Colonel Kim gave him a doubtful look. “There’s nothing about Tiyannak in my orders, Admiral.”
“I shouldn’t need you there. If the situation looks calm enough, I’ll send you back from Batara with my light cruisers as escorts before proceeding to Tiyannak. There’s a former Syndic battleship that needs to be eliminated as a threat. Ideally, we’ll be able to hit it in the dock where it’s being repaired.”
“And if everything goes to hell?” Voston asked.
“Then we’ll improvise and respond as necessary. My three objectives are to return the refugees, try to ensure that the refugees don’t get sent here again, and take out that battleship. You two only have to worry about the first couple of those.”
“No problem,” Colonel Voston said.
“Yes, sir,” Colonel Kim agreed.
“Let me know how soon we can get going. The sooner we hit Batara, the sooner we can hit Tiyannak, and if we hit them soon enough, Tiyannak may not have that battleship working yet.”
After Kim said her farewells, her image vanished, but Voston lingered, eyeing Duellos.
“Captain,” Geary said, “can I have a moment alone with the colonel?”
“Certainly,” Duellos said. He stood up with careful deliberation, then saluted Voston with the same slow precision before leaving the compartment.
Voston watched him go, then looked at Geary. “Admiral, I think you know why General Sissons tapped me and my soldiers for this. He expects us to screw up. He expects us to fail. Which I guess might make you look bad, or at least cause you a lot of extra trouble. But I want you to know that we won’t screw up. We’re not angels in the barracks, but in combat we’ve never let anyone down. You can count on us.”
“I never doubted it, Colonel,” Geary said.
It took close to two weeks for the two ground forces regiments to be organized and loaded, and for three of Colonel Galland’s FACs to be eased onto the shuttle docks aboard Inspire, Formidable, and Implacable. Geary watched the lethargic process with growing impatience, unable to do much as the wheels of the ground forces bureaucracy and the Adriana government bureaucracy ground slowly toward actually getting anything done. He had no doubt that General Sissons was tossing all of the sand possible into the gears driving the ground forces’ wheels, and wished mightily that Victoria Rione were here to help bypass the countless layers of approval required for the Adriana government to lease the necessary transport for the ground forces.
More than once he found himself regretting ruling out employing TECA and envying the leaders of Midway. Having dictatorial control and the ability to throw laggards into prison just for taking their own sweet time to get things done seemed more attractive with every day that crawled by.
And with so many of Adriana’s self-defense forces coming along to Batara, it seemed as if every soldier in that regiment, all of their families, and everyone else in Adriana Star System were talking about it. If Tiyannak didn’t get advance warning of all this, it would be purely due to the vast distances between stars and the still-limited time for some ship to carry the word there.
Finally, the day came. The refugees maintained a sullen, watchful silence under the eyes of Colonel Kim’s soldiers as the freighters carrying all of them began accelerating toward the jump point for Yokai.
Geary ordered his warships into motion, pacing the clumsy freighters and wishing for the thousandth time that auxiliaries and freighters could accelerate like warships.
Duellos sat next to him on the bridge of Inspire, watching his display. As the large convoy of refugee ships (which more closely resembled a swarm of gnats herded by the warships than an organized formation) settled onto a vector for the jump point, Duellos glanced at Geary. “We haven’t seen any new refugee ships arrive from Batara since that one with the power core problems about three weeks ago.”
“I noticed,” Geary said. “Colonel Galland said they were formerly showing up at a rate of one or two a week.”
“I have a feeling that’s a bad thing,” Duellos continued. “That it may indicate that conditions at Batara have already changed.”
“I have the same feeling,” Geary said. “The living stars know there’s been enough time wasted for conditions to change. We’ll be jumping to Yokai in combat formation.”
Eleven
Yokai did not prove to be as empty as hoped.
Geary had jumped there prepared for battle. The battle cruisers and half the destroyers arrived ten minutes before the light cruisers, the rest of the destroyers, and the clutter of refugee freighters. Nothing waited near the jump exit, though, except a few automated Alliance navigation buoys, which were continuing the same mechanically mandated roles they had fulfilled for decades. Amidst the quiet of the shut-down defenses elsewhere at Yokai, one object stood out as very much active.
“Syndic Hunter-Killer,” the combat watch-stander said. “Right next to the jump point for Batara.”
“A picket ship,” Duellos observed. “But whose picket ship?”
The jump exit for Batara was on the other side of the star system, nearly seven light-hours distant. “Let’s see what he does when he sees us,” Geary said. “Are there any indications that someone is trying to set up shop here?”
“There aren’t any signs that anyone has broken into any of the mothballed defense sites,” Duellos replied.
“Monitoring and security systems at some of the sites do report a few attempts at entry, Captain,” the operations watch reported.
“But no reports of actual entry?”
“No, sir. All of the sites are reporting their current status with no discrepancies, so nobody has gone in and shut down anything to try to hide their activities.”
Lieutenant Nadia “Night Witch” Popova, the pilot of the FAC loaded onto Inspire, was also on the bridge and pointed out a large orbiting facility near the edge of the star system, only a couple of light-minutes from where the HuK was loitering. “That’s where our squadron will be based. We’ll reactivate enough of the station to handle our needs and leave the rest dark.”
“You’ll be able to intercept anything coming in,” Geary said. “I wish your people were already there.”
“Me, too, Admiral. I wouldn’t mind having a HuK silhouette painted on the side of my warbird.”
“What will your squadron do if it’s something too big for them to handle?” Duellos asked.
Popova grinned. “Play dead and send off a courier drone to jump for Adriana with the bad news. The base had several of those drones for emergencies, and the colonel is pretty sure they were mothballed in place. While we’re passing through, Catnap is supposed to ping the base’s housekeeping systems to confirm the drones are still there.”
“Catnap?” Geary asked.
“Lieutenant Alvarez, sir.”
“She’s on Implacable,” Duellos said before turning a questioning eye on Night Witch. “Is there a reason why aerospace pilots use those nicknames so much, Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Popova smiled wider. “Tradition, sir. And, it does drive the ground forces and fleet forces kind of crazy, sort of as a bonus.”
“Who is on Formidable?” Geary asked.
“Nightstalker, Admiral.”
I guess we’re lucky we got Night Witch. “Were you ever at Yokai before they shut things down?”
The smile faded into seriousness. “Yes, sir. Just a rotation for familiarity. It was busy back then. Kinda spooky now.”
“Let me know what, uh, Catnap finds out about the drones,” Geary directed. “Make sure both of the others know to be ready to launch in combat configuration the moment we arrive at Batara.”