Gabe stood at attention in the conference room, accompanied by an honor guard of Wayfarer soldiers. He had protested the need for the dress uniform, but Susan had insisted. Apparently, the ceremony needed all the formal trappings that such an event would always demand—or so she had claimed.
He was striving to establish a patient attitude. Unlike Delacourt, he found he had a lot of difficulty maintaining it.
It had taken several hours for the surrender to formally take place. There had been too much to do at first, too many people still in danger or dying, to discuss terms and conditions. Gabe and the rest of the remaining rigs had shepherded the Directorate units into line, keeping any from making a break for it. Not that the beaten ships had needed much urging; most had been so heavily damaged that the biggest concern was managing to maneuver at all. Rescue operations had begun immediately, with the former mercenary rig pilots racing to find disabled rigs or shattered escorts and drag them back to the vessels that remained intact. More than one CTR, WGC, and AWOR had found themselves towed to safety aboard the Penance, while Nakani and her pilots had turned and headed out again.
The Junkyard and the Scrap had taken a different role, sidling up beside ships where the fire damage had been too great or the sheer devastation of the attacks too much for the Directorate ship to bear. Crews were offloaded and the wounded were being given medical care in the depths of Bennett Securities’ former warships. Repair crews were moved aboard the ships that still had the barest chance to be saved, and Wayfarers, ex-mercenaries, and Directorate crews alike all labored amidst the failing vessels to bring an end to the carnage.
Gabe knew the Directorate vessels had not been the only ones to suffer damage. Nearly every Wayfarer ship needed to make some sort of repair, but to their gratitude, with Susan’s skill, combined with the advantage of the OMNI and the surprise help of the strangers, they’d survived almost intact. The Concord had even emerged completely whole, without a single hit from the entire engagement, while the worst damage had been suffered by the Restoration, thanks to an errant hit that had set several compartments ablaze. Those fires had long since been extinguished, and the whole of the fleet’s efforts were focused on the Directorate task force.
Unfortunately, those efforts had not been nearly enough. The Sihang had joined the Oheawai in death long before the battle concluded; the Pavlov had endured only a short time longer before her crew had scuttled her as well. Of the eight Phalanx-class cruisers and six Trojan-class cruisers which had accompanied the Imperious into battle, only the ships Leonteus, Odysseus, Antiphus, and Ajax had survived more or less intact. Engineers had reported that three more vessels—the Phorcys, the Achilles, and the Diomedes—might be salvageable, but they held out little hope. The rest of the fleet had been destroyed or succumbed to battle damage, and had been abandoned by their crews when it became clear that the ships were hopeless. Their escorts, once numbering over twenty, were now only eight strong.
Then there was the Imperious. Gabe shook his head, his memories of the one close look he’d gotten of the vessel rising in his mind. The carrier had clearly been ruined, but it had taken hours more work for the crew aboard her to be convinced. The crew had evacuated grudgingly, and only the fact that they were the last remaining men and women to be taken off of their vessel had prevented them from continuing the fight. At the last, her captain and bridge crew had finally been brought off the ship by force, and the hulk had been towed into position beside the last bones of the task force, leading them in death as it had in life.
Now the captain of the Imperious, the last man to leave that vessel, had finally come aboard the Concord to sign the terms of his surrender, and Gabe had been forced to be present.
He was not the only one. His father was here as well, and the Keeper had requested permission to attend. Both men stood and watched, solemn as the grave, while Susan sat across the conference-room table and signed the document ending the fight. Gabe didn’t know when the process of surrender had become so formalized, but he was glad that only Susan and the opposing commander had to deal with the paperwork of it. Simply standing and watching it happen was bad enough without having to participate.
The Imperious’ captain looked pained as he received the document, and Gabe remembered the report that he had been injured in the attack. Yet the hesitation was not only due to physical pain as the man took up a pen to sign his surrender, and when he was done he looked up to where Susan sat. “Congratulations again, Admiral Delacourt. On your victory.”
Susan met his gaze with a level look of her own. “My condolences for your losses, Captain Wong.”
Wong nodded. “If you will excuse me, Admiral. I have people who need my attention. May I withdraw?” Susan nodded, and the captain rose from the table. Another flicker of pain went through him, and Gabe thought that the soldiers who stepped up on either side of him were there almost as much to support him as they were to guard him. Then the Directorate officer left the room, along with the others of the task force’s commanding officers who had survived.
