The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

Ace Books by Jack Campbell

The Lost Fleet

THE LOST FLEET: DAUNTLESS

THE LOST FLEET: FEARLESS

THE LOST FLEET: COURAGEOUS

THE LOST FLEET: VALIANT

THE LOST FLEET: RELENTLESS

THE LOST FLEET: VICTORIOUS

THE LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER: DREADNAUGHT

THE LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER: INVINCIBLE

THE LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER: GUARDIAN

THE LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER: STEADFAST

The Lost Stars

THE LOST STARS: TARNISHED KNIGHT

THE LOST STARS: PERILOUS SHIELD

Written as John G. Hemry

Stark’s War

STARK’S WAR

STARK’S COMMAND

STARK’S CRUSADE

Paul Sinclair

A JUST DETERMINATION

BURDEN OF PROOF

RULE OF EVIDENCE

AGAINST ALL ENEMIES

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2014 by John G. Hemry.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14303-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Campbell, Jack (Naval officer)

The Lost Fleet : Beyond the Frontier : Steadfast / Jack Campbell. — First edition.

pages cm. — (The Lost Fleet ; Book 10)

ISBN 978-0-425-26052-4 (hardback)

1. Science fiction. 2. Space warfare—Fiction. 3. Imaginary wars and battles—Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Steadfast.

PS3553.A4637L667 2014

813'.54—dc23

2013047004

FIRST EDITION:
May 2014

Cover art by Michael Komarck.

Cover design by Annette Fiore DeFex.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To my sister Dianne, for whom “steadfast” is an apt description. Thank you.

For S., as always.

I remain indebted to my agent, Joshua Bilmes, for his ever-inspired suggestions and assistance, and to my editor, Anne Sowards, for her support and editing. Thanks also to Catherine Asaro, Robert Chase, J. G. (Huck) Huckenpohler, Simcha Kuritzky, Michael LaViolette, Aly Parsons, Bud Sparhawk, and Constance A. Warner for their suggestions, comments, and recommendations.

THE FIRST FLEET OF THE ALLIANCE

ADMIRAL JOHN GEARY, COMMANDING

THIRTY-ONE HEAVY CRUISERS IN SIX DIVISIONS

First Heavy Cruiser Division

Third Heavy Cruiser Division

Fourth Heavy Cruiser Division

Fifth Heavy Cruiser Division

Eighth Heavy Cruiser Division

Tenth Heavy Cruiser Division

Emerald
and
Hoplon
lost at Honor

FIFTY-FIVE LIGHT CRUISERS IN TEN SQUADRONS

First Light Cruiser Squadron

Second Light Cruiser Squadron

Third Light Cruiser Squadron

Fifth Light Cruiser Squadron

Sixth Light Cruiser Squadron

Eighth Light Cruiser Squadron

Ninth Light Cruiser Squadron

Tenth Light Cruiser Squadron

Eleventh Light Cruiser Squadron

Fourteenth Light Cruiser Squadron

Balestra
lost at Honor

ONE HUNDRED SIXTY DESTROYERS IN EIGHTEEN SQUADRONS

First Destroyer Squadron

Second Destroyer Squadron

Third Destroyer Squadron

Fourth Destroyer Squadron

Sixth Destroyer Squadron

Seventh Destroyer Squadron

Ninth Destroyer Squadron

Tenth Destroyer Squadron

Twelfth Destroyer Squadron

Fourteenth Destroyer Squadron

Sixteenth Destroyer Squadron

Seventeenth Destroyer Squadron

Twentieth Destroyer Squadron

Twenty-first Destroyer Squadron

Twenty-third Destroyer Squadron

Twenty-seventh Destroyer Squadron

Twenty-eighth Destroyer Squadron

Thirty-second Destroyer Squadron

ADMIRAL
John “Black Jack” Geary, accustomed to gazing down upon worlds from hundreds of kilometers high and looking into the vastness of space in which a man could fall forever, felt slightly dizzy as he leaned over the crumbling remains of a stone wall to peer down the other side, where the land dropped away for about ten meters in a steep slope littered with rocks. Beyond, a land green with vegetation rolled to the north into the low hills that marked this small portion of Old Earth. He remembered land like this, in parts of his home world of Glenlyon, a planet he had not seen for a century.

