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

“Doctor, I can’t tell you to kill them. Will they suffer if we keep trying to do our best?”

“Suffer? No. They’ll simply go from sedated to dead, or from sedated to aware to dead. I don’t know if the dying process hurts, but from the readings we got on the one who killed himself and the autopsy, it doesn’t seem to cause trauma. Instead, the body floods itself with chemicals and hormones that block pain and might well create delusions while they cause metabolic functions to very quickly shut down.”

It sounded almost pleasant. No pain. Perhaps visions of whatever the dying creature most wanted to see. Comfort. But to deliberately cause even that to happen . . . “Maintain your efforts to keep them alive. Those are
our
rules. I admit that. But those are the only rules I can use.”

“We allow an ending when all hope is gone and the patient rejects artificial intervention,” Dr. Nasr pointed out.

“Hope is not gone,” Geary said, wondering whether he believed that.

The doctor nodded. Geary never had been able to get the medical staff to grasp the idea of saluting superior officers. “There’s one more issue, Admiral. The Syndicate Worlds’ citizens we rescued from the enigmas. Have you made any decision as to their disposition?”

“No, Doctor, I haven’t. I’ve just played divine judge once with those bear-cows. Do I have to do it again with the Syndics?”

“Yes, Admiral, you do. If you turn them over to Syndicate Worlds’ authorities, you know what will happen to them. They will be treated like lab animals, worse even than what the enigmas did to those people.”

Geary shook his head angrily. “If I take them back to the Alliance, they are liable to be treated the same way! Our researchers may make noises about respecting their dignity and humanity, but the end result will be the same.” He pulled up a report he recalled seeing, scanning the information in it to confirm his memories. “Those Syndic citizens have been asked what they want, and all of them said that they want to go home.”

“Do you want to go home, Admiral?”

“I—”
Yes. But my home no longer exists. It went away a long time ago. And if I went to where home used to be, I wouldn’t have a moment of peace. Just like those poor three hundred thirty-three Syndics.
“I understand, Doctor. I really do. I promise you that I will take no action without carefully considering the well-being of those people.”

“Thank you, Admiral. I can’t ask for more than that.”

Geary slumped back, tired of making hard decisions, especially when the right thing to do was far from clear.

“Admiral?” Desjani said in a soft voice.

“Yes?”

“While you were talking to the doctor, we got another high-priority message for you. Captain Jane Geary requests a meeting as soon as possible.”

Oh, great.
He had known that was coming, though, and with the battle cruisers drawing steadily away from the battleships, the longer he put this off, the bigger the time delays between ships would be and the longer a painful conversation would take. “I’ll call her from my stateroom.”

“Don’t beat around the bush. Don’t try to spare her feelings. Be as blunt and clear as possible. And for the love of our ancestors, don’t tell her I gave you any of that advice.”

He sat on the bridge for a few more minutes, watching the enigma attack force vanishing as it jumped for Midway. That had actually happened hours ago, but seeing the event take place as the light from it finally reached them still carried a sense of immediacy. “All right. I’m off to speak with my grandniece.”

He double-checked the security settings on his comm software before calling
Dreadnaught
. Experience had taught him that security with comms was never absolute, but he still had to try to keep this conversation private.

The image of Jane Geary appeared in his stateroom. She didn’t look happy, but then he hadn’t expected her to. “Admiral, I must respectfully request the reasons for my being passed over to command the main body of the fleet.”

He could take a personal tack in answering her, or he could reply with the same sort of professional smoke screen that Jane Geary had repeatedly thrown up to hide her own feelings. Despite Desjani’s advice, he decided to open with that second option. “Captain Geary,” he began in a formal voice, “I chose the officer who in my opinion was best suited to carry out the tasks the main body has been assigned.”

“If this is about the rumors that you are favoring me, it is unfair to penalize me because others have spread such a false accusation, Admiral.”

Geary had to pause before replying.
There are rumors that I’m giving Jane Geary special treatment? Why hasn’t Tanya told me about them? But then, she might not have heard. Who would repeat that gossip to Tanya?

And what’s the basis for such rumors? I commended her after the battle at Honor, but who could object to that?
“Captain Geary, I assure you that my decision did not take into any account such rumors.”
Since I hadn’t heard them, that’s as true a statement as I’ve ever made.

