The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast (25 page)

Galland eyed her skeptically. “It wouldn’t be anything like war costs. I’d need a lift to get a squadron of FACs and personnel to Yokai and back. A heavy-equipment transport of some kind. But once I had a squadron out there, I could leave the equipment and only send in replacements when necessary. Then there’d have to be logistics support, getting food and other necessities out to the deployed forces, and to rotate people in and out. That would be a recurring cost.”

“What about the operating costs?” the thin man asked. “And your orders?”

Galland frowned in thought. “I could justify a lot of it as training. Flying patrols and deploying equipment are all part of that. Even being at Yokai fits that because one of my secondary missions is to deploy there if required. That means we have to be familiar with operating in Yokai, right? We could reactivate one of the bases. A single squadron can live for a long time off everything that was probably mothballed at Yokai. As long as my spending doesn’t exceed authorized funding, no one back at aerospace forces headquarters is likely to notice or care what’s going on.”

“We can move some money around in the budget,” the thin man told the president. “I think this is doable.”

“And then we’d have defenses at Yokai again,” the president said with obvious satisfaction.

“Yes, but,” Colonel Galland added as just about everyone began looking relieved, “while we can stop refugees in civilian shipping, and a squadron can stop Syndic Hunter-Killer ships, if Syndic light cruisers or heavy cruisers show up, all a single squadron of my craft can do is harass them. That kind of threat requires fleet support to handle, and I don’t mind admitting it.”

“You will be working to get us that support, long-term?” the president asked Geary.

“I’ll do my best,” Geary said.

“A promise from Black Jack is no small thing.” She gazed at him, her thoughts unreadable. “We haven’t heard everything about the losses suffered during the final campaigns of the war and during your subsequent missions, but they are rumored to have been substantial.”

Geary nodded, letting his own eyes rest upon the star display to avoid looking directly at anyone else as the memories hit him. “The fleet took massive losses before I assumed command. We took more getting home, while the fleet units left to defend the Alliance were badly hurt fighting off Syndic attacks as I was getting the fleet home. Since then, we have had to fight the Syndics again and have fought the alien enigmas several times, as well as the alien Kicks.”

“It’s the sort of thing that has happened many times before in the last century,” Colonel Galland sympathized. “To the fleet, to the ground forces, and to the aerospace forces. Massive losses and constant streams of rebuilds and reinforcement. The difference is that this time, replacements stopped coming.”

“I understand the why of that,” Geary said. “But we can’t let our forces get too small, or we’ll end up with more and more situations like this one.”

“There should still be enough money available to fund a better defense than we’ve been left with,” one official protested. “Where is it going? We have a rough idea of how much contributions to the Alliance have been held up from other star systems, and from this one, I admit that, and if the cutbacks here are any indication, the cuts have exceeded what I admit are large cuts in funding.”

“I don’t know where it’s all going,” Geary said. “Your senators may not know. I would recommend you task them with finding out. Waste and . . . ill-considered programs are not something we can afford. Not if we want to keep faith with our people, whether civilian or military.”

“Be assured that we will look for those answers,” President Astrida said. “Colonel Galland, members of my staff will contact your staff to work out the details of your, um, extended training maneuvers at Yokai. Admiral Geary, we will notify you of the shipping, which will be leased to convoy the ground forces to Batara. General Shwartz, I want you to take the lead for getting the two ground forces regiments ready to go as soon as possible. Let me know immediately if you run into problems.” This with a dagger-sharp look at General Sissons. “Is there anything else?” she asked of the room.

“Just one thing,” Geary said. “A small thing,” he added quickly, as tension suddenly began ramping up again. “I had promised to visit a place on this world that’s not far from here. Could I get some ground transport there?”

President Astrida nodded. “The Academy? Of course. I am sure you will be very welcome there, and I thank you personally for visiting those children.”

Colonel Galland stopped Geary before he got into one of the limos. “You’ve made my life a lot more interesting, Admiral.”

“Not as interesting as it would have been if that battleship had shown up here and surprised everyone,” Geary reminded her.

