Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

by Jack Campbell

  “The threat posed by me,” Geary replied forcefully. “They’re playing these games, sending this fleet into situations where men and women can die and have died, because they fear me.”

  Duellos shook his head, his mouth twisted into a grimace. “That’s only partly true. Yes, Admiral, you are the focus of the government’s attention right now, but if you had not existed, and we had somehow won the war anyway, they would be just as fearful of this fleet. And this fleet would be actively resisting any attempts to reduce its numbers.”

  Tulev rarely smiled, and even though his lips curled a bit now, his expression still did not really reflect any humor. “The fleet would see such attempts as treasonous actions by a disloyal government, and the government would see the fleet’s behavior as treasonous actions by a disloyal military.”

  “And the Alliance would end up going through the same kind of collapse the Syndicate Worlds is now experiencing,” Geary said.

  “If they keep reducing this fleet,” Badaya asked, sounding bewildered now, “what will they use to defend the Alliance? They’ve seen that the Syndics still can’t be trusted, they’ve seen the sorts of local warlords and piracy popping up where Syndic control has crumbled, so they must know they can’t depend on good intentions or treaties to defend us.”

  Captain Smythe shrugged. “In the Admiral’s day, a century ago, the fleet was considerably smaller than even what we have left with us at the moment.”

  “His day is right now,” Desjani insisted.

  “You’re both right,” Geary said to stop any debate on a subject that made him uncomfortable. “But a century ago, the paradox was that we didn’t trust each other, but we trusted each other to keep things quiet. We could keep the fleet smaller because the Alliance counted on the Syndics keeping things quiet in their territory, and the Syndic fleet was also much smaller because they knew the Alliance would maintain order in its territory.”

  “That makes no sense at all,” Badaya complained. “With all due respect, Admiral.”

  “It apparently worked,” Smythe pointed out. “Until it stopped working. I’d love to find out exactly why the Syndic leadership decided to start that war.”

  “We guessed that the enigmas tricked the Syndics into starting it,” Duellos said. “But I think the enigmas’ seeds of war fell onto fertile ground because of the way the Syndicate Worlds is governed. Their Supreme Council are pretty much absolute rulers, which means they didn’t have to listen to anyone counseling caution. They could just indulge their fantasies without fear of contradiction.”

  Tulev nodded heavily. “And out of that, what horrors grew. It is something anyone in power must fear, being surrounded by the flatterers and fools who say only what they think the powerful want to hear.”

  “Admiral Geary won’t have that problem,” Tanya remarked dryly.

  Badaya laughed. “Not as long as you’re around!”

  “Speaking of saying what people want to hear,” Geary said, “what’s the real reason why all of the warships are broadcasting false readiness data?”

  “Officially?” Badaya asked. “We were told that agents of unspecified foreign powers might be monitoring the readiness of Alliance combat forces, so we were to present the strongest possible image regardless of the true status of our forces.”

  “Foreign powers?” Tanya scoffed. “There’s only one foreign power. The Syndics.”

  To Geary’s surprise, the other captains shook their heads at her.

  “Lately,” Captain Smythe explained, “the phrase ‘foreign powers’ has been used in the media to describe the Callas Republic, the Rift Federation, stars outside Alliance space in the direction of Sol, and the Midway Star System and other former Syndic territories. Not to mention the press, which has itself been described as ‘foreign interests’ by members of the Alliance government.”

  “Does someone think we need more enemies?” Geary asked.

  “Enemies can be useful.”

  “I do not think it is that simple,” Tulev interjected, a slight frown crossing his brow in an unusual display of open emotion. “When people are afraid, when they are uncertain, they see more enemies. In this, they are sincere. It would be a mistake to assume all of those involved are cynically manufacturing more enemies to advance their own agendas. Many of them do see those enemies.”

  Captain Tulev paused, then spoke with his usual careful, emotionless precision. “You all know that my home star system was destroyed during the war, and that the survivors occupied defenses there afterwards, awaiting the return of the Syndics. I know that there have been many, many detections of incoming Syndic attacks in that star system since then. The great majority of them were illusions. Men and women swore they saw the indications, saw the detections of the enemy arriving, but data recordings showed no such reports from sensors. The defenders, fortified amidst the ruins of all they once knew, often see the enemy coming once more. They honestly believe they see those enemies. It is not a tactic or an attempt to mislead.”

  After a long moment of silence, Badaya laughed again, this time briefly and harshly. “Maybe that’s us. We need enemies, too, don’t we? To justify the continued size of this fleet?”

  “We didn’t imagine the Syndic attacks on the way back from Midway!” Desjani shot back at him.

  “Granted.” Badaya furrowed his brow in an almost comical display of deep thought. “But let’s imagine we’re average citizens of an average Alliance star system. They hear all about what the Syndics did, and they wonder why they should worry. That was in Syndic territory! Are the Syndics coming here to do such things? What about the enigmas and the Kicks? Immensely far away! Why the need for such a large fleet? Because the officers of that fleet see danger?”

  “That’s—” Desjani waged an obvious struggle to control herself before continuing. “All right. You have a point. We need to convince those citizens that the enemies we’re worried about are real.”

