Steadfast

Nine

Sometimes everything came together just right, like pieces of an intricate and finely machined puzzle in which every complex piece slid into place to form a perfect picture. Operations could be like that, where the mythical Murphy and his Law were nowhere to be seen, where friction appeared to be nonexistent, where even the enemy’s moves contributed to exactly the desired outcome.

This wasn’t one of those times.

“Rioting on some of the refugee ships in orbit! They’re storming the supply shuttles!”

“The FAC squadron providing orbital security has suffered from a wing-wide control-system software failure! Individual FACs are operating their systems on manual and cannot conduct security ops!”

“The refugee freighter being escorted to the primary world by Dagger and Parrot is suffering life-support failure! The two destroyers don’t have capacity to hold anywhere near all of the refugees!”

“Link has been lost to light cruiser Forte. Assess likely comm system failure.”

“Two more refugee ships were just detected arriving at the jump point from Yokai! One is broadcasting a distress signal warning of equipment failures that could lead to power core collapse!”

“Formidable reports her main propulsion unit controls have failed during routine testing! She will be unable to maneuver until emergency repairs are completed!”

Geary, seated on the bridge of Inspire, waited as several seconds ticked by, knowing that everyone was watching him for instructions.

Captain Duellos, the palm of one hand pressed hard against his forehead, spoke in tight tones. “Is that all?”

His watch-standers looked at each other, then one lieutenant nodded. “Yes, sir. For the moment, sir.”

Geary started issuing commands, letting them flow from somewhere inside without pausing to double-check or sanity-check them. That could come after he had put things into motion. He touched the comm controls. “Implacable, this is Admiral Geary. Proceed immediately at best speed to intercept the refugee freighter being escorted by Dagger and Parrot. Take aboard enough refugees to stabilize life support on the freighter and carry out whatever repairs you can. Geary, out.

“Dagger, Parrot, I have ordered Implacable to proceed to your assistance. Do what you can until the battle cruiser gets there. Geary, out.

“Captain Duellos, take all light cruisers and Inspire at best speed to assume security duties around the orbiting refugee ships. Take Inspire right into the middle of them and have the light cruisers form a perimeter. Pass orders to Forte via coded flashing light to accompany the rest of her squadron if she can do so. Alert the Marine platoon aboard Inspire to prepare for antiriot operations. Only nonlethal measures authorized.”

His hand once again tapped the comm controls on the seat. “Colonel Galland, this is Admiral Geary. I am sending forces to assist your aerospace units in security ops. Keep me informed of your status. Geary, out.”

Another tap. “General Sissons, this is Admiral Geary. There is rioting on the refugee ships orbiting the main planet. I have ships en route but require ground forces assistance to reestablish control. I expect military police in antiriot configuration to be shuttled up to assist my forces upon our arrival. If the military police do not arrive, I will immediately begin shuttling down every refugee on the orbiting ships and dropping them off at your headquarters landing field so your forces can deal with them there. That is a promise, General. Geary, out.”

A third tap. “Unknown freighter coming from Yokai and broadcasting distress signal. None of my ships can reach you within the next twelve hours. You are ordered to divert immediately to the second gas giant in this star system, the one designated Adriana Sextus on navigational beacons. The orbiting facilities there will provide any necessary repair assistance, after which you will be required to proceed inward to the main inhabited world and place yourself under our control. Admiral Geary, out.”

A fourth. “Commanders of Ninth, Fourteenth, and Twenty-first Destroyer Squadrons, be prepared to divert some of the destroyers escorting refugee ships in order to reinforce Inspire and the light cruisers. Have the maneuvers preplanned and ready to go if I call for help from you. Geary, out.”

He sat back, taking a deep breath. “Did I miss anything?”

Inspire was already slewing about slightly, her main propulsion units kicking in to hurl the battle cruiser toward the refugee ships parked in near orbit about the planet the Alliance warships had been approaching at a more sedate velocity. Duellos waited until his ship had steadied out before replying. “I don’t believe so. The locals at the second gas giant are obligated to provide emergency assistance, but you might tip off the local government just as a courtesy.”

