“Back! Off! Now!” A sergeant and several Alliance soldiers had leveled weapons at local toughs, who were so close that the ends of the barrels of the Alliance weapons almost touched their bodies.
Several of the toughs paled, trying unsuccessfully to push back against the crowd behind them. They were used to beating up civilians, not facing armed and armored ground forces.
Geary was trying to figure out how to keep the situation from blowing up when he saw another sergeant leading a wedge of refugees toward the point of confrontation. “They’re taking over security here!” the sergeant called. “Fall back!”
The toughs had only a few moments to relax and start to smile as the Alliance ground forces faded backwards, before the mass of refugees charged them and swamped their front ranks in a swirl of improvised weapons and swinging fists.
Everywhere along the perimeter, the refugees were surging outward as Voston’s soldiers dropped back to where the second wave of shuttles would land. The government thugs found themselves trapped between the refugees and the antigovernment crowds pressing in behind, who had joined in the fight when violence finally erupted.
Geary hastily checked the status of the few local military units that had been backing the toughs and found them falling apart without fighting as other local forces allied with the crowds began arriving in vastly larger numbers. The local police, who had been protecting the thugs, had completely vanished, either overrun by the crowds or seeking shelter anywhere they could find it.
Voston’s soldiers backed into the shuttles, the last ones raising their weapons in triumph and shouting encouragement to the refugees while the shuttle ramps closed.
As the last shuttles bounded upward, a single shoulder-fired missile bolted through the air after them.
Geary didn’t have time to order any response, but he didn’t have to. The FAC flown by Nightstalker whipped around, slicing between the rising shuttles and missile, popping out flares, chaff, and other decoys that caused the missile to weave back and forth before locking on a decoy and detonating far from the shuttles.
While Nightstalker handled the missile, Night Witch had taken care of the launcher. Geary saw a single shot slam into a small crowd of mob toughs on a flat rooftop, scattering the thugs and leaving a hole in the top of the building, along with three toughs who had never had time to regret their mistake.
The three FACs did victory rolls over the roiling mass of refugees and other civilians in the square, then sprinted skyward in the wake of the shuttles.
“Pilots!” Duellos muttered. “Do they always have to show off?”
“I think so,” Geary said. “Pilots were like that a century ago, too. They can’t just be good; they have to make sure everyone else knows how good they are.”
“Black Jack!” Another comm window, this one showing the refugee leader Araya and, in the background, the local armored forces commander who had spoken to Geary earlier. “Thank you! Naxos was right, you are hard copy. But this is our fight now!”
“Good luck,” Geary said.
By the time all of the shuttles were recovered and Geary led his task force away from the planet, he could watch intercepted broadcasts showing that the crowds were storming the hall of government, chanting demands for freedom, backed by substantial military forces which had joined the revolt.
“Freedom,” Duellos repeated as he watched the reports from the planet. “Will they really get freedom?”
“That’s up to them,” Geary said.
He cut loose the former refugee ships, whose crews aggrievedly demanded pay for their long chore hauling and housing the refugees, but when offered the chance to plead their case to any of the governments in local star systems chose instead to head out in search of more profitable activities. The leased freighters carrying the two regiments of ground forces, Kim’s now consolidated along with Voston’s, were sent with a strong escort toward the jump point back to Yokai, then Adriana, while Geary took the rest of the warships to the jump point for Tiyannak.
“Is this covered by your orders?” Duellos said.
“Tanya wouldn’t be asking me that. She’d be happy that I assumed it was a necessary part of solving the refugee problem. And it is.”
It took an extra two weeks to jump to Tiyannak, ensure that the heavy cruiser, light cruisers, and HuKs that had escaped at Batara were still fleeing as fast as they could run, launch a mass of bombardment projectiles aimed at the former Syndic shipyards and refitting facilities there, where a few more warships still sat in various stages of repair and refit, then return to Batara with the knowledge that Tiyannak would no longer be able to support offensive operations against its neighbors.
The squadron to which Night Witch, Catnap, and Nightstalker belonged had begun setting up camp in the partially reactivated facility at Yokai. Geary dropped off the pilots and their FACs along with some sincere appreciation for their support, then headed back for Adriana.
As he prepared to leave the bridge of Inspire, the FAC base dwindling behind them, Geary paused to listen to Duellos as he spoke to a virtual window showing one of his senior noncommissioned officers.
“Give them whatever assistance we can,” Duellos said, sounding unusually aggravated. “And let me know when our own is completely straightened out.”
“Is something wrong?” Geary asked.
“Software updates,” Duellos said in the same persecuted tone of voice that Colonel Galland had used a few weeks ago. He closed the virtual window and pointed astern. “The FAC base techs made a backdoor request for assistance from my code monkeys because they’re having particularly bad problems running the accumulated updates on the gear that was mothballed here.”
“Aerospace forces software techs asked fleet techs for assistance?” Geary asked. “Voluntarily?”
