“Not as interesting as it would have been if that battleship had shown up here and surprised everyone,” Geary reminded her.
“No argument there. I just wanted to point out that my FACs might be useful at Batara.”
Geary let his puzzlement show. “How would I get them there?”
“You’ve got battle cruisers. Have they just got the regulation two shuttles each? One FAC can be crammed into a battle cruiser shuttle dock along with them. It’s a real tight fit, but it can be done. If those shuttles need to make drops in a hostile environment, or if you just want a strong escort accompanying your shuttles to impress the locals, my boys and girls could really help out.”
“Another training mission?” Geary asked.
“How did you guess?” Galland said with a grin.
“I’m probably going to take you up on that offer, Colonel. We’re doing this on a shoestring, and every bit of capability we can add will give me a better chance of getting it done right. Thank you.”
“No, sir. Thank you. It can be hard to keep the faith sometimes, you know? You work with guys like Sissons, and after a while, you wonder what the point is. But there is a point.” She stepped back, saluted again with the care of someone who had recently learned the gesture, then waved farewell as Geary got into the vehicle.
Being around civilians made him nervous.
It wasn’t because he had spent so much time in the company of military personnel whose uniforms had not undergone radical changes in the century he had been frozen. No, it was because civilian clothing had undergone the usual shifts of taste and fashion, altering with the years and the decades. Granted, because of the long war, some of those fashions had borrowed much from uniforms. But other fashions clearly avoided any hint of the uniform or the functional in their designs. Among the military, he could pretend that not all that much time had passed since the battle at Grendel. Among civilians, he couldn’t avoid seeing in the styles of clothing they wore how much time had passed.
“We’re very grateful that you could come, Admiral,” the man in charge of the Academy beamed. “My mother used to tell me about Grendel when I was a little boy, and I worried that the Syndics would come attack us in our homes. She would say that Black Jack would never let that happen, that he would come back to prevent it.”
Geary cleared his throat, even more uncomfortable. “Well, I… um…”
“I admit I had stopped believing! We were all in despair. The fleet was gone. That’s what everyone was saying even though the government claimed the fleet was all right. But everyone knows you can’t believe official announcements. And, then…” The man actually put his hand to his heart, gazing into the distance with a wondering smile. “You brought the fleet back safe, and you had hurt the Syndics worse than anyone ever had, and then you won the war.”
Everyone else was smiling, either at him or at the man enraptured by his memories. The media was here, of course, recording every moment for posterity and soaking up the raw sentiment on display.
Geary looked ahead to the doors of the orphanage, functional metal entrances adorned only by what looked like amateur paintings of the seals of the Alliance Armed Forces, paintings he felt certain had been done by the children who had lost their parents to those armed forces. He felt bitterness rising to mask his discomfort. “I wish I could have ended the war while these kids’ parents were still alive.”
The man’s smile changed to a solemn nod. “Don’t we all, Admiral. But that’s not what the living stars decreed. We are grateful that there won’t be any more orphans. That’s a big thing.”
“People are still dying,” Geary said, thinking of the ships he had lost, of Orion being blown apart at Sobek Star System. He noticed the uncertainty and the concern appear in the man’s eyes and tried to rally his own spirits. “I’m sorry. My fleet has been through some very serious fighting even though the war is over.”
“Serious fighting?” a woman reporter called. “The government hasn’t said much about that.”
Geary saw police moving to silence her and held up a hand to halt them. “I’ll be happy to answer questions later. My first responsibility here is to the children.”
“Do you still support the Alliance?” the woman persisted.
He waited a moment to answer, feeling tension filling the air like something tangible. “Yes. I support the Alliance, I support the government, I support those things our ancestors believed in, and those principles so many men and women of the Alliance died for.”
“How strong is that support?”
They would keep pushing that point, apparently. Geary turned to face the crowd. “I support the Alliance and the government. I have made my stand on those grounds. I will not retreat from where I stand, and I will not retreat from those words.”
As he headed for the doors of the Academy amid the buzz of conversation following his statement, Geary found himself walking beside one of the teachers. Her face held the telltale smoothness that hinted at age held back by modern science, so that she could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty years old. However, a prominent burn mark marred one side of that downy face. It was the sort of disfigurement that could have been easily removed, but the woman had chosen to keep it. “I served in the fleet, Admiral,” she said in a low voice that just carried to him. “I had six ships shot out from under me. I know it’s hard to lose men and women, but don’t forget how many you’ve saved by winning those battles as well as you have. No one else may tell you this, but this Academy and the others have been told to plan for consolidation and closing as the children in them grow up and leave. Do you understand? Don’t dwell here on those who died. Dwell on the fact that this place and similar ones will no longer be needed. Thanks to you.”
“Thank you,” Geary said. “That does mean a lot. And thank you for helping to hold the line with your own service during the war.”
Then he was inside the utilitarian building, functional enough and nice enough but without any frills or extravagance evident in the entry. It felt military. Not lavish-headquarters military, but field-offices military. He wondered how many of the furnishings here had come from the same contracts as fulfilled military requirements.
A short walk led to the entrance of a large multipurpose room filled with children standing in ranks, the smallest in front. They gazed back at him with a solemnity not in keeping with their ages. They were serious in the way of children who had experienced terrible blows at a young age, and as Geary looked at them, he wondered how he could possibly speak to them in any way that mattered.
A young girl spared him the need to search for words. “Did you talk to them?” she cried, as teachers tried to hush her. “The eldest ones? Did you?” Her eyes were too dark in a face too thin, but now hope had given her expression a measure of serenity.
Thank you, Tanya, for warning me to expect that question. Geary knelt, so his head was on a level with that of the child. “Do you mean on Old Earth?”
“Yes. The oldest ancestors of us all. What did they say?” Her eagerness almost caused her words to trip over themselves.
“I’m still trying to understand what I saw and heard on Old Earth,” Geary said, having decided that a literal truth was the best answer for a question he would otherwise have to lie about. “It was… a remarkable place.”
A boy, older, almost a teenager, spoke abruptly, anger clear in his voice. “Why didn’t you come back sooner? Why did you wait?”
Geary stayed kneeling and looked up at the boy, knowing the unspoken part of the question. Why didn’t you come back before my parents died? Once again, he answered with the only truth he knew. “I don’t know. It wasn’t up to me. I don’t know why I was found when I was, and not before. I wish… If it had been sooner… My parents died while I was asleep. Everyone I knew died while I was in survival sleep. I woke up, and everyone was gone.”