The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught (46 page)

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Authors: Jack Campbell

BOOK: The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught
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“Very well.
Invincible
, why is a shuttle hanging outside your dock?”
Vente sounded as stiff as usual. “I am following proper procedure for loading sequences—”
“Get that shuttle docked
now
, or I’ll have you shot! All units, we have three minutes! I do not intend engaging these bastards while we’re engaged in shuttle recovery and at rest relative to this rock!”
Duellos’s battle cruisers had reached the enemy, hurling out specters that the enemy twisted to try to dodge, then the two forces lashed each other as they tore past.
“Everyone is clear,” Carabali reported. “All personnel accounted for. The final shuttle is en route
Incredible
.”
Geary stared for a moment at the display centered on the asteroid, seeing large portions of its outer surface collapsing inward or bulging outward in response to the spasms inside it.
“All shuttles recovered, Captain.
Incredible
is sealing her dock.”
“All units in Task Force Lima, maneuver independently and engage the enemy!”
Twenty-nine enigma warships were still coming, but they had to get past Tulev’s battle cruisers first. Though they hadn’t had a long time to accelerate, the battle cruisers were still deadly, and the enigma warships had to go through them if they wanted to reach the asteroid.
Specters volleyed out, followed within moments by hell-lance fire and grapeshot as the two forces clashed.
“They hit
Valiant
hard,” Geary heard someone saying, then realized he had been the one who spoke. But only sixteen alien warships were still coming, and led by
Dauntless
, the eight remaining Alliance battle cruisers were accelerating furiously toward them.
Desjani’s hand danced over her firing controls, and
Dauntless
shuddered slightly as specter missiles launched, then the battle cruiser’s hell lances speared out as well, aimed and fired automatically by combat systems reacting far faster than any human could. Volleys of grapeshot followed in the instant before the far faster moving alien warships slashed through the human ships in the blink of an eye.
Geary kept his eyes on the display as it updated rapidly in response to sensor reports from every ship in the fleet. Only three alien warships were still moving, and they were still heading straight for the asteroid, making no attempt to turn or slow down. “What the hell?”
An instant later, the three surviving enigma warships smashed into the asteroid while moving at sixty thousand kilometers per second.
No one spoke for a long moment as the displays updated to show nothing but a rapidly expanding cloud of dust where the asteroid and three enigma warships had once been. Geary finally tore his eyes from that, only to see that, once again, every other nearby enigma warship, whether badly damaged or completely knocked out, had self-destructed.
It was close to half an hour later when they saw the sole remaining enigma warship in the star system veering off when the Alliance light cruisers and half the destroyers came right for it as the rest of the destroyers braked to pick up the Marine. “Why do they sometimes kill themselves for what seem to be totally unnecessary reasons, and other times they show reasonable discretion in the face of the odds against them?” Geary wondered. His eyes went back to the assessments of the damage to the battle cruisers, focusing on
Valiant
and her seventeen dead.
“I don’t know,” Desjani replied, “and I don’t care anymore. If any of the aliens come within range of my weapons, I’ll remove any options from their futures.”
The destroyers intercepting the Marine slowed further, until
Carbine
could snag the suit and haul the scout aboard. “Goal!” The triumphant message arrived from the rescue force several minutes later, the entire group of light cruisers and destroyers by then accelerating back to the main body of the fleet.
“The destroyers are asking for ransom,” Carabali reported to Geary, looking considerably more relaxed than she had during the operation at the asteroid.
“Anything the Marines aren’t prepared to pay?”
“We’ll buy rounds for their crews at any bar wherever the fleet has liberty next, Admiral. Thank you.”
“I wasn’t going to leave that scout, General.”
“You didn’t have to make that decision, Admiral.”
Desjani glanced at Geary as he ended that call. “You should get some rest.”
“So should you.”
“I told you first.”
“Damn good job back there.”
“Why, thank you, Admiral. Can I still shoot Vente?”
“No.” Geary closed his eyes for a moment, a great wave of weariness washing over him now that the days of tension had ended in success. “That threat did seem to motivate him, though. Another couple of minutes, and we’d still have been too close to that asteroid when those alien ships turned it into high-velocity junk.”
Her voice sounded a little distant. “We had to succeed this time because we can’t do it again. Next time we come within a light hour of any place they’re holding humans, they’ll blow it apart.”
He knew she was right. This had been a victory, but it had ensured no similar victories could be won.
 
