The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

by Jack Campbell

  The one who identified himself as Naxos was an older man of heavy build who reminded Geary of the more experienced senior enlisted sailors he had worked with. He did not seem comfortable with being someone in charge, and often looked down at his hands as if hoping they could do the talking for him. Naxos’s words confirmed Geary’s impression.

  “I spent my life on a work line,” he said. “At the lowest level. I started forty years ago. My last job was senior line supervisor. People think that means I know how to get things done. I hope they’re right.” Naxos glanced toward Geary, a flash of defiance showing, then quickly looked away again.

  “I’m not a Syndic CEO,” Geary said. “I like it when people look me in the eye.”

  The other refugee leader was younger, sharper, a blade not yet worn down by life in the Syndicate Worlds. She didn’t have the same air of reflexive submission that Naxos did but lacked the confidence of someone who had occupied a high position. The woman, who gave her name as Araya, snorted skeptically at Geary’s words. “Can we afford to take your word for that?”

  “I don’t see where you have any alternative,” Geary said. “From what I know, I’m the first person in authority from the Alliance to talk to you, and I might be the last. If there’s something we need to know, you need to tell me.” As he spoke with these two, on top of his earlier conversations, he was slowly realizing how much Victoria Rione had schooled him on difficult talks. Without telling him she was doing so, Rione had almost constantly forced him to deal with oblique statements and unclear motivations. He had always assumed that was just the way she was, but now he wondered if Rione had done it deliberately with this end in sight. She had been very direct in their first conversations, after all. “What was your job under the Syndicate?” he asked Araya.

  “Sub-executive Level Five,” Araya replied as if daring him to comment on it.

  “I can’t remember exactly where that rank sits in the Syndic hierarchy,” Geary said.

  “It’s not high. In fact, you can’t get any lower without being a worker.” Her eyes studied him. “I was blackballed by a CEO. No promotions. Ever.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’ve talked to the people in the Midway Star System, who revolted against the Syndicate Worlds. They told me a lot about the system they had been forced to live under, what CEOs could do to try to compel people.” Geary pointed to Naxos, then Araya. “I’ve been ordered to take you back to your homes. But I want to help you.”

  Skepticism radiated from the two like a physical force. “Why?” Naxos asked, his eyes on his hands.

  “Because I’m supposed to solve this mess. Just taking you home won’t solve anything if you and the others just show up here again. You’re refugees. Why? Why did you leave Batara, and why did you come to an Alliance star system rather than one elsewhere in Syndic space?”

  “You’re Alliance,” Araya said, heat entering her voice. “You’ve bombed us and killed us and shot at us for a century. Why should we tell you anything?”

  “Why the hell did you come here if you think everyone in the Alliance is evil?” Geary asked.

  “It wasn’t our—” Araya began hotly before cutting off her words. She glared at Geary, then shrugged. “All right. Batara threw out the Syndicate. We rebelled. But once we got rid of the snakes and the CEOs, we . . . we . . .”

  He knew this story from other star systems. “You had been united against the Syndicate government, but after they were gone, the different factions at Batara started fighting among themselves. Is that what happened?”

  “Yes,” Naxos confirmed, his gaze flicking upward for a moment to look at Geary before lowering again. “We were given a choice. Leave, or stay in a Syndicate labor camp that was under new management, or die. The last two options were the same thing.”

  Geary nodded, leaning back in his seat as he thought. “Since you were rebels, you couldn’t go to another Syndic star system.”

  “We didn’t have any choice,” Araya insisted. “That’s the only reason we came here. Leave Batara or die. Fine. Where could we go? We’ve got three jump points at Batara. One leads to Alliance space.”

  “To Yokai,” Geary agreed.

  “You call it Yokai. We call that jump point the Mouth of Hell. For a hundred years, the people at Batara watched Syndicate forces jump from there and disappear, or come back in tatters. For a hundred years, we never knew when Alliance killers would appear at the jump point to attack us.”

  “There was a certain logic to it,” Naxos offered, frowning at his hands. “The other rebels wanted to get rid of us, so they sent us through the Mouth of Hell.”

  “The other two jump points,” Araya continued, “lead to Yael and Tiyannak. Yael remains under Syndicate control. They don’t have enough forces to reconquer Batara, but they do have enough to send minor attacks at us. They pop out, bombard some installations and destroy some shipping, then run. If we resubmit to the Syndicate, they say they’ll stop. But everyone in Batara knows that letting the CEOs back will be worse than anything the forces at Yael can do to us. And the ones who kicked us out of Batara didn’t want us helping the CEOs, joining with them or just telling them lots of things about what was going on, so they wouldn’t let us jump to Yael.”

  “What about Tiyannak?” Geary asked.

  “Tiyannak!” Naxos said it like a curse. “There was a mobile forces refit facility at Tiyannak. Not much else. My brother worked there. They revolted, too, and took over the mobile forces that were at the facility. They’ve been raiding Batara for the last four months. No, six months, now. They want refined resources, specialized equipment, bulk food supplies, and other things. Batara can’t hold them off with what it has got, which are mostly just lightly armed converted merchant ships.”

