The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast (3 page)

The smiling woman led Geary and Desjani to their seats in a dining room with walls hung with shields and banners whose decorations were bright enough to advertise them as recent reproductions rather than ancient artifacts. “I’m Lady Vitali.”

“Vitali?” Tanya asked. “We have a Captain Vitali in our fleet. He commands the battle cruiser
Daring
.”

“He could be a relation,” Lady Vitali said. “Our family has a long naval tradition. Does he cause much bother? Raise a bit of hell at times?”

“No,” Geary replied.

“Perhaps he’s not a relation, then. Tell me about the enigmas!”

As everyone ate, the locals listened intently as Geary, for perhaps the tenth time during this brief visit to Earth, described what little had been learned about the enigmas. That led to a discussion about the Dancers, then the third alien race so far discovered, the single-mindedly expansionist and homicidal Kicks.

“You’ve seen a great deal among the stars. Have you enjoyed your stay on Earth?” Lady Vitali asked Desjani.

Tanya paused, as if trying to ensure that her next words weren’t combative or inappropriate, then nodded. “It’s like visiting a place of legend. I never thought to see any of it in person.”

“What impressed you the most?”

“The statue we saw of that woman. Joan. When I looked at it, I felt like she might have been an ancestor of mine.”

“Joan of Arc? You could do much worse. I like to imagine Nelson was one of my ancestors. Fortunately for us, and for them I suppose, they were too far separated in time to have fought each other.” Lady Vitali grew serious. “We prefer to think we have outgrown war here, but we haven’t. We’ve simply strangled it in bureaucracy and red tape.”

“Perhaps that’s the best humanity can hope for,” Geary remarked.

“No. I don’t believe so. We frustrate the belligerent, who head for the stars to fulfill their agendas. We make it hard to start a war and easy to leave. All we’re doing is exporting aggression to the stars.”

“Is that why some of you look at us like we’re the latest barbarians to come here?” Desjani asked.

“Of course it is. We admire what you and your ship did to those boors who called themselves the Shield of Sol, but we also . . . worry about it. We don’t want war as you are accustomed to it to come here again.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Geary said. Back to the not-technically-a-war-anymore aggression by the remnants of the Syndicate Worlds, back to the many hidden threats in the Alliance, and back to the menaces posed by the enigmas and the Kicks.

“You’re our children,” an old man said in a gruff voice. “We sent you to the stars, then we left you on your own while we blew the hell out of Earth and the other planets here in some more wars. We hoped that
you
would learn some wisdom that we have lacked, that
you
would someday come home with the secret of peace. But how could you be better than your mothers and your fathers? You’re our children,” he repeated, taking a long drink of wine.

“We look to our ancestors for wisdom,” Tanya said.

“Don’t bother looking here,” the man said, putting down his empty glass. “We’re not wise. We’re tired. Maybe somewhere out there, you’ll find an answer. Maybe those Dancers know the secret.”

Recalling the terrible defenses with which the Dancers defended their region of space, Geary did not think so, but he nodded politely. “It’s possible. We’ll keep looking, and maybe we will find the answer.”

“And we’ll keep blowing the hell out of anything that gets in the way of humanity’s quest for peace,” Tanya grumbled in a voice too low for anyone but Geary to hear.

He wasn’t certain how many hours elapsed before he and Tanya could politely say their good-nights and make their way to their rooms. Certainly it was late enough for the fabled constellations of stars seen from Old Earth to shine brilliantly above.

They had intended to take full advantage of this final night, now that all official duties were over and, for a few brief hours, they could simply be man and wife rather than admiral and captain. Once back aboard
Dauntless
, any romantic familiarity would be off-limits. Two suites had been set aside for them, but they both went into his. The door had no sooner closed behind them than Tanya smiled at Geary. “Come here, Admiral.”

But, like many plans, this one did not survive contact with reality. Their lips had barely touched when a soft but insistent knock sounded on the door.

“It had better be
very
important,” Tanya growled.

Thinking the exact same thing, Geary yanked open the door.

Lady Vitali stood there. When they had left her a few minutes before, she had seemed fairly tipsy. Now she looked at them with no signs of intoxication apparent. “I must apologize for an unexpectedly abrupt end to our hospitality. Among the other inventions which Earth may have given the universe was the idea of assassins. Some who fit that name are en route this place as we speak.”

After so many surprises in combat situations, Geary’s mind took only a second to reorient this time. “Assassins? Are we their target?”

