The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast (5 page)

“Did she?” Geary sat back, glaring at Rione. “She appears to have rendered very valuable aid to Tanya and me, but Lady Vitali didn’t strike me as the sort to just be used by people.”

“You’re absolutely right about that,” Rione agreed, examining her fingernails as she spoke. “She, or rather her government, doubtless intends using us as well. They help us, we help them.”

“So you trusted her, and who knows how many other people on Old Earth, with a code name that was only supposed to be shared among us.”

Rione raised an eyebrow at him. “Trust has nothing to do with it. Self-interest is the factor here. You can rarely go wrong depending on that. You had a demonstration of that on your trip back to this ship, didn’t you? Lady Vitali’s government saw just how useful we can be to them when your captain annihilated those Shield of Sol ships. So, if Lady Vitali’s friends learn anything more about those craft that tried to interrupt your shuttle trip, or learn anything from the surviving assassins who were after you on the ground, they will let us know so that, in the munificence of our gratitude, we might offer more favors in return.”

Surviving
assassins? He wondered if Lady Vitali was personally deadly enough to have helped take down the attackers, or if she just controlled events and directed others from behind that friendly smile. “The favor we need the most at the moment is information about Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon.”

“I know. I’ve already asked all of my contacts for anything they can find out. Even if it is something that officially their governments won’t admit to, they’ll tell me.”

For reasons he didn’t quite understand, Geary believed that Rione’s confident statement was right. “All of your contacts? Just how many contacts did you establish with how many governments?”

Another wave of her hand, this one careless. “Oh . . . ten . . . twenty . . . something like that. I haven’t had much time to work.”

Geary shook his head in open amazement. “Every time I think I’ve figured you out and know exactly what you’re capable of, you surprise me with something else.”

“I’m a woman, Admiral.”

“I don’t think that entirely explains it.” Geary tapped the controls on the table between them, bringing up an image of Sol Star System, the planets and minor planets and multitudes of smaller objects tagged with names out of the distant past. Venus. Mars. Jupiter. Luna. Callisto. Europa, whose doom still haunted the rest of human space. And Old Earth herself. “I hope they can help find our lieutenants, but beyond that, what good does the Alliance think agents working for one small part of one planet can do for us? In the Alliance, none of those governments still ruling over portions of Old Earth would count for anything. They’re far too small and far too weak.”

Rione looked annoyed. “Our enemies are already at work here. Hopefully, they aren’t involved with the matter of your missing officers, but regardless, I want to know who told those Shield of Sol ships to attack us, and who paid for assassins and stealth spacecraft, and who spied on our movements and attempted a few other tricks that our various hosts managed to block or frustrate. Aside from that, you’re military. You know the importance of certain places, an importance that is based on factors that may have nothing to do with equations of physical strength and power.
Any
place on Old Earth carries a lot of leverage inside the Alliance. I don’t know all the ways we can use that. But I know I can use it in ways others may not expect. Any individual who can claim backing from Old Earth, leaving aside little matters like how small a portion of Old Earth that backing actually comes from, will gain additional prestige in the Alliance from that alone, perhaps enough so to give him a crucial edge.”

Geary leaped to his feet, his angry gaze fixed down on her. “Him? You mean me. Backing from Old Earth? For what purpose? What the hell makes you think you can use
me
?”

She looked up at him steadily, cool and unruffled. “I have no intention of trying to use you. The last thing you need is for someone to be trying to guide you in the right political moves. Your greatest strengths are your lack of political ambition and your refusal to even think about political tactics.”

“I’m doing what any good officer would do!”

Her smile was mocking. “I can name a dozen senior fleet officers off the top of my head who reached their exalted ranks by using political tactics and would be pursuing more political tactics right now if they were in your shoes. Tactics such as cultivating relationships with the likes of Senator Costa, Senator Suva, and Senator Sakai.”

“But not you?” Geary demanded.

“Me? I’d be a liability. All you would want me for is a scapegoat.” She waved him back. “Relax. I never wanted you to charge in and take over the Alliance, remember? The Alliance doesn’t need someone who thinks he or she is the savior of us all.” Rione stood up as well, her eyes on the display, one finger rising to point toward Old Earth. “You’ve been there now. We’ve been there. We’ve seen the history of our ancestors firsthand. How much tragedy grew out of individuals certain that they had a special destiny or that they deserved to rule?”

He considered the question, his jaw tightening with frustration, then spun away from her and looked at the familiar starscape displayed on one bulkhead. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t think I’m someone like that, but a tremendous number of other people believe it. Senator Sakai thinks who I am could easily destroy the Alliance.”

