The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (4 page)

—

GEARY
called both of the Alliance government emissaries into the same secure conference room where he had listened to Colonel Morgan and Colonel Malin, then played the record of the meeting, images of the two Midway officers appearing where they had stood.

After the recording ended, Victoria Rione canted a look toward Geary that was disturbingly like the one Tanya had given him. “She’s a real piece of work, isn’t she?”

“Colonel Morgan, you mean.” He frowned at Rione. “If she so clearly provokes you and . . . other people, I have to wonder why she was sent along with Colonel Malin.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Rione smiled in amusement. “First of all, you might have been, shall we say,
intrigued
by what Colonel Morgan was offering. You wouldn’t be the first powerful man to fall for that sort of bait, and if you did, it could open all sorts of possibilities for them to exploit. Including the possibility that you would accept their proposal in hopes of, how shall I put it, working
closer
with Colonel Morgan.”

His anger at her words, Geary realized guiltily, was generated at least partly by the realization that some small part of him might well have pondered that idea. “I would not—”

“I didn’t say you would, Admiral. But I suspect two other reasons also played a role in her presence. Did you notice how you and your captain reacted more positively toward Colonel Malin as you reacted negatively toward Colonel Morgan? She made you more accepting of him.”

“Damn.” Geary wanted to argue that point as well, but he realized it held a great deal of truth.

“That’s not all. If I know anything about body language, those two trust each other about as much as we trust them. I believe it is safe to say that Colonel Morgan and Colonel Malin were keeping an eye on each other.”

Emissary Charban was watching Rione with the expression of a man who was realizing how much he had to learn. “They’re still operating like Syndics, aren’t they?” Charban said. “There are a dozen different things going on at once, layers and layers and intertwining plots.”

“It’s what they know,” Rione said. “And they are good at it, if ‘good’ is the right term to use.” She tapped some controls. “Did you see this? The room’s sensors picked it up.”

On the recorded images of the two colonels, a bright object now glowed on one of Morgan’s wrists, something so carefully matched to her skin that it was invisible to the naked eye. “What is it?” Geary asked.

Rione tapped a few more times, then glanced at him and Charban. “Not a threat, or you would have been alerted to it as soon as she entered here. It’s a very sophisticated recording device. Unless I’m wrong, it’s also sealed. Neither Morgan nor Malin could change anything on it.”

“They’re not trusted, either,” Charban said.

“Maybe. It would certainly provide someone like President Iceni with a record of what was actually said and done here. That could be why she allowed two of Drakon’s people to bring the proposal to you.” Rione lowered her head into one palm, thinking. “Their plan could work.”

“Do we dare trust them to carry through with it?” Charban asked.

“Drakon and Iceni? Or Morgan and Malin?”

“All of the above.” Charban winked at Geary, who nodded back in recognition of the joke. At some point in the past, the fleet had decided that multiple choice questions on training exams almost always had a correct answer of “all of the above.” Even though he was, like Rione, an emissary of the government, as a retired general of the ground forces, Charban had much more in common with Geary than he did with his fellow emissary.

Rione sighed in exaggerated fashion. “Drakon and Iceni would not have sent those two unless they trusted them. No. ‘Trust’ is the wrong word. I don’t know what the right word is. Some Syndic concept that involves having a good idea of whether or not someone else will betray you. You do realize that this won’t work without the full cooperation and assistance of me and Emissary Charban, right?”

“Yes,” Geary said. “It surprised me that those colonels, or rather Drakon and Iceni, didn’t also know that.”

“It surprised you?” Rione gusted a small laugh. “Would it have surprised Captain Badaya?”

“No, because he thinks . . .”

“Because he thinks you’re actually controlling the Alliance now, and the government is only a figurehead carrying out your orders.” Rione smiled in an unpleasant way. “Naturally, these former Syndics think the same thing. Who could possibly fail to grasp such power if it beckoned? You refused the chance, but Drakon and Iceni surely assume you seized it.”

Geary looked away, angry again. “All right. So they didn’t think I’d have to talk to you, to get your approval. But I do. What do you think?”

“I recommend that we do it, Admiral. It is a risk. It involves putting our confidence in people whose understanding of concepts like keeping their word is extremely elastic. But it will solve our problem as well as theirs.”

“Self-interest,” Charban said. “They want this to work more than we do.”

