Timbale offered a stream of remarks about the status of Ambaru and the forces at Varandal under his command, but nothing of great consequence. Geary tried to restrain his curiosity as he walked with Timbale into an area of Ambaru he thought he recognized.
They came to a stop before a high-security hatch that Geary knew he had seen before. Outside of it stood several special forces ground troops, none of them armored but all carrying weapons, and all alert in the manner of men and women trained to be aware of their surroundings and any potential threat.
“Who’s in there?” Geary asked.
“No one,” Timbale replied. “I thought you might want to go inside for a few minutes, though.” He leaned close and murmured more of an explanation. “There’s no one in there, but the person who isn’t in there has come here to speak to you.”
“I see,” Geary said. “I guess I’ll take a look around in there, then.” One of the special forces soldiers opened the hatch without looking inside, then saluted as Geary walked in.
There was one person sitting in the room that supposedly contained no one. Geary stood still as the hatch sealed behind him. “Senator Unruh. I’ve seen you before, but we haven’t formally met before this.”
Unruh smiled briefly. “We still haven’t met. I’m not here.” Her eyes challenged him to debate the point.
Instead, he nodded again. This sort of thing would have flummoxed him once, but after his experiences in the last year, he had learned to roll with whatever happened until he figured out why it was happening. “You’re not here. Why isn’t Senator Navarro or Senator Sakai not here?”
“Because they’re both seen as tied to you,” Unruh explained, leaning back in her seat. “Yes, even ‘Slick’ Sakai, who as a rule keeps his every thought and preference carefully concealed, has betrayed what can only be described as trust in Admiral Black Jack Geary. I, on the other hand, have only personally seen you once, during that interrogation of you by representatives of the grand council, and I have never exchanged messages with you. No one is watching me to see if I am sneaking away to talk to the great Black Jack instead of sneaking away to plot my political future with rich and influential donors whose identities are best kept hidden.”
“Why are you not here instead of plotting with those donors?” Geary asked.
“Because most of those donors don’t actually exist in my case, and because we, the Senate, have created a monster, and you are just about our only hope for dealing with it,” Unruh explained.
“The dark ships?”
“Yes. The dark ships, as you call them. The product of an entire covert structure that made that construction program possible and allowed it to be hidden. A covert structure that has proven unexpectedly hard to direct.” She grimaced. “It shouldn’t have been unexpected. Over the last several decades, the Alliance government built something that was designed to operate invisibly. It’s gotten so good at that we can no longer be certain what it is doing.”
“They’re not required to report to anyone?”
“Different theys are indeed required to report to different someones,” Unruh agreed. “But it has only recently occurred to a variety of senior officials that they have no way of knowing whether or not those organizations are indeed making the reports they are supposed to make. I know what I’ve been told about my own piece of that covert pie, but there is no means for me to learn whether I’ve been told all I should have been or what else is happening outside of my supposed oversight.”
“Can’t you demand answers?” Geary said. “Fire people who don’t provide the answers?”
Unruh leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and gazing at Geary. “I have more than sufficient grounds for assuming that some of those people already regard me as one of the enemies their organizations were designed to protect the Alliance against. If I go after them, I don’t know what might happen.”
“Then there has already been a coup against the government,” Geary said angrily. “Who is giving the orders at Unity?”
“The Senate will be, soon enough, as we should have been all along. Why do you think the government wanted not just most of your assault transports but also most of your Marines, Admiral? It wasn’t because we wanted to disarm you.” Unruh smiled, a baring of her incisors that held no humor at all. “On the contrary. It finally occurred to enough people in high places that the people they have been worried about, the front-line combatants who long ago decided the Alliance government was a big part of the problems they faced, are actually among the people we can completely trust. You have provided a powerful example of support for the government. We know that your Marines will follow orders from the government.”
“Lawful orders,” Geary said.
“Absolutely,” Unruh agreed. “To put it bluntly, we want those Marines to protect the government against some of the other forces we created in the name of protecting the Alliance. When we move against the people who misled us as to the programs we were approving, and who have acted with far too much autonomy under the veils of excessive secrecy, we want those Marines guarding us and our offices.”
“You’ve finally figured out that they aren’t the enemy?” Geary asked. “That I’m not the enemy?”
“We’ve spent a century at war, Admiral,” Unruh said. “A century of fear and death and attacks and reprisals and a foe who would do anything except stop fighting us. After a while, everyone and everything looks dangerous. I want your promise, your word of honor, that you will follow lawful orders and will not move against the government.”
Geary scowled at the senator. “Why do I need to do that? How many times have I said exactly that in public and to representatives of the government? How many times have I clearly demonstrated that I would follow orders and support the government?”
“You have done that,” Unruh conceded. “But I ask for the affirmation once again because there are still some who fear you. I apologize for the implied insult to your honor. I apologize to your ancestors, who are also insulted by the implication that you would act in a dishonorable manner. Will you give me that statement?”
“I’ll give it to you. Will they listen this time?”
“Let’s hope so.” Unruh rubbed her mouth, then focused back on him. “We need you to stop them. The Defender Fleet.”
“That’s the official name of the dark ships?” Geary asked.
“Yes. Can you do it? I’ve seen some reports from Bhavan.”
“My fleet very nearly got destroyed at Bhavan.” He saw the worry flare in Senator Unruh’s eyes. “The dark ships outnumber my own forces, they’re brand-new where my warships have seen a lot of damage which I have never had the money, time, or resources to get completely repaired, I have only received a few replacements for the losses the fleet has suffered, and the artificial intelligences running the dark ships are programmed specifically to counter me. Since Bhavan, I have been unable to come up with any battle scenario in which my fleet can triumph without being practically wiped out itself.”
“You must have a plan. You’re Black Jack.”
“I’ve never been the imaginary hero the government created to inspire its people,” Geary said. “I do have a plan, but it’s risky. We’re going to try to destroy the base of the dark ships, deny them the means to repair and resupply themselves, then try to fend off any more attacks until their fuel cells are exhausted. But for that to work, we have to figure out how to get to that base, then hit that base while the dark ships are elsewhere.”
“You know where the base is?” Unruh asked.
“We’re pretty certain,” Geary said. “I could use confirmation. I could also use a means to get there.”