“But not nearly as many.”
“No, sir.”
Geary shook his head. “I don’t see that we have any choice. Those Syndic special forces are backing us into a corner. Too bad we don’t have a smart bullet that homes on evil.”
“I think commanders have been wishing for that since the dawn of time, sir,” Carabali noted. “Except for evil commanders, of course.”
“Get it done, Colonel. Give the civilians as much time as you consider prudent to evacuate, but don’t unnecessarily risk your troops.” As soon as Geary had said that, he realized he had given one of those frustratingly contradictory orders that had driven him crazy when he had received them. He owed Carabali something clearer than that. “Do you think half an hour is good?”
“I’d prefer fifteen minutes, sir. That ought to be sufficient for the area we need cleared.”
I won’t second-guess the person with primary responsibility for those troops. “All right. Fifteen minutes.”
“And after that we’re authorized to use necessary force in the buffer area?”
“As long as you don’t punch holes in the outer skin of the city. I don’t want the atmosphere all venting to space.”
Carabali grinned, her earlier upset replaced with apparent good humor. “Yes, sir. I’ll pass on those orders now. Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome.” Geary leaned back after the transmission ended and noticed Rione had arrived on the bridge and was watching. “I seem to have made a Marine happy,” he explained.
“Oh? Is she going to get to kill something?”
“Probably.” Geary hesitated, scanning the system display for evidence of other threats. But Syndic Force Alpha hadn’t shown any signs of heading inward yet, and nothing else seemed active. Reassured, Geary pulled up the landing force display, seeing the ranked images that represented the views seen from each of the squad leaders currently on the orbital city. He picked one at random, touching it to make the image grow in size.
The lieutenant whom Geary had chosen to monitor was gazing out across a small courtyard to a cluster of buildings on the other side. Curving upward and into the distance behind the buildings, Geary could see more of the city, which was arranged in the classic and functional rotating cylinder design to remove the need for artificial gravity.
Something flashed within the buildings, and the lieutenant’s view jerked as he pulled back. Fragments flew as a piece of the structure the lieutenant was behind got chipped by a solid metal slug of some kind. Geary keyed the sound and heard the echoes of the shot reverberating. Other shots could be heard sporadically to either side. Then a voice boomed across the buildings. “This area is to be evacuated immediately. All Syndicate Worlds citizens are ordered to withdraw immediately to an area behind Fifth Street. Anyone present in the area this side of Fifth Street is subject to attack as enemy combatants.”
The announcement began repeating. Geary, watching from the lieutenant’s view, saw men, women, and children erupting from buildings and racing away. The distant figure of a man holding a gun stepped out and made threatening motions that halted the exodus near him. “Get him,” the lieutenant ordered. Geary heard the sound of a weapon firing nearby, and moments later, the armed man jerked to one side as if he had been punched, then fell to lie unmoving. The civilians surged into motion again, stampeding past the body.
Geary checked some other views, seeing the same thing. Shots still came from the buildings across from the Marines, but after the fifteen-minute grace period expired, the buildings began exploding as the Marines started targeting them with heavy weapons. Did I approve that? I did, didn’t I?
Syndic civilians might well be dying in those buildings, but that was a choice forced upon him. Somehow that knowledge didn’t make him feel better. Fighting an opponent who kept inviting atrocities, who kept trying to force him to commit atrocities, was an ugly thing. I’ll do what I have to do but not one thing more, you cold-blooded bastards. You won’t be able to blame the deaths of innocents on me or the fleet I command.
It took most of a day to off-load as much food as the Alliance wanted to take, as well as material from the separate warehouses, shuttles distributing it all among the fleet while the warships dodged occasional shots from the planet’s surface and retaliated against the attacks. No surface battery got any hits, and none of them survived the attempt. But there always seemed to be another hidden battery somewhere.
Twenty hours after arriving at the third world, Geary gave the orders to pull away from the planet, happily though wearily reviewing the lists of supplies they had “requisitioned” from the Syndics. The orbital city, somewhat battered from the extended battle between Alliance Marines and Syndic special forces, was nonetheless safe now. But the orbiting warehouses were another matter. Geary confirmed that all of the personnel had been evacuated from them and then ordered their destruction. Anything the Alliance hadn’t taken wouldn’t be used by the Syndics. The warehouses themselves wouldn’t be used anymore, either.
Sancere hadn’t been the only system supplying the Syndics with warships. There were plenty of others churning out capital ships and hordes of lighter units, drawing on the resources of an interstellar power that spanned many star systems. But losing Sancere’s shipyards would make a difference. For a while, at least, the ability of the Syndics to replace their losses would be curtailed.
“All ships, well done.” He yawned as he confirmed that the formation was heading for a new position outside the orbit of the fourth world. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m getting some sleep.” Desjani grinned tiredly as he left the bridge of Dauntless, making obvious preparations to leave herself.
Geary headed for his stateroom, weary but pleased, wondering if Victoria Rione would be there.
* * * *
“Geary here.” He blinked away sleep, checking to make sure he had also remembered to block the video again.
“You asked to be informed when Alliance Formation Bravo began withdrawing from the fourth planet, sir. We’ve been told the withdrawal is under way and confirmed it with sightings of the ships in motion.”