“Exactly. It would be unpleasant for us if we were to leave here with Boyens still holding superior firepower to the people of Midway, but it would be a disaster for Midway.”

“All right,” Geary repeated. “I’ll send the agreed code word to the freighter, and we’ll get this going. If it doesn’t work, there might be hell to pay.”

Rione shook her head, looking tired again. She had aged on this trip, and now seemed a decade older than when he had first met her. “Hell is going to get paid no matter what we do. There are no painless options, Admiral. Have the authorities here accepted your offer to leave Captain Bradamont at Midway as a liaison officer for the Alliance?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We can use that. CEO Boyens is about to catch a little hell himself.”

IT
would require about two weeks for the plan proposed by the rulers of Midway to come to fruition. Two weeks during which the fleet should have been heading toward home. But scanning down the long, long list of repair work still required on many of his ships, Geary tried to make the best of it. “What ever happened to those plans for fully automated nanobased repair systems on ships?” he asked Captain Smythe, commanding officer of the auxiliary ship
Tanuki
and senior engineer in the fleet.

Smythe mimicked choking. “The same thing that always happens. The last test, to my knowledge, was about five years ago. The second generation of nanos started attacking ‘healthy’ parts of the test ship, except for those nanos that developed into nanocancer and began replicating out of control and harming critical systems. It took about two days for the ship’s repair system to turn it into a total wreck.”

“The same problem as a hundred years ago,” Geary agreed.

“And for long before that. We’re still working on trying to keep the repair and immune systems in our own bodies from going haywire and killing us quickly or slowly,” Smythe pointed out. “And those had who knows how many millions of years to develop. Making something that fixes anything that goes wrong but doesn’t damage things that are fine is not a simple problem.”

“What did they do with the last test ship?”

“An automated tug towed both test ship and itself into the nearest star. Good-bye nanos. Nobody wanted to risk them infecting other ships. You could lose a fleet that way before you knew what was happening.”

“How long before we can leave?” Geary asked.

“Today. Or tomorrow. Or a few months from now. Admiral, there’s only so much my auxiliaries can do. Some of the damage our ships have sustained requires a full repair dock. The longer we spend here, the better condition all of our ships will be in, but we’ll never hit one hundred percent until we get home.” Smythe cocked a questioning eyebrow at Geary. “Do you expect to face more fighting before then?”

“I have no idea. I hope not, but I don’t know. We’ve got the biggest threat magnet in the human-occupied region of space with us.”

“Ah, yes,
Invincible
.” Smythe looked both unhappy and enticed. “Have you been aboard her? There are so many puzzles inside that ship. I wish we could dig into them.”

“We can’t risk it, Captain.”

“I may be able to isolate something so we can at least try to figure out how it works,” Smythe pleaded. “My people will work it up on their own time. They’re itching to get their hands on that Kick equipment.”

“Send me your proposal,” Geary said reluctantly, “and I’ll think about it.”

Have you been aboard her?
No, he hadn’t.
The chance to visit a truly alien construction, to see the work of intelligent, nonhuman hands, and I’ve only seen as much of that superbattleship as could be seen through the views of numerous Marines during the capture of it.

Once we get
Invincible
home, odds are the ship will be completely isolated, only high-level researchers allowed aboard.
Invincible
will be taken far from any star system that I am likely to visit.

He called Tanya. “I want to see
Invincible
.”

In her command seat on the bridge of
Dauntless
, Desjani nodded absentmindedly. “They’ve got enough systems hooked up for you to do a virtual visit?”

“No. I figured I’d go in person.”

She jerked in surprise, her lips moved as she visibly counted to ten, then Desjani recited her next words in resigned and mechanical tones. “I must advise you of the dangers involved in physically visiting an alien warship containing unknown threats including but not limited to possible pathogens capable of infecting human hosts, equipment which works in unknown ways and which could reactivate at any time with unknown consequences, and aliens who could have survived the battle and remained hidden from our security sweeps and could still emerge to strike at a sufficiently high-value target.”

“Your concerns are noted,” Geary replied.

“And you’ll do it anyway.”

“This will probably be my only chance to visit that ship, Tanya. Once we get back to Alliance space,
Invincible
is sure to be quarantined.”

She put on a look of exaggerated wonder. “You don’t suppose there’s a
reason
they’ll put that ship in quarantine, do you?”