Geary squinted against a wind that brought scents of growing things and animals and the enterprises of people. Not like that inside a spacecraft, which despite the best air scrubbers known to science, always held a faint taint of crowded humanity, caffeinated beverages, and heated circuitry.

“Not much left, is there?” Captain Tanya Desjani commented, looking at what had once been the wall’s foundation.

“It’s thousands of years old,” Historic Properties Steward Gary Main replied. He seemed as much a part of the landscape as the wall itself, perhaps because members of his family had served as Stewards of the wall for generations. “The wonder is that there’s anything left at all, especially after the ice century of the last millennium. The Gulf Stream helps keep this island of ours warm, so it got very cold up here when the stream lost a lot of push. The rest of the world got warm, and we got cold, but then England has always been a bit contrary when it comes to the rest of the planet. Since then, everywhere else on Earth has been cooling down, and we’ve been warming up.”

Geary smiled crookedly. “I have to admit it feels strange to be on a planet that has known humanity for so long that people can speak of the last millennium.”

“That’s all quite recent, compared to this wall, Admiral,” Main replied.

“Hadrian’s Wall,” Desjani mused. “I guess if you want to be remembered for thousands of years, it helps to build a big wall and name it after yourself. I remember the Admiral and I talking about that Empire of Rome, and I thought it must have been pretty small. Just part of one planet and all. But, standing here, I realize it must have felt awfully big to people who had to walk it.”

Main nodded, running one hand above the fitted stones remaining in the wall. “When this was intact, it was about six meters high. Forts every Roman mile, and numerous turrets between them. It was an impressive fortification.”

“Our Marines could have jumped over it in their combat armor,” Tanya said, “but if all you had was human muscle, it would be tough, especially if someone was shooting at you while you tried to climb it. How did it fall?”

“It didn’t. Rome fell. As the empire contracted, the legions were called home and the wall abandoned.”

Geary looked down the length of the wall, white stone against green vegetation, thinking of the massive demobilizations that had taken place inside the Alliance since the war with the Syndicate Worlds had ended.
The legions were called home, and the wall abandoned.
It sounded so painless, but it meant that defenses once regarded as vital were suddenly surplus, men and women who had once carried out duties considered critical were no longer needed, and things once thought essential were now judged too expensive. “The borders and their horizons shrank,” he murmured, thinking of not just the ancient empire that had built this wall but of the current state of the many star systems in the Alliance.

Tanya gave him the look that meant she knew exactly what he was thinking. “They say this wall was garrisoned for centuries. Think of all the soldiers who stood sentry on it. Some of them might have been among our ancestors.”

“Many people think Arthur might have been a king during those times,” Steward Main said. “That maybe his knights held the wall for a while after the Romans left.”

“Arthur?” Geary asked.

“A legendary king who ruled and died long ago. Supposedly,” Main confided, “Arthur didn’t die but remains sleeping, awaiting a time when his people need him. Of course, he’s never shown up.”

“Maybe your need hasn’t been great enough,” Desjani said. “Sometimes, sleeping heroes from the past do appear just when they’re needed.”

Geary barely managed not to glare at her. But his sudden shift in mood was apparent enough to cause silence to fall for a few moments.

Main cleared his throat. “If I may ask a question of you, what do you think our other guests think of all this?”

“The Dancers?” Geary asked. An alien landing shuttle hovered nearby, mere centimeters above the ground. “They’re amazing engineers. They examined the remains pretty carefully. They’re probably impressed.”

“It’s hard to tell, Admiral, since they’re in their space armor.”

“You probably couldn’t tell even if you could see their faces,” Desjani told him. “They don’t display emotions the way we do.”

