The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught

by Jack Campbell

  Duellos rubbed his chin. “Badaya wouldn’t simply accept Vente. He would try to get the rest of the fleet’s captains to back him as commander. Which would create quite a problem if he succeeded. And Badaya probably would succeed since Vente is new and needs to build up support.”

  “But how can I get Badaya to not object to my designating Tulev as second-in-command, and commander if I’m killed?” The silence that answered Geary’s question confirmed his worries. “I haven’t even started organizing this fleet, and I’ve already got a major organizational problem.”

  “Just wait until you get the organization order from fleet headquarters,” Desjani said cheerfully. “They’ll tell you exactly where everyone and every ship and everything is supposed to go.”

  The headache was definitely here now. “And exactly why do you find that funny, Captain Desjani?”

  “Because fleet headquarters always sends out detailed organizational orders,” Duellos explained, “and operational commanders always completely ignore them. It’s not practical to have someone scores of light years away trying to decide which ships go together and how many should be in each division or squadron, and how crews should be distributed, and exactly which ship and which department and which stateroom should be occupied by Lieutenant Generic Average Officer after his original ship got shot out from under him, but that’s never stopped headquarters from trying.”

  “They send out their extremely detailed message,” Desjani added, “and periodic updates and corrections and additions and addenda—”

  “Not to mention appendices and annexes,” Duellos said.

  “—and headquarters thinks that every particle in the universe is aligned just as they’ve mandated. That makes headquarters happy. We ignore their message, so we can actually do our jobs, and that makes us happy.”

  “No wonder the war lasted a century,” Geary said.

  “Headquarters no doubt deserves considerable credit for that,” Duellos agreed. “How to get Tulev accepted as your successor, in the unfortunate event that becomes necessary, is a real matter to deal with. Alternately, we try to figure out how to make sure Badaya will act responsibly. Frankly, that may be the better option since bypassing Badaya will be very difficult. Those are real matters of concern; but when the organizational message arrives, you may read a little of it, then hit the delete button, happy to know that you need not do anything it says.”

  “Great. Thanks for helping to keep a lid on things when that stupid court-martial message came in.”

  Duellos nodded again but lost his amused look. “That was a very serious piece of stupidity. Someone with much seniority and little brains almost did a lot of irreversible damage.” He stood up and shrugged. “Why should that surprise me? My congratulations as well to you both. May the living stars shine on your union.”

  After Duellos had left, Desjani stood up, sighing. “I suppose we shouldn’t stay alone in here for any longer than necessary. I thought you handled everything pretty well. Will you be using this compartment for any follow-up meetings with individual officers?”

  He hesitated. “I’d been planning on using my stateroom . . .”

  “Using this compartment instead of your stateroom will convey a message in itself,” she suggested. “Assuming you wish to convey disapproval of recent actions by anyone in particular. Especially if they’re related to you.”

  “Why do I even pretend that you don’t always know exactly what I’m doing?” Geary asked.

  She just smiled and left.

  Bracing himself, Geary called Dreadnaught’s commanding officer. “I need a private conference with you.”

  It only took a couple of minutes for Jane Geary’s image to reappear. “Yes, Admiral?” she asked, betraying no sign of discomfort.

  He didn’t ask her to sit down. That, like the choice of this room over his stateroom, would also send a message. “Captain, after reviewing the communications records, I’m concerned about your recent actions.” He had chosen to say it that way to keep Desjani out of it, to prevent implying that he was acting because of what she had reported. “To be specific, I don’t understand why you acted as you did.”

  Jane Geary’s voice and expression both reflected composure. “I acted as I thought best, Admiral.”

  “You had orders from me that all ships were to remain on station. Not only did Dreadnaught leave her assigned orbit, but you encouraged other ships to do so as well.”

  “Under the circumstances, I thought it wise to ensure that pressure was maintained on those who had created the crisis.”

  “Even though you had orders from me to the contrary?” He heard the disbelief edging into his voice, knew he was beginning to sound angry and didn’t bother trying to hide it.

  “Comms can be faked, Admiral.”

  “You were speaking with Captain Desjani, who was conveying orders I had given to her in person.”

  “Her comms could have been altered en route to us as well,” Jane Geary explained. “You were both under control of outside forces.”

  Something had happened to her. But what? Geary sat down, leaving her standing. “Captain Geary,” he said, using the formal title to emphasize his words, “I was speaking to members of the Alliance government. They are not outside forces. I want to be clear about my reasons for unhappiness. I am concerned not just because my orders were disobeyed but because of how you acted. From the first time I saw you in action, defending Varandal, I was impressed by your judgment and restraint. You did not act recklessly or impulsively.”

  Those words got some response, something flickering in her eyes as her mouth tightened slightly. “I took what actions seemed required by the situation,” Jane Geary said. “Just as you always have, sir. I was selected to command a battleship, not a battle cruiser, but that does not mean I lack the spirit of a Geary.”

  He couldn’t help a small frown of puzzlement. “No one’s ever questioned that.”

  Her eyes met his. “Yes, Admiral, they have.”

