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

“Nice,” Desjani approved.

“Thank you, Captain.”

“But don’t get complacent. There might be a trap within this trap.” She hit her comm controls. “Master Chief Gioninni, congratulations.”

“Excuse me, Captain?”

“You called it, Master Chief. Now I need to know what sort of fallback you might have created in case the mines failed.”

Gioninni sounded dubious. “A fallback to the fallback to the diversion?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Captain, I have no idea. There’s no room or time left for them to hit us with something else in this star system. Now, the next star system. I’d keep an eye out there. But you’d need someone with a lot better, um, strategizing mind than mine to come up with another trap here before we jump.”

Desjani smiled, though it was hard to tell whether that was because of Gioninni’s statement or because the fleet’s ships were beginning to spot mines and detonate them using hell-lance shots. “No one’s better than you at that particular type of strategizing, Master Chief. You just out-thought some Syndics.”

“Well, hell, Captain, that ain’t nothing. Syndics are as dumb as dirt. That’s why they’re Syndics.”

“Good point, Master Chief. Stay out of trouble.” Desjani ended the call and leaned back in her seat, grimacing even though the destruction of mines was happening with greater frequency as the fleet moved into the minefield at a velocity that in space terms qualified as plodding. “If I never see this star system again, it will still be too soon.”

“We’ll never have any reason to come back here,” Geary said.

“We never expected to have to come here in the first place,” she reminded him. “Hey, I just thought of something.”

“What?” Geary searched his mind frantically for any possible threat he might have missed, any option be should have considered, any—

“The jump pool,” she explained. “You slowed us down so much, it’ll throw the jump pool off completely.”

“Tanya . . .”

But even he felt his spirits growing lighter as the First Fleet finally jumped out of Sobek Star System.

—

FOUR
days to Simur.

Four days to second-guess every step he had taken since leaving Varandal.

Four days to dwell on the losses the fleet had suffered as it went through enigma space, into the Kick star system, then fought the Kicks at Honor Star System, before returning to human space through Dancer territory and fighting the enigmas again at Midway. And now the losses at Sobek.

He had thought it was over. That no one else serving under his command would have to die, that no more ships would be lost. But the enigmas, the Kicks, then the Syndics again had proven him wrong.

The enigmas had been beaten once more, and some little bit learned about them, but there had been no visible progress toward mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence. How many of his decisions in enigma space had been wrong, had led to more problems instead of any solutions?

Had he made the right decisions at Midway, or had he backed a couple of dictators who would rule as badly as the Syndic CEOs they had once been?

The last two surviving Kick prisoners continued to hover on the edge of death as Dr. Nasr tried to keep them sufficiently sedated to remain unconscious so they wouldn’t will themselves to death, yet not so heavily sedated that they would die from that. Medical calculations that even now sometimes went wrong with humans were much more difficult when dealing with living creatures with which human medicine had no experience.

And they had been forced to kill so many Kicks. Small wonder that
Invincible
felt like she was packed with angry ghosts. There had to be some material explanation for the ghosts, some Kick device, but he couldn’t imagine what could create such sensations, and part of him could not help wondering if the ghosts aboard
Invincible
were exactly what they felt like.

If Charban was right, even the Dancers might be playing some subtle games with humanity.

Getting home would offer little respite. If his guesses were right, powerful factions of the government and within the Alliance military were scheming and maneuvering against each other and against Geary and this fleet.

He didn’t really know anyone here, in this future a century removed from when he had once lived. Those he had known well, people who had shared the same life experiences as he in an Alliance at peace for the most part, were long dead. In their place were strangers who had grown up knowing nothing but war more terrible than Geary had once thought possible.

He was sitting slumped at his desk when Tanya stopped by his stateroom. “What’s the occasion?” he asked. “You never come by here.”

“I don’t come by often because I don’t want people thinking I’m grabbing a quick one with my Admiral and my husband,” she replied, eyeing him. “But my Admiral and my husband has been holed up in his stateroom for long enough that my crew is starting to comment on it. And now I’m looking at him, and he looks like hell. What’s the matter?”

