“How are you and Lieutenant Jamenson getting along?” Geary asked, hoping that the Dancers would indeed do as they were asked.
“She’s the finest green-haired officer I ever served with,” Charban said, then grinned. “And I’ve actually served with two others. It’s not hard to spot people from Eire Star System. Once we enter jump, she’s indicated a desire to spend some time with the intelligence cell aboard the ship, if that’s all right with you.”
“As long as she’s getting enough exposure to Dancer communications,” Geary said.
The conversation reminded him of another call he needed to make. “Lieutenant Iger, if we get any updates on the situation in Atalia or Syndic space before we jump, I need to know as soon as possible.”
The intelligence officer nodded quickly. “Yes, sir. As of now, my latest from Atalia is that report from the last courier-ship rotation. Atalia is pretty much unchanged.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Geary said. “Lieutenant Jamenson may visit the intel compartment while we’re in jump. I assume you’ll have no problems with that.”
“Lieutenant Jamenson, sir? No, sir! No problem!”
When he ended that call, Desjani was grinning. “Let’s hope Lieutenant Iger doesn’t get too distracted by Lieutenant Jamenson.”
Geary took a discreet glance to the back of the bridge. “Speaking of lieutenants and personal relationships, how are our quarantine cases doing?” he asked in a low voice.
Desjani gave him a sidelong look. “Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon are professionals. They are carrying out their duties without regard to any personal emotions created by past developments.”
“Really?”
“Really. Of course, I also told them each separately that if there was any drama on the bridge, I would crack heads so hard they’d both end up back in sick bay. But I think they’re doing all right now that it’s over. Say, mind if I borrow that green-haired lieutenant while we’re in jump? I’d like her to take a look at the books in Master Chief Gioninni’s division.”
“I want her to be able to get some sleep,” Geary said.
“Sleep? This is the fleet. Sleep is for wimps, right?” Desjani loudly asked of the bridge.
“Yes, Captain!” the watch-standers chorused back at her.
“Sometimes,” Geary said, “I can’t tell whether or not you’re joking.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper as she leaned toward him. “Sometimes,” Desjani said with a grin, “neither can they.”
Jump space was never a particularly restful place. You could get physical rest, but mental relaxation grew harder with every day in a place so strange that humans had no right to be there. As the old saying went, the longer a ship stayed in jump space, the jumpier the crew got. For Geary, the worst part was usually the itchiness, a day-by-day growing sense that his skin no longer fit properly.
But this time it felt worse in some small and indefinable ways. One thing he could identify was odder-than-usual dreams because the same one repeated during the days en route Atalia.
He dreamed he was indeed out in jump space, alone, surrounded by the gray nothingness that filled whatever jump space really was. Panic began to set in, but before it could overwhelm him, the lights emerged.
No one knew what the lights that appeared randomly in jump space were. Scientific theories abounded, all lacking in evidence or any form of proof. Metaphysical theories were fewer, simpler, and equally impossible to prove or disprove. The vast majority of sailors believed that the lights were linked to their ancestors and to the living stars. Beyond that, exactly what the lights meant or signified was just as mysterious to believers as it was to nonbelievers.
When Geary had been awakened from his century in survival sleep, he had been told that many believed he had been among the lights all of those decades, communing with the ancestors. He would have liked to categorically deny that, but couldn’t since he had no memories from his time frozen in space.
Now, in these dreams, as he drifted alone in jump space and fought against panic, he saw the lights appear. But they didn’t come alone. They appeared in clusters, they flashed off and on, they seemed to be almost forming a picture. A pattern. And then… he awoke, to stare at the darkened overhead in his stateroom with the feeling that something very important had been almost within his reach but had vanished in an instant, leaving nothing behind but memories of a dream he couldn’t understand at all.
Geary greeted their arrival at Atalia with more relief at leaving jump space than usual. As Lieutenant Iger had said, very little had changed here. Atalia, like Batara, had been a front-line star system fought over during the war. It had been among the first star systems to rebel against the Syndics and had quickly requested Alliance protection.
However, an Alliance reluctant to fund protection for even its own territory in the wake of the war had no interest in taking on responsibility for a battered star system that had recently been enemy territory. The Alliance’s sole commitment to the protection of Atalia was a single courier ship hanging near the jump point for Varandal. If Atalia was attacked, the Alliance would know it.
But the Alliance hadn’t actually promised to do anything with that knowledge.
“We’re just passing through,” Geary told the crew of the courier ship. “We’ll be back soon.”
He sent a similar message to the government of Atalia, which technically had to approve the Alliance task force’s transit of its star system. In practice, Atalia wouldn’t do anything to offend the Alliance and actually welcomed any presence by Alliance warships as a deterrent to attempts by the Syndic government to regain control of the star system.
From Atalia they had to jump through Kalixa, which had once had its own hypernet gate. But the enigmas had caused that gate to collapse, wiping out the human presence at Kalixa and rendering the once-habitable main world a lifeless wreck, hoping that the Syndics would blame the Alliance for the atrocity and begin making the gates in Alliance star systems collapse. The plan had almost worked.
Geary took the task force through Kalixa as quickly as possible. The Dancer ships stayed close to the Alliance ships, not following their usual practice of zooming off to whirl around each other in the graceful movements that among humans had earned the aliens the nickname Dancers. Geary wondered if the ruined star system of Kalixa marked some sort of mar in the patterns the Dancers valued, something that unsettled them, but Charban’s attempts to ask the Dancers about that produced no replies understandable to the humans.
From Kalixa, they finally jumped into a star system still controlled (when last heard) by the Syndics. Indras was fairly well-off, fairly wealthy as star systems went, far enough from Alliance space to have taken relatively little damage during the war, and possessed the working Syndic hypernet gate that Geary needed.
The few, minor Syndic warships present avoided getting anywhere near Geary’s ships as they thundered through the star system on the fastest route to the hypernet gate. The two Syndic light cruisers and five HuKs, some still bearing scars of combat not so long ago, showed no interest in confronting the Alliance Task Force in any way. But the senior CEO in the star system was not so circumspect.
“We must protest this violation of Syndicate Worlds space by an armed expedition of the Alliance,” CEO Yamada declared. Yamada, with his impeccably tailored suit, perfectly coifed hair, and well-practiced expressions designed to conceal any real emotions, looked like almost every other CEO that Geary had encountered. Judging by his girth and other signs of rich living, Yamada had also not personally suffered much during the war. “You are to cease aggressive actions against the Syndicate Worlds and vacate Syndicate space immediately. Forthepeople, Yamada, out.”