Relentless (21 page)

At about that point, the comm unit in his stateroom buzzed. “Sir, you have an urgent request for communications from Commander Vigory.”

“Commander Vigory?” Geary tried to match the name to a ship or a face, failed, and checked the fleet database. Another former POW from Heradao. No wonder his name hadn’t been familiar. Vigory was on
Spartan
, and according to the summary in the database, he’d had a fairly routine career before being captured by the Syndics. “All right. Put him through.”

Thin and intense, Commander Vigory resembled other Alliance personnel liberated from Heradao. “Captain Geary,” he began in a stiff voice, “I wished to pay a call and render proper respects to the fleet commander.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

“I also wished to inform you that I am still awaiting a command assignment.”

Still awaiting?
Geary’s eyes went to the time. It had been less than a day since the fleet left orbit about Heradao’s third planet. Then his mind fastened on the rest of Vigory’s statement. “Command assignment?”

“Yes, sir.” Vigory’s eyes were demanding as he gazed at Geary. “A review of fleet records indicates numerous ships in this fleet suitable for an officer of my rank and seniority are currently commanded by officers junior to me.”

“You expect me to relieve some existing commanding officer so that you can have his or her ship?”

The question seemed to startle Commander Vigory. “Of course, sir.”

Geary fought down an impulse to cut off Vigory at the knees and tried to speak in a reasonable but firm tone. “How would you feel if you lost your command under those circumstances, Commander?”

“That scarcely matters, sir. This is a question of honor and proper deference to my rank and position. I have no doubt that any ship in this fleet would benefit from my experience and ability to command.”

No, Vigory probably had never had a doubt in his life, Geary thought as he looked at the man. According to the records available, Vigory had been taken prisoner about five years ago, meaning that he was a product of a fleet in which individual honor meant everything and ships fought without regard for sound tactics. Maybe he was a decent officer despite that, but at this point, retraining a ship’s commanding officer would be just one more thing to worry about, besides being grossly unfair to some other officer. “Commander, I’ll lay this out as clearly as I can. Every commanding officer in this fleet has fought for me all the way from the Syndic home star system, rendering brave and honorable service in numerous engagements with the enemy.” That was an exaggeration in a few cases, but Vigory didn’t seem the sort to grasp distinctions. “I will not relieve any of my current commanding officers without cause based on their performance. This fleet is returning to Alliance space, and once there you can request a command assignment on a new-construction warship or a warship whose commanding officer is rotating to a new assignment.”

Vigory seemed to have trouble understanding. “Sir, I expect very quickly to receive a command assignment in this fleet suitable to my rank and seniority.”

“Then I regret to inform you that your expectations are misplaced.” Geary tried not to get angry but could hear his voice getting sharper. “You will serve as needed by the Alliance, just like every officer in this fleet.”

“But . . . I . . .”

“Thank you, Commander Vigory. I appreciate your willingness to serve as your duty to the Alliance requires.”

The conversation over, Geary leaned back and covered his eyes with one hand. A moment later the alert on the hatch to his stateroom chimed.
Great. This morning is going downhill fast.
He authorized entry, sitting up straighter as Victoria Rione entered. “Captain Geary.”

“Madam Co-President.” They’d had plenty of physical intimacies in this very room, but that was over and done, and neither would presume on their earlier relationship.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Rione continued.

“I was just trying to remember why I wanted to rescue the Alliance POWs on Heradao,” Geary confessed.

She flicked a smile at him. “Because you have an annoying habit of insisting on doing what’s right even when common sense might dictate acting otherwise.”

“Thank you. I think. What brings you here?”

“The Alliance POWs liberated from Heradao.”

Geary didn’t quite stifle a groan. “Now what?”

“This may be good news, or perhaps useful.” Rione inclined her head toward another part of the ship. “Sometime after you left us yesterday, Commander Fensin confessed to me that the best thing he could have been told was what your captain said to him, reminding him of his responsibilities as an officer of the Alliance and ordering him to live up to those responsibilities.” She paused before continuing. “From what Kai Fensin said, he and the other POWs on Heradao long lacked a firm hand they respected to give them purpose. He thought all of them would benefit from treatment such as your captain gave him.”