“No argument there. I just wanted to point out that my FACs might be useful at Batara.”

Geary let his puzzlement show. “How would I get them there?”

“You’ve got battle cruisers. Have they just got the regulation two shuttles each? One FAC can be crammed into a battle cruiser shuttle dock along with them. It’s a real tight fit, but it can be done. If those shuttles need to make drops in a hostile environment, or if you just want a strong escort accompanying your shuttles to impress the locals, my boys and girls could really help out.”

“Another training mission?” Geary asked.

“How did you guess?” Galland said with a grin.

“I’m probably going to take you up on that offer, Colonel. We’re doing this on a shoestring, and every bit of capability we can add will give me a better chance of getting it done right. Thank you.”

“No, sir. Thank you. It can be hard to keep the faith sometimes, you know? You work with guys like Sissons, and after a while, you wonder what the point is. But there is a point.” She stepped back, saluted again with the care of someone who had recently learned the gesture, then waved farewell as Geary got into the vehicle.

 • • • 

BEING
around civilians made him nervous.

It wasn’t because he had spent so much time in the company of military personnel whose uniforms had not undergone radical changes in the century he had been frozen. No, it was because civilian clothing had undergone the usual shifts of taste and fashion, altering with the years and the decades. Granted, because of the long war, some of those fashions had borrowed much from uniforms. But other fashions clearly avoided any hint of the uniform or the functional in their designs. Among the military, he could pretend that not all that much time had passed since the battle at Grendel. Among civilians, he couldn’t avoid seeing in the styles of clothing they wore how much time had passed.

“We’re very grateful that you could come, Admiral,” the man in charge of the Academy beamed. “My mother used to tell me about Grendel when I was a little boy, and I worried that the Syndics would come attack us in our homes. She would say that Black Jack would never let that happen, that he would come back to prevent it.”

Geary cleared his throat, even more uncomfortable. “Well, I . . . um . . .”

“I admit I had stopped believing! We were all in despair. The fleet was gone. That’s what everyone was saying even though the government claimed the fleet was all right. But everyone knows you can’t believe official announcements. And, then . . .” The man actually put his hand to his heart, gazing into the distance with a wondering smile. “You brought the fleet back safe, and you had hurt the Syndics worse than anyone ever had, and then you won the war.”

Everyone else was smiling, either at him or at the man enraptured by his memories. The media was here, of course, recording every moment for posterity and soaking up the raw sentiment on display.

Geary looked ahead to the doors of the orphanage, functional metal entrances adorned only by what looked like amateur paintings of the seals of the Alliance Armed Forces, paintings he felt certain had been done by the children who had lost their parents to those armed forces. He felt bitterness rising to mask his discomfort. “I wish I could have ended the war while these kids’ parents were still alive.”

The man’s smile changed to a solemn nod. “Don’t we all, Admiral. But that’s not what the living stars decreed. We are grateful that there won’t be any more orphans. That’s a big thing.”

“People are still dying,” Geary said, thinking of the ships he had lost, of
Orion
being blown apart at Sobek Star System. He noticed the uncertainty and the concern appear in the man’s eyes and tried to rally his own spirits. “I’m sorry. My fleet has been through some very serious fighting even though the war is over.”

“Serious fighting?” a woman reporter called. “The government hasn’t said much about that.”

Geary saw police moving to silence her and held up a hand to halt them. “I’ll be happy to answer questions later. My first responsibility here is to the children.”

“Do you still support the Alliance?” the woman persisted.

He waited a moment to answer, feeling tension filling the air like something tangible. “Yes. I support the Alliance, I support the government, I support those things our ancestors believed in, and those principles so many men and women of the Alliance died for.”

“How strong is that support?”

They would keep pushing that point, apparently. Geary turned to face the crowd. “I support the Alliance and the government. I have made my stand on those grounds. I will not retreat from where I stand, and I will not retreat from those words.”