Seeing that Desjani wasn’t about to abandon her line of attack, and knowing that she indeed had a point, Geary played his last card. “Tanya, there are sailors and Marines aboard that ship by my command. I sent them there. Are you saying that I should avoid doing something I am willing to order those under my command to do?”

This time she gave him an aggravated look under a furrowed brow. “Using good leadership principles against me? That’s low.”

“If you really want me to be a bad leader . . .”

“Oh, knock it off!” She tapped some commands. “You’ll be using one of
Dauntless
’s shuttles.” That came out as a statement of fact rather than a question.

“Of course.” He knew better than to point out that she had given in. “Do you want any souvenirs?”

“From that thing?” Desjani’s shudder didn’t seem to be feigned. “No thanks.”

—

ADMIRAL
Lagemann met him at the main air lock into the occupied area aboard
Invincible
. Lagemann saluted briskly, grinning at Geary. Next to him, a Marine major saluted as well, the Marine’s gesture far more polished and precise. “Welcome aboard
Invincible
, Admiral Geary,” Lagemann said. “This is the commander of my Marine detachment, Major Dietz. I have to confess the ship is not quite ready for inspection. There are a few discrepancies.”

“Oh? Discrepancies?” Geary asked, picking up on Lagemann’s joking tone of voice and trying himself to sound like certain self-important inspectors he had dealt with in the past.

“All ship systems are nonfunctional,” Lagemann explained cheerfully. “There is extensive unrepaired battle damage in most areas. The ship cannot move under her own power, and in fact has no power except for portable emergency systems. Most of the ship is uninhabitable and requires survival suits or combat armor for access. The crew is a tiny fraction of that necessary for safety, security, and operation. As you can tell, there’s no working gravity. And, um, the brightwork hasn’t been shined.”

“I can understand the rest,” Geary said with mock severity, “but unshined brightwork? Where are your priorities?”

“My priorities have always been misplaced,” Lagemann confessed. “I volunteered for duty on this ship when I could have stayed comfortable on
Mistral
. I did spend quite a few years in a Syndic prisoner-of-war camp, though, which wasn’t all that comfortable, and at least
Invincible
doesn’t have Syndic thugs watching my every move.”

Geary finally smiled. “How are your crew holding up?”

“Could be worse. They volunteered, too, which I remind them of if the complaints get too loud.”

“What about the Marines, Major Dietz?” Geary asked.

The Major made a gesture of nonchalance. “They’ve been in worse places, and they all volunteered, too, Admiral. Of course, the Marines did that volunteering the day they joined, so we didn’t ask regarding this particular assignment.”

Admiral Lagemann and Major Dietz led Geary through the compartments occupied by the human sailors and Marines, everyone pulling themselves along through zero gravity by means of handholds either put into place by the Kicks or fastened on by humans since they had moved in here. Temporary cable runs carrying power, communications relays, and sensor data were strung everywhere, as were larger tubes that provided ventilation, heating, cooling, and recycling of the air inside this small part of
Invincible
, so that the atmosphere remained breathable. As Lagemann had warned, there were a lot of places where overheads came down too far and threatened to dent skulls. Geary also found numerous spots where the accesses narrowed enough that he had to move through them with care, scraping slowly past the life-support tubes and cable runs that made the openings even tighter. “This brings home more than anything how much smaller the bear-cows are than us,” Geary commented.

“Fortunately,” Lagemann replied, “it’s actually a little easier for us to get around without gravity. We can wriggle through some places up high that would be a pain to reach if we were walking. And the Kicks may be small, but this is a damned big ship. I’ve been on my share of human battleships and battle cruisers, including a Syndic battle cruiser that picked me up when I was captured by them. You know some passages on those seem to go on forever. But
Invincible
 . . . I swear that sometimes it feels as if the bow is in one star system and the stern is in another.”

The small group had paused at one of the temporary air locks leading into the rest of the ship. “How are you keeping an eye on things outside this area?” Geary asked.

“We’ve got sensors strung into some portions of the ship,” Lagemann replied. “For the rest, patrols.”

“That is,” Major Dietz continued, “security patrols that follow paths worked out by our systems to cover every compartment and passageway at least every few days. Some of the patrols take more than half a day.”

“How big are the patrol teams?”

“Full squads, plus one or two sailors. They do full safety and security scans.”