“He’s right.” She made a helpless gesture, both hands partially raised as if anticipating defeat. “I don’t know what to do to save the Alliance. There are many forces working to tear it apart, and many people contributing to those forces either through greed or malice or hope or despair or good intentions. I don’t know how to counter the stresses built up by a century of war, and the debts from a century of war, and the simple and understandable but also naïve desires of many people to live as they wish without bowing to some distant authority, which they forget was created because its absence led to much worse things than its existence does. Senator Costa thinks she knows an answer built around an iron fist. Senator Suva still believes the answer lies in good intentions and everyone’s singing in harmony around a common campfire. Senator Sakai no longer believes there is an answer. But you . . .”

She shook her head, looking at him. “You aren’t wise enough to think you know the answer or wise enough to think you know there isn’t an answer. Which means you’re probably far wiser than the others. And you’re the most powerful piece on the board.”

“A piece you would, however, be willing to sacrifice,” Geary said.

“Only if necessary. And I would feel bad about it afterwards.”

He couldn’t help smiling at her sardonic reply. “You wouldn’t feel bad for long. Tanya would kill you.”

“Very likely, yes. Though I’m sure that your captain would prefer to have grounds for murdering me that didn’t involve your death.” Rione went back and sat down, rubbing her forehead with one hand. “I haven’t been able to figure out something that’s very important, and you’re the only person on this ship I can talk to about it. I was able to confirm from their reactions that all three of the senators on this ship know about the new warships being built despite public declarations that new construction was halted when the war ended. That means that Suva and Costa, who are ideological opposites, agreed to the project. What rationale convinced both of them that a new, secretly constructed armada was a smart idea?”

“They don’t see eye to eye on much,” Geary agreed, looking back at the depiction of Sol Star System. “But they appeared to find some common ground when the Dancers returned that man’s remains to Old Earth.”

“That won’t last,” Rione said. “More importantly, they both must have signed off on that secret armada some time ago, well before the Dancers gave them reason to rethink their attitudes toward others.”

“Senator Sakai voted for it, too, I think. Did they tell you who would command that secret force?”

Rione gave him a demanding look. “No. Do you know?”

“Sakai told me it would be Admiral Bloch.”

She didn’t answer for almost a minute, then shook her head, looking pained. “Why? Why did the Grand Council agree to such a thing? It doesn’t make sense. Bloch manufactured for himself a reputation as a great fleet commander, a reputation I believe was unsupported by actual ability, but even if they still believe Bloch could be a match for you, they know that Bloch had been planning a coup before the Syndics captured him. If that attack on the Syndic home star system hadn’t been a disaster that led to your assuming command and his being captured, if Bloch had won that battle, had defeated the Syndics, he would have turned his victorious fleet against his own government. The Grand Council was desperate enough for victory that they were willing to risk that.”

“And you would have done your best to kill him even though it would have meant your own death as well.”

“I thought my husband was dead in the war. I didn’t have anything else to live for except preserving the Alliance. And, yes, you’ve never asked, but some of my fellow senators knew what my intent was. I was their fail-safe to stop Bloch.” Another long pause as Rione thought. “They must believe that this time they have some other means of ensuring he doesn’t betray them. But what?”

Geary sat down again across from her, catching her eyes with his own. “While we were at Midway, we heard firsthand about some of the tricks the Syndics employed to keep their high-ranking individuals in line.”

“No,” Rione said, shaking her head again. “Costa would have signed off on tactics like holding Bloch’s family hostage, but Suva never would have agreed to that. Neither would Sakai. It would have to be something the entire Grand Council would support, and I have no idea what that might be.”

“We’ll have to find out.”

“I’ll do my best.” For a moment, before the feelings were masked, anguish could be seen in her eyes. “For the Grand Council to openly move against you, when you’ve done nothing but support the Alliance, would be irrational. But I no longer have confidence in my own ability to understand the motivations of the Grand Council. You created a condition they had never experienced and never imagined facing. Peace. They are flailing for answers and, I suspect, acting out of fear rather than reason. I have no doubt that you could beat Bloch in a fight even if you were badly outnumbered, but that would mean civil war. If it comes to that, it could create damage to the Alliance too great for anyone or anything to repair.”

“There’s always duct tape,” Geary suggested in what he knew was a weak attempt to lighten their shared worries.

That brought only a thin smile from her. “As much as it impressed the Dancers as humanity’s finest achievement, I doubt that even duct tape could repair the Alliance if it broke that badly. Who do you think is behind the attacks on us here?”

“Lady Vitali said the money was coming from outside Sol Star System.”

