The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (41 page)

“Should you wish to issue a formal objection to the actions of the Alliance, please send it to me and I will ensure it is forwarded to appropriate authorities upon our return to the Alliance.

“To the honor of our ancestors, Admiral Geary, out.”

Desjani shrugged. “That can’t hurt. Hmmm. They’re pushing their velocity up to point two light. They’re definitely not just out to block us from leaving. They want to catch us.”

“Admiral?” Lieutenant Iger’s image had reappeared. “Our systems have had a chance to evaluate how those warships maneuver. Their estimate is that the, uh, Shield of Sol warships have no armor.”

“No armor?” Geary questioned.

“There’s a small margin of possibility that light armor might be in place around critical areas,” Iger said.

“What about weapons? I’m still just seeing a few weapon sites and types identified on my display.”

“Those are all that have been confirmed or labeled as high-probability,” the intelligence officer explained. “All of the ornamentation on those ships could be concealing a lot of other weapons, but we’re doing pixel-by-pixel analysis of high-resolution scans. If there are more weapons, we’ll spot them.”

“As soon as possible,” Geary emphasized, then gave Desjani a disgruntled look as Iger’s image vanished. “There have to be a lot more weapons on those ships. We need to have a better idea of what we might have to fight.”

“No armor,” she mused. “But they’re not faster than us. Good. And unless I miss my guess, from the look and sound of Mister Medals, they have highly centralized command and control. If we can take him out, it might be a lot easier to handle the rest.”

Geary looked at the formation of the other warships, a shallow tube longer than it was wide, with one of the megacruisers and two of the corvettes inexplicably spread out from each side. “Mister Medals is probably in that center warship. He won’t be easy to get to.”

“No,” Desjani agreed. “Not without taking heavy fire from all sides, and
Dauntless
isn’t built to take that kind of punishment.”

He didn’t answer, feeling increasingly gloomy as the situation sank in.
Dauntless
was alone. She had to look out for the six Dancer ships, but even without that handicap, the Alliance battle cruiser faced a difficult situation, badly overmatched in numbers and firepower. Moreover, the enemy was an unknown quantity in many ways. What sort of tactics did they use? How good was their fire control? How powerful were their weapons? Was Mister Medals a good commander or the sort of aristocratic buffoon that he appeared to be? If he was really good, then the buffoon act might be totally misleading, designed to cause others to underestimate him.

How much had the enemy been told about
Dauntless
by whoever had told them of the Alliance governmental representatives aboard her?

Too many questions. Not nearly enough answers.

And guessing wrong could be fatal, not just for
Dauntless
but for whatever hopes rested on humanity’s relationship with the Dancers.

OLD
Earth was much farther distant than the “Shield of Sol” warships, so it was no surprise that they had not yet heard anything from Sol Star System authorities when a reply came from the outer-star forces.

The gaudy commander of the outer-star warships, whom Geary found himself unable to think of except as Mister Medals, this time acted not only bored but also how-dare-you imperious. “I am
His Excellency
Captain Commodore
First Rank Stellar Guard of the Fist of the People
Earun Tavistorevas,
Paramount of the Shield of Sol
. You are to use my
full title
when communicating with an officer of my position. I have no interest in whatever orders you received from the vulgar leaders of your barbarous society. You will comply with my orders. If you do not immediately reduce velocity and power down all offensive and defensive systems, I will destroy you as well as every tramontane impurity you have brought into our Home.”

“I don’t think they want to negotiate,” Desjani said, as the transmission ended. Her words sounded light, but her expression was dour.

Geary knew why. The Shield of Sol ships had kept closing on
Dauntless
. Having upped their velocity to point two three light speed, the other warships were only a couple of hours from overtaking the Alliance battle cruiser. Of the many other spacecraft in Sol Star System, all of them civilian ships, the ones whose tracks would have brought them anywhere near the tracks of
Dauntless
and the other warships had all altered course to stay well away. They obviously expected the worst. The Dancers had stayed with
Dauntless
, but was that for the best? Wouldn’t they be safer if he told them to scatter, to head for the hypernet gate and home? But what if they didn’t listen? How could he protect them? How could
Dauntless
be saved? In an attempt to distract himself, Geary spoke loudly. “Does anyone have any idea why he keeps using terms that have to do with purity and vulgarity?”

Everyone on the bridge shook their heads, so Geary repeated the question to Lieutenant Iger.

“No, sir. They seem to think they are somehow special.”

“I had already gathered that on my own,” Geary said, breaking the call to Iger with an abruptness he knew was unusual. Something was bothering him. Something that loomed just beyond his conscious awareness like a huge beast staying out of his sight but close enough that he could tell it was there.

He stared at his display, feeling an unusual tightness in his guts. He could feel his breaths becoming quicker and shallower. A strange object seemed to be stuck in his throat.

