Rione's spies in the fleet had obviously been keeping her informed. Geary gave another grimace. "Warrior didn't suffer the propulsion system damage that Invincible did, so Warrior can keep up with the fleet. I won't abandon Warrior lightly. I can't explain why, but it hurts morale more to scuttle a ship ourselves than it does to have that ship die in combat. Besides, I've been keeping an eye on their repair progress. Warrior's crew is working their b.u.t.ts off to get their ship back in shape. At this point, if worse came to worst, I'd consider cannibalizing Majestic to help get Warrior and Orion back into shape. Orion is making some progress on repairs, but Majestic is dragging. Neither of them will be fighting in the line of battle for a while. I'll have to keep all three of those battleships with the auxiliaries, which won't do their pride any good."

"They have little ground for pride." Rione's voice had gone low and hard. "Running from this fleet, then running and leaving their comrades at Vidha-"

"I know that," Geary broke in, his own voice rough with anger. "But I can't write off those ships and crews! I need to rebuild not only the ships but also the crews, and that means they need to believe in themselves, and that means their pride matters."

Rione sat silent, her face flushed.

"Sorry."

"I deserved it," she shot back, her anger seeming directed mostly at herself. "I'm a politician. I should understand the importance of what people believe." She took a long, deep breath, calming herself. "I'm not oblivious to the pain of losing ships as large as battle cruisers, or any ships at all, but you should take comfort that you're not losing battleships in equal numbers."

Geary shook his head. "No. If I keep losing battle cruisers, then the battleships will start taking more losses."

This time Rione looked puzzled. "Why?"

"Because the battle cruisers do certain jobs," Geary explained. "They have the firepower of battleships but can accelerate, maneuver, and decelerate like heavy cruisers. They don't have the shields or armor of battleships because they trade that off in favor of the ability to move faster. That makes battle cruisers very useful for certain tasks requiring speed as well as firepower. But if I lose enough battle cruisers, I'll have to use battleships for those tasks, and battleships are too sluggish. They'll get caught by Syndic battle cruisers, and even though one battleship can outfight one battle cruiser, it can't handle four or more backed up by lighter combatants. Or I can use heavy cruisers and have them take even heavier losses until they're all gone and I have to fall back on the battleships anyway."

Rione finally frowned in understanding. "Losses will accelerate if we're forced to use warships for tasks they're not designed for."

"Yeah." Geary gestured at the display. "And if the major combatants, the battleships and battle cruisers, hold back at all, then the light cruisers and destroyers will get torn to pieces. It all ties together. I can't get replacements for lost units, so I have to avoid being forced to expend what I've got." He stared at the names of the ships, his mind filled with an image of the remains of the Terrible after it collided with a Syndic battle cruiser at Ilion. Or rather, an image of the flash of light that was all that remained of both ships after they struck each other at a decent fraction of the speed of light. Not just a ship but its entire crew blown to h.e.l.l in an instant's time. "Ancestors help me," he whispered.

Geary felt Rione's hand rest on his shoulder for a long moment, offering the comfort of a firm grasp, before it was withdrawn again. "I'm sorry."

"Victoria-"

"No." She stood up abruptly, her face averted from him. "Victoria isn't here. Co-President Rione offers her condolences and her support. I'm sorry, Captain Geary." She rushed out before he could say anything else.

"WHAT have you got?" Geary asked. He was gazing through a one-way screen at the interrogation room where the captain of the Syndic merchant ship they'd destroyed upon arrival in Baldur sat sweating with fear despite the slightly cool temperature of the compartment. Readouts and displays around the screen revealed everything about the Syndic's physical state and the thought patterns in his brain. If the Syndic lied, it would be immediately obvious on the brain scans, and just being able to confront someone with that often produced results.

The intelligence officer, Lieutenant Iger, made a face. "Not much. The Syndics don't tell their civilian population any details about military operations or losses."

"Kind of like the Alliance?" Geary suggested dryly.

"Well, yes, sir," the lieutenant admitted. "But worse, actually, and the Syndics don't allow a free press or open discussion, so it's harder for their citizens to figure out what's actually going on. About all the merchant crew has been able to tell us is what they've been told in Syndic propaganda. Victory is certain, Syndic losses light, and this fleet was totally destroyed."

