He paused. “This fleet carries five hundred sixty-three civilian citizens of the Syndicate Worlds whom we evacuated from Wendig Star System in response to their plea for rescue as their life-support systems failed. We will deliver those civilians to the main facility orbiting the gas giant five point three light-hours out from your star. Any attack on this fleet during our transit may result in injury to your own citizens, so you would be wise to exercise restraint.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “This fleet was present in Lakota Star System when Syndicate Worlds’ warships destroyed that star system’s hypernet gate and unleashed a destructive wave of energy that inflicted serious damage on the habitable world and all other human presence in the star system. We will transmit to all ships and occupied planets in this star system copies of our records of that event and of the pleas for assistance from the survivors on Lakota Three. The survivors at Lakota are in desperate need of aid, so we request that you forward this information as fast as possible.”
“I repeat, any attack on this fleet will be met with overwhelming force. To the honor of our ancestors.” He leaned back and glanced at Desjani. “Threatening enough?”
“If they’re smart.”
To no one’s surprise, the Syndics didn’t directly respond to Geary’s message or to the information from Lakota. Syndic shipping in the star system followed the usual pattern of fleeing for jump points or facilities, but otherwise no response to the Alliance fleet’s presence could be spotted aside from obvious civil-defense activity on the habitable world. Similarly, nothing happened from the fleet’s internal saboteurs, which didn’t so much cause relief as fear that something had been missed.
As the Alliance fleet bore down on the Syndic orbiting facility, less than two hours’ travel time remaining, someone finally reacted. “We have a transmission from the Syndic facility, ” Dauntless’s communications watch-stander reported.
Geary called it up, seeing the image of a woman with gray hair and nervous eyes. “Do not approach this facility. You cannot land shuttles here,” she declared.
“We’re going to,” Geary assured her. “We’re going to drop off Syndicate Worlds’ citizens, then we’re leaving.”
“We’ll defend ourselves if you attempt to invade this facility.”
“We have no intent to invade any facility in this star system. Our shuttles will be accompanied by Marine security personnel. You are to ensure that no armed presence is nearby when our shuttles drop off your citizens. Once your citizens have been delivered, our shuttles and Marines will depart.”
The woman shook her head, fear coloring her expression. “I cannot authorize or allow an Alliance presence on my facility. We will defend ourselves.”
Geary had never liked bureaucrats, especially bureaucrats who seemed unable to adjust when reality collided with the rules they lived by. “Listen. If any attempt is made to attack my ships, my shuttles, or my personnel when we’re dropping off your civilians, I will hit that station of yours so hard that the quarks making up its component atomic particles will never find their way back together. Is that clear? If anyone fires on the civilians we drop off, I’ll do the same thing. They’re your people. We rescued them at risk to ourselves, we’re taking time we don’t have to spare to drop them off here, and you’d damn well better take good care of them after we do!” Geary’s voice rose as he talked, ending in a roar that seemed to terrify the Syndic station administrator.
"Y-yes, I . . . I understand,” she stuttered. “We’ll prepare to receive them. Under duress. Please, we have families aboard this station . . .”
“Then let’s not have any trouble,” Geary replied, trying to get his voice’s volume back to normal. “Some of the people we rescued from Wendig have long-term health problems they couldn’t treat there. We’ve done what we could, but they’ll need more assistance from you. I’m going to be blunt that I find it appalling that your leaders would abandon human beings to eventual deaths when their life-support systems failed.”
“You’re not going to kill us? Or destroy this station?” The administrator seemed to be having a lot of trouble grasping the idea.
“No. Any military value it has doesn’t outweigh the suffering such actions would cause civilian inhabitants of this star system.”
“And you truly saved people from Wendig? We thought no one was left there.” The woman seemed about ready to break down. “Everyone was supposed to have been removed when the system was abandoned.”
“The people we evacuated told us that the corporation they or their parents were employed by never sent ships. They had no way of finding out why, of course. Perhaps you can help them with that,” Geary added pointedly.
“H-how many?”
“Five hundred sixty-three.” He could see the question on her face, the same question all of the Syndics, and many of the Alliance personnel, kept asking. Why? Irritated at again having to be faced with a question whose answer he thought obvious, Geary spoke roughly. “That’s all.”
Desjani was once again pretending to be absorbed in something on her own display.
“When are we loading the Syndics into the shuttles?” Geary asked, his voice angry still.
“They should be on their way to the shuttle dock now,” Desjani replied in a tone that sounded suspiciously soothing to Geary. He was trying to decide whether to get irritated by that, too, when she stood up. “I was about to go down to see them off.”
Calming himself, Geary stood as well. “May I come along?”
“Of course, sir.”
The same scene as from eleven days ago was playing out on the shuttle dock, though in reverse as the column of Syndic civilians shuffled onto the shuttle, some pausing to wave quickly to individual members of Dauntless’s crew who had come to the shuttle dock and stood to one side, watching silently. The Marines seemed as menacing as ever in their battle armor, but the Syndics appeared to be less terrified of them.
The former mayor of Alpha turned to Geary and Desjani as they walked up. “Thank you. I wish I knew what else to say. None of us will forget this.”
