Courageous

EIGHT

Five and a half days to Lakota. Another five and a half days of staring at the endless gray nothingness of jump space.

“Are you all right?” Rione asked him.

“Worried,” Geary replied, keeping his eyes on the display.

She sat down next to him, her own gaze going to the display. “So tell me, how was it in the lights of jump space?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m not entirely joking, you know.” Rione took a deep breath. “Do you remember anything?”

He glanced at her. “You mean from survival sleep?”

“Yes. A hundred years. There aren’t a lot of people who’ve been kept suspended that long and lived. Only one I know of, actually.”

“Lucky me.” Geary thought about the question. “I don’t honestly know. Sometimes I think I remember dreams, but those could be memories of dreams before the battle at Grendel. I jumped into the escape pod as my ship was about to blow up without time to have thought about the battle or what had happened, and when the doctors in this fleet woke me up, it was as if I’d only been asleep for a few moments. I didn’t believe them at first. Thought it was some Syndic trick. I couldn’t believe that everyone I’d ever known was dead, everything I’d known lost a hundred years in the past.”

“And then you found out you’d become Black Jack Geary, mythical hero of the Alliance,” Rione added softly.

“Yeah. The only thing that saved me was having to take command of this fleet. It forced me to pull out of my defensive shell.” He remembered the ice that had once filled him, the cold that had tried to wall out the world around him. “If not for that…” Geary shook his head.

“Lucky us, lucky you,” Rione noted.

“And are you lucky?” he asked.

“Me?” Rione sighed. “I wonder if my husband is one of those lights. I wonder what my ancestors think of me. I wonder what Lakota holds, and what will happen to the Alliance. Is that luck, to live in such times and face such issues?”

“Not good luck.”

“No. Definitely not.”

At least there was always paperwork to fill the time, to distract him from worries about whatever waited at Lakota, though so very little paperwork actually got printed on paper that he wondered where the name had come from. Geary frowned down at a message from Furious. Routine administrative personnel transfers between ships shouldn’t be sent to him even as an information copy. He’d be buried in paperwork if that started happening.

Then he read the name on the transfer and called Captain Desjani. “I’ve got a transfer order from Furious and—”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right down to discuss it, sir.”

Geary waited, wondering what was going on now, until Captain Desjani arrived. He waved her to a seat, where she sat at attention as usual. Since the rumors of something between them had started, Geary had stopped asking her to relax. He wondered if the transfer order was somehow related to those rumors. “This is an order to transfer Lieutenant Casell Riva from Furious to the Vambrace.”

Desjani’s expression didn’t change as she nodded. “A heavy cruiser may suit him better, but the needs of the fleet take priority in any event.”

“I see.” No, I don’t. “Were you aware of this?”

“Captain Cresida had informed me that she intended transferring Lieutenant Riva, sir.”

“And you’re fine with that?”

“Sir, I can’t concern myself with the fates of junior officers on other ships.”

Geary tried not to let his surprise show. “Normally that would be true. I shouldn’t be worried about it, either, except that the last I heard, you had hopes that you and Lieutenant Riva would be able to reestablish a personal relationship.” How long had it been since he’d talked to Desjani about that? He wasn’t sure. So much time devoted to his own relationship with Rione and all the emotional fallout from that, plus the rumors of involvement with Desjani. It had obviously been too long since he’d expressed any interest in how Desjani’s own life was going.

Desjani shrugged. “Co-President Rione and I do have some things in common, sir.”

That came as a surprise to Geary.

She must have read his expression, because Desjani spoke carefully. “Ghosts from our pasts, churning up old emotions and leaving personal wreckage in their wake.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you and Lieutenant Riva—”

Desjani shook her head. “Lieutenant Riva developed a strong interest in a fellow officer on Furious, and he chose to act on that interest.”

“But that’s—”

“Yes, sir. Captain Cresida had to come down hard on him for violating good order and discipline. Which is how I heard of it. Lieutenant Riva had not seen fit to inform me of his new interest.”

