“You must have a plan. You’re Black Jack.”
“I’ve never been the imaginary hero the government created to inspire its people,” Geary said. “I do have a plan, but it’s risky. We’re going to try to destroy the base of the dark ships, deny them the means to repair and resupply themselves, then try to fend off any more attacks until their fuel cells are exhausted. But for that to work, we have to figure out how to get to that base, then hit that base while the dark ships are elsewhere.”
“You know where the base is?” Unruh asked.
“We’re pretty certain,” Geary said. “I could use confirmation. I could also use a means to get there.”
She reached out and touched controls, bringing the star display to life between them. Unruh moved one finger to indicate the binary star system. “Here.”
Geary nodded. “That was our guess.”
“You found Unity Alternate? I’m impressed. I was anticipating a long and difficult discussion to get you to believe that was where you needed to go.”
“I already had that discussion. Otherwise, you might have had trouble convincing me. To be honest, the Dancers pointed us there.”
“The Dancers.” Senator Unruh looked at Geary for several seconds. “Do you know why?”
“No. How do I get my fleet to Unity Alternate?”
“Through the hypernet.” Unruh extended her other hand, showing that it held a data coin. “This has the code for the gate at Unity Alternate. It will allow the hypernet keys on your warships to access that gate.”
Geary took the coin, studying it. “I’ve been told that once a key was created, it could not be altered. How can this input a new gate?”
“It doesn’t. Ever since the gate was constructed at Unity Alternate, all Alliance hypernet keys have contained the data for that gate. But the data was blocked, concealed from the key controls. The code I’m giving you will simply allow your keys to finally see that gate data and give you the option of going there.” She gestured in the general direction of Syndic space. “It had to be designed that way. If the government had ever retreated to Unity Alternate to keep the war going, any surviving Alliance warships would have had to be able to get there as well. The capability has been built in, to be activated if and when it was needed.”
“And now it is,” Geary said, carefully putting away the coin. “But not because of the Syndics.”
“No.” Unruh made an angry gesture. “Self-inflicted wounds.”
“What can you tell me about Unity Alternate? What exactly is there?”
Unruh made a casting-away gesture this time. “I don’t know. There have been some extremely large construction projects hidden within the covert programs budget. Other work was done before my time and has since been buried in the mass of classified data that threatens to swallow the Alliance whole. There will be some orbiting facilities for a skeleton government to operate. How big are they? It depends upon what was demanded decades ago. It could be an orbiting city. Probably less than that, though, but still substantial. One of your tasks, if you can achieve it given the threat of the dark ships, is to find out everything that orbiting facility has been and is being used for, and what information is available in its databases.”
“It’s that bad?” Geary asked. “The government doesn’t know what’s going on there?”
“We don’t know whether we know, Admiral.” Senator Unruh appeared to be embarrassed to admit that. “It’s a big, big galaxy, and even though the Alliance occupies a pretty small portion of that galaxy, it still is immensely large by any human scale. The Alliance government expanded rapidly under the pressure of the war. With so many people, so many organizations and bureaus and offices and commands, in so many star systems, under constant attack and threat of attack by the Syndics, and the inevitable time lags involved in trying to coordinate and control events across so many light-years, the proverbial bubble broke a long time ago. We’re going to try to put it back together again, but it is a mammoth task.”
“I understand,” Geary said. “I just have to worry about orbiting facilities? There are no habitable planets there or installations on the six planets in that star system?”
“Not according to my information. That is hardly definitive, however.” The senator bent her lips in a sardonic smile. “I actually encountered one individual who refused to confirm or deny the existence of habitable planets at Unity itself.”
Geary stared at her in disbelief. “It’s common knowledge that there are two habitable worlds at Unity. Everyone knows that. It’s in every star guide.”
“Which did not impress that individual in the least, Admiral. Just because everyone knows something that is supposedly classified is no grounds for reconsidering whether it should be classified.” Unruh looked like she wanted to punch someone, then cleared her expression and focused back on Geary. “Ancestors alone know how much else has been classified. Now, back on topic. In the past, the government would have also built support facilities at Unity Alternate for whichever Alliance warships survived to join the government there. Important supplies would have been stockpiled there. We deliberately left you with the portion of your assigned Marines who would be best at storming the facilities at Unity Alternate if that proved necessary, as it has, and believe me, working that out without anyone’s figuring out our intent was not easy. We have no idea what sort of defenses might be at those facilities, but we are fairly certain there is no actual military presence.”
She paused. “We think we have shut off resources and information intended for the Defender Fleet, but we can’t be certain they will not somehow hear of plans against them. I wish I could offer more assurances on that, but I can’t, not until we move at Unity, and there is a strong suspicion that our moves at Unity could trigger a Defender Fleet move against us. We’re hoping you can prevent that.