It was Jane Geary’s turn to hesitate before speaking again. “Why am I not the officer best suited to command the main body?”

Did he tell her the truth? If he didn’t, wouldn’t he bear responsibility for anything she did? He could see in his mind’s eye Tanya giving him a severe look.
Be as blunt and clear as possible.
“I’m going to be direct, Captain Geary. The commanding officer of
Dreadnaught
who I first met at Varandal would have received that assignment. She was aggressive and smart, she was dependable and capable. I could feel confident that I knew what she would do. In the time since we have left Varandal on this mission, I have grown increasingly less certain as to what you would do in any situation.”

She paled, then reddened. “In what way have I failed my duties? Which mission have I failed to carry out? I heard no fault being given for my actions at Honor.”

“It is impossible to fault your actions at Honor,” Geary said. “As my commendation of you for that engagement stated, you acted in the highest and finest traditions of the Alliance fleet.
But
,” he added as she started to speak, “I don’t need to know whether or not one of my commanding officers can act heroically. It’s my job to do my best to prevent anyone from having to do that. When my efforts fail, then someone may have to step up as you did. The problem, Captain Geary, is that you have developed a pattern of wanting to act heroically even when that is not required. You
want
to be a hero. There are few things more dangerous to a ship, to a crew, to a fleet, than a commanding officer who wants to be a hero.”

As Jane Geary stared at him, he could almost see the professional armor cracking and falling away. “You . . .” she struggled to say. “You are Black Jack. He—”

“I am not the figure of legend. Everything I have done is because it was required of me, because I had to do it, not because I sought it.”

“That is not how everyone else sees it!” She didn’t seem aware that she had yelled that.

“Everyone else doesn’t know me. I have tried to get to know you, to establish a personal relationship, but—”

“Why didn’t you go to Glenlyon? They were waiting for you. They got
me
. The grandniece who is only good enough to be a battleship captain. I got to hear endless orations about Black Jack, and about my heroic brother, who fought under
his
command!”

Geary shot to his feet, feeling anger working in him. “You fought under my command at Varandal, and you fought damned well. Jane, you did what was necessary at Honor. What worries me is that you do the same kind of things when they
aren’t
necessary. Tell me the truth. When you acted at Honor, were you thinking about anything other than what needed to be done?”

Her jaw muscles stood out as she stared at him, then Jane Geary spoke in a strangled voice. “I was scared. All I was thinking was that this was the only way. I didn’t think the use of kinetic projectiles would work, but I was desperate. And ever since then, while everybody tells me how brave I was to lead that charge, all I can think about is how scared I was. There. You wanted the truth. You have it. I’m no hero. I’m not even a good officer. When I faced that situation, I was terrified.”

It was his turn to stare, then he laughed, seeing the shock on her face and the growing anger after it. “Jane . . . please . . . I’m not . . . Ancestors preserve us. What do you think courage is?”

“Being unafraid when you face danger! Everybody knows—”

“Then everybody is wrong.” Geary sat down again, looking at her. “You were terrified? Do you have any idea how frightened I was at Grendel? My ship was shot to pieces under me, the only crew left on
Merlon
were me and the dead, the power core self-destruct had been activated, and I couldn’t find a working escape pod.”

“You couldn’t find—? Nobody ever said that.”

“Nobody else knows! Except Tanya Desjani. And now you. Jane, when I was a lot younger, my father told me something. We were talking about heroes. I remember that I’d been reading histories and saying how great these people were who hadn’t been afraid when they faced great challenges. And my father laughed a lot harder than I just did; and then he said that courage wasn’t the absence of fear. Courage, real bravery, is being afraid and doing what you need to do anyway. I didn’t believe him. Not really.” Geary took a deep breath. “Not until I was on
Merlon
and ordering the surviving crew to evacuate while I kept fighting the ship a little longer. Not until I was pulling myself along a passageway littered with wreckage and the dead, trying to find a way off of a crippled ship that was about to explode.”

Jane Geary looked down at the deck. “People have told me that, too. I haven’t believed them. I feel like a fraud.”

“You’re human, Jane. And a good officer when you’re not trying to prove that you’re a hero. You showed that when you charged the enemy at Honor, thinking only of the necessity of doing that despite how scared you were.” Did she believe him? He couldn’t tell.

When she finally spoke again, it was in a voice so low he could barely hear. “Was Michael scared?”

