The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible

by Campbell, Jack

  Commander Benan stood rigidly by the table dominating the center of the room, his eyes wide like a trapped animal’s. “Sit down,” Geary said, realizing as he did so that the words had come out in the tones of an order.

  Benan hesitated, his eyes fixed on the bulkhead before him, then sat rigidly in the nearest chair.

  Geary sat down opposite Benan, keeping himself sitting erect, his hands resting on the table before him. There was nothing social about this meeting. It was purely professional. “Commander, you’ve been undergoing treatment since being liberated.”

  Benan nodded his head in a jerky motion but said nothing.

  “Medical is very concerned at your lack of progress.”

  Another nod and continued silence.

  “Is there anything I should know that is impacting your personal well-being, Commander? Anything that neither I nor medical staff is aware of?”

  The commander’s eyes went to Geary, meeting the admiral’s gaze, something odd hidden inside those eyes. “There is nothing I can say.” It came out haltingly.

  “Nothing you can say?” Geary felt a flash of anger. I’m trying to help. Why won’t he let me? “This isn’t a personal issue, no matter what you may think. It is professional. You are an officer under my authority, and I am responsible for your health and well-being.”

  “There is nothing I can say,” Benan repeated, his words sounding mechanical now.

  “I am the commander of this fleet,” Geary said, “and in that capacity and by that authority I hereby order you to tell me of anything that is complicating your medical treatment and recovery from prisoner-of-war conditions.”

  Benan seemed to stop breathing for a moment, then his mouth worked several times before words came. “The fleet commander. As the fleet commander, you order me to speak. Please repeat that.”

  “As the commander of this fleet I order you to speak,” Geary said again, wondering what was happening.

  Looking around, Benan paused to swallow. “We are alone. There are no recording devices active here.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Damn!” Benan swallowed again, this time convulsively, shooting to his feet. “I can talk. I can talk.” He wavered where he stood.

  “Sit down, Commander,” Geary ordered.

  Benan dropped into the chair again, his face working with emotions that changed too rapidly to read. “Yes, there is something inhibiting my treatment. I don’t know how, but it must be responsible somehow. But I must explain. Do you know what I did, Admiral? Before the Syndics captured me?”

  “You were a fleet officer,” Geary answered. “Your record is a good one. Reliable, courageous, smart.”

  Benan gasped a short laugh. “That was who I used to be. Perhaps not the smart portion, though. No. A smart man wouldn’t have gotten involved in it.”

  “Involved in what, Commander? The war?”

  “We all had to get involved in the war.” Benan stared at a corner of the stateroom. “Except Vic. She shouldn’t have. It’s changed her, too. Vic never would have—” His voice choked off, and Benan reddened, trembling, but didn’t move otherwise, avoiding looking at Geary.

  Since there was nothing useful that Geary could think of to say, he waited patiently. I’m sorry I slept with your wife. We both thought you were dead. I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel any better. But you already know it put your wife through hell when she found out you might still be alive.

  After a long pause, Benan spoke again. “I can tell you. Because if a fleet commander orders me to speak, I have to respond. If we are alone, with no witnesses.”

  “Are you saying that some order bound you from saying anything before this?”

  “It wasn’t an order, Admiral,” Benan spat. “Have you been told about Brass Prince? Have they told Black Jack about Brass Prince?”

  “Brass Prince?” Geary mentally ran through the many classified project and plan names that he had seen since awakening from survival sleep. “I can’t recall hearing of that.”

  “You would remember if you had.” Benan’s voice had sunk to a whisper. “A very secret project undertaken by the Alliance government. Do you know what we were working on, Admiral? Biowarfare,” Commander Benan said, his voice barely audible now. “Strategic biological warfare. You might have believed that’s the one rule the Syndics and the Alliance didn’t break during the war. But the Alliance conducted some research.”

  “Strategic biological warfare?” Geary repeated, not believing what he was hearing.

