The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught (17 page)

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Authors: Jack Campbell

BOOK: The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught
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“I did bring orders with me, but the orders from the republic are for those ships to remain with the fleet. The orders imply the continued duty here is temporary but don’t actually say so.” Rione’s eyes were fixed on some point in one corner, avoiding his own gaze. “Understand this. You can’t change those orders without overriding political authority, and the new government in the republic has a lot of excellent-sounding reasons for keeping those ships with you.”
“I don’t get it.” The flat anger in Geary’s voice drew her gaze back to him. “Nobody in the government trusts me, but they want all of these warships to remain under my command. The Callas Republic wants to loosen ties with the Alliance, but it also wants the bulk of its warships kept under my control. Are they all insane, or am I?”
She closed her eyes once more for a moment. “You’ll keep the ships. Other admirals would consider that a gift.”
“What’s the catch?”
The silence dragged on for so long that he had decided she wouldn’t answer, but abruptly Rione did. “Don’t expect to see much support from the Callas Republic for those ships. The crews will be paid, but repairs and operating costs will be dealt with piecemeal, grudgingly, and slowly, and there will be no replacements to keep the crews up to strength.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. “They’ll just be allowed to wither away, then? Until they’re destroyed in action or not worth keeping going and what remains of their crews are sent home, now safely diminished and without warships to threaten anyone.”
Rione didn’t answer at all that time.
“What about the Rift Federation ships and crews?” Geary asked.
“I’m from the Callas Republic—”
“I didn’t ask where you were from. Do you know anything about their government’s intentions for them?”
Anger flared in her own eyes. “I have reasonably reliable reports that the Rift Federation will follow the same policies as the Callas Republic regarding the few ships it has left in this fleet.”
“Damn.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. Geary felt pain in one hand and looked down to see that he had clenched one fist so hard it seemed locked into a single ball of muscle and bone. “How can the governments of the republic and the federation explain to their own people why their ships aren’t coming home?”
“First of all, Admiral,” she said, “there aren’t that many ships left. Before you assumed command, many of the republic and federation contingents had already been lost. Some more were lost in subsequent battles. It’s not a matter of bringing home huge numbers of men and women, but rather the survivors. And measured against the populations of their homes, those survivors are
very
small in number.”
His anger seemed to have burned out, replaced by a dull heat that brought no warmth. “Like the Alliance fleet, before the war. Most people didn’t have anyone closely related to them in the military back then.”
“Yes. So you see the logic. Those two governments will keep the threat of the warships and their crews far from home, and few will complain because few still have a personal stake in their absence. But the presence of those warships with you will serve as a basis for proud declarations of their government’s continued support for the great hero, Black Jack.”
“I’m still being used,” Geary said.
“Yes, you are. What are you going to do about it?”
“I could resign—”
Emotion blazed in her again. “Who else could better keep them alive, Admiral? Resign, and they’ll be in the hands of some fool like Admiral Otropa. Do you want them dead?”
“That’s completely unfair!”
“You still believe in ‘fair’?” Rione asked.
“Oddly enough, yes.” But she had spoken a truth.
Their own people are casting them aside. Someone has to look out for them. Until I can think of somebody else, that someone has to be me.
“I’ll do my job to the best of my ability.”
“You’ll still follow your orders?” Rione asked, her voice growing softer but more intense.
“Yes.” Geary bared his teeth at her. “As I see them. That means doing everything I legally can for the people under my command.”
“And the aliens?”
“You have your instructions, and I have mine.
My
orders require me to not only deal with short-term threats and problems, but also to handle them in ways that work in the long term. If the government or its emissaries have any problems with that, they can find someone else to use as their toy soldier.”
Rione slowly smiled though she still looked tired and somehow older. “Everyone underestimates you. Everyone but me.”
“And Tanya.”
“Oh, but she also worships you. That I won’t do.” Rione hauled herself to her feet. “I need some rest. Charban shouldn’t show up before tomorrow at the earliest. You may consider yourself once more politician-free for a while.”
“I’m sure your stateroom is ready.” He eyed her, wondering why he kept getting the impression that Rione was slightly different from when he had last seen her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She smiled again, the gesture this time as empty of real feeling as the smile of a Syndic CEO, her eyes betraying nothing.
After she left, he stayed seated for a while, thinking through their conversation. Some of the things she had said, like alluding in front of Tanya to her role in getting him and Desjani together, had been uncharacteristically reckless. But Rione had also given the impression at times of playing a more subtle game than in the past, even when she seemed to be speaking candidly.
Why did you really come back to this fleet, Victoria? How much are you an ally of mine, how much are you following the government’s line, and how much are you working to further your own goals, whatever those are?
Under the cover of what you did tell me, how did much did you
not
tell me?
 
