Valiant tlf-4

by Jack Campbell

  “What the hell are Brilliant and Inspire doing?” Desjani demanded of no one in particular.

  Geary looked. The two battle cruisers had broken away from their formation and from Opportune, the other battle cruiser in their division, and were accelerating toward intercepts with the two Syndic battleships. His anger at the costs of this engagement flared up again. We’ve already lost enough ships today, but those idiots are ignoring my orders and going one-on-one with battleships.

  “They’ll get there well ahead of us,” Desjani protested, her disappointment clear. “But why? They can’t take down even one of those battleships on their own.”

  “No,” Geary agreed. He tapped his controls harder than usual. “Brilliant, Inspire, this is Captain Geary. Break off your firing run on the pair of Syndic battleships.”

  He waited. He checked the distance and how much time it would take his message to reach those two battle cruisers and for an answer to come. But no reply came, and both battle cruisers continued on their charge. Then he realized that Opportune had come around and was trying to catch up with Brilliant and Inspire as she also headed for an intercept of the Syndic battleships. This time he needed several slow breaths to calm himself before calling the ships again. “Brilliant, Inspire, and Opportune, you are ordered to immediately break off your firing pass on the two Syndic battleships.”

  More time passed as Echo Four One lined up for its own run on the Syndic battleships. “There’s not enough time to get another message to them,” Desjani noted.

  Geary felt his jaw hurting and tried to relax it as he watched three battle cruisers conducting a senseless charge against superior forces.

  Brilliant and Inspire shot past the two Syndic battleships, concentrating their fire on one of the battleships and passing close enough to unleash their null fields as well as hell lances and what must be their last grapeshot. The shields on the targeted battleship flared repeatedly but held until the second null field penetrated enough to take a chunk out of one propulsion unit and slow the battleship.

  But the Syndics had also concentrated their heavier fire, and Brilliant staggered away with very serious damage, its own propulsion systems shot up and most weapons out of commission.

  Then Opportune came in alone, one battle cruiser facing the fire of two battleships. Syndic hell lances crashed the Alliance battle cruiser’s shields, then ripped into Opportune. Only momentum saved the ship as she tumbled away from the Syndic warships, horribly damaged.

  “If Opportune’s commanding officer is still alive, I’m going to kill him,” Geary vowed, thinking of how many Alliance sailors must have just died on that ship for no reason.

  “Six months ago I might have applauded him,” Desjani remarked in wondering tones. “Now I see how senseless it was. What’s the point of bravery that only aids the enemy in destroying you?” Her voice changed, hardening. “All right, Dauntless,” she called out to her bridge, “let’s make those Syndics sorry for what they did to Opportune.”

  The three battle cruisers had weakened the shields on the Syndic battleships, though taking much worse harm in exchange. The warships of Echo Four One now hit the Syndics over and over again as the formation raced past, knocking the battleships’ shields out completely, the four Alliance battleships with Echo Four One administering the death-blows that turned one of the Syndic battleships into drifting wreckage and knocked out most of the systems on the other. “All warships in Echo Four One, general pursuit. Break formation and engage targets of opportunity.” Geary switched to an internal circuit. “Lieutenant Iger, I want to know if any of the escape pods out there hold any Syndic CEOs. See what you can find out.”

  It had been a messy, painful battle. But the Alliance fleet had still paid far less than the Syndics. As he watched the wreck of Opportune tumble through space, Geary couldn’t find much comfort in that.

  ELEVEN

  “We can’t save Opportune.” Captain Tyrosian shook her head unhappily. “Too much damage, too many systems out. Even if you wanted to tow her, we’d have to linger here for several days reinforcing damaged parts of the hull, or the ship would break apart.”

  Geary checked a report that he’d already brought up, listing casualties in the fleet. Opportune’s commanding officer and executive officer were dead, along with close to 40 percent of the rest of her crew. He looked at the deck for a moment, not having to fight down anger now because he was filled with despair at the waste. Then he nodded. “We’ll scuttle her. Get anything off her that we can pull off easily and that we’ll need for the other battle cruisers. You’ve got four hours while the rest of the crew is evacuated.”