“I believe so. Or, rather, my sources of information believe so, and I believe them. Unfortunately, their message only just now reached me. I have called some friends who have a shuttle, which will take you to your ship in orbit. It will be here within fifteen minutes.”

Geary’s instinct to act warred with sudden suspicion. “No offense, but why should we trust you in this?”

“Because I was told that if you needed to be convinced of my trustworthiness, I should mention the name Anna Cresida.”

Tanya caught his eye and nodded. Anna Cresida, the last name of a close friend dead in the war paired with a false first name, was the code agreed upon by the senior personnel aboard
Dauntless
to inconspicuously authenticate critical information they might have to pass to each other while on Old Earth or to indicate a dangerous situation if one arose.

“Who told you that name?” Geary asked.

“It’s a long story, and time is short, Admiral. Nor is any answer I give likely to convince you if you do not accept the name itself.”

“She’s got a point,” Desjani said. “I just called
Dauntless
. From where they are in orbit, a shuttle from her will take forty-five minutes to launch and get here. If time is that critical, Admiral, I recommend that we accept the ride offered by our host. You and I are pretty good at fighting in space, but I for one don’t want to face assassins on the ground.”

“All right,” Geary relented. He knew that Tanya had good instincts in such matters, so if she was willing to trust Lady Vitali, that counted for a great deal.

Lady Vitali’s somber expression was softened by a smile as she looked as Desjani. “I envy you the command of such a craft as that battle cruiser of yours, Captain.”

“From what I see at the moment,” Tanya replied as she threw their spare clothes and other possessions back into their travel bags, “you might have qualified to command one.”

“That’s the first diplomatic thing you’ve said tonight. I knew you could do it.”

Geary broke in sharply. “Whose assassins are these?”

“I have little idea,” Lady Vitali said. “My sources, which I assure you are very capable, haven’t been able to discover the origin of the money behind this. But I can tell you this much, Admiral. The money does not come from any place on which the light of Sol shines.”

“Those Shield of Sol people from the outer stars?” Desjani asked.

“Possibly. The ones who escaped being killed by you didn’t know why their late and unlamented senior officer was so keen on attacking your ship, and we can’t ask that senior officer because, unfortunately, the technology available to us is not capable of reconstituting bodies and brains that have been blasted into their component atoms. You might be a little less thorough in your destruction of your opponents next time, Captain.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Desjani hefted her bag and held Geary’s out to him.

He took the bag, then studied Lady Vitali. “How did you manage to get things done so quickly tonight despite the bureaucracy and red tape you spoke of earlier?”

Lady Vitali’s broad smile was back. “You would be amazed what can be done with the right combination of ingenuity, threats, and promises, Admiral. Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised if half of what we’ve heard of you is true. If I discover anything about the source of this threat to you, I will send it on, though it may take a long while to reach you given the distance involved and lack of routine traffic between our home and yours.”

“Understood. Thank you. We’re in your debt.”

“Oh, nonsense. If you believe that you owe me anything, then if I ever reach your neighborhood, point me in the direction of the best beer.”

As they reached a side door of the castle, moving in silence through narrow stone corridors with just a dim light held by Lady Vitali, Geary wondered how many times others had fled this castle in centuries past, their flight perhaps illuminated by torches rather than modern lights, horses rather than a shuttle their method of escape. For a moment he felt displaced in time, so that he would not have been surprised if there had indeed been saddled horses awaiting them beyond the walls of the castle.

Once out near the landing area, one wall of the castle rising behind them and everything else shadowed by the night, the glamour of their late-night getaway faded abruptly, and worries set in once more. Could Lady Vitali really be trusted? Could this be a plot to get him and Tanya out in the open, where they would be better targets for assassins already awaiting them?

On the heels of that thought, Geary saw a darker shape detach itself from the rest of the night sky and come in to land with a degree of quietness that spoke of military-grade stealth technology. “Will you be all right?” he asked as Lady Vitali urged them to the shuttle.

“Oh, quite. Don’t worry about me. I have some other friends who will be on hand to greet our uninvited guests. But we wouldn’t want you to be caught in the cross fire! Off you go. Have a nice trip home.” Lady Vitali waved cheerfully as the closing boarding ramp cut off their view of her and of Old Earth.

“Lady Vitali has some interesting friends,” Geary remarked to Tanya, as they strapped into their seats, the shuttle already accelerating upward.