“Oh, right,” Main replied with remarkable understatement. “Because they, uh . . .”

“Look to us like what would happen if a giant spider mated with a wolf,” Tanya finished for him. “We’ve speculated that we look as hideous to them as they do to us.”

“Don’t judge them on their looks,” Geary added.

“I wouldn’t, sir! Everyone’s heard how they brought that fellow’s remains back. How did he get out as far as their territory in space?”

“A failed early experiment with using jump space for interstellar travel,” Geary said. “We don’t know how, but he finally popped out at one of the stars occupied by the Dancers.”

“His ship and his body popped out,” Desjani corrected, a rough edge in her voice. “He must have died long before then. Died in jump space.”

“That’s bad?” Main asked.

“About as bad as it gets.” She took a deep breath, then forced a smile. “But the Dancers treated his remains with honor and brought them home when they finally could.”

“That’s what I heard,” Main said. “Those Dancers did better by him than many a human I’ve encountered would have, I’ll tell you.” He glanced at the sun, then checked the time. “We should move on when you’re ready, Admiral, Captain.”

“Give us a few minutes, will you?” Desjani asked. “I need to talk to the Admiral about something.”

“Of course. I’ll be right over there.”

Tanya turned her back on the curious crowds hovering a few hundred meters away, citizens of Old Earth who were fascinated not only by the newly discovered alien Dancers but also by the humans from distant stars colonized by those who had left this world long ago. She turned her wrist to show Geary that she had activated her personal security field so their words could not be heard by others or their lip movements or expressions seen clearly. “We need to talk about something,” she repeated to him.

Geary suppressed a sigh. When Tanya Desjani said that, it meant the something she wanted to talk about was something he wouldn’t want to discuss. But he stood close to the wall, right next to her, though he didn’t lean on the ancient structure. That just felt wrong, like using a book from the far past as a footrest. “Something about walls?”

“Something about here.” She turned her gaze from the landscape and caught his eyes. “Tomorrow, we leave Old Earth, return to
Dauntless
, and head for home. You need to know what people will be thinking.”

“I can guess,” Geary said.

“No, you can’t. You spent a hundred years frozen in survival sleep. You’ve been among us for a while, but you still don’t understand us as well as you should. But I know the people of the Alliance right now because I’m one of them.” Tanya’s eyes had darkened, taken on a hardness and a fierceness he remembered from their first meeting. “I was born during a war that had started long before I arrived, and I grew up expecting that war to continue long after I was gone. I was named for an aunt who died in the war, saw my brother die in it, and fully expected that any child of mine might die in it. We could not win, we would not lose, and the deaths would go on and on. Everyone in the Alliance, everyone but you, grew up the same. And while we were growing up, we were taught that Captain Black Jack Geary had saved the Alliance when he died blunting one of the first surprise attacks by the Syndicate Worlds that started that war.”

“Tanya,” he said resignedly, “I know—”

“Let me finish. We were also taught that Black Jack epitomized everything good about the Alliance. He was everything a citizen of the Alliance should be and everything a defender of the Alliance should aspire to. Quiet! I know you don’t like hearing that, but to many billions of people in the Alliance, that’s who Black Jack was. And we all heard the rest of the legend, too, that Black Jack was among our ancestors under the light of the living stars, but he would return from the dead someday when he was most needed, and he would save the Alliance. And you did that.”

“I wasn’t really dead,” Geary pointed out gruffly.

“Irrelevant. We found you only weeks before power on that damaged escape pod would have been exhausted. We thawed you out, then you saved the fleet, you beat the Syndics, and you finally brought an end to the endless war.” She ran one hand slowly across the rough stone of the wall, her touch gentle despite the force of her words. “Now, despite a victory that is causing the Syndicate Worlds to fall to pieces, the Alliance is also threatening to come apart at the seams because of the costs and strains of a century of war. In that time, you’ve come to Old Earth.”

