The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught (21 page)

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Authors: Jack Campbell

BOOK: The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught
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“Good. I guess we just ignore those guys, then. They’re not our problem, and they’re not telling us anything we haven’t already thought about.”
A couple of destroyers assigned to Varandal’s defenses were still chasing the protestors the next day, when the fleet reached the jump point for Atalia. Geary took a deep breath, wondering if jumps would ever feel routine again or if he would always be haunted with worry about what might await at the exit for another star. “All ships, jump at time one zero.”
On the outside views, the endless stars and the black night between them vanished, replaced by the gray nothingness of jump space. As if greeting the fleet’s arrival, one of the strange lights that came and went in jump space grew in brilliance somewhere directly before them, near or far impossible to tell since there was no means of determining the distance to it, though it somehow felt close. The light glowed briefly, then faded out to be lost amid the drab gray.
It took Geary a moment to realize that while he had been watching the light, everyone else on the bridge had been watching him. The moment they realized he might be aware of that, they all busied themselves at their jobs. All except Desjani, who glowered around the bridge menacingly before giving him a rueful look. “They still wonder if you were in those lights for the century you were gone.”
“If I had been, wouldn’t I know something about them?” he snapped in reply, irritated. “I told
you
that I wasn’t there.”
“You told
me
that you couldn’t
remember
being there.”
He could stay angry to no purpose, because there wasn’t any proof either way, and there couldn’t ever be, or he could accept that the question was going to dog him for probably the rest of his life. “I guess there are some things I’ll never be able to get away from.”
She nodded. “Not totally. But once we get into Syndic territory, everybody will have other things to occupy their minds.”
 
 
ATALIA
hadn’t changed much in the few months since they had last passed through the star system. Even though new buildings were no longer being turned into craters by Alliance bombardment almost as soon as something important could be built, and even though the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds would no longer be using the star system as an occasional battleground, there was a tremendous amount of damage to clean up, and Atalia wasn’t a wealthy star system. Even if it once had been prosperous, the frequent fighting within it would have reduced it to poverty over the century of war.
One difference was that an Alliance courier ship hung near the jump point, ready to tell the Alliance if anyone attacked Atalia. Thus far, that was the sum total of the Alliance’s commitment to the defense of Atalia.
Desjani sat with her chin resting in one hand as she looked at her display. “It doesn’t seem right to be here and not be blowing up things.”
“There’s not much worth blowing up.” Geary shook his head as he looked at his own display. “The war did a number on this star system.”
“Actually, it got off fairly easy.” Her voice had suddenly become tense. “Compared to others.”
“I know.” Sore subject. Too many star systems had been battered into far worse condition. Too many of those star systems had belonged to the Alliance. He had avoided any information on how many billions had died during the war on both sides, not being willing to face that. But Tanya, like the others in the fleet, had grown up with such awful statistics, had seen them continue to rise year by year. Time to talk about something else. “They’ve got a HuK now.”
“I noticed.” One Syndic Hunter-Killer, a warship slightly smaller than an Alliance destroyer, orbited in the inner system. Even if it hadn’t been almost six light hours distant, the single small warship posed no conceivable threat to the Alliance fleet. “I wonder if it’s here by orders of the Syndic government or if it’s declared allegiance to Atalia?”
“I’ll let our emissaries worry about that,” Geary said.
“Good idea! Maybe we could leave one of them here.” Desjani glanced back to the empty observer’s seat. “I suppose I should be grateful that they’re not hovering on the bridge constantly. That general likes to walk around trying to ingratiate himself with the crew—”
“He’s practicing to be a politician.”
“—but I haven’t seen the other one at all.”
Geary nodded, thinking that was one more thing about Rione that had changed. “She was always very careful and calculating before, trying to keep on top of everything. Now, she sits in her stateroom.”
“I’m not complaining,” Desjani said. “I hope that you’re not worried about her.”
“Tanya, she brought new orders for us. As you already pointed out, we don’t know what orders she might have been given.” He hunched forward, clasping his hands tightly together as he remembered his conversation with Rione. “When I talked to her right after she came aboard, I got the feeling that she wanted to see how far she could lean over the edge of a cliff without falling off. There was a heedless quality, a sense that she’ll jump off that cliff just to see how it feels on the way down.”
“Normally,” Desjani murmured, “I’d just wish that she’d jump. But if she has other orders from the government that we don’t know about . . .”
“Orders that may account for the changes I’ve noticed in her.”
“Something she knows?” Desjani asked. “You never could trust her. I hope you understand that now. Maybe it’s something she did. There have to be a thousand skeletons in
her
closet. Or maybe it’s something she has to do. Though I find it hard to believe that her conscience is bothering her.”
Geary made an exasperated gesture. “If it’s something purely personal, then that’s unfortunate for her but unlikely to impact us. But she is an emissary for the government.”
“Wouldn’t that general . . . what’s his name?”
“Charban.”
“Yeah. Him. Wouldn’t he also know if it involved some orders for the emissaries?” Desjani paused, her expression hardening. “Unless he’s a throwaway. A dupe to give cover for her. He’s a retired general. What if he’s being used?”
Too many questions and, as usual, not nearly enough answers.
 
