The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught Page 8

  The short notice before their arrival didn’t seem to have fazed Dauntless’s crew. A perfectly turned-out set of sideboys rendered honors as Geary reached the deck. An announcement echoed through the ship. “Admiral Geary, arriving.” He raised an arm, which had just begun to recover, and returned their salutes with his own.

  As Desjani came down the ramp behind him, honors were rendered again, followed by the declaration, “Dauntless, arriving.” By ancient traditions regarding commanding officers of warships, Desjani went by the name of her ship in such matters.

  Geary stopped and waited for her, his eyes running over the entire complement of officers on the ship drawn up in ranks, behind them more ranks of sailors and Marines representing the rest of the enlisted crew. They looked fine. They looked more than fine. He realized he was smiling at the sight, and left the smile in place, knowing they could see his reaction.

  Desjani paused beside him, her face professionally dispassionate, then nodded to her executive officer. “The crew appears to be in acceptable shape.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “The admiral and I will be attending an emergency fleet conference. I’ll conduct an inspection of the ship once that is completed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The executive officer took a rectangular object about a half meter wide and perhaps a quarter of a meter high from one of the other officers, then offered it to Desjani. “From the officers and crew of Dauntless, with our compliments and congratulations to you and Admiral Geary, Captain.”

  Desjani frowned slightly as she took the object, then one corner of her mouth bent upward, and she turned the article so that Geary could see. A plaque made from real wood, inlaid with a shining metallic star map of the course the fleet had followed under Geary’s command through Syndicate Worlds’ space, passing through star system after star system, each labeled with its name, until ending at Varandal within Alliance space. Under the inlay, actual twine sealed to the wood had been formed into the names Geary and Desjani, the strings tied together between the names in a beautifully formed knot. He had seen sailors practice such knot tying since he was a junior officer, and had been told the knots were incredibly ancient, and still valuable when tying something down could be as important as it had been on the earliest trading ships on Earth’s seas. “Very nice,” he commented. “Thank you.”

  “Yes,” Desjani agreed. “Thank you all,” she added at a volume that effortlessly carried through the hangar deck. “Please deliver this to my stateroom,” she asked the executive officer in a much lower voice, handing it carefully back to him. “The admiral and I will proceed to the conference now.”

  “Yes, Captain. Welcome back.”

  She finally smiled. “It’s nice to be back. You have doubtless already heard this, but I am happy to provide formal notice that Dauntless will once again be Admiral Geary’s flagship. Please inform the crew.”

  Geary walked with Desjani out of the hangar as the officers and crew broke ranks behind them, a buzz of conversation erupting over Desjani’s news. He let out a long, slow breath, happy to be walking familiar passageways. You couldn’t get lost anywhere there was a comm connection to walk you through any location, but there was still comfort at being in a place where you needed no directions. “You want the plaque in your stateroom?” Geary asked.

  “Yes, sir. It goes on a bulkhead in my stateroom. It’s much less public that way.”

  “If it’s in your stateroom, I might never get to see it. I thought that we’d agreed I shouldn’t visit you there for the sake of appearances.”

  She frowned in thought. “Maybe I’ll let you borrow it every once in a while.”

  “Thanks.”

  THE conference room was familiar, too, but not so comforting. There had been too much drama in that compartment for it to carry any sense of relaxation. Geary sighed and sat down, checking the conferencing software and thinking through what he would say. The fleet was currently spread out in orbits around Varandal, with the farthest ships from Dauntless almost ten light minutes distant. “That’s going to cut down on real-time questions and answers,” he said.

  “You wish,” Desjani commented as she checked things on her own display.

  As usual, she had understood how he really felt. “I can dream, can’t I?”

  Further conversation was cut off as virtual images of commanding officers began popping into existence along the table. The table, and the compartment, seemed to grow in length to accommodate their rapidly increasing numbers. They were familiar faces now. Most of them, anyway, though with hundreds of commanding officers to deal with, Geary knew only a few well and some hardly at all. He took a moment to focus on Orion’s latest commanding officer as Commander Shen’s image appeared. Shen was thin, small in stature, and wore an annoyed look that seemed perpetual rather than the result of any particular event. Geary resolved to check on the man’s service record as soon as possible.

  But Desjani glanced up when she realized that Shen had arrived, then smiled and gave him a friendly wave. Commander Shen’s eyes went to her, then the lower half of his face seemed to crack like rock being ravaged by an earthquake as he briefly returned the smile before nodding in reply and resuming his irritated expression.

  “You know him?” Geary asked Desjani.

  “We served together on a heavy cruiser,” she replied. “He’s a very good officer.” As if knowing what Geary was thinking, Desjani added one more thing. “Looks can be deceiving.”

  “I’ll take your word for it when it comes to him, anyway.”

  “Orion followed orders,” Desjani pointed out.

  “Very good point.” If Shen could turn around Orion, he would earn the right to bear any expression he favored.

  A moment later, Geary blinked as another commanding officer appeared. This captain seemed to be nearly a twin of Commander Shen, right down to the aggravated appearance, which looked like it rarely varied. Sensing Geary’s focus, the meeting software brought the captain’s image closer and identifying information appeared next to him. Captain Shand Vente. Invincible.