His reluctance to talk shattered like a dam under too much pressure, words pouring out to his own surprise. “I’m not good enough for this, Tanya. I keep making mistakes. People keep dying. I screwed up with the enigmas and the Kicks. I shouldn’t have accepted the orders for this mission, and I shouldn’t have accepted command of this fleet.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

He stared at her in disbelief for several seconds before he could find his voice again. “How can you—?”

“Admiral, I’d be dead now if not for you. Because I would have fought
Dauntless
to the last when the Syndics crushed the Alliance fleet at Prime. You do remember that, right? What would have happened if you hadn’t been there?”

“Dammit, Tanya, that’s not—”

“You have to remain focused on the positives, Admiral. Because, yes, you will make mistakes. People under your command will die. Guess what? Even if you were perfect, even if you were the greatest, luckiest, most brilliant, and most talented commander in the entire history of humanity, people under your command would still die.”

She was speaking slowly, her tones hard enough to edge against being harsh. “Do you think you’re the only one who ever lost someone? Who ever wished they had done things differently? Who felt like they had let down everyone who had depended upon them? If you keep judging yourself against perfection, you
will
fall short. Feel free to aim for perfection. I like that in a commander and much prefer it to superiors who aim for perfection in their subordinates. But when you inevitably fall short of perfection, don’t consider yourself a failure. Look at what might have happened. Look at how many might have died. Look at what you couldn’t have done. We need Black Jack in command because he is the worst commanding officer we’ve ever had with the exception of
every other
commanding officer I have ever served under.”

“Is that everything?” he asked.

“No.” She leaned in closer, her eyes on his. “You’ve still got me.”

He felt the darkness that had been weighing upon him lighten. She was a child of war, but they had connected in a way he had never connected with anyone a hundred years before. He wasn’t alone. “So, it could be worse.”

“Hell, yes.” Desjani raised one eyebrow at him. “What else?”

“There isn’t anything else.”

“Are you lying to me as my Admiral or as my husband?”

Geary shook his head. “I should have known I couldn’t get anything past you. I’ve been wondering.”

After a long moment waiting for him to continue, Tanya smiled with obvious insincerity. “Thank you for filling me in on that.”

“Why do you put up with me? You could do a lot better.”

She laughed, which was the last reaction he had expected. “You found me out! I’m just keeping you around until something better shows up.”

“Tanya, dammit—”

“How could you even ask me that? How could you say that?” Desjani blew out a long breath, regaining her composure. “When was the last time you checked in with the head-menders in sick bay?”

“I haven’t . . . I don’t know offhand.”

“You’re supposed to be providing a good example to every other officer, sailor, and Marine in this fleet, Admiral. That includes getting your head checked when trauma stress gets too hard to deal with. If the men and women of this fleet don’t see you going to get taken care of, they’ll think they shouldn’t, either. They need to see you getting help, so they’ll get it when they need it, too.”

He nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t start with that! You know I’m right! Why did I have to come looking for you to find out what was wrong? Why didn’t you call me? And when’s the last time you had a good talk with your ancestors?
Our
ancestors, that is, since you and I tied the knot.”

“About a week ago. To talk about
Orion
.”

She bit her lip, taking a moment to reply. “Good. I’ve been trying to put together a message for Shen’s daughter.”

“And I’ve been too sunk in my own slough of despair to help.” Geary extended a hand toward her but didn’t touch her. “Thanks, Tanya, for reminding me about my responsibilities. I have to use them to motivate me instead of letting them overwhelm me. I’ll go down to sick bay.”

“When?”

“Uh . . . later.”

“Fifteen minutes, Admiral. I’ll give you that long to straighten up. Then meet me at my stateroom, and we’ll both go to sick bay, and when we’re done there, we’ll go down to the worship spaces and have a talk with our ancestors.”

