The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

“They will question your ability to continue in command of this fleet,” Duellos stated flatly. “Since your assumption of command, there have been those who have spread rumors that you are a hollow man, damaged by the long period of survival sleep, an empty, wasted vestige of the great hero. If you come to be perceived to be lacking in the will to engage the enemy, it will give great strength to those rumors that your spirit has fled your body.”

“Hell.” Geary rubbed his face with both hands. As much as he hated being held up as a figure of legend, being labeled some sort of soulless zombie didn’t strike him as any improvement. And such a label could critically damage his ability to command the fleet. “Is anybody contesting these rumors?”

“Of course, sir. But words from such as me mean nothing to those who doubt you. Those who can be swayed are looking to your actions.”

Geary threw up his hands in exasperation again. “I can’t fault that on principle, can I? I won’t ask you who those rumor-mongers are because I’m sure you wouldn’t tell me. Captain Duellos, I took this command to get the fleet home. If I can do that without fighting a big engagement, it’ll mean I did that without losing any more ships.”

Duellos eyed him for a long moment. “Captain Geary, getting the fleet home is hardly an end in itself. I won’t pretend that it’s not a matter of great importance, but the fleet exists to fight. The Syndics must be defeated if this war is to end. Any damage we can do to them on our way home will benefit the Alliance. And sooner or later, this fleet must engage the Syndics again.”

Geary stood for a long moment, his head full of darkness, then nodded heavily. “I understand.”

“It’s not that we want to die far from home, you understand.” Duellos actually mustered a wry smile this time.

“Actually, I do.” Geary tapped his left chest, where few ribbons adorned his uniform in contrast to the row upon row of action awards that Duellos wore. The unmistakable pale blue of the Alliance Medal of Honor stood out among them, the award for his “last battle” that Geary didn’t believe he’d earned but which regulations required him to wear. “You’ve all grown up with this. Fighting and dying is something you accept as a fact of life. My mind-set’s still back a century ago, when peace was the norm and all-out war only a possibility. For me, combat was a theory game, where the referees would tote up points at the end to decide winners and losers, and then everybody would go have drinks together and lie about how brilliant their tactics had been. Now it’s all real. Everything at Grendel happened so fast that I didn’t have time to think about being in a war” He grimaced. “Your fleet is far larger than the fleet that existed in my time. I could, in one battle, lose more sailors than were in the entire fleet I knew. So I’m still adjusting to this, to being thrown into a very long-lived war.”

A shadow fell across Duellos’s expression. “I envy you, sir,” he stated softly.

Geary nodded and gave Duellos a thin-lipped smile. “Yeah. I don’t really have grounds to complain about that, do I? Thank you for your candor, Captain Duellos. I appreciate your frank insights.”

Duellos made to step away in preparation for his image to vanish, then paused. “May I ask what you will do if a Syndic force appears in Kaliban?”

“Evaluate my options and choose the best one based on the exact circumstances.”

“Of course. I am sure you will make a ‘spirited’ decision, sir.” Duellos saluted, and his image disappeared.

Geary, alone again in a room where practically no one else had actually been present, spent a long time staring at the star display still floating above the conference table.

NINE

EVEN the Alliance engineering experts had to concede that the Syndic facilities in Kaliban had been efficiently mothballed. Equipment had been powered down, power supplies disconnected or removed, everything else packed up or put away, the atmosphere inside the facilities rendered as dry as possible, then the atmosphere had been vented from the facilities before they were sealed again. Everything was in deep freeze, but also protected from the ravages of temperature variations, corrosive gases, and other threats.

Images from the facilities seemed at first glance to show darkened rooms that someone could’ve just left after a long day of work. It was only when Geary took note of the unnatural sharpness with which everything could be seen and the way in which light beams didn’t diffuse as they would in atmosphere that he could tell from the images alone that the facilities were airless.