“What about Tiyannak?” Geary asked.
“Tiyannak!” Naxos said it like a curse. “There was a mobile forces refit facility at Tiyannak. Not much else. My brother worked there. They revolted, too, and took over the mobile forces that were at the facility. They’ve been raiding Batara for the last four months. No, six months, now. They want refined resources, specialized equipment, bulk food supplies, and other things. Batara can’t hold them off with what it has got, which are mostly just lightly armed converted merchant ships.”
“We had to go through the Mouth,” Araya repeated. “We got to the star at the other end. Yokai. There wasn’t anything there. Locked installations with automated security systems that warned us off. We had to keep going. So we came here. And they won’t talk to us or let us go or anything. They provide just enough food to get by, and we have to stay in orbit here and wait.”
“We can work,” Naxos said with another glance at Geary. “We’re skilled, and we’re hard workers. We’re willing to go where we could find jobs. There must be places other than the Syndicate and the Alliance. But if you just send us back, they’ll kick us out again, and we’ll be here again. Unless they kill us. Why won’t you give us a chance?”
Geary looked at the two, seeing pride, defiance, and desperation. “You just described to me how you felt about the Alliance after a century of having war on your front doorstep. How do you think the people in Adriana feel about you after having experienced the same thing from the other side?”
“We didn’t start it!” Adriana insisted.
“Actually, you did,” Geary said in a matter-of-fact way. “The Syndicate Worlds, that is. It launched surprise attacks on the Alliance. I know, because I fought against one of those attacks.”
“That’s impossi—” Araya began. Then her eyes grew wide, and she moved back as far as her seat on the freighter would allow. “You’re him. It’s true.”
“I am the man you know as Black Jack,” Geary said. “I know that your leaders lied to you about who started the war, so even if you don’t want to believe me, you might ask yourself why you still believe them.”
“Our fault,” Naxos said. He sounded drained and was looking fixedly down at his hands again. “Even after all this time, we must pay for the crimes of our ancestors. Is that it?”
“I don’t see the point in it,” Geary said. “Not if you no longer pose a threat to the Alliance. Do you?”
“Does what we say matter?”
“It does to me.”
Araya met his eyes, bold again. “If you are him— We just want the Alliance to leave us alone. Let us go on and find some place. Or do you mean Batara? The people at Batara have their hands full dealing with attacks from Yael and Tiyannak. They don’t want to keep the war with the Alliance going. But they won’t take us back.”
“They’re going to have to,” Geary said. “Batara can’t be allowed to kick people into Alliance space, and if stopping that means forcing a change in government at Batara, then I am willing to do that.” The basic lie-detector routines in the meeting software hadn’t alerted him to any falsehoods by these two, and he was inclined to believe them anyway because no worthwhile government would be forcing so many of its own people into exile or taking over operation of Syndic labor camps instead of shutting them down.
“You want to conquer Batara now that the Syndicate is gone?” Araya asked. “You could do that, because there’s nothing at Yael that could stand against your mobile forces, but you’d still have to deal with Tiyannak.”
“I’m not interested in conquering anything. Just how many warships does Tiyannak have?”
“We’re not sure,” Naxos replied. “You mean mobile forces, right? At least two heavy cruisers, maybe a dozen light cruisers and Hunter-Killers. And a battleship.”
“A battleship?”
“It was at Tiyannak,” Araya explained. “Not in working condition. Damaged in some battle before the war ended. We think whenever Tiyannak gets the battleship working, they will use it to outright take over Batara. They’ve boasted to us about that. Tiyannak is going to be the strongest star system in this region. And not even the Alliance can stop them. That’s what they claim.”
And after Tiyannak took over Batara, a rogue star system with possession of a battleship would control another star system on the border of the Alliance, facing places like Yokai, where the defenses were gone, and Adriana, where Alliance defenses had been gutted by downsizing.
An annoying and difficult situation had just become ugly and dangerous.
Ten
Duellos had escorted Geary to Inspire’s shuttle dock, then paused at the end of the shuttle’s entry ramp, giving Geary a pleading look. “You know what will happen to me if anything happens to you.”
“Tanya wouldn’t hurt you.”
“How can you be married to her and not know what the woman is capable of?” Duellos asked. “Please, Admiral. Take a squad of Marines along. No one will blink at their accompanying you.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “No. I’m not some Syndic CEO who needs bodyguards everywhere he goes.”
“Captain Desjani said you might feel that way, her exact words were something along the lines of he’ll probably be a stubborn ass about it, and requested that I remind the Admiral that various parties attempted to kill him while he was in Sol Star System.”
“I haven’t forgotten that,” Geary said. “But, while there, Captain Desjani reminded me that Black Jack is an important symbol. What he does matters. How would it look, what message would it convey, if Black Jack thought he needed personal protection while walking around a planet of the Alliance among the people of the Alliance?”
“There is that. But you had agreed there was a trap waiting for you here,” Duellos reminded him.
Geary laughed, surprising his companion. “There isn’t a trap. Not like what we thought. Why do we have to worry so much about that battleship in the hands of Tiyannak? Because the defenses here and at Yokai have been gutted, right?”
“Right,” Duellos agreed. “Not that a battleship could be discounted even if the defenses at Yokai were fully active.”
“Who must have approved those drawdowns in forces and fixed defenses?”
“Fleet headquarters for our units, ground forces headquarters for—” Duellos ceased speaking, then smiled sardonically. “Admiral Tosic and General Javier. Who now find themselves in a lot of trouble because of those decisions. They have at least a hint of the threat from Tiyannak, don’t they?”
“I’d bet on it,” Geary said. “It’s an awful mess as a result of their actions. They need someone to handle it, someone to bail them out.”
“And who better than Black Jack?” Duellos frowned. “But if they knew about the battleship, why authorize only one division of battle cruisers to come with you to Adriana?”
“Because they can’t admit that they know about the threat. They can’t admit that they need a fire brigade in here to put out the blaze caused by their earlier decisions. If I put out the fire, they get to avoid awkward questions. If I fail, then, hey, they sent Black Jack with what should have been more than enough warships for the refugee return mission, didn’t they? How can it be their fault that he failed?”