As he headed for the doors of the Academy amid the buzz of conversation following his statement, Geary found himself walking beside one of the teachers. Her face held the telltale smoothness that hinted at age held back by modern science, so that she could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty years old. However, a prominent burn mark marred one side of that downy face. It was the sort of disfigurement that could have been easily removed, but the woman had chosen to keep it. “I served in the fleet, Admiral,” she said in a low voice that just carried to him. “I had six ships shot out from under me. I know it’s hard to lose men and women, but don’t forget how many you’ve saved by winning those battles as well as you have. No one else may tell you this, but this Academy and the others have been told to plan for consolidation and closing as the children in them grow up and leave. Do you understand? Don’t dwell here on those who died. Dwell on the fact that this place and similar ones will no longer be needed. Thanks to you.”

“Thank you,” Geary said. “That does mean a lot. And thank you for helping to hold the line with your own service during the war.”

Then he was inside the utilitarian building, functional enough and nice enough but without any frills or extravagance evident in the entry. It felt military. Not lavish-headquarters military, but field-offices military. He wondered how many of the furnishings here had come from the same contracts as fulfilled military requirements.

A short walk led to the entrance of a large multipurpose room filled with children standing in ranks, the smallest in front. They gazed back at him with a solemnity not in keeping with their ages. They were serious in the way of children who had experienced terrible blows at a young age, and as Geary looked at them, he wondered how he could possibly speak to them in any way that mattered.

A young girl spared him the need to search for words. “Did you talk to them?” she cried, as teachers tried to hush her. “The eldest ones? Did you?” Her eyes were too dark in a face too thin, but now hope had given her expression a measure of serenity.

Thank you, Tanya, for warning me to expect that question.
Geary knelt, so his head was on a level with that of the child. “Do you mean on Old Earth?”

“Yes. The oldest ancestors of us all. What did they say?” Her eagerness almost caused her words to trip over themselves.

“I’m still trying to understand what I saw and heard on Old Earth,” Geary said, having decided that a literal truth was the best answer for a question he would otherwise have to lie about. “It was . . . a remarkable place.”

A boy, older, almost a teenager, spoke abruptly, anger clear in his voice. “Why didn’t you come back sooner? Why did you wait?”

Geary stayed kneeling and looked up at the boy, knowing the unspoken part of the question.
Why didn’t you come back before my parents died?
Once again, he answered with the only truth he knew. “I don’t know. It wasn’t up to me. I don’t know why I was found when I was, and not before. I wish . . . If it had been sooner . . . My parents died while I was asleep. Everyone I knew died while I was in survival sleep. I woke up, and everyone was gone.”

“You know how it feels, then,” another girl said somberly.

“I think so. Not as bad as you. I got into the escape pod just before my ship was destroyed, and the survival sleep process immediately put me to sleep because the escape pod had been damaged and couldn’t keep me alive any other way. I thought it wouldn’t be long, but when I woke up . . .” He looked down as the old emotions flooded through him. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have saved everyone. I can’t. I’m just an ordinary man. I’m doing my best, but I can’t save everyone.”

“You saved us.”

He raised his head, meeting the gaze of another boy who had spoken.

“We won’t have to die in the war. Not like our parents did.” He pointed upward. “I want to explore. I can do that now.”

“How many Syndics have you killed?” another boy demanded. “Did you kill a whole lot?”

Another adult moved to intercept the boy with a haste Geary recognized. The boy was asking the wrong questions. “Hold it,” he said, then focused back on the boy. “I don’t know how many I killed. But I do know that I did not kill one more than I absolutely had to, and I hope that I never have to kill another even though I know the odds are very much against that.”

“They killed my family!”

“I can’t bring your family back by killing Syndics,” Geary said. “I can stop the Syndics from killing any more, but I can’t undo the harm that was done.”

“They all need to
die
!” the boy insisted, oblivious to the tears welling from his eyes and running down his face. “They need to know they can’t treat us that way, that our honor will not allow us to be hurt like that, and we will kill anyone who hurts us or . . . or . . . insults our honor! We—”