“Thank you.” Geary lay back, grateful that for once the information was good news and wouldn’t require immediate action, as well as knowing he could stop worrying about particle-beam batteries for a while.
“You know,” Rione’s voice came from beside him, “they can tell you’re hiding something.”
“You think so, huh?”
“I know so, John Geary. Have you always blocked video in the past? I thought not. And you’re keeping your voice pitched low. They’re surely wondering who it is you don’t desire to wake.”
“Damn.” Her words suddenly awoke an anxiety in him. “They might think it’s someone from the fleet.” One of his officers. Or worse, one of his sailors. Exactly the sort of thing he was required to avoid doing because of his command authority.
Rione raised herself on her elbow and gave him a thin-lipped smile. “And so I must ensure the fleet knows their hero is sleeping with me. I wonder how I should make the announcement?”
He winced. “I never intended you becoming a public issue. This should be private.”
“Nothing about you can be private, John Geary. If you didn’t realize that already, you should now.”
“This is about you, not me.”
“Are you protecting my honor?” Rione seemed amused again. “I’m old enough to handle that myself. In case you’re wondering, I also realized going into this that it would become a public matter.”
The statement had the unfortunate effect of reminding Geary of his speculations that Rione might be attracted to his power rather than to him. But if that was the case, she would never admit it, and if it wasn’t, he would be crazy to bring up the possibility with her.
“Our relationship isn’t improper or illegal,” Rione noted. “In the morning, I’ll inform the commanders of the ships from the Callas Republic and the Rift Federation. I know in the past they’ve been asked about rumo
rs of your and my association, and have denied them. I must let them know we now do have a relationship if only to keep faith with them. Once they’re informed, the entire fleet will probably know within a span of time too brief to measure.”
Geary couldn’t help sighing. “Does it have to be the fleet’s business?”
“Yes.” She favored him with a stern look. “You know it, too. Attempting to hide personal ties between us would make it look like we believed we were doing something wrong.”
“It’s not wrong.”
“Are you trying to convince me, John Geary? While I’m in bed with you? That’s a little after-the-fact.”
“I’m trying to be serious here. Listen, there is one thing that concerns me. There’s something I’ve counted on from you in the past, and I want that to continue.”
“What would that be?” she asked idly.
“I want you to remain skeptical of my plans. I need you to be skeptical and questioning and demanding. You’re the only person in the fleet I could see as being able to take an outside view of my plans. I need that to continue.”
“You want me to continue to be demanding?” Rione asked. “That’s a bit unusual in a man, but I’ll be happy to try to be as demanding as ever.”
“I’m serious, Victoria,” Geary repeated.
“Victoria may not be able to help you, but Co-President Rione has every intention of continuing to regard you with a worried and skeptical eye. Does that make you feel better?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’d like to get back to sleep. Good night, again.” She rolled over, leaving Geary with a view of her back that was breathtaking, though he thought she didn’t realize it.
Geary tore his eyes from Victoria Rione’s back with considerable effort, then spent a while staring at the overhead. So she’s going to tell the galaxy that we’re sleeping together. But she’s right that we have to do that. If rumors spread that I’m sleeping with anyone else, it could create serious problems. I’m not sure how I feel about the fleet knowing, because I’m not sure how I feel about her. Am I just attracted to her because I need someone strong beside me now? Or is this just physical and I’m fooling myself about caring for the person? No, I can’t believe that. She’s one hell of a woman, and I know I like a lot of things about her. But she’s not exactly warm and cuddly when we’re not having sex. She’s holding something back. That’s an understatement. She’s holding a lot back. By the time we get home, Victoria Rione might decide I’ve gotten boring and walk away, or might decide Black Jack needs to be stopped, or might not really give a damn about me but still want to be standing beside me so she can use that status to her benefit.
Or she might really care about me.
Face it, Geary, you have no way of knowing how you and she will feel when you reach Alliance space, whether you’ll go off to Kosatka together to get married or if you’ll shake hands and walk away from each other for the rest of your lives.
I guess I’ll make that jump when we get there. If we get there.
* * * *
Intelligence gathered in Sancere so far seemed to be both massive in quantity and frustratingly uninformative when it came to the most important issues. Marine landing parties had downloaded a huge number of files from abandoned Syndic terminals, but none of them held information of immediate use. Several surviving escape pods from the destroyed ships of Syndic Force Bravo had been picked up, but the sailors inside only knew they had been in a battle at Scylla near the border with the Alliance. Syndic officers could have told the Alliance interrogators more, but any of the escape pods carrying officers had been destroyed by the energy release from the collapsing gate. The battle at Scylla seemed to have been fought to a bloody draw, with both sides withdrawing from the star system afterward. The minor installations Geary had remembered being at Scylla a century ago had long since been destroyed or abandoned as the two sides fought incessantly over an otherwise worthless star system.
They pounded the hell out of each other and then broke contact. It wasn’t a big battle. What we saw arrive here at Sancere was the majority of the Syndic force, and the Alliance side was about equal in numbers. But I can’t draw any conclusions from that, because I don’t know what’s happening elsewhere on the front lines of this war.