“When he used
Repulse
to hold off the Syndics so the rest of the fleet could get away? Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

Why hadn’t he? He suddenly understood the reason why he had been reticent before this. “Because if you haven’t been through something like that,” Geary said slowly, “then telling someone that the person who did it was scared can sound like a criticism, a put-down, instead of what it really is—a testament to just how brave they actually were. Now, there are people who get so involved in what they must do, in doing this and that and the next thing, that they don’t have time to be scared. Tanya Desjani is like that. They’re brave, too, just in a different way because they submerge their fears long enough to get the job done. But feeling no fear? That would make machines the bravest things in the universe.”

She thought about that for a while, then spoke in a firm voice. “What do I need to do?”

That one was easy. “Be the officer I first saw at Varandal. I don’t need someone trying to prove that she’s Black Jack. I need Jane Geary.”

She looked up, meeting his eyes, then nodded. “I think I remember her. She was trying to prove something else, though. She was trying to prove who she wasn’t.”

“We all are trying to prove things. All of the time.” Geary stepped closer, searching her eyes. “Jane, we need to get that superbattleship, the new
Invincible
, home. Your battleships are the last line of defense before the four battleships towing the new
Invincible
. Don’t leave them hanging. They need you blocking any attacks that come at them.”

Her arm came up in a slow salute. “If anything gets through, it won’t be because I let them.”

After she ended the call, Geary stood looking at where his grandniece’s image had been. Once again, he had ordered her to stand and die. After this talk, he felt confident she would do it, not because of his order but because of who she was. That wouldn’t make him feel any less guilty if this time she did die carrying out his orders.

SIXTEEN

THE
battle cruisers and the rest of the pursuit force had gradually passed the six spider-wolf ships, so that now the alien craft were between the pursuit-force formation and the heavier main-body formation coming on behind. The gap between the two subformations of the human fleet grew steadily larger as the battle cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers accelerated faster than the cumbersome battleships, auxiliaries, and assault transports could manage. Geary watched the status reports from the four battleships towing the former bear-cow superbattleship, seeing the stress readings in their hulls as
Relentless
,
Reprisal
,
Superb
, and
Splendid
strained to haul the massive
Invincible
at higher and higher velocities. Given enough time, even a small amount of thrust could do that, but they didn’t have decades to spend on slow acceleration, and so the four battleships were putting all they had into the task.

Status reports everywhere showed problems. Not anywhere near the scale that had happened at Honor, but as the ships of the pursuit force had pushed their maneuvering and propulsion systems to the maximum, there had been spot failures in a score of ships.
Implacable
and
Intemperate
had each lost a main propulsion unit, which they were frantically working to bring back on line, while
Valiant
had suffered failures in half of her maneuvering thruster systems. All three battle cruisers had lagged behind their places in formation. They were accompanied by several light cruisers as well as ten destroyers that had also lost partial propulsion or maneuvering. Geary started to think that at least no ship had lost all propulsion, then hastily cut off the thought lest it somehow jinx the fleet.

Dragon
and
Victorious
were keeping place in formation but dealing with fluctuating shield failures, while individual hell-lance batteries were failing here and there on dozens of ships.

The main-body formation under Captain Armus was suffering from scattered problems as well, but they had the auxiliaries with them as well as more time to fix the sudden system failures.

As Captain Smythe had predicted, not only
Witch
but also
Jinn
and
Goblin
were out of critical materials and now unable to manufacture new items.
Cyclops
had an inventory so low that it would probably report the same condition within a few hours. Their engineers were assisting the crews of other ships in repair work, but that was all they could do for now.

“It could be worse,” Geary said. “We’ve got a few more hours for this formation to fix things before we enter jump, and then the transit time to Midway to do internal repairs.”

“And the Kicks aren’t still chasing us,” Desjani added.

He couldn’t help a brief smile, which faded as he reviewed the repair status of fleet ships again. Yes, they had time to work, but having the parts they needed was another matter. “I hope we’re not running low on duct tape, too. I think we’re going to need a lot of it.”

He had wondered if something else would show up at Pele while the fleet was passing through, perhaps more enigma ships racing to join up with their main force. But once the enigmas had jumped, there was nothing at Pele but the two human subformations and the spider-wolf formation between them. The main-body formation had fallen well behind the pursuit formation by the time the battle cruisers and their escorts pivoted to begin braking down to point one light speed for the jump.

