What exactly triggered the memory that came to mind? His father, looking angry, as he had in life often enough to have taught young Geary to face the disapproval stoically. “Why didn’t you ask me?” his father had demanded.
Geary felt a remembered chill inside as his ten-year-old self had answered. “I thought I knew what you wanted.” And you would have gotten angry at being asked.
“Don’t assume! Don’t assume you know what I want!”
He shook his head, coming back to the present, startled by the intensity of the memory. Don’t assume. Why did I remember that? I can’t even recall exactly what that was about. I just remember that it was something I had been sure was right, and it wasn’t.
Was that a message?
Geary looked at the flame. All right, Father. Maybe you’ve unbent enough in the light of the living stars to explain, something you rarely did when alive. I forgave you for that a long time ago. It would be just like his father, though, to offer advice in the form of a lecture.
Am I not to assume this mission is a trap? I have to. That’s the only safe option.
But that doesn’t mean I should close my eyes to the possibility that there is something else going on.
Thank you, ancestors. Thank you, Father.
He snuffed out the candle and left the compartment, feeling oddly comforted by the ambiguous message he might have received.
Inspire felt subtly wrong. The same class and type of ship as Dauntless, Inspire had been thrown together as fast as possible, just like Dauntless, in the expectation that she would be destroyed in battle within a couple of years at the most, or so badly damaged that she would be broken up for parts and scrap. The layout of the ship was identical, and the design of the bridge and other critical spaces the same as on Dauntless.
But Geary had been aboard Dauntless long enough to be acquainted with every rough weld, every sharp edge, as well as every place where damage and repairs had resulted in minor changes from the original. Inspire had different rough welds in different places, different sharp edges in different places, and minor differences in equipment and its placement. It was like looking at an identical twin who wasn’t… identical.
He sat in a fleet command seat that wasn’t exactly like the one he was used to, next to the seat holding Captain Roberto Duellos instead of Captain Tanya Desjani, and tried not to let it all throw him off. I am a fleet officer. It is ridiculous, and wrong, and unprofessional, to be tied to a single ship in the fleet. Besides, Dauntless is Tanya’s ship, not mine, and—
Dauntless is Tanya’s ship.
Have I grown too dependent on her advice? Tanya is good. Very good. But I can’t afford to need her support. As good a combat team as we are, I need to be able to handle things on my own.
Varandal’s hypernet gate was close, Captain Duellos patiently waiting for Geary’s approval to enter it.
But he paused a moment longer, gazing at his display. Inspire had not yet left Varandal, so he could still see Dauntless there, but already light-hours distant. He hadn’t been so far from her since being awakened in this time, except for his brief honeymoon to Kosatka. Nor had he ever been so far from another “her,” Tanya. I shouldn’t have made her fleet commander. I should have left her free to take some leave herself, to go back to Kosatka and see her parents again.
Who am I kidding? She wouldn’t have gone. At least making her acting commander of the First Fleet ensures that she’s tied down and can’t come racing after me, with half the fleet at her back. “Captain Duellos, permission granted to enter the hypernet gate, destination Adriana Star System.”
He had expected to find a mess at Adriana Star System. He hadn’t expected to find a hot mess.
As Geary’s small task force left the hypernet, his display updated in a rush. It had already shown the seven planets orbiting the star, one of which at nine light-minutes from the star was slightly cold for human comfort but otherwise not bad at all. Another planet orbiting only two light-minutes away from the star was a scorching, bare rock. Farther out past the habitable world, a pair of mismatched planets whirled around each other as both circled the star, producing tidal forces so strong that humans avoided the two. The remaining three planets were gas giants sailing majestically through space, ignoring the human mining and industrial facilities orbiting them like parasitic insects.
That much matched Geary’s few memories of Adriana. The human population had boomed thanks to the war and Adriana’s position directly behind the fought-over border star systems, resulting in many more towns, larger cities, and more installations in space. There hadn’t been a hypernet when he had last been through this region of space, and Adriana wasn’t a wealthy enough star system to have qualified for one of the extremely expensive hypernet gates on the basis of its economy. But the star’s position near the border with the Syndicate Worlds had made a gate necessary, part of the defensive network built up during the war. For decades, that gate had been used to help quickly shift Alliance forces to wherever the Syndics had launched attacks, or to swiftly assemble Alliance forces for attacks on the Syndics.
There were numerous new defense installations. From this far out, even Inspire’s sensors couldn’t immediately spot any signs of cutbacks here, but Geary suspected many of those installations were in worse shape than they looked. If his fleet had been ordered to send out inflated readiness reports, very likely the units here had received similar orders.
Basic bits of information about the star system were confirmed in a rush, then Geary focused on the activity here as new symbols popped into existence to reveal the current situation. What looked like a full squadron of aerospace forces short-range Fast Attack Craft was in orbit about the habitable world, trying to keep a motley collection of civilian freighters and passenger liners corralled. Many of those freighters and liners were aging Syndic models, as were another dozen scattered through the star system, fleeing attempts at being intercepted by more aerospace craft lunging out from the planets and moons on which they were based. Official comm channels were filled with transmissions of orders flying back and forth, as well as with demands, petitions, complaints, arguments, pleas, threats, debates, and explanations.
“There is a ground forces general in charge here,” Inspire’s comm watch-stander reported tentatively. “But the aerospace forces colonel is issuing orders that contradict the ground forces orders. And the government of Adriana is giving orders to the general, while the general and the colonel are giving orders to the government. There are local police authorities also weighing in, as well as other varieties of local officials. And all of the refugee ships are demanding to be let go or to be granted asylum or pleading for help. That’s just a basic rundown, sir. It’s actually a lot more complicated than that.”
Duellos ran through several possible expressions before deciding on simple acceptance. “Those aerospace craft don’t have the legs to intercept all of the loose refugee ships. I recommend we send some destroyers after them, Admiral.”