Geary refrained from pointing out that his “captain” had a name, and that Desjani wasn’t “his” in any case. “That makes a great deal of sense. They’re not used to having senior officers they respect or to whose orders they’d listen.”

“Kai suggested you might want to inform others in the fleet of this, so they’d be able to treat the other former prisoners accordingly. In that respect, they’re not like the ones we liberated from Sutrah.”

“Thank you,” Geary repeated. “I think he’s right.”

“Yes, and so was your captain. My instincts to protect Commander Fensin were wrong.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about that. Desjani and Fensin are both fleet.” Rione just nodded silently. “How are you doing?”

She gave him a searching glance. “Why do you ask?”

“You seem to have been very happy to find Commander Fensin.”

Rione’s eyes flashed. “If you’re implying—”

“No!” Geary raised both palms in apology. “That’s not what I meant. It just seems that meeting him was a good thing for you.”

She subsided as quickly as her anger had flared. “Yes. He reminds me of many things. Of the life I once had.”

“I could tell.” It was best not to tell Rione that Desjani had been able to see it as well.

“Could you?” Rione bent her head for a moment. “I sometimes wonder what will happen if my husband lives and we are united again. In the years since he left, I have changed in many ways, become harder and stronger and . . . not the woman he left.”

“I saw that woman. When you were with Kai Fensin.”

“You did?” Rione sighed. “Maybe there’s hope for me, then. Maybe she’s not dead after all.”

“She’s not, Victoria.”

Rione raised her gaze and looked at him with a twisted smile. “That’s one of the few circumstances under which you can still call me that, John Geary. Thank you. I’ve said what I needed to say.” She walked to the hatch but paused in it before leaving, her back to him. “Please thank your captain on my behalf for her words to Commander Fensin. I’m grateful.” Then she was gone and the hatch was sliding shut.

He drafted up a message telling the fleet’s ship captains to be firm with the former POWs from Heradao and to get them assigned duties as soon as possible. After sending it, Geary settled back and stared at the star display again.

Roughly two more days until the fleet reached the jump point for Padronis. That star should be quiet, with no known Syndic presence. For that matter, Atalia, the next and last Syndic star system they had to transit, should be quiet, too, despite its human population. If Alliance intelligence was anywhere near right then the Syndics had used up everything they had. No significant number of warships could be available to contest the rest of the fleet’s journey home.

Could he finally relax?

Five minutes later, Lieutenant Iger called from the intelligence section with a very urgent summons.

CALLS from Lieutenant Iger in the intelligence section were usually interesting and sometimes very surprising. Never
pleasantly
surprising in Geary’s experience, but the unpleasant news had often proven to be critically important.

Since Iger looked unhappy when Geary arrived, he assumed this would be one of those unpleasant news times. “Tell me the civil war in this star system isn’t going to cause us any more problems, Lieutenant.”

“Uh, yes, sir. The civil war here shouldn’t cause us any more trouble, sir. This is an entirely different problem.”

“Oh. Wonderful. Big problem?”

“Yes, sir. Real big.”

Geary rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a headache coming on. “All right. Lay it out.”

“We’ve been analyzing Syndic communications in this star system, Captain Geary,” Iger reported. “That is, the messages that were already on the fly when we arrived here. It’s standard procedure, trying to identify traffic patterns and important messages so we can try to break them out and decipher as much of them as we can. The first thing we noticed is that there’s been a much-higher-than-usual concentration of highest-priority messages sent in this star system. Again, that’s before central authority collapsed.”

Geary nodded. Light-speed limitations were usually a problem, but not if you were trying to intercept messages sent days or hours ago, before anyone knew the enemy would be arriving in a particular star system. Those messages were still heading outward at the speed of light if you could find them. “Any idea what they’re about? The Syndics thought we were coming here, so that might account for them.”

