Dreadnaught tlfbtf-1

by Jack Campbell

  “ ‘They’? Which ‘they’ do you mean?”

  “Someone. There are a lot of possibilities. You’re too dangerous.”

  He thought about the crowds they had encountered on Kosatka, Desjani’s home world. Often huge and always enthusiastic to the point of worshipful, they had been inescapable and unnerving in equal measure. Entire cities had seemed to pack into the streets for the chance of a glimpse of the great Black Jack Geary, legendary champion of the Alliance, the man who had stayed with his ship to the end, fighting off a surprise attack by the Syndics to allow other ships to escape. Everyone had thought that Geary had died during that fight at Grendel a hundred years ago; but he had been barely alive, frozen in survival sleep in a damaged escape pod. Geary had finally been found not long ago, awakening to find himself among people who had been taught to believe that he was an incomparable hero. Who do they think Black Jack actually is? I certainly don’t know. He’s someone the government dreamed up to inspire everyone when the initial Syndic surprise attacks knocked the Alliance back on its heels. “The next time the government tries to create a hero to motivate and inspire the population, they’ll probably try harder to make sure that hero is really, absolutely, positively dead.”

  Desjani gave him one of those looks that could be as unnerving as the crowds. “The government thought it was creating an illusion. The politicians didn’t realize that the living stars had their own plans and that you could not only reappear, but also be in reality more than the official illusion claimed.”

  “I thought that was over,” he mumbled, looking away. She had looked at him in exactly the same way when he had first awakened from a century of survival sleep. Belief in him and in what he could do, believing that he was someone sent by the living stars themselves at the behest of everyone’s ancestors to save the Alliance. Usually, now she seemed to see him as a man, and treated him as a husband and an officer; but occasionally her faith that he could be more than that shone through.

  She leaned close, reaching to grasp his chin gently and turn his head to face her again. “I see you. I see who you are. Don’t forget that.”

  The statement had two possible meanings, but he preferred to believe that it meant she knew he was human and very imperfect. His own ancestors knew that he had given her enough demonstrations of his fallibility since being awakened. “Who does the government see?”

  “Good question.” Desjani leaned back, sighing. “In answer to your first question, though, about the aliens, as you can see from the rest of the news, the government is under so much pressure that it’s telling everyone about the aliens to distract them. The war held the Alliance together. The war excused all kinds of things. Now, thanks to you more than anyone else—and don’t try to deny that—we’re at peace, and if war is hell, then peace seems to be like herding cats. I didn’t figure that out myself, by the way. One of the politicians at that last reception on Kosatka told me that. He said that star systems all over the Alliance are rethinking their need for common defense now that the big, bad Syndic wolf at the door has been drop-kicked into the nearest black hole.”

  “You talked to a politician?” Like most fleet officers, Desjani had a well-developed dislike of the political leadership, born of a century of inconclusive and bloody warfare and a need to attach blame for the failure to win.

  She shrugged. “He’s an old friend of my mother. She vouched for him not being as bad as the others, and since my mother hauled me up to meet him, I couldn’t very well about-face and walk away. The point is, Admiral Geary, that he told me no one really knows how to handle peace. It’s been a hundred years since the war with the Syndicate Worlds started, so the politicians have never experienced an environment without an active threat. The government is falling back on what it knows. It thinks it needs a new threat to keep the Alliance unified. And it’s not like the aliens aren’t a threat. We know they’re willing to attack us. We know that they carried out hostile actions before the Alliance even knew they existed.”

  “I wish those weren’t just about the only things we do know about them,” Geary grumbled, turning back to the headlines. Prisoners of war coming home soon, say authorities. Finally, some good news. Many men and women captured in the course of the apparently endless war, people who had never expected to see their homes again, would now be reunited with their loved ones. Bringing home the living would be a welcome job, even if it was tarnished by sad reality. Too many prisoners of war had already died far from their homes, during decades in captivity, their fates unknown. Tallying up the numbers and names of those who had died in Syndic prison camps would take long and cheerless years of investigation. “We’re cruel enough to our own kind. Why do we need hostile aliens to add to our problems?”

