The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible

by Campbell, Jack

  Geary sat, looking at nothing for a while after Captain Smythe’s image departed. Being forced to acquire raw materials from Syndic sources, to acquire anything from Syndic sources, was a bad position to be in. The only good thing about it was that the Syndic CEO he had dealt with at Midway had given the impression of being . . . he couldn’t say trustworthy, not when it came to a Syndic CEO. That would be ridiculous. But CEO Gwen Iceni had struck him as pragmatic enough to know how important good relations were and how important his fleet would be to the safety of her star system.

  Though if the fleet got to Midway too late after the enigmas did, there might well be no Syndics at all left there to deal with.

  FOURTEEN

  “WE have to be prepared to fight our way through Hua,” Geary said to the assembled ship commanding officers of his fleet.

  They looked back at him, some determined, some resigned at the prospect, none of them looking enthusiastic.

  Captain Badaya had a dissatisfied expression as he glowered at the star display above the conference table. “Why can’t the Bu—the spider-wolves tell us anything about the enigma defenses at Hua?” He turned his scowl, now accusing, toward where Emissary Rione and General Charban sat.

  Rione gave Badaya back a look of bland authority. “It can be very challenging for humans to comprehend the meanings of even other humans who have different perspectives and experiences. Such as, say, military and civilians. We are still trying to establish basic concepts in communicating with the spider-wolves. We are far from their being able to enumerate information that specific.”

  “Captain Badaya,” Charban said, his own tones using the familiar delivery of one officer speaking to another to subtly emphasize his comradeship with the military here, “if my assessments of the military nature of the spider-wolves are correct, they are not an aggressive species. Anyone who attacks them will quickly learn the error of their ways, as we can see from the state of this star system, which they use as a defensive barrier; but I am confident that they do not attack. That would mean that the enigmas, who have much more extensive experience with the spider-wolves than we do, would not feel the need for massive defenses at Hua. The enigmas would know that such defenses would be superfluous.”

  “They might have just picket forces?” Captain Bradamont suggested. “Sentries? Like lions facing off against sharks. The lions would know that if they go into the shark environment, they’re going to get chewed up, but they wouldn’t worry much about the sharks coming after them.”

  “They would still need some defenses,” Captain Tulev pointed out. “Perhaps not major defenses, but something. Defenses are many times driven by perception of threat, not the reality, and we know that the enigmas personify the concept of paranoia.”

  Geary nodded. “We’re assuming something in the way of strong defenses, but not something too tough for us to handle.”

  Captain Duellos was eyeing the display. “If our assessments are right, and the enigmas are sending a strong strike force against the Syndic-controlled star Midway, then they will have collected available ships for that mission. We should not encounter much in the way of enigma warships at Hua.”

  “Yes,” Badaya agreed. “If the enigma fleet is on its way to Midway, it won’t be waiting for us at Hua. But it would still be nice to know,” he added with forced sarcasm and another glare toward Rione, “at least whether or not the enigmas had a hypernet gate at Hua!”

  Charban shook his head. “The spider-wolves either won’t or can’t tell us that.”

  “As I told you earlier,” Geary said, “the six spider-wolf ships with us will not aid in any action against the enigmas. They might consider providing that kind of information as being such aid. But that leaves us in no worse shape than we were when we sailed through enigma territory the first time. We’ll arrive at Hua, see what’s there, and head for Pele. We will plan an automated evasive maneuver for the fleet to use at Hua just in case the enigmas have a conventional minefield in place there.”

  Commander Neeson rapped his hand on the table as a thought struck him, the software obligingly adding in the sound even though he had actually hit a table on his own ship. “The enigmas have faster-than-light comms. When we go through Hua, they can warn their attack force headed for Midway that we’re coming.”

  Badaya shrugged. “So then they’ll wait for us at Pele, and we’ll beat them there.”

