Measured in the life span of a star, the human presence here had lasted the barest flicker of a moment. For some reason, seeing that and knowing it brought the sense of cold back to Geary.
Then he shook it off. Every sailor learned one thing quickly, and that one thing was that everything about space was inhuman. The sheer size of it, the emptiness of it, the death it carried everywhere except for those very, very small places amid the emptiness where humans could walk on a planet’s surface with their faces bare to the wind and breathe the air. It isn’t good and it isn’t bad, the old saying went, it just is.
It’s too big for us, and we’re only here for the blink of eye as far as it’s concerned, an old chief had told Geary when he was so young an officer it almost hurt to remember. Someday, any day, it could take you, because even though it doesn’t care about us, it’ll kill us in an instant if it can. Then, if your prayers to the living stars are answered, you’ll get to go live forever in their warmth and light. If not, you’d best make the best of the life you’ve got. Speaking of which, did I ever tell you about the time my old ship visited Virago? Now that was a party.
Geary became aware he was smiling, recalling that old chief and the often outrageous space stories he’d told. “Captain Desjani, I’m planning on putting the fleet in orbit around Kaliban. Please let me know if you have any recommendations regarding the exact orbit.”
She gave him a mildly surprised look. “We’re going to stay here?”
“Long enough to see what sort of equipment and materials the Syndics might’ve abandoned out here.” He’d reviewed the status of the fleet’s ships during the jump from Corvus and hadn’t been happy to see how low some ships were getting on essentials. Nobody was close to critical yet, but then they were nowhere close to getting home, either. And there was something else he needed to do that required the ships to be in normal space. Something that had to be done before the fleet faced battle again.
Desjani nodded. “Good thing the food stockpiles at the Syndic base in Corvus were available. It seems unlikely we’ll find much food here.”
“I agree.” Geary pondered his options, then ordered his ships to cut their speed to one hundredth of the speed of light and let the Alliance fleet drift slowly inward toward Kaliban. That would allow time to evaluate what the fleet’s sensors were telling him about the shut-down Syndic facilities in the system. Time to learn what the Syndics might’ve left behind that his fleet could use. And time to talk to his ship commanders.
Captain Duellos called in. “I recommend posting some battle cruisers at the jump exit again to guard it.”
Geary shook his head. “Not this time. I want the fleet together. We can’t be positioned to exploit whatever the Syndics left in this system and also be positioned to support a force guarding the jump exit.”
“Very well, Captain Geary.”
Desjani gave Geary a hard-to-read look. “Duellos never liked Admiral Bloch, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t think Bloch made wise decisions. It’s interesting to see Duellos agreeing so readily to your decisions.”
Geary smiled tightly. “I guess I haven’t made too many mistakes yet.”
Desjani grinned, then turned to study a message coming in on her display. “My operations officer recommends we take up position in the system at this orbital location.” Geary craned to look, seeing an area about two light-hours in-system from the jump exit. He compared the location to the orbits of the Syndic facilities that had already been spotted, then nodded. “Looks good for now. Let’s head for there. Please let the other ships know the orbit we’re planning to take up and that they should maintain formation on Dauntless.”
“Yes, sir.” Desjani started giving the necessary orders while Geary bent to his display, studying the data coming in.
He’d barely begun considering the reports being received on what could be learned about the Syndic facilities, and realizing he’d have to send scout teams down to find out enough about what was actually present at most of them, when he received a call from the commanding officer of Titan. Great. Now what’s wrong?
But there wasn’t any urgency or worry on the face of the officer calling Geary. Titan’s Captain seemed far too young for the job, but he acted and sounded confident enough. “Greetings, Captain Geary.”
“Greetings. Is this about a problem with Titan?”
“No, sir. We’re making more progress on the damage every day and have full propulsion capability back.”
Geary actually smiled slightly at the news. “That’s a relief. I have to admit that Titan’s been on my mind a lot.”
Titan’s Captain got the reference, making an exaggerated flinch. “We appreciate the efforts of our many escorts in keeping us safe. Well, relatively safe. We had considerable damage to deal with and appreciated not having to add to the list of things that needed fixed.”
Geary grinned this time. The lack of opposition in the Kaliban Star System had left him feeling in very good humor for once. “I can understand that. You’ve done a great job repairing your ship. What can I do for you now?”
“I’d like to offer a suggestion and a request.” A small window popped up with a depiction of Kaliban’s system. “We’ve been able to confirm that there were mining facilities here.”
“Yeah. All shut down like everything else, of course.”
“Yes, but assuming they’re intact, I’ve got people who ought to be able to reactivate the automated mining equipment. From the looks of things, Kaliban’s inhabitants never could’ve made a big dent in the supply of metals in the system, and we could really use those metals to fabricate new parts and weapons for the ships of this fleet.”
Geary leaned back, considering the suggestion. “Can you refine whatever ore we get, or would we need to reactivate Syndic metal-handling facilities?”
Titan’s Captain waved a dismissive hand. “Not a problem, sir. I’m certain of it. Some of the mines we’ve spotted are on asteroids. That means veins of pure metal. It won’t need refining or purifying. We’d have to work it into alloys, but we can do that.”
“How long? How long to reactivate the mines, get the metal out, and get it loaded on Titan? And I assume some of the other auxiliaries can use it, too?”
For the first time, Titan’s commanding officer hesitated. “If everything goes perfectly, I can have metals coming aboard in one week. And, yes, there are other ships in the auxiliary force that can use the metals as well. I know there’s a risk involved in hanging around the system, but with that metal we could fabricate a lot of what we need to keep going.”
Geary looked down, thinking. If everything doesn’t go perfectly, and it probably won’t, then it’ll be more than a week. Unfortunately, I have no real idea how long it’ll take the Syndics to realize we went to Kaliban, and how long after that to get a significant combat force here. So it’ll be a gamble. But I was planning to spend some time in this system anyway. And if I don’t take this gamble, who knows when we’ll have another opportunity to resupply the workshops on those auxiliaries?