 
MUCH
later that day, he met Tanya walking through the passageways again. “Did you get a chance to look at those special orders from the grand council?” The orders Rione had brought for him. The orders marked for his eyes only.
To hell with that. I want other inputs on this.
Desjani grimaced. “Yes. Painful.”
“Yeah. A lot of ‘do this unless you shouldn’t and don’t do that unless you should’ directives.”
She didn’t answer again for a moment, her eyes fixed straight ahead. “Please understand that my personal feelings aren’t factoring into this. That woman brought special orders for us. What are her orders?”
“I’ve wondered the same thing.”
“They didn’t need her just to be a courier. She’s here for another reason or reasons. Until we find out what those are, please treat her as a potential threat.”
“I will,” Geary said. “I’m already unhappy enough with the orders she let us know about, or at least the part telling us to go to the Dunai Star System. I was planning on jumping to Indras in Syndic space and taking the Syndic hypernet from there all the way to Midway before jumping into alien space. Simple and as fast a journey as we can make it. But instead, the grand council wants the fleet to go via Dunai to pick up the Alliance prisoners at a Syndic POW camp there.” He felt angry and trapped. These orders he couldn’t ignore. “The extra stops and jumps will add three weeks to our journey before we reach Midway.”
“Why Dunai?” Desjani pressed. “What makes the POW camp there more important than all of the other camps still full of Alliance prisoners in Syndic territory?”
“The orders don’t say, and Rione insists that she doesn’t know.”
“Let me put her in an interrogation cell for half an hour—”
Geary made a helpless gesture. “I wish I could, but there are no grounds for treating a civilian and a governmental representative that way. We have to go to Dunai, Tanya.”
“Then why aren’t we going by Dunai on our way home?” she asked. “The supplies we use during that extra travel time may be needed once we’re inside alien space, and it would make a lot more sense to pick up those POWs on our way home than it would to have them aboard our ships when we’re entering alien space.”
“You’re right. But there’s no time to appeal the order, not without delaying our departure for weeks, and how can I do that when the side trip to Dunai is an annoyance but not a critical issue? I can’t refuse that order. It’s operational, it’s fully within the rights of headquarters to mandate that, it’s not unduly dangerous or risky to our knowledge, and it doesn’t significantly compromise our assigned mission. It’s not like the court-martial issue.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tanya, there may be good reasons for us to go to Dunai. You don’t have to like it . . . I don’t like it . . . but please respect that I have to accept the authority of those over me when it is legitimately employed.”
“I do.” She smiled apologetically. “You’re already under plenty of pressure. I know how unhappy the warships from the federation and republic are. Believe me, if anybody but you was commanding this fleet, they’d probably mutiny and sail for home on their own accord. At least you can blame that witch for it since the orders came with her.” Rione’s stock with the fleet, never high, had sunk to lows approaching absolute zero. “Our own crews aren’t thrilled, but they trust you to bring them home.”
“I know.” That pressure never abated, the confidence of these men and women that he would treat their lives as the valuable-beyond-measure things they were. But he knew that he would be ordering those same men and women into situations where they might well die, that some of them would very likely not come home.
“I’m sorry. But there’s something else you need to know about. I’m actually on edge because of another thing. It has nothing to do with politicians. I think. But it’s odd.
Dauntless
lost another power distribution junction today.”
“You mean it’s too far gone to repair?” he asked, wondering why she was bringing that up. Junctions failed sometimes. The failures were pretty rare, but nothing worked forever.
“It’s completely burned-out. There’s not even anything left worth salvaging.” She stopped walking and turned to face him, her eyes fixed on Geary. “I don’t normally bother you with materiel problems. Keeping
Dauntless
going is my job, not yours. But
Dauntless
had three power distribution junctions fail while I was gone. That is, two failed inspection, and a third was so shaky that my executive officer wisely chose to have it powered down as well. Fortunately, Varandal could manufacture replacements, but now we’ve lost another.”
Geary looked away, trying to think. “Four junctions? In a few months? That’s a very high failure rate for a ship that hasn’t suffered battle damage during that period. I can’t recall hearing about anything like that a century ago.”
“Ships were probably built differently a century ago,” Desjani observed, “and didn’t have to deal with the combat these ships have seen. But
Dauntless
hasn’t had a problem like this in the past. I told my people to find out what was causing these failures, but all the engineers aboard
Dauntless
and on the auxiliaries can tell me is that the junctions suffered ‘serious component malfunction significantly impacting operating parameters.’ Which is how engineers say ‘it broke.’ ”
“That many equipment failures and no indication why?” He frowned down at the deck, then gestured to her. “Come on. Let’s look into this.” He led the way back to his stateroom, waving Desjani to one chair, then seating himself. Geary called up the fleet database, then narrowed the information display to junction distribution failures within the last several months. A tremendous number of tags related to battle damage popped up, so he narrowed the search to the last two months. “
Dauntless
isn’t the only ship that has had that problem.
Warspite
has lost five,
Amazon
three,
Leviathan
four . . .” Frowning, he told the system to identify common aspects for the warships with the failures, then stared at the answer. “The oldest ships in the fleet. Including
Dauntless
.”
“
Dauntless
was launched nearly three years ago,” Desjani said. “There aren’t a lot of ships that survived that long during the war,” she added proudly.
“
Warspite
is actually older than three years by a couple of months.” Geary called up his comm screen. “I need to talk to Captain Smythe about this.”
The fleet had gathered its units closer together as the time for departure from Varandal approached, so
Tanuki
and the other auxiliaries were only a few light seconds distant. Captain Smythe’s image appeared in Geary’s stateroom with only a small delay. Smythe saluted in his usual slightly sloppy fashion, his customary cheerfulness not evident. “Yes, Admiral?”
“We seem to have a problem with power distribution junctions on the older ships,” Geary began.
Smythe sighed heavily. “By older you mean anything over two years since launch, is that right, Admiral?”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’ve been looking into it and reached some unpleasant conclusions this morning after the most recent reports of equipment failures on
Dauntless
and
Warspite
came in. I wasn’t quite ready to report to you, but my results are far enough along to brief you now since you’ve asked.” Smythe looked down, his mouth working, then up at Geary again. “Your last ship, sir.
Merlon
. How long was she designed to remain in commission?”

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