To Geary’s surprise, Desjani answered. “If given the chance in the future, offer the same mercy to Alliance citizens.”
“I promise you that we shall, and we’ll tell others to do the same.”
The mayor’s wife moved forward to gaze intently at Desjani. “Thank you, lady, for my children’s lives.”
“Captain,” Desjani corrected, but bent one corner of her mouth in a crooked smile. She looked slightly down and nodded to the boy, who gazed back at her solemnly, then saluted in the Syndic fashion. Desjani returned the salute, then looked back to the mother.
“Thank you, Captain,” that woman stated. “May this war end before my children have to face your fleet in battle.”
Desjani nodded wordlessly again, then watched with Geary as the last of the Syndic civilians walked quickly into the shuttles. As the last hatch sealed, she spoke so quietly only Geary could hear. “It’s easier when they don’t have faces.”
It took him a moment to realize what she meant. “You mean the enemy.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever met a Syndic before?”
“Only prisoners of war,” Desjani replied in a dismissive tone. “Syndics who’d been trying to kill me and other Alliance citizens a short time before.” Her eyes closed for a moment. “I don’t know what happened to most of them. I do know what happened to some of them.”
Geary hesitated to ask the obvious question. A short time after assuming command of the fleet, he’d learned to his horror that enemy prisoners of war were sometimes casually killed, the outgrowth of a hundred years of war in which atrocity had fueled atrocity. He’d never asked Desjani if she had participated in such a crime.
But she opened her eyes and looked steadily at him. “I watched it happen. I didn’t pull any triggers, I didn’t issue any orders, but I watched it, and I didn’t stop it.”
He nodded, keeping his own ey
es on hers. “You’d been taught that it was acceptable.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Your ancestors—”
“Told me it was wrong,” Desjani interrupted, something she rarely did with Geary. “I knew it, I felt it, I didn’t listen. I take responsibility for my actions. I know I’ll pay the price for that. Perhaps that’s why we lost so many ships in the Syndic home system. Perhaps that’s why the war has kept going all of these years. We’re being punished, for straying from what was right because we believed wrong to be necessary. ”
He wasn’t about to reject her, or condemn someone who’d already accepted a full measure of blame. But he could stand alongside her. “Yeah, maybe we are being punished.”
Desjani frowned. “Sir? Why would you be punished for things done while you weren’t with us?”
“I’m with you now, aren’t I? I’m part of this fleet and loyal to the Alliance. If you’re being punished, then so am I. I didn’t suffer through all the years of war that you have, but all I knew was taken from me.”
She shook her head, frowning deeper. “You just said this is your fleet, and the Alliance has your loyalty. Those things weren’t taken from you.”
Geary frowned back at her, surprised to realize he’d never thought of it that way.
Desjani gave him an intent look. “They sent you when we needed you. They gave us a second chance. They gave you a second chance, instead of letting you die in the battle at Grendel or afterward, when your escape pod’s systems would have eventually given out. We’re being offered mercy if we can prove ourselves worthy of it.”
She had startled him again, with a point of view he’d never considered, and by including him as part of them all. Not a separate hero out of myth but one of them. “Maybe you’re right,” Geary stated. “We can’t win this war by destruction unless we go all out with the hypernet gates and commit species suicide. If this war is ever to end, we’ll not only have to beat them on the battlefield but also be willing to forgive the Syndics if they’re willing to express real remorse. Maybe we’re being given an example to follow.”
She was silent for a few moments, and he stayed quiet as well. The shuttle dock internal doors sealed between them and the shuttle, then the external ones opened, and the bird lifted off, carrying its passengers to the Syndic facility. Finally, Desjani looked back at him. “I’ve spent a long time wanting to punish the Syndics, to hurt them as they’ve hurt us.”
“I can understand why,” Geary said. “Thanks for going along with me on helping those civilians. I know it went against a lot of what you believe.”
“What I believed,” Desjani amended. She was quiet for a moment longer, but Geary waited, sensing that she had something else to say. “But that cycle of vengeance never ends. I realized something. I don’t want to have to kill that boy someday, when he’s old enough to fight.”
“Me, neither. Or his father or his mother. And I don’t want that boy trying to kill Alliance citizens. How can we end this, Tanya?”
“You’ll think of a way, sir.”
“Thanks.”
He meant it sarcastically, and was sure it sounded sarcastic, but Desjani smiled slightly at him. “Did you see how they looked at us? They were afraid, then they were disbelieving, and finally they were grateful.” She stopped smiling and looked outward. “I like fighting. I like going head-to-head with the best the Syndics have. But I’ve had enough of killing people like those. Can we convince the Syndics to stop bombarding civilian targets?”
“We can try. Our bombardment weapons are accurate enough that we can certainly continue to keep taking out industrial targets while minimizing civilian losses.”
Her face was grim now. “They kill ours, and we don’t kill theirs?”
“It’ll have to be a mutual deal. When we get back, we’ll tell them, stop bombarding our people, and we’ll continue not bombarding yours.”
“Why would they—?” Desjani stopped talking in mid-question, then gave Geary a long look. “And they might believe we’d abide by that since you’ve been demonstrating the willingness to do so.”
