Ancestors. I made a joke to myself. I wonder if I’m starting to really thaw out.
I wonder if I want to thaw out.
“Captain Geary.” He glanced back and saw Co-President Rione still in her seat on the bridge, her face revealing no emotions. “Do you believe all Syndic resistance in the Corvus System has been eliminated?”
“No.” Geary gestured at the display before his chair, wondering how much of it Rione could see. “As you’ve seen, our Marines are in the process of taking the military base on the fourth world. There’s a couple of military bases around the second world, that’s the inhabited one. They don’t even know we’re here yet.”
“Will they be a threat to the fleet?”
“No. They’re obsolete and designed to defend the planet, which we have no interest in messing with. I don’t intend bothering with them if I can help it.”
Captain Desjani gave Geary a surprised look. “We should eliminate all Syndic military capability in this system.”
“Those fortresses aren’t any threat to us and wouldn’t be worth the Syndics moving anywhere else,” Geary replied. “But I’d have to divert some ships to take them out, expend weapons in the process, and worry about damage to civilian targets on the planet from any pieces of the fortresses that enter atmosphere.”
“I see.” Desjani nodded. “There’s no sense in using up our limited supply of weapons on them, and you don’t want to split up the fleet.”
“Right.” Geary gave no sign he’d noticed Desjani didn’t acknowledge the point about civilian casualties. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rione watching them both intently.
The Co-President gestured toward Geary’s display. “You’ve recalled the forces guarding the jump point?”
“Yes. If anything comes through there now, it’ll almost certainly be too powerful for my battle cruisers to handle, and I’m not prepared to sacrifice them or any other ships just to blunt the nose of a Syndic pursuit force.”
Rione studied the display again. “You don’t think they could retreat quickly enough to rejoin us?”
“No, Madam Co-President, I don’t.” Geary moved his finger across the display as he spoke. “You see, anything coming out of the jump point will probably be at pursuit speed. Say point one light, just like we were. While they were on guard, my battle cruisers were matching the movement of the jump point in the system, but that’s a lot slower. The Syndics would have a big speed advantage, too big for my battle cruisers, or any ship in this fleet, to overcome before they got battered into wrecks.”
Desjani had been following the conversation silently, but now looked toward Rione. “If we had some automated warships, we could expend some of those on the mission without the risk of losing personnel. But we have none of those.”
Geary frowned, sensing from the expressions on Desjani’s and Rione’s faces that the statement had considerable history behind it. “Has that been proposed? Building fully automated warships?”
“It has been proposed,” Rione responded dryly.
Captain Desjani’s expression hardened. “In the opinion of many officers, we would gain great advantages in situations such as this if the construction of uncrewed ships controlled by artificial intelligences would be approved.”
Rione met Desjani look for look. “Then I’m afraid those officers are doomed to disappointment. One of my final acts before departing Alliance space with this fleet was participating in an Alliance Assembly vote regarding such a program. It was overwhelmingly defeated. The civil leadership of the Alliance is not willing to entrust weapons and weapons employment decisions to artificial intelligences, especially when those AIs are to be given control of warships capable of inflicting great harm on inhabited worlds.”
Desjani flushed. “If oversight AIs were also installed—”
“They’d be subject to the same potential failures, instabilities, and unpredictable behavioral development.”
“Install an override!”
Rione shook her head implacably. “Any AI capable of controlling a warship would also be capable of learning how to bypass an override. And what if our enemies learned to access this override through experimentation or espionage? I’ve no wish to give them control of warships we’ve built. No, Captain, we don’t believe we can trust AIs to operate independently. I assure you the Assembly is in no mood to bend on this point. Not now, and not at any point in the foreseeable future.”
Desjani, glowering, made a barely respectful nod and turned back to her display.
“Anyway,” Geary continued, pretending the argument hadn’t happened, “now that we’ve taken out the Syndic naval forces in the system, I’m going to threaten the inhabited world into sending us some cargo ships full of stuff we need. Food, mostly. Maybe some power cells, if we can adapt some of the Syndic stuff to work with ours.”
A officer with gray-streaked hair to Geary’s right shook his head. “We can’t, sir. They’re deliberately designed to be noncompatible. Just like their weapons. But if we can get the right raw materials, Titan and Jinn can manufacture more weapons. Titan can also build more power cells, and so can Witch. ““Thank you.” Geary tried to look as appreciative as he actually felt for the quick and to-the-point briefing. “Can those ships tell me what they need?”
“We’ve got the information onboard Dauntless, sir. Assuming their last updates to us are accurate, of course.”
“You’re supply?”
The gray-haired man saluted awkwardly, as if the gesture were long unused. “Engineering, sir.”
“I want you to make sure we know what the highest priorities are for each of those ships.”
“Yes, sir!” the man beamed, apparently honored at being given a task by Geary.
Geary turned to Desjani. “At least that way I’ll be sure to demand the right tribute from the Syndics in this system.”
Co-President Rione stood up and took a couple of steps to lean near Geary and murmur just loud enough for Geary and Desjani to hear. “By so making your demands, Captain Geary, you’ll also be telling the Syndics exactly what your greatest needs are.”
Desjani made a face. Geary thought she looked unhappy, too, but had to admit Rione was right. “Any suggestions?” he murmured back.
“Yes. Include some misleading demands. The Syndics will not know which demands represent real needs for us and which are luxury items, for want of a better term.”
“Good idea.” Geary gave her a lopsided grin. “Would you by any chance also have any suggestions as to who should present our demands to the authorities here?”
“Are you drafting me, Captain Geary?”
“I wouldn’t want to say that, Madam Co-President. But you do have the necessary skills, and it’d be nice if you agreed to volunteer before I gave you the job.”
“I’ll consider it.” Rione nodded toward Geary’s display again. “I understand most of what’s happening now, but not that activity around the surrendered corvette.”
“It’s being stripped for any useful parts,” Geary assured her. He focused on the information himself, then frowned and studied it closer. He gave Desjani a questioning glance, but she indicated she didn’t see anything odd, which also bothered Geary. He reached for his communications controls. “Audacious, why are all the survival pods from the Syndic corvette enroute to you?”