“Since Unity Alternate is the home base for the Defender Fleet, you can assume the facilities there have been automated to the maximum possible extent. There are strong indications the Defender Fleet was designed to operate totally autonomously for an extended period, without depending on human support at any level.”
Geary bit back his first words, carefully recasting them before speaking. “Do you know whose idea it was to cut humans out of the loop?”
“It seems to have been a group consensus,” Unruh replied. “Various contractors were wildly enthusiastic at the idea, complete with assurances that nothing could go wrong. What those assurances were worth we learned when our auditors discovered fine print in their contracts that, once translated from lawyer-speak, said if anything did go wrong it wouldn’t create any legal liability for the contractors. Your own fleet headquarters was also eager to embrace the idea. As their decision paper put it, totally automated systems would eliminate problems with field commanders who sometimes failed to execute their orders as given.”
“You can’t have field commanders thinking for themselves, now can you?” Geary said.
“Apparently not. But I think the main concern of your fleet headquarters was personnel costs. You have no idea how huge the budget is that the Alliance Senate deals with, and how huge the military personnel costs are within that budget.”
“Why is spending on equipment an investment and spending on people a cost? I’ve always thought that personnel expenses should be considered investments as well, not costs,” Geary said. “Calling them costs creates the image that it is just money being thrown away because we have no choice. But that money is an investment in the people who make all of the difference in effectiveness and efficiency and everything else.”
The senator raised her eyebrows at him. “That’s an interesting word choice. And a worthwhile argument for future budgets. In terms of commitments we already face, retirement hasn’t been that big an expense given that relatively few personnel survived long enough to retire,” Unruh added bitterly, “but existing medical costs are
immense. The citizens of the Alliance clamoring for reduced spending don’t realize how much of that spending has to go to helping those who gave pieces of themselves to defending us.”
“Have you told them?” Geary asked. “Has anybody gone to the citizens and said here is why we need this money, here is who it has to go to, this is why we owe it to them?”
Senator Unruh looked at Geary, then shook her head. “I doubt it. Oh, I’ve had senators hitting me up to know where the money is going because they weren’t read into the Defender Fleet program and couldn’t understand how much funds that money-sink has been eating up. Those automated systems have devoured more and more of the budget as costs and complexities mounted. But no one has been beating my door down demanding that we spend more money on people. I promise you I will make that case myself.”
“I need money here, too,” Geary said. “My people are scrambling to find the funds needed to keep repairing my damaged ships, and even to keep day-to-day operations going.”
“That’s ridiculous. Your fleet headquarters has said nothing about that but has requested extra funds to expand their own offices and operations. They claim that as force levels shrink, the staff must grow to deal with the additional challenges,” she added wryly.
Geary inhaled deeply, considering his next words carefully. “That’s an interesting perspective on priorities,” he finally said.
Unruh smiled. “Isn’t it? Senator Sakai suggested that if artificial intelligences would make effective replacements for field commanders, they would probably do even better as replacements for headquarters commanders. For some reason, that proposal was not enthusiastically received at fleet headquarters.”
“I can’t imagine why not.”
“It is a mystery,” Senator Unruh said. “I promise you there will be a supplemental appropriation introduced specifically for your fleet when I get back.”
Geary regarded her closely. “Can I trust you, Senator?”
She smiled again though only slightly this time. “I hope so.”
“Do you have all the answers?”
“Me?” Unruh laughed. “That would be nice. I’m looking for the answers. I’m asking questions. I’m trying to figure out where we go from here.”
“Then I think I can trust you,” Geary said. “Most of my problems seem to originate with people who are certain they know all the answers. Will you need an escort back to Unity?”
“As you saw outside of this room, I have some special forces accompanying me on what is officially a training mission,” Unruh said. “My ship is old but can outrun anything in space, I’m told. It was designed specifically to help senators and other high officials get away fast when necessary. Part of the Unity Alternate program, apparently, though I imagine that more than one senator thought it could come in handy in other circumstances. You weren’t offering to escort me back with your fleet, were you?”
Geary shook his head. “It would be very bad imagery, I think, for Black Jack to show up at Unity with a fleet.”
“Very bad imagery,” Senator Unruh agreed. “We want to forestall a covert coup, not make it look like an overt coup is taking place. Besides, all of those warships would make my return far too high-profile for what is supposed to be a very low-profile mission. One last thing. We believe that the dark ships are focused on you.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Geary said. “The dark ships’ tactics at Bhavan confirmed it. They want to destroy the First Fleet, but they also want me dead.”
Unruh shook her head, looking off to one side. “I have reason to believe that you were programmed into a contingency target set that might have activated without proper authorization, but I suspect there are private reasons as well for your personally being a priority objective.”
“Admiral Bloch?” Geary asked.
