The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible (11 page)

“I don’t know how anyone could forget them. And the afterimages?” Geary asked.

“Yes. Centuries later, hallways and rooms still empty of life, filled only with the slowly crumbling remnants of those who had lived there.” Benan shook his head. “We were told that we were working to prevent that by having the capability to do it. Is it odd, Admiral, what humans can convince themselves makes sense?”

“You were part of this?” Geary wondered if the revulsion he felt could be heard in his voice.

Benan bared his teeth in a grimace. “For a while. But one of my ancestors was aboard one of the warships enforcing the quarantine of Europa. His ship intercepted and destroyed a merchant ship packed with refugees.”

“That’s a hard memory to carry,” Geary said.

“Harder than you think, Admiral. My ancestor knew that his sister’s family was aboard that ship. They might have already been dead from the plague, but he never knew. And I . . . now I was working on the same sort of hell project.” Benan slammed his fist down. “But I regained my sanity! I told them I would not work on it anymore. I told them it was criminal and insane, that it must be shut down.”

“Did they?”

“I don’t know. I was transferred out, given a fleet assignment.” Benan bared his teeth in a grimace. “Doubtless in the hope that I would die valiantly in action and take my secrets with me. We were sworn to secrecy, but when I was transferred I was also mentally programmed for it. Not just an order. A block. Did they have blocks in your time?”

“Blocks?” What did personal configuration of communications have to do with— “What kind of blocks do you mean?”

“Mental blocks. Inhibitions implanted in the mind.”

A memory finally flashed to the surface. “Mental blocks? But—Those are— They imposed a mental block on you?” Geary knew he sounded appalled again.

“Yes. I could
literally
say nothing about it. I knew what was working at me, eating at my head.
But I couldn’t say anything!
” He yelled the last, then subsided again.

Geary rubbed his mouth with one hand, trying to find words. “But the block allowed you to talk if ordered to.”

“Only if ordered by a fleet commander. Because regulations required that. And only if no one else was present. Small risk there. What were the odds that a fleet commander would talk to me personally, that the commander would order me to talk about something of which they had no knowledge, and no one else would be with us when that question was asked?” Benan stared at Geary. “Did you know?”

“No. I just had an instinct that I needed to talk to you alone. Something told me that was the right thing to do.”

Benan nodded, much of the tension draining out of him, replaced by the slump of mental and emotional exhaustion. “Of course. Black Jack, sent by the living stars. As much as I hate you for what you did, they do seem to talk to you.”

“I never claimed such a thing.” Geary thought about what Desjani had said, that Benan must have been tortured by the Syndics. “When you were a prisoner, did the Syndics find out anything about this?”

“No.” Benan laughed bitterly. “Blocked. I told you it was all blocked. I couldn’t say anything. Not a thing. No matter what. No matter . . . what . . . they did.” His voice fell to a whisper again. “I can’t remember what they did.”

Geary nodded to cover up his inability to find words again. “How can we help you now? What can we do?”

“I have no idea.” Benan shrugged. “My fate isn’t important. I had to stop caring about me. Victoria. She’s all I care about.” His gaze on Geary tightened with anger, and Benan looked away again. “Something is driving her. Something she does not want to control her. It’s not you. I suspected that. It’s not.”

“She recently finally told me that someone she wouldn’t or couldn’t name gave her some kind of orders before she joined us for this mission.”

“She’s told me less than that,” Benan grumbled, then laughed. “You’d think I wasn’t judged stable enough to be trusted. What could anyone use to force Victoria Rione to do their bidding? She does not bend easily. What could buy her obedience and silence?”

Geary felt a sudden ugly certainty fill him. “She has told me, and I believe it, that you and the Alliance are everything to her. I’ve been trying to understand what kind of lever someone could use against her. Maybe this is that lever. Maybe someone with knowledge of your involvement in Brass Prince has threatened to make it public unless she does what they say.”

“Yes! I am sure that has to be it! I would be demonized! They would blame me for Brass Prince, say that I had conceived it and pushed it along until they shut it down! She thought me dead, unable to defend myself!” Benan trembled again with barely suppressed rage, but Geary realized with surprise that this time the rage was directed at Benan himself. “Victoria compromised herself, was blackmailed to protect the memory of me, of who Commander Paol Benan once was. And look at me, Admiral! Look at what I have become! For this ruin of a man, the only woman who matters in all the universe has compromised herself!”

It all made sense, the pieces falling into place. He had no proof, only a growing certainty that this explained a number of previously inexplicable things. “You’re her Achilles’ heel, the one thing they could threaten to strike at that would force her do to what they wanted. But being who she is, she’s followed their orders in ways that probably haven’t furthered their aims. Do you think she knows who they are?”

Benan shook his head as he stared at the deck. “If she knew, I think she would have gone after them.” He paused. “Or perhaps not. I am gradually learning that my wife can play the long game very well.”

“When she first saw you, after we liberated you, I wondered if I had seen a flash of horror on her face,” Geary said. “Now I know why. With you alive, if this information was leaked, your reputation would not only be destroyed, but you’d also be brought up on war crimes charges.”

“Yes. Charges I couldn’t deny or refute because I couldn’t say one word about it.” Benan stood up, his body rigid at attention. “There is a way out. You can free my wife, Admiral, and free me. You already have adequate grounds for sentencing me to die by firing squad. Do so. Once I am dead, declared a traitor, there is nothing else they can hold over Victoria.”

Geary came to his feet as well, meeting Benan eye to eye. “I will not. You both deserve better.”

“Have you understood nothing?”

