The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan (8 page)

Geary looked away, trying to find words. “I’m sorry.”

“I know how you feel,” Desjani said. “If not for—” She broke off, looking away, uncharacteristically embarrassed-looking.

Tulev showed that shadow of a smile again. “It’s not something that should not be said, Tanya. You found someone.” He nodded very fractionally toward Geary. “It must help a great deal.”

“It does,” she whispered, still not looking at him, and sounding guilty now. “There’s something in my soul besides the war.”

“And that is a good thing, what I would want a friend to have, just as you would be pleased if it were me who had found someone.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Geary asked.

“Thank you, Admiral, but you are not my type.”

Desjani snorted a brief laugh and shook her head at Tulev. “That’s the guy I used to know.”

“He is still inside there. But . . . so is something else. It is war.” Tulev shrugged. “In the histories, they give dates. A war begins on this day, at this hour, and then it ends at some precise date and time. All very neat and clean. But you and I, all of us who have fought, we know that wars don’t end at some moment dictated by a peace treaty. There’s nothing neat about the endings, if they truly end at all. I remember too many things, Admiral. I remember too many people. Many of them I don’t want to forget. But I cannot forget any of them. I have no home left to me. And so the war goes on, inside.”

Geary nodded. Tulev did not often talk about the destruction of his home world during the war. It was something everyone knew about him, so it did not need to be discussed. “The price of war goes on, too. Histories tend to calculate that in terms of money and casualties during the war, not in terms of what it does to those who fight and experience the wars. We’ve been . . . talking to . . . some official representatives who
were involved with supporting the dark ship program on Ambaru Station. They haven’t told us much, but one thing we did get out of them was one of the concepts behind the dark ships, that by turning fighting over to artificial intelligences we would eliminate the impact of the killing on humans. They said it would make war less horrible.”

Tulev fixed his eyes on Geary. “They said that? Tell me, Admiral, what would you call a person, a man or a woman, who killed without concern, without thought or regret, simply because they had orders to do so? What would you call someone who felt nothing at all when they killed, never questioned an order to kill, and never hesitated, but simply killed, then moved on to the next target?”

“I’d call a person like that a monster,” Geary said.

“A monster. Yes. Because those who we send to kill must know what they are doing, must realize what life means, must feel the pain. If killing becomes too easy, those who issue the orders become too fond of it. We know this from history. There have been too many times and places where it became easier to kill than to think, easier to kill than to debate, easier to kill than accept differences.” Tulev frowned, revealing great anger for the first time since Geary had met him. “And they would make war ‘better’ by turning it over to monsters who don’t care? Who feel nothing when they kill?”

“An ancient military leader supposedly once said that it is well that war is so terrible, because otherwise people would grow too fond of it,” Geary said.

“He or she knew much more than the fools who sought to give war to the uncaring minds of machines,” Tulev said, still frowning. “To the dark ships, what they did was not terrible. It was simply a task, an order to be fulfilled. We will stop them, Admiral? We will not accept official assurances that next time there will be no malfunctions?”

“I will not,” Geary said. “I will use every bit of my authority and influence to stop them. I don’t care how many peaceful tasks are supervised by artificial intelligences. They’re good at a lot of things, as long
as someone is watching for times when something goes wrong by accident or malware. But not war. Not if we’re going to stay human.”

—

“WELCOME
back.” Admiral Timbale led Geary out of the shuttle dock and toward one of the main commercial areas of Ambaru Station. “Things are still a bit unsettled here. Everyone will be immensely comforted by the sight of Black Jack.”

“It’s that bad?” Geary asked.

“Enough word of what happened, and what nearly happened to this station at the hands of those dark ships, that both the civilian and military populations of the station are jumpy.” Timbale smiled and waved at a passing group in civilian work clothes. “I’ve been going through recent shipping reports and finding some very disturbing things,” he continued, Timbale’s relaxed tone of voice and outward demeanor clashing with his words.

