He led Commander Nkosi to the bridge, where Tanya Desjani was seated. “Begin the operation whenever you are ready, Captain,” Geary told her.
“Thank you, Admiral.” Desjani tapped her comm controls. “Commence hostage-recovery operation. Launch both shuttles. All personnel remain at full alert.”
As he sat down in his own seat next to Desjani’s, Geary called Envoy Charban, who had been holed up in his stateroom for the last two days maintaining constant contact with the Dancer ships. “How are you doing, General?”
Charban twitched his mouth before answering. “I feel like hell, Admiral. How do I look?”
“Like you feel,” Geary admitted. From his appearance, Charban had already used more than one stim med patch to keep himself alert and awake. “Will the Dancers stay clear of Europa while we do this?”
“Let’s do it, see what they do, then we’ll both know.” Charban ran one hand through his hair. “I think I’ve gotten across that they can’t go to Europa, and they are staying well away. I’m pretty certain that they also understand why they can’t go to Europa.”
“You told them?” Geary wasn’t certain of his feelings about that. If it is necessary to keep them from going to Europa, then they had to be told. But I feel… ashamed to have to tell an alien species what my species did to that moon. Is that a reason to avoid being truthful, though? “I guess this is one of those secrets that shouldn’t really be secret.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll fill you in later. We’re launching the shuttles now and should start the drop in about twenty minutes. If everything goes according to the timeline, we’ll have the Marines back up here and getting their armor sterilized an hour and a half after that. Please stay on with the Dancers the whole time and do everything you can to keep them from diving into the middle of things.”
“Yes, sir.” Charban leaned back and made a deliberately casual salute. “Do you know what I want to know most right now? I want to know what they think of it. What they think of us. The Dancers, that is. They already knew we warred and we bombarded planets and inflicted awful atrocities on other humans, but did they know we were fools enough to create the thing that still haunts Europa? Now that they do know, will it change how they see us, will it alter their perception of us as part of some pattern they haven’t been able or willing to get across to us?”
“Make sure the Dancers know that we’re going down to Europa to save two of our people,” Geary said.
“Certainly.” Charban stared into the distance, his eyes unfocused. “We’ll casually kill thousands, or tens of thousands, or millions, with our actions or inactions, but we’ll then turn around and risk our own lives to save a few others. How can the Dancers ever understand us? I don’t understand us. How can we ever hope to understand them?”
As the virtual window containing Charban’s image vanished, Geary realized once again that there were no clear answers to Charban’s questions.
“Both shuttles have launched, Captain,” the operations watch reported. “They are descending toward the drop point.”
“Very well.” Desjani studied her display, then shook her head. “I never imagined that shuttles under my command would be deliberately getting as close to Europa as the quarantine allows.”
“Did you ever imagine that two of your officers would be on Europa?” Geary asked.
“Now that you mention it, no.”
Senator Sakai and Victoria Rione came onto the bridge, both standing in the back, out of the way, but watching the display at the observer’s seat.
Geary gestured for Rione, waiting until she was inside his seat’s privacy field before speaking. “Where are the other two?”
“Senators Suva and Costa?” Rione asked in an arch tone of voice. “They are in their own staterooms, disassociating themselves from this event.”
“Disassociating?”
“Yes, Admiral. If this goes wrong in any of many possible bad ways, they will be able to claim that they were not actually involved, not fully informed, not properly briefed, and not truly responsible.” Rione smiled. “Of course, if it all goes well, they will still claim credit for it.”
Geary glared at his display for a moment before replying. “So Senator Sakai’s decision to come to the bridge means he is associating himself with this operation?”
She nodded judiciously. “Better say he is owning it. His presence here, and near you, ties him to the outcome, no matter what it is.”
“I’ll have to thank him,” Geary said. “Does this mean that Sakai is backing me?”
“Only in this,” Rione cautioned. “He will judge every situation and decide each situation on its own.”
“I can’t fault him for that. I wish every senator were like him and, what was her name, Senator Unruh.”
“Unruh impressed you, did she? You’re right. But don’t forget that Unruh, and Sakai, and every other senator on the Grand Council, were convinced to create that secret fleet and give command of it to Admiral Bloch. All of their individual hopes and fears came together to do something that you and I consider insanity.”
“Didn’t that happen before?” Geary asked. “I’ve been thinking about it, and when the Grand Council approved Bloch’s plan for the strike at the Syndic home star system, didn’t the same thing take place?”
Rione considered that, then nodded. “Yes. Patterns born of desperation. And every time you avoid disaster or win a victory, many of them become more desperate. I’m talking too much. Are you as worried about this operation as I am?”
“Probably more,” Geary said.
“I’ll leave you to focus on it.” She went back to where Senator Sakai stood, but he felt her eyes still upon him.
Geary called up the virtual windows that allowed him to see the views from the armor of each Marine. After overseeing operations involving thousands of Marines, it felt odd to be able to view what was happening from the point of view of each individual Marine in this operation all at once. It reminded him of the days before the war, a century ago, when a typical training exercise might involve only a company of Marines at the most, and only a few ships. For a moment, the memories came to him vividly, of men and women he had known who had fought and died while he slept, and it took a tremendous effort of will to push away those images—and the emotions they brought with them—and bring his full attention back to the present.
Right now, all that the virtual windows revealed was the interior of the shuttles and the other Marines, but soon that would change. “Commander Nkosi, feel free to stand close enough to me to view my display. I want you to be confident that we hid nothing from you.”
“Thank you, Admiral.” Nkosi looked around the bridge of the battle cruiser, one hand reaching to touch the rough edges of Geary’s fleet command seat. Geary remembered being startled himself at such rough edges on Dauntless, the marks of a ship built as quickly as possible with the expectation that it would soon be destroyed in battle. “I have never seen a purely military ship before. A true warship. It looks like what it is. An instrument of war.”
Geary was pondering a reply when an alert flashed on his display. “Here they go.”
The Marines were standing up and forming lines facing the hatches leading to each shuttle’s exit ramp. Inside the confines of the shuttles, the Marines in their battle armor moved with slow, careful grace, like elephants around stacks of eggs still in their shells. “How much damage could they do to a shuttle interior if they bumped into it or hit it by mistake?” Nkosi asked.
Desjani shrugged. “How hard do they hit and where do they hit? It’s not usually any problem. Our Marines actually take dance classes to learn how to move like that, to avoid hitting things by accident, you know.”