“Admiral?”

He had been here before. He hadn’t been good enough that time.

“Admiral.”

Desjani’s tone broke through Geary’s fixation on his display. He looked over at her.

She was watching him with first surprise, then appraisal. “What’s the matter?”

He tried to answer, and that effort finally caused him to understand what had rattled him so badly.
Why now? I can’t have a flashback now. I thought I was past this.
Whatever was impeding his breathing also kept him from saying anything.

Desjani was leaning close, her voice very low and fierce. “Dammit, Jack,
what’s the matter
?”

He met her eyes and managed to say one word. “Grendel.”

“Grendel?” Tanya eyed him, puzzled, then her expression cleared. “Grendel. You, one ship, against bad odds, trying to protect a convoy. This is the first time you’ve faced that situation since you fought there.”

He nodded.
Thank our ancestors that she understood, that I didn’t have to try to explain something I don’t entirely understand. This isn’t Grendel.

“This isn’t Grendel,” she said on the heels of his own thought.

Words broke from him in a sudden rush. “Tanya, I had my ship blown apart around me. Most of my crew killed. If that happens again—”

“This is
my
ship, Admiral. If
Dauntless
gets blown apart,
I
will be on her bridge fighting her to the last.”

Geary stared at her. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

She actually reached across and grabbed his wrist, the sort of physical contact they normally avoided to keep anyone from gossiping about the admiral and his wife the captain. “Listen. If I die here, it won’t be just your fault. It’ll be mine, too. This is my ship. I will stay with her until the end. And you will get everyone you can off of her, if that is our fate. We’ve been blessed with each other for a time far too short. But we never should have met at all. You should have died a century ago. You didn’t, and I won’t now.”

“Tanya—”

“Listen. I am certain that I can drive
Dauntless
better than any of those pretty boys and girls on their fancy ships. One-on-one, I’d kick their butts. But we’re up against a bunch of them, and I need somebody looking at the overall situation, outthinking and outguessing Mister Medals. Together, we can do this. But this is no time for stress memories to throw you off. If that happens, if you go jelly on me, we’re dead. Will you go jelly on me?”

“No!”

She bared her teeth in a grin that was half snarl. “Damn straight. You never have, and you never will. Throw it off or bury it or whatever you need to do until we’ve beaten these guys. Can you do that, or do I need to call a doc up here to give you some head meds?”

“Yes.” He realized only after saying the word how calmly and firmly it had come out. “I can do that. But get a doc here anyway. Everybody up here can tell I’m rattled, and I want them to see I’m dealing with it smart. Thanks to you. What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Not enough. I’ll let you know if you ever get there. But this is my duty, Admiral. Don’t forget that I’d be doing this no matter who was sitting in that seat.” Desjani released his wrist and settled back in her seat, tapping one of her internal comm controls. “Sick bay, we need a head check on the bridge. Nothing critical, just some safeguards.”

Geary rubbed his chin and cast discreet glances around the bridge. As he suspected, everyone was pretending not to have noticed anything unusual regarding the admiral and their commanding officer. Being able to pretend you hadn’t noticed a superior officer’s behavior was one of the essential survival traits in the fleet, and probably in any military throughout human history. “All right. We’ve got a couple of hours even if we don’t accelerate to reposition.” He had learned to say such things the right way. The fleet, scarred by a century of war and fixated on honor, did not retreat, and it did not flee pursuit. It repositioned. “We’ve got some advantages.”

“Right. We’re faster.” Desjani waved at her display. “We’ve got more mass than those megacruisers, but even bigger main propulsion relative to that, so we’ve got a better thrust-to-mass ratio. Assuming their inertial dampers are no better than ours, we can outturn and outaccelerate them.”

He frowned at his own display. “Anything else?”

“They’ve got even less armor than we do.” She frowned at her display. “In terms of weapons, it doesn’t feel right at all. They’ve got to have more weaponry than we’re seeing. I can’t call that an advantage. Maybe they don’t have a null-field generator, but we’ll have to get awful close to use that, and they might have something different but just as deadly.”

“Not much good there,” Geary commented. “What else?”

“We’ve got you.”

Geary actually felt himself smiling. “And you. Best damned ship driver in the fleet.”

She grinned. “And my crew,” she added. “Been there, done that. We know our job.”

He paused to think, only to be interrupted by the communications watch-stander. “Captain, we have a message from Sol Star System authorities.”

“Route it to the Admiral and me,” she ordered.

Geary watched intently as the comm window popped into existence near him. He had somehow expected the people of Old Earth to look different. Older. Wiser. Smarter. But the two women and one man who looked out at him didn’t seem any different from anyone else he had ever talked to. Perhaps there was a tinge of fatigue around their eyes, a sense of age beyond the years their faces revealed. Their clothes were nothing like the ornate uniforms on the warships, instead being simple in design, the colors evoking a sense of brightness faded but still strong.