  “What happened to Commander Stiles?” Geary asked in amazement.

  Desjani glanced up again, then at Vente with clear distaste. “Somebody more senior in rank and with better political connections must have pulled some strings and gotten orders to assume command. Remember, command of a battle cruiser is regarded as an essential ticket punch on the way to making admiral, and if it was hard to make admiral during the war, it’s going to be damn near impossible now that admirals won’t be dying by the handfuls in battles.” Her glance strayed to Geary. “Except for you, of course, who can’t stop getting promoted to admiral over and over again.”

  “Lucky me,” Geary muttered. Every once in a while, something like this still happened, something that drove home just how much the century-long war with the Syndics had warped the fleet. It wasn’t that politics had been foreign to senior officers a hundred years before, but political jockeying had been carefully hidden, never blatantly displayed by acts such as relieving another officer of command after only a few months so someone else could get their promotion ticket punched. “Is Vente related to Shen?”

  “Why—?” She looked at Vente and did a double take. “Not that I know of.”

  Vente, alerted by the conference software that Geary was looking his way, turned his face toward the head of the table. Unlike Shen’s, his annoyed expression didn’t waver as he hesitated, then nodded abruptly before resuming his stare at the table before him as if something irritating rested there.

  Feeling sorry for the crew of Invincible but not sure that he would be able to do anything about Vente in the time available, Geary felt comforted by the arrival of Captain Tulev. Almost immediately after Tulev, the commanding officers in his division showed up in their seats, including Commander Bradamont. She sat quietly, looking at no one in particular, just as Geary recalled seeing her at past conferences when he had noticed her at all. If he hadn’t had so many other things
to worry about, he probably would have wondered why someone so forceful in combat was so retiring in conferences. But then, considering his problems during that period with officers like Captain Numos, who were more forceful in conferences than in combat, if he had really taken much notice of it, he would probably have just been grateful.

  That thought diverted him enough that Geary entered a fast query on Numos’s status. Still awaiting court-martial. The wheels of justice grind slowly sometimes. But they still had time to generate those idiotic charges against over a hundred fleet commanding officers when they should have been dealing with Numos.

  Images were flooding in by then, the room seeming to expand at a rapid pace to accommodate their numbers. Captains, commanders, and lieutenant commanders in charge of battle cruisers, battleships, heavy and light cruisers, fleet auxiliaries, and destroyers. Captain Duellos leaned back casually, as if the fleet hadn’t been on the verge of mutiny a short time before. Captain Tulev sat stolidly, little emotion apparent, but he nodded a welcome-back to Geary. Captain Badaya peered around suspiciously, plainly still expecting government agents to pop out of the bulkheads and start arresting officers. Captain Jane Geary just sat calmly, giving no outward sign that she had been agitating for trouble not long ago. Captain Armus also revealed no uneasiness, not that he had cause for it, as usual appearing as ponderous as the battleship he commanded. Geary hadn’t fully appreciated until now just how solid and reassuring that kind of ponderousness could be when others were dashing around in alarm.

  The final officer flashed into existence, and Geary stood up, the images before him reacting in staggered motion, those on ships closest to Dauntless, within a few light seconds or less, responding almost in real time, while those on the most distant ships, light minutes away, might still be reacting to his standing up when he had finished talking. “Let me start by laying out the situation. I have been assigned command of the new First Fleet. Every ship here is also assigned to that fleet, so as of half an hour ago, I am officially your commander once more.”

  Badaya’s suspicious look vanished, replaced with smug assurance. Others reacted with obvious relief or cheerful smiles, though the delayed reactions allowed Geary to easily see that some others took the news either stoically or with some worry.

  “As you have no doubt guessed, the First Fleet was created for a purpose. We are to deal with threats to the Alliance before they reach the Alliance. We have been assigned our first mission in keeping with that responsibility. It’s a demanding task, but I’m certain that this fleet will be able to carry it out.” Tapping controls, Geary brought up a display of far-distant but recently familiar space. “You all know this area. Part of the Syndic border facing the alien race we fought. The Alliance needs to know more about these aliens. A lot more. Especially how big a threat they might pose to us. So we’re going back there, and this time we’re entering alien space and getting some answers.”

  The smiles were faltering, shading into surprise and some concern. “How big a threat can they be?” Captain Armus asked, his broad face set into its usual slightly stubborn and slightly challenging expression. “We beat them.”

  Desjani answered. “We surprised them. But they demonstrated some impressive maneuvering capabilities. We want to be sure that we keep surprising them and that they don’t spring any more surprises on us.”

  Geary nodded. “Don’t forget about the hypernet gates. The aliens tricked us there so successfully that they might have eliminated most of the human race.”

  Commander Neeson had brightened at Desjani’s words. “If we can find out how their maneuvering technology works, it would give us a huge advantage if the Syndics try anything else.”

  Commander Shen looked around the table. “I know that this fleet destroyed many alien warships in the engagement at Midway. How rapidly could they recover from such a blow?”

  “We have no idea,” Geary replied. “We don’t know how powerful the aliens are, how many star systems they occupy, what sort of population they can call on, or any other information vital to evaluating the threat they pose.”