  “Yes. Things able to wipe out the populations of entire planets. Things that could sit dormant inside human bodies long enough to be transported to other star systems before they became virulent, then wipe out populations so quickly that no countermeasures could be successful.” Benan’s hands shook. “Purely for defensive purposes, of course. That’s what everyone said. If we had that capability, the Syndics wouldn’t dare use a similar capability against us for fear of retaliation in kind. That’s what we told ourselves. Maybe it was true.”

  Geary realized that he had stopped breathing and slowly inhaled before speaking. “Does the Europa Rule still exist?”

  “Of course it does. But we were told that things had changed. That we needed to take into account new realities. The Syndics would do anything. Strategic biowarfare didn’t seem beyond them.”

  “But . . . the Europa Rule,” Geary said again, bewildered. “In my time, they showed vids of that in high school. To ensure everyone knew what happened. That colony moon in the Sol Star System wasn’t rendered uninhabitable for humans for all time by an attack. The pathogen was accidentally released by a so-called defense research facility on Europa. If it hadn’t been so virulent, caused death so quickly, it might have reached Earth itself before our ancestors realized what had happened.”

  “I know that! We all knew that!” Commander Benan glowered at the deck, then spoke in a more controlled fashion. “They still show the videos in school. Images, as clear as the day they were taken by surveillance cameras whose operators were already dead or by uncrewed probes sent down from space. The people on Europa lifeless, bodies strewn everywhere within the habitats. Some lying there peacefully, and others revealing final moments of panic and pain. If you’ve seen them, I’m sure you remember them as clearly as I do.”

  “I don’t know how anyone could forget them. And the afterimages?” Geary asked.

  “Yes. Centuries later, hallways and rooms still empty of life, filled only with the slowly crumbling remnants of those who had lived there.” Benan shook his head. “We were told that we were working to prevent that by having the capability to do it. Is it odd, Admiral, what humans can convince themselves makes sense?”

  “You were part of this?” Geary wondered if the revulsion he felt could be heard in his voice.

  Benan bared his teeth in a grimace. “For a while. But one of my ancestors was aboard one of the warships enforcing the quarantine of Europa. His ship intercepted and destroyed a merchant ship packed with refugees.”

  “That’s a hard memory to carry,” Geary said.

  “Harder than you think, Admiral. My ancestor knew that his sister’s family was aboard that ship. They might have already been dead from the plague, but he never knew. And I . . . now I was working on the same sort of hell project.” Benan slammed his fist down. “But I regained my sanity! I told them I would not work on it anymore. I told them it was criminal and insane, that it must be shut down.”

  “Did they?”

  “I don’t know. I was transferred out, given a fleet assignment.” Benan bared his teeth in a grimace. “Doubtless in the hope that I would die valiantly in action and take my secrets with me. We were sworn to secrecy, but when I was transferred I was also mentally programmed for it. Not just an order. A block. Did they have blocks in your time?”

  “Blocks?” What did personal configuration of communications have to do with— “What kind of blocks do you mean?”

  “Mental blocks. Inhibiti
ons implanted in the mind.”

  A memory finally flashed to the surface. “Mental blocks? But—Those are— They imposed a mental block on you?” Geary knew he sounded appalled again.

  “Yes. I could literally say nothing about it. I knew what was working at me, eating at my head. But I couldn’t say anything!” He yelled the last, then subsided again.

  Geary rubbed his mouth with one hand, trying to find words. “But the block allowed you to talk if ordered to.”

  “Only if ordered by a fleet commander. Because regulations required that. And only if no one else was present. Small risk there. What were the odds that a fleet commander would talk to me personally, that the commander would order me to talk about something of which they had no knowledge, and no one else would be with us when that question was asked?” Benan stared at Geary. “Did you know?”

  “No. I just had an instinct that I needed to talk to you alone. Something told me that was the right thing to do.”