 
EVEN
though Atalia was an easy destination from Varandal, there weren’t many good options from Atalia, one of the things that had kept the star system from being battered even worse during the war. One option was Padronis, a white dwarf star that had never had much human presence, even the small orbital station once maintained by the Syndics having been abandoned decades ago. The other choice, Kalixa, had once been a good option itself, a fine star system with a large population and a gate in the Syndicate Worlds’ hypernet system. But that gate had collapsed and annihilated the human presence in Kalixa, apparently on orders from the same alien species Geary’s fleet was en route to investigate. Now the only signs that humans had ever been there were shattered ruins on the wreck of what had once been a habitable world.
But from Kalixa, the fleet could jump to Indras, where a Syndic hypernet gate should still be intact. The Alliance had already used that gate once, in the final campaign against the Syndics.
Geary stood before the conference table, once more viewing the images of the fleet’s captains sitting around it. This time, the fleet being in a much more compact formation, only the most distant ships would have any noticeable time lag. He gestured to the star display. “We’ll have to go through Kalixa again.”
Most of the officers listening displayed distaste or unhappiness at the idea of revisiting that star, where the dead emptiness somehow emphasized the millions of lives that had been destroyed there. But they knew as well as he did that the only efficient path for the fleet led through Kalixa.
“Then back to Indras,” Geary continued. “My initial plans had been to take the Syndic hypernet from Indras directly to Midway, keeping travel time to a minimum. However, we’ll be going via Dunai, which means taking the Syndic hypernet to Hasadan, making a short jump to Dunai, then jumping back to Hasadan to reenter the hypernet for the transit to Midway.” Laying it out that way only emphasized what a pain in the neck this diversion was. “Dunai has a Syndic labor camp still holding an estimated six hundred Alliance prisoners of war. We’re going to lift them out of there.”
“On the way out?” Captain Vitali asked. “But if we waited until the way back, they’d be in Syndic custody for months longer, wouldn’t they?”
“Exactly,” Geary agreed. If Vitali’s suggestion hadn’t been so convenient, Geary would have been seriously irritated. It had taken him hours to come up with that same explanation for the diversion since parts of the fleet didn’t believe he could be ordered to Dunai by the government; but Vitali had thought of the same rationale in two seconds. “If we still have extra passenger capacity on the way back, we’ll pick up more prisoners in another star system.” That wasn’t in his orders, but it wasn’t forbidden by his orders, either. “We don’t anticipate any trouble at Dunai.”
Tulev tightened his lips slightly before speaking. “If the Syndics intend to drag their feet on any aspect of the peace treaty, Dunai will tell us.”
“Does the treaty allow us to go anywhere we want in Syndic space without their approval?” one of the heavy cruiser commanders asked. Noticing the expressions on the other captains at his question, he hastily added, “Not that I care whether they approve or not.”
“Yes, it does allow us to enter and leave Syndic territory,” Geary said. “When the treaty was being hastily negotiated with the new Syndic government, the newly in charge CEOs desperately wanted the Alliance fleet to go to Midway to defend it against the aliens, so our ability to go through Syndic territory was part of that agreement. I’m sure the Syndics intended that as a one-time deal, but our negotiators worded that part of the treaty so it’s actually open-ended.”