“I understand that handing them this victory would accomplish nothing. Dead, your memory could still be smeared, and you’d be unable to testify in your own defense if we can get that block lifted.”

“But—”

“Dammit, Commander! Think! You want me to execute you for treason? Or mutiny? A dead traitor? When your wife has already risked everything to protect your name and honor? That alone would destroy her. And if those charges are raised publicly, how many people would automatically believe a convicted traitor guilty as rumored? How many might accuse her of aiding and abetting in the crime?”

Benan sat down again like a balloon man who had been suddenly deflated. “There’s no way out.”

“There’s always a way out. We just have to find it.” He would do this. He owed it to this man.

Perhaps Benan understood, his eyes sharpening on Geary. “You think to balance the scales?”

“No. I can’t do that. But even if I had never met Victoria Rione, I would not allow this kind of thing to be done to a good officer. And if this Brass Prince project is still running, I need to do what I can to get it shut down. I need you for that.”

Benan shook his head. “You cannot depend upon me. I am not the man I was. I can see myself do things and not control them.”

“Perhaps there is something that can be done now that we know the problem,” Geary said. “I will pursue this. My orders to you, Commander, are to do everything in your power to remain stable. You can tell me what you need, and if that means telling me to lock you into solitary confinement in the brig, then tell me that.”

“Admiral, I can’t even talk about that aspect of it! I can’t suggest things if those things are related to the block! Believe me, I have tried.”

“
I
don’t have a block.” Geary stood up. “Since we are both convinced that your wife is aware of the blackmail charge that would be used against you, do you have any objection to my telling her the full truth?”

“She is not cleared for that information,” Benan objected.

“She’ll hear it from me.”

Benan stood up, bracing himself on the table’s surface with rigid arms. “I will always hate you, Admiral.”

“I understand that.”

“Why didn’t you take her? You could have had anyone.”

“She didn’t love me. She never did. There’s only one man Victoria Rione loves, one man she would sacrifice everything for, and that is you.”

Commander Benan didn’t answer, his head bowed, tears falling to splash onto the hard surface of the table.

Geary opened the hatch and stepped out, finding Rione and Desjani standing on opposite sides of the hatch. “I learned some answers.” He leaned very close to Rione, his lips next to her ear, his words barely audible. “Emissary Rione, your husband has a mental block implanted by security.” Her face went pale, then flushed with anger. “I think you know how that was justified, but if not, I will brief you privately.”

He stepped back and looked toward Desjani, seeing her glaring at the hatch. “Is he safe now?” she asked.

“No. But we may have found the key to helping him.”

Rione paused partway into the room, looking back at Geary. “Help may still be extraordinarily difficult. Thank you, Admiral.”

She closed the hatch, leaving Desjani and Geary alone.

“Did he—” Desjani began in formal tones.

“No. He did not.” Geary shook his head. “I need to talk with your ship’s medical personnel, but I have a nasty suspicion that they won’t know what to do. Once we get out of jump space, I can talk to the senior fleet doctor. If anyone should be aware of the proper treatment, or able to learn what that is, it should be that doctor. Meanwhile, keep watching him. By his own admission, Commander Benan is not mentally or emotionally reliable or stable.”

“Those damned Syndics,” Desjani muttered.

“The Syndics didn’t do it to him, Tanya. The Alliance did.”

She didn’t answer for a long moment. “Because it was necessary?” Desjani finally asked.

“Yeah. One more thing that was ‘necessary’ to win but somehow didn’t lead to victory.”

A
few days later, Geary sat once again in the fleet command seat on the bridge of
Dauntless
, waiting for the moment when the fleet would exit the jump point at the white dwarf star. If this was another bear-cow-occupied star, they would face a tough fight if more fortresses guarded the jump points. If it was an enigma-controlled star, they might face a fight with the enigma forces that had gathered to pursue the human fleet the length of enigma territory. And coming on behind them would very probably be that bear-cow armada they had outmaneuvered at Pandora. “Maybe there’s no one there,” he said out loud.

“That would be a nice option,” Desjani agreed.

At the back of the bridge, both Rione and Charban waited. Around the bridge, the different watch-standers stood ready. On Geary’s display, which in jump space could only show the status of
Dauntless
herself, the battle cruiser glowed in combat-ready status, shields at maximum and all weapons ready.

“Ten seconds to exit,” Lieutenant Castries announced. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

The universe lurched, and Geary felt the disorientation that accompanied leaving jump. He struggled to recover, focusing on the display, where the gray nothingness of jump space had been replaced by the star-filled darkness of normal space.

Alerts were sounding from the combat systems as the ships of the fleet went into the automatic evasion maneuver that Geary had ordered programmed in before the fleet jumped for here.
Dauntless
’s frame protested as the battle cruiser slewed down and to the starboard, evading any possible defenses at the jump point before the humans on the ships could clear their minds.

Desjani recovered before Geary, and he heard her words as his eyes finally focused on his display. “Ah, hell.”

Geary blinked at the display, his mind realizing two things at almost the same moment.

The enigmas weren’t waiting at the new star. Neither were the bear-cows.

Something else was.

“What are they?” Charban asked in a hushed voice.

“What they are,” Desjani replied, “is far enough away that we don’t have to worry about an immediate fight.” She paused as the fleet’s sensors provided more data from the analysis they had begun the moment the fleet entered this star system. “About one light-hour distant from us. They’re not enigmas?”

“No, Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed. “The combat systems are marking them as unknown. The characteristics don’t match the enigma ships we saw. Nor are they like any human ships or anything we saw in the Pandora Star System.”

“Another alien race,” Geary said, past surprise by now.

“
Another
one?” Desjani echoed, then turned an accusing look on Geary.