only because I said so. “Kaliban’s not much of a place now, is it?”
“It never was much of a place.”
Five planets, two of them so small they barely qualified for the name. All hostile to human habitation because of temperatures either far too low or far too high, and atmospheres either nonexistent or toxic. Plus the usual assortment of rocks and ice balls, though even those didn’t seem very numerous or noteworthy compared to other star systems. Nonetheless, people had built homes here. Kaliban didn’t have anything special at all, except for the gravity well provided by its star that made jump points work. Geary could imagine the human history of Kaliban’s system easily, because the same things had happened in so many other places.
Ships had been forced to come through Kaliban to get to other places before the hypernet. And because there’d been ships coming through, there’d been a shipyard or two or three built to handle emergencies and provide maintenance or supplies to the passing ships, as well as work on the ships that stayed in-system to transport workers and their families. The shipyards and the families had needed some services, so small towns had grown up in a few places. Buried under the soil of a hostile world or burrowed out of a large asteroid, they’d provided the things small towns had always provided. Some of the ships coming through would carry passengers or cargo bound for Kaliban. And of course there’d been mines to provide local raw materials instead of hauling mass from another star, and people to work in the mines, and a local government to keep things under control, and representatives of the central Syndic authority to keep the local government under control.
The rest Geary knew only from what he’d heard. The hypernet had come into existence and the ships didn’t need to come through Kaliban, or the innumerable systems like it, anymore. The shipyards had closed as their lifeblood dwindled to a trickle, and without those jobs the small towns started dying. Once there’d been no particular reason to come to Kaliban except for the jump points. Now there wasn’t any reason to stay at Kaliban. How many years did the last holdouts hang on? Maybe not all that long. In a Syndic system, everyone would’ve been a company employee of some sort, and companies cut their losses long before most individual people are willing to give up. There’s no one left now. All the installations we can see are cold. No energy usage, no environmental systems working. They shut down everything. I guess the last person who left Kaliban remembered to turn off the lights.
Measured in the life span of a star, the human presence here had lasted the barest flicker of a moment. For some reason, seeing that and knowing it brought the sense of cold back to Geary.
Then he shook it off. Every sailor learned one thing quickly, and that one thing was that everything about space was inhuman. The sheer size of it, the emptiness of it, the death it carried everywhere except for those very, very small places amid the emptiness where humans could walk on a planet’s surface with their faces bare to the wind and breathe the air. It isn’t good and it isn’t bad, the old saying went, it just is.
It’s too big for us, and we’re only here for the blink of eye as far as it’s concerned, an old chief had told Geary when he was so young an officer it almost hurt to remember. Someday, any day, it could take you, because even though it doesn’t care about us, it’ll kill us in an instant if it can. Then, if your prayers to the living stars are answered, you’ll get to go live forever in their warmth and light. If not, you’d best make the best of the life you’ve got. Speaking of which, did I ever tell you about the time my old ship visited Virago? Now that was a party.
Geary became aware he was smiling, recalling that old chief and the often outrageous space stories he’d told. “Captain Desjani, I’m planning on putting the fleet in orbit around Kaliban. Please let me know if you have any recommendations regarding the exact orbit.”
She gave him a mildly surprised look. “We’re going to stay here?”
“Long enough to see what sort of equipment and materials the Syndics might’ve abandoned out here.” He’d reviewed the status of the fleet’s ships during the jump from Corvus and hadn’t been happy to see how low some ships were getting on essentials. Nobody was close to critical yet, but then they were nowhere close to getting home, either. And there was something else he needed to do that required the ships to be in normal space. Something that had to be done before the fleet faced battle again.
Desjani nodded. “Good thing the food stockpiles at the Syndic base in Corvus were available. It seems unlikely we’ll find much food here.”
“I agree.” Geary pondered his options, then ordered his ships to cut their speed to one hundredth of the speed of light and let the Alliance fleet drift slowly inward toward Kaliban. That would allow time to evaluate what the fleet’s sensors were telling him about the shut-down Syndic facilities in the system. Time to learn what the Syndics might’ve left behind that his fleet could use. And time to talk to his ship commanders.
Captain Duellos called in. “I recommend posting some battle cruisers at the jump exit again to guard it.”
Geary shook his head. “Not this time. I want the fleet together. We can’t be positioned to exploit whatever the Syndics left in this system and also be positioned to support a force guarding the jump exit.”
“Very well, Captain Geary.”
Desjani gave Geary a hard-to-read look. “Duellos never liked Admiral Bloch, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t think Bloch made wise decisions. It’s interesting to see Duellos agreeing so readily to your decisions.”
Geary smiled tightly. “I guess I haven’t made too many mistakes yet.”
Desjani grinned, then turned to study a message coming in on her display. “My operations officer recommends we take up position in the system at this orbital location.” Geary craned to look, seeing an area about two light-hours in-system from the jump exit. He compared the location to the orbits of the Syndic facilities that had already been spotted, then nodded. “Looks good for now. Let’s head for there. Please let the other ships know the orbit we’re planning to take up and that they should maintain formation on Dauntless.”
“Yes, sir.” Desjani started giving the necessary orders while Geary bent to his display, studying the data coming in.
He’d barely begun considering the reports being received on what could be learned about the Syndic facilities, and realizing he’d have to send scout teams down to find out enough about what was actually present at most of them, when he received a call from the commanding officer of Titan. Great. Now what’s wrong?
But there wasn’t any urgency or worry on the face of the officer calling Geary. Titan’s Captain seemed far too young for the job, but he acted and sounded confident enough. “Greetings, Captain Geary.”
“Greetings. Is this about a problem with Titan?”
“No, sir. We’re making more progress on the damage every day and have full propulsion capability back.”
Geary actually smiled slightly at the news. “That’s a relief. I have to admit that Titan’s been on my mind a lot.”
Titan’s Captain got the reference, making an exaggerated flinch. “We appreciate the efforts of our many escorts in keeping us safe. Well, relatively safe. We had considerable damage to deal with and appreciated not having to add to the list of things that needed fixed.”
Geary grinned this time. The lack of opposition in the Kaliban Star System had left him feeling in very good humor for once. “I can understand that. You’ve done a great job repairing your ship. What can I do for you now?”
“I’d like to offer a suggestion and a request.” A small window popped up with a depiction of Kaliban’s system. “We’ve been able to confirm that there were mining facilities here.”
“Yeah. All shut down like everything else, of course.”
“Yes, but assuming they’re intact, I’ve got people who ought to be able to
