The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast (33 page)

Voston frowned. “Admiral, we don’t know why they’re moving or where. We’ve got lots of Syndics crowding us from outside our perimeter, lots of Syndics crowding us from
inside
the perimeter, and the numbers keep going up as the crowds get bigger, and more refugees get dropped off. If more Syndic ground forces start showing up, things could hit the fan real fast.”

“They’re not Syndics, Colonel. We’re watching them from up here, too. You’ve got three warbirds flying close support overhead and a lot of warships ready to provide bombardment support.” He knew why Colonel Voston was worried. Another virtual window before Geary showed an overhead view of the landing site. There had been a wide, open band around the Alliance soldiers protecting the perimeter, but as more refugees had arrived, their numbers had pressed outward closer to the soldiers, and the growing crowds outside the perimeter had slowly edged their way inward. Colonel Voston’s troops occupied a gradually narrowing space separating the much larger groups of what the Alliance soldiers still saw as Syndics. Even the calmest troops would be rattled under those circumstances.

“Captain Duellos,” Geary said. “Have your comm officer try to get direct contact with some of those local ground forces units that are on the move. I also want a feed here so I can listen in to the soldiers of Colonel Voston’s regiment.”

Listening to the ground forces communications, Geary could feel the battle-scarred veterans growing more nervous and more dangerous as the crowds came closer and kept growing in size and intensity. Ironically, his idea to use Araya and Naxos to stir up popular unrest was succeeding so well that it threatened to cause a disaster. If Voston’s battle-weary troops were pressed too hard and opened fire . . .

“Lieutenant Popova, this is Admiral Geary.”

“Night Witch here, sir,” Lieutenant Popova answered immediately.

“Take your warbirds as low over the refugee drop-off site as possible. I want them to look as intimidating as you can manage. We have to hold back those crowds.”

“We’re on it, sir.”

He might lack enough of other assets, but at least he had a lot of shuttles since that had been necessary to off-load all the refugees. “Captain Duellos, have your ops people help arrange the shuttles so we can pull up Colonel Voston’s regiment in only two lifts.”

“That may be difficult, Admiral,” Duellos cautioned.

“I know. That’s why I want your people working on it. I know they can make it happen.” It was half an expression of how he really felt, or hoped, and half a public statement of confidence in Duellos’s crew that might inspire them to do more than they themselves believed possible. Automated systems could spit out the numbers and the load plan in seconds, but only humans could spot unconventional ways to get around obstacles that stubborn software saw as unconquerable.

“Admiral, this is getting worse fast!” Voston called.

“I am on top of this,” Geary replied, trying to sound confident without seeming oblivious to the real problems facing Voston’s soldiers. “The crowds—”

“It’s the local military and those toughs working for the government! They’re either pushing closer on their own or forcing civilians ahead of them closer to us! We—”

Voston broke off as a single Alliance FAC roared close over his head, pivoting and braking simultaneously to drift above the thin line of Alliance soldiers, its vertical lift drives thundering out a storm of exhaust that had no effect on the soldiers in their battle armor but physically drove back the nearest civilians.

Geary checked his overhead view, seeing the other two FACs similarly employed. “We’re almost finished, Colonel. The last shuttles carrying refugees are on their way down.”

“Understood, sir.” Voston’s grin was tense, a sheen of sweat on his face. “We’ll hold the line.”

“Admiral, we have comms with a local armored unit!”

Despite his worries about Voston and his soldiers, Geary had to switch his attention to a new virtual window that popped into existence, showing a grim-faced woman in a uniform only slightly modified from its Syndicate Worlds origin. She was clearly inside an armored vehicle, one that was moving rapidly. “I need to know your intentions,” Geary said without preamble.

“Why?” the woman replied.

“Because I have troops on the ground on your planet, engaged in ensuring the safe return to your world of citizens of your world. We will leave as soon as that operation is completed. I don’t want my troops harmed, and I don’t want those citizens hurt, either.”

“You’re Alliance,” the woman spat. “You don’t—” Her eyes narrowed, regarding Geary. “My equipment gives me an ID on you. Are you Black Jack?”

