Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

by Jack Campbell

  They might notice how much money Geary was finding to keep his fleet repaired and operating. Master Chief Gioninni must be behind this sales scheme. The amount of potential profit, and the no-doubt technically legal aspects of the sales, must have blindsided Gioninni’s usual caution. A word to Tanya about Gioninni and to General Carabali about her Marines’ sideline should be all that was needed to eliminate that part of the sale. “I’ll make sure that’s shut down, Captain Smythe. Thank you for alerting me to it.”

  If only every problem were so easily resolved.

  • • •

  SIX days later, another courier ship arrived at Varandal, flashing into existence at the hypernet gate. There had been other courier ships showing before then, but Geary had watched this one’s arrival with particular concern. Given the time required for a round-trip to fleet headquarters, today was the earliest orders might arrive for him after headquarters was informed of his return. It took hours for the light of the courier ship’s arrival to reach where Dauntless orbited, but once Geary knew the ship was here, he also knew he wouldn’t have long to wait.

  Five minutes after seeing the arrival of the ship at the hypernet gate, a high-pitched tone that signified receipt of a high-priority, eyes-only message for Geary burst to life.

  Four times he let the alert repeat, before he touched the desk control to silence it and view the message identification—Alliance Fleet Headquarters. Orders for Commander, Alliance First Fleet.

  It took a conscious effort to open the message and view its contents. Geary braced himself, counting down before his finger tapped the command.

  Three. Two. One.

  EIGHT

  LIKE the average fleet officer, Geary had always thought of fleet headquarters as a distant place occupied by people whose primary jobs were to satisfy the desires of supreme commanders to have bigger staff empires than their counterparts, and to make up arbitrary, arduous, and absurd things to order the men and women in fleet units to carry out. But, since being reawakened and thrust into roles in which he dealt much more frequently with fleet headquarters, he had learned a lot more about that staff, and as a result, his distrust had grown by leaps and bounds.

  As the message played, Geary saw two images standing before him instead of a single person. “This is Admiral Tosic,” the tall, lean fleet officer said, his tone of voice challenging, “supreme commander of Alliance fleet operations.” The former fleet supreme commander, Admiral Celu, had been replaced already? He wondered if Celu had retired voluntarily or if she had been pushed out.

  The woman next to Tosic sounded less belligerent, but still forceful. “General Javier, supreme commander of Alliance ground forces.”

  “Your orders, Admiral Geary,” Tosic began without any polite preliminaries, “are to take the First Battle Cruiser Division along with a squadron of light cruisers and three squadrons of destroyers to Adriana Star System. No additional fleet forces are authorized under any circumstances. Operation analysis at fleet headquarters confirms that a task force of that size will be adequate for the assigned mission, and current limitations on funding do not permit the luxury of deploying more forces than needed. Once at Adriana, you are to coordinate with Alliance ground forces to carry out the return of Syndic refugees to Batara Star System, taking any actions necessary and proper to ensure that the refugee problem at Adriana is resolved. Upon completion of that mission, return your forces to Varandal and await further orders. Tosic, out.”

  The images vanished. Geary regarded the area before him where they had been, then called up a star display to refresh his memory of Adriana and Batara, wondering why he had a dim memory of the latter star system. As he had recalled, Adriana was inside Alliance space, but Batara . . . “Tanya, can you come down to my stateroom? I want to discuss my new orders with you.”

  She was there within minutes, frowning, as Geary played the message again and Admiral Tosic delivered the orders.

  “You know,” Tanya remarked acidly as the message ended, “Tosic thinks he sounds powerful when he talks like that, but he really just sounds pompous. Where’s Batara?”

  “Here.” Geary indicated a star display he had just reactivated. “I remembered it because it used to be part of the Hansa Group.”

  “The Hansa Group?”

  “It was an association of four star systems that rejected all invitations to join with the Alliance or the Syndicate Worlds,” Geary explained. “They wanted to be completely independent.”

  Desjani glanced at the star display. “Since Batara has been in Syndic space for a really long time, I guess that didn’t work out too well for the Hansa Group.”

  “No. One day, the Syndics swept in, claiming they had been invited, and took over. That was about three years before the Syndics attacked the Alliance. It was the biggest war scare we had before . . . well, before we had a war.”

  “We didn’t do anything?” Desjani asked, biting off each word as it came out.

  “No.” He remembered that all too well, the mix of anticipation in the Alliance fleet that the Syndics might finally get their heads slapped hard, and fear of whether such a limited operation to restore Hansa Group independence would escalate into a wider war between the Alliance and the Syndics. But he said nothing about that, guessing that Tanya and other people from this time would find such concerns incomprehensible.

  “Maybe if we’d done something . . .” she growled.

  “Maybe,” Geary said. “Maybe it would have given the Syndics enough pause that they never attacked the Alliance. Or, it might have led to the same war, starting three years earlier. It’s a road not taken, Tanya. We don’t know where it would have led. Maybe to this exact same destination.”