Gabe let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and nearly jumped out of his skin as someone laid a hand on his arm. He turned to find Derek grinning at him, and he glanced back at Susan to make sure she didn’t need his attention. She was occupied; already the representatives of the various parts of the fleet were pushing their way forward to shake her hand. Her expression did not give any hint that she felt congratulations were in order, but for the next few minutes at least, Susan could fend for herself.
He looked back at Derek and scowled. “What is it? We’re kind of busy here.”
Derek didn’t seem put off by the comment. In fact, his grin only grew wider. “Sorry to bother you, but there’s something that couldn’t wait.” He motioned for Gabe to follow him and led him quickly to an isolated corner of the conference room, where they wouldn’t be overheard or disturbed. Gabe was just working up the courage to ask his friend what sort of mischief he’d performed this time when Derek slapped him on the shoulder. “Well, congratulations, Gabriel. IntCent is finally taking you seriously about the aliens.”
Gabe blinked. A thread of sardonic humor wove its way into his tone. “Oh really. Well, I guess when the entire fleet sees something, even IntCent can admit it exists.”
His friend chuckled. “That’s right. They’ve already started working on a dossier for those rigs of theirs, and they’re pulling every ounce of sensor data everyone has to put together a simulation of how the things work. They’re still running into snags that are giving their predictive models fits, though, so they’ll probably be calling on your expertise to work out the kinks.”
“I’ll see if I have the time to help, then.” Gabe’s half-triumphant grin faded. “Wait a minute. Why are they trying to establish a training scenario about these things? It’s not like we’ve had trouble with them so far.”
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Derek’s face grew grim. “That’s just it. We haven’t had trouble so far. Given what they did to the Imperious, IntCent isn’t about to let themselves get caught flat-footed. They want to be ready in case whoever that is turns aggressive toward us as well.”
Gabe considered that possibility for a moment with a distinct feeling of unease. He’d always known that the strangers could turn into a threat, but the fact that they had saved them during the battle had earned them a measure of goodwill, hadn’t it? He shook his head. “I guess there’s no harm in being prepared.” Then he looked back at Derek. “So was there anything else?”
The other rig pilot shrugged. “Not yet. No sightings, no further cascade activity, and no known threats left now that the Directorate is standing down.” Derek glanced toward the conference-room table. “I can barely believe it. They actually surrendered.”
“It’s not like they had much choice, Derek.” Gabe remembered the reluctance and pain on Captain Wong’s face. “We had them between a rock and a hard place.”
“True.” Derek took in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Well, hopefully they don’t cause us any more problems. People are already muttering about it. They want to know how many people who’ve tried to kill us we’re going to end up bringing along on this trip. A lot of them are saying that we already have too many.”
Gabe shot him a sharp look. “What did they expect us to do with them? Just slaughter them all? They surrendered.”
Derek looked back evenly. “Look, I’m not agreeing, I’m just repeating what I’ve heard. A lot of people lost family to those attacks, and now we have to deal with both them and the mercenaries? It’s a lot to ask.”
“The Lord always asks a lot, but He always makes it worth it in the end.” Gabriel turned his attention back to where Delacourt was shaking hands with the Keeper. She caught his eyes from across the room and nodded, the shadow of a smile twisting her lips. “Above everything, they should know that by now.”
Susan Delacourt stared out across the vacancy of space and pondered over her great “victory”.
Over ten thousand Directorate men and women had died or gone missing during the battle. They ranged from rig pilots who’d been killed in the dogfighting, crewmen whose compartments had breached or burned, support personnel and soldiers who perished trying to effect emergency repairs, and even commanding officers who had either died during strikes on their command decks or refused to leave dying vessels. The casualties would have been much higher without the rescue efforts of the Wayfarers afterward, but that did not keep the burden of their deaths from haunting her.
They would have been her comrades, had Nevlin not interfered. She might have even been among them, if circumstance and fortune not placed her in command of the fleet which had faced them. Yet now they were dead, and their blood was on her hands. Gabriel might have told her differently, but Susan knew better. She’d seen the cold accusation in the eyes of Captain Wong and his officers, and known that she had killed people whose only crime was to have been manipulated and betrayed by the same man who’d turned on her.
The hollowness of that fact rang through any feeling of triumph she might have enjoyed. Yes, they had won, and yes, the Directorate’s attack had been stopped. The dead among the Wayfarers, the men and women who had perished defending their families and freedom, had been avenged, but she could not shake the sense of wrongness that went alongside it all. What good was a celebration when it took the deaths of decent, honorable men and women to pay for it?