“I’ll do that.” Geary paused as another message flashed for his attention.

General Sissons’s chief of staff was trying to look outraged but not succeeding very well. “For the commander of Alliance fleet forces in Adriana Star System, from General Sissons, commander of Alliance ground forces. We have no assets available to assist you. No landings at Alliance ground forces facilities on this planet are authorized. Ground forces, out.”

“If he were a Syndic, we could just drop a rock on him,” Duellos commented. “Ten minutes to joining up with the refugee formation, Admiral,” he added.

“Thank you, Captain.” Geary tapped the reply command. “For General Sissons, personal from Admiral Geary. Since you are unable to transport forces to assist in orbit, I will bring the refugees to you. Unless you are willing to fire upon my shuttles as they drop off refugees, you had better either find the necessary assets and get them into orbit immediately or stand by to receive those refugees on the ground, because they will be coming. Geary, out.”

“Implacable reports she is one hour from intercepting the freighter with failing life support,” Inspire’s operations watch-stander reported. “Dagger and Parrot are standing by the freighter, but one attempt to attach an evac tube to one of the freighter’s air locks had to be abandoned when the freighter crew lost control of security at the air lock.”

“Understood,” Geary said. In his mind’s eye it was all too easy to visualize what was happening on the freighter. The air increasingly unbreathable, the refugees panicking, the crew probably withdrawing onto the bridge and the engineering compartments and sealing the hatches for their own protection. He could see Implacable’s vector, see how the battle cruiser was accelerating all out for the intercept, but soon the warship would have to pivot and begin braking, using those same mighty propulsion units to slow her again so that she could match velocity with the lumbering freighter.

He, and Implacable, were doing all that could be done given the distances and the realities of acceleration and deceleration.

He prayed it would be enough.

Inspire was pivoting again, her own propulsion units flaring as the battle cruiser slid into position amidst the swarm of battered refugee ships, a lion suddenly present among a herd of sheep. On the outer edges of the gaggle of freighters, the Alliance light cruisers were also gliding into position, like cheetahs aiming to keep the herd from scattering away from the prime predator.

“Admiral, there are shuttles launching from ground forces bases on the planet.”

“How many shuttles?” Duellos demanded.

“Eight… nine, sir. Here’s three more coming around the curve of the planet.”

“Twelve,” Duellos said to Geary. “Enough?”

“Probably all Sissons has got,” Geary muttered in reply. He gestured to Inspire’s communications watch. “I need a maximum override space shipping broadcast. All circuits.”

“Yes, sir.” It took only a couple of seconds before the chief nodded back to him. “You’re ready, Admiral. Channel six.”

“Thank you.” Geary put on a stern expression, then hit the control. “All ships carrying refugees, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. I am here to restore order, and I will do so. All activity is to cease on your ships. Armed and armored Alliance ground forces and Marines will be arriving on your ships. Any disobedience or unrest will be met with appropriate levels of response to reestablish calm and security. The commanding officers or executives of every ship carrying refugees are to contact the Alliance battle cruiser Inspire immediately and report the status of their ships. Any ships requiring assistance to restore order are to notify me on Inspire immediately.”

What else would Syndics need to convince them to follow instructions? Geary recalled the phrasings he had heard at Midway among the former Syndics there. “Any failure to comply with my orders will be dealt with by whatever means are required. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

He had barely finished when another high-priority transmission came in. Not a message this time, but a direct call.

Colonel Galland spat out her words furiously. “An update! A damned, useless, bug-riddled software update that knocked my entire wing out of operation! My techs are restoring all systems to prior-day configurations, but my FACs will be out of commission for at least another hour while we do the resets, then bring everything online again.”

“An update?” Geary questioned. “Someone planted worms in an update?”

She shook her head. “We haven’t found any worms. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Right now, I don’t know if the sabotage was malicious or just the routine sabotage-by-software-update that we usually encounter.”

“What’s the status of your supply shuttles that the refugees were storming?”

“There were three mated to freighters when the rioting started. One got clear. Two are stuck, with refugees packed into them and the air locks, and the flight crews locked down on the control deck. If those shuttles pull away, every refugee in them will die.”

