The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (36 page)

She nodded, smiling without any hint of humor. “Including the hope that we’d go out and never come back.”

“Including that,” Geary said. He didn’t know how many had felt that way. He suspected even Rione didn’t know the exact number. It wasn’t the sort of sentiment anyone would advertise or leave a written record of. “I don’t know how to fix the Alliance, Tanya. The people who might know how to do it are on the grand council, but they don’t seem to be interested in actually doing it.”

“Good thing you’re not dictator of the whole mess, huh?” Desjani asked. “Speaking of which, have you noticed who hasn’t been around?”

“Who
hasn’t
been around? Tanya, I have no idea—”

“Sure you do.” She waved grandly. “Captain Badaya, who represents those who think Black Jack can wave his magic wand and cure everything that ails the Alliance.”

Geary started to answer her, then stopped. “You’re right. Why hasn’t he been around?” In order to forestall a coup attempt in Geary’s name, Badaya had been led to believe that Geary was secretly running the government already. But then why hadn’t Badaya been by since the fleet made it back to Varandal to ask what Black Jack was doing about the damned politicians?

“If you want my honest opinion, and I know you do,” Desjani said, leaning forward with both elbows on her desk and gazing at him, “Captain Badaya has slowly figured out that if Black Jack did take over, the Alliance house of cards would collapse even quicker. He’s been thinking, which I know is uncharacteristic of him, and he’s putting two and two together at last. He probably figures now that you’re just nudging the grand council in the right directions and otherwise trying to prop up the Alliance rather than knock the legs out from under it.”

She sighed, looking upward. “And after you got us through enigma space, and Kick space, and beat the Kicks and the enigmas and the Syndics again, and didn’t throw him to the wolves because he made some mistakes during the battle at Honor, Badaya is one of your closest allies now regardless of what you do. Which makes it a real shame that I can’t stand the man, but what are you going to do?”

“I hope you’re right. Fleet headquarters has also been oddly silent. We haven’t received any rants from them, any demands to yield important ships or personnel to immediate reassignment, nothing except routine acknowledgment of the reports we’ve forwarded.”

“Do you want my opinion again?”

“You know I do.”

“Yes.” Desjani waved again in the general direction in which fleet headquarters lay numerous light-years distant. “I think they’re scared of you and trying to figure out what to do next.”

“Tanya—”

“I am serious. They thought they had screwed you. Different parts of fleet headquarters thought they had handed you a rotten job and tripped you up in different ways, and at the best you were going to limp home with your reputation and your fleet in shreds. Instead, you came home having far exceeded the scope of your orders, the fleet mostly intact, and won the day for humanity!” Desjani nodded at him. “You’ve got them scared. They’re wondering if you
can
be beat.”

That was not good news, but it would explain the mysterious silence from fleet headquarters, and perhaps the increased disarray on the grand council. “I hope you’re wrong because I don’t want people trying to think up ever-more-challenging ways to beat me.”

Last time they had lost
Orion
, and
Brilliant
, and the-
Invincible
-before-the-latest-
Invincible
, along with a number of smaller warships. He didn’t want any more ships and their crews to die because various people were separately trying to figure out how to beat him instead of jointly trying to figure out how to save the Alliance.

—

TWO
days before departure, and Geary had to pry more time out of his day in order to grant a request from the senior fleet physician for a meeting. He greeted Dr. Nasr as the physician debarked from a shuttle onto
Dauntless
. Despite their many face-to-face conversations, this was the first time they had had actually met.

Dr. Nasr looked tired and sad. Geary had often seen him tired, especially in the wake of battles when the fleet’s medical staff had bent every effort to save every injured man and woman they could. But the sadness was a different thing.

“What brings you to
Dauntless
?” Geary asked.

“May we speak privately?” Dr. Nasr requested.

“My stateroom?”

“I would be honored, Admiral.”

They walked through the ship’s passageways, Nasr silent and carrying a thermal carafe. Once inside Geary’s stateroom, with the hatch sealed, the doctor carefully removed the lid of the carafe and brought out two small, white, porcelain glasses, which he set on Geary’s desk. The doctor then poured a dark, steaming liquid into each glass, not spilling a drop, his every move that of someone used to the most careful and precise motions.