  The past slammed down between them again, like an invisible wall that forever divided Geary from his surviving relatives. Tell her I don’t hate you anymore. Michael Geary’s last words to him. To those who came after him, Black Jack Geary had been the impossible-to-equal, and impossible-to-escape, symbol of his family. His relatives had grown up fated to serve in the fleet because of their supposedly dead and supposedly heroic ancestor. “Jane, I have told you before this that I consider you one of the better commanding officers in this fleet. That includes all of my battle cruiser commanders. You’re one of the best.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She didn’t believe him. What had changed for her while he had been gone? “I want the officer I saw defending Varandal. Forget Black Jack. I want you to be Jane Geary.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Damned military formality. When all else failed, it offered the perfect hiding place for real feelings and thoughts. Geary leaned back, tapping the table. “Sit down please, Jane. I have to confess that I thought you’d leave the fleet and get on with your life now that the war’s over.”

  She sat but still seemed rigid. “Not every mission is over,” Jane said quietly.

  “If Michael still lives, I’ll find him.”

  “You have plenty of other jobs, Admiral. I can do that one.”

  “Is that why you’re staying in the fleet? To search for Michael?”

  Jane hesitated. “There are a number of reasons.”

  “You’ve done your part,” Geary urged her. “I’m stuck here. You can do something else.”

  “I’m a Geary.” She said it in a low voice, but the force behind the words carried clearly. “More so than ever.”

  He stared at her, unable to find words for a long moment. “Let’s just be clear that I believe that you have a right to your own life. Don’t stay in this fleet because of me. I’ve done enough damage to the family. But if you do stay, I need to know that I can count on you.”

  “You can count on me.
” She watched him steadily, no wavering in her eyes.

  “I have always known that.” This wasn’t going anywhere. “Jane, as your commanding officer, I hope you will keep me informed of any matters that might impact on your ability to continue serving as well as you have in the past. As your uncle, I hope you will feel free to speak with me on any matter.”

  Jane didn’t reply for a long moment, then shook her head. “I’m older than you are, Uncle. You spent a century not aging.”

  “I’ve been making up for it since being recovered from survival sleep. With everything that’s been happening, I think I’ve been aging a few years every month.” The attempt at humor didn’t change her expression, so Geary gestured to her. “That’s all I had to say.”

  “Thank you.” She stood once again, saluted even though the meeting had become informal, then her image vanished, leaving Geary glowering at the space where she had been. What the hell? “I’m a Geary.” That’s what she ran away from all her life. Why is she embracing it now? And how would that—

  Damn. Is she embracing the legend? Does she now think she has to live up to that? I can’t live up to that.

  She can’t be thinking she has to be like Black Jack.

  But what Jane Geary had Dreadnaught do during that mess over the courts-martial. Isn’t that what the myths say Black Jack would have done?

  Please let me be wrong. The last thing this fleet needs is that mythical Black Jack.

  FINALLY free to hide in his stateroom for a few minutes, Geary found himself too restless to sit there. He decided to take a walk around the ship. As he went through the familiar passageways, he felt a lightening of his spirit. Dauntless had been built to as austere a scheme as Ambaru station’s new sections, but the battle cruiser had something the station did not. Dauntless felt like home.

  He wasn’t surprised to encounter Tanya, walking steadily along, checking out everything on her ship. Dauntless had probably been a beehive of activity before she arrived, with everyone striving to ensure that not a single speck of dust marred any surface and not a single item was out of place or functioning at less-than-optimum levels. “Good afternoon, Captain Desjani.”

  “Good afternoon, Admiral Geary,” she returned in the same tones, as if they had spent the last few weeks just working side by side as usual.

  He fell in beside her as they walked, being careful to maintain a distance between them. This was her ship, and the crew would surely note any unprofessional familiarity. “It’s odd. Being back in my stateroom, I started to feel like everything in the previous weeks was some kind of dream.”

  She raised one eyebrow at him, then brought up her left hand, holding it straight up with the back facing him so that the new ring on it glinted clearly. “I don’t usually acquire jewelry in my dreams.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “Something has you on edge. How did your individual meeting go?”

  “Well enough, but odd.” He got another questioning look as he described his meeting with Jane Geary. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Jane made it clear when I first talked to her that she only joined the fleet because she had to, because she was a Geary. The war’s over now. She’s done her duty, and then some. There’s nothing holding her to the fleet.”

  “Something is holding her to the fleet.”

  “I told her she was free to leave, to get on with her life.”

  Desjani smiled wryly. “Life isn’t usually what we plan. Whatever Jane Geary once thought she’d be, she’s spent her adult life as a fleet officer. Maybe she’s finally realizing that this has become her life. Maybe she no longer knows what else she wants to do. And maybe . . .”

  “Maybe what?” Geary asked.

  “You’ve told me about your family issues, how they felt about Black Jack.” Desjani bit her lower lip before saying more. “Maybe part of her was not being Black Jack, because she could hate him and think he was nothing actually worth emulating. But now she knows the real Black Jack.”

  “Black Jack was never real.”

