Dreadnaught

He nodded slowly to her. “True. Right now I’d love some good alternatives to going across half of human space, then jumping into alien territory armed to the teeth. But from what we know, none of those alternatives would be better than what we’re doing.”

She smiled wryly. “I wonder what they’d do if they actually encountered the aliens they’re worried about us attacking.”

“Our job is to make sure they don’t, or if they do, that the aliens are willing to talk and coexist.”

This time Desjani laughed briefly. “Which means if we succeed at what we want to do, then those protestors will probably never realize what we did.”

“Somebody asked me why I still believed in ‘fair,’ ” Geary commented. “When I think of things like you just pointed out, I have to admit that’s a good question. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen ‘fair.’ ”

“Just because you’ve never seen something doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

He was still contemplating that statement when the communications watch made a report. “They’re broadcasting their junk on every channel, Captain, official and unofficial. Apparently that’s become standard protest tactics.”

Desjani shook her head. “Idiots. They’re blocking emergency coordination frequencies. The people in this star system won’t be sympathetic to their messages anyway, but that move will ensure any possible agreement is swamped by irritation. I hope Varandal’s defense forces can catch those fools.”

One of the watch-standers grinned. “Those ships couldn’t outrun specters, Captain.”

Instead of smiling in return, Desjani gave him a flat look. “We don’t fire on peaceful protestors, Lieutenant. If those people transmitted on authorized frequencies only, then they’d be allowed to as long as they wanted. We’re the Alliance, not the Syndics.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the lieutenant said, reddening slightly in embarrassment. “I wasn’t serious.”

“Understood. But people controlling the amount of firepower that we do have to be careful of the jokes we tell.”

Geary nodded to Desjani, then checked his own comms. “Most of my channels are still clear.”

“Admiral, that’s because our transmitters are powerful enough to punch through the interference from distant ships,” the comm watch explained.

“Good. I guess we just ignore those guys, then. They’re not our problem, and they’re not telling us anything we haven’t already thought about.”

A couple of destroyers assigned to Varandal’s defenses were still chasing the protestors the next day, when the fleet reached the jump point for Atalia. Geary took a deep breath, wondering if jumps would ever feel routine again or if he would always be haunted with worry about what might await at the exit for another star. “All ships, jump at time one zero.”

On the outside views, the endless stars and the black night between them vanished, replaced by the gray nothingness of jump space. As if greeting the fleet’s arrival, one of the strange lights that came and went in jump space grew in brilliance somewhere directly before them, near or far impossible to tell since there was no means of determining the distance to it, though it somehow felt close. The light glowed briefly, then faded out to be lost amid the drab gray.

It took Geary a moment to realize that while he had been watching the light, everyone else on the bridge had been watching him. The moment they realized he might be aware of that, they all busied themselves at their jobs. All except Desjani, who glowered around the bridge menacingly before giving him a rueful look. “They still wonder if you were in those lights for the century you were gone.”

“If I had been, wouldn’t I know something about them?” he snapped in reply, irritated. “I told you that I wasn’t there.”

“You told me that you couldn’t remember being there.”

He could stay angry to no purpose, because there wasn’t any proof either way, and there couldn’t ever be, or he could accept that the question was going to dog him for probably the rest of his life. “I guess there are some things I’ll never be able to get away from.”

She nodded. “Not totally. But once we get into Syndic territory, everybody will have other things to occupy their minds.”

ATALIA hadn’t changed much in the few months since they had last passed through the star system. Even though new buildings were no longer being turned into craters by Alliance bombardment almost as soon as something important could be built, and even though the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds would no longer be using the star system as an occasional battleground, there was a tremendous amount of damage to clean up, and Atalia wasn’t a wealthy star system. Even if it once had been prosperous, the frequent fighting within it would have reduced it to poverty over the century of war.

One difference was that an Alliance courier ship hung near the jump point, ready to tell the Alliance if anyone attacked Atalia. Thus far, that was the sum total of the Alliance’s commitment to the defense of Atalia.