Frustrated, Geary searched through the communications links to find the intelligence center on Dauntless. “This is Captain Geary. I’d like to personally speak to the senior surviving Syndic sailor we picked up. Can I do that now?”
The reply took a moment. “I’ll have to check—” The voice broke off as Geary heard someone yelling in the background. “Uh, yes, sir! Immediately, sir. Do you want to do it by virtual contact or actual physical interview?”
“Actual interview.” Geary had never been able to shake a nagging suspicion that the virtual meeting software didn’t convey every movement and nuance exactly right. In his experience software had a tendency to smooth out things that didn’t match its parameters, even though humans frequently betrayed minor, seemingly contradictory behaviors. What software thought of as anomalies to be eliminated could be the most important things a person was showing. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
The intelligence section rested behind some impressive security hatches. A slightly nervous lieutenant was waiting outside them and quickly led Geary though into the high-security area. For some reason it always felt hushed in there to Geary, even though to the eye it just seemed a regular office space with a few more pieces of equipment crammed onto desks and into odd corners. In keeping with ancient tradition, the intelligence section was a world unto itself, part of and yet also separate from the rest of the ship’s crew. The tighter security world in which they operated was matched by a somewhat looser working environment.
One of the desks actually had a plant on it, a small splash of living greenery. Geary cocked a questioning eyebrow at the lieutenant, who looked a little more nervous as he responded. “That’s Audrey, sir.”
Of course. If a spaceship had plants on board, one was usually called Audrey. The reason for that, if there was a reason, was lost in the mists of the past, but it made Geary feel a little better to see something that hadn’t changed from his time to now. Geary smiled reassuringly and followed the lieutenant toward the interrogation room.
The interrogation room followed a design that outwardly at least probably hadn’t changed for centuries. Geary looked through the one-way mirror into it and saw that a Syndic noncommissioned officer sat in a single chair, apparently unrestrained. She seemed dazed and scared but trying not to show it. “If she makes a move for you, we’ll drop her with a stun charge,” the lieutenant assured Geary.
“She doesn’t seem the suicide-charge type,” Geary remarked. He studied the instrument readouts before him. “These are all related to your interrogations?” He had been down in this area before, but there hadn’t been prisoners then.
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant indicated the devices. “We can do remote scans of brain activity while asking questions. That way we can spot deception on things we need to know.”
“And what do you do then?”
“Confrontation sometimes works. Once they realize we know when they’re lying, some people crack. For the tough ones, the best process is the use of drugs to eliminate normal inhibitions. We ask, they talk.”
“That sounds more humane than beating them up,” Geary noted with another smile.
“Beating them up?” The lieutenant seemed startled by the suggestion. “Why would we do that, sir? It produces unreliable information.”
“Does it?”
“Yes, sir. Not as bad as outright torture, but still unreliable. Our job is to find out accurate information for you. Physical and mental abuse might get people talking, but it wouldn’t provide accurate information.”
Geary nodded, secretly relieved that in the case of intelligence collection simple pragmatism had avoided the atrocities he had seen elsewhere. If he had learned his intelligence people
were depending on torture, it would have meant they were as dysfunctional as the fleet’s tactics had once been. “Okay, let me in.”
The Syndic sailor jerked her head to look as the heavy door opened. Geary walked in, the Syndic sailor staring at his rank insignia, and stopped near her. “Who are you?” he asked. The intelligence types could have told him, but it seemed a good way to start a conversation.
The woman spoke steadily enough. “General Service Sailor Rank Seven Gyal Barada, Syndicate Worlds Self-Defense Forces, Mobile Space Forces Directorate.”
Geary sat down in the other chair, grateful that he worked in a fleet rather than a “mobile space forces directorate.” “I’m Captain John Geary.” The woman blinked in confusion. “I used to be called Black Jack Geary. That’s probably how you’ve heard of me. I’m the commander of this fleet.”
Confusion changed to fear. “That’s how—” the Syndic sailor blurted, then choked off further words.
Geary kept his voice calming and conversational. “How what?”
She was staring at him in near terror. “I heard the officers talking before our ship was destroyed. The enemy fleet couldn’t be here, they said. It couldn’t have got here. But it was.”
Geary nodded. “I did have something to do with that.”
“They told us this fleet was destroyed. In the home system. And you died a century ago.” The Syndic sailor had gone so pale that Geary feared she would faint.
“Were you injured in the battle?” he asked.
She shook her rapidly. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Have you been treated in accordance with the laws of war since being made prisoner?”
Confusion had returned again. “I…yes.”
“Good. How’s the war going?”
She swallowed and spoke the way someone did when reciting something. “The Syndicate Worlds are going from triumph to triumph. Final victory is within our grasp.”
“Is it?” Geary wondered for how long Syndic propaganda had been declaring final victory was nearly achieved. “Do you ever question that?” The woman shook her head, not saying anything. “I didn’t think so. It’s probably dangerous to question that sort of thing.” Still no answer. “Would you like to go home?” She stared at Geary for a long time, then nodded. “So would I. But then my home is free. Yours isn’t. Does that ever bother you?”
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