The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast Read Online Free PDF Page A

senior officer because, unfortunately, the technology available to us is not capable of reconstituting bodies and brains that have been blasted into their component atoms. You might be a little less thorough in your destruction of your opponents next time, Captain.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.” Desjani hefted her bag and held Geary’s out to him.
    He took the bag, then studied Lady Vitali. “How did you manage to get things done so quickly tonight despite the bureaucracy and red tape you spoke of earlier?”
    Lady Vitali’s broad smile was back. “You would be amazed what can be done with the right combination of ingenuity, threats, and promises, Admiral. Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised if half of what we’ve heard of you is true. If I discover anything about the source of this threat to you, I will send it on, though it may take a long while to reach you given the distance involved and lack of routine traffic between our home and yours.”
    “Understood. Thank you. We’re in your debt.”
    “Oh, nonsense. If you believe that you owe me anything, then if I ever reach your neighborhood, point me in the direction of the best beer.”
    As they reached a side door of the castle, moving in silence through narrow stone corridors with just a dim light held by Lady Vitali, Geary wondered how many times others had fled this castle in centuries past, their flight perhaps illuminated by torches rather than modern lights, horses rather than a shuttle their method of escape. For a moment he felt displaced in time, so that he would not have been surprised if there had indeed been saddled horses awaiting them beyond the walls of the castle.
    Once out near the landing area, one wall of the castle rising behind them and everything else shadowed by the night, the glamour of their late-night getaway faded abruptly, and worries set in once more. Could Lady Vitali really be trusted? Could this be a plot to get him and Tanya out in the open, where they would be better targets for assassins already awaiting them?
    On the heels of that thought, Geary saw a darker shape detach itself from the rest of the night sky and come in to land with a degree of quietness that spoke of military-grade stealth technology. “Will you be all right?” he asked as Lady Vitali urged them to the shuttle.
    “Oh, quite. Don’t worry about me. I have some other friends who will be on hand to greet our uninvited guests. But we wouldn’t want you to be caught in the cross fire! Off you go. Have a nice trip home.” Lady Vitali waved cheerfully as the closing boarding ramp cut off their view of her and of Old Earth.
    “Lady Vitali has some interesting friends,” Geary remarked to Tanya, as they strapped into their seats, the shuttle already accelerating upward.
    “And at least one of them is aboard
Dauntless
, it seems,” she replied, checking her comm unit. “That’s the only way she could have known the made-up name Anna Cresida. My ship is tracking us, by the way. Old Earth’s stealth tech is at least a couple of generations behind ours. The tracking confirms that we are on a vector to reach
Dauntless
.”
    “Good. We were warned that some of the various governments and authorities on Old Earth might try to involve us in their own affairs. Do you think this might be some ploy to make us suspicious of other governments in Sol Star System?”
    “No,” Tanya replied with a shake of her head. “If it were that, she wouldn’t have told us the money appeared to be coming from outside the star system. And, obviously, someone else from
Dauntless
thought she was trustworthy enough to share our code phrase. I think you and I narrowly avoided meeting our ancestors here in the wrong way.” She paused, then laughed. “I finally get it. What that one man said about us being their children. Everyone in the Alliance thinks of Old Earth, and Sol Star System, as someplace unimaginably special, a place of tranquillity and wisdom far surpassing our own.