“Disturbing things?” Geary asked, nodding and smiling at passersby who brightened at the sight of him.

“Yes.” Timbale glanced sideways at Geary. “Shipping losses. You understand, we’re used to a certain level of those. Syndic raiders slipping into border star systems. Sabotage. Accidents due to rushed manufacture of the ships or hazardous materials being transported. Stuff happens. Once the war officially ended and word of that filtered through the Syndic border star systems, we had a big change for the better. Shipping losses declined by over seventy percent.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes. But less good is the fact that, according to the reports that have come in, we saw a resurgence of losses in recent months.” Timbale looked down, his mouth working. “Freighters and other shipping that never reached their destinations. Sometimes wreckage was identified, but with all of the wreckage in most star systems within a score of light-years of Syndic space, that hasn’t been possible too often.”

As he returned salutes from several passing ground forces soldiers, Geary somehow managed to keep his smile fixed despite an urge to snarl. “Mysterious, unexplained losses.”

“And no survivors from the crews.” Timbale reached one hand up and back to rub his neck. “We had thought, well, that’s the Syndics. They’ve been messing with us, like they did with your forces transiting their space, and this is just more Syndic ugliness. But no one has spotted any Syndic warships transiting Alliance space in or near the star systems where the losses have occurred.”

“Unbelievable,” Geary murmured. “I wonder how those ships were written off by the people running the dark ship program? Collateral damage? Training accidents?”

“They would have had trouble blaming it on personnel error,” Timbale said, his eyes now straight ahead as he walked beside Geary.

“I’d like to see that data,” Geary said. “See where the losses have been occurring.”

“It might help identify where the base is,” Timbale said. “Listen. You need to say something. Give an interview. I know you can’t talk about the dark ships and all of the garbage associated with that, but the people need to hear Black Jack telling them to keep the faith.”

“Surely there are other people who can tell them that,” Geary said, reluctant to step into such a public role again.

“There are,” Timbale agreed. “But no one believes them when they talk about what the Alliance means and how important it is because they don’t believe it. But you do, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“They’re putting it all together, Admiral,” Timbale emphasized. “The press and others. This is going to come out. Word of what happened to Atalia is all over the place, and word is trickling in from Indras. A lot of people saw your ships apparently fighting nothing and taking damage from apparently nothing, and they want to know what the hell happened here. Corporations want to know what’s happening to their ships and their cargoes. Families are raising hell about missing
crews. And some of your own sailors and Marines are finding ways to talk to people. You and I both know that it’s going to take a while for the government to decide how to respond to this mess. Fleet headquarters is going to pass the buck for doing anything to the government, so don’t expect any orders from them. That means it’s up to us to handle things here for the time being, which means it is really up to you.”

“Things keep working out that way, don’t they?” Geary said. He looked over and saw a group of civilians hustling toward him, their clothes and overall appearance matching those of newscasters.

The woman in the lead skidded to a halt about a meter short of him, positioning herself in a way that offered a good look at Geary from the vidcam resting on her shoulder. One thing that hadn’t changed in the last century was that news reporters were still legally required to openly display any recording devices. “Admiral Geary, there are many rumors making the rounds. The people of the Alliance would like a statement from you.”

Geary waited as other reporters stopped nearby, behind them a growing, mixed crowd of military and civilians, all craning to hear anything he said. “I am waiting for orders,” he said. “I have reported to the government everything that I know and am preparing my forces to be ready for whatever mission I am assigned.”

“Who really gives the orders, Admiral?” a male reporter demanded. “The government? Or you?”

“The government.” He said it as if no other answer could have been expected. “I serve the Alliance.”

“Does the government really represent the people of the Alliance anymore?” another woman asked.

“As far as I’m concerned, it does,” Geary said. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m looking at the government of the Alliance right now.” He slowly ran his gaze across the crowd to drive home the point. “They are men and women whom you have elected. You chose them to speak for you, to make decisions.”

“I didn’t choose any of them!” someone called from the crowd.