“I believe she is right,” Rione said. “But from where?”

“The Shield of Sol ships were after not just this ship but also the Alliance senators aboard her,” Geary pointed out. “Since those senators represent a wide range of different views, targeting all of them would imply a source somewhere in Syndicate Worlds space.”

“Possible, but unlikely. Syndic space is much farther from here than Alliance space is, and Alliance space is far from close.” All trace of humor had fled again as she looked steadily at him. “I admit I was surprised by the boldness of the attempted strikes at you today. I shouldn’t have been. There are powerful people in the Alliance who would willingly sacrifice their purported friends and allies in the name of some supposedly higher purpose. That’s an old trick in crime and politics, to include some of your own people among the casualties in order to make yourself seem among the victims. We joked about my doing that to you, but I wouldn’t because I think you’re the only hope the Alliance has. Others, though, think you are either in the way of their preferred solution or the source of the danger. While Black Jack was dead he made a marvelous martyr for the government, serving exactly as needed. Don’t delude yourself. There are those who would prefer to return to the days when they could use Black Jack to their own ends because he was, they thought, safely dead and unable to act on his own. You truly do not know which of those people can be trusted in anything.”

Geary sighed, looking down for a moment, then back up to catch her eyes again. “If I can’t trust anyone, why should I trust you, Victoria?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t trust anyone. You’ve got your captain. As for me, I’m not asking you to trust me because I’m some paragon of virtue upon whom the light of the living stars shines with special warmth. You know I’m not.” The thin smile was back. “No. You can trust me for the same reason I decided to trust Lady Vitali. Self-interest. I want to save the Alliance, and I believe that only a living Black Jack can make that happen.”

It was uncomfortably close to what Tanya had told him at the ancient wall, and he had learned that on the rare occasions when those two women agreed on something, he had better listen. “Just how do I make that happen?”

“By staying alive. Without that, nothing else is possible.”

HOURS
crawled by as
Dauntless
held orbit near Old Earth and Tanya Desjani grew steadily more ill-tempered.

Her outlook had not been improved by the responses of two of the Alliance senators aboard the ship. Senator Costa had scowled when first told of the missing officers. “Is this going to delay our return to Alliance space?” The silence that had followed her question brought a slight flush to Costa’s face before she made an inadequate attempt at a dignified retreat.

Senator Suva had not done much better, her first reaction being “You’re not going to charge those two officers with a crime, are you?”

Fortunately for the reputation of the Alliance Senate, which could not have sunk much further in the eyes of the fleet in any event, Senator Sakai had also responded to the news with a question, but one which raised his status considerably in the eyes of the crew. “What can I do to help?”

For her part, Victoria Rione remained dead serious in her words and gestures, a disquieting sign of how concerned she was. “I’m hearing nothing,” she confided to Geary. “I don’t think my sources are lying. They truly can’t find them, and if your missing officers had run off together for a romantic honeymoon amidst the ruins of Earth, they would have been found long before this.”

Nearly ten hours after the disappearance of the lieutenants, Geary was pretending to get administrative work done in his stateroom when his comm panel buzzed urgently. Desjani looked fierce and angry as she spoke to him. “We’ve received news about my lieutenants from the locals.”

“Did they find them?”

“No. What they found was proof that Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon have been kidnapped and taken off Old Earth.” She tapped a control and the screen split to show an elderly man waiting patiently. He was sitting behind an impressive wooden desk which must have been several centuries old, a painting of a single, solitary volcanic peak crowned with snow hanging on the wall behind his left shoulder. Everything about the office, including the man behind the desk, spoke of age and history. “Please summarize for the Admiral what you just told me,” Desjani said to him.

The old man inclined his head slightly toward Desjani, then looked at Geary. “After much sifting of data, we discovered DNA samplings taken at a cargo facility in our area of responsibility, samplings which match those of your officers.”

“DNA samplings?” Geary asked.

“From minute particles, flakes of skin, the sort of thing humans shed constantly.” The man made an apologetic gesture. “The amount of DNA was very tiny, requiring much extra effort to find and analyze, but we have no doubt of our finding. Based on the other records at that cargo facility, we are confident that your officers were smuggled off the planet using modified cargo containers, which are sometimes employed by criminals for such purposes.”

Geary rubbed his head with both hands as he absorbed the news. “They’re not on Earth anymore? Do you know which ship those cargo containers went to?”