  “Are you always going to be in denial about that? The point is, Jane Geary may be trying to figure who she wants to be now. Not just ‘not Black Jack.’ Something else.”

  He grimaced. “That’s what I’m worried about, that she might want to be more like the imaginary Black Jack. Not like the real me. I wish she’d talk to me about it. I’m going to go talk to my ancestors. Maybe they’ll offer some understanding.”

  “Have fun and say hi to them for me,” Desjani said. “I need to finish looking over the ship. I’ll go down to the worship spaces after that. To give thanks,” she added with a meaningful look at him, “for all that has gone well and all that could have gone much worse.”

  “Message noted, Captain Desjani.” They were together, even if that togetherness would be severely limited, and only a fool wouldn’t give thanks for worst cases that had been averted today.

  THE organization message from fleet headquarters had arrived just as Desjani and Duellos had predicted, one week after Geary had assumed command of the fleet and four days after he had organized the fleet himself. He hadn’t been sure how much the other two might have been joking about the nature of headquarters’ micromanagement, but couldn’t resist a grunt of disbelief at the size and detail of the message. Put Inspire and Leviathan in the same battle cruiser division? Why the hell would I do that since it would mean Duellos and Tulev would both be in the same division instead of leading their separate divisions as they’ve done so well? Why scramble the battleship divisions instead of keeping the ships with the comrades they’ve been working with for a while?

  No further promotions had been approved. Not the ones Geary had proposed, and none based on length of service or heroic actions or new assignments. With the end of the war and the freezing of the fleet’s size, officer promotions had skidded to an abrupt halt, a standstill all the more jarring for the officers nowadays, who had been accustomed by constant and serious battle casualties to expect promotions as fast as other officers were killed in action and needed to be replaced. Aside from the Alliance’s apparent need to keep promoting him to admiral, and Carabali’s promotion from colonel to general, no one else had been approved for higher rank, not even Lieutenant Iger. “Unfair” was the mildest way of describing it, but the system had been carefully designed so that promotions were never guaranteed, so there were no legal grounds for fighting the lack of promotions. Geary wondered how long it would be before his officers began chafing at the sudden halt to upward mobility and the apparent failure of the fleet to any longer recognize superior performance with higher rank.

  And they would be looking to him, wondering why he didn’t fix things and get promotions going again. Field promotions. Maybe headquarters forgot to restrict my ability as fleet commander to promote officers in the field for exceptional performance. But I’ll have to make a bunch of those all at once because once I do it the first time, headquarters and the government will realize that loophole still exists.

  He paged down deep in the message and saw the crew lists. Sure enough, every man and woman, officer and enlisted, was assigned by ship, duty, and berthing compartment or stateroom. Can I really just ignore this? He wondered for the first time about the fleet status reports that went out when the fleet was in home space. He knew the reports he received from each ship were accurate, but what got forwarded to headquarters?

  Desjani blinked at the question after he called her. “It’s a simulation,” she explained. “You don’t have to do a thing. The fleet database is set to automatically generate a simulation based on headquarters messages like that one. It gets updated by real data when necessary, like combat losses and damage, but administratively it’s an alternate universe that gets fed back to headquarters to keep them quiet. Didn’t you do that a century ago?”

  “No.” Should he be horrified? Or thankful that a cure for bureaucratic meddling had been discovered by the operational forces? “Why hasn’t headquarters figured out what’s hap
pening?”

  “They know it’s happening. Of course, operational units are so far away, it takes headquarters a while to figure it out. Then they tell us to do what we’re told and stop running the simulation, and the simulated fleet agrees and tells them everything is fine. After a while, headquarters figures out they’re still hearing from the simulation and tell us again, and the simulated fleet agrees again. And so on and so on. Officers at headquarters vow to change the system, but if any of them ever get out with the operational forces, their perspective changes.”

  It made sense, but it could also be an enormous practical joke on him. Geary studied her intently, looking for any sign that Desjani was pulling his leg. “Nobody ever talks about it?”

  “We don’t have to talk about it much. It’s all automatic on our end though I guess headquarters devotes a lot of effort to telling our simulated fleet how to behave. Haven’t you heard anyone talk about the Potemkin fleet? I don’t know where the name came from, maybe it was the name of whoever first designed the system or maybe it was a name someone found in a database that seemed to fit. The point is, it means the fleet that headquarters wants to see, so that’s what we show them. We follow operational orders, of course, but the micromanagement of everything else is just ignored.”

  After he had ended the conversation, Geary still spent a few minutes staring at the message. Despite Desjani’s ease with the situation, part of him still revolted against the idea of feeding headquarters a lot of simulated data. But then he took another look at the detailed instructions, focusing on one line pertaining to one officer on one ship. Ensign Door should make reports twice each week to his department head Lieutenant Orp on his progress in qualifying as an emergency damage repair party leader per fleet instruction 554499A. Should Ensign Door fail to make adequate progress, reports documenting his shortfalls should be prepared weekly using form B334.900 . . .

  Geary deleted the message from his queue.

  Naturally, it was only the first of many from fleet headquarters.