“And at least one of them is aboard
Dauntless
, it seems,” she replied, checking her comm unit. “That’s the only way she could have known the made-up name Anna Cresida. My ship is tracking us, by the way. Old Earth’s stealth tech is at least a couple of generations behind ours. The tracking confirms that we are on a vector to reach
Dauntless
.”

“Good. We were warned that some of the various governments and authorities on Old Earth might try to involve us in their own affairs. Do you think this might be some ploy to make us suspicious of other governments in Sol Star System?”

“No,” Tanya replied with a shake of her head. “If it were that, she wouldn’t have told us the money appeared to be coming from outside the star system. And, obviously, someone else from
Dauntless
thought she was trustworthy enough to share our code phrase. I think you and I narrowly avoided meeting our ancestors here in the wrong way.” She paused, then laughed. “I finally get it. What that one man said about us being their children. Everyone in the Alliance thinks of Old Earth, and Sol Star System, as someplace unimaginably special, a place of tranquillity and wisdom far surpassing our own. But that man had it right. We’re not different from them. The violence and politics and sheer stupidity we deal with are here, too. They’ve always been here.

“When humanity left Old Earth for the stars, we didn’t leave any of it behind. We took it all with us.”

She paused, eyeing her comm unit. “
Dauntless
says we’re veering off a direct vector to her.”

“What are we headed for?” Geary demanded. “Where does the new vector aim?”

“No telling.” Her eyes met his. “
Dauntless
was cut off in midmessage. Our comms are being jammed.”

GEARY,
his expression grim, tapped the comm panel near his seat. “No response from the pilot.”

“None here, either,” Tanya said, rapping a fist against the surface of her seat’s comm panel. “What do you suppose they’re planning?”

“Didn’t you say
Dauntless
was tracking us?”

“Yes, indeed.” She smiled unpleasantly. “If I know my crew, and I do know them better than anyone, my battle cruiser is currently accelerating to a fast intercept with this shuttle.”

The shuttle lurched as it twisted up and to their right. “Evasive maneuver,” Geary commented, checking his comm unit again. “The automated antijamming routines on my unit have found something.”

Desjani studied hers. “Mine, too. It found a path through the jamming to something, but it’s not
Dauntless
. Oh, hell, it’s internal.”

“The control deck on this shuttle,” Geary suggested.

“Probably. We might be able to screw with their controls if we established contact, but our units can’t shake hands with the Earth systems. This won’t get us anywhere.”

The shuttle rolled to their left.

Tanya frowned, then looked at Geary. “If they are trying to evade
Dauntless
, why aren’t they diving into atmosphere?”

“You think there’s—?”

The panel next to Geary suddenly flared to life, revealing a woman in the flight-engineer seat on the control deck. “Whatever you’re trying to do, please be so good as to stop. The signals coming out of there are confusing our systems.”

“Stop jamming our comms,” Desjani demanded before Geary could say anything.

“Your comms?” The woman appeared to be genuinely puzzled as she checked some of her readouts. “Oh. Our stealth systems cut in jamming automatically when they identified your signals.”

“Then manually override them,” Geary said.

“If you emit signals, you’ll compromise our stealth!” the woman pleaded. She looked to one side as if listening, then back at Geary. “Your ship keeps adjusting its track to maintain an intercept. You must still be sending it some locating data despite our jamming.”

“My ship doesn’t need any help from us to track this shuttle,” Desjani said. “You can’t evade her. I strongly suggest you give up trying.”

Puzzlement appeared on the woman’s face again. “Evade your ship? We’re not trying to evade
them
.”

Tanya glared at the woman’s image. “Who are you trying to evade?”

“We don’t know, exactly, but our flight controllers on the ground say there are at least two other stealth craft up here that are trying to close on us. We’re trying to remain clear of them until we reach your ship, which is very difficult when we have only vague ideas of where the other stealth craft are and is being complicated even more by your systems interfering with ours.”

“If that’s true,” Desjani said in a voice that contained considerable skepticism, “then stop jamming our comms so my ship can send you position and vector data on those other craft.”

“
Precise
positions and vectors,” Geary added.

“You can—?” The engineer turned again, speaking rapidly to the pilot, her words and lip movements obscured by the security functions in the panel.

But Geary could make out her expression, which quickly went from questioning to insisting to demanding. “She’s reading the pilot the riot act.”

“Good,” Desjani retorted. “Pilots need that done to them every once in a while. It’s the only thing that keeps them even a little humble.”

The woman looked back at Geary. “I’m overriding the jamming of your comms and releasing the lock on the control-deck hatch. Please come forward so we can see the positioning data your ship provides.”