She stood alone, her arms wrapped around herself, and stared out over the vacuum. The stars in the blackness sparkled and shone, and she tried to focus on other matters. Gabriel’s reports about alien craft were true, and now she would have to plan out how to counter such terrifying strikes if it came to it. Even if the aliens were friendly, their presence changed everything about the journey they had begun. What if their intended colony site was already inhabited? Would they stage an invasion, or would they continue on in hopes of finding some empty spot?
Worse, how would they continue forward with the burden of extra prisoners and battle damage to consider? Much of their water supply and food storage was now contaminated, destroyed, or otherwise lost, and now they were responsible for providing provisions to the very people who had robbed them of those stores. She’d already heard mutterings about leaving the Directorate craft here to wait for whatever rescue the Known Worlds sent for them, but Susan knew that Nevlin would only report the whole task force lost. He would not want to give any hint that he had abandoned his post, and any survivors would reveal how incompetent and spineless he was. No rescue would ever come, and anyone abandoned here, whether Wayfarer, mercenary, or Directorate, would eventually die of starvation or thirst. Susan was not about to leave anyone to that fate, but something told her such a stance would not find much support amidst the Wayfarers now.
Yet all those concerns were still overshadowed by the costs she had paid simply to reach this point. So many dead, and for what?
The door opened behind her, and she heard Gabriel step through the opening. Susan recognized the tread of his boots as he approached, but he said nothing. For a long moment, they simply stood and watched the darkness together. Finally, Gabriel spoke.
“Susan.”
She looked at him, trying to conceal her emotions. “Hello, Gabriel.” Her mouth worked for a moment. “It’s over. The Directorate officers have surrendered. We won.”
Her voice carried no tone of victory, and she saw his mouth grow firm. “Yeah, I guess we did.” He paused. “Will you be all right?”
Susan blinked. The question had thrown her off balance; she had expected anger, perhaps, over her lack of triumph, or maybe even confusion. Compassion or sympathy had not been in her range of expectations. “I will be fine.” She paused and turned back to the view. “In time.”
Again they fell silent until Gabriel stepped closer and laid a hand on her arm. “You did your best. You had a responsibility to my people—to our people—and you did your duty, just as they did theirs. Any one of them would understand, given the time.”
She pulled away slightly. Though the words had eased the ache, some part of her fought them. It was as if the pain was a part of her final duty to the Directorate, and she refused to let it go. “They can’t understand anything, Gabriel. They’re dead.”
Gabe shook his head violently. “Not all of them, Susan, and that is because of you. You convinced them to surrender. You gave them a chance to leave, and you warned them that we would fight. Their blood is on Nevlin’s hands, you know that … and the Lord knows it too.” He peered at her through the dark. “Just as importantly, we know it. You won’t do anyone any good taking the blame on yourself, and your people still need you.”
Susan stared at one particular star, fixing her gaze on the spot as she thought over the words. Her people … she thought of Chief Kowalski, Keeper Schreiber, and even of Gabriel. Which would she rather have dead and missing out among the stars? Where was her home—in the ranks of the Directorate, or here, with these wanderers, far from the civilization she knew?
Then she turned to look at Gabriel again, and the pain in her soul eased. For some reason, that was answer enough. She forced a crooked, broken smile. “So the Lord knows, Gabriel?” He nodded, in all seriousness, and she nudged him. “Now if only He would tell me directly, instead of sending you Millers to torment me.”
He gave her an exaggerated grin, one that warmed her heart further. “Hey, I was right about my aliens, wasn’t I? Maybe you shouldn’t take the rest of what I say for granted, either.”
Susan raised an eyebrow. “I’ll consider it.” Her expression grew more serious. “They’re still out there—and now we know exactly how dangerous they are.”
Gabe nodded. “They are dangerous, Susan. But so are we.” He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, leaning forward to look into her eyes. “Susan, we’ll make it. The Lord will take care of us.”
Susan sighed and rested against him, setting her head against his shoulder. “If you say so.” Then she jabbed at his ribs with an elbow. “I’ll stick around, though. Just in case.”
He put an arm around her and pulled her closer. “Glad to hear it.”
They fell silent and watched the stars as the fleet of refugees gathered around the Concord. Uncertainty lingered out in the darkness and their journey was far from over, but for now, they were at peace.