That settled one question. “I’ve got one platoon of Marines in riot gear. I’ll send half to each ship where one of your shuttles is stranded so they can clear out the mess.”

“Thanks, Admiral.” Galland grinned ferociously. “I see ground forces on the way up, too. What did you do to General Sissons to get him to cooperate?”

“That’s between me and the general,” Geary said, even though he knew that in cases like this security only slightly slowed down universal knowledge of what had been in the messages he had exchanged with Sissons. Good gossip had a way of defeating any barrier and often seemed to exceed the light-speed limit in how fast it got around. “You’ve got a couple of FACs at the second gas giant, Sextus. There’ll be a new freighter headed that way.”

“The one claiming its power core is unstable? You’re sending my guys a bomb? Gee, thanks, Admiral.”

“You’re welcome.”

Duellos broke in. “Admiral, two of the freighters have lit off main propulsion and ignored warnings to stop.”

“Have the light cruisers nearest them fire warning shots,” Geary ordered. “And tell the freighter crews that if we have to fire on the freighters to stop them, we’ll be aiming at the control decks of the ships.”

He turned back to Galland to see her watching him appraisingly. “Admiral, as my FACs in orbit regain operational capability, I’ll place them temporarily under your command. Once I get enough going to operate on their own, I’ll have the squadron commander take over and coordinate with you. Are you all right with that?”

“That’s fine,” Geary said. “Does your squadron commander have experience working with ground forces?”

“Here? No. Sissons claimed he never had time or resources or money for joint ops. Do you have experience working with ground forces, Admiral?”

Geary smiled. “A little over a century ago. Two Alliance warships and a couple of platoons of ground forces. I was just a department head on one of the ships.”

“Oh.” Galland grinned back at him. “A little rusty, then?”

“Yeah. Let’s get this done, Colonel. No, wait. What do you have on the refugees? None of the material I’ve seen since arriving here tells me anything about them.”

“They’re Syndics.”

“Are they?” Geary asked. “Is Batara still under Syndic control?”

“I don’t know, Admiral,” Galland admitted. “I don’t have any data on the refugees. I’ve had my hands full dealing with the freighter executives. The aerospace intel capability in this region was at Yokai, and as far as I know they all went home when everything else there closed down. Interrogations and collection at Adriana are the responsibility of ground forces intel.”

As the call ended, Geary turned to Duellos. “Did you copy all of that?”

“Yes, Admiral.” Duellos gestured behind him. “The two misbehaving freighters have seen the error of their ways thanks to very near misses from hell lances and have shut down their propulsion. My Marines are loading into my shuttles now. I need a rules-of-engagement question answered for them, though. They have CRV, riot-dispersal gas, and CRX, riot-suppression gas. The Marines want to use the CRX.”

“What’s wrong with the CRV?” Geary asked.

Duellos swung a hand across his controls and repeated Geary’s question to the image of a Marine sergeant in battle armor that appeared.

“It’s like this, Admiral,” she said. “CRV is designed to disperse riots, to make people run by doing real unpleasant stuff to their eyes, ears, noses, skin, and so on. Nothing too bad, just real uncomfortable. But there’s no place on a ship like that for anyone to run, and from the readings I’m seeing, the life support on those tubs is already shaky. We drop a bunch of CRV into that, and the rioting might get a whole lot worse as people try to run away from it but have nowhere to run.”

“Could we end up with dead?” Duellos asked.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied. “Crushed and suffocated in the panic. And the overstressed life support will take forever to sweep out the CRV, so people will be suffering a long time. But the CRX will just knock them out. No warning, just boom, out go the lights. No time to panic and start stampeding. That’s what I recommend if we run into problems, sir.”

“Can the CRX cause casualties?” Geary said.

“Maybe,” the Marine replied. “Very low odds, but if someone is already sick or something, it might push them over the edge. But it’s as close to nonlethal as anything in the arsenal, Admiral.”

Duellos nodded his recommendation to Geary, and Geary in turn nodded to the Marine. “Use the CRX if you have to employ gas, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”

After the Marine’s image vanished, Duellos raised an eyebrow at Geary. “Marines don’t usually get that excited about nonlethal options.”