“Sometimes even our politicians come in handy,” Duellos remarked.
“I suppose they have to get something right every once in a while,” Badaya replied.
“The key,” Geary said, “is that the treaty allows our movement through Syndic space as long as we’re going to and from Midway Star System. Which we are, despite the detour to Dunai. I’m mentioning this because future missions may also require visits to Midway, not because we want to go there but because it will meet the legal requirements of the peace treaty.”
Commander Neeson chuckled. “That’ll probably come as a surprise to the Syndics at Midway.”
“I imagine that it will.”
When the others had left, Duellos remained seated, his eyes on Geary. “How are you bearing up?”
“I’ve been worse,” Geary replied, sitting down. “How about you?”
Duellos grinned. “Only one thing has been bothering me lately. Curiosity. I’d like to know how your brief visit to Kosatka went.”
“My honeymoon, you mean?”
“Yes. When I’ve asked Tanya, all she does is mumble a lot.”
Geary paused, bringing up the memories. “We both figured that as soon as the passenger ship we were on exited the hypernet gate at Kosatka, the crew and passengers would be fighting to see who could alert the media first that we were aboard. Or, to be accurate, that I was aboard. Just in case they weren’t doing that, a couple of hours after our ship arrived, a fast fleet courier popped out the gate and started broadcasting orders for me to return to Varandal, which even the dullest mind could take as a hint that I was at Kosatka.”
“I assume it also broadcast your promotion back to admiral?”
“Yeah, that, too. Too late to stop us from marrying. Tanya had admiral’s insignia with her, naturally, and immediately pinned it on me, all the while grumbling about how only a total idiot would have given up the rank of fleet admiral. Anyway, the local government and defense forces and media were all reacting about as calmly as you can imagine, which meant not calmly at all. Tanya was determined that she would tell her parents about our marriage before anyone else could. She knew plenty of people in Kosatka, and one of them had access to a shuttle, so the shuttle came winging in and plucked us off the passenger ship while it was still a half hour out from the main orbital spaceport, where everybody was waiting for us. Then the shuttle dove for the planet in a hot, steep reentry while various government, military, and media shuttles chased after.”
Duellos grinned. “You were probably missing the relative peace and quiet of a battle by then.”
“It got worse. We made a secondary landing field without getting overtaken, one the media hadn’t yet staked out, and another of Tanya’s old friends was there with a private vehicle, so we got bundled into that and tore off into the city while Tanya’s friend demonstrated combat driving skills to get around traffic. We made it to the high-rise where Tanya’s parents lived, and it was one of those secured-access places, so we jumped out of the car, ran up to the access panel, and Tanya pounded on it, yelling, ‘They changed the access code! Mom, Dad, let us in!’ ”
“I’ve seen movies like this,” Duellos said.
“And we can hear sirens all over the place, getting closer, and Tanya’s wondering if her mother and father were working extra shifts and not home yet, but finally her mother answers, and says, ‘What are you doing back on Kosatka? Who’s “us”? Who’s that with you?’ and Tanya says, ‘My husband.’ ” Geary returned Duellos’s grin. “For what seemed forever, her mother didn’t say anything, then she looks at Tanya, and says, ‘I thought you were married to that ship of yours,’ and Tanya gets all upset, and says, ‘Her name is
Dauntless
, Mother, not “that ship.” Now let us in!’

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