“Greetings to the ship
Dauntless
of the Alliance,” one of the women said. “We are excited beyond measure at the news you bring of contact with a nonhuman intelligence, and at the possibility of meeting the ambassadors from that species you have escorted here.

“Unfortunately, as you must have already discovered, Sol Star System has been occupied by a military force from the Covenant of the First Stars, which claims to be protecting us. We have protested their actions and have been trying for the last two decades to reach agreement on procedures for attempting to assemble a coalition of other nearby powers to expel the Covenant warships from Sol. However, that effort has been complex due to the special status of Sol and worries about provoking aggression from the Covenant against other star systems. There have been no wars in this region of space for several decades, and no major conflicts for the last two centuries.”

“They’ve been trying for two
decades
?” Desjani said. “Two decades spent arguing over whether to do anything?”

“Yeah,” Geary agreed. “Rione was right about how Sol Star System does things. Or doesn’t do things. It prevents aggression but also defense. So much for the idea that Sol is a unique oasis of peace and harmony among the stars of human-occupied space. Still, it looks like there hasn’t been much actual fighting.”

The woman from Old Earth was still speaking. “We can offer you no assistance against the Covenant military force. Because of that, we urge you to act in whatever manner you deem best, keeping ever in mind that you are at the Home of Humanity. It is better that you, and these representatives from another species, be safe than that you run unnecessary risks.

“This is Dominika Borkowski, for the people and the Home, end.”

Geary rubbed his nose, grimaced, then nodded to Desjani. “Please have your people forward that message to our senators and envoys.”

She gave the orders, then turned back to Geary. “What do you suppose they’ll do with it?”

“I don’t know. Debate what to reply. What can we do with it?”

“They gave us a free hand,” Desjani pointed out.

“That’s because they didn’t know they were talking to Tanya Desjani,” Geary replied dryly.

A medical assistant came onto the bridge, did a brief scan of Geary, offered him a tailored med patch that his equipment had ejected, and Geary slapped it on as the assistant checked with the others on the bridge. The actual effects of the meds would take a couple of minutes to manifest, but he felt better just from the psychological results of knowing relief was on the way and would not cloud his judgment.

“All right,” Geary said. “I am going to send an answer to the Sol Star System authorities.” He straightened, got a quick appraisal of his appearance from Tanya, then tapped the reply command. “This is Admiral Geary of the Alliance Fleet, senior military commander aboard
Dauntless
. Thank you for your reply and your warning. The representatives of the Alliance government aboard
Dauntless
are crafting an official response, but for now we would be very grateful for any information you can provide us regarding the Covenant and any details regarding the Covenant warships. Those warships are blocking our return to the hypernet gate, and moving to intercept us and the ships of the Dancers, which we have vowed to protect, so we may be unable to avoid taking necessary actions to defend ourselves and the Dancers. Your information may be of great assistance in our efforts.

“Our actions will take into account this star system and its special status. Unlike the Covenant, we do not seek violence here.

“To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

He sat back, eyes on his display, not really aware for the moment that everyone else on the bridge was watching him, waiting for what Black Jack would come up with to save
Dauntless
and the Dancers, and to beat a little humility into Mister Medals and the ships of the Covenant. “Tanya, let’s assume our government representatives will be tied up indefinitely debating what to do. I am pretty certain that Rione will do her best to keep them occupied and out of our hair. I think we should tell the Dancers to continue on toward Old Earth while we turn to engage those Covenant ships.”

“Good plan,” she replied. “Except . . . I know it’s unusual for me to worry about diplomatic junk, but maybe this one time it might be a good idea to make sure they fire first.”

“So we’re unquestionably acting in self-defense? Do you have any suggestions on how we can bring that about, Captain Desjani?”

“As a matter of fact, I do, Admiral Geary.” Desjani moved her hands to illustrate her words as she outlined her plan. “We brake
Dauntless
’s velocity to point zero five light and let the Dancers continue on toward Old Earth at point one light while the Covies overtake us a lot faster. The Covies keep telling us to drop our shields and we keep telling them it’s not going to happen in ways that will make Mister Medals even more unhappy with our attitudes. When we get in range, Mister Medals opens fire,
Dauntless
lights off full acceleration, and we avoid their first volley of missiles. Then we kick their butts.”

“An interesting plan,” Geary said. “The last part is a little vague, though.”

“We’ll have to improvise.”

The meds had definitely kicked in. The lurking beast had gone from his mind. Geary studied his display with a mind clear and focused, the past only something that he could use to help figure out tactics to employ here and now. “It’s risky. We don’t know how good their missiles are.”

Desjani brought up, floating between her and Geary, an image of the Covenant formation. “Did you look at this? Watch.” She waved in another command, and curved lines connected the warships, the lines forming—