“We do.” The man held up a restraining hand before Geary could say anything else. “But they are no longer on that ship.” He touched some controls of his own and the screen split again, now also showing the boxy shape of a cargo vessel orbiting Old Earth. “You see here that another craft docked with the ship. You see? A small, stealthy craft, which only became clear to our sensors when it was locked to the ship. After a brief time, it broke free, and we lost track of it.” The elderly man bowed his head again. “I regret to say that we have been unable to establish the position and vector of that craft though we have picked up a few traces that may well correlate to it.”

“A stealth craft?” Geary studied what could be seen on the third screen. “Tanya, that looks like one of the stealth craft that tried to intercept our shuttle.”

She nodded. “That’s what I thought. The characteristics match. Which means it’s from Mars and probably on its way back there now. Request permission to—”

“Your pardon,” the old man interrupted, his voice gentle but somehow carrying enough authority to check Desjani’s words. “If this craft is from Mars, and such an origin would not surprise me in the least, they will not be going back there, not while carrying your officers. They will seek another location, one where they may hide, and where if they are located, it will not compromise the identities and allegiances of their superiors.”

“Any guesses where they would hide?” Geary asked.

The man pondered the question for a moment before replying. “The belt, or beyond. There are many places among the asteroid belt or the outer planets where a craft of that size could lie unnoticed given its ability to conceal itself.”

Desjani had been studying something to one side and now looked back at the elderly man from Earth again. “These traces you picked up. How confident are you of them?”

“That they belong to the craft we seek? Fairly confident. That they show precise locations? I have little confidence of that. You see how large the probability cones are around those trace detections.”

“I do,” Desjani conceded. “But I’ve been driving ships for a long time. I can look at something like that and feel where it’s leading. That craft is heading for Jupiter,” she concluded.

The old man reacted with only a slight rise of his eyebrows, which was replaced by a long moment of deep thought. “That is a likely destination for someone seeking to hide. Jupiter has sixty-seven natural moons, a planetary ring of much smaller objects, and twenty major human facilities orbiting the planet in addition to numerous smaller artificial objects. There are many small settlements among the moons of Jupiter, and the craft we seek is capable of landing on bodies with atmospheres as weak as that of the Jovian moons. In particular, Io’s turbulent surface activity would help conceal the craft, while Ganymede, like Mars, is notorious for its many ties to organized criminal activity.”

“They left Earth orbit nearly twenty hours ago,” Desjani grumbled. “They could be halfway to that asteroid belt by now. Admiral, I’m working up an intercept based on their probable vector and those trace detections. If we get close enough, we’ll spot them. Request permission to leave orbit and proceed to intercept.”

Geary glanced at the elderly man, who made no sign of approval or disapproval.
You want to leave this to us, do you? Let the barbarians do their own dirty work.
“What velocity are you using?” he asked Desjani.

“It ramps up to point three light before we start braking again for the intercept.”

That would create quite a spectacle in Sol Star System, an Alliance battle cruiser roaring toward the orbit of Jupiter at a pace that would make nearly every other spacecraft here look snail-like by comparison. And, for the occupants of that Martian stealth craft, it would mean watching a massive warship heading at great velocity for something very close to an intercept with them.

“Yes, Captain,” Geary said. “You may proceed toward an intercept with the criminal stealth craft. Let’s put on a show that will impress whoever took our lieutenants. Thank you, sir,” he added to the old man, “for your assistance in this matter.”

“I have done nothing,” the man replied, his expression totally serious. “Tell that to anyone who inquires. This contact and my transfer of information to you have not been fully approved and vetted by my government. Such an approval process will take some months to complete, so I have conducted a dry run. A simulation of passing such information to you, so that I would be ready when approval comes. Officially, I have done nothing.”

“I understand,” Geary said. “Your simulation was highly effective. Thank you for letting me evaluate it.”

“The pleasure was mine. The needs of friends must not be neglected. Perhaps, at some future date, we shall have needs that you will be pleased to consider addressing.” Another small bow toward Geary, then the old man’s image vanished.

Tanya Desjani had not wasted another minute. As Geary finished speaking,
Dauntless
’s thrusters were already slewing the battle cruiser about, followed by the surge of the main propulsion units kicking in and hurling the warship out of the mass of space traffic near Old Earth.

Geary watched the globe that was the Home of all humanity diminish in size as
Dauntless
accelerated away from it toward an intercept with the craft that was itself heading toward the orbit of Jupiter. He had never expected to visit Jupiter, or this star system. He wondered if, once the lieutenants were rescued, he would ever return.