“No, sir, not all of them. We’ve been able to do some partial breaking of the high-priority messages we’ve intercepted.” Iger turned and tapped controls, bringing up a series of lines of information. “These are pulled from voice transmissions and various forms of text messaging. Those kind of informal communications are usually the most useful because people say things without thinking. There are several references in these to something we’ve never seen before. Right here, and here, and in this one.”

Geary read the indicated lines, frowning. “Reserve flotilla? You haven’t heard the Syndics use that phrase before?”

“No, sir. A search of intelligence databases turned up only three references to the term in reporting about the Syndics over the last few decades. No actual data exists, just identification of the use of the term ‘reserve flotilla’ by the Syndics without any means of determining what it meant.” Iger pointed to another line. “This was a requisition for supplies. We’ve been able to break a fair amount of this message because we know how the Syndics format those requisitions and so knew what certain sections had to mean. These parts are segments of the overall requirement, then here’s some of the portion of that requirement that Heradao was supposed to provide. One of the things about the Syndics is they use very rigid logistics. If you want to provide food for a D-Class battle cruiser for sixty days, you order X of this and Y of that and so on.”

“That looks like an awful lot of Xs and Ys,” Geary commented as he read the intercepted requisition.

“Yes, sir.” Iger blew out a long breath. “Assuming it’s a standard sixty-day supply, which the Syndics tend to adhere to, and a standard mix of units, this requisition would cover a force estimated to include fifteen to twenty battleships, fifteen to twenty battle cruisers, and somewhere between one hundred and two hundred heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and Hunter-Killers.”

Geary felt a lot of reactions, some of them very negative. How could a Syndic force of that size still exist? His fleet had fought heroically and taken serious losses, but the path home had finally seemed clear. Right up until that moment. He tried to focus on the most constructive questions. “This definitely isn’t related to the force we just destroyed?”

“No, sir. Definitely not. It was being sent out of the star system.”

“You’re estimating that a Syndic force of that size exists right now and is in a star system not too far from here?”

“Yes, sir.” Give Iger full credit, he didn’t try to weasel around when it came to bad news.

“How? How did the Syndics have a force of that size that our intelligence resources weren’t aware of before this?”

Iger pointed again. “We can only guess, sir, but I think it’s a good guess. Some of the message traffic we believe is related to this reserve flotilla mentions two Syndic star systems. Surt and Embla.”

“Surt? Embla?” The names were vaguely familiar, though Geary couldn’t remember why. “I can’t recall where those are.”

“That’s because they’re a long ways from Alliance space,” Iger advised, moving to the star display nearby. “Here. On the Syndic border farthest from the Alliance.”

It suddenly all made sense. “A reserve flotilla. Held on the Syndic border facing the aliens as insurance in case the aliens attacked the Syndics.”

“Yes, sir,” Iger agreed. “That seems like the most reasonable interpretation. A force kept so far from us that the Alliance couldn’t pick up indications of it and never knew of its existence. But now the Syndics are so worried about our getting home with a Syndic hypernet key that they pulled that reserve flotilla out of position to try to stop us.”

“Damn. We didn’t need that.”

“No, sir.”

“Any idea where they are now?” Geary asked, eyeing the star display.

“Not too far from here,” Iger suggested. “A star system within one or two jumps. That’s our best guess. Or they were there fairly recently.”

“Kalixa? It was a possible objective for us from Dilawa. They could have defended the hypernet gate there, and the gate would allow them to shift position quickly if we ended up not going to Kalixa.”

Iger nodded. “That’s as good a guess as any, sir. But the picket ships from here will be at Kalixa soon to tell them we went to Heradao, so they’ll probably shift to a star system blocking our way home from here.”

One more big battle left to fight, then, with a possibly veteran force that was fully supplied with fuel cells and expendable weaponry. His anger at this turn of fate shifted as Geary thought about what might have happened if the Alliance fleet had run into the Syndic reserve flotilla without warning that it even existed. “Lieutenant Iger, you and your people have done an outstanding job. This is critically important information. Well done.”