“Then perhaps you’d care to explain to me why I have to work so hard to keep most of these commanding officers happy if they believe in Black Jack Geary so damn much!”
Rione’s mouth twisted. “You said it yourself. They believe in Black Jack Geary, Captain. In their minds, that person must be exceptional in every way. If they come to believe that you are not Black Jack Geary as they imagine that person must be, they would no longer believe in you.”
“So you’re saying I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t? That in order to save this fleet, I have to be exceptional in every way? I have to effectively become the person they think Black Jack Geary is or this fleet will be lost? But just how am I supposed to be exceptional in every way?”
“I’m afraid I cannot help you there, Captain Geary.” Rione inclined her head again, then departed.
Geary watched her leave, then collapsed again onto the nearest seat, two thoughts warring in his mind. What if she’s right? And what the hell did I ever do to deserve this?
“ALL units in formation sigma roll port twenty degrees at time three four.” Geary waited, then buried his head in his hands as half of the ships rolled in place while the other half moved as if the entire formation were pivoting twenty degrees to port. Listen to the message! Please listen to the message! It’s not like you don’t have time to think about it before the execution time!
Outwardly, Geary spoke as calmly as he could. “All units, take care to execute the order as given.” He checked the time, rubbed his eyes, then broadcast again. “All units. That’s enough for today. Thanks for all your hard work.” I just hope they’re learning something. Not just about keeping formation, either. If they’re paying attention to how I’m calling the maneuvers to account for time-late data, they should be picking up some of that as well.
Captain Desjani looked tired, too, but smiled encouragingly. “I’ve never seen our units actually maneuver like this under battle conditions.”
“You still haven’t,” Geary noted, trying not to sound as sour as he felt. “It’s all simulated and not under the stress of actual combat.”
“I still think we’ve seen a lot of improvement.”
Geary thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. You’re right. We have. Given the amount of time we’ve been working on this, everyone has progressed quite quickly.” He checked the final disposition of the ships on the simulator, now frozen in place. “There’s been a lot of progress for just less than two weeks of running drills. But then there’s a lot of good ship handlers in this fleet.” He nodded again, this time toward Desjani. “Present company included.”
“Thank you, sir.” Desjani looked both pleased and embarrassed by the praise.
“I mean it. You can really handle this ship. You can train some people in ship handling for a star’s lifespan, and they’ll still jerk a ship around like it was a sack of lead. But you’ve got skill. You feel the ship and work with her motion.” Geary levered himself out of his seat. “I’m going to take a break before I review the next simulation scenario. How about you?”
Desjani shook her head. “There’re some things I need to take care of as commanding officer of Dauntless. No rest for the wicked, as they say.”
“I don’t know about wicked, Tanya, but I do know ship captains never get much rest. Thanks for all the help you’ve given me lately.”
“It’s my pleasure, sir.” She sketched an informal salute and left.
Geary sat back down, fought a brief internal battle between a desire for downtime and the need to catch up on his own responsibilities, then called up the latest fleet status reports. There were three former Syndic asteroid mines being worked now, and a gratifying amount of pure metal had been transferred to the auxiliaries, which had kept their own workshops going to provide the fleet with desperately needed spares and replacements for expendable weapons. In addition, some food stocks had been found, still preserved by the cold in the abandoned towns where they’d been left, doubtless because shipping the food out had made no economic sense when the Syndics had left Kaliban. I have a feeling we’re all going to get very tired of Syndic food before we get home. Especially since they undoubtedly ate the stuff that tasted best first and left the stuff no one wanted. A notation on one report advised that scouts had located a storehouse of electronic components that had yielded some useful materiel that could be reworked to meet some Alliance requirements. All in all, the fleet had spent its time in Kaliban well.
An internal communication circuit chimed urgently. “Captain Geary, this is Captain Desjani.”
“Roger. What’s up?”
“They’re here.”
Geary headed for Dauntless’s bridge as fast as he could get there. It was somewhat irrational to rush since the nearest jump exit was two light-hours away, but he still felt the need.
He was still taking his seat when Desjani started briefing him. “Initial sightings indicate the Syndic force is comparable to the one that followed us through Corvus.”
Geary nodded, not commenting on the fact that he’d noticed every Alliance sailor on the Dauntless had stopped talking about the Syndic force “chasing” the Alliance fleet through Corvus. Now they always said the Syndics had simply followed. Within another few weeks, the Alliance sailors would probably be saying the Alliance fleet had somehow been chasing the Syndic force out of Corvus. As long as it salved their pride, Geary wouldn’t correct anyone. “It could actually be the same force. If it is them, they’ve gotten to Kaliban the hard way around, and they’re likely to be a little perturbed with us.”
Desjani grinned. “Per your instructions, we’ve already ordered all shuttles and personnel back to their ships.”
“Good. Have they initiated destructive shutdowns of all the equipment we reactivated?”
“Yes, sir.” Desjani’s approval of the scorched-earth tactic was clear. “That equipment won’t be working for anyone again.”
“That’s the idea.” It was a pity in a way, but he couldn’t leave industrial assets behind for the Syndics to possibly use again for their own purposes. Geary studied the situation for a long moment. “Coming out of that exit, they must’ve come from Saxon or Pullien, and they could’ve reached either of those stars from Yuon, right?”
Desjani checked her display. “Pullien would take an extra jump, but yes. Either way, they’ve come in using the jump exit closest to us.”
Just as I could’ve predicted from my experience with the perversity of the universe. The Syndics came out of the closest jump exit to the Alliance fleet, only two light-hours away. We just saw them, which meant the Syndics actually arrived at Kaliban two hours ago. The Alliance ships hadn’t been able to see the suddenly arriving Syndic ships until light made its journey, but the Syndics would’ve instantly been able to see the Alliance fleet and its position as of two hours before. The amount of blue shift on the light from the Syndic ships indicates they were doing point-one light coming out of jump. If they’ve maintained that speed, that’d put them point two light-hours closer to us by the time we saw them first arrive. It still means they’re eighteen hours away from reaching us at that speed, though.
There’s no doubt we could accelerate away and avoid action on our way out of the system. It’d be easy.
And it’d give a lot of strength to those rumors that I’m not fit to command this fleet. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to decide what to do when the Syndics arrived. I couldn’t really make up my mind until I saw how big the Syndic force turned out to be. Now I know. It’s significantly smaller than us, but still powerful. It could do a lot of damage.
Geary glanced over at Captain Desjani, seeing how her muscles were tensed in anticipation of combat even though it was at least several hours away even if Geary accelerated the Alliance fleet to meet the Syndics. He knew she and most of his other ship captains would be disappointed to leave Kaliban without engaging the Syndics. More than disappointed. He took another look at the latest estimate of the enemy force’s size. I’m not sure the fleet’s ready to take on a force like that. We outnumber them by quite a bit, but if we