  “Ask the living stars, darling. I’m just a battle cruiser captain. The answer to your question is way above my pay grade.”

  The next headline bore no silver lining.

  Reports of internal fighting in many star systems within Syndicate Worlds’ territory as Syndic authority continues to collapse.

  “Damn. Whatever is left of the Syndicate Worlds is going to be a small fraction of the region it used to rule.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Desjani commented.

  “Chaos will breed a lot more deaths and trouble for us,” Geary countered, indicating the next headline. Refugees fleeing fighting in former Syndic territory arriving in Alliance star systems.

  She shrugged, but he could hear in her voice the tension that Desjani was trying to mask. “They’re Syndics. They started the war, they kept it going, and now they’re paying the price. You don’t actually expect me to feel sorry for them, do you?”

  He thought about how many friends and companions Tanya had seen die in the war, including her younger brother. “No. I realize that very few people in the Alliance will shed any tears for the suffering of any Syndics.”

  “With good cause,” Desjani muttered.

  “I’ve never argued otherwise.”

  One corner of her mouth curled upward in a sardonic smile. “You just reminded us that our ancestors and the living stars don’t look kindly on the slaughter of civilians or prisoners. Fine. We stopped killing everyone but combatants. But that doesn’t mean we want to help any Syndics who survived the war.”

  “I know.” He still had trouble grasping that: how the long war had poisoned the natural human tendency to offer aid to those in distress, even if those others were former enemies. But then he had slept through the vast majority of that war, not felt it through every day of his life. “What I’m saying is, purely in terms of self-interest, the Alliance may have to help clean up the mess in what was Syndic territory. Something is going to replace Syndic authority in areas that slip from the grasp of the central government. Trying to ensure that those successor governments are representative and peaceful rather than dictatorial and aggressive just seems like smart policy.”

  Instead of replying directly, Desjani glanced at his display. “Speaking of messes, how’s our own government doing these days?”

  “Not too well, apparently. The next headline says ‘Newly elected Alliance senators demand investigations into wartime corruption.’ ”

  “Investigating wartime corruption in the government would keep a lot of people busy for at least a few decades,” she observed.

  “As long as I’m not one of them.” Geary read the next headline with growing disbelief. Authoritative accounts reveal that Black Jack demanded and received a free hand from the Alliance grand council for the campaign that ended the war. “That’s not true! I didn’t demand anything. Who the hell leaked that?”

  Desjani took a look at the headline. “Somebody who’s unhappy at the way the politicians are all trying to claim credit for the end of the war. Some other politicians angling for advantage. Fleet officers who guessed at the truth and assumed you had to threaten the council. There are plenty of possibilities.”

  “No wonder the government still sees me as a threat
.”

  “You are a threat,” she reminded him. “If you hadn’t convinced Captain Badaya and those like him that you’re actually running the government covertly, making the big decisions behind the scenes, then they would have already staged a coup in your name. Things could be worse.”

  He studied the headlines again, trying to read between the lines. “Someone in the government must realize as well as we do what’s holding the fleet back. Overt action against me could still trigger a coup I couldn’t forestall, then civil war as some star systems simply pulled out of the Alliance in response.” It had taken a long time to accept that, the idea that the Alliance could be so frail, but a century of all-out warfare with its immense costs in lives and money had badly frayed the seams of the Alliance.

  “That doesn’t mean they won’t still try something,” Desjani observed.

  “Could the government be that stupid?”

  She smiled scornfully. “Yes.”

  Citizens’ coalitions demand that Black Jack be brought to Prime to clean up government, the next headline screamed. Next to a coup by his misguided supporters, Geary thought, that would be his worst nightmare. Why did anyone believe that the ability to command a fleet meant that he could also run a government? He looked at the display showing the distance remaining to Ambaru station and the time remaining until the ship docked, wondering what awaited him and Tanya there.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, her tone softer.