  “Yes, sir. What about Braveheart?” Tyrosian asked. “We’re not sure why she’s still in one piece and expect what’s left to come apart at the first stress, but I have to ask.”

  “Yeah. We’ll blow up Braveheart, too.” The scout battleship division was now down to a single ship, Exemplar. “How about the other badly damaged ships?”

  Tyrosian frowned as she looked to one side, checking reports on her own display. “Heavy cruisers Gusset and Schischak are already under way again though they won’t be combat-capable for a while, and Gusset really needs a major yard period to repair her damage. Light cruiser Caltrop has lost a lot of systems but can keep up with the fleet. Four of the battle cruisers, Courageous, Illustrious, Brilliant, and Intrepid, have a lot of damage. Courageous and Brilliant in particular are barely combat-capable, but we’ve repaired enough propulsion units on them.”

  “Thank you, Captain Tyrosian.” Geary slumped backward as Tyrosian’s image vanished, thinking about the fact that of the four battle cruisers Tyrosian had just mentioned, three were commanded by senior captains who were also in charge of battle-cruiser divisions. Clearly the old spirit of damn the grapeshot, full speed ahead was still alive and well even among people he thought knew better by now. At least the fact that the Alliance fleet had retained possession of the field of battle allowed those ships to be recovered. If the fleet had been forced to retreat, all four of those battle cruisers would have been lost, too.

  His stateroom hatch alert chimed, and Captain Desjani entered, looking worn but triumphant. Geary had to remember that by the standards of battles in the last several decades even this victory he thought of as costly was actually quite cheap. “We’ve got a Syndic CEO, Captain Geary,” Desjani reported. “Not the one in overall command, who died on one of the battle cruisers that blew up, but her second in command.”

  “I guess we should be grateful that a Syndic commander who made so few mistakes won’t be around to fight anymore,” Geary noted. “How badly was Dauntless hurt?”

  Desjani’s triumph faded into pain. “Twenty-five dead, three others critically injured, but we hope we can save them. We lost an entire hell-lance battery, and I’m not sure we can get it working again no matter how much duct tape and prayer we use.”

  Geary nodded, feeling a little numb. “If you want anyone off Opportune to make up for Dauntless’s losses, let me know.”

  This time Desjani grimaced. “Opportune is a write-off? Damn. I saw that her captain is dead.”

  “Thanks to following the example of Captains Caligo and Kila on Brilliant and Inspire,” Geary added bitterly.

  “If I may ask, sir, what are you thinking of doing about that?”

  He gave her a searching look. It sounded like Desjani had carefully phrased her question. “I have a nasty suspicion that you’re going to tell me that the fleet thinks they did something admirable.”

  Desjani hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, sir. Closing on the enemy with no regard for the odds, that sort of thing. In the eyes of the fleet, they were justified in disregarding your orders.”

  “Meaning the fleet would be appalled if I disciplined them.” Geary shook his head. “I thought …”

  “That we’d learned?” Desjani asked. “We are learning, sir. But we need to keep that spirit of being willing to fight no matter what, too. And you know how hard it can be to chan
ge what you believe in. This is the opposite of what Casia and Yin did. They disobeyed orders so they could avoid battle. Caligo and Kila disobeyed orders so they could fight. Everyone condemned Casia and Yin, but if you try to treat Caligo and Kila as if they did the same, very few will agree with you. I respectfully suggest you tread carefully in dealing with them, sir.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for the good advice.” A very-high-profile action during a battle, one designed to draw admiration from the fleet as a whole, and one which lured a fellow ship to its destruction as the price of that admiration. He didn’t like where that line of thought led, that Caligo’s and Kila’s behavior bore some disturbing resemblances to the thinking of whoever had planted worms in the fleet. But that wasn’t even close to being evidence of their involvement in that sabotage. He needed to think this through, discuss it with Rione. “It’s not like I didn’t make plenty of mistakes myself this time.”