Nasr offered one of the glasses to Geary. “Coffee, Admiral. A special blend. Will you drink a toast with me?”

“Certainly,” Geary said, taking the small glass gingerly. It was warm from the coffee, but not painfully so. “What are we toasting?”

“Our efforts, our failure, the eternal struggle of humans to do what is right, the eternal disagreement on what right is, and the death of the last two bear-cows.”

Geary halted his movement with the glass poised near his lips. “They’re dead?”

“Yes. Please drink, Admiral.”

He finished raising the glass, tasting a powerful, bitter, yet smooth coffee that he could feel flowing all the way down to his stomach. “What happened?” Even though the news had been expected, even though there had been nothing else he could have done, Geary still felt a great sorrow at the news. Now he understood Dr. Nasr’s sadness.

“The Shilling Institute was keeping them alive, doing a very creditable job,” Nasr said, lowering his own now-empty glass. “But the bear-cows were taken from the Shilling Institute.”

“The government?”

“No. The courts.” Nasr shrugged. “Well-meaning individuals, well-meaning groups, claimed that the bear-cows deserved a chance to speak on their own behalf, to express their own wishes, to not be kept in what they called a living death. I understand. I was not happy with it, either. But I knew it was all we could do. However, the courts did what they felt obligated to do. They appointed lawyers to act as guardians for the bear-cows, to speak for them in court. And the lawyers argued very well that the bear-cows must be given the same rights as humans.”

Geary sat down heavily, shaking his head. “But they’re not humans. That doesn’t mean they are less than us, but it does mean you can’t use our standards with them. They think differently than we do.”

“So the Shilling Institute argued,” Dr. Nasr said, sitting down opposite Geary. “I was called to testify. I spoke of my experiences with treating the bear-cows. I showed them my medical records. Let them awake, and they would die by willed suicide. It was that simple.”

“But they didn’t believe you.”

Nasr frowned at the deck. “It is a difficult argument, Admiral, to claim that the best treatment for a thinking creature is to keep it forever unconscious. The lawyers, the courts, the well-meaning individuals and groups, they did not want to believe me. Custody was given to the court-appointed guardians. The bear-cows were moved to another medical facility. Well-meaning individuals gathered about them, ready to welcome a new species into friendship with humanity, the sedation was reduced until awareness came to the two bear-cows, and, five seconds later, both were dead.”

The doctor shook his head. “One of the well-meaning people came from the room, looked at me, and cried why? And I said, because they are who they are, not who you wanted them to be.”

“Damn,” Geary whispered.

“It was inevitable, Admiral. You and I deluded ourselves. We did what we would do for humans. Keep them alive and try to find a solution. But any solution is far off. You know some blame you for the awful slaughter of the bear-cows when capturing their ship. I have never been comfortable with that battle, yet I also knew we tried everything we could to avoid such a slaughter. Some commentators outside the fleet, though, have assigned us sole blame for the deaths of the bear-cows, for any hostilities with the bear-cows.”

“I know,” Geary said. “I’ve heard that. Half of the critics claim we caused it because those critics distrust the government, and the other half claim we caused it because those critics distrust the military. There don’t seem to be a lot who are willing to consider the possibility that the Kicks might have had their own reasons for acting.”

“There are many,” Nasr said. “Many who note our attempts to communicate and avoid fighting. But those are not nearly as loud as the others.” The doctor’s tone took on an acid edge of bitterness as he continued. “I have never before been accused of malpractice, not until now. In the court, they said I must have caused the deaths of the other bear-cows by somehow radiating an attitude that led the bear-cows who gained consciousness to assume they had to immediately kill themselves.”

“You’re being blamed?” Geary asked, appalled. “Nobody cared more for the fate of those creatures than you did.”

“But there must be a villain, Admiral.” Nasr sighed heavily. “I was not permitted in the room, or near the room, where they awakened the bear-cows. I understand from those who were there that the well-meaning individuals were offering wide smiles of welcome to the bear-cows as the sedation was reduced.”