“From what General Carabali has told me, they really hate the idea of facing out-of-control civilians. There have apparently been some very ugly incidents on Syndic worlds where Marines had to fire to protect themselves from rioters who were just out of their heads with fear and panic.”

“The glory of war,” Duellos muttered. “We fleet sailors never had to see those who died when we dropped rocks on them from many thousands of kilometers away.”

“That’s over and done,” Geary said, his voice sharp.

“Admiral,” the operations watch reported, her voice carrying easily over the low conversation between Geary and Duellos, “Implacable reports fifteen minutes to intercept of the refugee ship with failing life support.”

“Do we have any more reports from Dagger or Parrot?” Geary asked.

“Dagger reports…” The watch-stander hesitated, then continued speaking in grim tones. “Reports that the freighter crew says they are donning survival suits.”

The combat systems watch-stander shook his head. “Captain, my cousin worked on a freighter. Breaking out those suits costs money. They don’t do it unless they absolutely have to.”

Duellos nodded slowly, his expression tightly controlled. “Would they wait until air quality was bad enough that it was necessary for survival? Or would they don the suits earlier to have a margin for safety?”

“Captain, from what my cousin said, they’d wait until the last minute.”

“And we’re twenty light-minutes distant from all of them,” Duellos said.

Geary pressed his lips tightly together, then hit his comm control harder than necessary, knowing that anything he said would get there too late to make any difference. “Dagger, Parrot, this is—”

“Admiral, incoming from Parrot!”

Breaking off the transmission, Geary called up the new message.

Parrot’s commanding officer seemed shockingly young, a product of the war when promotions could come very rapidly as more senior officers were wiped out wholesale in bloody engagements. Only her eyes betrayed the experiences which had aged her enough to qualify for command despite her youth. “Admiral, based on reports from the freighter crew about conditions aboard the ship, I decided to attempt attaching another evac tube. The attempt was successful, because conditions aboard the freighter are so bad that most of the passengers are either half-conscious or already comatose.

“We’ve linked an intake tube to our own life support to suck out what we can from the freighter and send back clean air, but we don’t have nearly enough capacity. Dagger is mating a tube to another air lock and should join the effort within another few minutes. Implacable is only a few minutes away now, but… sir, we’re going to lose some of them. Maybe a lot of them. We’re doing all we can. Lieutenant Commander Miller, out.”

A year ago, Miller would have been trying to kill those Syndics. Now she looked ready to howl with frustration at not being able to save them all. Despite the tragedy unfolding, Geary saw grounds for hope in that.

“Admiral, incoming from ground forces shuttles.”

He shifted his attention to another screen, where a ground forces officer faced him, uniform and other aspects of his appearance reflecting a very hasty shuttle trip. “Major Farouk, One Thousand Seven Hundred Twelfth Military Police Regiment. I have six and a half platoons ready to assist you, sir.”

Duellos indicated his display. “They should go to these ships, Admiral. I’ve been watching them while you handled the big picture, and they’ve got the most restive refugees. Our cruisers just had to fire more warning shots to keep a few more of those freighters from bolting.”

“Thanks. Major, your assistance is welcome. I am tagging the nine freighters that we assess are most in need of riot control. My Marines are already boarding these other two. I have authorized the use of CRX riot-suppression gas.”

Farouk stared blankly back at Geary for a moment before replying. “Sir, we have no CRX.”

“You only have CRV?”

“No, sir. We don’t have any gas.”

“What have you got?”

“Screamers, flash-bangs, stunners—”

It was equipment more suited to dealing with serious law-enforcement scenarios than riot control. Geary held up his hands to halt the recitation. “Use minimum necessary force. We’ve got six warships out here to back you up. Are there any leaders among the refugees whom you can contact to help restore order?”

Major Farouk’s expression reflected embarrassment this time. “I don’t know, Admiral.”

“Your intel people can’t tell you?” Geary demanded, afraid that he already knew the answer.