  “I was just thinking.”

  “You’ve been promoted to admiral again. I’m not sure that much thinking on your part is permitted.”

  “Very funny.” His gaze went to the stars again. “Before . . . before the war started, I never worried that much about the future. Most of it was out of my hands. I had serious responsibilities as an officer in the fleet, and at the last as commanding officer of a heavy cruiser, but what we did and where we went was never up to me. Then the war happened, and I ended up in command of the fleet a century later. For months after that, the future was a very narrowly focused thing. We needed to get the fleet from one star to the next, and eventually home. Then we needed to deal with the Syndics and do something to hold off the aliens. The future aimed itself. Do this. Then do that. Figure out how, right now, or there’s no more future.”

  Geary paused and looked toward her. Desjani met his eyes, her expression somber but calm. “Now, the future is a huge, vague thing. I have no idea what tomorrow is supposed to hold, what I should do, what I’ll be called upon to do. I know because of everything that’s happened that the future depends a lot upon my own actions and decisions. And I no longer have any idea where those should take us.”

  She gave him one of those unnervingly confident looks. “Yes, you do, Black Jack. You have the same ideas you had when you assumed command of the fleet back then. Do the honorable thing, do the right thing, do the smart thing. Even if you’re tempted to do otherwise, you stick to what you believe in, and what you believe in is what our ancestors believed in. That, and you believe that we’re all worth saving. Which is why I know that if anyone can lead us through whatever the future brings, it’s you. And that is why not only I, but a lot of other people, will follow you and give you everything we’ve got.”

  “As long as I’ve got you.”

  “That future didn’t aim itself,” Desjani said. “You had a lot of options. You chose the hardest one, and the most honorable one, and the right one. That’s why we’re together now.”

  “You wouldn’t have—”

  “Yes, I would have, and you know that. I would have done it because I thought you needed it, and what you needed to do was far more important than me or my honor. I was wrong. You were right.” She smiled. “Which isn’t to say that you aren’t wrong at times. But I’ll be here to let you know when that happens.”

  THEY came out of the access from the passenger ship onto the dock at Ambaru station, side by side, both Geary and Desjani alert for trouble but trying to look relaxed despite their tension.

  Two lines of armed ground forces soldiers awaited them, their weapons held in salute position, forming a corridor down which Geary and Desjani walked. Were the soldiers just an honor guard? Or thinly disguised muscle to back up another arrest attempt? This time he didn’t have Marines escorting him to prevent such an overreaction by the government.

  At least the soldiers weren’t armored, instead resplendent in dress uniforms. If he was to be arrested, at least his captors would look their best.

  On either side of the honor guard, more soldiers held back crowds packed into the walkways between docks, crowds who erupted into cheers at the sight of Geary. That was also a good sign since it seemed unlikely the government would be crazy enough to arrest him publicly. What would happen if the soldiers tried to restrain or arrest him, and he instead walked to the crowds? Would that one action be the loose thread whose unraveling would tear apart the Alliance?

  Despite his nerves and discomfort with the adulation, Geary forced himself to smile and wave one hand to the crowds, then saw Admiral Timbale waiting at the end of the ramp and felt some of his tension draining off. Even though he was as political as most senior officers these days, Timbale had seemed both honorable and firmly in Geary’s camp before they left Varandal. Now Timbale saluted Geary and returned Desjani’s salute, giving the gestures the crispness of someone who had recently learned saluting and wanted to show off. “Welcome back, Admiral Geary. It’s nice to meet you in person, Captain Desjani.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied, her return salute casually correct. Geary had no doubt that Desjani saluted in that fashion to subtly emphasize that, for her, the gesture had been common practice for months. “I’m surprised to see civilians here, sir,” she added, indicating the crowds.