  “Not exactly. You wouldn’t be here.” She eyed him, then smiled. “Or maybe you would be, if that was intended to happen no matter what.” The smile faded as quickly as it had come. “Refugees from Batara are getting to Adriana? They would have to go through Yokai to reach Adriana. Yokai never fell to the Syndics during the war even though there were some nasty fights there. Why aren’t the Alliance defenses at Yokai stopping the refugees now?”

  Geary reached out to tap the image of the Alliance-controlled star, gazing at the data that appeared next to it. “I passed through Yokai a couple of times, a hundred years ago. Not a lot there. Small towns and orbiting facilities scattered around the marginal and uninhabitable planets that orbit the star. They subsisted mainly on the interstellar traffic passing through on its way to somewhere else. It looks like those towns disappeared a long time before the hypernet was constructed and eliminated most of that traffic, though.”

  She pointed again. “Everything that wasn’t destroyed by Syndic attacks was abandoned or converted into fortifications and defense facilities.”

  “What happened to the people who lived there?”

  “The ones who didn’t die? The usual, most likely, since Yokai doesn’t have any planets that are habitable for humans, had a fairly small population, and no cities. See, Yokai is a Special Defensive Zone, off-limits to all but the military. When the star system was designated an SDZ, the civilians who lived and worked there would have been relocated. A lot of them probably got sent to Adriana.” She paused for several long seconds, looking at the star display in a gloomy way. “Not a lot of people, I guess, compared to a star system with a habitable planet and a good-sized population, but they all lost their homes.”

  “Alliance refugees,” Geary said.

  “Yeah. And now Adriana has a new batch of refugees to worry about. But why aren’t they being stopped before they get there?” She peered at the display, suddenly intent. “Hold on.” Tanya touched an inconspicuous symbol next to Yokai, waited, then touched it again. “I’m getting a classified data refusal. What information is supposed to be classified above the level of a fleet captain? You’re fleet commander. Try hitting that.”

  He reached out and touche
d the same symbol, producing a notice that popped into existence. “I guess I’m cleared for it. Ancestors!” He couldn’t help saying that as he saw what the previously hidden notice reported.

  The civilians had been kicked out of Yokai many decades before. Now the military had also left. Even though the outer layer of information on the display had shown strong defenses still in place at Yokai, the classified notice dated to the most recent update of Dauntless’s information reported that in fact those war-related bases were now deserted, hastily closed down and mothballed as part of the drastic scaling back in defense outlays by the Alliance government. “That explains why Yokai isn’t stopping the refugees. There’s no one there to stop them. Or even report that they’re coming through.”

  “They shut down the border defenses facing the Syndics there?” Desjani asked incredulously. “Were they surprised when that created problems?”

  “They might have been surprised if they were deeply enough in denial,” Geary said. “Or if different offices didn’t tell each other what they were doing. Adriana must be mad as hell about this.”

  “They probably don’t know,” Desjani said. “Yokai is still an SDZ. Nobody from the Alliance is allowed to go there without official approval.”

  “But the Syndics know! They’re coming through there! Why keep it secret from our own— Oh, never mind. I’ll find out when I get to Adriana.”

  She cocked her head slightly to one side as she looked at him. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Something besides the mission?”

  “Yeah.” He inhaled slowly, trying to find the right words. “Tanya, once upon a time there was a . . . a community that lived at Yokai. It was their home. I went through Yokai twice on ships. I saw it. And I’m the last one alive who saw it. How many people still remember what was there?”

  Tanya sighed. “Admiral . . . Jack . . . if you start trying to add up all of the things lost in the last century, you’ll go mad. The list will never end.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  “Fine. Don’t forget. But you also have to remember what’s going on right now. They want you to take a division of battle cruisers?” Tanya demanded with renewed anger. “But only one division. Sending you there with battle cruisers looks like massive overkill for a refugee return operation, but if money is as short as they say, they wouldn’t give you more than whatever bare minimum their ops analysis identified. Which means one division isn’t enough, and this mission is a bigger job than it appears to be.”

  “The last time I went through that region of Alliance space,” Geary said, “there were only two divisions of battle cruisers in the entire Alliance fleet.”

  “Yes, sir. I will point out what we both already know, that you are talking ancient history, and that returning those refugees to Batara means going into Syndic space, and based on what the Syndics did on our trip back from Midway, one division of battle cruisers is guaranteed not to be enough to take on this mission.”

  “I don’t have any alternative,” Geary said. “The orders are clear and unambiguous. And the money isn’t there. Captain Smythe has told me the same thing.”

  “Admiral Tosic has found plenty of money to build that new fleet!”

  “Somebody has, but we don’t have that money. I can ask Captain Smythe to divert funds from repair and refit work on the old and damaged ships of this fleet, but those funds aren’t enough as it is.”

  She glowered at nothing, then nodded. “Fine. Dauntless is ready to go. I’ll need a couple of days to get Daring and Victorious out of refit status—”

  “Tanya, the orders specified the First Battle Cruiser Division.”

  “You can’t— Admiral, there isn’t— The First Division only has three ships since we lost Brilliant!”

  “I know.” He also knew why she was really upset, but he avoided mentioning it directly. “This will give you a chance to let Dauntless go into stand-down for repairs, which will also allow her crew to go on leave and see their homes.”

