The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast (17 page)

“Not if they won’t wait for one,” she replied.

“I will ask,” Charban added in tones that implied he did not expect any useful result from the asking.

“General,” Geary said with what he thought was immense patience, “if the Dancers go zooming through Alliance space on their own, refusing an escort, I will be held responsible. Everyone will be asking me why the Dancers left, where they are going, and what they are doing.”

Charban nodded, unimpressed. “And then you will ask me to answer those same questions. I will tell you
I don’t know
, and you will pass on that answer, because it’s the only one we’ve got.”

“General, dammit—”

“If you have a way to make them tell us what they’re doing, Admiral, please employ it! Because I don’t.”

Geary paused, breathing slowly and getting himself under control. “I’m sorry, General. I know that you’re doing your best, and that you have a better grasp of the Dancers than anyone else. See if you can get anything else out of them before the Dancers jump for Bhavan. Does Bhavan take them toward Durnan?”

“Yes, sir,” Desjani confirmed. “They’ll have to make a couple more jumps from Bhavan, though.”

What if someone panicked and opened fire on the Dancers as they transited through those other star systems? What if whoever was in charge of defenses at Durnan took action? “How can we get General Charban to Durnan in time to ensure he can talk to the people there before they overreact to the Dancers arriving? Is there any way to do that, or are the Dancers taking the most direct route?”

Charban, a ground forces soldier confronted with a fleet question, merely shook his head.

Tanya was gazing off to one side intently. “I’m running some options . . . there’s a way, Admiral. We can send the general on a ship through the hypernet gate here to Tehack. From there they can jump to Durnan, and should be able to get there at about the same time the Dancers do as they make three jumps.”

“ID a ship for me,” Geary ordered. “Heavy cruiser, close by, in good fighting shape and with close to one hundred percent fuel. Pick a light cruiser if none of the heavies fit the criteria.”

“I’ll get my people on it,” Desjani said.

“General, get ready for a fast transfer and several weeks on a cruiser.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Charban said. “There may be some trouble regarding security. I have been informed that our comm equipment and software is not to be moved—”

“I hereby direct you to take all of the comm gear and software you need to talk to the Dancers. It’s not going to do us any good sitting on
Dauntless
while the Dancers are at Durnan.”

Geary paused, imagining hysterical news accounts of an “alien invasion force” swooping through the Alliance. “I’ll notify our Grand Council representatives of what is happening and what we’re doing.”

“They won’t be happy,” Charban predicted. “But you might offer them this comfort. If the records of our visit to Old Earth had been kept secret, had not been mysteriously leaked to the media, then panic and fear might have resulted when the Dancers appeared alone in those star systems. But by the time the Dancers reach those places, the news will have preceded them. Our people will have seen what the Dancers did. Perhaps they will watch the Dancers pass by and wish the Dancers the blessings of the living stars.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Desjani said. She tried to keep her voice dry and sarcastic, but some real emotion leaked through.

“I’ll bring that up,” Geary promised. “Tanya—”

“
Diamond
,” Desjani interrupted. “Heavy cruiser
Diamond
. She fits the bill. I’ll notify her to break orbit and join up with us while you let the senators know what’s going on.”

“Good.”

“But put a full uniform on before you call them. Sir.”

“Uh . . . right.” He had forgotten that he had pulled off the top of his dress uniform. The senators were going to be unhappy enough without making them think he was deliberately disrespecting them.

 • • • 

“THE
representatives from the Grand Council were pretty mad about the whole thing, but even they had to acknowledge that we had no way of forcing the Dancers to stop.”

The day after the wild scramble to deal with the departure of the Dancers, Geary’s stateroom was crowded with several officers who were all physically present. Given the things that might be discussed, Geary hadn’t wanted to use any form of conferencing software, no matter how allegedly secure it was.

One of the advantages of being fleet commander, though, was that he still got the comfortable chair.

“
Diamond
will get the, um, envoy there on time,” Captain Duellos observed, smiling at the play of light in the wine in his glass. “And keep an eye on the envoy as well.”