  “If the enigmas want to fight at Pele, we’ll fight them there,” Geary agreed. “There’s nothing we can do about the enigma ability to warn their attack force that we’re on the way, but that does emphasize the need for us to move as fast as we can to get to Midway.”

  “Admiral,” Captain Jane Geary said, “if we detached the captured superbattleship, we could make more speed.”

  Admiral Lagemann had been invited to the meeting this time, and many officers looked toward him, while others looked toward Geary.

  “My ship is a pig,” Lagemann agreed. “The engineers are not ready to risk powering up the cores yet, and the main propulsion units are mangled, so we couldn’t move even if we did have power. But we can defend ourselves if anyone tries to board us.”

  “Not very well,” General Carabali objected. “You only have a company of Marines aboard. I’d like to at least double that.”

  “The temporary life support we rigged on the BKS can’t handle that many extra bodies,” Captain Smythe objected.

  “Can your engineers add more life-support capability?” Geary asked.

  “They could. I’d have to haul them off other high-priority tasks to do that.”

  “My engineers,” Carabali said, “can break out portable landing-force life-support gear intended for operations on hostile surfaces. That can take care of the extra requirements.”

  Smythe frowned in thought. “Can I see the specifications on that gear, General? I don’t doubt your assessment, but I’d like to know what we have in place.”

  “You wouldn’t object, then?” Geary said.

  “To using Marine equipment? No, Admiral. It’s designed to be compatible with fleet equipment, and General Carabali’s combat engineers know their trade.”

  “It’s nice to hear a fleet engineer admit that,” Carabali said. “If you approve this, Admiral, we’ll have it done before the fleet leaves this star system. The captured ship will have embarked two companies of Marines reinforced with some heavy-weapons detachments. No one will take that ship from us without a very stiff fight and a very powerful boarding force.”

  Commander Shen looked slightly more dissatisfied than usual. “I don’t object to the idea of reinforcing the Marines aboard the captured ship, but anyone trying to land such a boarding force will face a very stiff fight before they get there. Orion and her sister ships will not be easily overcome.”

  “I for one will feel very secure with eight battleships and two companies of Marines between me and any threat,” Admiral Lagemann commented. “And, of course, that superbattleship’s armor will be between my prize crew and any threat as well.”

  “Good. Let’s get that done,” Geary ordered.

  Jane Geary leaned forward. “Does that mean we’re detaching that ship under escort?”

  “No,” Geary said firmly, “or at least not yet. That captured ship is of immense value. I’d have to detach half of the fleet to escort it, and until I have a better idea of what the enigmas have available in terms of warships, and whether we’re going to meet them at Pele, I don’t want to split the fleet.”

  “Not before we make it through Hua,” Tulev agreed.

  Geary was about to end the meeting when Desjani leaned close to him. “Ask Roberto Duellos to stay. You should talk with him.”

  He covered his surprise, nodding in reply, then gestured to Duellos to stand by before nodding to the rest of his ship commanders. “That is all. We’ll be ready for a fight wherever the enigmas try to meet us.”

  Images of officers disappeared in a flurry, the apparent size of the compartment dwindli
ng with each departure so that for a moment the illusion of contracting bulkheads actually felt threatening.

  Rione and Charban, who, like Desjani, had been physically present, stood up, both wearing resigned expressions. “We’ll get in touch with the spider-wolves again. Back to trying to understand strange ways of thinking,” Charban commented.

  “If you want to go into politics,” Rione replied, “you have to get used to that. But it does get old at times. If you will excuse us, Admiral.”

  Desjani waited until they had left, and only she, Geary, and the virtual presence of Duellos remained. “I think you boys need a play- date.”

  “Excuse me?” Geary said.

  “You’ve been talking to me a lot. A certain fleet commander should share his worries with someone besides a certain battle cruiser captain to ensure he gets more than one point of view. You know that Captain Duellos can be trusted with anything. And, Roberto, you’ve been talking to me about what’s eating at you since you came back from leave, and I’ve been telling you to talk to Jack a bit. For the love of your ancestors, listen to me this time.”

