Jack Campbell - Guardian

She was watching him with first surprise, then appraisal. “What’s the matter?”

He tried to answer, and that effort finally caused him to understand what had rattled him so badly. Why now? I can’t have a flashback now. I thought I was past this. Whatever was impeding his breathing also kept him from saying anything.

Desjani was leaning close, her voice very low and fierce. “Dammit, Jack, what’s the matter ?”

He met her eyes and managed to say one word. “Grendel.”

“Grendel?” Tanya eyed him, puzzled, then her expression cleared. “Grendel. You, one ship, against bad odds, trying to protect a convoy. This is the first time you’ve faced that situation since you fought there.”

He nodded. Thank our ancestors that she understood, that I didn’t have to try to explain something I don’t entirely understand. This isn’t Grendel.

“This isn’t Grendel,” she said on the heels of his own thought.

Words broke from him in a sudden rush. “Tanya, I had my ship blown apart around me. Most of my crew killed. If that happens again—”

“This is my ship, Admiral. If Dauntless gets blown apart, I will be on her bridge fighting her to the last.”

Geary stared at her. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

She actually reached across and grabbed his wrist, the sort of physical contact they normally avoided to keep anyone from gossiping about the admiral and his wife the captain. “Listen. If I die here, it won’t be just your fault. It’ll be mine, too. This is my ship. I will stay with her until the end. And you will get everyone you can off of her, if that is our fate. We’ve been blessed with each other for a time far too short. But we never should have met at all. You should have died a century ago. You didn’t, and I won’t now.”

“Tanya—”

“Listen. I am certain that I can drive Dauntless better than any of those pretty boys and girls on their fancy ships. One-on-one, I’d kick their butts. But we’re up against a bunch of them, and I need somebody looking at the overall situation, outthinking and outguessing Mister Medals. Together, we can do this. But this is no time for stress memories to throw you off. If that happens, if you go jelly on me, we’re dead. Will you go jelly on me?”

“No!”

She bared her teeth in a grin that was half snarl. “Damn straight. You never have, and you never will. Throw it off or bury it or whatever you need to do until we’ve beaten these guys. Can you do that, or do I need to call a doc up here to give you some head meds?”

“Yes.” He realized only after saying the word how calmly and firmly it had come out. “I can do that. But get a doc here anyway. Everybody up here can tell I’m rattled, and I want them to see I’m dealing with it smart. Thanks to you. What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Not enough. I’ll let you know if you ever get there. But this is my duty, Admiral. Don’t forget that I’d be doing this no matter who was sitting in that seat.” Desjani released his wrist and settled back in her seat, tapping one of her internal comm controls. “Sick bay, we need a head check on the bridge. Nothing critical, just some safeguards.”

Geary rubbed his chin and cast discreet glances around the bridge. As he suspected, everyone was pretending not to have noticed anything unusual regarding the admiral and their commanding officer. Being able to pretend you hadn’t noticed a superior officer’s behavior was one of the essential survival traits in the fleet, and probably in any military throughout human history. “All right. We’ve got a couple of hours even if we don’t accelerate to reposition.” He had learned to say such things the right way. The fleet, scarred by a century of war and fixated on honor, did not retreat, and it did not flee pursuit. It repositioned. “We’ve got some advantages.”

“Right. We’re faster.” Desjani waved at her display. “We’ve got more mass than those megacruisers, but even bigger main propulsion relative to that, so we’ve got a better thrust-to-mass ratio. Assuming their inertial dampers are no better than ours, we can outturn and outaccelerate them.”

He frowned at his own display. “Anything else?”

“They’ve got even less armor than we do.” She frowned at her display. “In terms of weapons, it doesn’t feel right at all. They’ve got to have more weaponry than we’re seeing. I can’t call that an advantage. Maybe they don’t have a null-field generator, but we’ll have to get awful close to use that, and they might have something different but just as deadly.”

“Not much good there,” Geary commented. “What else?”

“We’ve got you.”

Geary actually felt himself smiling. “And you. Best damned ship driver in the fleet.”

She grinned. “And my crew,” she added. “Been there, done that. We know our job.”

He paused to think, only to be interrupted by the communications watch-stander. “Captain, we have a message from Sol Star System authorities.”

“Route it to the Admiral and me,” she ordered.

Geary watched intently as the comm window popped into existence near him. He had somehow expected the people of Old Earth to look different. Older. Wiser. Smarter. But the two women and one man who looked out at him didn’t seem any different from anyone else he had ever talked to. Perhaps there was a tinge of fatigue around their eyes, a sense of age beyond the years their faces revealed. Their clothes were nothing like the ornate uniforms on the warships, instead being simple in design, the colors evoking a sense of brightness faded but still strong.

“Greetings to the ship Dauntless of the Alliance,” one of the women said. “We are excited beyond measure at the news you bring of contact with a nonhuman intelligence, and at the possibility of meeting the ambassadors from that species you have escorted here.

“Unfortunately, as you must have already discovered, Sol Star System has been occupied by a military force from the Covenant of the First Stars, which claims to be protecting us. We have protested their actions and have been trying for the last two decades to reach agreement on procedures for attempting to assemble a coalition of other nearby powers to expel the Covenant warships from Sol. However, that effort has been complex due to the special status of Sol and worries about provoking aggression from the Covenant against other star systems. There have been no wars in this region of space for several decades, and no major conflicts for the last two centuries.”

“They’ve been trying for two decades ?” Desjani said. “Two decades spent arguing over whether to do anything?”

“Yeah,” Geary agreed. “Rione was right about how Sol Star System does things. Or doesn’t do things. It prevents aggression but also defense. So much for the idea that Sol is a unique oasis of peace and harmony among the stars of human-occupied space. Still, it looks like there hasn’t been much actual fighting.”

The woman from Old Earth was still speaking. “We can offer you no assistance against the Covenant military force. Because of that, we urge you to act in whatever manner you deem best, keeping ever in mind that you are at the Home of Humanity. It is better that you, and these representatives from another species, be safe than that you run unnecessary risks.

“This is Dominika Borkowski, for the people and the Home, end.”

Geary rubbed his nose, grimaced, then nodded to Desjani. “Please have your people forward that message to our senators and envoys.”

She gave the orders, then turned back to Geary. “What do you suppose they’ll do with it?”

“I don’t know. Debate what to reply. What can we do with it?”