The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

by Jack Campbell

  Desjani nodded. “Exactly. Maybe the Dancers themselves don’t know what the problem is. Maybe they got a message that caused them to bolt for Durnan, then later some other stuff that got them worried but couldn’t tell them exactly what’s going on.”

  “That’s possible,” Geary repeated. “We can’t know if it’s true, though.”

  “If it is true, then I predict the next thing we hear from the Dancers will be an announcement that they want to go home.”

  It took barely six hours for Desjani’s prediction to be proven accurate.

  “The Dancers want to leave,” Charban reported. “They want to leave soon. They want us to escort them back through Syndic space via the Syndic hypernet to Midway. I’m pretty certain that they intend saying farewell to us at Midway and going the rest of the way home on their own.”

  Oh, great. Geary gazed sourly at the representation of the Dancer ships on his display. Here I am, reading the latest government communication directing me to convince the Dancers to visit the Alliance capital at Unity, and the Dancers instead want to leave without ever having gone there. And this morning I got a message saying a team of official alien liaison experts is coming to Varandal to take over all future interactions with the Dancers, but they’re not scheduled to arrive for another two weeks at the earliest.

  Charban was wrapping up. “I’ll try to get them to define what they mean by soon. Charban, out.”

  Back through Syndic territory. Through the Syndic hypernet, which could be manipulated by the Syndic government to block gates, and through star systems governed by people who had signed a peace agreement but were still waging a form of covert war on the Alliance. The Syndics had already demonstrated their intent to keep destroying Alliance warships when possible, and had not been thrilled to know that the Alliance was establishing friendly contact with the Dancers, a friendly contact that could be disrupted if the Dancer emissaries being escorted by the Alliance suffered from “accidents” while in Syndic space. “Tanya? We’ve got a problem.”

  She was in her own stateroom, the lights dimmed except the work light on her desk. “What is it this time?”

  “We might have to take off, fast, to escort the Dancers back to Midway.”

  “I guess the living stars decided to shower more blessings upon us,” Desjani commented. “Fast? We can’t get the fleet ready to roll that far in a short time.”

  “I know. How much of the fleet should we try to bring?”

  She spread her hands. “You said it. Fast. As many of the battle cruisers as we can get ready, and enough light cruisers and destroyers to match. We can cannibalize fuel cells from the ships that aren’t coming to overstock the ones that are going. If we only have a few days to work with, that’s the best option.”

  Geary thought about it, calling up ship status reports, then cursing under his breath as he remembered that they were all falsified. He would have to order individual ship captains to send him accurate reports. “I think you’re right. We need to go fast through Syndic space. Get in and get out before the Syndic government on Prime can find out and block any of their gates to our use. Can we do that?”

  “I’ll have my officers run the numbers, but I think so. We’ll use the Syndic hypernet gate at Indras again? Indras is a lot closer to Prime than Midway is, but that’s all to the good since longer hypernet trips take less time than shorter ones. As long as we enter Midway’s gate to get home before the Syndics can block it, we’ll be home free.”

  “As home free as we can be in Syndic space,” Geary corrected. “The Syndics shouldn’t have time to set up any nasty ambushes.”

  Unless they already had some ambushes ready to go.

  At least he had a little more time to get his ships ready for this operation.

  • • •

  “NOW,” Charban said. Diamond had continued in-system and was only a couple of light-minutes distant from Dauntless, making a real conversation possible if also awkwardly drawn out waiting for a reply to come back. “The Dancers say they must leave now.”

  FOURTEEN

  “BUT what does ‘now’ mean to them?” Geary asked, hoping for some ambiguity in the answer.

  “It means right now, this moment, this time, go,” Charban amplified when his answer came back a few minutes later. “That’s exactly what the Dancers communicated to me when I asked that question. I also asked what would happen if we couldn’t go now, and they said we go. It’s pretty much an ultimatum. We escort them home, or they start off on their own.”

  “They must be bluffing! Jumping back all that way would take forever.”

  “They could be bluffing,” Charban admitted. “I’d never gamble with a Dancer because I can’t read their emotions at the best of times. But we can’t rule out the possibility that the Dancers have tricks we don’t know about when it comes to jump drives,” Charban said. “As well as the possibility that they may be able to endure much longer periods in jump space than humans can. They somehow got to Durnan a long time ago.”

  And if the Dancers headed home on their own, leaving the entire Alliance with no idea of whether or not they had made it through Syndic space in one piece, there would be hell to pay. “I need twelve more hours to get a task force together,” Geary insisted. “That’s the absolute minimum time. I need a strong enough force to protect them, and a strong enough force to defend itself against any threats we might encounter. Tell them that. Twelve hours. Have they said anything about our offers to send a ship all the way back with them, with representatives?”

  When the reply came, Charban was rubbing his head with both hands as if trying to drive away a headache. “Their answer is not yet. They’re not saying no, they’re not saying yes. The Dancers are saying not yet.”

