“Monitoring and security systems at some of the sites do report a few attempts at entry, Captain,” the operations watch reported.
“But no reports of actual entry?”
“No, sir. All of the sites are reporting their current status with no discrepancies, so nobody has gone in and shut down anything to try to hide their activities.”
Lieutenant Nadia “Night Witch” Popova, the pilot of the FAC loaded onto Inspire, was also on the bridge and pointed out a large orbiting facility near the edge of the star system, only a couple of light-minutes from where the HuK was loitering. “That’s where our squadron will be based. We’ll reactivate enough of the station to handle our needs and leave the rest dark.”
“You’ll be able to intercept anything coming in,” Geary said. “I wish your people were already there.”
“Me, too, Admiral. I wouldn’t mind having a HuK silhouette painted on the side of my warbird.”
“What will your squadron do if it’s something too big for them to handle?” Duellos asked.
Popova grinned. “Play dead and send off a courier drone to jump for Adriana with the bad news. The base had several of those drones for emergencies, and the colonel is pretty sure they were mothballed in place. While we’re passing through, Catnap is supposed to ping the base’s housekeeping systems to confirm the drones are still there.”
“Catnap?” Geary asked.
“Lieutenant Alvarez, sir.”
“She’s on Implacable,” Duellos said before turning a questioning eye on Night Witch. “Is there a reason why aerospace pilots use those nicknames so much, Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Popova smiled wider. “Tradition, sir. And, it does drive the ground forces and fleet forces kind of crazy, sort of as a bonus.”
“Who is on Formidable?” Geary asked.
“Nightstalker, Admiral.”
I guess we’re lucky we got Night Witch. “Were you ever at Yokai before they shut things down?”
The smile faded into seriousness. “Yes, sir. Just a rotation for familiarity. It was busy back then. Kinda spooky now.”
“Let me know what, uh, Catnap finds out about the drones,” Geary directed. “Make sure both of the others know to be ready to launch in combat configuration the moment we arrive at Batara.”
Popova frowned toward Geary’s display. “It’s pretty quiet here, except that one HuK. That should be a good sign.”
Duellos shook his head. “Ah, youth and its optimism. Lieutenant, the Admiral and I look at the lack of freighter traffic here and wonder why there are no refugee ships passing through en route Adriana. The flow of refugee shipping appears to have been choked off. We don’t know why, so we are assuming it means something that will complicate our own mission. We also don’t know who that HuK is here to warn, but it is certain now that we will not have the advantage of surprise when we arrive at Batara.”
The pilot’s frown turned into concern. “Yes, sir. When we get to Batara, we’ll be ready for whatever is there, sir.”
I sure hope so, Geary thought as he nodded encouragingly to the pilot.
• • •
COLONEL Kim appeared to be as cheerful as ever despite riding one of the refugee freighters. “There’s a little bit of restiveness, Admiral, but most of the refugees were kicked out of Batara, or fled the star system to save themselves or their families instead of leaving because they wanted to. You were right about that. Sitting in overcrowded, stinking freighters for months has cooled any enthusiasm they might have had for being in the Alliance, even if they didn’t think we were monsters to begin with. They seem to be happy to be going home now that we’re actually on the way.”
“They’re not worried about what the government at Batara might do to them?” Geary asked.
Kim grinned wider. “They got kicked out in small groups. They’re coming back in one big bunch, and from what I can tell, they don’t intend getting kicked around anymore. If you ask me, it’s the government at Batara that ought to be worried.”
“That government deserves to be worried,” Geary said, though he had been concerned enough about what might happen when they dropped off the refugees to have been running contingencies through his head for a while.
“Are we going to be doing any shooting?” Colonel Kim didn’t seem to be worried or excited at the prospect, just curious.
“I’m going to try to avoid that,” Geary replied. “How are your soldiers doing?”
“No problems there, Admiral, except the living conditions.”
Geary smiled at the image of Kim seated opposite him in his stateroom. “Freighters don’t offer luxury sleeping accommodations, I’m afraid.”
“It’s not that, Admiral. Ground forces don’t expect opulent living conditions like the aerospace forces do,” Kim explained with another grin. “It’s the smell. Too many people on these freighters for too long. The people stink, the air stinks because life support can’t clear it all out, and, of course, the field rations always smell awful. I expect the refugees will be as happy to get some good showers as my soldiers will be to get the refugees off-loaded.”
“Are there any indications we’ll have trouble doing the off-load at Batara?” Geary asked. “I want to be ready if any of the refugees decide they don’t want to confront their government after all.”
“No, sir. No indications.” Kim looked around theatrically to ensure she wasn’t being overheard. “I’ve been talking to those two leaders on this freighter. That Araya woman won’t lighten up at all. She keeps acting like she expects me to cut her throat during the next sleep period. But Fred Naxos is all right.”
“Fred?”
“Federico, but he prefers Fred,” Kim explained. “You aren’t going to believe this, Admiral, but the refugees are quiet in part because there’s a big rumor spreading among them that Black Jack is on their side.”
“What?” He had thought he was beyond being surprised by what people expected of Black Jack, but this one had blindsided him. “Syndics usually think of Black Jack as some sort of demon.”