  Desjani frowned at him. “The first pass didn’t work out perfectly, but everything else went right.” He didn’t answer, and she frowned deeper. “Sir, you keep telling me that you’re not perfect, but right now I can tell that you’re condemning yourself for not being perfect. With all due respect, you’re being inconsistent and overly hard on yourself.”

  For some reason Geary found himself smiling crookedly at her. “With all due respect? How would you say that if you weren’t being respectful?”

  “I’d tell you that you were being an idiot and that you can’t afford to let a misstep destroy your confidence. Sir. Which of course I’m not saying.”

  “Because that wouldn’t be respectful?” Geary asked. “It sounds like something I should listen to, though. Thanks. Where’s this Syndic CEO?”

  “His escape pod was picked up by Kururi, which is bringing him to Dauntless.”

  “Good. Please ask Lieutenant Iger to let me know when our visitor is ready for a chat with me. I’d like you there, too.” Desjani nodded. “And Co-President Rione.”

  Desjani’s expression closed down completely. “Yes, sir.”

  He’d figured out that when Desjani said “yes, sir” to him, it could mean a lot of different things, but agreement wasn’t one of them. “Tanya, she’s an important ally. She understands things we don’t. She’s a politician. This Syndic we’re going to be dealing with is also a politician.”

  “So they speak the same language,” Desjani stated in a way that made it clear that she thought Rione and the Syndic CEO shared many other qualities. “I understand why she might be useful, then. I will inform Lieutenant Iger of your wishes, sir.”

  The Syndic CEO in the interrogation room was doing his best to put up a good front, doubtless worried that video of him might be broadcast to the Syndicate Worlds for propaganda purposes. His impeccably tailored uniform bore signs of the CEO’s escape from his last ship, and his appearance was rumpled even though his haircut still looked like it had cost as much as a destroyer. Geary glanced at Lieutenant Iger. “Find out anything?”

  Iger nodded, a small smile showing. “Yes, sir. He didn’t say anything, of course, but I tracked his reactions, including his brain scans as he listened to my questions. He denied knowing anything about an alien intelligence, but I saw fear spikes when I asked.”

  “Fear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Iger repeated firmly. “No doubt at all. This CEO, at least, is frightened of those things.”

  “Are we sure it’s not the question that frightened him?” Rione asked. “The possibility that he might give away a very important secret?”

  “Or just that we know enough to ask the question,” Desjani added.

  Iger nodded respectfully to both women. “I asked the question different ways, Madam Co-President, and watched exactly what parts of his brain lit up. Captain Desjani, his nervousness did increase a great deal when I started asking those questions, but that registered differently than just concern over us knowing. See these records?” The lieutenant tapped controls and brought up images of the Syndic CEO’s brain, images that hovered in the air before them. “See here? That’s the area concerned with personal safety. This area reacts to deception planning, which is when he’s working out a lie. You can see how as I asked variations on the questions, his reactions differed.” The images flared and dimmed in different areas. “He’s got a very deep-seated fear when the topic is raised, something that triggers some of the most ancient portions of the human mind.”

  “Fear of the unknown, fear of the stranger?” Geary asked.

  “That sort of thing, yes, sir,” Iger agreed.

  “But outwardly he’s claiming to know nothing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Geary looked over at Rione and Desjani. “I think I should go in there and talk to him. Lieutenant Iger can monitor his reactions. Should one or both of you go with me?”

  Desjani shook her head. “I’d rather watch from here, sir. It’s hard enough to keep from busting through that wall and locking my hands around the neck of that Syndic bastard as it is.”

  Rione frowned, though in thought rather than directing the expression at Desjani. “I think you should try just you first, Captain Geary. One-on-one, he may be a little more prone to speak. If it seems right, I can always come in and apply whatever pressure or encouragement an Alliance politician can add.”

  “All right.” Iger came close to him and, with a mumbled apology, carefully attached something tiny behind one of Geary’s ears. “What’s that?”