“Amazing, isn’t it? Everybody’s code monkeys tend to get along and help each other out regardless of institutional rivalries. I am told they actually call it the Code of the Monkeys though I may have been getting my leg pulled.”
Geary cast a worried glance at the image of the FAC base, floating serenely in space. Additional lights could be seen on a portion of it, where the aerospace forces were reactivating enough compartments and equipment to support them. “What’s their problem? The same sort of stuff that afflicted the FACs at Adrianna?”
“No. The warbirds appear to be all right. They were all updated before they deployed here. This time it’s the software in the sensor and combat systems on the base.” Duellos waved a grand gesture. “My senior chief code cracker says the New! Improved! Intuitive! updates on the FAC base appear to be causing fights between the base’s subsystems.”
Geary shook his head, wondering why news of troubles with software updates was ever surprising. “Are there similar problems on Inspire?”
“Nothing nearly that bad, but some of the updates aren’t playing as well as they should with the others.” Duellos gave Geary a lopsided grin. “The FAC base systems were even suffering bleed-throughs from training-sim software.”
“Bleed-throughs?”
“Somehow, information from inactive training sims was showing up as active, real detections, before vanishing completely as their systems caught up with it, to be spotted by something else, then disappearing again almost as fast as the systems scrubbed the bad data.”
“And they’re sure these aren’t real detections?” Geary pressed. “We’ve seen some unusual stealth capabilities with the Dancers.”
Duellos smiled again. “The purported sightings were of a battle cruiser and two heavy cruisers. I think we’d be able to spot that bunch. My people cross-checked our own systems and confirmed that we’d seen nothing during the transient reports of those warships. If someone really could hide ships of that size, and those ships’ stealth really had stumbled for a second or two, we would have seen them as well.”
“You’re rig
ht, and nothing the size of a battle cruiser could be hidden using even the best stealth gear. It wouldn’t be the first set of updates that were buggy,” Geary said. “Are we certain that’s what this is? An update with bugs in it? Are there any signs of malware?”
“None, Admiral,” Duellos answered. “That was the first thing my people checked. There’s no sign of sabotage unless, like Colonel Galland, you believe that software updates are inherently acts of sabotage aimed at users.”
“Based on my own experience, I have a lot of sympathy for Colonel Galland’s opinion on that,” Geary said. “Do we need to hang around that base in order to help the aerospace techs?”
“No, Admiral. I would have let you know if that was an issue. My people can provide any necessary assistance remotely.”
“Good. I want to know when that’s cleared up,” Geary said. “That single FAC squadron has barely enough capability to maintain security here as it is. We can’t afford to have them chasing after software ghosts when we have enough real problems to worry about.”
Several hours later, Duellos reported that the software in the systems on the FAC facility was, if not totally pacified, at least no longer engaged in active friendly fire among its own subsystems.
Geary took advantage of the time spent getting the rest of the way through Yokai, and in jump to Adriana, to compile his report to fleet headquarters. He had a particularly hard time describing the loss of Fleche without using words and phrasing that cast guilt on the high-level fleet decisions that had ended up requiring his mission to Batara. As much as he might believe that, it had no place among the dry, official language of the report.
As they arrived at Adriana, Geary found that an official courier ship had shown up in their absence and was waiting near the hypernet gate.
“Probably dispatched by fleet headquarters,” Duellos commented to Geary, “so they can find out as quickly as possible whether you’ve cleaned up their mess, or whether disaster has struck, and they need to start blaming you for the whole thing without any further delay.”
“Let’s not keep them waiting,” Geary replied, transmitting his report. In a few hours they received the receipt for the report from the courier ship and watched as it accelerated into the hypernet gate. Clearly, it had been waiting just for his return.
Everyone at Adriana (except General Sissons) seemed happy with the outcome of the mission. Finally, with a sincerely fond farewell to Colonel Galland and a request that she look him up if she ever needed anything, Geary took his ships back to the hypernet gate, en route Varandal.
• • •
“MIND if I come in?” Geary asked as he stood in the hatch to Captain Duellos’s stateroom. The enforced isolation of travel inside the hypernet had left him time to decide something.
Duellos stood and waved Geary inside. “Anytime, Admiral. Is this visit official or personal?”
“Both.” Geary took a seat, once again unsettled a bit by the close resemblance of the captain’s stateroom on Inspire to that on Dauntless. Aside from a few private mementos, this could have been Tanya’s stateroom, a compartment he had rarely visited to avoid potential gossip. He waited until Duellos sat down again at his desk before saying more. “Inspire took some major damage to her main propulsion at Batara. Once we get back to Varandal, she’ll be out of commission for a while as the repairs are carried out.”
Duellos leaned back and twisted his mouth in a dissatisfied way. “I wish I could disagree with that assessment, but it is accurate. The only question is exactly how many weeks the repairs will take.”
“Which leads me to the reason for my visit. Roberto, this is a personal counseling session. We’re off the record. Inspire won’t need you while she’s laid up in dock. I would like you to take leave as soon as we return to Varandal so you have the opportunity to deal with some important matters at home.”