Lieutenant Casell Riva obviously wasn’t “Casell” to Desjani anymore, not that Geary could blame her. Hell. And I’m the one who suggested to Desjani that she send Riva to a ship like Furious. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged again as if unconcerned. “It’s his loss, sir.”

“Damn straight.”

“It’s odd, though,” Desjani continued, her eyes looking past Geary. “At times I felt it was as if Lieutenant Riva had been in survival sleep the entire time he was imprisoned. He had stayed the same, his career and his life on hold, locked in the places where they had been when he was captured, just as he was physically locked inside the Syndic labor camp. Everything about him except his age was the same as I remembered.” She paused, thinking. “Once he got over the shock of being rescued, of finding me alive, I think it began to bother him that I had changed. I wasn’t the lieutenant he’d last seen, the lieutenant he’d remembered during his captivity.”

“If he spent that much time thinking about you in camp, I’m surprised he didn’t stay faithful once he got out.”

Desjani grinned without humor. “I didn’t say he was faithful to my memory, sir. There were a lot of women in that camp. Lieutenant Riva availed himself of temporary relationships. He admitted that to me, and I didn’t blame him, though I should have wondered why all of the relationships were temporary.”

“Was he jealous, do you think?” Geary asked. “Of you being a captain, and having your own ship?”

“I began to sense that, too. It frustrated Lieutenant Riva to see so many officers younger than him who outranked him. I told him promotion would likely come rapidly, but he seemed to feel it should be now, that he should somehow fast-forward until he caught up with the world that had moved on without him.” Desjani’s mouth twisted. “The officer he took up with on Furious was an ensign not much more than half his age.”

“That’s usually not a smart way for a man to boost his ego,” Geary observed. “Well, I’m still sorry.”

Desjani really did smile slightly this time. “I think I deserve better than him, sir.”

“There’s no doubt of that at all. Thank you, Tanya. Sorry I bothered you with this.”

“I appreciate your concern, sir.” Desjani’s smile turned rueful. “I should know better than to expect room in my life for a relationship. I already have a full-time commitment with a lady named Dauntless who demands all of my attention.”

“I know that feeling,” Geary agreed. “Being a commanding officer doesn’t leave much room for a life. You’re a good captain, though.”

“Thank you, sir.” Desjani stood and turned to go, then faced him again. “Sir, may I ask a personal question?”

“You’ve earned the right to that,” Geary observed. “We’ve been talking about your personal life. What is it?”

“How are you and Co-President Rione?”

Geary wasn’t sure which expression was appropriate and thought he ended up sort of smiling and lightly frowning simultaneously. “We’re doing all right, I think.”

“I … was surprised, sir. I didn’t expect her to go back to you.”

He nodded this time. “Me, too.”

Desjani hesitated. “Do you care for her, sir?”

“I think so.” Geary laughed shortly. “Hell, I don’t know. I think so.”

“And does she care for you?”

“I’m not sure.” If there was anyone who Geary could be open with about that, it was surely Desjani. “I don’t know. She doesn’t give a lot of clues to what she’s feeling.”

“She did once, sir,” Desjani stated quietly. “I can’t tell you what Co-President Rione is feeling right now, but I don’t think discovering that her husband might be alive would have struck her so hard if she had felt nothing for you. That’s just my opinion, of course.”

It wasn’t something that Geary had considered before. “Thanks for mentioning that. I can’t always … well…”

“Can’t always know if she’s telling the truth?” Desjani asked with a slight smile.

Geary smiled back at her. “Yeah. Rione’s a politician, but then I knew that going in.”

“Some politicians are worse than others, which means some must be better than others. And bad as politicians may be, there are worse professions.”

“Are there? Well, sure, like lawyers.”

“Yes, sir,” Desjani agreed. “Or literary agents. I might have become one.”

“You’re kidding.” Geary stared at her, trying to imagine the captain of Dauntless sitting at a desk somewhere on a planet, reading and selling tales of adventure instead of living them.