  “Jack?” Duellos asked.

  “You know who I mean. The admiral,” Desjani added, giving comic emphasis to the rank. “Now excuse me so you can talk about me, too, if you need to.”

  Duellos grinned and bowed to her as Desjani left. “What did you do to deserve her?”

  “I don’t deserve her,” Geary said. “I guess you and I have our orders.”

  “I have often thought that admirals should have a voice at hand ready and willing to inform them of their own fallibility,” Duellos said. “In Tanya, you actually have such a voice.”

  “Which,” Geary said, “sometimes gets pretty forceful when I don’t listen to her. What is Tanya worried about?”

  “You and me, I suppose.” Duellos turned to look back toward where the images of the other officers had sat. “And Jane Geary, though that one won’t talk. She still appears to be champing at the bit for glory, however.”

  “I’ve noticed. Believe me.” Geary sat down and gestured Duellos to a seat. “Relax. I guess this is a personal counseling session even though neither one of us requested it.”

  “That’s what friends are for.” Duellos sighed as he sat down, somehow looking older than Geary remembered from the last time he had seen him, a few days before.

  “What’s the matter?” Geary asked. “We’re heading home.”

  “And I should be as happy as everyone else.” Duellos shrugged, his expression reflecting uncertainty. “I went home during our brief period of celebration after the war. It felt odd.”

  “Odd?”

  “You haven’t been home to Glenlyon.”

  “No. You know what that would be like. Kosatka was bad enough.”

  Duellos nodded. “The hero out of legend coming home. I confess I went home not only expecting to have my family rejoicing but expecting to hear praise for all the fleet had done. ‘Good job, Roberto.’ That sort of thing. Nothing effusive. Just ‘good job.’” But the mood was very different, Admiral. Very different.”

  “I don’t understand,” Geary said.

  “It’s over.” Duellos paused, thinking. “That’s how it felt. It’s over. Not, hurrah we won! Not, welcome the heroes home! But, it’s over. There’s a big training base on Catalan. It can handle twenty thousand inductees at a time. For the last century, Fort Cinque has taught countless draftees how to march and obey orders, with varying degrees of success. I went by it, Admiral. It was closed.”

  “They are shutting it down?” Geary asked, thinking that such a move made sense.

  “No. What they did the day after they heard the war was over was to simply give every draftee there a ticket home. They hustled them out the gate that same day, then the instructors and the guards and the maintenance workers and everyone else followed, and before sunset the base commander left last and locked the gate behind him.” Duellos looked at Geary, his expression hard to read. “For a century, tens of thousands of men and women went through that fort. It was a part of their lives, a part of history. And the day after they knew the war was over, it was simply shut down.”

  “Is that what they are doing with everything?” Geary asked.

  “Pretty much. Bases being shut down everywhere, local defense forces mustered out as fast as the paperwork can go through, military-related contracts being canceled, equipment being mothballed or simply scrapped. It’s not so much a demobilization or a downsizing of the military effort as it is a dismantling of everything.” Duellos smiled bitterly. “We went to some gatherings, my wife and I. And those we met didn’t ask what I’d done. They asked if I’d seen you. But otherwise they just said, ‘What will you do now?’ Now that the war was over, and fleet officers aren’t needed.”

  Geary remembered the special forces troops he had met on Umbaru Station at Varandal, themselves wondering what they would do now that special forces troops weren’t needed in anything like the numbers once required. It would have been different if the war had been much shorter, five or even ten years. Not long enough to have become a way of life for those engaged in it. But as Duellos had said, these were people whose entire lives had been about the war. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Duellos said. “I’m a fleet officer. It’s what I grew up expecting to be. It’s all I’ve ever done. I expected to die at some distant star, battling the Syndics, or perhaps at some Alliance border star system, throwing back a Syndic offensive. If by some miracle I survived long enough to retire, I would go home and watch more men and women go off to war. It’s been that way for a century. I didn’t expect it to ever end. We had all stopped believing that it would ever end. But it did end.” He raised a hand, fingers curled as if he held a glass, in a toast and salute to Geary. “And now they don’t want fleet officers.”

