost a million more dead and wounded over the next several weeks as we reduced all of the Syndic defenses.”
“How many Syndics were defending that star system?” Geary asked, trying not to let show how appalled he was.
“They told us going in that estimates were about half a million defenders.” Voston shrugged. “I’m guessing it was closer to a million. No telling what the real number was. Too many bodies got destroyed during the fighting, blown into fragments, and nobody had the time or interest to collect fragments of the enemy. We’d gone in with three million, the entire army, but our losses were so bad that after we took Empyria, instead of heading for the next objective, we were told to hold for resupply and reinforcement.” Another shrug. “A month went by, the Syndics were popping into the star system and launching raids and counterattacks, logistics were a nightmare, another month passed, the next big offensive got delayed and delayed again; eventually, my division got sent to Adriana to rebuild, and here we’ve been since.”
Colonel Kim nodded. “Logistics. My mother handled part of that for the Empyria assault. Supplying three million ground forces soldiers on the attack strained our systems in this region to the limit. We dropped in freshwater recyclers, but still had to constantly bring in huge amounts of food and ammo. Every Sillis we had in that part of space was committed to the job, and we were barely keeping up.”
“Sillis?” Geary asked.
“SLLS. Super-Large Logistics Ship. There aren’t many left, so you probably never saw one. The Syndics figured out that with how many supplies each Sillis carried, they could score a significant victory every time they destroyed one of them. The Syndics started launching raids targeted on every Sillis they could find, tearing past other targets to destroy the big prize.”
Geary nodded as a memory came to him. “At Corvus, I saw a Syndic light cruiser that was designed to take out targets like that.”
“Corvus?” Kim asked, puzzled.
“A Syndic star system. One jump away from Prime.”
“Damn,” Colonel Kim said admiringly. “You were right in the Syndics’ guts, weren’t you?”
“We never should have built something that was such an attractive target and couldn’t defend itself,” Colonel Voston grumbled.
“It made sense from a logistics standpoint,” Kim said. “Just not from a war standpoint. You’d think after so many decades of fighting, the brass would have realized that.”
“I don’t spend much time assuming the brass will figure things out,” Voston said sourly, then realized he had said that in Geary’s presence. “Admiral, I apologize for—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Geary looked over at Duellos, who hadn’t said anything since being introduced and apparently didn’t plan on saying anything. “Let’s get started. I understand that General Shwartz has recommended that your regiment, Colonel Kim, provide security on the refugee ships.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me a plan for dividing up your force. They won’t be alone. We’ll have all of my warships nearby, and if any emergency pops up, we’ll have three platoons of Marines for immediate reinforcement on any ship that needs it, as well as Colonel Voston’s regiment if more ground forces are needed.”
Voston spoke slowly, as if trying to ensure his words were understood. “My regiment is full of soldiers who have lots of time in combat, Admiral.”
“I’ve been told that,” Geary replied.
“Yes, but . . . Admiral, there’s a reason we haven’t been sent back into offensive operations. I’ve got a lot of people who’ve been pushed to borderline status. I think they’ve been kept active only because the medical treatment costs for them once discharged would help overwhelm the treatment centers in their home star systems. They’re good soldiers. Good fighters. Good people. But they’ve been through hell. More than once. They might shoot when they shouldn’t. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Colonel, I understand. Can they still handle this kind of mission?” Had Sissons burdened him with useless troops, soldiers too burned out to function anymore?
“They’re good soldiers!” Colonel Voston repeated, his voice rising. “Excuse me, Admiral. They can do the job. Put them in combat, and they’ll know what to do. Tell them to set up a security perimeter, and they’ll hold it. But if you put them into some more ambiguous situation, they might . . . overreact.”
“I see.” Geary nodded his understanding to the colonel. “How about you?”
Voston smiled crookedly. “I won’t let you down. I won’t let my soldiers down. But, yeah, I’m pretty burnt, too.”
“All right.” Geary activated the star display on the table. “There’s going to have to be a lot of improvisation because of how little we know about the tactical situation. I intend coming into Batara ready to shove the refugees back down the throats of the government there. I want to do that in a manner that makes it clear they had better not toss any more refugees our way. Colonel Kim, your soldiers will make sure the refugees board shuttles to be dropped off at Batara without rioting or just passively refusing to go. Colonel Voston, your regiment will provide security at the place where we drop them off.”