“My uncle offered me a job with his agency before I joined the fleet,” Desjani explained. “But aside from everything else, taking that job would have meant I had to work with writers, and you know what they’re like.”

“I’ve heard stories.” Geary couldn’t suppress a grin. “Is that one you just told me true?”

Desjani smiled back. “Perhaps, sir.”

She left, but Geary sat watching the closed hatch for a while. It was nice to be able to relax a bit with Desjani. She shared experiences with him, some of those born of separate careers in the fleet, which, though one hundred years apart, still had the common elements every officer and sailor had dealt with from the beginnings of the human race. Others sprang from their time on this ship together, dealing with the strains of command, of fighting alongside each other. It was, Geary realized, easy to talk to Desjani.

I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been in command of Desjani and still been on this ship, if we hadn’t been constrained by duty and honor…Don’t even go there. Don’t even start to consider that. That’s not how it happened, and that’s not how it can ever happen.

He woke up knowing it was not long after midnight of the ship’s day. Ideally, the fleet would arrive at Lakota at some reasonable hour when everyone had the benefit of a good night’s sleep and a leisurely breakfast. Assuming anyone could get a good night’s sleep the night before arriving in an enemy system holding an unknown number of enemy warships, or stomach breakfast when their nerves were knotted over the thought of impending combat. Still, the opportunity to do those things would have been nice.

But even though humanity had figured out how to break some rules of the universe under certain circumstances, like using the jump drives to travel faster than light between stars, the ways to break rules had their own rules. Traveling in jump space between Ixion and Lakota took a certain amount of time, no more and no less. The Alliance fleet would emerge into normal space again at the jump exit in Lakota at about zero four hundred in the morning on the day/night schedules the ships maintained to keep human biorhythms happy.

Four hours was a long time to lie awake next to Victoria Rione, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. That alone was unusual enough that Geary didn’t want to disturb her. Whatever her thoughts and feelings actually were, at night they caused inner turmoil obvious to someone sharing his bed with her.

He got out of the bed carefully, dressed silently, then left, pausing in the entry to gaze back at Rione for a moment before starting to close the stateroom’s hatch, only to hear her call out, fully awake, “I’ll see you on the bridge.”

“Okay.” Damn. He couldn’t even tell when she was really asleep. Or know why she’d faked sleep until he was leaving, only to let him know at the last minute that he’d been fooled.

Captain Desjani was clearly awake, sitting in her command seat on the bridge and going over her ship’s preparations for battle. She flashed him a look filled with confidence. “You’re a little early, sir.”

“It’s kind of hard to sleep.” He spent a few moments going over the same fleet status readouts that he’d been studying for days, then stood up again. “I’m going to walk around the ship.”

As he had guessed, just about everyone else in the crew seemed to be awake already as well. Even those who had come off the watches that ended at midnight had stayed up to mingle restlessly with others in mess areas or at duty stations. Geary fixed a hopefully calm and confident look on his face and walked among them, exchanging greetings and making small talk about homes and how they’d surely beat the Syndics again in Lakota System. Whenever conversations veered to when the fleet would get home, Geary tried to be honest. He didn’t know when the fleet would once again reach Alliance space, but he was doing all he could to make it happen.

And they trusted him. They trusted him when he said that. They trusted him with their lives. In a very real way, they trusted him to save the Alliance, though saving the Alliance didn’t always mean the same thing, depending on who they were.

He paid a little more attention to how the crew members of Dauntless talked about home, about the Alliance, trying to see if they expressed the same frustrations with politicians, the same feelings that the blame for the state of the war rested there. Perhaps he was hypersensitive to the issue now, but Geary thought he heard more of that sort of thing than he’d ever realized was being said. Like Rione told me that time, it doesn’t matter what you say as much as what people think they hear. I haven’t been hearing this stuff.

No wonder they welcomed the “miraculous” return of Black Jack Geary so much. They weren’t looking for just a military leader but for someone to lead the Alliance itself. Ancestors, help me.