“We have nothing on the refugees, Admiral. They are under the control of the aerospace forces. I asked, sir,” Farouk added quickly. “As we were lifting. I was told the refugees are Syndics who came here for economic reasons, and if there was anything else, the aerospace forces should have learned it. That’s all.”

“Here are my orders to you,” Geary said slowly and clearly. “As you board each ship, make sure you attempt to learn if there are local leaders who can assist in restoring and maintaining order. I want to know what you learn. Advise me immediately if you need any assistance or learn anything that I have to know. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Damned idiot bureaucratic foolishness,” Geary grumbled after the call ended. “They’re Syndics. Didn’t anyone think it was important to know why so many were risking coming into Alliance territory?”

Duellos shrugged. “They’re Syndics,” he repeated. “Let me tell you how the people here probably have been thinking. First, since the refugees are Syndics, they’ll lie if they’re asked. Second, their motives don’t matter because they’re going back to Syndic territory. Third, they’re Syndics, so who the hell cares? That’s on top of what we already know about General Sissons’s attitude toward cooperation and providing any support he doesn’t absolutely have to provide.” He checked something on his display. “My Marines are beginning boarding ops. Do you want to monitor them?”

He liked doing that, liked watching events through the viewpoints of the Marines, but… “Not this time. There’s too much else going on for me to get that narrowly focused. Let me know if they run into problems.”

“Formidable has propulsion controls back online!” the operations watch announced happily.

Geary felt himself smiling, too. Things were finally getting under control. “Formidable, this is Admiral Geary. Proceed to intercept with Inspire. I want these freighters to see another battle cruiser coming.”

“Admiral, FAC 4657A is reporting in for instructions.”

What should he do with a FAC? “Tell them to assist our cruisers in dealing with any freighters that start to leave orbit.”

“Marines aboard one ship are employing CRX,” Duellos said.

“What about the other one?” Geary asked.

“It looks like order was being restored before they boarded.” Duellos looked to one side, said something, then turned back to Geary. “They’ve been contacted by two leaders who are asking them to refrain from compliance actions, whatever those are.”

“When this calms down, I need to speak to those two leaders,” Geary said. “On a secure, remote hookup. Have the Marines tell them now that as long as they can restore order, the Marines will have no need to act.”

“Implacable has intercepted the stricken freighter and is assisting in rescue efforts,” another watch-stander reported.

“FAC 1793B reporting for instructions.”

“Ground forces boarding three freighters, shuttles still on approach for the other six.”

“FAC 8853A reporting for instructions.”

“Marines aboard freighter where CRX was employed need some fleet sailors to monitor freighter propulsion, power, and control systems until the crew revives.”

Geary paused to rub his eyes. The bubble was slowly getting under control, or at least was no longer threatening to break into a million pieces flying off through space, but it would be a while yet before he could relax. He lowered his hand and looked to where on his display Implacable, Dagger, and Parrot could be seen clustered around the stricken refugee ship.

I’ve limited the damage, but I couldn’t prevent some loss of life.

I’m going to get on top of this situation, find out how to get these refugees home, find out how to keep more from coming, and find out why they’re coming here in the first place. And the one good thing about this recent mess is that it’s put me in a place to start doing that.

It had been a very long day, but despite his exhaustion Geary still felt keyed up. He needed answers, and these people might be able to give them to him.

The conference room aboard Inspire was nearly identical to that on Dauntless, but Geary still felt an irrational discomfort, including a sense that the standard-issue seat he occupied in this compartment was more uncomfortable than the standard-issue seat in the compartment aboard Dauntless.

Seemingly seated at the table across from him were the virtual presences of two individuals, the refugee leaders whom the Marines had found aboard one of the freighters. The Marines had set up the conferencing equipment, then backed off so that the two leaders would feel freer to talk to Geary. Both the leaders were in nondescript outfits that had clearly been worn too long under conditions that didn’t permit baths or laundering.

The one who identified himself as Naxos was an older man of heavy build who reminded Geary of the more experienced senior enlisted sailors he had worked with. He did not seem comfortable with being someone in charge, and often looked down at his hands as if hoping they could do the talking for him. Naxos’s words confirmed Geary’s impression.