  Benan nodded, much of the tension draining out of him, replaced by the slump of mental and emotional exhaustion. “Of course. Black Jack, sent by the living stars. As much as I hate you for what you did, they do seem to talk to you.”

  “I never claimed such a thing.” Geary thought about what Desjani had said, that Benan must have been tortured by the Syndics. “When you were a prisoner, did the Syndics find out anything about this?”

  “No.” Benan laughed bitterly. “Blocked. I told you it was all blocked. I couldn’t say anything. Not a thing. No matter what. No matter . . . what . . . they did.” His voice fell to a whisper again. “I can’t remember what they did.”

  Geary nodded to cover up his inability to find words again. “How can we help you now? What can we do?”

  “I have no idea.” Benan shrugged. “My fate isn’t important. I had to stop caring about me. Victoria. She’s all I care about.” His gaze on Geary tightened with anger, and Benan looked away again. “Something is driving her. Something she does not want to control her. It’s not you. I suspected that. It’s not.”

  “She recently finally told me that someone she wouldn’t or couldn’t name gave her some kind of orders before she joined us for this mission.”

  “She’s told me less than that,” Benan grumbled, then laughed. “You’d think I wasn’t judged stable enough to be trusted. What could anyone use to force Victoria Rione to do their bidding? She does not bend easily. What could buy her obedience and silence?”

  Geary felt a sudden ugly certainty fill him. “She has told me, and I believe it, that you and the Alliance are everything to her. I’ve been trying to understand what kind of lever someone could use against her. Maybe this is that lever. Maybe someone with knowledge of your involvement in Brass Prince has threatened to make it public unless she does what they say.”

  “Yes! I am sure that has to be it! I would be demonized! They would blame me for Brass Prince, say that I had conceived it and pushed it along until they shut it down! She thought me dead, unable to defend myself!” Benan trembled again with barely suppressed rage, but Geary realized with surprise that this time the rage was directed at Benan himself. “Victoria compromised herself, was blackmailed to protect the memory of me, of who Commander Paol Benan once was. And look at me, Admiral! Look at what I have become! For this ruin of a man, the only woman who matters in all the universe has compromised herself!”

  It all made sense, the pieces falling into place. He had no proof, only a growing certainty that this explained a number of previously inexplicable things. “You’re her Achilles’ heel, the one thing they could threaten to strike at that would force her do to what they wanted. But being who she is, she’s followed their orders in ways that probably haven’t furthered their aims. Do you think she knows who they are?”

  Benan shook his head as he stared at the deck. “If she knew, I think she would have gone after them.” He paused. “Or perhaps not. I am gradually learning that my wife can play the long game very well.”

  “When she first saw you, after we liberated you, I wondered if I had seen a flash of horror on her face,” Geary said. “Now I know why. With you alive, if this information was leaked, your reputation would not only be destroyed, but you’d also be brought up on war crimes charges.”

  “Yes. Charges I couldn’t deny or refute because I couldn’t say one word about it.” Benan stood up, his body rigid at attention. “There is a way out. You can free my wife, Admiral, and free me. You already have adequate grounds for sentencing me to die by firing squad. Do so. Once I am dead, declared a traitor, there is nothing else they can hold over Victoria.”

  Geary came to his feet as well, meeting Benan eye to eye. “I will not. You both deserve better.”

  “Have you understood nothing?”

  “I understand that handing them this victory would accomplish nothing. Dead, your memory could still be smeared, and you’d be unable to testify in your own defense if we can get that block lifted.”

  “But—”

  “Dammit, Commander! Think! You want me to execute you for treason? Or mutiny? A dead traitor? When your wife has already risked everything to protect your name and honor? That alone would destroy her. And if those charges are raised publicly, how many people would automatically believe a convicted traitor guilty as rumored? How many might accuse her of aiding and abetting in the crime?”

  Benan sat down again like a balloon man who had been suddenly deflated. “There’s no way out.”

  “There’s always a way out. We just have to find it.” He would do this. He owed it to this man.