Geary felt his eyebrows rising in surprise. “That’s a lot of people for patrols of empty spaces. Has there been trouble?” One thing he had learned early on as a junior officer was that sailors could be counted on to seek out compartments where they could find privacy for various activities prohibited by rules and regulations. On most ships, compartments like that were hard to find, but on
Invincible
there was a remarkable number of them.

Major Dietz and Admiral Lagemann exchanged glances. “There hasn’t been any problem with people wandering off on their own,” Lagemann explained. “Not after the first few days.”

“Why not? Even if people didn’t plan doing something they didn’t want to be caught at, I’d think there’d be an urge to explore.”

“Not on this ship,” the Major said. “They’re out there. In the passageways.”

“Who’s out there?” Geary asked, feeling a slight chill.

“The Kicks,” Lagemann said. “I don’t think I’m particularly sensitive or superstitious, but I can feel them. Thousands of them died on this ship, and if you go out there in the rest of the ship, you can sense them crowding around you. They know we took their ship, and they don’t like it.”

Major Dietz nodded. “I’ve been in abandoned enemy installations before, the kinds of places where you keep feeling like whoever left will come back at any moment and be really unhappy to find you there. That’s a little spooky. This ship is a lot worse. We send out squad-strength patrols because that’s the smallest group that can keep from going buggy while they’re out there. We tried fire teams for a while. A couple of Marines. They ended up firing randomly, running back to the occupied area with stories of hundreds of Kicks still aboard and alive, that sort of thing.”

“Was it worse in jump space?” Geary asked.

“Now that you mention it, yes, sir. But even here, in normal space near a star, it’s spooky.
Nobody
goes off on their own. Not more than once.”

“That’s strange. We’ll get this ship back home and let the scientists and techs dispute control of it with whatever remains of the Kicks.”

“We’ve speculated,” Admiral Lagemann said, “that it might be some sort of side effect of some Kick equipment that’s still running somehow. Like the way a high-pitched whistle can make a dog unhappy, only it’s something that works on human nerves in an unpleasant way. Like virtual fingernails scraping on an imaginary chalkboard. Or it could be ghosts. Damned if I know.”

“Be sure you put your speculation about Kick equipment into your report when you leave the ship,” Geary directed. “Could it be some sort of last-ditch defense? Some means the Kicks could activate that would make occupancy of this ship untenable for their enemies?”

Dietz and Lagemann exchanged intrigued looks this time. “That’s possible, too,” Lagemann said. “But since it makes sense to us, it might not be the real reason.”

“I understand,” Geary said, thinking of what he had seen of Kick technology. Much of their equipment used methods totally foreign to the conventions of human thought and equipment. “Where should I see next?”

Lagemann pointed toward the temporary air lock. “Out there.”

“You’re kidding. I believe you about the ghosts. Or, at least, about something unnerving out there.”

“It’s not to show you that. It’s something the Marines came up with in their spare time.”

Another half dozen Marines had joined them, all in full combat armor. Geary’s lingering suspicions that his leg was being pulled by Lagemann and Dietz dwindled away as he noticed the wary manner in which the Marines eased out into the unoccupied portions of
Invincible
.

Warnings flashed on the face display of Geary’s survival suit as he pulled himself down the passageway with the others.
Poisonous atmosphere. Toxic trace elements. Temperature barely within human-survivability range.
Those factors alone would have discouraged explorers among the human prize crew.

But he could feel something else, something that didn’t register on his suit’s sensors. A feeling of something just behind him, ready to leap. Of other things moving just out of the range of his side vision. Shadows, brought to life by the lights on the human suits, that jumped around in ways those shadows should not.

And, with every meter farther away from the area occupied by humans, the sensation of being surrounded by something hostile grew.

Admiral Lagemann began speaking with forced casualness, his voice across the comm circuit between suits too obviously trying to sound relaxed. “We’ve had time to think, Major Dietz and I, and here’s what we’ve been thinking. We’re behind an awesome amount of armor, and we’re linked to four battleships, which are towing us. Beyond that, you’ve got an impressive even if damaged fleet. That’s good. But
Invincible
, as the first nonhuman artifact controlled by the human race, and an incredibly big artifact at that, packed with nonhuman technology, is the most valuable object in human history. Anyone who sees it, or knows about it, is going to want to get it for themselves or at the least destroy it to keep us from learning whatever we can from the ship.”