Tanya unstrapped from her seat and triggered the hatch, watching as it opened and gesturing Geary to stay back. “All right. It looks safe. Come on, Admiral. This shuttle crew may be playing straight with us, but I’ve still got a bad feeling about this.”

The flight deck was roughly similar in layout to an Alliance shuttle. The basic design must have been settled on long before humans went to the stars, Geary speculated. He grabbed a handhold to steady himself while Tanya took a free seat next to the male pilot. “I’ve got comms again,” she announced. “
Dauntless
, give me a remote look at the vicinity of this shuttle.”

She tapped her unit to bring up the 3-D display, which popped into existence above her hand.

“There are three of the Gorms!” the flight engineer cursed. “And closer than we thought.”

“You don’t know who they are?” Geary asked.

“No. Whoever they are, they must have been waiting for us up here. We got snookered, Matt,” she said to the pilot.

“They were watching for anyone lifting out of there en route that warship,” the pilot agreed. “Good thing they’ve had as much trouble seeing us as we did seeing them.”

“But your ship can see us and them that easily?” the engineer asked Desjani. “How?”

“Do you really expect me to answer that?” Tanya asked.

“No. But it was worth the asking, wasn’t it?”

The pilot had been studying the display and now turned and climbed slightly to avoid the nearest other stealth craft, which was just below them and angling in their direction. The second craft was in higher orbit, tracking slightly away as it searched for them, and the third lower, but rising and converging on their track. All around, following their own orbits or trajectories, scores of other spacecraft, satellites, shuttles, and ships operating without any stealth equipment wove through space oblivious to the four hidden craft playing hide-and-seek among them.

“Martian,” the flight engineer declared, pointing to the nearest pursuer.

“Are you certain?” the pilot said.

“Absolutely. The signature on that bird is Martian. I can’t tell if the other two are also Reds.”

“Why are people from Mars after us?” Geary asked.

“Hired guns,” the pilot answered. “If you’ve got money, and you want a job done, no questions asked, Mars is the place to put up your offer. The only difference between the three primary Red governments is how much they charge for looking the other way and how much control they actually have over their countries. Speaking of looking the other way, you haven’t been up here or seen me or the flapping ear or talked to either of us. All right?”

“You get us to
Dauntless
, and officially we won’t breathe a word otherwise,” Geary promised. “Flapping ear?”

“Flight engineer.”

“Oh.” He studied the movements of the three other stealth craft. “If your ground controllers can spot indications of those three, why aren’t they trying to target them?”

“Target?” Both the pilot and the flight engineer shook their heads before the pilot continued speaking. “You mean engage with weapons? There aren’t any antiorbital weapons allowed on Earth or in Earth orbit. Even if there were, our rules of engagement are straight out of Gandhi.”

“What?” Desjani asked.

“We don’t shoot,” the flight engineer clarified. “Not if you’re Earth-based or -controlled. Those three hunting us might shoot if they get a good chance at us, but that’s because they’re Reds, and because even if they’re one hundred percent official property of some Martian government, there won’t be anything on them to prove that.”

“You can’t shoot?” Tanya demanded as if unable to comprehend the words.

“Not while we’re in Earth orbit,” the pilot explained as he twisted the shuttle between the tracks of two other passing craft. “Beyond that, if we’re past Luna, we can fire back, but only if we get hit at least twice. One hit might be an accident, you see. So we have to wait for two hits. Two hits means it’s definitely deliberate. Then, if there’s anything left of us, we can try shooting back.”

“That is insane.”

“I suppose it might look that way,” the flight engineer agreed. “But, officially, it means we’re at peace and staying that way. And we’ve got ships out beyond Luna. If something happens to us, and then some unfortunate accidents happen to any of those three craft before they make it home, well, that’s just too bad.”

“Hey,” the pilot cautioned. “Watch the loose lips.”

“I’m just letting them know how things work here,” the engineer protested. “They should know.”

“Why didn’t any accidents happen to the Shield of Sol ships before we got here?” Geary asked.

The engineer and the pilot both shrugged. “If someone was planning that,” the engineer said, “and I’m not saying anyone was, it would have been very hard because the Shield of Sol gang knew how we did things, being neighbors and all. They were on guard for it, and they were big, and they stayed together.”

“You guys didn’t play by the rules,” the pilot added. “But we always have to. If anyone shoots at us, all we can do is dodge.”

Desjani smiled. “My ship will intercept us in seven minutes, and we
still
don’t have to follow your rules. If those Martian craft give us any trouble, they’ll be sorry.”

