Free The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught by Jack Campbell Page A

military, scarred and bled white repeatedly by the never-ending war, had let the custom lapse. “Did your chain of command order everyone to start using salutes?” he asked the major.
    “No, Admiral Geary,” the commando said, his shy smile at strange odds with the number of battle awards he wore on his left breast and the scars mottling one side of his face. “The fleet’s sailors came in doing it, and they said you thought it was a good idea, so everyone else is picking up on it. Our ancestors did it. We should. No one had to order anyone, sir. Although . . . well, it was a little hard to start copying Marines.”
    Geary grinned although feeling awkward again that a veteran of so much combat should be overwhelmed by him. “There are worse fates, Major . . . ?”
    “Sirandi, sir,” the major said, coming to attention for a moment.
    “Sirandi?” Where have I heard that name? On the old Kutar . “I served with a Lieutenant Sirandi on a destroyer. He was from . . . Drina.”
    The major’s eyes widened in astonishment. “My family has relatives on Drina.”
    “Perhaps he’s one of them.” Geary paused as time rushed over him again. He hadn’t looked up the fate of Lieutenant Sirandi, as he had avoided learning about the deaths of most of those he had once known, but the man had surely died long ago, either in battle or from old age. “Perhaps he was one of them, I mean.”
    Major Sirandi’s eyes were shining. “It is a great honor to know one of my ancestors served with you, Admiral Geary.”
    Trying to shake off the melancholy that still threatened to hit him when reminded in a personal way of the century lost to survival sleep, Geary shook his head. “The honor is mine, to have served with him, and now to be in the service while you are as well. Your ancestors, the ancestors of all of you,” he said to the other soldiers, “are surely proud of you for the way you honor them with your lives of duty and sacrifice.”
    The phrase sounded old-fashioned, and it was for these soldiers even if it had been in common use in Geary’s time; but for some reason that seemed to please the soldiers even more. Tradition meant a lot, especially when other certainties had been rocked on their foundations. As they walked onward, Geary took careful looks at the commandos, seeing that the major and most of the others had not just the combat awards but also the brooding eyes of veterans who had seen too many things and lost too many friends. They might be demobilized someday, sent off to rejoin the civilian world, but they would never truly be civilians again. “How are the ground forces doing?” Geary asked. “Is there much demobilization going on?”
    Major Sirandi hesitated, his lips pressing together tightly for a moment. “Do I have permission to speak freely, Admiral?”
    “Yes.”
    “It is very disorganized right now. Some units are told they will disband immediately, others told there will be no major downsizing. Then the next day everybody is told the opposite of what they were told before. Our own unit has been informed that we will remain active, but I don’t know.” The major paused again. “I have tried to imagine what I would do. I don’t know. All my life I’ve trained to fight, and I have fought. It’s what I know.”
    The other commandos nodded in agreement, even the younger ones. “My family served for three generations in the war,” one of them said. “I always knew I would serve when I grew up. Now, I don’t know what the future is.”
    “You’re not alone in that,” Geary said, surprised to hear these soldiers expressing the same sentiments he had spoken of to Tanya. “None of us know what the future holds.”
    The soldiers exchanged quick glances, none of them saying what they doubtless all believed, that Black Jack, rumored to have spent his century of survival sleep among the living stars, might indeed know more than other men and women.
    “You have your Marines in the fleet,