Numos swallowed, then spoke with stubborn insistence but without the confidence he’d shown earlier. “Captain Geary, your seniority is a fluke, as you yourself know. Your date of rank is almost a century old because your promotion to Captain was granted posthumously. No one knew you were still alive. A century in survival hibernation does not impart any experience.” Some of the other captains made small motions of agreement, apparently emboldening Numos again. “We must choose a commanding officer based on their ability to deal with the current situation, and that requires current knowledge.”
Geary stared back at Numos so coldly that he leaned back as if being threatened. “In the Alliance Fleet I know, no one ‘chose’ their commanders. I have no intention of allowing you or anyone else to interfere with my command authority.”
A stout man down at one end of the table cleared his throat. “Captain Geary is senior. He’s in command. End of discussion.”
Geary nodded toward him, fixing the name and face in memory. Captain Tulev of the Leviathan. Someone Geary could count on.
Then a woman in the uniform of the Alliance Marines spoke. Colonel Carabali, who must’ve inherited her command when the Marine general accompanying the fleet died along with the other flag officers. “We’re sworn to obey our commanders and defend the Alliance. The Marines understand that Captain Geary is our commander under Alliance Fleet Regulations.”
Another ship’s Captain spoke up, her voice ragged. “Dammit, if he can’t get us out of this, who can?”
All eyes focused on Geary again as the woman openly voiced what so many of them had been thinking. He wanted to avoid those faces, but he had to meet their hope and skepticism dead on. Geary couldn’t hide anymore. “I’m going to try.”
TWO
Silence hung in the room for a moment, then Captain Faresa spoke again, her voice and expression still harsh. “How, Captain? What magic will you use? We have less than an hour remaining before the Syndic deadline expires.”
Geary gave her an equally harsh look, but he could gaze down the ranks of ship commanders and see that his command authority hung on a knife-edge. For the first time, he noticed how young many of them were. Younger than the ship captains he’d known a century ago and clearly less hardened or experienced than those captains. Too many of them were watching and waiting, ready to jump in any direction. And if they started jumping, the entire fleet might fall apart and leave the Syndics with easy pickings. “Then we’d better use that time thinking instead of hurling barbs at each other, shouldn’t we?” He pointed at the center of the table, where the display portrayed the ships of the Alliance fleet. The most heavily damaged ships had formed into a rough sphere. Between them and the looming wall of the Syndic fleet, a rectangular wall of Alliance ships spread out, bent into a crescent facing the enemy. It looked impressive, until you totaled up the ships involved and realized the waiting Syndic sledgehammer would shatter the Alliance crescent as if it were made of glass.
Captain Duellos pointed as well. “Unfortunately, this display is accurate, and neither the realities of war nor the laws of physics have changed since your last battle, Captain Geary. We’re here, the Syndics are here only two and a half light-minutes away from our leading elements, and the hypernet gate is”—his hand swung around to an area on the other side of the enemy fleet—“here, thirty light-minutes from us, on the wrong side of the enemy.”
“If we could have a few more hours to repair our damaged ships,” someone suggested.
“A few more hours or a few more days wouldn’t help,” another shot back. “The Syndics are repairing their damage, too. And they can count on reinforcements and resupply coming through that gate behind them!”
Duellos nodded to Geary. “I agree. Time is not on our side, even if the Syndic deadline is not enforced.”
Geary nodded back, his eyes once again tracking along the officers ranked around the table. “We can’t hold off an attack. Nor can we attack them and have any expectation of survival.”
Numos spoke again, his face red. “Individual ships might be able to—”
“To what, Captain? Get to that … gate? Then what?” Geary heard a collective intake of breath. “This fleet has a Syndic hypernet key. I know that. But I assume the ships using it must go through together.” A murmur of agreement came. “I repeat, an-every-ship-for-itself plan will not be followed by this fleet, and any commanding officer who tries it will be court-martialed by me if I can catch them, or killed by the Syndics when they reach that gate alone and can’t get through it.” Silence.
Geary sat back and rubbed his chin. “That’s what we can’t do. But it’s not every option. Perhaps one of you can explain this to me.” He hesitated over the display controls, finally finding the right ones. “Here.” Geary pointed to a spot slightly behind and off to the side from the Alliance forces. “Twenty light-minutes away from the Alliance ships nearest to it. Why isn’t this guarded?”
Everyone frowned and craned to look. Finally, Captain Faresa gave Geary one of her looks, one that seemed capable of eating away metal. “Because it’s meaningless.”
“Meaningless.” Geary let the word hang for a moment, wondering as he did so if he could figure out a legitimate way to avoid having to see Faresa’s face again. “That’s the system jump point.” Shrugs met his statement. “Dammit, why can’t we use that to get out of this?”
Duellos spoke slowly. “Captain Geary, there’s likely only one or two stars within jump range of that point.”
“There’s only one,” Geary stated flatly. It hadn’t been hard to look up that piece of information. “Corvus.”
“Then you see the problem, sir. The system jump method is too limited in range. The Corvus System is itself only a few light years away, and still deeply buried within Syndic territory.”