Geary felt the stress as
Dauntless
’s main propulsion units roared at maximum force to slow the ship. Tanya had cut the maneuver to the barest safety margins to shave a few more minutes off the time to jump. One of these days he would learn to double-check how many demands she was putting on propulsion units, ships’ structures, and the inertial nullifiers.

But then she almost never exceeded danger margins. She got the ships real close to those margins but never right up to them. Usually.

“Almost there,” Desjani noted over the complaints of the inertial nullifiers as they tried to keep ships from disintegrating and their crews from being pulped into jelly by the forces being used. “Spider-wolves are still hanging exactly ten light-minutes behind us.”

“They want us jumping first into whatever the enigmas will have waiting at Midway,” Geary replied. “Not that I can blame them.”

He tapped his comm controls. “Captain Armus, we’ll see you at Midway. I have no doubt that we’ll need your firepower there. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.” He ended his message in the ceremonial manner because that felt right this time.

There wouldn’t be enough time for the message to reach Armus and for Armus to send a reply in the fifteen minutes remaining until jump, so Geary tried to relax despite the force of deceleration. “All units in pursuit force, this is Admiral Geary. Be at full combat readiness when we arrive at Midway. The enigma force that we saw jump for Midway may be awaiting our arrival or may be striking at targets in that star system. Either way, we’re going to teach them once again that attacking human-controlled space is a very bad idea. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

“Being awfully formal for fleet communications, aren’t you, Admiral?” Desjani said.

“The next time I talk to them, we may be in the middle of a fight.”

As the pursuit-force formation had braked, any ships still lagging had taken advantage of that to catch up,
Implacable
,
Intemperate
, and
Valiant
as well as assorted light cruisers and destroyers sliding into their positions relative to
Dauntless
. Velocity kept slowing as the distance to the jump point shrank.

Every ship reached point one light speed as the jump point loomed right ahead. “All units jump.”

Geary forced himself to relax as the outside went gray and formless. “How is
Dauntless
doing?” he asked Desjani.

“You don’t believe my status reports?”

“Of course I do. But I’d like your impressions, too.”

Tanya shrugged. “Being flagship, we got priority on a lot of systems upgrades. Once the engineers got tied up fixing battle damage and repairing failed systems, the upgrades slowed down, but
Dauntless
is still in good shape. I can’t promise nothing will drop out on us without warning, but it shouldn’t be anything major.”

“Good. I know I can always count on
Dauntless
.” That was partly for the benefit of any crew members in earshot, who would pass on his statement to their shipmates, but also because he believed it was true. And because when he spoke of
Dauntless
, he also meant her commanding officer.

Desjani’s smile showed that she knew that. “Thank you, Admiral.”

“TEN
minutes until we leave jump,” Lieutenant Castries announced.

Desjani had her chin resting on one hand, the elbow propped on the arm of her seat. “Do you know what would be bizarre?” she asked Geary.

“I can think of a few things. What exactly are you thinking of?”

“Once again we’re about to leave jump, and once again we’re all hyped up, ready for action, knowing that there’s either going to be trouble or there very well might be trouble. In this case, we know there will be, of course.”

“And that’s bizarre?”

“No,” Desjani said. “That’s our normal. It’s always that way. What would be bizarre is if we were arriving at our destination, readying to leave jump, and we were all calm and relaxed and not worrying at all about what was there.”

“You know, there’s a lot of truth to that,” Geary said. “I guess when we arrive at Varandal—” The look on her face stopped him in midsentence.

“You’re not worried about what might be waiting for us when we return to Alliance space?” Desjani asked. “Seriously? Political games? Orders from fleet headquarters? Demands that Black Jack start running things? Demands that Black Jack be arrested before he launches a coup? You’re not worried about any of that?”

He ran through various possible replies before deciding on one. “Let’s just say that I’ve been in denial and trying not to think about it.”

“Must be nice.”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “But consider this, Captain Desjani. If we pull this off, if we get through everything we have to deal with before we reach Varandal again, whoever or whatever awaits us there will see us arrive with six ships full of spider-wolves and a captured Kick superbattleship.”

She smiled, too. “Surprise! Not only did we make it back, but we brought friends. Yeah, that may well throw some carefully laid plans off track.”