  “We had to go through the Mouth,” Araya repeated. “We got to the star at the other end. Yokai. There wasn’t anything there. Locked installations with automated security systems that warned us off. We had to keep going. So we came here. And they won’t talk to us or let us go or anything. They provide just enough food to get by, and we have to stay in orbit here and wait.”

  “We can work,” Naxos said with another glance at Geary. “We’re skilled, and we’re hard workers. We’re willing to go where we could find jobs. There must be places other than the Syndicate and the Alliance. But if you just send us back, they’ll kick us out again, and we’ll be here again. Unless they kill us. Why won’t you give us a chance?”

  Geary looked at the two, seeing pride, defiance, and desperation. “You just described to me how you felt about the Alliance after a century of having war on your front doorstep. How do you think the people in Adriana feel about you after having experienced the same thing from the other side?”

  “We didn’t start it!” Adriana insisted.

  “Actually, you did,” Geary said in a matter-of-fact way. “The Syndicate Worlds, that is. It launched surprise attacks on the Alliance. I know, because I fought against one of those attacks.”

  “That’s impossi—” Araya began. Then her eyes grew wide, and she moved back as far as her seat on the freighter would allow. “You’re him. It’s true.”

  “I am the man you know as Black Jack,” Geary said. “I know that your leaders lied to you about who started the war, so even if you don’t want to believe me, you might ask yourself why you still believe them.”

  “Our fault,” Naxos said. He sounded drained and was looking fixedly down at his hands again. “Even after all this time, we must pay for the crimes of our ancestors. Is that it?”

  “I don’t see the point in it,” Geary said. “Not if you no longer pose a threat to the Alliance. Do you?”

  “Does what we say matter?”

  “It does to me.”

  Araya met his eyes, bold again. “If you are him— We just want the Alliance to leave us alone. Let us go on and fin
d some place. Or do you mean Batara? The people at Batara have their hands full dealing with attacks from Yael and Tiyannak. They don’t want to keep the war with the Alliance going. But they won’t take us back.”

  “They’re going to have to,” Geary said. “Batara can’t be allowed to kick people into Alliance space, and if stopping that means forcing a change in government at Batara, then I am willing to do that.” The basic lie-detector routines in the meeting software hadn’t alerted him to any falsehoods by these two, and he was inclined to believe them anyway because no worthwhile government would be forcing so many of its own people into exile or taking over operation of Syndic labor camps instead of shutting them down.

  “You want to conquer Batara now that the Syndicate is gone?” Araya asked. “You could do that, because there’s nothing at Yael that could stand against your mobile forces, but you’d still have to deal with Tiyannak.”

  “I’m not interested in conquering anything. Just how many warships does Tiyannak have?”

  “We’re not sure,” Naxos replied. “You mean mobile forces, right? At least two heavy cruisers, maybe a dozen light cruisers and Hunter-Killers. And a battleship.”

  “A battleship?”

  “It was at Tiyannak,” Araya explained. “Not in working condition. Damaged in some battle before the war ended. We think whenever Tiyannak gets the battleship working, they will use it to outright take over Batara. They’ve boasted to us about that. Tiyannak is going to be the strongest star system in this region. And not even the Alliance can stop them. That’s what they claim.”

  And after Tiyannak took over Batara, a rogue star system with possession of a battleship would control another star system on the border of the Alliance, facing places like Yokai, where the defenses were gone, and Adriana, where Alliance defenses had been gutted by downsizing.

  An annoying and difficult situation had just become ugly and dangerous.

  TEN

  DUELLOS had escorted Geary to Inspire’s shuttle dock, then paused at the end of the shuttle’s entry ramp, giving Geary a pleading look. “You know what will happen to me if anything happens to you.”

  “Tanya wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “How can you be married to her and not know what the woman is capable of?” Duellos asked. “Please, Admiral. Take a squad of Marines along. No one will blink at their accompanying you.”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “No. I’m not some Syndic CEO who needs bodyguards everywhere he goes.”

  “Captain Desjani said you might feel that way, her exact words were something along the lines of he’ll probably be a stubborn ass about it, and requested that I remind the Admiral that various parties attempted to kill him while he was in Sol Star System.”

  “I haven’t forgotten that,” Geary said. “But, while there, Captain Desjani reminded me that Black Jack is an important symbol. What he does matters. How would it look, what message would it convey, if Black Jack thought he needed personal protection while walking around a planet of the Alliance among the people of the Alliance?”

  “There is that. But you had agreed there was a trap waiting for you here,” Duellos reminded him.

  Geary laughed, surprising his companion. “There isn’t a trap. Not like what we thought. Why do we have to worry so much about that battleship in the hands of Tiyannak? Because the defenses here and at Yokai have been gutted, right?”

  “Right,” Duellos agreed. “Not that a battleship could be discounted even if the defenses at Yokai were fully active.”

  “Who must have approved those drawdowns in forces and fixed defenses?”

  “Fleet headquarters for our units, ground forces headquarters for—” Duellos ceased speaking, then smiled sardonically. “Admiral Tosic and General Javier. Who now find themselves in a lot of trouble because of those decisions. They have at least a hint of the threat from Tiyannak, don’t they?”