  What did “not yet” mean to a Dancer? With humans, it could mean a delay of minutes, hours, days, or years. And yet the Dancers hadn’t had any trouble conveying exactly what they meant by “now.” “The government won’t like hearing that, but I don’t know what we’re supposed to do to change the Dancers’ minds. That ship carrying the official alien liaison team won’t be here for close to two more weeks at best anyway. What about individual representatives?”

  “I have suggested myself, I have suggested Dr. Shwartz, I have asked if there is anyone they would be willing to accept.” Charban smiled. “Not yet.”

  “What about the unraveling thing? Is that related to their sudden desire to leave now?”

  “They won’t say.”

  Geary felt a headache of his own coming on. “General, I have to admit if it was me dealing with the Dancers I would be having a very hard time not getting really, really upset with them. I know they think differently than us, but I believe that you are right that they are also deliberately not telling us some things.”

  Charban nodded and sighed. “Yet I am certain that they mean us well. Maybe they are treating us in the same way they would treat others of their own species. I don’t know. I can’t get angry about anything with them because that might shut off my ability to learn more. I have learned that the only way to maintain my sanity when dealing with the Dancers is to take a very contemplative approach, meditating at appropriate times and frequently telling myself not to keep carrying the old woman.”

  Geary eyed Charban’s image. “The old woman?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard that story? It’s a very old one.” Charban paused to think. “There are two men walking through a town where the streets are muddy. They come to a place where an old woman who has been shopping is trying to leave her vehicle and reach the sidewalk. But all of her helpers have their hands full of her packages, and if they put the packages down to help her avoid the mud, they will get the packages muddy. All they can do is stand there while the old woman screams at them. One of the two travelers walks up to the old woman and gives her assistance to reach the sidewalk. She doesn’t thank him but just stomps off, follo
wed by her helpers, as the two travelers go on their way. The other traveler spends the rest of the afternoon wondering why his friend helped that mean person, and finally, as they stop for the night, he asks, Why did you help that unpleasant person? His companion looks at him in surprise, and says, I put that woman down this morning. Why are you still carrying her?

  “I have to be like that with the Dancers. I have to not carry anything that frustrates or angers me but approach every communication without that kind of baggage.”

  Geary laughed despite his worries. “You’re a better man than I am, General. Put together a detailed report of your conversations with the Dancers since you returned to Varandal. I need to have that left here and sent on to the government and fleet headquarters after we depart, so no one accuses me of kidnapping the Dancers. Tell them twelve hours. Get more time if you can. But I need twelve hours.”

  “Understood, Admiral.”

  Geary rapped his head with one fist out of frustration, then checked the status of frantic efforts to prepare ships for the unexpected mission. He called Captain Smythe on the auxiliary Tanuki. “What are the chances of Inspire being ready to go in twelve hours?”

  “Can’t be done,” Smythe said. “We couldn’t even close up all our work in that time frame, let alone finish the repairs.”

  “That leaves me with only thirteen battle cruisers.”

  “Twelve,” Smythe corrected. “I’ve gone over the status of Intemperate with Admiral Timbale, and we can’t get her ready, either. Half her systems are torn out and being replaced. Since we gave priority to getting the other battle cruisers in shape, and you didn’t bang up Implacable and Formidable too badly on your last jaunt, the other twelve should hold up. But watch Adroit. Her systems were all ‘smart-evolved,’ which is the latest bureaucratic speak for cutting corners to save money. They’re almost new, but I don’t trust them.”

  “How’s the money situation look?”

  “Oh, that’s fine. This is an emergency. You get to spend and let higher authority figure out how to pay for it later. One other thing, Admiral. I know you’re just planning on taking light cruisers and destroyers and escorts, but from a purely logistical point of view, it would be good to have some heavy cruisers along. They’ve got the acceleration to keep up with the battle cruisers, much better endurance than the lighter ships, and they can stuff in enough extra fuel cells to help resupply the destroyers when they start to run low.”

  “Thanks. That’s good advice. Let me know if any other problems develop. Have we ever given Lieutenant Jamenson a look at the Dancer communications?”

  “Why would we do that?” Smythe asked, looking unusually surprised.

  “Because General Charban suspects the Dancers are avoiding telling us things and sort of, well, dancing around the questions we ask.”

  “They’re trying to confuse us?” Smythe’s expression shifted to intrigued. “That is right up Jamenson’s alley.”

  Geary could almost see the wheels turning in Smythe’s head. Jamenson’s ability to produce accurate and complete reports that were also nearly impossible to understand was invaluable to Smythe, as was her ability to spot the truth in documents that others had tried to write in a confusing manner. But having an in on communicating with the Dancers or other aliens would boost Lieutenant Jamenson’s value immensely. Even if she didn’t continue working for Smythe, she would surely be open to requests for favors that could be extremely important and perhaps extremely profitable as well.

  “Would you like to borrow Lieutenant Jamenson for this mission?” Smythe asked in a completely guileless manner. “Since it is so very important.”

  Geary pretended reluctance. “But her work with you is also very important.”

  “A few weeks won’t make a big difference, and this is important to all humanity!”

  “I didn’t know you were such a humanitarian,” Geary said, thinking once more of the Syndic definition of the term.

  “I’ve been known to surprise people,” Smythe said with a disconcerting smile.