“I know that. But from Corvus we could jump to any of”—he checked his figures—“three other systems.” Geary could see the other officers exchanging looks, but no one spoke. “From one of those systems we could jump to others.”
Captain Faresa shook her head. “You aren’t seriously suggesting getting back to Alliance space by using system jump drives, are you?”
“Why not? It’s still faster-than-light.”
“Not nearly faster-than-light enough! Do you have any idea how deep in Syndic space we are?”
Geary openly glared at her. “Since the shape of the galaxy hasn’t altered appreciably since my last command, yes, I do know how deep we are in Syndic space. So we’ve got a long haul out of here. It’s a chance. Do you prefer dying here?”
“Better that than commit slow suicide! We don’t have the supplies to sustain that kind of journey. It would take many months. Perhaps years, depending on the route. But that’s irrelevant, because the Syndic fleet will simply get there ahead of us and destroy us as we arrive!”
Geary was trying to tamp down his anger enough to formulate an answer, when Captain Desjani began speaking as if to herself. “Corvus System isn’t on the Syndic hypernet. The Syndic fleet couldn’t beat us there.” Desjani looked around. “They’d have to follow us through the same system jump point. That’d take time.”
Captain Duellos nodded eagerly. “Yes! We’d have a free window to transit Corvus to our next jump point. Not a long one, but time enough. Then the Syndics would have to guess what our next destination would be.”
“We don’t have the supplies!” Faresa insisted. Duellos glared at her in a way that made it clear there was no love lost between them. “Who even knows what’s at Corvus?”
“It can’t be that important,” someone suggested. “Not if the system isn’t on the Syndic hypernet.”
“We don’t know what’s there!”
“Captain Faresa.” She turned to glare at Geary as he gestured to the representation of the Syndic fleet. “We know what’s here, don’t we? Can anything in Corvus be worse? We’ll face better odds no matter what, and we’ll have the transit time in jump space to repair internal damage to the ships.
”
Heads nodded and smiles started to appear. “But, supplies…” Faresa tried to insist.
“I assume there’s something at Corvus.” Geary craned his head to look at the data. “This says there was a Syndic self-defense base. Do those still stock supplies that Syndic ships passing through could draw on?”
“They used to…”
“They’ll have something. And there’s an inhabited planet in that system. There’ll be some off-planet facilities, in-system traffic. Stuff we can get parts and food and other essentials off of.” Geary studied the display, lost for the moment in calculation and momentarily unaware of the other officers. “It’d be a snatch-and-grab through Corvus. The Syndics will be coming out of that jump point behind us as fast as they can, so it’ll be a race to get our slower and more heavily damaged ships through the system before we can be caught.” He looked around, seeing uncertainty on many faces. “We can do this.”
Captain Tulev spoke again. “Captain Geary, I must warn that getting to the jump point here will not be easy.”
“It’s not guarded.”
“No. But the Syndic fleet is close, and they have some very fast ships. They can leave their slower ships behind to catch up. We can’t.”
Geary nodded. “Very true. Ladies and gentlemen, I will stall the Syndics as long as I can. But as soon as we start moving—”
“Captain.” A short woman, her eyes intense, leaned forward. “We could maneuver the fleet, look like we’re reorganizing to meet an attack, and get those damaged and slow ships closer to the jump point under cover of those movements.”
Geary smiled. Commander Cresida of the Furious. He’d have to remember her, too. “Do you have some ideas?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Let me see them as soon as you can work them out.”
“It’ll be a pleasure, Captain Geary.” Cresida leaned back again, her scornful gaze directed toward the area where Numos and Faresa were sitting.
Geary looked at everyone again. Still shaky. But I’m giving them something to do. Something that might work, even if seems such a long shot they wouldn’t even consider it without me pushing them. Face it, Geary, without you they wouldn’t have even thought of it because they were all fixated on that hypernet gate, doing the enemy’s job for them by closing out their own options. “Then let’s get going.” Instead of responding directly, the other captains all exchanged surprised looks. “What’s wrong? Somebody tell me.”
Captain Desjani spoke with visible reluctance. “It’s customary for proposed courses of actions to be finalized, then debated by the senior officers and ship commanders, with a vote afterward to affirm support.”
“A vote?” He stared at her, then around the table. No wonder Admiral Bloch had sometimes struck him as a politician running for office. “When the hell did this ‘custom’ begin?”
Desjani grimaced. “I’m not personally familiar—”
“Well, I don’t have time for a history lesson right now. And we don’t have time to debate what to do. I may not know what everything is like now, but one thing I do know is that waiting, paralyzed, for a snake to strike is the worst possible course of action. Indecision kills ships and fleets. We have to act and act decisively in the time we have. I will not conduct any votes while I am in command. I am open to suggestions and proposals. I want input from you. But I am in command. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want Black Jack Geary to lead you out of this mess, don’t you? Well, then, by the living stars I will lead you, but I will do so in the best way I know how!”