  Timbale’s smile hardened. “There weren’t supposed to be any. Your arrival was supposed to be quiet and low-key, to avoid ‘disruptions.’ Or so I was told. But somehow word got out, and once the civilians started crowding through the barriers to see Black Jack, what could we do?” He glanced around. “Standing orders from fleet headquarters came in two weeks ago. We’re to avoid any actions which ‘improperly highlight any individual officer’ and instead direct attention to ‘the achievements of all personnel.’ ”

  “I can’t honestly object to that,” Geary commented. “In fact, I think it’s a good idea.”

  “It is,” Timbale agreed, his tone becoming sardonic, “but since the brass at fleet headquarters got there by playing up their own roles in every success in every possible way, I find their newfound interest in individual humility by others a bit hard to swallow.” Nodding to the commander of the honor guard, Timbale turned to go. “If you and Captain Desjani will please accompany me?”

  Geary followed, wondering if the honor guard would also come along. But the soldiers remained in place, their eyes straying to the sides to catch glimpses of him as he left.

  Timbale nodded again as if reading his mind. “Nothing quite so obvious this time,” he muttered to Geary. “Especially with all of those spectators.”

  “What is going on?” Geary asked.

  “I don’t know exactly.” Timbale frowned as they entered passageways from which other military and civilians had apparently been barred, the path stretching empty before them. Metal and composite bulkheads, which in Geary’s time a hundred years earlier would have been covered by skins showing images of natural materials or outdoor scenes, were instead bare, revealing rough repairs and exposed surfaces, just another sign of the strains so many decades of war had put upon the Alliance and everything built to further the war. “Varandal is not technically in a state of martial law, but in practice it’s very close to that. The government seems to believe that if things are going to explode, Varandal will be the first charge to go off, and I don’t think I have to explain who they think the detonator will be.”

  “Yet they’ve kept the fleet concentrated here,” Desjani observed.

  “Yes, Captain,” Timbale
agreed. “They’re afraid to keep it in one place, and they’re afraid to disperse it and not have it in one place where they can watch it all at once. So they’ve done nothing with it.” He quirked a smile at her. “Forgive my manners. Congratulations to you both. You must have had to move fast to get married in the brief interval when you were both captains and neither of you was in the other’s chain of command. You ticked off fleet headquarters no end, you know.”

  “Thank you,” Geary replied, while Desjani just smiled. “It’s nice to know that we accomplished that much. Where are we going?”

  “Conference room 1A963D5. I only know for certain who one of the occupants is.” Timbale gave Geary a glance. “Senator Navarro, chair of the grand council.”

  “He’s not alone?”

  “There are people with him, but I don’t know how many or who they are. The security perimeter is seven layers thick, and every layer is as tight as a sailor coming back from liberty.” Timbale hesitated, then spoke softly. “A lot of people assume that Navarro is here so you can give him orders. I don’t believe that’s the case because I’ve met you and spoken with you before, but I’ve heard plenty of assertions that you’re really pulling the strings.”

  Geary was trying to figure out the right response when Desjani answered. “Strategic success may demand tactical deception, Admiral Timbale. Many officers are pleased to believe that the government is doing as Admiral Geary says.”

  Admiral Timbale nodded. “Whereas they’d be unhappy if he wasn’t. I understand. But we’re balancing on a knife-edge here. Fleet headquarters keeps issuing draconian commands apparently designed purely to show that they’re in charge. The fleet is obeying, but they’re increasingly unhappy with the arbitrary and sometimes pointless demands.”

  “I’ve heard from some of the warship commanders already,” Geary commented. “No one knows what’s going on. They just keep orbiting here.”

  “I don’t know any more than anyone else, but the fact that the chair of the grand council is here makes it seem to me like they’ve been waiting for you to get back so they can tell you to do something.” Timbale frowned, uncertainty plain to read in him. “And they do intend to task the fleet with some mission. Even though funding is being cut all over the place, I’ve been directed to ensure that repairs continue here for all damaged warships. Given how much those repairs are costing, those orders must have come through the government as well as fleet headquarters. Keep them here, get them fixed. Those have been my orders.”