 
GEARY
took the time to gather the fleet and organize it back into a single formation despite the appearance of almost twenty more enigma warships at other jump points. The days required for that and the journey to the jump point they planned to use next also provided time to learn something about the humans they had rescued.
“They’ve never seen any of the aliens,” Lieutenant Iger reported to Geary. “Even the ones who were captured as opposed to being born in there.” He activated another window showing a man who looked well past middle age. “This man was a crew member on a Syndic HuK. He doesn’t know how long ago that was because the humans inside the asteroid had no means of telling time, but by comparing his account to the records the Syndics provided, it was probably forty years ago when a HuK transiting through the border star system of Ina disappeared.”
The old man began speaking. “I don’t know what happened. I was at my watch station, and suddenly we started taking hits out of nowhere. I remember that. Everyone yelling ‘where’s it coming from?’ Then we got orders to evacuate, and I made it to an escape pod with two others from the crew, and we punched clear, and that’s the last I remembered until I woke up in that place. An asteroid. I always thought it must be an asteroid. I don’t know what happened to the other two who were in the pod with me. I was the only one from our mobile force unit who showed up there. No. No one saw me arrive. I was just there. The lights would go out sometimes, then we’d all fall asleep, and when we woke up, there might be a new person lying next to the lock, or maybe some crates of food, or somebody who had died would be gone. When someone died, we knew that either a new prisoner would show up eventually, or one of the women would become pregnant and have a child. Always the same number of us. Yes. Three hundred thirty-three. Don’t know why.”
The freed prisoner had stopped speaking, blinking away tears. “I know you’re Alliance, but . . . can I go home, sir? It’s been a long time, and I thought I’d die in that place. I want to go home, sir.”
Geary looked away, trying to control his emotions, trying not to let pity for that man and hate for his captors sway his decisions.
How would we have treated aliens that we captured? Maybe not the Alliance. But the Syndics, they could have built something like that asteroid prison.
“He can’t tell us anything, Lieutenant Iger?”
“No, sir. None of them can.”
The fleet’s chief medical officer had an only slightly more encouraging report. “We didn’t find any biological agents in them, or evidence that any such had been tested. But they did have nanodevices inside them, which outside the asteroid would have triggered fatal reactions if we hadn’t neutralized them as quickly as we did.”
Another form of dead-man switch. “How’s their health now?”
The doctor shrugged. “Not bad, considering. They had a closed community. Human-origin equipment and devices for survival, medical care and the like. Two of the prisoners had enough medical training to use the equipment and take care of all but the most serious afflictions. They grew crops, and occasionally, quantities of foodstuffs that had clearly been manufactured by humans appeared near the air-lock. From the state of their health, they’ve had adequate nutrition, though of course the diet lacked variety most of the time.”
“What about mentally? How are they?”
The doctor looked down before answering. “Fragile. They had constructed a society inside that asteroid, something stable enough to pass on knowledge and maintain order. There’s a council of sorts that made decisions. But they’ve been so isolated, subject to the whims of totally unseen and unknown captors. Now . . . some of them are excited at the thought of seeing the sky. Others are terrified of the same thing. Their world, their source of stability, has been destroyed, and not just in the literal sense of the asteroid being shattered.”
Geary sighed. “Surely we did the right thing by rescuing them.”
“Of course. A cage is a cage is a cage. But freedom will be hard for them to adjust to. What are you going to do with them?” the doctor asked.
“Take them home.” Geary paused, realizing that wasn’t as simple a thing as it sounded. “They should all have surviving relatives somewhere in Syndic territory.”
“Where central authority no longer governs many star systems,” the doctor pointed out. “For some of these people, reunions won’t be that difficult. They were first-generation prisoners. But others are the offspring of those captured more than a century ago. The only home they have ever known was the interior of an asteroid, the only family they know are the people who also lived there.”
Hesitating, the doctor finally spoke more slowly. “I fear for them, Admiral. They are . . . valuable and unique research subjects. There. I said it. There are plenty of people who would be willing to treat them as lab rats, just as the aliens did, and few who could speak on their behalf, especially in the Syndicate Worlds. They need protecting from those who would exploit them and use them.”
“There are limits to my ability to protect them, Doctor.”
“But you can take them home to the Alliance if they wish,” the doctor insisted. “Where others would stand up for their rights. And if Black Jack Geary publicly expresses a wish that they be treated as humans who have already suffered too much, it
will
influence their treatment. Perhaps even within Syndicate Worlds’ territory.”
It seemed a small thing to ask of him, but Geary saw the greatest roadblock to doing it. “I can and will make such public statements. But what if they don’t want to go to the Alliance?”
“Admiral, what will Syndic CEOs do with those people? You know the answer. I realize it will be a while before we return to human space, but I’d like you to think about it before then.”
The freed humans had all been gathered on
Typhoon
, which had required shifting some Marines, but the fleet’s doctors had insisted the freed prisoners should be kept together for their own peace of mind, such as it was. Conference software was modified so that Geary could address the entire group, his image appearing simultaneously in each of their berthing areas while to him the former captives all seemed to be in one large room listening to him.
He had seen prisoners liberated from Syndic labor camps, but this was different. The humans clustered together, almost clutching each other. Some wore new clothing provided from fleet stocks, but others still had on a strange mix of clothing, styles and fashions from different periods and professions, most of the clothes threadbare and heavily patched. “We’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Geary said. “Some of you wish to return to homes in the Syndicate Worlds. I know that you’ve been told that things have changed, that life in the Syndicate Worlds is much more uncertain than you may recall, but if that’s where you wish to go, we will try to ensure that you reach your former homes. All of you are welcome to come with us back to Alliance territory, where I give you my word of honor you will be welcomed and treated well.”
They all exchanged glances, some looking fearful and others hopeful, a few children clinging to mothers. “How long do we have to think about it?”
“A few months. That’s how long it will take us to get back to Syndic space because our mission here hasn’t ended.”
They didn’t want to say much more than that, huddled in among themselves, so after a short while, Geary broke the connection and sat down, his thoughts jumbled.
And to think I felt sorry for myself when I came out of survival sleep to find a century gone. I was lucky in more ways than one. Forgive me, but I want to hurt those enigmas. Make them pay. But they have been hurt. A lot of them have died, and we’ve destroyed quite a few of their ships. Is it accomplishing anything? At least we got those people freed.
He called up the latest status reports for the fleet. Almost thirty destroyers had suffered sudden equipment failures requiring Captain Smythe’s auxiliaries to focus on those repairs as well as fixing up the latest battle damage. That had caused the planned replacement work to slide, pushing it closer to the looming rise of the failure curve waiting several months ahead.

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