He returned to the bridge with about an hour to go, finding that Rione was now there in the observer’s seat, she and Desjani being outwardly polite when dealing with each other.

The only option left for killing time was calling up the local star systems display and trying to figure out where to go if the fleet couldn’t employ the Syndic hypernet gate at Lakota, which was the most likely outcome. As usual, the lack of current intelligence on surrounding star systems ranged from being annoying to infuriating. Branwyn seemed relatively safe as stars went, but had its small human presence and associated mining facilities been abandoned in the decades since the latest reports available to Geary, or were the Syndics still there to complicate any attempt to get more materials for the auxiliaries? Going to Branwyn would also continue toward Alliance space. Had its jump points already been mined? Were Syndic blocking forces already moving into position?

Of the other options, T’negu was actually reachable from Lakota just as it had been from Ixion. Would the jump exit from Lakota be mined or left unobstructed, since the Alliance fleet wasn’t supposed to enter T’negu from that direction? Seruta seemed average, bypassed by the hypernet system, with a single harsh but habitable world holding a population measured in tens of millions and a scattering of off-planet facilities. No special threat there, but going to Seruta angled away from Alliance space again. And of course Ixion, the place they’d left.

He didn’t like the options, but they were better than in any other place he could have taken the fleet.

“Five minutes to jump exit,” a watch-stander called, startling Geary out of his thoughts.

Captain Desjani tapped an intercom control. “All hands prepare for battle upon exit. Remember that the eyes of Captain Geary are upon us.”

He tried not to flinch, but something made Geary look back to see Rione’s reaction. She gazed back at him with an unreadable expression, but her eyes betrayed nervousness.

“One minute to jump exit.”

Geary tried to calm his breathing, focusing on the display where a portrayal of Lakota Star System now hung before him, showing what the old records knew of that star and the Syndic presence there. In moments that display would begin frantically updating as the fleet entered normal space again and the fleet’s sensors began spotting everything that wasn’t in those old records.

“Stand by. Exit.”

Grayness turned to blackness, then Geary felt himself being pushed to one side as Dauntless swung through the tight turn preprogrammed into the maneuvering systems. All around Dauntless, the rest of the ships of the main body swung together in the same turn. Up ahead, the vanguard was already well into the turn, and to either side the flanking formations were turning along with the main body. Moments later, the trailing formation flashed into existence, then began the same swing to port.

“Where are the mines?” Desjani demanded, then smiled grimly as warning markers sprang to life on the displays. Sure enough, a dense minefield floated along the straight path out of the jump point. The Alliance fleet had now turned so that the coin-shaped formations were moving in the directions of one of the thin sides, as if five coins were standing and sliding across a smooth surface edge first. Off to the starboard of the Alliance formations, the minefield drifted past impotently.

His gaze swinging away from the most immediate threat, Geary searched for enemy warships. None just outside the jump exit. None nearby. His eyes went farther and farther across the display, scarcely able to believe the lack of enemy warships, until they reached the hypernet gate.

The expected Syndic flotilla waited there, cruising slowly past the hypernet gate on what must be a fixed patrol path. “Syndic Flotilla Alpha consists of six battleships, four battle cruisers, nine heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, and twenty HuKs,” the combat systems watch reported at the same time as the displays portrayed the identical information.

“We’ve got them,” Desjani exulted. “We can take that force easily.” She turned a fierce grin on Geary, the smile of a fellow teammate when the other side has made a fatal error and victory seems assured.

Geary tried to relax himself, scanning the displays for any more Syndic warships in Lakota. But except for a couple of HuKs moving down near the inhabited world five light-hours from the Alliance fleet’s current position, everything seemed to be in the flotilla moving past the looming presence of the hypernet gate.

“That would be more than enough Syndic firepower to destroy that gate before we reach it,” Rione noted flatly.

“Yeah.” Geary nodded. But such a possible opportunity shouldn’t be thrown away. Couldn’t be thrown away. Desjani wouldn’t be the only officer in the fleet convinced that the Syndics were easy prey. “A straight charge at the gate would cause the Syndics to stay there and destroy it. We need to try to lure them out of position, then get to the gate before they can return.”

