Popova frowned toward Geary’s display. “It’s pretty quiet here, except that one HuK. That should be a good sign.”
Duellos shook his head. “Ah, youth and its optimism. Lieutenant, the Admiral and I look at the lack of freighter traffic here and wonder why there are no refugee ships passing through en route Adriana. The flow of refugee shipping appears to have been choked off. We don’t know why, so we are assuming it means something that will complicate our own mission. We also don’t know who that HuK is here to warn, but it is certain now that we will not have the advantage of surprise when we arrive at Batara.”
The pilot’s frown turned into concern. “Yes, sir. When we get to Batara, we’ll be ready for whatever is there, sir.”
I sure hope so, Geary thought as he nodded encouragingly to the pilot.
Colonel Kim appeared to be as cheerful as ever despite riding one of the refugee freighters. “There’s a little bit of restiveness, Admiral, but most of the refugees were kicked out of Batara, or fled the star system to save themselves or their families instead of leaving because they wanted to. You were right about that. Sitting in overcrowded, stinking freighters for months has cooled any enthusiasm they might have had for being in the Alliance, even if they didn’t think we were monsters to begin with. They seem to be happy to be going home now that we’re actually on the way.”
“They’re not worried about what the government at Batara might do to them?” Geary asked.
Kim grinned wider. “They got kicked out in small groups. They’re coming back in one big bunch, and from what I can tell, they don’t intend getting kicked around anymore. If you ask me, it’s the government at Batara that ought to be worried.”
“That government deserves to be worried,” Geary said, though he had been concerned enough about what might happen when they dropped off the refugees to have been running contingencies through his head for a while.
“Are we going to be doing any shooting?” Colonel Kim didn’t seem to be worried or excited at the prospect, just curious.
“I’m going to try to avoid that,” Geary replied. “How are your soldiers doing?”
“No problems there, Admiral, except the living conditions.”
Geary smiled at the image of Kim seated opposite him in his stateroom. “Freighters don’t offer luxury sleeping accommodations, I’m afraid.”
“It’s not that, Admiral. Ground forces don’t expect opulent living conditions like the aerospace forces do,” Kim explained with another grin. “It’s the smell. Too many people on these freighters for too long. The people stink, the air stinks because life support can’t clear it all out, and, of course, the field rations always smell awful. I expect the refugees will be as happy to get some good showers as my soldiers will be to get the refugees off-loaded.”
“Are there any indications we’ll have trouble doing the off-load at Batara?” Geary asked. “I want to be ready if any of the refugees decide they don’t want to confront their government after all.”
“No, sir. No indications.” Kim looked around theatrically to ensure she wasn’t being overheard. “I’ve been talking to those two leaders on this freighter. That Araya woman won’t lighten up at all. She keeps acting like she expects me to cut her throat during the next sleep period. But Fred Naxos is all right.”
“Fred?”
“Federico, but he prefers Fred,” Kim explained. “You aren’t going to believe this, Admiral, but the refugees are quiet in part because there’s a big rumor spreading among them that Black Jack is on their side.”
“What?” He had thought he was beyond being surprised by what people expected of Black Jack, but this one had blindsided him. “Syndics usually think of Black Jack as some sort of demon.”
“But these guys revolted against what they call the Syndicate. And, before they left Batara, word had been getting to them about your blowing away the old Syndic leadership and defending some rebellious star system way off on the backside of nowhere from the Syndics and aliens.”
“Actually,” Geary said, “the old Syndic leadership was killed by their own forces. I suppose I did cause that to happen. The star system they’ve heard about must be Midway.”
“Yes, sir! Midway. That’s what they said.” Kim grinned conspiratorially this time. “So there’s this rumor going around among the refugees that Black Jack fights Syndics, but he’s a champion of the people. And the refugees figure they’re not Syndics, anymore, they’re the people, and Black Jack is taking them back home, so maybe he’s their hero, too.”
Great. Another group of people expecting me to save the day. “So, they’re coming around to not seeing the Alliance as enemies?”
“Oh, no, Admiral. They still think the Alliance is where ogres live. But any of us who are working for Black Jack are good ogres. Sort of.” Kim looked thoughtful. “It’s a start, though. The idea that the other guy isn’t a monster anymore. It would be nice to be able to trade through Batara again, like in the old days.”
“The old days?” Geary asked.
“Yes, sir. My family has been in trade for a while. We used to do a lot of business into and through Batara, before the Syndics took it over; and then the war came. But we remember before then.” She paused, a variety of expressions flickering over her face. “I wonder if anybody in Batara remembers. We’ve still got our records from those days, the business contacts and all.”
“I imagine that the Syndicate Worlds did a number on the businesses that were there before the takeover, and it’s been more than a century since then. We’ll find out what’s survived.” And what survives once we’re done. “Ask Naxos and Araya about the HuK. I’d be interested in knowing what their impressions are as to who it belongs to.”
The mysterious HuK jumped from Yokai toward Batara ten hours after Geary’s task force had arrived, long enough to have seen all of the warships and freighters and to have confirmed that they were heading for the same jump point.
“We were, that is the government at Batara was, trying to get a damaged HuK working,” Araya had reluctantly admitted. “That might be it. It was all we had in the way of real mobile forces. But I don’t know why they would have sent it here instead of positioning it near the jump point where raids from Yael come in.”
Geary gazed at the stumpy vector line on his display that reflected the relatively low velocity of his ships and tried not to chafe inwardly too much over the time it would take to get to the jump point and head for the place that would have the answers. It was exasperating having to match the velocity of the warships to the freighters. The merchant ships could push themselves to higher velocities, of course. They just had to keep accelerating. But it would take much longer than with warships—and burn more fuel cells—and then it would take just as long and burn just as much fuel for the clumsy freighters to reduce their velocity again.
The Alliance battle cruisers, surrounded by two squadrons of destroyers, popped out of jump space and into Batara Star System. Geary’s display had shown the last-known status of the Syndic defenses at Batara, dating to just less than a year ago, but now he had to shake out of his head the mental grogginess caused by exiting jump and wait while the sensors on the Alliance warships tried to see what was still here and was still working.
The first thing he was aware of was that no alarms were sounding and no weapons were being fired by automated fire-control systems on the Alliance warships. Whatever might await them here, it wasn’t waiting very close to the jump exit.