“But these guys revolted against what they call the Syndicate. And, before they left Batara, word had been getting to them about your blowing away the old Syndic leadership and defending some rebellious star system way off on the backside of nowhere from the Syndics and aliens.”
“Actually,” Geary said, “the old Syndic leadership was killed by their own forces. I suppose I did cause that to happen. The star system they’ve heard about must be Midway.”
“Yes, sir! Midway. That’s what they said.” Kim grinned conspiratorially this time. “So there’s this rumor going around among the refugees that Black Jack fights Syndics, but he’s a champion of the people. And the refugees figure they’re not Syndics, anymore, they’re the people, and Black Jack is taking them back home, so maybe he’s their hero, too.”
Great. Another group of people expecting me to save the day. “So, they’re coming around to not seeing the Alliance as enemies?”
“Oh, no, Admiral. They still think the Alliance is where ogres live. But any of us who are working for Black Jack are good ogres. Sort of.” Kim looked thoughtful. “It’s a start, though. The idea that the other guy isn’t a monster anymore. It would be nice to be able to trade through Batara again, like in the old days.”
“The old days?” Geary asked.
“Yes, sir. My family has been in trade for a while. We used to do a lot of business into and through Batara, before the Syndics took it over; and then the war came. But we remember before then.” She paused, a variety of expressions flickering over her face. “I wonder if anybody in Batara remembers. We’ve still got our records from those days, the business contacts and all.”
“I imagine that the Syndicate Worlds did a number on the businesses that were there before the takeover, and it’s been more than a century since then. We’ll find out what’s s
urvived.” And what survives once we’re done. “Ask Naxos and Araya about the HuK. I’d be interested in knowing what their impressions are as to who it belongs to.”
• • •
THE mysterious HuK jumped from Yokai toward Batara ten hours after Geary’s task force had arrived, long enough to have seen all of the warships and freighters and to have confirmed that they were heading for the same jump point.
“We were, that is the government at Batara was, trying to get a damaged HuK working,” Araya had reluctantly admitted. “That might be it. It was all we had in the way of real mobile forces. But I don’t know why they would have sent it here instead of positioning it near the jump point where raids from Yael come in.”
Geary gazed at the stumpy vector line on his display that reflected the relatively low velocity of his ships and tried not to chafe inwardly too much over the time it would take to get to the jump point and head for the place that would have the answers. It was exasperating having to match the velocity of the warships to the freighters. The merchant ships could push themselves to higher velocities, of course. They just had to keep accelerating. But it would take much longer than with warships—and burn more fuel cells—and then it would take just as long and burn just as much fuel for the clumsy freighters to reduce their velocity again.
• • •
THE Alliance battle cruisers, surrounded by two squadrons of destroyers, popped out of jump space and into Batara Star System. Geary’s display had shown the last-known status of the Syndic defenses at Batara, dating to just less than a year ago, but now he had to shake out of his head the mental grogginess caused by exiting jump and wait while the sensors on the Alliance warships tried to see what was still here and was still working.
The first thing he was aware of was that no alarms were sounding and no weapons were being fired by automated fire-control systems on the Alliance warships. Whatever might await them here, it wasn’t waiting very close to the jump exit.
In fact, as his head cleared, he saw that there were no threats at all anywhere near them.
The jump point from Yokai was a bit above the plane in which the planets of Batara orbited, and nearly four light-hours from the star. Geary had a stronger-than-usual sense that the Alliance battle cruisers had a godlike vantage of the entire star system, looking down and across the vast distances between worlds as if occupying divine box seats.
Like other front-line star systems, Batara had been heavily battered during the decades of war. But the Syndics had followed the same perverse logic as the Alliance in rebuilding and reinforcing it time and again. Marginal star systems, those with barely any population like Yokai, could be turned into purely military enclaves. But any star system with a significant population, cities, and industries had to be maintained as much as possible no matter how many times the enemy hit it and no matter how much it cost to sustain the civilian population there. Anything less would mark yielding to the enemy, would be admitting defeat, and the century-long war had often been more about refusing to admit defeat than it had been about any hope of victory.
Geary could see the small cities on the main inhabited world at Batara, all of them characterized by roughly circular patches of similar buildings that marked reconstruction where orbital bombardments had hit, the patches often overlapping. In a few places, such battered cities occupied areas near the heavily cratered ruins of a former city too badly damaged to rebuild on its original site. Defenses sat in craters where generations of bombardments had knocked out generations of rebuilt weaponry and sensors in an apparently endless cycle. The “empty” spaces between worlds were filled with fields of debris, the remnants of warships from both sides, some of the debris widely dispersed over many years and other clusters fairly compact, marking the deaths of ships and their crews within the last few years. It was a depressing sight, but also an astounding sight. Humans could choose to abandon star systems, but if someone tried to force them to leave, then by all the grace of the living stars and all the blessings of their ancestors they would plant their feet and stay.
“Two light cruisers and four HuKs,” the operations watch reported. “All standard Syndic construction and all orbiting near the primary inhabited planet. Most of the fixed defenses appear to be nonoperational.”