“If we destroy them—” Desjani began.

“I know. But our overriding priority is getting to that gate while it’s intact.”

Desjani nodded reluctantly.

“How will you lure them?” Rione asked.

“What would you suggest?” Geary replied.

Rione spent a moment thinking. “Offer them something? An irresistible target?”

“Yes,” Desjani agreed. “Make them think we’re not interested in the gate and present a target they’ll have to go after.”

Unfortunately, there was only one Alliance target that satisfied that need. “Formation Echo Five Five. The auxiliaries and the badly damaged warships.” Like sick animals at the rear of the herd. But he didn’t want to lose any of those ships. The auxiliaries remained crucial to the fleet’s continued survival, and the damaged warships with them were not only important for the combat capability they retained but for what their presence told the fleet: that Geary wouldn’t abandon ships or crews. Using them as bait didn’t exactly keep faith with that concept.

He took a long look at the entire situation again. Lakota Star System seemed wealthy after the sparsely populated stars the Alliance fleet had visited lately. The primary inhabited planet, nine light-hours distant on the other side of the star Lakota right now, showed every sign of being a growing and dynamic world. Substantial colonies existed on a couple of other planets, and facilities of various kinds dotted the system on stars, moons, and in fixed orbits. Between all of that a fair amount of civilian traffic moved, merchant ships plying within the system and heading outward from within it or inbound after arriving from other stars, and big ore carriers hauling resources from the mines on rich but uninhabitable outer worlds and asteroids. Fixed antiorbital defenses surrounded a few off-planet locations, but Geary paid them little attention. Those, and the military stations orbiting the inhabited world, were sitting ducks for long-range bombardment by his fleet.

If only they could linger here to haul some of the cargo from those ore carriers onto the Alliance auxiliaries.

The maneuvering systems had no trouble running the actions that Geary wanted. “Second and Seventh Destroyer Squadrons, you are to detach from the formation and intercept the Syndic ore carriers located near the gas giant one point two light-hours to starboard of the fleet. Take possession of the ore carriers and escort them to join the fleet so we can transfer their cargoes to our auxiliaries.”

He paused to decide if that was all he needed to order now, then decided to simplify his problems in this system. Geary told Dauntless’s combat systems what he wanted destroyed by highlighting targets and how to achieve it by choosing a weapon, and the combat systems presented a reply after thinking about it for a tiny fraction of a second. Geary studied the plan for a few moments himself, then forwarded it to Reprisal. “Eighth Battleship Squadron, conduct kinetic bombardment of Syndic military installations as laid out in attached plan of action.”

As Geary ran his next course calculations, the four battleships were already spitting out the solid chunks of metal that would gain energy all the way to hitting their targets. At the velocities the metal projectiles would be traveling when they struck their targets, not only the projectiles but also a fair amount of surrounding real estate would be vaporized. Ships could easily see kinetic projectiles coming and make the tiny alterations in course necessary to dodge something coming from millions of kilometers away, but installations on objects in fixed orbits were stuck on predictable paths, which had made them easy targets ever since mankind had weaponized space.

“All units,” Geary ordered, “turn starboard seven two degrees, down zero three degrees, at time one six.” The orders would cause every ship to pivot in place, the formations aligned the same way but now heading in a different direction so that the broad sides of the coins once again faced forward.

Desjani only took a moment to analyze the order. “You’re splitting the difference between the jump points for Branwyn and T’negu?”

“I want to keep the Syndics guessing on our objective,” Geary explained as he stood. “Ready for another fleet conference?”

“If you can face them, I can,” she replied.

Desjani followed Geary off the bridge, but as Geary passed Rione, she stood up and came right behind him, interposing herself between Geary and Desjani. “You’re going to be physically present at this conference?” Geary asked, surprised out of his concentration on his alternatives.

