Jack Campbell: Dauntless

Captain Desjani was still explaining, as if she felt the need to personally justify the situation. “Losses haven’t always been bad. But sometimes we lose a lot. A century of war drains a lot of ships and sailors from a fleet.” She looked both angry and weary. “A lot of them. Admiral Bloch did have two senior aides assigned. You may not have seen them board the shuttle with him to go to the Syndic flagship, along with Admiral Bloch’s chief of staff.”

“No.” But then I wasn’t aware of much of anything at that point.

“They’re all dead now, of course. There’s some junior officers who were seconded to the staff, but they’re all ship’s company. They’ve got primary jobs on the Dauntless .”

“I assume they’re needed there right now.”

“Yes, although one of them’s dead and another’s too badly injured to leave sick bay. I would like to continue using the other two in their primary duties—”

Geary held up one hand to forestall further words. “By all means. I’ll see them when conditions permit. Can you tell me how Admiral Bloch ran a fleet with such a small staff?”

Desjani made a face. “By only doing what needed to be done and leaving the rest to his ship commanders, I suppose. And the support systems available to you are very effective.” She checked the time and looked alarmed. “Captain Geary, with your permission, I really must get back to the bridge.”

“Permission granted.” Desjani was hastening away even as Geary’s arm quivered in anticipation of returning a farewell salute that never came. Am I going to have to get used to that, or am I going to have to change the way they do things? He looked over at the Marine, still standing at attention outside the entry to the conference room a short distance away. “Thank you.” The Marine obliged with a rigidly proper salute, which Geary returned.

He started to head after Desjani, knowing he should be on the bridge as well, but felt his legs suddenly wavering as if their strength had fled again. Geary put out a hand, leaning on the bulkhead, and when certain of his balance, began walking slowly toward his stateroom.

He dropped gratefully into the chair, breathing heavily. I can’t afford this now. There’s too much to do. He dug inside a drawer, coming up with a med-pack containing the fleet physicians’ best estimate of what he’d need to keep going. They told me this stuff won’t interfere with my thinking. What if it does? But if I don’t take it I won’t be able to do my job anyway.

I need to stop getting into situations where all my options are potentially bad.

He slapped the med-pack against his arm, feeling the slight tingle that meant it was doing its work. It’d take a few moments to feel the effect, so he called up the support systems that Desjani had mentioned.

As soon as he did so, he saw a message from Commander Cresida of the Furious . It contained the plan she’d promised to reposition the fleet ships in preparation for fleeing to the jump point. Geary studied it as carefully as he could, feeling the pressure of time weighing on him. Less than half an hour, perhaps, before the Syndics moved; less than that if they’d lied about how long they’d give the Alliance ship commanders to make up their minds. Once all the Alliance ships were in position, or once the Syndics started moving if that happened first, the plan called for the code name Overture to signal the fleet’s withdrawal toward the jump point.

He felt a surge of frustration as he scanned ship names, wishing he knew more about how they’d move and how they’d fight. Numos was right that my knowledge is outdated, but my ancestors know I’m still a better commander than he’ll ever be. And as he’d told Numos, right now acting instead of waiting was paramount. Muttering a quick prayer, he marked the plan approved and tagged it to be transmitted to the fleet.

He started to stand up, felt a quiver of unsteadiness still there, and sat again, forcing himself to wait a few more minutes. Turning back to the fleet statistics, Geary began scanning through them, trying to absorb as much knowledge of the ships as he could. As he’d suspected, they were all new or nearly so. If the average age of those ships meant what he thought it did, losses must have been, must still be, staggering.

The loss of a ship didn’t necessarily mean the loss of the entire crew of course, but you’d still lose a lot of people.

Geary stared at the rough edge on his desk, finally realizing what it told him. Ships being churned out as fast as they could be built to replace losses in battles. Officers and sailors being rushed through training to crew those ships, then promoted quickly to replace those also lost in combat. And as those inexperienced crews in hastily constructed ships were hurled into battle, they kept taking heavy losses, dying too fast to learn. How long had the fleet been caught in that death spiral? No wonder they forgot to salute. No wonder they’ve forgotten how a fleet should be commanded. They’re all amateurs. Amateurs with the lives of their shipmates and the fate of the Alliance in their hands. Am I the only trained professional left in this entire fleet?

What happened to all the ships and people I knew? Did they all die in battle while I slept?

Not wanting to think about that, Geary tried to concentrate on the data before him again, scrolling it quickly so he’d have to pay close attention. He frowned, suddenly half-aware of something he’d just skimmed over, and looked back again carefully. There it was. Alliance battle cruiser Repulse , commanding officer Commander Michael J. Geary. Michael Geary was my brother’s name. But he has to be long dead, and he never entered the fleet that I know of. Not before I went to sleep for a century, anyway.

Do I have time to follow up on this? But we’re going into battle, and if something happens I might never know. Geary hesitated, then punched in the code to speak to the commanding officer of the Repulse. It took a few moments, then an unnervingly almost-familiar face appeared. “Yes, sir?”

Neither the tone nor the expression of the Repulse ’s commander seemed welcoming, but Geary couldn’t stop from asking, not after seeing that face. “Pardon me, Commander Geary, but I’d like to know if we’re related.”

The other’s face stayed hard and unyielding. “Yes.”

“How? Are you—”

“My grandfather was your brother.”

The ice threatened to take him again. His brother. A few years younger than him once upon a time. Geary was looking at a face reflecting the inheritance his brother had passed on to a grandchild, and suddenly the loss of his own time felt unbearable, and not just because the Repulse ’s commander looked to be quite a few years older than Geary’s own apparent age. His grandnephew had beaten the odds by surviving this long, but that didn’t seem to have brought him any joy. “What…” Geary looked away and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about you and … and … my brother. What happened to him?”

“He lived and he died,” Geary’s grandnephew stated flatly.

Something about the hostility brought Geary’s temper out. “I know that. He was my brother, you cold bastard.”

“Do you need anything else, sir?”

Geary glared at the man, seeing the signs of age there along with lines imparted by strong emotions. His grandnephew was certainly a couple of decades older than Geary, and those years hadn’t been kind to him. “Yes. There is something else. What the hell did I ever do to you?”

The other man actually smiled, though the expression held no humor. “You? Nothing. Not to me, or to my father, or to my grandfather. Grandfather used to say he’d have traded the honors for having you back, but then he lived in the glow of Black Jack Geary, Hero of the Alliance, not in the shadow of that Hero.”