“I spent my life on a work line,” he said. “At the lowest level. I started forty years ago. My last job was senior line supervisor. People think that means I know how to get things done. I hope they’re right.” Naxos glanced toward Geary, a flash of defiance showing, then quickly looked away again.

“I’m not a Syndic CEO,” Geary said. “I like it when people look me in the eye.”

The other refugee leader was younger, sharper, a blade not yet worn down by life in the Syndicate Worlds. She didn’t have the same air of reflexive submission that Naxos did but lacked the confidence of someone who had occupied a high position. The woman, who gave her name as Araya, snorted skeptically at Geary’s words. “Can we afford to take your word for that?”

“I don’t see where you have any alternative,” Geary said. “From what I know, I’m the first person in authority from the Alliance to talk to you, and I might be the last. If there’s something we need to know, you need to tell me.” As he spoke with these two, on top of his earlier conversations, he was slowly realizing how much Victoria Rione had schooled him on difficult talks. Without telling him she was doing so, Rione had almost constantly forced him to deal with oblique statements and unclear motivations. He had always assumed that was just the way she was, but now he wondered if Rione had done it deliberately with this end in sight. She had been very direct in their first conversations, after all. “What was your job under the Syndicate?” he asked Araya.

“Sub-executive Level Five,” Araya replied as if daring him to comment on it.

“I can’t remember exactly where that rank sits in the Syndic hierarchy,” Geary said.

“It’s not high. In fact, you can’t get any lower without being a worker.” Her eyes studied him. “I was blackballed by a CEO. No promotions. Ever.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“I’ve talked to the people in the Midway Star System, who revolted against the Syndicate Worlds. They told me a lot about the system they had been forced to live under, what CEOs could do to try to compel people.” Geary pointed to Naxos, then Araya. “I’ve been ordered to take you back to your homes. But I want to help you.”

Skepticism radiated from the two like a physical force. “Why?” Naxos asked, his eyes on his hands.

“Because I’m supposed to solve this mess. Just taking you home won’t solve anything if you and the others just show up here again. You’re refugees. Why? Why did you leave Batara, and why did you come to an Alliance star system rather than one elsewhere in Syndic space?”

“You’re Alliance,” Araya said, heat entering her voice. “You’ve bombed us and killed us and shot at us for a century. Why should we tell you anything?”

“Why the hell did you come here if you think everyone in the Alliance is evil?” Geary asked.

“It wasn’t our—” Araya began hotly before cutting off her words. She glared at Geary, then shrugged. “All right. Batara threw out the Syndicate. We rebelled. But once we got rid of the snakes and the CEOs, we… we…”

He knew this story from other star systems. “You had been united against the Syndicate government, but after they were gone, the different factions at Batara started fighting among themselves. Is that what happened?”

“Yes,” Naxos confirmed, his gaze flicking upward for a moment to look at Geary before lowering again. “We were given a choice. Leave, or stay in a Syndicate labor camp that was under new management, or die. The last two options were the same thing.”

Geary nodded, leaning back in his seat as he thought. “Since you were rebels, you couldn’t go to another Syndic star system.”

“We didn’t have any choice,” Araya insisted. “That’s the only reason we came here. Leave Batara or die. Fine. Where could we go? We’ve got three jump points at Batara. One leads to Alliance space.”

“To Yokai,” Geary agreed.

“You call it Yokai. We call that jump point the Mouth of Hell. For a hundred years, the people at Batara watched Syndicate forces jump from there and disappear, or come back in tatters. For a hundred years, we never knew when Alliance killers would appear at the jump point to attack us.”

“There was a certain logic to it,” Naxos offered, frowning at his hands. “The other rebels wanted to get rid of us, so they sent us through the Mouth of Hell.”

“The other two jump points,” Araya continued, “lead to Yael and Tiyannak. Yael remains under Syndicate control. They don’t have enough forces to reconquer Batara, but they do have enough to send minor attacks at us. They pop out, bombard some installations and destroy some shipping, then run. If we resubmit to the Syndicate, they say they’ll stop. But everyone in Batara knows that letting the CEOs back will be worse than anything the forces at Yael can do to us. And the ones who kicked us out of Batara didn’t want us helping the CEOs, joining with them or just telling them lots of things about what was going on, so they wouldn’t let us jump to Yael.”