“Yes, ma—” Her eyes narrowed at him intensely enough that Geary halted in midword. “What I meant to say was, all right, Tanya.”

“Fifteen minutes,” she repeated sternly, then left.

He went to get cleaned up but paused for a moment to thank the living stars for her presence in his life.
Even Black Jack needs a good kick in the rear every once in a while, and I’m lucky enough to have someone around who’ll do that when necessary.

—

CHARBAN
spread his hands, shrugged, and shook his head, all at the same time. “I don’t know! I don’t know what the Dancers think of us beyond the fact that they seem to see us as allies. It occurred to me as I was analyzing my own attempts to communicate with them that I was thinking of the Dancers as children. Perhaps because they can’t speak clearly to us, perhaps because they’re unpredictable, perhaps because it’s more comfortable for me to think of them that way. Do they think of us as children? It’s entirely possible. But is it true? I have no idea.”

“Has Dr. Shwartz mentioned any impressions like that?” Geary asked. They were in his stateroom, any evidence of Geary’s earlier depression put away and neatened up. Dr. Shwartz herself was on one of the assault transports, out of reach of all but the simplest communication while the ships were in jump space. There were other so-called experts on nonhuman intelligence with the fleet, but over time Geary had learned to trust in the insights of Dr. Shwartz far more than those of any other academic.

“No, she hasn’t.” Charban leaned back, looking up at the overhead. “Admiral, what do you see up there?”

“On the overhead?” Geary bent his head upward as well, seeing the welter of cable runs, piping, tubes, and vents that were a common feature of overheads throughout
Dauntless
and every other warship. “Equipment. It’s like an organ system in a living creature. The lifeblood of the ship flows through that junk up there, as does the air, all of the signals that make up what you could call the nerve system of the ship. We keep it uncovered so it’s easy to access if it needs repair.”

Charban nodded. “Do you see patterns? Pictures?”

“Sure. Sometimes. Doesn’t everybody?”

“Every human,” Charban said. “But what do the Dancers see? We haven’t been inside their ships. Do they have exposed ‘organs’ like those on human ships? Or is everything inside their ships as carefully smooth and clean-lined as the exterior of their ships? How would they describe what we are looking at? Would they see obscene clutter? Would they see pictures in that overhead? If they did, what pictures? Or patterns? We don’t know. And yet it is exactly those kinds of things that would help us understand the Dancers. We share those things with other humans, forming a connection, a shared understanding, even with humans we might detest. That allows us to guess at their motivations, their reasons for anything they do. But the Dancers? Why do they do anything?”

Geary stared at him for a while before answering. “What about the patterns? The way they seem to think?”

“I agree with Dr. Shwartz. The Dancers very likely do think in patterns, seeing everything in terms of interlocking components that form some image they can understand on their own terms.” Charban spread his hands helplessly again. “But where are we in those patterns? We still can only guess. I would interpret their interactions with me as being . . . polite. But you can be polite with a partner, or to a superior, or to someone far inferior to you.
Noblesse oblige
, as the very old saying has it. But there’s another alternative. That’s the possibility that the Dancers themselves are not certain of how to think of us, just as we are uncertain about them. In us, that produces contradictory impulses. We are in awe of the Dancers, yet we also view them in part as if they were irresponsible children who need constant supervision.”

“You’re saying the Dancers may be making it up as they go along?” Geary asked.

“It’s possible. They react to each event not in accordance with some unified image of us but in terms of what seems best to them when each of those events occur.” Charban paused, his face working as he thought. “I have an impression . . . Admiral, when someone has something they have to do, you can tell. There’s something about them, no matter who they are, that tells you they are preoccupied, driven, busy. Whatever term you want. I sometimes get that feeling with the Dancers. Before we left Midway, it was becoming stronger, a sense that the Dancers were eager to leave, to reach Alliance space, but refraining from saying so openly.”

It was Geary’s turn to shake his head. “Why would they be eager to go to Alliance space and yet not say so?”