  Perhaps Benan understood, his eyes sharpening on Geary. “You think to balance the scales?”

  “No. I can’t do that. But even if I had never met Victoria Rione, I would not allow this kind of thing to be done to a good officer. And if this Brass Prince project is still running, I need to do what I can to get it shut down. I need you for that.”

  Benan shook his head. “You cannot depend upon me. I am not the man I was. I can see myself do things and not control them.”

  “Perhaps there is something that can be done now that we know the problem,” Geary said. “I will pursue this. My orders to you, Commander, are to do everything in your power to remain stable. You can tell me what you need, and if that means telling me to lock you into solitary confinement in the brig, then tell me that.”

  “Admiral, I can’t even talk about that aspect of it! I can’t suggest things if those things are related to the block! Believe me, I have tried.”

  “I don’t have a block.” Geary stood up. “Since we are both convinced that your wife is aware of the blackmail charge that would be used against you, do you have any objection to my telling her the full truth?”

  “She is not cleared for that information,” Benan objected.

  “She’ll hear it from me.”

  Benan stood up, bracing himself on the table’s surface with rigid arms. “I will always hate you, Admiral.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Why didn’t you take her? You could have had anyone.”

  “She didn’t love me. She never did. There’s only one man Victoria Rione loves, one man she would sacrifice everything for, and that is you.”

  Commander Benan didn’t answer, his head bowed, tears falling to splash onto the hard surface of the table.

  Geary opened the hatch and stepped out, finding Rione and Desjani standing on opposite sides of the hatch. “I learned some answers.” He leaned very close to Rione, his lips next to her ear, his words barely audible. “Emissary Rione, your husband has a mental block implanted by security.” Her face went pale, then flushed with anger. “I think you know how that was justified, but if not, I will brief you privately.”

  He stepped back and looked toward Desjani, seeing her glaring at the hatch. “Is he safe now?” she asked.

  “No. But we may have found the key to helping him.”

  Rione paused partway into the room, looking back at Geary. “Help may still be e
xtraordinarily difficult. Thank you, Admiral.”

  She closed the hatch, leaving Desjani and Geary alone.

  “Did he—” Desjani began in formal tones.

  “No. He did not.” Geary shook his head. “I need to talk with your ship’s medical personnel, but I have a nasty suspicion that they won’t know what to do. Once we get out of jump space, I can talk to the senior fleet doctor. If anyone should be aware of the proper treatment, or able to learn what that is, it should be that doctor. Meanwhile, keep watching him. By his own admission, Commander Benan is not mentally or emotionally reliable or stable.”

  “Those damned Syndics,” Desjani muttered.

  “The Syndics didn’t do it to him, Tanya. The Alliance did.”

  She didn’t answer for a long moment. “Because it was necessary?” Desjani finally asked.

  “Yeah. One more thing that was ‘necessary’ to win but somehow didn’t lead to victory.”

  A few days later, Geary sat once again in the fleet command seat on the bridge of Dauntless, waiting for the moment when the fleet would exit the jump point at the white dwarf star. If this was another bear-cow-occupied star, they would face a tough fight if more fortresses guarded the jump points. If it was an enigma-controlled star, they might face a fight with the enigma forces that had gathered to pursue the human fleet the length of enigma territory. And coming on behind them would very probably be that bear-cow armada they had outmaneuvered at Pandora. “Maybe there’s no one there,” he said out loud.

  “That would be a nice option,” Desjani agreed.

  At the back of the bridge, both Rione and Charban waited. Around the bridge, the different watch-standers stood ready. On Geary’s display, which in jump space could only show the status of Dauntless herself, the battle cruiser glowed in combat-ready status, shields at maximum and all weapons ready.

  “Ten seconds to exit,” Lieutenant Castries announced. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

  The universe lurched, and Geary felt the disorientation that accompanied leaving jump. He struggled to recover, focusing on the display, where the gray nothingness of jump space had been replaced by the star-filled darkness of normal space.