“He got command of the Defender Fleet,” she said, “as I understand you were already told. Bloch still has, or still had, some powerful political backers. But I have been unable to confirm his current status.”
“Do you think Bloch has effective control of the dark ships? I’ve seen them doing things that I didn’t think Bloch would order.”
“I think he has influenced them to some extent. But I am certain he’s not in control now if he ever really was.” The senator gazed directly at Geary. “There is more than one way to neutralize a threat, Admiral. Some people wanted Admiral Bloch in a certain position because they hoped to benefit from that. But others of us intended all along that Bloch would be neutralized by giving him what he thought he wanted. He might still be alive, but if so, he is likely more miserable than when the Syndics had him. That’s ironic, isn’t it? He has all of space available to the warship he is aboard, but his compartments on that warship might form a very small prison from which there may be no escape.”
Geary looked back at her, appalled. “What if you’re right about that? Does even Bloch deserve such a fate?”
Senator Unruh stood up, sighing. “He got what he wanted, Admiral. If it isn’t what he thought it would be, that’s his own fault. And a useful lesson to anyone else who thinks pursuit of power is the path to happiness.”
“Where does the pursuit of power lead?” Geary asked as they waited for the hatch to open.
She gave him an amused look. “You care what I think? All right, then. Trying to accomplish something that requires someone to pursue power leads toward that something. But the pursuit of power as an end in itself doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s like someone walking on the surface of a Mobius strip. They go up and down and over and around, but they never reach a destination. They just keep walking, and wondering why they never get anywhere no matter how far and fast they walk.”
“Thank you, Senator.”
“For what? Letting you know just how badly we’ve screwed up and how much we’re counting on you to fix things?”
Geary shook his head. “No. For giving me proof that my faith in the government is not entirely misplaced.”
She stepped out to join the special forces soldiers, who began forming an escort around the senator. But Unruh turned to look back at Geary, her expression somber. “You do me too much honor, Admiral. I will do what I can to live up to your faith.”
Admiral Timbale waited until Senator Unruh and her escort had disappeared around a corner before turning a questioning look on Geary. “How did the meeting go?”
“What meeting?” Geary asked.
“Right.” Timbale walked alongside Geary in the opposite direction from that Senator Unruh and her escort had gone. “Is there anything I should know?”
Geary pondered what he could say. “We’re not alone.”
“Exactly who is we?”
“The good guys.” Geary smiled crookedly at Timbale. “Right?”
“I sure hope so.” Timbale walked a few more steps. “Do you still have those two agents aboard Dauntless?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I still want them shot, remember?” Admiral Timbale glanced around, then checked a security device on his wrist to ensure they could not be overheard. “I have been apprised of subtle indications that someone is nosing around, trying to figure out what we might have learned from those agents.”
“We’ll make sure security around their cells remains tight,” Geary said. “Anything else?”
“I received classified orders to locate former Alliance senator Victoria Rione. There are people who want to talk to her.”
“Which people?” Geary asked.
“I can’t tell. That’s left fairly vague in the orders,” Timbale explained. “For that matter, just who originated the orders was left fairly vague. Which is why I haven’t been overly worried about trying to locate Rione.”
“It sounds like some other people are worried,” Geary said.
“I certainly would be if I were one of those responsible for what happened to her husband
.” Timbale rubbed his nose. “By the way, my security people, the ones I trust, said they had found some odd anomalies in our security routines, some additional covert applications that could have allowed someone like Victoria Rione to pass through Ambaru as recently as a day or two ago without any alerts being sounded.”
“Really?” Geary asked.
“Yes. If she comes onto Ambaru again, she would be spotted.” Timbale gave Geary a bland look. “I thought you should know.”
“Thank you. I think you should know that a lot of things may be coming to a head soon.”
“In a good way?”
“Maybe.” Geary paused and faced Timbale, speaking in formal tones. “If we don’t meet in person again, I want you to know it has been an honor and a pleasure serving with you.”
Timbale replied with equal formality. “The honor and the pleasure have been mine. Good luck, Admiral. Does this mean it’s on?”
“It soon will be.”
—
TANYA was waiting in Dauntless’s shuttle dock when he got off the shuttle. “I hope your visit to Ambaru was worth the risk,” she said.
“Yes, it was. And in any case, I can’t live aboard Dauntless,” he told her.
“Why not?”
Instead of replying to that, he held up the data coin that Unruh had given him. “We have orders, from the government, and we have the means to get to Unity Alternate.”
“Orders?” Desjani asked, instantly suspicious at mention of the government. “Orders to do what?”
“To take Unity Alternate.”
“The government has ordered us to take the government’s secret, fallback capital?”
“It’s a long story,” Geary said. “But, basically, just like the Alliance military adopted some practices in the name of winning the war that weren’t really consistent with winning or with what the Alliance was supposed to be about, so did the government.”
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