  “You intend going into Syndic space without me?” Desjani flexed her hands helplessly. “I— Admiral— Dammit.”

  “I’ll have Duellos with me on Inspire.”

  “That’s not the same thing! Inspire is not Dauntless, and Duellos is not . . .” She looked at him, uncharacteristically vulnerable. “Ever since we found you again, ever since we recovered you from that failing escape pod, I’ve kept an eye on you so you could . . . complete your mission.”

  “You tried to leave me once,” Geary pointed out. “When the war ended and—”

  “I knew that you would come after me!” Desjani lowered her head and grimaced. “I’m being a fool. I know it. But headquarters must be setting you up for trouble. You know they are. This mission sounds simple. But they want you to fail.”

  “And I will miss having you there to help me spot trouble before it spots me,” Geary said with total sincerity. “And I will miss being aboard Dauntless. But Roberto Duellos is sharp. He’s no Tanya Desjani, but I think he can do the job.”

  “How about your stress levels?”

  She knew better than anyone how much post-trauma had been impacting him at times. “Better. Much better. I’m not sure why, yet. I’ll be all right.”

  “Yes, sir.” She looked up, straightening and smoothing out her expression. “These are your orders, this is your job, and I am a professional. What can I do to help?”

  “You’re doing it now. But I’ll also appoint you acting fleet commander in my absence. That way I won’t have to worry about anything going wrong here while I’m gone.”

  “Yeah. Right. What if Jane Geary makes it back while you’re gone?”

  “You retain acting command.” He tried not to let worry show in his voice, but Tanya spotted it anyway.

  “Jane will make it back,” she reassured him. “Diamond and the Dancers might show up, too. I’ll try to keep everyone here until you get back. What about taking one of the assault transports and some extra Marines with you?”

  “That’s not authorized, Tanya. I’ll just bring those Marines assigned to the battle cruisers in the First Division. Ground forces are supposed to do any heavy lifting of that nature that this mission requires.”

  She paused, then gave him a keen look. “You should know that Roberto Duellos is under a lot of extra pressure. His wife hasn’t quite given him an ultimatum of the fleet or your family, but it’s getting close to that, and it’s a devil’s choice for him either way. If he leaves the fleet, he’ll be lost, unable to find anything else that he cares about doing. But if he loses his family, he’ll be just as lost.”

  Geary winced as he ran that dilemma through his mind. “He’s likely to be distracted.”

  “No. He’s too good for that. He might be distracted. Keep it in mind. Speaking of distractions, don’t worry about those items from Europa that were offered for sale. That sale has been permanently shut down.”

  “You talked to Gioninni?”

  “That depends how you define ‘talked to,’” Tanya replied. “The message was conveyed in unmistakable terms. I told you it would be a good idea for Gioninni to watch Smythe because that meant Smythe would start watching Gioninni. There may be no honor among thieves, but there is competition.”

  “Thanks, Tanya. For everything.”

  “If you want to thank me, get your head out of the past, focus on the present, and get your butt back here in one piece . . . sir.”

  • • •

  THERE were always too many things to do and too little time to do them in.

  And yet, as Geary walked restlessly through Dauntless on the day prior to transferring to Inspire, he found himself at the worship compartments. He paused, thinking of all the tasks yet to accomplish, then walked slowly to one of the small rooms that was currently vacant. He closed the door, shutting out the eyes of crew members, who were courteously pretending not to intru
de on his privacy, then sat down on the small wooden bench. On a shelf before him sat a candle, which he lit.

  The candle flickered in the slight draft caused by the compartment’s ventilation, light and shadows dancing on the walls. Geary stared at the flame, trying to see any hint of images or guidance within it. Everyone thinks I have some special knowledge, or special link to the living stars, but all I have is the hope that my ancestors will tell me things I need to know.

  All I have is what everyone else has, the hope that I’m doing the right thing.

  Am I?

  He tried to let his mind drift, open to anything that might enter. But despite his best efforts, he kept focusing on the upcoming mission. It must be a trap. I have to assume it’s a trap of some kind. Just as if I’m dealing with the Syndics, even though these aren’t the Syndics.

  What exactly triggered the memory that came to mind? His father, looking angry, as he had in life often enough to have taught young Geary to face the disapproval stoically. “Why didn’t you ask me?” his father had demanded.

  Geary felt a remembered chill inside as his ten-year-old self had answered. “I thought I knew what you wanted.” And you would have gotten angry at being asked.

  “Don’t assume! Don’t assume you know what I want!”

  He shook his head, coming back to the present, startled by the intensity of the memory. Don’t assume. Why did I remember that? I can’t even recall exactly what that was about. I just remember that it was something I had been sure was right, and it wasn’t.

  Was that a message?

  Geary looked at the flame. All right, Father. Maybe you’ve unbent enough in the light of the living stars to explain, something you rarely did when alive. I forgave you for that a long time ago. It would be just like his father, though, to offer advice in the form of a lecture.

  Am I not to assume this mission is a trap? I have to. That’s the only safe option.