 • • • 

AT
their closest, Earth and Jupiter were only about thirty-five light-minutes apart. A mere six hundred thirty million kilometers or so. But that could only happen when both planets were on the same side of the sun and lined up perfectly in their orbits. Even if the two planets had been that close when
Dauntless
began her hunt, neither of them was going to stay still. Planets had to be intercepted, chased or cut off, as they raced along their orbits. In the case of Jupiter, the gas giant had been moving around the star Sol at better than thirteen kilometers per second since long before the first human raised a wondering gaze to the night sky, and might still be doing so when the last human had gone to whatever fate awaited the species.

In this case,
Dauntless
faced a long, curving route through space adding up to one and a half light-hours before she would reach Jupiter. She would have to accelerate part of the way, then brake at the end so as not to overshoot her target, reducing her average velocity to about point one six light speed.

“It will take us just under ten hours to get there,” Desjani told Geary. “Which would be fine, except that the guy we’re chasing has a ten-hour head start on us.”

“He can’t have gone as fast as we will,” Geary said.

“No. Even if he could accelerate at the same rate we could, which I seriously doubt, he would have to limit acceleration to keep from compromising his stealth so badly that even the sensors in this star system could spot it. But once we get within a light-hour of that guy,
we
will be able to see him no matter what.”

Geary settled into his seat on the bridge of
Dauntless
, gazing at the curving tracks on his display. Two showed brightly, that which
Dauntless
would follow, and that which was estimated to be the track of the craft they were hunting. Around those two long curves, a crazy quilt of dim arcs marked the projected movements of numerous other spacecraft and natural objects. Some of those arcs were changing as he watched, moving away from the bright line of
Dauntless
’s vector, marking course changes by spacecraft that had projected
Dauntless
’s path and wanted to stay well clear of the mad people from the stars and their powerful warship. “What are we going to do when we catch them?” he asked Desjani.

She gave him a puzzled look. “Tell them to turn over our two officers or die.”

“What if they refuse? They’ve got Castries and Yuon as hostages.”

Tanya waved one hand in a nonchalant manner. “And I’ve got a platoon of Marines.”

“You don’t think this might require more . . . subtlety . . . than Marines usually employ?”

“Fleet Marines are trained in hostage-rescue ops,” Desjani insisted. “And, personally, I think heavily armed Marines in full battle armor is just the kind of subtle approach this calls for.”

“Tanya,” Geary said carefully, “the people who kidnapped Castries and Yuon will see us coming. We can’t surprise them. We don’t have a stealth-configured shuttle or Marine scout stealth armor.”

She glared at her display. “What approach does the Admiral prefer?”

“There are a lot of local law-enforcement craft near Jupiter. Police, Space Guard, and some specialized investigation and enforcement outfits. A kidnapping falls into the category of routine procedure for them.”

Desjani kept her eyes looking front, but her frown deepened. “We’re supposed to depend on them? It will take them six years just to get bureaucratic clearance to talk to us.”

“If that happens,” Geary said, “we will act.”

She finally looked at him again. “Promise?”

“Yes. But I need to ask them for assistance before we act unilaterally.”

“Fine. We’ll ask, they’ll stall, and we’ll handle things.”

He had a strong suspicion that she was right.

 • • • 

THEY
were six light-minutes from Jupiter, less than an hour’s travel time away, when a symbol popped into existence on the bridge displays. “Got him!” Desjani exulted, adjusting the battle cruiser’s course to achieve a perfect intercept.

“He’s awfully close to Jupiter,” Geary said.

“Yes, but we’ve got him now. We can track him wherever he goes.”

Geary judged the positions of the various law-enforcement spacecraft at or near Jupiter, then decided on a simple broadcast. “This is Admiral Geary on the Alliance battle cruiser
Dauntless
. We have a solid track on a stealth craft operated by criminals, which is carrying two of our officers who were kidnapped on the surface of Earth. I am attaching our tracking data for your use. I request all possible assistance in intercepting the craft and rescuing our two officers. To the honor of our ancestors,” he added in the formal ending that seemed both necessary and appropriate. “Geary, out.”

He waited impatiently as the minutes crawled by. It would take six minutes for his transmission to be received by the ships near Jupiter, and even though
Dauntless
was currently closing the distance at a velocity just under point two light speed, it would still take at least five minutes for any answers to cover the distance back to
Dauntless
. How long would the police and Space Guard ships debate what to do before they replied to him?

As it turned out, he saw the movements of a number of those ships before the replies began coming in. Some were positive, as from Lieutenant Cole of the Sol Space Guard cutter
Shadow
near Callisto. “We are moving to intercept the criminal vessel. Kidnapping is a crime under Sol System law, no matter the origin of the victim, so this falls under our jurisdiction. We are informing our superiors but require no special approval from our chain of command to take action.”