  “But not me, Captain,” Geary said. “No surprises for me.”

  “Of course not, Admiral!”

  • • •

  JANE Geary didn’t argue with his rationale for leaving the battleships behind, with her once more in temporary command of the fleet. “But be careful. Syndic space is a snake pit.”

  “You don’t have to remind me of that,” Geary replied.

  “I know you’re unlikely to encounter any more POW camps since you’re going through only a few Syndic star systems, but keep an eye out for Michael. Good luck, Great-uncle.”

  Geary ended the call, gazing morosely at his display. Twelve battle cruisers. Two divisions of heavy cruisers. Three squadrons of light cruisers. Four squadrons of destroyers. “It doesn’t feel like enough.”

  Desjani snorted. “It isn’t. But taking more wouldn’t help. At least this time we’ve got Steadfast with us.”

  “Steadfast?” Geary knew he looked puzzled. “Is there some particular significance to Steadfast?”

  “Of course there is! Steadfast represents the spirit of the fleet. There always has to be a Steadfast. That’s why we got a replacement for the last Steadfast so quickly when she was lost at Heradao.”

  Geary remembered that, the new Steadfast showing up as quickly as the new Invincible, but he had been wrapped up in so many other issues, he hadn’t taken special note of it. “When did that start? The idea that Steadfast represents the spirit of the fleet?”

  “Hasn’t it always been that way?” Desjani asked, startled.

  “No.” There must have been a battle, sometime in the last century, in which an earlier Steadfast had performed so well, fought so hard, perhaps sacrificed herself, that the name had taken on a special significance. There had been a Steadfast a century ago, Geary recalled. It might have been that very ship, helping to hold off the first Syndic attacks and gaining a singular status for her name in the process. “Why weren’t you particularly upset at the loss of the prior Steadfast?”

  “Because Steadfast always comes back,” Desjani explained. “Not in a bad way, like Invincible always shows up again, but in a good way.”

  “I’ve still got a lot to learn about things today,” Geary said. “Let’s get going.” He tapped the comm controls. “All units in Task Force Dancer, this is Admiral Geary. Immediate execute, proceed to stations in Formation Delta, form on guide ship Dauntless.”

  Geary nodded to Desjani. “Head for the jump point for Atalia, Captain.”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Under Desjani’s helm orders, Dauntless swung about and began accelerating slowly, giving the other warships plenty of time to take station around her. They came gliding in from all angles, forming into three boxes, which were arranged in a staggered V shape. Leading them was the box centered on Dauntless and also holding the rest of her division, Daring, Victorious, and Adroit which was taking the place of Intemperate. Joining them were one squadron of light cruisers and two squadrons of destroyers.

  Off to port, behind and slightly above, Captain Tulev’s Leviathan took up station in her box, surrounded by Dragon, Steadfast, and Valiant. Around them, a division of heavy cruisers and one squadron each of light cruisers and destroyers formed up.

  To starboard, also behind but slightly below, Captain Badaya’s Illustrious moved into position, along with Incredible as well as Formidable and Implacable, which had been temporarily assigned to Badaya’s division. They also got a division of heavy cruisers, a squadron of light cruisers, and one of destroyers.

  “Looking good,” Geary approved.

  “Duellos is going to give you hell when he gets back and finds out he missed this,” Desjani cautioned.

  “If I’d hauled him along to the limits of human space again, his wife might have told him to stay out there instead of coming back.” Geary waited until the last ship was on statio
n, the three boxes aimed like an arrowhead for the jump exit, then gave new orders. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, accelerate to point one light speed.”

  General Charban had transferred back over from Diamond, along with his communications gear. He was not on the bridge of Dauntless, instead occupying the compartment set up for communicating with the Dancers, and he now called Geary. “The Dancers have indicated they understand that we are leaving and that they should close on you so you can all jump together.”

  “How are you and Lieutenant Jamenson getting along?” Geary asked, hoping that the Dancers would indeed do as they were asked.

  “She’s the finest green-haired officer I ever served with,” Charban said, then grinned. “And I’ve actually served with two others. It’s not hard to spot people from Eire Star System. Once we enter jump, she’s indicated a desire to spend some time with the intelligence cell aboard the ship, if that’s all right with you.”

  “As long as she’s getting enough exposure to Dancer communications,” Geary said.

  The conversation reminded him of another call he needed to make. “Lieutenant Iger, if we get any updates on the situation in Atalia or Syndic space before we jump, I need to know as soon as possible.”

  The intelligence officer nodded quickly. “Yes, sir. As of now, my latest from Atalia is that report from the last courier-ship rotation. Atalia is pretty much unchanged.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” Geary said. “Lieutenant Jamenson may visit the intel compartment while we’re in jump. I assume you’ll have no problems with that.”

  “Lieutenant Jamenson, sir? No, sir! No problem!”

  When he ended that call, Desjani was grinning. “Let’s hope Lieutenant Iger doesn’t get too distracted by Lieutenant Jamenson.”

  Geary took a discreet glance to the back of the bridge. “Speaking of lieutenants and personal relationships, how are our quarantine cases doing?” he asked in a low voice.