Jack Campbell: Dreadnaught

“I’ve been expecting something since this ship arrived back in this star system, but everything seems quiet so far. No government ships intercepting us to arrest you, no mutinous fleet ships intercepting us to declare you dictator, and no fighting going on between any factions and the government.” She glanced around their compartment, a high-end passenger cabin whose dated but still-luxurious touches had disconcerted both Desjani and Geary since they were used to the fairly Spartan accommodations on warships. But the government in Kosatka had insisted on providing “appropriate” transportation when the orders demanding that Geary immediately return to Varandal were received. At least the charter had prevented having to deal with other passengers on the way back.

Desjani shook her head again, her eyes this time on the outside display. “Maybe it’s my ancestors talking to me. I can sense the tension here, like a star about to go nova, and I don’t like going into action aboard an unarmed ship.”

“It’s not a battle cruiser,” Geary agreed.

“It’s not my battle cruiser,” she corrected him. “I shouldn’t have left Dauntless for so long.”

“I’m sure she’s fine. Dauntless has a good crew.”

“Excuse me?”

“What I meant to say,” Geary quickly added, “is that Dauntless has the best crew in the fleet. As well as an exceptionally good commanding officer.”

“You’re a bit biased when it comes to the commanding officer, but her crew is the best.” Desjani took a long, slow breath. “My point is that the government may not want you near any battle cruiser or any crew, and we don’t know if any of those warships are planning to act independently. Be prepared for anything when we dock.”

“The message from Duellos we got after arrival implied everything is quiet.”

She considered that, then shook her head. “We can’t be sure he really sent it, or that the content wasn’t modified en route to us.”

Geary closed his eyes to block out their comfortable surroundings, trying to get back into a combat mind-set. “Surely they aren’t still considering arresting me as a threat to the government.”

She grinned, her canines showing to give the expression a fierce cast. “They wouldn’t dare try that openly, now. But you could just disappear, and supposedly be on a special assignment. They’ll try something.”

“ ‘They’? Which ‘they’ do you mean?”

“Someone. There are a lot of possibilities. You’re too dangerous.”

He thought about the crowds they had encountered on Kosatka, Desjani’s home world. Often huge and always enthusiastic to the point of worshipful, they had been inescapable and unnerving in equal measure. Entire cities had seemed to pack into the streets for the chance of a glimpse of the great Black Jack Geary, legendary champion of the Alliance, the man who had stayed with his ship to the end, fighting off a surprise attack by the Syndics to allow other ships to escape. Everyone had thought that Geary had died during that fight at Grendel a hundred years ago; but he had been barely alive, frozen in survival sleep in a damaged escape pod. Geary had finally been found not long ago, awakening to find himself among people who had been taught to believe that he was an incomparable hero. Who do they think Black Jack actually is? I certainly don’t know. He’s someone the government dreamed up to inspire everyone when the initial Syndic surprise attacks knocked the Alliance back on its heels. “The next time the government tries to create a hero to motivate and inspire the population, they’ll probably try harder to make sure that hero is really, absolutely, positively dead.”

Desjani gave him one of those looks that could be as unnerving as the crowds. “The government thought it was creating an illusion. The politicians didn’t realize that the living stars had their own plans and that you could not only reappear, but also be in reality more than the official illusion claimed.”

“I thought that was over,” he mumbled, looking away. She had looked at him in exactly the same way when he had first awakened from a century of survival sleep. Belief in him and in what he could do, believing that he was someone sent by the living stars themselves at the behest of everyone’s ancestors to save the Alliance. Usually, now she seemed to see him as a man, and treated him as a husband and an officer; but occasionally her faith that he could be more than that shone through.

She leaned close, reaching to grasp his chin gently and turn his head to face her again. “I see you. I see who you are. Don’t forget that.”

The statement had two possible meanings, but he preferred to believe that it meant she knew he was human and very imperfect. His own ancestors knew that he had given her enough demonstrations of his fallibility since being awakened. “Who does the government see?”

“Good question.” Desjani leaned back, sighing. “In answer to your first question, though, about the aliens, as you can see from the rest of the news, the government is under so much pressure that it’s telling everyone about the aliens to distract them. The war held the Alliance together. The war excused all kinds of things. Now, thanks to you more than anyone else—and don’t try to deny that—we’re at peace, and if war is hell, then peace seems to be like herding cats. I didn’t figure that out myself, by the way. One of the politicians at that last reception on Kosatka told me that. He said that star systems all over the Alliance are rethinking their need for common defense now that the big, bad Syndic wolf at the door has been drop-kicked into the nearest black hole.”

“You talked to a politician?” Like most fleet officers, Desjani had a well-developed dislike of the political leadership, born of a century of inconclusive and bloody warfare and a need to attach blame for the failure to win.

She shrugged. “He’s an old friend of my mother. She vouched for him not being as bad as the others, and since my mother hauled me up to meet him, I couldn’t very well about-face and walk away. The point is, Admiral Geary, that he told me no one really knows how to handle peace. It’s been a hundred years since the war with the Syndicate Worlds started, so the politicians have never experienced an environment without an active threat. The government is falling back on what it knows. It thinks it needs a new threat to keep the Alliance unified. And it’s not like the aliens aren’t a threat. We know they’re willing to attack us. We know that they carried out hostile actions before the Alliance even knew they existed.”

“I wish those weren’t just about the only things we do know about them,” Geary grumbled, turning back to the headlines. Prisoners of war coming home soon, say authorities. Finally, some good news. Many men and women captured in the course of the apparently endless war, people who had never expected to see their homes again, would now be reunited with their loved ones. Bringing home the living would be a welcome job, even if it was tarnished by sad reality. Too many prisoners of war had already died far from their homes, during decades in captivity, their fates unknown. Tallying up the numbers and names of those who had died in Syndic prison camps would take long and cheerless years of investigation. “We’re cruel enough to our own kind. Why do we need hostile aliens to add to our problems?”

“Ask the living stars, darling. I’m just a battle cruiser captain. The answer to your question is way above my pay grade.”

The next headline bore no silver lining.

Reports of internal fighting in many star systems within Syndicate Worlds’ territory as Syndic authority continues to collapse.