"He knows that last certainly isn't true," Geary observed. "Where did his ship come from?"

"Tikana. Another system bypa.s.sed by the hypernet. His ship did trade runs on the margins, working for a Syndic corporation that lives off the economic sc.r.a.ps bigger corporations don't bother with."

"Not a lot of good, recent news or observations, then?"

"No, sir." Lieutenant Iger gestured toward the figure of the Syndic merchant captain. "Scared to death, but he doesn't seem able to tell us anything despite that."

"I take it he hasn't heard any rumors about this fleet?"

"No, sir," the intelligence officer repeated. "He's showing truthfulness when denying hearing anything like that. When we prompt him with names of systems we've been in, like Corvus or Sancere, he showed some recognition of the star system name but nothing more."

Geary spent a moment wondering whether to actually speak with the Syndic, then decided he should. "I'll go on in. What's his name?"

"Reynad Ybarra, sir. His home world is Meddak."

"Thanks." Geary went through the three hatches leading into the interrogation compartment. Once inside, he saw the Syndic merchant captain staring at him. The Syndic seemed too frightened to move, but even if he had been inclined toward suicidal attacks, it wouldn't have mattered. The interrogation facility had enough stun weaponry aimed at the prisoner to knock him out before he took a full step toward Geary. "Greetings on behalf of the Alliance, Captain Ybarra," Geary stated formally.

The Syndic didn't move or say anything, just stared nervously at Geary.

"How's the war going?" Geary asked.

This time the Syndic paused, then began reciting something he had obviously heard often enough to commit to memory. "The forces of the Syndicate Worlds continue to go from victory to victory. Our triumph over the Alliance aggressors is ensured."

Geary sat down opposite the man. "Do you ever wonder why you haven't won the war yet if your forces have been going from victory to victory for the last century?" The Syndic swallowed but said nothing. "The Alliance wasn't the aggressor, you know. We were attacked without warning. I know because I was there." The Syndic's eyes widened with disbelief tinged with fear. "I'm sure you've been told that I'm Captain John Geary." The fear grew. "Would you like this war to end?" More fear. Not a topic the man was comfortable with. Doubtless even discussing it could get a Syndic citizen accused of treason.

How to get the man to say something? Geary fell back on an old standby. "Do you have a family still at Meddak?"

The Syndic hesitated, as if trying to decide if the question was safe to answer, then nodded.

"Are they okay?"

That finally got something. "My parents only. My sister died when Ikoni was bombarded," the Syndic choked out. "My brother died five years ago when his ship was destroyed in battle."

Geary grimaced. A brother and a sister dead in the war. An all-too-common circ.u.mstance in a war characterized by b.l.o.o.d.y battles and bombardments of civilians. "I'm sorry. May they rest in the arms of their ancestors." The Syndic gazed back in confusion at the courteous offer of sympathy. "I'm going to tell you something, and then we're probably going to let you and your crew go. I won't bother saying that what you've been told by your leaders is a lie, because the fact that you're on a ship that was supposedly destroyed should tell you that already. No, I want you to realize that we'd like to end this war, too. There's been too many deaths, which aren't accomplishing anything. Your home is safe from the fleet I command. Go to any system we've been in since we left the Syndic home system, and you'll see that only military or military-related targets have been destroyed. The Alliance will keep fighting as long and as hard as we have to in order to ensure the safety of our own homes, but we'll do so with honor. Tell that to anyone you want."

Standing up, Geary left the Syndic staring after him. Once back in the observation room, he found the lieutenant eyeing the readouts. "Anything?"

"He doesn't believe you," the lieutenant observed.

"No, I didn't expect him to. Do you think we can get anything useful out of them?"

"No, sir."

"Then put them back in their escape pod and launch it toward safety."

"Yes, sir." Lieutenant Iger hesitated. "Captain Geary, the personnel who went over the escape pod reported that it had a couple of serious system failures due to use of cheap materials and what looks like poor quality control."