It took a moment for Duellos to reply. “Tanya’s been talking to you?”
“She let me know you’re facing a difficult situation, and I could see during my time aboard Inspire with you that you’ve been more on edge lately. Don’t mistake me. Your performance as a commanding officer has not suffered. But I can tell you’re under stress.”
“It’s not an easy situation,” Duellos said, sighing and seeming to sag in his seat as if he had partly deflated. “My wife isn’t wrong. I have responsibilities at home. My heart remains at home. But . . .”
“You need to talk it out.”
“I’m not sure that will help.”
Geary looked down, biting his lip, before raising his gaze back to Duellos. “My executive officer on Merlon had the same difficulty. Lieutenant Commander Cara Decala. She loved being in the big dark, traveling to other star systems, doing everything the fleet did. Her spouse had close ties at home, no desire at all for extensive travel, and wanted Cara at home, too.”
“I see. Somewhat like my own situation now. How did that work out for her?” Duellos asked.
“I . . . don’t know. Cara was supposed to go on leave, go home, and talk it out, once the convoy we were escorting had reached its destination. But the Syndics attacked us at Grendel. I had to order her off the ship when the crew evacuated.” Geary paused, his gaze distant as he remembered the chaos and alarm that had seemed to fill the universe as Merlon was destroyed around him. Events a century ago, which to him felt but a short time in the past. “I discovered after being reawakened that Cara had got off all right, and was picked up, but . . . she had died a few years later, commanding her own ship in another battle. I never learned whether she had ever had a chance to go home, to reconcile things, whether she had died still united in spirit even if separated by distance, or if she had been separated in all ways when the end came.”
Almost a minute passed in silence before Duellos replied. “I see. You never know when the last chance to say the right things will come and pass by. But, Admiral, I don’t want to leave while we don’t know what might happen to the fleet. You do need all of us.”
“I’ll have Tanya again when we get back to Varandal.”
“True. She’s worth more to you than all the rest of us combined.”
“And I suspect that your wife is more important to you than I, or this fleet, are,” Geary added.
Duellos smiled. “That is true.”
“Take leave as soon as we get back to Varandal. Go home. Talk. Whatever happens, let it be something you decided on, not something you let happen.”
“Yes. You’re right. Thank you.” As Geary got up to leave, Duellos fixed him with a demanding look. “What if I had said no? Would you have ordered me to go on leave?”
“Yes.” Geary paused in the hatch, looking back at Duellos. “You’ve already given the fleet, and the Alliance, a lifetime’s worth of sacrifice. I hope you’ll be back. But if you decide otherwise, you’ve more than earned it.”
“Thank you,” Duellos said again.
Geary left, the hatch closing behind him, and walked slowly back to his stateroom, pausing to speak to some of the crew members whom he met on the way, asking about their homes and their lives, letting them know that he cared and that he knew those things mattered.
Because you never did know when it might be too late to say such things.
• • •
“I hope you’re not expecting them to be grateful,” Tanya Desjani grumbled as they left the shuttle dock on Dauntless, where the crew had just welcomed back Admiral Geary in nicely turned out formations and immaculate uniforms.
“The people of Batara?” Geary asked.
“Them, too. But I meant fleet staff. Just because you bailed them out of the mess they created doesn’t mean they’ll stop trying to undermine you.”
Geary smiled. “Fleet staff will be busy for a while answering questions from the Senate about why they let the security situation around Adriana get so bad. I bailed them out, but I didn’t take th
e fall for their decisions.”
They reached his stateroom and Geary waved her inside, but Desjani hesitated. “I don’t want anyone thinking we’re having a warm reunion now that you’re back.”
“Oh.” She had a point. It had been hard to avoid wrapping his arms around Tanya when he had seen her again. “Stand in the hatchway, then.”
“Thank you for sounding disappointed.” She leaned against one side of the hatch coaming, arms crossed. “I thought you wanted nothing more than to avoid the press.”
“That’s how I usually feel, yes,” Geary admitted, sitting down and enjoying the sense of being back where he belonged, aboard Dauntless.
“Do you have any idea how much press coverage there has been of your question-and-answer session at Adriana? And the visit to the orphans?”
Geary blew out a long breath, leaning back resignedly. “What are they saying?”
“Most of them think it was all very Black Jack.” She smiled at the expression on Geary’s face. “In a good way. Some wondered whether you were positioning yourself to run for political office—”
“Ancestors save me, no!”
“—and others hinted at darker ambitions, but most just cheered on the protector of the Alliance.”
“That could have been worse,” Geary said. “I just want people to stop worrying about what others are going to do and start wondering what they can do. I wondered if going to the academy at Adriana was the right thing or if I’d be accused of using the children as political props.”
“Yes, it was absolutely the right thing,” Desjani said. “Those kids are sort of the conscience of the Alliance. Too many of us can too easily imagine being in their place, and worried about our own children ending up in one of the academies. You did the right thing, there,” she repeated, then paused, just smiling at him.