“Maybe.”
“And if they don’t stop?”
“We keep taking out their industry and military targets.” Desjani grimaced. “Listen, Tanya, if there’s nothing for those people to build or fight with, they’re a burden to the Syndics who have to worry about feeding them and taking care of them.”
“They’ll build new industrial sites. New defenses.”
“And we’ll blow those away, too.” Geary jerked his head to indicate roughly the space outside of Dauntless’s hull. “Ever since humanity achieved routine space travel, we’ve had the ability to destroy things with rocks tossed from space far faster and easier than humans on planets can build things. The Syndics can sink endless effort and resources into rebuilding and never catch up.”
She thought about that, then nodded. “You’re right. But that same logic applied a long time ago when we started bombarding civilian populations as well as military and industrial targets. Why did we start, all those decades ago?”
“I don’t know.” Geary cast his mind back, trying to imagine the point at which the people he had known a century earlier had changed to become people like those now. But there hadn’t been any point, any single event, rather what Victoria Rione had called a slippery slope in which one seemingly reasonable decision to escalate led to another. “Maybe revenge for Syndic bombardments of Alliance worlds. Maybe a tactic of desperation when the war kept going on and on. An attempt to break the enemy morale. We studied that when I was a junior officer, but as a lesson in what hadn’t worked. Time and again in history people tried bombarding enemies enough to make them quit. But when the enemies thought their own homes or beliefs were in danger, they never quit. Totally irrational, but then we’re human. ”
“Syndic bombardments never made us want to give up,” Desjani agreed. “We’re very frustrated with our leaders, but we want them to win. We don’t want them to surrender. But not many people, especially in the fleet, still believe our leaders can win this war. That’s why—”
He glanced at her as she stopped speaking again. “Why I got a certain offer from Captain Badaya? You know about it, too?”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. It’s being widely talked about.”
“I won’t, Tanya. I won’t betray the Alliance that way, by accepting the offer to become a dictator. I told Badaya that.” She looked at the deck, her face expressionless. “It wouldn’t work, and it’d be wrong.”
Desjani spoke very, very quietly. “I have to ask you, have you been offered something else? If you agreed?”
He tried to remember, because whatever it was seemed to bother her a great deal, but couldn’t come up with anything.
“No. Nothing specific. It’s all been couched in very general terms.”
“You’re certain?” Her voice was angry now though still very quiet. “You haven’t been promised anything else, Captain Geary?” He shook his head, letting his puzzlement show. “Anyone else, Captain Geary?”
Anyone else? What could—? He was certain his shock showed. “You mean you?” he whispered, too stunned to speak in euphemisms.
She looked at him again, studying his face, and seemed to relax. “Yes. I’ve been urged by some individuals to . . . offer myself. I’ve wondered if they had offered me on their own.”
Geary felt heat in his face, embarrassment and anger rising in tandem. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so filled with rage. “Who?” he whispered savagely. “Who the hell had the bloody nerve to dare suggest such a thing to you? You’re not some prize or playing piece. Tell me who they are, and I’ll—” This time he had to choke off his words, aware that even a fleet commander couldn’t threaten to rip subordinates into tiny pieces and vent them out the air lock.
Desjani gave him a thin-lipped smile. “I can defend my own honor, sir. But thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Tanya, I swear, if I
find out—”
“Let me deal with it, sir. Please.” He nodded reluctantly. “We should get back to the bridge, sir, to monitor what’s going on.” Another nod. One corner of Desjani’s mouth bent farther upward. “You wouldn’t make a good dictator, would you?”
“Probably not.”
“Perhaps there’s a reason for that, too.”
He kept waiting for something to go wrong, but the Alliance shuttles dropped off every Syndic civilian and lifted off again, then returned to their ships without any Syndic attempts to interfere with the operation. “Did we actually carry out an operation without the Syndics trying to double-cross us and booby-trap everything in sight?” Desjani asked.
“Looks like it. And so far our own double-crossers haven’t sprung any more traps on us, either.” Geary studied the display, as unwilling to believe it as Desjani. The shuttles all recovered, the Alliance fleet was cutting across one arc of Cavalos Star System toward the jump point that could access either Anahalt or Dilawa. “Three more days to the jump point?”
“Yes, sir. Unless something else happens.” Desjani clenched her jaw as alerts sounded. “And something just did.”
Syndic warships were becoming visible at the jump point they were heading toward.
TEN
“TEN Syndic battleships, twelve battle cruisers, seventeen heavy cruisers, twenty-five light cruisers, forty-two Hunter-Killers, ” the operations watch-stander announced.
“Roughly half our strength,” Desjani observed, “though we’ve got a much bigger advantage in lighter units. Will they avoid action or fight?”
“They’ve got to have orders to stop us or delay us,” Geary pointed out. “To do either of those things, they have to fight.”
“They might be too frightened to fight after what this fleet did at Lakota.” Then Desjani paused as something occurred to her. “They may not know what happened at Lakota. They may assume the pursuit force we destroyed at Lakota is still after us and may appear at any moment.”