Duellos cast a suspicious eye on Geary. “You told me that you expected those defenses to be out of commission. Was it a guess based on likely Syndic budget problems?”
“No,” Geary replied. “If the defenses had remained active, the people at Batara wouldn’t have had to worry about raids from Tiyannak or Yael. I knew something must have taken out most of the active defenses. But the deep shelters will still be there, meaning Batara’s population can ride out a lot of raids even if they can’t stop them.”
“Those raiders,” Duellos observed, with a gesture toward the light cruisers and HuKs, “don’t appear to be raiding. They’re close enough to that planet to be engaged by some of the defenses that still exist, but they’re not shooting, and neither are the defenses. Are you looking for something?” he asked Geary.
“Yes. I’m looking for that HuK that was performing picket duty at Yokai and jumped here ahead of us. Where is he?”
“He must be one of the HuKs in that group near the primary world. He had plenty of time to join them before we arrived.”
A reasonable assumption, Geary thought. But, still, an assumption. He parked a mental worry chit on the question of where that HuK was as more information about Batara came in.
“Captain,” the operations watch-stander said, “we’re spotting significant crowd activity in the cities that are visible to us. The population is in the streets, not sheltering against bombardment.”
“Crowd activity?” Geary asked. “How full are the streets?”
“Packed, Admiral.”
“Lieutenant Barber,” Duellos ordered, “we need to know what’s going on here.”
“We’re analyzing all the communications and other traffic we can pick up,” Barber said. “There’s a lot for a star system with a population this size. The official newscasts say nothing is happening.”
“But we all know what official news amounts to, don’t we, Lieutenant?” Duellos turned back to Geary. “What are you going to tell them?”
“Batara?” Geary said. “Nothing, yet. We’ll wait here until the refugee ships show up, then all proceed in-system toward that inhabited world. I’ll wait to send any messages to anyone until we have a better idea of what’s happening.”
A flurry of updates on the displays marked the arrival of the refugee ships and their escorts, scores of ships suddenly there in space near the battle cruisers. A thought struck Geary, and he tapped another control. “Colonel Kim, give the refugee leaders Naxos and Araya listening access to the comms on that freighter and see what they think the situation is based on what they hear and who is saying it.” It was annoying not having Lieutenant Iger and his intel team available to handle all this, but he could improvise.
“Let’s get going,” Geary said. “Immediate execute, all units turn starboard one eight degrees, down zero seven degrees, maintain point zero five light speed.”
Since the light cruisers and HuKs were near the primary inhabited world, and that world was swinging in orbit on the far side of the star relative to Geary’s ships, it would be a bit over four hours before the light from here reached them and they learned that the Alliance warships had arrived. It gave him some time to figure out what the situation was in Batara.
It only took about half an hour before Colonel Kim called back. “The refugee leader Araya is certain from the transmissions we’re picking up that what she calls the damned cowardly greedy revolution-betraying traitors-to-the-people who have been running Batara have sold out to Tiyannak.”
“Sold out? They’ve allied with Tiyannak?”
Colonel Kim shrugged. “Even Araya isn’t sure what their status is. Ally
. Vassal. Slave. She and Naxos both say if they didn’t know exactly whom to pay attention to in all the transmissions out there, they wouldn’t know what was going on. There are a lot of broadcasts where even they can’t figure out who’s sending them and what side they’re on.”
“You’re certain of that?” Geary demanded. “Araya and Naxos thought the transmissions we’re picking up are unusual for Batara?”
“Pretty certain, yes, Admiral. While she was listening to them, Araya kept saying stuff like what the hell? and what is this? She kept asking Naxos who different people and different organizations were, and he spent a lot of time shaking his head.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” Geary turned to Duellos as Kim’s image vanished. “How is Lieutenant Barber doing on his analysis of the situation?”
Duellos grimaced. “I checked with him while you were talking to Colonel Kim. Barber is doing his best, but he says it’s very complex. He’s a good, smart officer, Admiral. He’ll figure it out.”
“If he doesn’t, it won’t be because he isn’t smart.” Geary pointed to where the primary inhabited world showed on his display. “The refugee leaders say there are a lot of transmissions out there that they have trouble identifying, transmissions that confuse the situation and make it very hard to understand exactly what the status of Batara is.”
“Confuse?” Duellos repeated, his jaw tightening. “The HuK that told them we were coming.”
“And gave them plenty of time to fill space before we got here with misleading, confusing, and false transmissions in order to keep us uncertain about who is in charge at Batara and what they are doing.”
Duellos gazed narrowly at his own display. “To what purpose? Those tricks will delay our understanding of the situation, but they won’t stop us. They must mean to keep us guessing for a while. What advantage will that gain them?”
“Good question.” Geary chewed his lip as he studied the situation. “They knew we had the refugee ships with us. Even a Syndic HuK has good enough sensors to ID those as old Syndic-make merchant ships at seven light-hours distance. Having the refugee ships with us meant we would head for that planet, but the only significant threat to us there are those light cruisers and HuKs, and we should be able to handle them easily.”
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast Page 27