"You check for that?" Geary asked, impressed.

The lieutenant grinned. "Yes, sir. This ship was sort of an economic bottom dweller, but even its physical condition can tell us something about the state of the Syndic economy as a whole."

Geary nodded. "I don't recall anything about the Syndic military escape pods we've captured having those kind of problems."

"No," the lieutenant agreed. "They give the military first pick at everything and priority on everything. Only the leadership gets higher priority when it wants things."

"I guess that shouldn't surprise me. Can we fix the broken systems on that merchant ship's escape pod?"

"Yes, sir, I think so."

"Then I want that done before the pod is relaunched," Geary directed. "They'll know they only made it safely because of our help."

The intelligence officer saluted, showing off his skill with the gesture of respect that Geary had reintroduced to the fleet. "Aye, aye, sir. But this merchant crew is only a single tiny drop in the Syndic ocean, so even if they feel grateful, it won't help us."

"Maybe not." Geary turned to go, then paused and looked back. "Then again, enough drops add up into waves. Maybe in time we can rock the Syndic leadership's boat a little. Besides, sometimes our ancestors like to see us doing things for others that we don't expect to benefit us, don't you think?"

GEARY sat on the bridge of the Dauntless again, watching the images of the Syndic mining facility as his fleet rushed toward it at point zero two light. They'd had to brake down the fleet's velocity even more to ensure the shuttles would be able to slow to landing speed without overshooting the a.s.sault targets. Next to the image of the mining facility, a virtual window revealed Colonel Carabali, her face sober. "The landing force is embarked and ready, sir."

"Thank you, Colonel." Geary took a good look at Carabali. "Do you want to go in with them?"

Carabali hesitated, clearly torn by the offer. "I should remain on a ship, coordinating the battle from the landing force control center, Captain Geary."

Strange, Geary thought. For fleet officers, gaining rank didn't do much to change the risk of combat. Even the highest admiral in a combat a.s.signment would be facing the same risk from enemy fire as the lowest ranking sailor, because they rode the same ships into battle. But it was different for the Marines. When the landing forces went in, their overall commanders had to have the discipline to avoid diving into personal combat so they could oversee the entire battle. It was odd to realize that in the case of the Marine commanders not rushing into combat required more discipline and, in a way, courage than simply accompanying the landing force would need. Facing death could be easier than watching your troops die while you floated above it all.

But all he said was, "Very well, Colonel. Should I address your people before they go in?"

Carabali hesitated again, this time for a different reason. "They're about to launch, sir. Any distraction at this time might be unwise."

Geary almost laughed. A distraction. If only that were the worst problem he could cause. "All right, Colonel. Let me know immediately if you need anything. Otherwise I'll leave you alone now so you can run your battle."

"Thank you, sir," Carabali replied with a grin. She rendered a precise salute to him. The Marines had never abandoned saluting like the rest of the fleet had, naturally, and so hadn't had to relearn the gesture. "I'll notify you when we have the facility in hand, Captain Geary."

The colonel's image vanished, and Geary leaned back in his command seat with a sigh. There was a sense of helplessness at times like this. Ships had been committed to their courses and speeds, Marines prepared for their a.s.sault, and now all he could do was watch it happen and hope nothing went wrong. Commander of a fleet, and I'm still subject to the laws of time and s.p.a.ce. I knew a few commanders in my time who thought their rank allowed them to ignore those things, but I imagine those commanders died early on during the war. While I floated in survival sleep and the Alliance turned me into a mythical hero. I wonder which of us was luckier?

"Nothing's leaving the mining facility," Captain Desjani noted.

Geary switched his attention back to the display and nodded. "No escape pods, and even that old tug is still just sitting there. Whoever's there is staying instead of evacuating."

"They probably fear we'll blow away anything trying to escape," Desjani suggested in a way that told Geary such practices had been common before he a.s.sumed command.

