Dreadnaught

He returned the salute, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, of all the Alliance military units and warships in that star system suddenly erupting into a burst of fratricidal warfare, and of the number of people who would surely die if that happened. Possibly including Tanya. The Alliance itself might well die as a result, spinning apart with less bedlam than the Syndicate Worlds but with the same apparently unstoppable momentum. “Good luck, Tanya.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m a bad-ass battle cruiser captain. You’re the one who has to keep the politicians and fleet headquarters from screwing up the universe. If anyone can stop them, it’s you.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the lack of pressure.”

“Don’t mention it. And don’t take too long in that meeting, or there won’t be much left of this star system.”

TWO

IT was easy to forget how much you depended on being able to get information quickly. Easy until you were inside a security perimeter that jammed all signals to ensure that no information leaked out and cut off connections to interior databases and displays. Now, with the fleet certainly in turmoil, he had no idea what was happening and how successful Tanya was being at keeping the situation under control. Not that he doubted her abilities, but anyone with common sense knew that there were always some factors beyond the ability of any human to direct.

He wanted to get to the meeting now and get things under control now, but the damned station was too big, every passageway too long, every checkpoint too slow to pass him through. With every step, Geary feared feeling the shudder of explosions being transmitted through the structure of the station as open combat erupted. He had felt the impacts of weaponry on ships. The hammerblows of missiles striking home, the trembling as hell-lance particle beams tore through metal and everything else in their path, the brutal hail of grapeshot pounding a hull in staccato rhythms. Would those things feel different on something as massive as this space station? How deeply would a hell lance penetrate into the structure if fired from close in?

Oddly enough, wondering about those things and trying to figure out answers from his experience served as a calming distraction. Trying to anticipate the effects of combat damage was comfortingly familiar, whereas confronting politicians with unknown agendas remained something Geary found uncomfortable and foreign. I’d rather be shot at than deal with politicians. And the strange thing is that every sailor in the fleet would understand that and agree.

The soldiers he encountered at different checkpoints were drawn from a variety of units and organizations. He had experienced very little interaction with ground forces since being awakened from survival sleep, and all of that limited contact had been in the last couple of weeks. Now he studied these men and women, trying to evaluate their capabilities, their feelings, and their effectiveness. The fleet and even the notoriously tradition-bound Marines had been changed by the very long and very bloody war. How deeply had the ground forces fallen into the fleet’s regression to charging straight at the enemy without regard for odds, tactics, or maneuvering? Had the ground forces also fallen back on rigid definitions of honor and an emphasis on blind courage to replace the skills of leaders who rarely survived long enough to become veterans?

All of the soldiers were stiffly professional with him, doubtless fearing that they were somehow being monitored by more than one superior officer; but most still looked at Geary in a way that revealed their feelings, no different from those of the civilian crowds even if much more disciplined and concealed.

Geary passed through checkpoint after checkpoint, everything remaining quiet as far as he could tell, though buried inside the station he could discern very little. The absence of anyone else at some points in the passageways between checkpoints felt eerie, like being in a derelict facility in a meager star system bypassed by the hypernet and now abandoned by its few human inhabitants. After weeks of trying to avoid crowds, he found himself wishing for at least a few other people within line of sight.

Finally, six more checkpoints beyond the first, Geary found himself being led toward a conference room remarkable only for the symbols by its open door that revealed it to be a high-security, sealed compartment guaranteed to be as impervious to outside surveillance as any room could be. “How tight is this conference room?” he asked the Alliance special forces commandos forming the last layer of security, wondering how much security technology might have advanced but also recalling the many times that Victoria Rione had demonstrated the ability to get through security barriers with the right equipment and software.