“The locals are going to object?” Voston asked.
“Very likely. From what I hear of the current local leaders, they’re way too much like Syndics for my taste.”
“We can handle anything they throw at us.”
“You’ll have fleet warships providing fire support,” Geary added. “Once we have the refugees dropped off, I’m considering continuing onward to Tiyannak.”
Colonel Kim gave him a doubtful look. “There’s nothing about Tiyannak in my orders, Admiral.”
“I shouldn’t need you there. If the situation looks calm enough, I’ll send you back from Batara with my light cruisers as escorts before proceeding to Tiyannak. There’s a former Syndic battleship that needs to be eliminated as a threat. Ideally, we’ll be able to hit it in the dock where it’s being repaired.”
“And if everything goes to hell?” Voston asked.
“Then we’ll improvise and respond as necessary. My three objectives are to return the refugees, try to ensure that the refugees don’t get sent here again, and take out that battleship. You two only have to worry about the first couple of those.”
“No problem,” Colonel Voston said.
“Yes, sir,” Colonel Kim agreed.
“Let me know how soon we can get going. The sooner we hit Batara, the sooner we can hit Tiyannak, and if we hit them soon enough, Tiyannak may not have that battleship working yet.”
After Kim said her farewells, her image vanished, but Voston lingered, eyeing Duellos.
“Captain,” Geary said, “can I have a moment alone with the colonel?”
“Certainly,” Duellos said. He stood up with careful deliberation, then saluted Voston with the same slow precision before leaving the compartment.
Voston watched him go, then looked at Geary. “Admiral, I think you know why General Sissons tapped me and my soldiers for this. He expects us to screw up. He expects us to fail. Which I guess might make you look bad, or at least cause you a lot of extra trouble. But I want you to know that we won’t screw up. We’re not angels in the barracks, but in combat we’ve never let anyone down. You can count on us.”
“I never doubted it, Colonel,” Geary said.
? ? ?
IT took close to two weeks for the two ground forces regiments to be organized and loaded, and for three of Colonel Galland’s FACs to be eased onto the shuttle docks aboard Inspire, Formidable, and Implacable. Geary watched the lethargic process with growing impatience, unable to do much as the wheels of the ground forces bureaucracy and the Adriana government bureaucracy ground slowly toward actually getting anything done. He had no doubt that General Sissons was tossing all of the sand possible into the gears driving the ground forces’ wheels, and wished mightily that Victoria Rione were here to help bypass the countless layers of approval required for the Adriana government to lease the necessary transport for the ground forces.
More than once he found himself regretting ruling out employing TECA and envying the leaders of Midway. Having dictatorial control and the ability to throw laggards into prison just for taking their own sweet time to get things done seemed more attractive with every day that crawled by.
And with so many of Adriana’s self-defense forces coming along to Batara, it seemed as if every soldier in that regiment, all of their families, and everyone else in Adriana Star System were talking about it. If Tiyannak didn’t get advance warning of all this, it would be purely due to the vast distances between stars and the still-limited time for some ship to carry the word there.
Finally, the day came. The refugees maintained a sullen, watchful silence under the eyes of Colonel Kim’s soldiers as the freighters carrying all of them began accelerating toward the jump point for Yokai.
Geary ordered his warships into motion, pacing the clumsy freighters and wishing for the thousandth time that auxiliaries and freighters could accelerate like warships.
Duellos sat next to him on the bridge of Inspire, watching his display. As the large convoy of refugee ships (which more closely resembled a swarm of gnats herded by the warships than an organized formation) settled onto a vector for the jump point, Duellos glanced at Geary. “We haven’t seen any new refugee ships arrive from Batara since that one with the power core problems about three weeks ago.”
“I noticed,” Geary said. “Colonel Galland said they were formerly showing up at a rate of one or two a week.”
“I have a feeling that’s a bad thing,” Duellos continued. “That it may indicate that conditions at Batara have already changed.”
“I have the same feeling,” Geary said. “The living stars know there’s been enough time wasted for conditions to change. We’ll be jumping to Yokai in combat formation.”