He subsided, watching them, wondering if he’d pushed too far. A long moment passed. Then Commander Cresida leaned forward again. “I’ve got orders to follow. Orders from the fleet commander. I don’t have time for nonsense when there’s work to do on the Furious. Captain Geary?”
Geary gave her a grin. “By all means, Commander.”
Cresida vanished from her place at the table as she broke the connection. Then, as if her words and action had been a domino falling, all of the other officers hastily rose and bid farewells. Geary got the sense that, ironically, many of them saw further debate as a harder option than following Geary at this point.
Geary watched them vanish with an odd sense of longing. There ought to be handshakes and conversation as they all filed through the hatch, a few moments of personal interaction forced upon everyone by the need to move a lot of people in a big room through one small doorway. But not here, and not now. The figures of his subordinates simply popped out of existence, and the apparent great size of the room and its massive conference table dwindled as its virtual occupants vanished, until within moments it was an unremarkable compartment dominated by an unremarkable conference table.
However, aside from the real presence of Captain Desjani still standing nearby, two small clusters of officers remained. Geary frowned at them, noticing for the first time that their uniforms differed in small ways from that of the Alliance fleet. He concentrated on their identification. One set of officers belonged to the Rift Federation, while the other slightly larger group were part of the Callas Republic. He remembered both associations of planets. Neither the Rift Federation nor the Republic had contained many inhabited worlds in his time, and both had been neutral. Events had clearly drawn them into the war on the side of the Alliance, though. Geary nodded toward them, wondering just how much authority he could wield over these allies. “Yes?”
The Rift Federation officers looked toward the Republic officers, who made way for a woman in a civilian suit. Geary fought back a frown as he saw her. I didn’t say no one but ship commanders could attend, did I? I don’t think so. Who is this? The identification tag next to her image read “C-P Rione.” What does that mean?
The woman eyed Geary, her face impassive. “Are you aware that under the terms of our agreement, our ships may be withdrawn from Alliance control if competent authority should determine they are not being employed in the best interests of our home worlds?”
“No. I didn’t know that. I assume you’re the ‘competent authority’ in question?”
“Yes.” She inclined her head very slightly toward Geary. “I am Co-President Victoria Rione of the Callas Republic.”
Geary glanced at Captain Desjani, who shrugged apologetically, then back at Victoria Rione. “I’m honored to meet you, ma’am. But there’s a great deal to do—”
She held up one hand, palm out. “Please, Captain Geary. I must insist upon a private conference with you.”
“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time—”
“Before I commit our ships to your command.” She looked toward the Rift Federation officers. “The ships of the Rift Navy have agreed to follow my recommendations on the matter.”
Well, damn. Another glance at Desjani earned a shake of her head. He’d have to go through with this. “Where…?”
Desjani stepped away. “Here, Captain Geary. I’ll leave the room, and a virtual privacy shield will drop around you and the Co-President. When you’ve finished the private conference, say ‘end private conference end’ and you’ll both be able to interact with the other officers again if you want to.” She hastened out the hatch as if happy to be able to avoid this engagement at least.
Geary watched her go, composing his face as carefully as he could. Wishing he could return to the numbed state he’d endured since being awakened, he turned to face the politician, whose cold stare apparently hadn’t left Geary at any point. “What is it you want to talk about?”
“Trust.” Her voice wasn’t a single degree warmer than her expression. “Specifically, why I should entrust the surviving ships of the Republic to your command.”
Geary looked down, rubbing his forehead, then back at her. “I could point out that the only alternative is to entrust their fate to the Syndics, and we’ve recently seen how the Syndics do business.”
“They might deal differently with us, Captain.”
Then go get your precious rear end shot off by the Syndi
c special forces and see if I care! But he knew he’d need every ship he could, and part of him hated to think of leaving anyone behind, willingly or not. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”
“If so, explain why, Captain Geary.”
He took a deep breath and matched her glare. “Because the Syndics massacred Admiral Bloch and everyone with him when they tried to negotiate with all the ships we’ve got left backing them up. You’ll be negotiating with a fraction of that amount of backing. Do you think the Syndics will deal better within someone in a much weaker position?”
“I see.” She looked away at last and began pacing back and forth down one side of the room. “You don’t think the combined ships of the Republic and the Federation will impress the Syndics.”
“I don’t think the combined ships of the Republic, the Federation, and the Alliance have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving against an all-out attack by the forces the Syndics have arrayed out there. We could hurt them, maybe badly, but not survive. And unless the Syndics have completely changed since I knew them last, they never deal fairly. The stronger party imposes whatever terms it thinks it can enforce.”
Rione stopped pacing, looking down at the deck, then back at him. “That’s right. You’ve thought this out from more than a purely combat viewpoint.”
Geary reached for the nearest seat and slumped into it. He hadn’t exerted himself this much, physically or emotionally, since his rescue, and the fleet physicians had clucked anxiously over him on just those counts after he’d been thawed out. No telling what results such a long hibernation might have on Geary’s physiology, they’d warned. I guess I get to field-test the question. “Yes, Madam Co-President. I did try to think it out.”
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