  “And that some dangers are real as well,” Duellos agreed. “Especially when the force assigned the task of dealing with dangers outside the borders of the Alliance, this fleet, is at about sixty percent readiness instead of the one hundred percent the data feeds claim.”

  “Hopefully, fleet headquarters and the government realize that,” Geary said. “No other orders have come in since Jane Geary was sent off?”

  “Not yet,” Duellos said. “But they could come soon. You may not have noticed in the rush of your arrival, but three ships departed via the hypernet gate within a few minutes after Dauntless’s return. One was an official courier ship, while the other two claimed to be civilian ships with no government ties even though both were high-speed craft and, along with the courier ship, had been loitering near the gate for weeks. A lot of people wanted to know when Black Jack got back. Now some wheels are going to start turning. But what wheels and to what purpose?”

  No one had the answers to those questions.

  As the others left the stateroom for Dauntless’s shuttle dock, Captain Smythe lingered, waiting until Geary had shut the hatch again before speaking.

  “I need to update you on funding,” Smythe said, scratching his beard with one hand. “We’re running into some problems.”

  Geary nodded, trying not to look grim. “People are catching on?”

  “Catching on?” Smythe asked, surprised. “No. It’s not that. The only one with a big enough view of what we’re physically doing is Admiral Timbale, and he has made it clear to me that as long as the payment vouchers for work on our ships continue to clear, he has no interest in knowing anything about how we’re getting all of those payments authorized.”

  Smythe wandered over to Geary’s table and tapped in a few commands, producing an image of serried ranks of organizational codes and program codes connected by a rat’s-nest of tangled lines and dotted lines. “This is a simplified summary of the sort of sources we’re tapping fo
r funds.”

  “Simplified? You’re joking,” Geary said, staring at the mess.

  “Now, Admiral, this isn’t a bad thing. From our perspective, it’s a good thing. It’s so complex and confusing that it gives us a lot of room to work.” Smythe adopted a virtuous expression. “Within the system, of course.”

  “Of course,” Geary agreed. “So what is the problem?”

  “We can only tap money that’s there. If the wells start to run dry, it doesn’t matter what tricks we use to turn the spigots. We get less and less out.”

  “All of these accounts and programs are running out of money?”

  “They are. There’s major underfunding going on all over.” Smythe waved a finger up and down. “To the extent that we’re seeing money being bounced from place to place to hide the shortfalls.”

  “Bounced? You mean they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul?”

  “Oh, no, nothing that innocent.” Smythe grinned, looking piratical now instead of angelic. “They’re bouncing the money from place to place in such ways that they can double-count it as being in two or more places at once. There are little tricks that keep the money that remains moving so fast that it appears to be in multiple locations, and it gets counted as being in all of them. It looks like they have enough money to pay Peter, Paul, and Mary, but they don’t actually let the money sit still long enough for checks to clear.”

  Geary sat down heavily, his eyes fixed on the mess. “I don’t believe it. How are we getting money, then?”

  “Because it’s bouncing! That means it has to sit somewhere for just a very tiny moment before it jumps somewhere else. And, if you have the right software and the right green-haired talent to spot the patterns they’re using, you can time your withdrawals to hit during that very tiny moment.” Smythe frowned meditatively, looking into the distance. “Sort of like shooting skeet, I suppose. No. Like that old Whack-a-mole thing. With the help of the invaluable Lieutenant Shamrock, we are ready to hit the moles the instant they pop up, and taking a bit off the top each time.”

  Something about that phrasing made Geary give Smythe a stern, inquisitive look. “Is anything else coming off the top?”

  Smythe managed to express simultaneous shock, piety, and sincerity. “No, sir! Some people might be tempted in such circumstances, but those people wouldn’t be looking ahead. This can only last so long, Admiral. No matter how fast they bounce the balls, the point is going to come where the government either pays all of its bills or it defaults. If the Alliance government defaults, it would make current circumstances look downright idyllic. I think they’ll find the money somehow.

  “But when the government finally pays up, it can only do so by cleaning up the mess in its accounting, which will expose what was done. That is the point, sir, at which all of those accountants doing their best to carry out their orders to bounce the money will find themselves hauled up on charges for bouncing the money, while their superiors, the men and women who gave the orders to them, express surprise and shock at the whole thing before collecting another medal and promotion.”

  Geary snorted a cynical laugh and nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  “I know I am, Admiral.” Smythe spread his hands. “I have no intention of being one of those made a scapegoat in this. Nor would I position anyone working for me to be snared. Everything we are doing is proper and legal. If anyone catches on, they’ll tell us to stop, not because it’s illegal but because they don’t want to spend that much money on us. But as long as they don’t say we have to stop, we can do it, and justify it all by letter of rules and regulations.”

  Geary grinned. “We’re all right, then?”

  “Not entirely, Admiral. As I said at the start, we can’t grab as much as we would like to. It’s not there to grab. As a result, repair work on your ships has slowed down. It can’t be helped.”