“Perhaps,” Rione answered with a frosty edge to her voice. “I’d like to know what you’re going to say beforehand, unless it’s a secret.”

“All right.”

Rione walked alongside him as they headed for the conference room, Desjani trailing and remaining silent.

“I’m going to tell them that I intend trying to lure the Syndics at the hypernet gate out of position. The track we’re on will keep them guessing as to our objective but lead them to believe we’re just transiting the system and intend leaving as soon as possible.”

“Isn’t that what you really intend doing?” Rione pressed.

“Well, yes, though if we get that Syndic flotilla far enough out of position, we can make a run for the hypernet gate. That’s going to remain an option.”

“Do you really think they’ll risk leaving the gate?” Rione wasn’t trying to hide her skepticism.

“They might. If they don’t, we go on to Branwyn.”

The conference room was already expanded by the virtual meeting software, most of the fleet’s captains already in attendance. A small heads-up warning floated before Geary as he took his place at the head of the table, reminding him that because the fleet remained dispersed, there’d be noticeable delays in response times from ships at a distance.

“Welcome to Lakota,” Geary stated, realizing that he’d need to come up with some other way to start these meetings. “It looks like we outguessed the Syndics again.”

“Why aren’t we headed for the hypernet gate?” Captain Casia demanded.

Feeling very tired of having Casia interrupt him, Geary just stood and looked at the man for a long time, until Casia began fidgeting. “I’d appreciate it in the future,” Geary stated in a voice as devoid of emotion as he could make it, “if you would wait until I have outlined our plans before commenting on them. Is that clear, Captain Casia?”

“I’m only—”

“Am I clear, Captain Casia? Did you understand what I said?” Oh, yeah. Black Jack could do this. It felt good on that level. He just had to make sure he didn’t push it past the point that John Geary would regard as appropriate.

“I understood you.” Geary’s face hardened, and Casia added a final word. “Sir.”

“Thank you.” Gazing down the table again, Geary tried to pick up where he’d left off. “There’s only a small Syndic flotilla in this system, but one easily big enough to destroy that hypernet gate if we try to charge it while they remain in position near the gate. As long as they’re there, we can’t hope to access the gate.”

He gestured to the display, where a representation of the Alliance formation glowed, a long line arcing through Lakota toward a point about midway between two jump points on the other side of the star. “If we can’t get those Syndics away from the gate, we’ll have to use jump points again. If it comes to that, we’ll head for Branwyn.” That brought smiles, since Branwyn led toward Alliance space. “But we might as well keep the Syndics a little uncertain until then about whether we might jump for T’negu instead.”

“They won’t leave that gate,” Captain Tulev noted. “The Syndics must have orders to ensure we don’t use it.”

“Probably,” Geary agreed. “But there’s a chance if they’re convinced we’re heading for a jump point, and they see an attractive enough opportunity, that they might risk coming after us.”

Far down the table, Captain Tyrosian flinched. The last time Geary had needed a lure, it was one of the auxiliaries. She’d be even less happy when she found out he intended using all four this time.

Geary altered the display floating above the table, zooming in on the depiction of the Alliance formation. “The Syndics can tell the ships in Echo Five Five consist mostly of our four auxiliaries and our most badly damaged ships. I’ve already positioned the formations so that Echo Five Five trails the fleet. As we head across the system, Echo Five Five will gradually lose ground on the rest of the fleet as if unable to keep up.”

“How much ground?” Captain Midea asked. Her attitude was a bit different, Geary realized. In the absence of an immediate threat, she’d been extremely aggravating. But with the Syndics around in force, Midea seemed more professional, more focused on dealing with the enemy than with messing with Geary.

“Echo Five Five will remain within supporting distance of the rest of the fleet,” Geary assured her.

“If so, the Syndics won’t take the bait,” Midea objected. “We need to be far enough away that the rest of the fleet seems too far off to render assistance.”

Duellos was giving Midea a measuring look, Casia was frowning at her, and Captain Cresida was nodding. “She’s right, sir.”