“I am Admiral Geary, yes.”

The eyes widened, then the woman nodded. “We aren’t going to engage your forces unless they try to stay after returning all of our people. We are no threat to
our
people.”

“You are heading toward the site where we are dropping off the refugees.”

“There are others there who need to be dealt with. Internal matters.”

An alert drew Geary’s eyes to his display. “There are two drones closing on the site, as well.”

“They’re not ours,” the woman said.

“Then I’m taking them down.”

“Be my guest.”

“Lieutenant Popova, take out those drones.” He spoke to the armored forces commander again. “Hold off until I get my troops off the ground.”

The armored forces commander eyed him for a long moment, then nodded. “We have no interest in engaging your forces,” she repeated.

The window vanished, and Geary swung his head to focus on Colonel Voston once more. “The local military forces closing on your position intend engaging the other locals. They will not engage you.”

“I’d rather not take the word of a Syndic for that, Admiral!”

“You don’t have to. We’re getting you out of there.” Geary spared another few seconds to run his eyes down the lift plan that Captain Duellos’s crew had put together. “Stand by to start the lift. Tell your hack and cracks to give those two refugee leaders, Araya and Naxos, a couple of minutes’ warning before they shut down their gear to leave so the leaders can broadcast some final messages.”

“Yes, sir. Does the Admiral understand how dangerous it will be between lifts? I’ll only have half my regiment left down here against growing numbers of hostiles.”

“I understand, Colonel. We’ll get this done as quickly as possible. Lieutenant Popova,” Geary added, knowing that Voston could also hear this transmission, “you are weapons free if you spot any threats to the ground forces or the shuttles.”

“Yes, sir,” Popova replied, sounding happy. “We’ve got your six, Colonel.”

Minutes passed at a crawl despite all of the activity as the Alliance shuttles grounded, barely able to find room to land inside the now-crowded landing area, the local military forces that had left their garrisons came closer to the outer edges of the now-massive crowds surrounding that area, and the local forces and government toughs near the refugees pressed closer to the Alliance perimeter despite the aggressive movements of the FACs overhead.

“Even numbers, go!” Colonel Voston ordered. Every other soldier on the perimeter melted backwards, forming into clumps of soldiers racing toward the nearest shuttles. “Steady!” Voston called out to those still holding position.

Geary could see Voston’s movement highlighted on the overhead view. The colonel wasn’t leaving on the first lift, but was instead walking steadily along the perimeter. Geary could see majors, captains, and lieutenants from the regiment doing the same, and when he called up the data saw that every senior noncommissioned officer was still in place as well. Voston had sent up the first lift with just corporals in charge, keeping the rest of his command structure in place to help maintain stability in the half of his badly pressed regiment still forming a tenuous barrier between the refugees and local government forces.

“Back! Off! Now!” A sergeant and several Alliance soldiers had leveled weapons at local toughs, who were so close that the ends of the barrels of the Alliance weapons almost touched their bodies.

Several of the toughs paled, trying unsuccessfully to push back against the crowd behind them. They were used to beating up civilians, not facing armed and armored ground forces.

Geary was trying to figure out how to keep the situation from blowing up when he saw another sergeant leading a wedge of refugees toward the point of confrontation. “They’re taking over security here!” the sergeant called. “Fall back!”

The toughs had only a few moments to relax and start to smile as the Alliance ground forces faded backwards, before the mass of refugees charged them and swamped their front ranks in a swirl of improvised weapons and swinging fists.

Everywhere along the perimeter, the refugees were surging outward as Voston’s soldiers dropped back to where the second wave of shuttles would land. The government thugs found themselves trapped between the refugees and the antigovernment crowds pressing in behind, who had joined in the fight when violence finally erupted.

Geary hastily checked the status of the few local military units that had been backing the toughs and found them falling apart without fighting as other local forces allied with the crowds began arriving in vastly larger numbers. The local police, who had been protecting the thugs, had completely vanished, either overrun by the crowds or seeking shelter anywhere they could find it.