  “But we are going to fight them?”

  “Our objective is to establish contact and to learn. We’ll fight only if necessary.” He saw the variously time-delayed reactions to that statement appear, oddly mixed in with reactions to his previous announcements. “It’s true that the aliens showed no interest in negotiating last time we met them, but we kicked them back into their own territory when we fought. They may react a little differently this time, if only out of respect for our own ability to inflict damage on them.”

  Captain Parr of the battle cruiser Incredible, who had been having the good grace to look a bit chastened because of his earlier involvement in the movements toward Ambaru station, now grinned. “They know now that we’re not as easy to fool or fight as the Syndics were.”

  A comment from Captain Casia of Conqueror regarding some earlier statement finally arrived. “It appears the Alliance has no fear of attack now, Admiral Geary, if it is sending us all out so far from its own territory. Will there be nothing left in Alliance space to guard it but system defense forces?”

  He answered that immediately, knowing others must be curious about the same thing. “You’ve probably heard that most warship construction has been canceled. But a few new hulls will be completed. Those will form a much smaller fleet dedicated to defense of Alliance space.”

  “When do we leave?” Captain Vitali of the battle cruiser Daring asked.

  “I need to evaluate the state of our ships, how much work still needs to be done, how many personnel have had chances to go home on leave, and how many still need that opportunity,” Geary said. “But I intend taking at least another month to prepare. The crews of our ships deserve that much.”

  “They deserve more time at home,” Warspite’s captain grumbled.

  They did, but as Geary tried to come up with an adequate reply, Captain Parr spoke again as he gestured to the star display. “What about the humans the Syndics said were lost inside alien space? On planets and ships? Are we going to try to learn their fates? Finding out what they did to human prisoners would tell us something about these aliens.”

  “Some of those humans are still alive,” Badaya said, startling everyone with the confident assertion. “I just came to that conclusion,” he added, as all eyes rested upon him. “During the . . . confusion earlier today, I was thinking about how easily we could be fooled. Easily not just because we’re all human but because those fooling us are also human. We understand our weak spots, the ways our minds work, the things we overlook, the best and most effective ways to trick other humans.”

  Duellos gave Badaya a look of grudging respect. “But these aliens also fooled us in more ways than one, and tricked the Syndics for a century. Which means they have some highly effective knowledge of how humans think.”

  “Yes! We could read all we wanted to about some other species, cats or dogs or cattle or fish, but we couldn’t have any hope of understanding them without studying them in person.”

  Geary had to suppress a shudder at the thought of humans kept for study and saw from others’ reactions that he wasn’t alone. “When we saw the ultimatum the aliens sent the Syndics, we thought it felt like something drafted by humans. Human lawyers, wasn’t it?” he asked Duellos.

  “Yes,” Duellos agreed. “That was our suspicion from the wording of the ultimatum. Now, if the aliens have human lawyers imprisoned, I would personally recommend we leave them there. We have too many lawyers here as it is.”

  “They’d do plenty of damage to the aliens,” Desjani agreed. “Better there than here.”

  “There are fates too horrible even for lawyers,” Commander Landis of Valiant suggested apologetically. “My brother’s a lawyer,” he explained.

  “You have our sympathies for your misfortune,” Duellos commented.

  “But I believe his sentiment raises an important point,” Tulev said somberly. “We are dealing with Syndi
cs here. Questions may be raised as to how much risk we should run to aid them. Will it depend upon their being slaves?” Tulev wondered. “Or lab rats?”

  Jane Geary roused herself and shook her head. “It’s possible they’re being treated better than that. Imprisoned, yes, but in, uh, a natural environment. A town or something. Because if the aliens want to study how we react to things, they’d want to see humans who weren’t in cells or labs but interacting more normally.”

  “Possibly they have treated some human captives that way,” Tulev partially conceded. “But the number of Syndic citizens unaccounted for within territory occupied by the aliens is much more than they would need for such a purpose unless they have set aside a planet for such research.”

  “Then we can find that planet,” she said.

  “Yes. The argument remains the same. I would suggest that we must find these humans, if any live, and Captain Badaya’s suggestion on that issue may be true, so they may be freed, even if they are Syndics, or are descended from Syndics.”

  Coming from Tulev, those words meant a great deal. His home world had been rendered unlivable by Syndic bombardment during the war, and all of his relatives were dead.

  “Even Syndics don’t deserve that fate,” Armus agreed. “And it’s not impossible that they have some Alliance citizens, too. Their ships could have penetrated as far as Alliance space without being spotted, thanks to those worms.”

  “A real possibility,” Badaya said. “Who would believe their naked eyes when sensors reported seeing nothing? And if they did believe it, who would believe them? There’d be no record in any system to back up their statements.”

  “What will we have,” the commanding officer of Revenge asked, “to handle landing operations? The fleet’s normal contingent of Marines is easily overtaxed on such missions.”

  “General Carabali will be with us,” Geary replied. “Along with a reinforced Marine contingent. There will be some assault transports added to the fleet to help carry them, as well as help transport any prisoners we liberate from alien territory or Syndic territory.”