“That’s not really necessary,” Desjani said. “General Charban can be trusted.”

Duellos raised an eyebrow at her. “That’s a different assessment from you than the ones I heard when he first joined this fleet. Doesn’t he want to be a politician?”

“I think we’d be lucky if he did.”

Geary broke into the surprised silence that followed Tanya’s statement. “Is there anything else that anyone can tell me about Jane Geary and her ships?”

Captain Tulev shook his head, slowly and stolidly, like a bull standing firm. “She left only a week ago.
Dreadnaught
,
Dependable
, and
Conqueror
were not fully repaired by any means, but all had enough combat capability to handle a mission for which no threat was expected.”

“She was sent into Syndic space!”

“Yes. But, according to her orders, the star system where the Alliance prisoners awaited pickup is comparable to Atalia.”

Captain Badaya leaned back, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair, his expression that of someone tasting something sour. “I still think she’ll get there and find nothing. Headquarters just wanted an excuse to get her out of the star system so they could appoint me temporary commander of the fleet. It’s clear enough what they expected. I would assume temporary command, and I would promptly threaten the government with whatever ships I could get to follow those orders. A year ago, I might well have done that and played right into their hands.”

“The point is,” Geary said, “that you didn’t.”

“What are they after, Admiral?” Badaya asked, sounding almost plaintive. “Why would fleet headquarters want part of the fleet to rebel against the government?”

Tanya rested one side of her chin on her fist as she gazed at him. “It’s like when someone tried to court-martial all of those ship commanders for running too low on fuel cells. Something guaranteed to make the hotheads explode. That almost worked.”

Badaya looked even unhappier. “I played a role in that.”

“Maybe that’s why they thought you would be a sure thing this time,” Geary observed. “Whoever they are. What I think they are looking for is a reason to dramatically reduce the size of this fleet.”

Duellos had been watching the others. Now he spoke in a voice tinged with bitterness. “Why do they need a reason beyond the end of the war? Cut the budget some more, cut loose the officers and sailors the Alliance no longer
needs
, and reduce this fleet to a shadow of itself.”

“They can’t,” Desjani replied. “Because Black Jack is in command. The people of the Alliance trust him far more than they trust the government. If the government obviously undercuts him without a good justification, it will be viewed as an attack on the champion of the Alliance by a bunch of corrupt politicians.”

“If you ask me,” Badaya said, “that’s exactly what it would be.”

Tulev nodded toward Badaya. “He speaks the words many in the Alliance would feel. Yes, if you look at events since the end of the war, our orders have repeatedly exposed us to situations that would reduce our numbers and capabilities. I have heard that there is much infighting among the government, but the different factions appear to agree on the need to lower the threat they see as posed by us.”

“The threat posed by
me
,” Geary replied forcefully. “They’re playing these games, sending this fleet into situations where men and women can die and have died, because they fear me.”

Duellos shook his head, his mouth twisted into a grimace. “That’s only partly true. Yes, Admiral, you are the focus of the government’s attention right now, but if you had not existed, and we had somehow won the war anyway, they would be just as fearful of this fleet. And this fleet would be actively resisting any attempts to reduce its numbers.”

Tulev rarely smiled, and even though his lips curled a bit now, his expression still did not really reflect any humor. “The fleet would see such attempts as treasonous actions by a disloyal government, and the government would see the fleet’s behavior as treasonous actions by a disloyal military.”

“And the Alliance would end up going through the same kind of collapse the Syndicate Worlds is now experiencing,” Geary said.

“If they keep reducing this fleet,” Badaya asked, sounding bewildered now, “what will they use to defend the Alliance? They’ve seen that the Syndics still can’t be trusted, they’ve seen the sorts of local warlords and piracy popping up where Syndic control has crumbled, so they must know they can’t depend on good intentions or treaties to defend us.”

Captain Smythe shrugged. “In the Admiral’s day, a century ago, the fleet was considerably smaller than even what we have left with us at the moment.”

“His day is right now,” Desjani insisted.

