“It’s not easy to impress Marines,” Colonel Galland said. “I know I’ve never managed to do it.”
The laughter helped to cover up Geary’s embarrassment at the earlier statement. That’s one more I owe you, Colonel. “And the transport for those ground forces?”
President Astrida spread her hands with an irritated expression. “Yes. We don’t have much choice, do we?”
“You have a choice,” Geary said. “I think there’s only one good choice, but I can’t compel you to take it.”
“Actually,” Colonel Galland said, “you could. Compel them, I mean. TECA.”
“TECA? What’s TECA?” He had surprised Galland, and the others, with the question.
Galland laughed again. “You were gone for a century! Temporary Emergency Command Authority. Part of the Temporary Emergency Defense Act.”
“Which,” the old president said, “is a temporary measure that has been in effect for longer than I’ve been alive. It gives you the authority to draft any self-defense forces or other resources from any star system in defense of the Alliance. Even though the war is over, we haven’t been told that it has been repealed. I was grateful that you offered us a choice on whether to support your mission, but now I see that you didn’t know that you did not have to ask.”
Geary shook his head. “Yes, I did. I’m… old-fashioned when it comes to coercive measures aimed at the Alliance’s own people.”
Astrida smiled. “I’m sure our ancestors would approve of such an attitude. Thank you for asking instead of taking. There was one thing more. You mentioned stopping any more refugees or other problems from coming through Yokai.”
“Yes. We’ve got what’s needed here. The question is whether you’re willing to commit to paying for deploying some of it, not knowing whether the Alliance will pick up the costs later. I think they will because it is necessary, but I can’t guarantee it.”
Colonel Galland shook her head. “Adriana’s self-defense forces don’t have anything that could effectively screen traffic through Yokai.”
“No, they don’t,” Geary agreed. “But you do. If you could rotate one of your squadrons through Yokai—”
“Keep a squadron at Yokai? There’s no money for that! Not in training, not in operating funds, and not in anything else available to me. And I have no authorization to expand my mission! I’d get relieved of command as soon as headquarters heard what I was doing, and I’d probably get put on the hook to personally pay back unauthorized expenditures.”
“I think I know where this is going,” President Astrida remarked. A couple of her associates appeared about to protest until her sharp gaze silenced them. “The Admiral wants Adriana to pay for that.”
Galland eyed her skeptically. “It wouldn’t be anything like war costs. I’d need a lift to get a squadron of FACs and personnel to Yokai and back. A heavy-equipment transport of some kind. But once I had a squadron out there, I could leave the equipment and only send in replacements when necessary. Then there’d have to be logistics support, getting food and other necessities out to the deployed forces, and to rotate people in and out. That would be a recurring cost.”
“What about the operating costs?” the thin man asked. “And your orders?”
Galland frowned in thought. “I could justify a lot of it as training. Flying patrols and deploying equipment are all part of that. Even being at Yokai fits that because one of my secondary missions is to deploy there if required. That means we have to be familiar with operating in Yokai, right? We could reactivate one of the bases. A single squadron can live for a long time off everything that was probably mothballed at Yokai. As long as my spending doesn’t exceed authorized funding, no one back at aerospace forces headquarters is likely to notice or care what’s going on.”
“We can move some money around in the budget,” the thin man told the president. “I think this is doable.”
“And then we’d have defenses at Yokai again,” the president said with obvious satisfaction.
“Yes, but,” Colonel Galland added as just about everyone began looking relieved, “while we can stop refugees in civilian shipping, and a squadron can stop Syndic Hunter-Killer ships, if Syndic light cruisers or heavy cruisers show up, all a single squadron of my craft can do is harass them. That kind of threat requires fleet support to handle, and I don’t mind admitting it.”
“You will be working to get us that support, long-term?” the president asked Geary.
“I’ll do my best,” Geary said.
“A promise from Black Jack is no small thing.” She gazed at him, her thoughts unreadable. “We haven’t heard everything about the losses suffered during the final campaigns of the war and during your subsequent missions, but they are rumored to have been substantial.”
Geary nodded, letting his own eyes rest upon the star display to avoid looking directly at anyone else as the memories hit him. “The fleet took massive losses before I assumed command. We took more getting home, while the fleet units left to defend the Alliance were badly hurt fighting off Syndic attacks as I was getting the fleet home. Since then, we have had to fight the Syndics again and have fought the alien enigmas several times, as well as the alien Kicks.”
“It’s the sort of thing that has happened many times before in the last century,” Colonel Galland sympathized. “To the fleet, to the ground forces, and to the aerospace forces. Massive losses and constant streams of rebuilds and reinforcement. The difference is that this time, replacements stopped coming.”
“I understand the why of that,” Geary said. “But we can’t let our forces get too small, or we’ll end up with more and more situations like this one.”
“There should still be enough money available to fund a better defense than we’ve been left with,” one official protested. “Where is it going? We have a rough idea of how much contributions to the Alliance have been held up from other star systems, and from this one, I admit that, and if the cutbacks here are any indication, the cuts have exceeded what I admit are large cuts in funding.”
“I don’t know where it’s all going,” Geary said. “Your senators may not know. I would recommend you task them with finding out. Waste and… ill-considered programs are not something we can afford. Not if we want to keep faith with our people, whether civilian or military.”
“Be assured that we will look for those answers,” President Astrida said. “Colonel Galland, members of my staff will contact your staff to work out the details of your, um, extended training maneuvers at Yokai. Admiral Geary, we will notify you of the shipping, which will be leased to convoy the ground forces to Batara. General Shwartz, I want you to take the lead for getting the two ground forces regiments ready to go as soon as possible. Let me know immediately if you run into problems.” This with a dagger-sharp look at General Sissons. “Is there anything else?” she asked of the room.
“Just one thing,” Geary said. “A small thing,” he added quickly, as tension suddenly began ramping up again. “I had promised to visit a place on this world that’s not far from here. Could I get some ground transport there?”
President Astrida nodded. “The Academy? Of course. I am sure you will be very welcome there, and I thank you personally for visiting those children.”
Colonel Galland stopped Geary before he got into one of the limos. “You’ve made my life a lot more interesting, Admiral.”