“Even assuming we could find such volunteers,” Geary cut in, “I will not approve or allow suicide missions as long as I command this fleet.”
Commander Vendig of
Exemplar
spoke quickly. “We could use robotic ships, crewed by artificial intelligence. Pull off the crews, and—”
A chorus of yells drowned out Vendig, one voice rising above the others. “Unleash armed AIs with instructions to wipe out human-occupied star systems? Are you insane?”
Captain Badaya was shaking his head and spoke into the renewed quiet that followed the outburst. “Commander Landis brought up an ugly truth. What happened at Lakota could happen at any Alliance star system with a hypernet gate. If the people of the Alliance see our records of what happened in this star system, they’ll demand that our own hypernet system be shut down.
Who wants a bomb that big sitting in their backyard?”
“We can’t just shut the hypernet down,” Captain Cresida interjected. “It’s a finely balanced net of energy. There’s no way just to turn it off.”
“Why the hell did we build it?” someone demanded.
For some reason everyone looked at Geary. He gazed back at them. “Don’t ask me. I wondered the same thing, and I wasn’t around when it was built. But we’re stuck with it, and so are the Syndics.”
“There has to be a solution,” Commander Neeson insisted. “As long as those gates are up, they’re potential weapons. If we could figure out a way to employ them as weapons and hold that threat over them, the Syndics wouldn’t dare—” He paused, looking stricken, and stared around.
“They could figure it out, too. The destructive potential of the hypernet gates is vastly greater than any weapons we or the Syndics have been able to employ before. We and the Syndics could literally wipe each other out.”
That cat was now completely out of the bag. Geary nodded. “That had occurred to me. Who wants to start a war of species extinction? Captain Kila?”
Kila looked steadily back at Geary but said nothing. Captain Tulev pointed one finger toward the star display. “Show us, please, Captain Geary. Play back the recording of what happened after the hypernet gate collapsed.”
He didn’t want to view that again, even in miniature, but Geary brought up the records, setting them to play at a vastly accelerated speed so that the shock wave rolled across the image of Lakota Star System in about thirty seconds.
It was quiet after the recording finished, then Tulev indicated where the images of the ruined star system had played out. “We should send this to the Syndics. They don’t have anything like it because so many of their sensors were destroyed by the energy wave. Send it to the ships leaving this star system for help, and to as many others as we can, and make sure they can send it onward.”
“So they can figure out what the gates can do sooner?” Armus asked sarcastically.
“They don’t need our help to do that,” Cresida answered. “They’ve already got records of what happened at Sancere, and even the dimmest mind can look at the damage to Lakota Three, calculate the amount of energy it took to do that, and work back the planet’s orbit and rotation to confirm that what hit it came from the hypernet gate location. But if we send what we have out now, which we can sanitize of any data about the collapse of the hypernet gate that we want to try to keep from the Syndics, it will prove that we didn’t cause all of that destruction.” She glared around the table. “My reputation, like Commander Landis’s, speaks for itself.
I don’t want to be blamed for what happened here. It’s over the line. I’ll kill as many Syndics as I have to kill to win this war. I don’t want to kill any star systems.”
“Yes,” Tulev agreed. “It’s important the Syndics know we didn’t do this, so there will be no popular demand for retaliation in kind. Also important is the impact it will have on the Syndic population.” He gestured at the star display again. “They’ll see it, all over, no matter how much the Syndic leaders try to suppress it. They’ll see what can happen to a planet with a hypernet gate in the same star system. What do the Syndic leaders say then? If they try to blame us, their people in star systems with hypernet gates will fear we could do the same to their worlds. If those leaders try to claim they can stop us, their people will want to know why they didn’t stop us in Lakota. If they say their people need not fear Alliance attacks of this nature because it was not an Alliance attack that caused it, then their people will demand to know what did cause it.”
Everyone thought about that, and grim smiles started appearing on a lot of faces.
“They’ll be in an impossible position,” Badaya noted approvingly. “That’s a brilliant suggestion, Captain Tulev. It will generate intense public worry all through Syndic space and confront the Syndic leaders with serious problems in how to handle mass fear of the hypernet gates.”