Geary shook his head. “I can’t risk—”

“Paladin can fight,” Midea insisted. “Put her back there with Orion and Majestic and Warrior. Add in the ships from the Seventh Battleship Division, and we’ll have seven battleships in that formation. That’s enough to deal with the warships in the Syndic flotilla.”

Commander Yin of Orion was staring at Midea with unsuccessfully concealed horror. Majestic’s commanding officer shook his head regretfully. “We’re not front-line capable. Neither is Warrior.”

“Warrior is prepared to engage in combat,” Commander Suram corrected quickly and firmly.

Geary gave Suram a measuring look, impressed by his attitude and letting Suram see it.

“Since when does the Alliance fleet need superior numbers to engage the enemy?” Midea demanded. “Warrior is ready to fight, so even if you leave out Majestic and Orion, that would still give us half the number of major combatants the Syndics muster. Alliance ships can easily defeat twice their number of Syndics.” She turned an accusing gaze on Geary. “Black Jack Geary defeated ten times his number.”

Had he really been outnumbered ten to one at Grendel? Funny how he couldn’t remember general things like that, just lots of details of the battle.

Geary suddenly realized that Captain Midea had the potential to be a thorn in the side of every fleet commander, not just him. When not facing an immediate threat from the enemy, she was difficult and challenging, and when facing the enemy she wanted to charge straight into battle. He couldn’t fault her courage, but being reckless in every environment wasn’t a good thing in an officer. He wondered how Numos had managed to keep her under control.

Was the chance of reaching that hypernet gate worth the chance of increasing the risk of losing one or more of his auxiliaries? After all, if the fleet could get home quickly through the gate, it wouldn’t need the resupply capability the auxiliaries offered.

Hell, if he believed sacrificing ships like that was a good idea, then why bother attaching the three good battleships of the Seventh Division to the formation? Why not just send the auxiliaries and his crippled warships off alone and let them get wiped out while Geary took the fleet home?

Geary shook his head. “I want to lure the Syndics out, but I cannot expose the auxiliaries or the damaged ships in Echo Five Five to destruction. We need to ensure they have adequate protection.”

“Alliance sailors are ready to die for their home worlds,” Captain Midea insisted, which earned her a number of looks suggesting that not all Alliance sailors were all that eager to die, even if they were ready to do so.

“My objective,” Geary stated, “is to make sure that any Syndics who are ready to die have that particular wish fulfilled.” That brought him some smiles and some relieved looks. He wondered what he was doing, how he was acting, that those relieved officers thought he would sacrifice ships that way. “I’ll run some simulations to check possible outcomes, but for now I don’t want Formation Echo Five Five to drop back more than three light-minutes behind the rest of the fleet. Is that understood?”

“May Paladin join that formation?” Captain Midea demanded. “Two of the ships from my division are already there.”

Geary switched his gaze to Captain Casia. “You’re the commander of the division containing Paladin. How do you feel about that?”

Casia bent a dark look toward Midea. “Certainly. Paladin can join with Orion and Majestic.”

“Captain Mosko?” Geary asked. “You’re in command of Echo Five Five. Do you need Paladin?”

Mosko shrugged. “Need it? No. But Indefatigable, Audacious, and Defiant are always ready to welcome a sister ship alongside us, under my command.” The last three words were emphasized slightly, resulting in Midea narrowing her eyes at Mosko. She didn’t object to them, though.

“What about Conqueror?” Captain Duellos asked innocently. “If she also joined Echo Five Five, then the entire Third Battleship Division would be together again, fighting as one.”

The look Casia gave Duellos would have killed if that were possible. “Conqueror should remain in a position to … to coordinate with the fleet commander.”

Geary eyed the man, trying to decide if putting so many of the bad eggs in the Third Battleship Division into one formation again was just asking for trouble, and if sending Casia there wouldn’t create more problems. But in a way Duellos was right. Sending Paladin to Echo Five Five and keeping Conqueror in Echo Five Four didn’t make sense.