He refrained from asking what honor there was in shooting defenseless escape pods. Practices that Geary found abhorrent had become commonplace over a century of war, as the Syndics had committed increasingly worse atrocities and the Alliance had responded in kind. Over time a lot had been forgotten by the descendants of the officers and sailors whom Geary had known. Forgotten until the revered Black Jack Geary had awakened and reminded the present of the things the past had believed in. Desjani had been among the first to realize what had been lost in trying to match Syndic inhumanity, so there was no sense in making an issue of it with her again. Instead, Geary nodded once more. "Or maybe when we slowed down they figured out we were coming to take the place instead of just destroying it. But they can't hope to repel our attack."

"No," Desjani agreed. "But they might inflict losses; they might slow us down. Syndic leaders would be willing to trade the workers in a mining facility for that."

"Yeah." They'd already seen evidence of that in almost every system they'd pa.s.sed through. The Syndics had risked entire surplus worlds for the chance to strike blows at the fleeing Alliance fleet. He studied the image of the facility again. "They've got maglev rails for moving ore."

Desjani nodded. "Taking them out from a distance would risk hitting the stockpiles."

"What are the odds the Syndics could turn them into weapons?"

She shrugged. "They could try. But we'll see them elevating the tracks to turn the maglevs into weapons aimed at our ships or the shuttles."

Geary nodded, checking to see that his two surviving scout battleships, Exemplar and Braveheart, were braking to slide into position right over the mining facility, matching their movements precisely to that of the facility so they could fire down at it from very close range using their h.e.l.l lances. In theory, a small kinetic projectile could be aimed accurately enough from a long distance to take out even a little target in a fixed orbit, but Geary wanted to conserve his supply of what the Marines called "rocks." Besides, in practice he adhered to the old theories that the closer you were to the target, the better the odds of hitting it square, and that there wasn't any sense in using too much weapon for the target, so h.e.l.l lances would work fine.

He'd learned that the new theory, born of a century of war, was to just use a large kinetic projectile and blow apart not only the target but a substantial area around it, which after all belonged to the enemy anyway, even if it did include things like schools, hospitals, and homes. Geary had no intention of ever succ.u.mbing to that logic.

Neither scout battleship was firing yet, since neither had targets. But they'd be positioned close overhead when the Marine shuttles came in to land.

"Launching a.s.sault force," a watch-stander reported.

A dozen shuttles separated from their ships, their courses arcing down toward the mining facility.

"Why only a dozen?" Co-President Rione asked from her seat behind Geary. "It's unlike Colonel Carabali not to employ as much force as possible."

Did she mean to imply that Geary had limited Carabali's forces? He turned to look at Rione. "It's a small facility, Madam Co-President. There's not enough room to land and employ a larger force."

Turning back, Geary saw Captain Desjani with a lowered brow in apparent annoyance at Rione's question. But Desjani kept her voice even as she spoke. "Movement around the maglevs."

Geary twisted back and focused on the magnetic-levitation rail lines that were used to move ore, containers, and other materials around the facility. The full-spectrum and optical sensors on the Alliance ships were precise enough to track small targets on the other side of a solar system. This close to a target, they could easily count individual grains of dust if required. Human-sized targets were exceptionally easy to see.

Sure enough, a group was cl.u.s.tered around one of the end rails, raising one end toward the shapes of Braveheart and Exemplar above. "Stupid," Geary couldn't help muttering.

Desjani nodded. "Exemplar is firing h.e.l.l lances."

Fire control systems designed to get hits on targets moving at thousands of kilometers per second during firing opportunities measured in fractions of a second didn't have much trouble getting a perfect hit on a close target almost at rest relative to the ship. On the visual display, Geary couldn't see the charged particle beam that tore through the maglev segment, but he did see the results. The segment shattered, the workers around it being blown back by the force of fragments hurled at them, a neat hole punched in the surface of the moon where the h.e.l.l lance had kept going, barely slowed by the minor obstacles it had hit.

Then another segment of the maglev line shattered, then another. Geary cursed and hit his communications controls. "Exemplar, Braveheart, this is Captain Geary. Fire only on identified threats."

"Sir, they're using those maglevs for weapons," Exemplar protested.

Before replying, Geary checked to ensure the bombardment had stopped. To his relief, it had. "They tried, and you did a great job taking them out. But our own engineers might need the rest of that line." He paused. "Good job. Excellent accuracy on your weapons."