“You’re both right,” Geary said to stop any debate on a subject that made him uncomfortable. “But a century ago, the paradox was that we didn’t trust each other, but we trusted each other to keep things quiet. We could keep the fleet smaller because the Alliance counted on the Syndics keeping things quiet in their territory, and the Syndic fleet was also much smaller because they knew the Alliance would maintain order in its territory.”

“That makes no sense at all,” Badaya complained. “With all due respect, Admiral.”

“It apparently worked,” Smythe pointed out. “Until it stopped working. I’d love to find out exactly why the Syndic leadership decided to start that war.”

“We guessed that the enigmas tricked the Syndics into starting it,” Duellos said. “But I think the enigmas’ seeds of war fell onto fertile ground because of the way the Syndicate Worlds is governed. Their Supreme Council are pretty much absolute rulers, which means they didn’t have to listen to anyone counseling caution. They could just indulge their fantasies without fear of contradiction.”

Tulev nodded heavily. “And out of that, what horrors grew. It is something anyone in power must fear, being surrounded by the flatterers and fools who say only what they think the powerful want to hear.”

“Admiral Geary won’t have that problem,” Tanya remarked dryly.

Badaya laughed. “Not as long as you’re around!”

“Speaking of saying what people want to hear,” Geary said, “what’s the real reason why all of the warships are broadcasting false readiness data?”

“Officially?” Badaya asked. “We were told that agents of unspecified foreign powers might be monitoring the readiness of Alliance combat forces, so we were to present the strongest possible image regardless of the true status of our forces.”

“Foreign powers?” Tanya scoffed. “There’s only one foreign power. The Syndics.”

To Geary’s surprise, the other captains shook their heads at her.

“Lately,” Captain Smythe explained, “the phrase ‘foreign powers’ has been used in the media to describe the Callas Republic, the Rift Federation, stars outside Alliance space in the direction of Sol, and the Midway Star System and other former Syndic territories. Not to mention the press, which has itself been described as ‘foreign interests’ by members of the Alliance government.”

“Does someone think we need more enemies?” Geary asked.

“Enemies can be useful.”

“I do not think it is that simple,” Tulev interjected, a slight frown crossing his brow in an unusual display of open emotion. “When people are afraid, when they are uncertain, they see more enemies. In this, they are sincere. It would be a mistake to assume all of those involved are cynically manufacturing more enemies to advance their own agendas. Many of them do see those enemies.”

Captain Tulev paused, then spoke with his usual careful, emotionless precision. “You all know that my home star system was destroyed during the war, and that the survivors occupied defenses there afterwards, awaiting the return of the Syndics. I know that there have been many, many detections of incoming Syndic attacks in that star system since then. The great majority of them were illusions. Men and women swore they saw the indications, saw the detections of the enemy arriving, but data recordings showed no such reports from sensors. The defenders, fortified amidst the ruins of all they once knew, often see the enemy coming once more. They honestly believe they see those enemies. It is not a tactic or an attempt to mislead.”

After a long moment of silence, Badaya laughed again, this time briefly and harshly. “Maybe that’s us. We need enemies, too, don’t we? To justify the continued size of this fleet?”

“We didn’t imagine the Syndic attacks on the way back from Midway!” Desjani shot back at him.

“Granted.” Badaya furrowed his brow in an almost comical display of deep thought. “But let’s imagine we’re average citizens of an average Alliance star system. They hear all about what the Syndics did, and they wonder why they should worry. That was in Syndic territory! Are the Syndics coming here to do such things? What about the enigmas and the Kicks? Immensely far away! Why the need for such a large fleet? Because the officers of that fleet see danger?”

“That’s—” Desjani waged an obvious struggle to control herself before continuing. “All right. You have a point. We need to convince those citizens that the enemies we’re worried about are real.”

“And that some dangers are real as well,” Duellos agreed. “Especially when the force assigned the task of dealing with dangers outside the borders of the Alliance, this fleet, is at about sixty percent readiness instead of the one hundred percent the data feeds claim.”