“Did you have a voice in whether or not they were chosen?” Geary asked. “Did you have a vote, and did you use it to express your wishes? I didn’t actually vote for anyone in the government now. I was . . . not in a position to vote,” he added, drawing smiles and laughs from the crowd who all knew variations on the claims that he had not simply been frozen in survival sleep but actually among his ancestors for a century. “But I still consider them to be my government because you are the people of the Alliance, and you voted for them, and I believe in your ability to over time find the right solutions or to find the right people to find the right solutions. I believe in you, and therefore, I believe in the Alliance, and that will not change. If you believe in me, then I hope the fact that I believe in you means something.”

Everyone was looking at him, no one was saying anything. The reporters fumbled for more questions. Geary turned to go, but paused as another question was shouted from the crowd. “Will you support the government if it does something illegal?”

The silence this time felt almost physical in its intensity. Geary faced everyone again, and shook his head. “I will not support illegal actions. If necessary, I would resign my command and my position rather than carry out illegal orders. I assure you that the government knows that. Thank you.”

A squad of security police had hastened up to provide an escort as the crowd kept growing. They readied themselves to force a path through the mass of people, but the crowd parted before him as Geary walked back toward the shuttle dock, knowing his words would be sent around the Alliance as fast as light, jump drives, and the hypernet could carry them, and wondering if they would make any difference.

—

“OUR
requisitions are being rejected,” Captain Smythe said with an apologetic look.

Geary glanced from Smythe to Lieutenant Jamenson, whose uncanny
ability to confuse anything had proven invaluable in keeping the fleet’s many, overlapping sources of repair and funding from realizing anywhere near how much money had been getting spent on repairing his fleet. “Do they say why?”

“Insufficient funds,” Smythe said.

“They don’t reject the requisitions themselves,” Jamenson added, the green hair bequeathed her genes by the original settlers of her home world of Eire standing out incongruously in Geary’s stateroom. “They just say there’s no money.”

“I told you that the wells were running dry,” Smythe reminded Geary.

He looked at Smythe and Jamenson again. “You tell me. How do we keep the work going?”

Smythe made a face. “Legally?”

“Yes. Legally.”

“Cannibalize,” Smythe said. “Pull funds from other sources that are available to the fleet. By the way, we’ve already received a number of requests to transfer some of those funds back to various higher-level accounts and have successfully failed to manage those transfers as of yet. Spend it or lose it, Admiral.”

“What funds are we talking about?” Geary asked.

“Training. Mess funds—”

“Mess funds? They want to short how much food the crews of my ships get?” Geary demanded in disbelief.

“No,” Smythe said. “They want you to feed them the same quantity in the same quality while using less money.”

Geary resisted the urge to hit the nearest object. “And, of course, they aren’t explaining how I’m supposed to do that.”

“No, of course not.”

Lieutenant Jamenson gestured toward the star display over Geary’s table. “There were the budget cuts after the war, then money being siphoned off to pay for that special program—”

“The dark ships,” Geary said.

“Yes, Admiral, and apparently that program cost a whole lot more than was budgeted, and now I’m seeing reports that the fleet is having to reactivate some of the border defenses that were deactivated to save money after the war ended even though no one has the money for that. It’s actually pretty simple. Less money available, and financial obligations higher than expected.”

“They could have guessed that the dark ships would cost much more than anticipated,” Geary said. “Is there any other way I can drum up more money for repairs and operations?”

Smythe spoke reluctantly, his face twisted as if he were tasting something sour. “We could reduce costs by selectively shutting down some of your ships, Admiral. Don’t officially decommission them. Just shut down everything, send the crews to other ships, and leave them orbiting until we get the money to get them going again.”

“I can’t do that!” Geary pointed to the star display. “At any time, I could end up fighting the rest of those dark ships, and if that happens, I will need every ship and weapon I can lay my hands on! How long can we keep things going by cannibalizing those funds we’re supposed to be transferring back to other people?”