  “Not as many fleet officers,” Geary said, “but the need—”

  “No, Admiral. They don’t want fleet officers. They are sick of war, of sending off their young men and women to disappear into the maw of war, of broken bodies coming home, of the wealth of their world being consumed by war.” Duellos shrugged again. “How can I blame them? And yet, now so many of us who always had a purpose no longer have that purpose.”

  What could he say? Geary looked down for a while, trying to find words, then back at Duellos. “How does your wife feel?”

  “Grateful that I came home alive. Grateful that no more of our children will be sent off to die in an endless war. Perplexed at the melancholy with which I confronted a world changed beyond recognition, a world in which what I am became obsolete in the blink of an eye.” Duellos shook his head, gloom showing. “It’s been wearing on me. Peace is good. The cost of war is so terrible. But I know nothing of peace. I’ve been molded for war. I hate war. I hate the death, I hate knowing more will die, I hate being away from those I love, but . . . but it is what I know. Everyone back home wishes to put it all behind them as fast as possible, to forget it happened, but when they forget the awful things, they also forget the sacrifices, the deeds done by those they sent off to fight. They don’t want to hear about that now. And I simply don’t know what I am supposed to be now that what I am has ceased to be wanted.”

  Geary looked away, trying to think of what to say. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, Admiral,” Duellos said. “You did what you should do. You did what legend said you would.” He paused and looked closely at Geary. “But the legend never said what Black Jack would do after he saved the day, did it?”

  “I don’t know. I never wanted to hear about the legend.”

  “Tanya and I have talked about it. It’s something we never realized even though we grew up being told that legend. It never had a ‘happily ever after’ or anything like that. Black Jack would save us, then . . .” Duellos looked at Geary again. “It doesn’t say. The story just ends. Now we face the reality. Is there still a need for Black Jack? How many people still want Black Jack?�
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  “I don’t exactly want to be Black Jack, remember?” Geary replied. “And you know about the popular movements to make me run things back home, to take over the government and ‘fix’ it, whatever that means, or somehow miraculously root out all of the corruption and misdeeds that plague any form of government. People want that.”

  “Do they?” Duellos asked. “They say that, but what if you were actually given those tasks? How long would it take for the hero to develop feet of clay?”

  “The hero has always had feet of clay,” Geary replied. “It would be a relief for me if people stopped thinking I should step in and save the day. It wouldn’t break my heart to just . . . just . . .”

  He paused to order his thoughts. To just what?

  “Roberto,” Geary said slowly, “you know I wasn’t thrilled to have to assume command of the fleet back when it was trapped by the Syndics. You know that I never liked the Black Jack legend. For some time, I consoled myself by thinking that I would get the fleet home, then I would go somewhere and . . . hide. Just go away, to somewhere where no one had ever heard of Black Jack. Winning the war wasn’t my job just because the government had dreamed up some stupid myth about me being the hero to end all heroes.”

  “But you changed your mind,” Duellos said, pretending to be examining the imaginary wine in the imaginary wineglass he was still pretending to hold.

  “Tanya made me realize that I couldn’t do that.” Geary sat looking glumly downward for a moment. “I knew it couldn’t happen. I had a job to do. But the government never really wanted Black Jack. You know that. They wanted the legend to help inspire the fleet and the people of the Alliance. But they didn’t want a real person. Ever since I stepped into that legend, I’ve been someone that the people who created the legend want to get rid of.”

  Duellos eyed Geary, then actually pretended to set down the wineglass before leaning forward. “And here we are, you and me and a lot of other people who aren’t needed or wanted anymore. What a coincidence that we should be sent deep into territory unknown to the human race, on a mission whose level of danger was very literally unable to be calculated.”