“Five minutes to arrival,” Lieutenant Castries said.

Desjani’s smile vanished. “Do you think the Syndics at Midway will be keeping the enigmas busy?”

“I don’t know,” Geary said, wishing that he could make a decent estimate. “It all depends on what they had in that star system and how smart they use what they’ve got. If they haven’t had reinforcements, they won’t have any chance against an enigma force that large. I’m not even sure whether they’ll still be calling themselves Syndics. I got a strong feeling that the CEOs at Midway, some of them anyway, were less than firm in their loyalty to the Syndicate government.”

“Loyal? Syndic CEOs? Did you actually use those words in the same sentence?” Desjani asked. “Do you trust that woman you talked to? What was her name?”

“Iceni. CEO Iceni. I can’t say I trust her. I’m not crazy. But our interests may coincide, as Victoria Rione would say.”

That earned him a scowl. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t quote that woman when talking to me.”

“Sorry.”

“One minute to arrival.” Lieutenant Castries’s voice remained even, professional, but the tension level on the bridge could still be felt to be rising.

“Time to get your head in the game,” Desjani said to Geary.

“It’s there.”

“Shields at maximum,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “All weapons ready.”

The last seconds counted down, his guts felt the familiar twist and his mind the familiar disorientation, and the gray of jump space was abruptly replaced by black filled with stars as they arrived at Midway.

The thing they feared most to hear, the blare of combat systems alarms warning of nearby enemies, did not come. The combat systems had been set to immediately begin pumping out shots at enigma ships if those were right on top of the jump point, but that didn’t happen either. As Geary shook the jump-created confusion from his mind, he saw threat markers popping to life on his display, none of them close. The enemy wasn’t waiting for them at the jump point, but the enigmas were indeed still here.

“What are they doing?” Desjani wondered.

“I don’t know,” Geary replied.

He had expected and feared that the enigmas would head straight for the hypernet gate, which was located just shy of six light-hours from this jump point, well around the curve of the star system. If the enigmas had pumped their velocity up to point two light speed or higher, they could have reached that hypernet gate in only thirty hours. Once near the gate, those two hundred and twenty-two enigma warships could collapse it in no time by destroying the “tethers” that suspended an energy matrix between them.

Or the enigmas could have headed for the primary inhabited world, now orbiting its star only four and a half light-hours away, to conduct a close-in orbital bombardment that would have annihilated the human presence there and rendered the planet uninhabitable.

Instead, the enigmas were sitting only thirty light-minutes from the jump point where Geary’s fleet had arrived.

“They’re waiting for us,” Desjani said. “They knew we were coming, and they’re waiting to hit us. Why didn’t they try one of those ambushes like they did at Alihi?”

The answer came to him immediately. “Because they knew we were coming but didn’t have a precise enough knowledge of when we’d arrive. The enigmas at Hua did send out an alert, a faster-than-light message that we were on our way back toward Midway. That told these enigmas roughly when we would get here but not precisely enough to stage one of those ambushes at the jump point.”

That left another question, though, and Desjani zeroed in on it. “So if they knew they had some time, why haven’t they run amuck here, destroying stuff or getting close enough to destroy something knowing that we couldn’t get there in time to stop them?”

He looked from hypernet gate to inhabited world, from the inhabited world to the space-dock facility orbiting a gas giant one light-hour out from the star, from that facility to the Syndic flotillas elsewhere in the star system . . .
Where do I go? I have to try to save—
“Hell.”

“Does that mean you figured out the answer to that question?” Desjani asked.

“Yes.” He stabbed a finger at the display. “They want
us
, too. If they destroyed the hypernet gate, if they wiped out the human presence on the inhabited world and the orbital space dock, what reason would we have to stay and fight?”

“And they want us to stay and fight.” She nodded, grim now. “So they left everything intact that we want to try to save. That means they won’t just run, either. They mean to make sure not only that the front door is closed but also that we’re disposed of so we can’t go charging back into their territory. But the odds don’t favor them that much. They must intend doing something to ensure we get wiped out. And then . . .” She frowned at her display. “Three Syndic flotillas. Do we have to worry about those Syndics? Are they going to help us? Are any of them going to fight us? Or will they just sit back and watch us and the enigmas fight, laughing as their enemies kill each other?”