  Ugly. A fleet constructed to last a couple of years at best, every ship now exceeding its planned life span, more and more equipment failing due to “age” and less and less money to rebuild, repair, or replace everything that was breaking. But, if not for Captain Smythe, things would be a lot worse. “Thanks for all you’re doing to keep this fleet as ready as possible. Put together for me your best estimate of the impact of the funding shortfalls on the fleet’s readiness, looking downstream about six months if current trends continue. Then keep me apprised of any changes or major problems,” Geary told Smythe. “Give my thanks to Lieutenant Jamenson as well.”

  “Certainly, Admiral.” For the first time, Smythe displayed some discomfort. “As you know, Lieutenant Jamenson, our green-haired Shamrock, has expressed interest in a transfer to intelligence. You had indicated that you would look favorably upon that, and I agreed with your reasoning that we should not penalize her for doing so well in her current job by denying her other opportunities. However, given current circumstances, I would like to delay such a transfer.”

  Oddly, that sort of personnel issue felt harder to deal with than the abstract discussion of money and equipment. “I’ll talk to her, Captain. I’ll explain what we’re facing, and that we need her where she is for now.” Geary rubbed the sides of his jaw unhappily. “I wish I could promise her that transfer in a month or two months, but I can’t.”

  Smythe shrugged. “You know, Admiral, it may seem strange given Lieutenant Jamenson’s ability to confuse and cloud issues, but she does like being played straight with. I think your idea is a good one.”

  “Has she found any more information regarding the new construction?”

  This time Smythe shook his head. “Nothing direct. Though I strongly suspect that some of the funds missing from the accounts we’re trying to tap have been redirected to cover cost overruns for building that new fleet. There is one odd thing, though. Support facilities. There aren’t any.”

  “What do you mean?” Geary waved toward the star display. “With the reductions in forces going on, there must be a lot of underused support facilities that they can tap for use by those new ships.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Smythe pointed to the display as well, looking perplexed. “But, firstly, we can’t find money being diverted to keep any of those underused facilities operational, and, secondly, if this fleet is being kept so secret, how can it maintain secrecy if it is sent to existing facilities in some star system full of people who would see those new ships? They would need new facilities, somewhere no one would spot them.”

  “That’s a very good point.” More puzzles. “If we could find Admiral Bloch, we could probably find those support facilities and any of those new ships that have been finished.”

  “Maybe they’re at Unity Alternate,” Smythe said with a grin.

  “Unity what?” Geary asked.

  “Unity Alternate.” Smythe’s grin faded. “You don’t get it? Oh. Of course you wouldn’t. It’s an old joke for us, but you wouldn’t have heard it. At least fifty years ago, rumors started going around that an emergency fallback place was being constructed in case the Syndics hit the Alliance capital at Unity. Some secret star system with all sorts of facilities being secretly constructed so the government could carry on the war even if the worst happened.”

  “Secret star system? How could that work?”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it? We had the hypernet going in at that time, so marginal star systems were starting to be abandoned, but, still, any star system that we could jump to was accessible. Sealing one off would have been like posting a huge sign saying ‘Secret Facility Here.’ People actually looked, but no one found such a thing, so in time it became a joke. Anything mysterious, anything missing, was at Unity Alternate. Why hasn’t leave been approved? The forms are at Unity Alternate. Where are my new specialists? They got sent to Unity Alternate. It’s such an old joke by now that only old fools like me are likely to make it.”

  Geary sighed. “At least I’ll understand next time someone else m
akes that joke. Speaking of missing objects, I see that Invincible is gone. Where did they take her?” The captured Kick superbattleship was immensely valuable in every possible sense of the word. He had not doubted that the government would take it somewhere else to slowly and carefully explore and exploit the vessel and everything in it.

  Smythe spread his hands. “Your guess is as good as mine. Not only did they not tell us where they were going when they left by hypernet, I haven’t been able to find out any news of where they went. Every press agency in the Alliance is looking for Invincible, but no one has found a trace of the ship.”

  “She’s at Unity Alternate?”

  “Exactly. See? You’ve already got the joke down.” Smythe paused, then spoke in a more formal tone of voice. “There is one more thing, Admiral. A major problem. Since Dauntless returned to Varandal, word has gone out along various black-market channels of items for sale.”

  “Items?”

  “Yes.” Smythe gestured vaguely in what might have been the direction of far, far distant Sol. “Most of them are items from Old Earth or elsewhere in Sol Star System, which as far as I can tell may not have cleared customs and had duty paid on them but otherwise are innocuous enough. But there is also talk of collectors’ items that have been on the surface of Europa.”

  “The surface of Europa?” Geary repeated, disbelieving. All of the armor had been destroyed. He was certain of that. And the Marines had brought back nothing except— “The clothes on their backs.”

  Smythe nodded. “Now fantastically valuable because of where they have been. I understand the desire to . . . operate in creative ways. How often can a pair of dirty underwear earn the owner a huge sum of money? If nothing else, the irony of the whole concept is priceless. But offering items for sale that are tied to Europa will not only generate a tremendous amount of interest from collectors, but also far too much interest from various governmental, law-enforcement, customs, medical, and other authorities. And if they start poking into that . . .”