Commander Neeson, looking concerned, shook his head. “But what happens when our people hear about it? We can’t keep that news from crossing the border into Alliance space. We’ll face the same problem.”
“
Our
leaders need to know this problem exists,” Captain Badaya stated. He gave Geary a meaningful look. As far as Badaya was concerned, Geary should be the only leader of the Alliance, a dictator backed by most of this fleet. Commander Yin hadn’t been totally paranoid in her worries, though Geary himself wanted nothing to do with the idea.
“We need to figure out what to do, too,” Badaya continued, “before the Syndics decide to attack
our
gates.”
Geary frowned, worried again about what the Alliance’s elected leaders might decide, then saw Captain Cresida nodding.
“I think we can counter this threat,” she stated. “I’ve been thinking. We have two experimental results to draw on now, the only two known cases of collapsing hypernet gates. This fleet has the only full sets of observations from both incidents. With that data, I can refine the targeting algorithm we used at Sancere, make it more reliable and more certain to minimize energy output from a collapsing gate.”
“What good does that do?” Badaya demanded. “We can’t get close enough to a Syndic gate to stop them in time, and we don’t want to destroy our own gates.”
“But if the Syndics tried to destroy one of our gates,” Cresida replied, “and we had attached self-destruct charges to all of the gate tethers, tied into an automated safe-collapse program that would trigger if the gate suffered enough damage—”
The wave of relief was almost palpable. “We could make sure none of our gates destroyed their own star systems!”
“Maybe,” Geary cautioned. “We have no way of knowing how reliable the algorithm is because we only have two gate collapses to draw on for data. If it wasn’t as reliable as we think, we wouldn’t want to find that out the hard way. It’s also going to take time to get such a design finalized, approved, and installed on every hypernet gate within reach of the Syndics.”
Captain Cresida grimaced but nodded. “That’s true, sir.”
“But it’s better than nothing,” Tulev added.
“Much better,” Geary agreed. “Captain Cresida, please continue work on that concept. If we can offer that when we return to Alliance space, it will protect our homes from what happened here.”
His eyes went back to the star display, realizing how far they had yet to go. A fleet still low on supplies, still pursued by Syndic forces able to destroy it if the fleet was caught in a bad position, still too deep in enemy territory.
No one else seemed worried about that. No one questioned Geary’s use of “when” they got back instead of “if” they got back. He found himself unnerved by the fear that this fleet (or most of it, at least) would do whatever he asked now, all of them certain that whatever Geary ordered would succeed. That would have been fine if he were some sort of genius, but he’d already made plenty of mistakes.
Ancestors, I want their confidence, but I don’t want their faith.
Unfortunately, it seemed he would get both whether he liked it or not, and this was coming on top of his distress over ordering Casia’s execution.
“Thank you,” Geary stated. “Thank you and all of your crews again for achieving the sort of victory that will be remembered as long as the Alliance endures.” He caught Duellos’s eye, then Badaya’s, sensing that both intended staying after the conference for private talks. Right now he couldn’t handle that and shook his head subtly to each to indicate they’d speak later. “I’ll see you all in Branwyn Star System.”
The images of officers vanished, and the room seemed to shrink with incredible speed. Geary sat down heavily as the last image disappeared, his eyes on the star display, wondering how long he could keep from making a mistake fatal to the entire fleet, wondering if he could really help defuse the hypernet gate bombs that the unknown aliens had succeeded in tricking humans into seeding throughout the regions of space they occupied.
“We’ll make it.”
Geary hadn’t remembered that Desjani was physically present, or realized that she had stayed in the room and was now watching him.
“I know it’s hard, sir. But you’ve brought us this far.” She indicated the display.
“I can’t do miracles,” he noted in a bleak voice.
“If you provide the right leadership, then this fleet will perform the miracles. You saw that here at Lakota.”
He laughed shortly. “I wish I could believe that! But the fleet has certainly done an amazing job.
I won’t argue with you there.” The laugh died, and he nodded toward the stars.