  “I’d bet on it,” Geary said. “It’s an awful mess as a result of their actions. They need someone to handle it, someone to bail them out.”

  “And who better than Black Jack?” Duellos frowned. “But if they knew about the battleship, why authorize only one division of battle cruisers to come with you to Adriana?”

  “Because they can’t admit that they know about the threat. They can’t admit that they need a fire brigade in here to put out the blaze caused by their earlier decisions. If I put out the fire, they get to avoid awkward questions. If I fail, then, hey, they sent Black Jack with what should have been more than enough warships for the refugee return mission, didn’t they? How can it be their fault that he failed?”

  “Clever,” Duellos admitted. “And the tendency of the press and the government and the citizens to focus on you would help ensure no one looked back to whatever actions various headquarters commanders had taken.”

  “Exactly. This isn’t some great scheme to sabotage the Alliance or undermine the government. It’s just good old-fashioned political maneuvering to protect the butts of the brass.” Geary smiled again. “But it may serve a higher purpose than they plan.”

  Duellos looked around with exaggerated surprise. “I don’t see that Rione woman anywhere, but I swear I could feel her presence.”

  “Working with her has given me some ideas,” Geary admitted. “Tanya gave me more ideas. This will still be a tough operation if Tiyannak has the battleship operational. But it’s the kind of tough I can handle.”

  • • •

  COLONEL Galland was waiting at the landing pad where Geary’s shuttle set down. She saluted him with an admiring smile. “I have seen people throw their weight around before, Admiral, but you take the cake.”

  “I’m not that bad,” Geary said, returning the salute. “Not usually, anyway. Have the aerospace forces begun saluting again, too?”

  “We’re seriously considering it.” Galland fell in alongside Geary as they walked toward a group of governmental dignitaries awaiting them. “When they take away your people and your aerospace craft and your training time and your lunch money, tradition is about the only substitute for those things that you can afford. Just so you know, nine months ago Adriana petitioned to have its contributions to the Alliance reduced. They have unilaterally reduced those payments by half while awaiting a response.”

  “And they’ll probably be shocked to hear that Alliance spending on defending them has been cut.” Geary looked around. “I don’t see any ground forces officers. Nor any military police for security. General Sissons had better show up for this meeting.”

  “There’s some regular police farther out occupying a security perimeter. Military police don’t usually handle this sort of thing,” Colonel Galland advised. “They’re more focused on internal security.”

  Geary was so shocked that he came to a momentary halt. “Internal security.”

  “Yes.” Galland eyed him. “I guess that’s a change from your days. They look for threats from foreign powers in Alliance territory.”

  A military force conducting internal security operations? That explained why the MPs had been equipped with the sort of gear someone who broke into buildings would need. “Yes. That’s a change from my days.” Geary looked around, at the blue sky, at the utilitarian buildings clustered around the landing pad, at the citizens awaiting him. None of it looked strange, but suddenly it all felt alien. He had been stunned to learn the sort of tactics the fleet had adopted when fighting the Syndics, but it had never occurred to him that similar anger, fear, and desperation could have altered the behavior of forces inside the Alliance.

  Colonel Galland watched him, puzzled, then with slowly dawning understanding. “It wasn’t that way? At all?”

  “No. What about ground forces intelligence?”

  “Same thing. Monitoring internal threats and watching for external threats.”

  Ancestors preserve us. “In my time, the military, the intelligence ser
vices, were outward focused. They never would have been aimed at Alliance citizens. We had laws that prevented that.”

  “I guess the laws changed.” Galland bit her lip as she gazed into the distance. “And I guess we got used to it. I just realized that while active military forces have been drawn down a lot recently, the forces aimed at internal threats haven’t been. Maybe we need to start thinking about that.”

  “Maybe we do,” Geary agreed as he began walking again.

  The most senior leaders of Adriana’s government were here, as well as a general whom Geary didn’t recognize. “Yazmin Shwartz,” she introduced herself. “Chief of Staff for Adriana Star System Self-Defense forces.”

  President Astrida led Geary to one of the ground vehicles that would transport them to the meeting place. During the short trip, Geary tried to study the interior of the vehicle without being obvious about it, noting fairly luxurious fittings and what seemed to be impressive active and passive defenses.

  General Shwartz noticed his interest in the vehicle. “We haven’t made any unauthorized modifications,” she said, sounding defensive in the manner of someone expecting criticism.

  “This is a standard government vehicle?” Geary asked.

  “Yes. Standard specifications,” she repeated. “Required for all governmental officials at star system senate level and higher.”

  There must have been a huge number of luxurious and heavily protected limos like this bought for officials, Geary realized. He had a suspicion that the spending cutbacks hadn’t affected those purchases. “Are you related to Dr. Shwartz of the University of Vulcan’s Nonhuman Intelligence Studies Department?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Neither General Shwartz nor most of the others in the limo appeared ready to relax, making it hard for Geary not to tense up as well. Apparently, they expected the worst from him.