Both the pilot and the flight engineer gave her horrified looks. “No,” the engineer protested. “You can’t. Not in Earth orbit.”

“I know it’s crowded up here, but my ship’s fire-control systems can make the shots at the right angles—”

“
No.
You
can’t
shoot in Earth orbit. It’s not about rules or regulations. It’s . . . wrong.”

Desjani stared at the two, perplexed.

Recalling some of the things they had seen on the surface, Geary nodded slowly. “It’s because of your history, isn’t it? The damage that was done to Old Earth from orbit.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot confirmed in a low voice. “Not just things being dropped on us but what happened when fighting up here disrupted space-based systems that had become critical. There were some ugly things on the ground after that. All hell, and everything that could deal with it knocked out, too. For a while, no one knew if Earth would pull through or if we’d end up like the dinos through what amounted to racial suicide. Nobody from down there is going to start a fight up here. And if you do, well, it will mark you, and in the worst way. I don’t doubt you could take out anything you wanted up here. But it would be a mistake. A very big mistake.”

Tanya shook her head and looked down at her comm unit. “All right. I understand. Dropping rocks on civilian targets is an ugly thing.”

Something in her words or her tone of voice might have given away some of the recent history that haunted the Alliance fleet, because the two from Earth eyed Desjani with startled dismay. Geary spoke quickly to distract them. “Can you stay clear of the craft pursuing you until
Dauntless
reaches us?”

The pilot jerked his attention back to Geary and nodded. “With the data your ship is sending us, yes. It’s not certain, because they might accidentally box us in, and I have to stay clear of all the other traffic up here, which can’t see us and might run into us if I don’t avoid them.”

“But you said they might shoot?”

“They might,” the flight engineer confirmed. “They’re not from here, they’re hiding their origins to keep their bosses in the clear, and the reputations of the Reds couldn’t sink any lower without going below absolute zero. Uh-oh. That low one is coming up more, and the high one is dropping and swinging in. They must be picking up something from those transmissions of yours.”

Tanya raised her eyes to study the pilot and the flight engineer. “Do you prefer having the precise data on those guys, or do you think I should shut down the data feed?”

Both hesitated, then the pilot grimaced. “I’d rather have the good picture, ma’am.”

“Captain.”

“Right. Captain. From their movements, our hunters still only have a vague idea of where we are. But they know where we’re going, to meet up with your ship, which they can see coming. That narrows down our possible vectors a lot for them.”

“I’ll see if I can tweak our gear to mask what they’re picking up,” the flight engineer added, concentrating on her controls.

A few minutes passed, the shuttle making gentle adjustments up, down, right, left, to weave along vectors toward the most open path between their hunters and all the other objects moving through this portion of space, all while still heading toward an intercept with
Dauntless
.

Geary had almost relaxed when he heard Tanya draw in breath in a hiss between her teeth. “Something’s happened. Those guys are zeroing in on us.”

The pilot nodded, stress visible on his face. “They shouldn’t be. But they’ve started reacting to our movements as if they’ve got a much better idea of where we are than they should.”

“Whatever gear they’ve just activated, it’s not as good as what
Dauntless
is using to track them.” Desjani switched her gaze to Geary. “About a generation behind our best gear, I’d guess.”

“Which means a generation ahead of what’s in this star system?” he asked. “It looks like whoever wants us provided money and some equipment.”

“Can I do anything against it?” the flight engineer asked.

Desjani made an angry gesture. “I don’t know. I’m not a tech. If we had Senior Chief Tarrini here, she’d probably know exactly what to do with your gear to confuse the guys hunting us.”

“We could have Tarrini pass instructions to the flight engineer over my comm unit,” Geary suggested.

Tanya shook her head. “It would take too long for her to study the equipment remotely, figure out how it’s configured and what to tweak. By the time that was done,
Dauntless
would already be here, or we’d already be screwed. It is older stuff, though. Do you know anything about it, Admiral?”

It was his turn to make a negating motion. “The gear I trained on was at least three generations behind what the Alliance uses now. Maybe four generations. And I wasn’t a tech, either. I just have a general knowledge of how it works.”

“This is what happens when you only have officers and no chiefs or other enlisted,” Desjani grumbled. “Plenty of people to give orders but no one who knows how to carry them out. How good are you?” she asked the pilot.

The pilot smiled crookedly. “Pretty damned good.”

“Every pilot thinks that.” Desjani looked to the flight engineer, who nodded confirmation.