Voston’s soldiers backed into the shuttles, the last ones raising their weapons in triumph and shouting encouragement to the refugees while the shuttle ramps closed.

As the last shuttles bounded upward, a single shoulder-fired missile bolted through the air after them.

Geary didn’t have time to order any response, but he didn’t have to. The FAC flown by Nightstalker whipped around, slicing between the rising shuttles and missile, popping out flares, chaff, and other decoys that caused the missile to weave back and forth before locking on a decoy and detonating far from the shuttles.

While Nightstalker handled the missile, Night Witch had taken care of the launcher. Geary saw a single shot slam into a small crowd of mob toughs on a flat rooftop, scattering the thugs and leaving a hole in the top of the building, along with three toughs who had never had time to regret their mistake.

The three FACs did victory rolls over the roiling mass of refugees and other civilians in the square, then sprinted skyward in the wake of the shuttles.

“Pilots!” Duellos muttered. “Do they always have to show off?”

“I think so,” Geary said. “Pilots were like that a century ago, too. They can’t just be good; they have to make sure everyone else knows how good they are.”

“Black Jack!” Another comm window, this one showing the refugee leader Araya and, in the background, the local armored forces commander who had spoken to Geary earlier. “Thank you! Naxos was right, you are hard copy. But this is our fight now!”

“Good luck,” Geary said.

By the time all of the shuttles were recovered and Geary led his task force away from the planet, he could watch intercepted broadcasts showing that the crowds were storming the hall of government, chanting demands for freedom, backed by substantial military forces which had joined the revolt.

“Freedom,” Duellos repeated as he watched the reports from the planet. “Will they really get freedom?”

“That’s up to them,” Geary said.

He cut loose the former refugee ships, whose crews aggrievedly demanded pay for their long chore hauling and housing the refugees, but when offered the chance to plead their case to any of the governments in local star systems chose instead to head out in search of more profitable activities. The leased freighters carrying the two regiments of ground forces, Kim’s now consolidated along with Voston’s, were sent with a strong escort toward the jump point back to Yokai, then Adriana, while Geary took the rest of the warships to the jump point for Tiyannak.

“Is this covered by your orders?” Duellos said.

“Tanya wouldn’t be asking me that. She’d be happy that I assumed it was a necessary part of solving the refugee problem. And it is.”

It took an extra two weeks to jump to Tiyannak, ensure that the heavy cruiser, light cruisers, and HuKs that had escaped at Batara were still fleeing as fast as they could run, launch a mass of bombardment projectiles aimed at the former Syndic shipyards and refitting facilities there, where a few more warships still sat in various stages of repair and refit, then return to Batara with the knowledge that Tiyannak would no longer be able to support offensive operations against its neighbors.

The squadron to which Night Witch, Catnap, and Nightstalker belonged had begun setting up camp in the partially reactivated facility at Yokai. Geary dropped off the pilots and their FACs along with some sincere appreciation for their support, then headed back for Adriana.

As he prepared to leave the bridge of
Inspire
, the FAC base dwindling behind them, Geary paused to listen to Duellos as he spoke to a virtual window showing one of his senior noncommissioned officers.

“Give them whatever assistance we can,” Duellos said, sounding unusually aggravated. “And let me know when our own is completely straightened out.”

“Is something wrong?” Geary asked.

“Software updates,” Duellos said in the same persecuted tone of voice that Colonel Galland had used a few weeks ago. He closed the virtual window and pointed astern. “The FAC base techs made a backdoor request for assistance from my code monkeys because they’re having particularly bad problems running the accumulated updates on the gear that was mothballed here.”

“Aerospace forces software techs asked fleet techs for assistance?” Geary asked. “Voluntarily?”

“Amazing, isn’t it? Everybody’s code monkeys tend to get along and help each other out regardless of institutional rivalries. I am told they actually call it the Code of the Monkeys though I may have been getting my leg pulled.”

Geary cast a worried glance at the image of the FAC base, floating serenely in space. Additional lights could be seen on a portion of it, where the aerospace forces were reactivating enough compartments and equipment to support them. “What’s their problem? The same sort of stuff that afflicted the FACs at Adrianna?”