“Tanya.” She knew he would be unhappy with this conversation, with being reminded yet again of the beliefs that he was some sort of mythical hero. For a moment, he wondered if an ancestor of his had stood here, very long ago, peering into that same wind for approaching enemies, burdened with the responsibility of protecting everyone else. “We came to Old Earth to escort the Dancers. If the aliens hadn’t insisted, we wouldn’t have come here.”

“You and I know that, and some members of the Alliance Grand Council know that,” Desjani said. “But I guarantee you that everyone else in the Alliance believes that you chose to come here, to Old Earth, the Home of us all, the place our oldest ancestors once lived, to consult with those ancestors. To learn what you should do to save an Alliance that more and more citizens of the Alliance fear may be beyond saving.”

He stared at her, hoping that Tanya’s security measures really were keeping the nearby observers from seeing his expression. “They can’t believe that.”

“They do.” Her eyes on him were unyielding. “You need to know that.”

“Great.” He faced the remnants of the wall, staring north to where the wall’s enemies had long ago been. “Why me?”

“Ask our ancestors. Though if you asked me,” she added, standing right next to him as she also gazed outward, “I’d say it was because you can do the job.”

“I’m just a man. Just one man.”

“I didn’t say you would do it alone,” Tanya pointed out.

“And our ancestors haven’t been talking to me.”

“You know,” she added in the very reasonable voice of someone repeating common knowledge, “that our ancestors rarely come out and tell us anything. They offer hints, suggestions, inspirations, and hunches for those who are willing to pay attention. And if they care about us at all, they will offer those things to you if you are listening.”

“The ancestors here on Old Earth,” Geary said as patiently as he could, “didn’t get raised in an Alliance at war and indoctrinated about how awesome I am. Why should they be impressed by Black Jack?”

“Because they are our ancestors, too! And they know what Black Jack is! Remember that other wall they took us to? The, uh, Grand Wall?”

“The Great Wall?”

“Yeah, that one.” She gestured to the north. “Now, this wall, the one that Hadrian built, was a real fortification. It kept out enemies. But that Great Wall over in Asia never could do that. The people there told us it was so damned big, so long, that it was impossible for the guys who built it to support a large enough army to actually garrison it. They sank a huge amount of money, time, and human labor into building that Great Wall, and whenever an enemy wanted to get through it, all they had to do was find a spot where there weren’t any soldiers and put up a ladder, so one of their own could climb up and over, then open the nearest gate.”

“Yeah.” Geary nodded. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”

“Not as a fortification, no.” She waved again, this time vaguely to the east. “Those pyramids. Remember those? Think of the time and money and labor that went into those. And then those big faces on the mountain a ways north of where we first stopped in Kansas. The four ancestors whose images were carved into a mountain. How much sense did that make?”

He turned a questioning look on her. “This has something to do with me?”

“Yes, sir, Admiral.” Desjani smiled, but the eyes that held his were intent. “That Great Wall said something about the people who built it. It told the world, we can do this. It told the world, we’re on this side of the Great Wall, and all the rest of you are on the other. Those pyramids must have really impressed people a long time ago, too. And the four ancestors on the mountain? It didn’t just honor them, it also honored their people, and their homes, and what they believed in. All of those things were symbols. Symbols that helped define the people who built them.”

He nodded slowly. “All right. And?”

“What’s the symbol of the Alliance?”

“There isn’t one. Not like that. There are too many different societies, governments, beliefs—”

“Wrong.” She pointed at him.

Geary felt that vast sinking sensation that sometimes threatened to overwhelm him. “Tanya, that’s—”

“True. I told you. You still don’t understand us.” Her face saddened. “We stopped believing in our politicians a long time ago, and that meant we lost belief in our governments, and what is the Alliance but a collection of those governments? It can’t be stronger than they are. We tried putting faith in honor, but you reminded us how that caused us to warp the meaning of ‘honor.’ We tried putting faith in our fleet and our ground forces, but they failed, you know they did. We were fighting like hell and dying and killing and not getting anywhere. Until you came along. The man who we had been told all of our lives was everything the Alliance was supposed to be.”