"Thank you, sir. Understood. Exemplar will fire on threat activity."

Fair enough. Geary checked his fleet status for information on Exemplar's commanding officer. Commander Vendig. Very good marks. Recommended for command of a battle cruiser. Why not a battleship? Geary frowned as he put together for the first time that every one of his best commanders was a battle cruiser captain. Conversely, many of his problem officers were battleship captains, including the most serious pains like Captains Faresa and Numos and new problems like Captain Casia. I hadn't realized that, hadn't seen the pattern, and whatever it is may be obvious to officers in the current fleet. There weren't that many battleships in my time, and they were then seen as the command that every good officer aimed for. Something happened in the last century that seems to have changed that. I'd better find out what.

The shuttles were approaching the mining facility now, swooping in like birds of prey heading for their targets, their engines firing hard to match velocity with the mining facility as fast as possible. Geary kept switching his gaze from the overall fleet display showing the entire light-seconds-wide span of the Alliance formation, to the close-in display showing the area around the mining facility, to the tactical view the Marines would use. Symbols representing enemy forces were popping up on the tactical display now, here and gone as individual defenders were spotted dodging among the mining equipment and facilities.

Geary tagged one of the threat symbols, and a frozen image flashed into existence along with helpful explanatory text. d.a.m.n near idiot-proof, Geary thought, admiring the simplicity of the system, then frowned as more windows popped into existence, multiplying too fast to follow their information as they provided exhaustive details on estimated enemy weaponry, endurance time, power usage and power systems, defensive armor, and dozens of other pieces of trivia that a fleet commander had no real need for. Somebody had set the default for all this junk to flood his display, though. But then there's always plenty of idiots to figure out how to screw it up anyway.

Geary cursed as he painstakingly closed window after window of meticulous data until he could actually view the image and a few essential pieces of information. He studied the picture, seeing a glimpse of someone in what appeared to be a survival suit, not battle armor. The text confirmed that, noting that the individual's appearance matched that of someone wearing an obsolete version of the standard Syndic survival suit. The weapon being carried by the defender was some sort of pulse rifle with too little power to seriously threaten Marines in battle armor, the text told Geary, and was probably intended for internal security. Internal security? At that small a facility? Oh. They'd need people to keep the Syndic citizens on this installation in line. With those maglev rails it wouldn't be smart to let any rebels get their hands on a facility that could launch rocks at the inhabited planet in this system.

He checked the other threat symbols and confirmed they were all the same. "No actual soldiers. Internal security forces and occupants of the mining facility handed weapons and sent out to fight. What the h.e.l.l is the sense of that?"

Desjani frowned over the same image projected before her seat. "All they can hope to do is slow us down. Unless the Syndic commanders in this system are completely delusional, that has to be their intended mission."

Slow us down. Geary checked the tactical display again, wondering what ought to be there but wasn't. Then he realized. "They're not sabotaging anything. Why hasn't stuff been blown? We're not even seeing equipment shutdowns that would accompany wiping their operating systems."

"A trap?" Desjani wondered.

"It wouldn't be the first time." Geary tapped his screen for Colonel Carabali. "Colonel, this is looking like a trap."

Carabali nodded, looking hara.s.sed. "Yes, sir. It bears all the signs of that. My a.s.sault forces have been ordered to search for any and every thing that might blow up in our faces. There should be lots of small-scale demolitions on hand, but my experts say a mining facility like this shouldn't have the means to generate a huge explosion, especially not in the limited warning time they had to work with."

"That doesn't seem to be rea.s.suring you, Colonel."

She gave Geary a quick, humorless smile. "No, sir. By your leave, sir, I'd like to get back to overseeing the a.s.sault."

"By all means, Colonel. My apologies." Geary tried to relax, annoyed with himself for violating one of his own rules by bothering an officer who was trying to carry out the orders that Geary had given her.

"Admiral Bloch always kept the Marine commander on his screen," Desjani noted in a low voice. "The admiral liked to offer comments and suggestions, and of course wanted any questions answered right away."

"You're kidding."