“Smiles? Did no one read our reports? Didn’t they realize that to a prey animal those smiles looked like predators getting ready to chow down?”

“Data that conflicts with beliefs is often ignored,” the doctor said. “It has been a serious problem in every field, including in medicine, even among those who should know better.”

Geary closed his eyes, trying to calm himself instead of shouting out in anger. The coffee in his stomach felt heavy now. “So those last two Kicks didn’t just die. In a very real sense, they were murdered by willful ignorance.”

“That is too harsh, Admiral. They meant well, as did we. The difference is that we formed our intentions based on our ideals and what we saw. They formed their intentions based on their ideals and what they wanted to see. I should mention that we are already being blamed by a few for these last two deaths,” Nasr said, “even though news of the deaths is being kept very quiet. Some former critics have been convinced that we spoke the truth, but not all. The self-generated toxins in the bear-cows that caused their deaths are undeniable proof. Except to those who would accept no proof that conflicts with what they have decided must be true.”

Geary nodded. “I wish . . . Hell, I wish there had been another answer. I do know that you did everything that you possibly could.”

“As did you, Admiral.” Dr. Nasr stood up. “I have taken enough of your time.”

Geary rose to forestall his departure. “Doctor, the Dancers have asked to be escorted to another destination in human space. I’m sure you’ve heard. Would you be willing to ride
Dauntless
on that trip?”

“I am honored by the offer, Admiral. Is the destination truly what I have heard?”

“Yes. Old Earth.”

Nasr took a while to speak again. “I see. Yes, a great honor. I will certainly come along, Admiral. Perhaps Old Earth will hold some answers to the questions that we struggle with.”

“That would be nice,” Geary agreed.

But he didn’t believe it.

—

THE
three senators who would represent the grand council and the government of the Alliance had been brought aboard
Dauntless
with all of the pomp and ceremony mandated in protocol regulations. Dr. Nasr had been assigned a stateroom on board as well. Both Rione and Charban had remained in the same staterooms they had previously occupied, though the nameplates had been changed to reflect their new titles as envoys. Every storage compartment on
Dauntless
was filled with every spare part, every material for making other parts, every solid and liquid and soggy form of food and drink, and every weapon that regulations mandated for a battle cruiser of her class.

It felt very odd for
Dauntless
to be breaking orbit on her own. Instead of being the center of a fleet, the battle cruiser moved with solitary dignity toward Varandal’s hypernet gate. The Dancer ships would join her at the gate, but for now the alien spacecraft were still performing an intricate series of maneuvers distant from human installations.

The rest of the First Fleet remained in their orbits, a seemingly unshakable armada. Those warships had bested every threat thrown at them while under Geary’s command, but Geary had grown to realize that they were in fact highly vulnerable to the same pressures undermining the Alliance. The fleet could not be stronger than the Alliance that it represented. Factionalism, cynicism, uncertainty, and shortsighted political games might destroy a fleet that the Syndics, the enigmas, and the Kicks could not defeat.

The night before, Geary had held a meeting with Captains Badaya, Duellos, Tulev, Armus, and Jane Geary. “I’m going to announce tomorrow that Captain Badaya will be acting commander of the fleet while I’m gone. I hope the other four of you will do everything you can to support him. Hold everything together. No matter what happens, keep this fleet stable and focused on its duty. I know the five of you can do that.”

Badaya shook his head. “Not with me in command,” he said.

“It would be a mistake,” Duellos agreed.

Geary stared at them, disbelieving. “Captain Badaya has the most seniority. There are no grounds for denying him the position of acting fleet commander.”

“I do not have enough backing,” Badaya insisted. “There are a number of ship commanders who will follow me without hesitation, but many others who don’t trust me.”

“Not as many as there were,” Duellos said, “but if something serious were to happen, there would be doubt in some quarters as to Captain Badaya’s standing.”

“And loyalty,” Badaya added. “Let’s have it out there. There have been strong disagreements in the past about the right courses of action. My opinions at those times are well-known. If the fleet faces a strong challenge while I command, a challenge dealing with political matters, it very well could fracture.”