  “A short-range comm link operating on a frequency that won’t interfere with the interrogation equipment,” Iger explained. “We’ll provide you with whatever the equipment shows of the Syndic’s reactions as you speak to him. It’s effectively invisible, though if the CEO knows anything at all about interrogations, he’ll assume you’ve got a link to whoever is monitoring him.”

  A few seconds later, Geary stepped into the interrogation room, sealing the hatch behind him. The CEO sat in one of the two chairs the room boasted, both fastened securely to the deck. As Geary walked toward him, the CEO stood up, his movements abrupt with fear. “I am an officer of the Syndicate Worlds, and—”

  Geary held up one hand palm out in a forestalling gesture, and the CEO broke off his speech but remained standing. “I’ve heard variations on that plenty of times,” Geary informed the CEO. “It doesn’t seem to have changed much in the last century.”

  That made the CEO twitch slightly in spite of himself. “I’m aware that you have identified yourself as Captain John Geary, but—”

  “But, nothing,” Geary broke in. “I know your superiors have already done a positive ID on me and confirmed who I am.” He sat down, trying to look totally confident, and gestured the CEO to sit again. After a moment, the CEO did, his body staying stiff. “It’s past time we stopped playing games, CEO Cafiro. These particular games have cost both the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds terribly in terms of lives lost and resources wasted in a war you can’t hope to win.”

  “The Syndicate Worlds will not yield,” the CEO insisted.

  “And neither will the Alliance. After almost a century, I assume everybody has figured that one out. So what’s the point? What are you fighting for, CEO Cafiro?”

  Cafiro gave Geary a worried look. “For the Syndicate Worlds.”

  “Really?” Geary leaned forward slightly. “Then why are you doing what the alien intelligence on the other side of Syndicate Worlds’ space wants you to do?”

  The CEO stared at Geary. “There isn’t any such thing.”

  Lie, Lieutenant Iger’s voice came to Geary like a whisper in his ear.

  He hadn’t really needed that to know it was a lie. “I won’t bother going through all of the evidence we’ve acquired. Some of it the Syndicate Worlds probably aren’t aware of.” Let the Syndic CEO worry about that. “But we know they’re there, and we know the Executive Council of the Syndicate Worlds made a deal with them to attack the Alliance, and we know the aliens double-crossed your Executive Council and instead left you to fight us
alone.” That all added up to a lot of educated guesses rather than known facts, but Geary wasn’t going to admit uncertainty at this point.

  The Syndic stared back at him, and even Geary could spot the outward signs of his distress without the help of Iger’s equipment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Partial lie, but he also seemed shocked when you mentioned the double cross. He may not have been aware of that.

  Geary gave the Syndic CEO a doubtful look and shook his head. “I understand your name is Niko Cafiro. Second Level Executive Grade. That’s fairly high-ranking.” CEO Cafiro watched Geary with obvious wariness but stayed silent. “High-ranking enough to be second in command of the flotilla we destroyed in this star system.” This time the Syndic’s eyes reflected anger and fear. “We’ve pretty much evened the odds, CEO Cafiro,” Geary stated. “The Syndicate Worlds can’t confront us with overwhelming superiority right now. We’ve destroyed too many of your ships in the last few months.”

  He’s hiding something, Iger’s voice whispered. When you spoke of how many ships the Syndics had, it triggered a cascade of mental reactions.

  Meaning what? That more Syndic ships than expected were actually out there, or that this CEO was just thinking about the battles in which the Syndics had lost so many ships and not wanting to show any reaction that might confirm Geary’s statement? “We’re close to the border with the Alliance,” Geary continued. “A few more jumps, and we’ll be in a Syndicate Worlds’ border system. From there we’ll get home.”

  That finally drew an overt reaction. “Your fleet will be destroyed.”

  “I’m going to get this fleet home,” Geary repeated evenly.

  “Everything the Syndicate Worlds has left will meet you in one of the border star systems and stop you,” Cafiro insisted, though his voice lacked conviction. “This fleet won’t make it back to Alliance space.”