“I almost made some lethal mistakes at Lakota the first time around. I can’t afford to make any more, and that’s scary, Tanya.”
“You don’t have to be perfect.”
“Don’t the living stars expect that of me?” Geary asked, hearing his voice get tense.
She frowned. “I’m not wise enough to know what they expect, but I’m smart enough to see that they wouldn’t have chosen a human agent if they wanted perfection. Sir, winning is usually a matter of making one less mistake than the enemy or just getting up one more time than you get knocked down. You’re doing both.”
He gave her an appraising look. “Thank you. I know you’ve told me on a few occasions that you know I’m human, but sometimes I still think you expect me to be some perfect, godlike being.”
Desjani’s frown deepened. “That would be blasphemy, sir. And unfair to you.”
“But you still think I can do it?” It was one thing for Desjani to say that if she believed him perfect, but if she knew he wasn’t perfect and still believed in him, it would mean much more.
“Yes, sir.” She looked down for a moment. “My ancestors tell me to trust you, that we were meant to . . . to serve together. ”
He took a moment to answer, trying to make sure he didn’t say the wrong thing. “I’m glad we’re serving together. You’ve been invaluable.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt the need to bring up something. “
Vambrace
was destroyed in the battle. I saw Lieutenant Riva made it off. He’s on
Inspire
right now.”
“I’m sure he’ll be happy there,” Desjani responded, her tone notably cooler. “There are any number of attractive female officers on
Inspire
, assuming he doesn’t try for an attractive enlisted this time.” She saw his reaction and shrugged with every appearance of uncaring. “Lieutenant Riva burned his bridges with me a decade ago, sir, though I didn’t fully appreciate that until recently. I’d regret the loss of any member of the Alliance fleet, but on a personal level, I really don’t care if I never hear his name again.”
“Sorry,” Geary offered, “for bringing it up, I mean.”
“That’s all right. I’ve learned a lot about men since I was involved with him, a lot about what a man should be.” She looked down and bit her lip. “But we were talking about getting home, about you being able to do that.”
“Yeah.”
She must have heard the lack of enthusiasm in Geary’s voice, and somehow knew what it meant.
“It’s still your home, too, sir.”
“Is it?” Geary fell silent again but knew Desjani was waiting for him to say more, as if she knew he had more he should say. “How much has changed in a century? The people I knew are gone.
I’ll be greeting their now-elderly children and grandchildren. The buildings I last saw new will be old. Old ones will be torn down, with something else in their place. On this ship I can pretend not much time has passed, but once we get back to Alliance space, then everywhere I look there’ll be reminders that my home is dead and gone.”
Desjani sighed. “You won’t lack for friends.”
“Yes, I will. What I won’t lack for is people wanting to be near Black Jack Geary,” he answered, letting the bitterness he felt at the thought enter his voice. “They won’t be interested in me, just in the great hero they think I am. How can I avoid that? How can I get to know anyone when that will be following me everywhere?”
“It won’t be easy,” Desjani admitted. “But people will get to know you. Just like people in this fleet did. Who you really are besides being a hero, and I see how you react when I say that, but I’m sorry, you
are
a hero. Everyone in this fleet would be dead or in Syndic labor camps long ago but for you. You have to accept that.”
“I could still screw up so badly that we’ll end up that way anyhow,” Geary noted. “Look, I wish you wouldn’t call me a hero.”
“The fleet knows—”
“Not the fleet. You.”
She stayed silent for a moment, then nodded. “You need to be able to escape that at times. I understand. But I do believe you’ll be happy once we get home. You’ll get to know people.
People will get to know you,” Desjani repeated. “Just as some of them know you now.”
“Sure. People in the fleet know me. People I’ll have to leave.” She didn’t answer this time, and Geary looked over to see Desjani staring at the deck, her face rigid with suppressed emotions.
For the first time he really thought of leaving her, of not seeing her every day, and felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Geary wondered how his own expression looked as he realized that.
“Tanya—”
“Please don’t. It’ll just make it harder.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant, but in some way knew that she was right. “Okay.”