“What about Tiyannak?” Geary asked.

“Tiyannak!” Naxos said it like a curse. “There was a mobile forces refit facility at Tiyannak. Not much else. My brother worked there. They revolted, too, and took over the mobile forces that were at the facility. They’ve been raiding Batara for the last four months. No, six months, now. They want refined resources, specialized equipment, bulk food supplies, and other things. Batara can’t hold them off with what it has got, which are mostly just lightly armed converted merchant ships.”

“We had to go through the Mouth,” Araya repeated. “We got to the star at the other end. Yokai. There wasn’t anything there. Locked installations with automated security systems that warned us off. We had to keep going. So we came here. And they won’t talk to us or let us go or anything. They provide just enough food to get by, and we have to stay in orbit here and wait.”

“We can work,” Naxos said with another glance at Geary. “We’re skilled, and we’re hard workers. We’re willing to go where we could find jobs. There must be places other than the Syndicate and the Alliance. But if you just send us back, they’ll kick us out again, and we’ll be here again. Unless they kill us. Why won’t you give us a chance?”

Geary looked at the two, seeing pride, defiance, and desperation. “You just described to me how you felt about the Alliance after a century of having war on your front doorstep. How do you think the people in Adriana feel about you after having experienced the same thing from the other side?”

“We didn’t start it!” Adriana insisted.

“Actually, you did,” Geary said in a matter-of-fact way. “The Syndicate Worlds, that is. It launched surprise attacks on the Alliance. I know, because I fought against one of those attacks.”

“That’s impossi—” Araya began. Then her eyes grew wide, and she moved back as far as her seat on the freighter would allow. “You’re him. It’s true.”

“I am the man you know as Black Jack,” Geary said. “I know that your leaders lied to you about who started the war, so even if you don’t want to believe me, you might ask yourself why you still believe them.”

“Our fault,” Naxos said. He sounded drained and was looking fixedly down at his hands again. “Even after all this time, we must pay for the crimes of our ancestors. Is that it?”

“I don’t see the point in it,” Geary said. “Not if you no longer pose a threat to the Alliance. Do you?”

“Does what we say matter?”

“It does to me.”

Araya met his eyes, bold again. “If you are him— We just want the Alliance to leave us alone. Let us go on and find some place. Or do you mean Batara? The people at Batara have their hands full dealing with attacks from Yael and Tiyannak. They don’t want to keep the war with the Alliance going. But they won’t take us back.”

“They’re going to have to,” Geary said. “Batara can’t be allowed to kick people into Alliance space, and if stopping that means forcing a change in government at Batara, then I am willing to do that.” The basic lie-detector routines in the meeting software hadn’t alerted him to any falsehoods by these two, and he was inclined to believe them anyway because no worthwhile government would be forcing so many of its own people into exile or taking over operation of Syndic labor camps instead of shutting them down.

“You want to conquer Batara now that the Syndicate is gone?” Araya asked. “You could do that, because there’s nothing at Yael that could stand against your mobile forces, but you’d still have to deal with Tiyannak.”

“I’m not interested in conquering anything. Just how many warships does Tiyannak have?”

“We’re not sure,” Naxos replied. “You mean mobile forces, right? At least two heavy cruisers, maybe a dozen light cruisers and Hunter-Killers. And a battleship.”

“A battleship?”

“It was at Tiyannak,” Araya explained. “Not in working condition. Damaged in some battle before the war ended. We think whenever Tiyannak gets the battleship working, they will use it to outright take over Batara. They’ve boasted to us about that. Tiyannak is going to be the strongest star system in this region. And not even the Alliance can stop them. That’s what they claim.”

And after Tiyannak took over Batara, a rogue star system with possession of a battleship would control another star system on the border of the Alliance, facing places like Yokai, where the defenses were gone, and Adriana, where Alliance defenses had been gutted by downsizing.

An annoying and difficult situation had just become ugly and dangerous.