No. If I send Casia back there, too, I’ll have to keep my eye on him constantly. I can’t afford that distraction.

Captain Mosko frowned slightly. “If Captain Casia were also in the formation, it might create some confusion about command arrangements in Five Five.”

Geary nodded judiciously, grateful for another reason to turn down Duellos’s mischievous suggestion. “That’s true. And we can’t let Echo Five Five get too strong, or the Syndics won’t be attracted to it. Paladin will ensure the formation is not too badly outmatched in terms of numbers. Are there any other questions?”

“What about the Syndics we left at Ixion?” said Commander Neeson of Implacable, not asking a leading question but a real one. “Four battleships and four battle cruisers. They haven’t shown up yet, but they will.”

“They’re waiting,” Captain Tulev announced. Everyone looked at him, clearly wondering at his reasons for the statement, so Tulev shrugged and continued his explanation, his face impassive. “Lakota wasn’t the most expected destination for us. Correct? So they think maybe we’re not going there for real but intend jumping there and jumping right back to Ixion to confuse the Syndics.”

Duellos nodded. “So they wait.”

“Yes,” Tulev emphasized. “Jump takes five and a half days here, five and a half days back. They wait, say, twelve days total. We don’t reappear at Ixion, they jump after us then.”

“We could be clear of Lakota by the time they jumped in here,” Captain Cresida objected.

“So? There’s a Syndic flotilla at the hypernet gate. There’s Syndic facilities and the inhabited world. If we just pass through and jump elsewhere, they know, but if we’re here to create long-term trouble, they catch us anyway.”

“They might also have been waiting for reinforcements they expect to meet them at Ixion,” Captain Badaya objected.

Tulev frowned, then nodded. “True. Either way, they come here eventually, but not right behind us.”

“That sounds like a good assessment,” Geary agreed. “We can’t forget about that force, but we don’t know when they’ll get here. We should be a long way from the jump exit from Ixion by the time they do, though. Anything else?”

Captain Tyrosian spoke with visible reluctance, as if not wanting to draw attention to herself and the state of the auxiliaries. “Raw materials stocks on the auxiliaries are getting low, but we have new fuel cells and munitions available for transfer to warships.”

“Can we risk transferring supplies while the Syndics are out there?” Tulev asked.

Geary tapped some controls and rechecked the status of his warships. Not great, but okay. “Go ahead and transfer their share of fuel cells and new munitions to the ships in Echo Five Five,” he told Tyrosian. “That activity will help provide a plausible cover for you falling behind the rest of the fleet and maybe make you look a little more vulnerable. Captain Tyrosian, there are two destroyer squadrons rounding up some Syndic ore carriers not far from the track we’re following. Hopefully we’ll be able to manage an intercept, and you can bring some material off those ships for the bunkers on the auxiliaries.”

He thought that would be all, but then Midea spoke again. “Captain Geary, if you wish to offer the Syndics an inviting target, then transfer to one of the ships in the trailing formation in such a way that the Syndics know you’ve done that. The chance to eliminate Black Jack Geary will be a very powerful temptation.”

There was plenty of truth to that. Especially since he was asking other sailors to risk their own lives as bait. But Dauntless has the hypernet key on board. A lot of people still don’t know that, but I do. I have to stay with Dauntless. Was he grateful that the hypernet key offered an out? It wasn’t that Dauntless was necessarily safer than a ship in the trailing formation, but the battle cruiser and her crew were familiar, the only truly familiar things Geary had in this universe a century removed from his own. It probably was a weakness, but he didn’t want to go through the emotional turmoil of trying to get accustomed to another set of surroundings, not with battle looming and so much else to deal with. Two big reasons for staying on Dauntless, neither of which he wanted to discuss here and now. “Thank you for the suggestion, Captain Midea, but I feel I can best continue to command the fleet from Dauntless within the main body of the formation.”

To Geary’s surprise, Midea briefly revealed a flash of success, as if Geary had done what she wanted. Her next words explained why. “Is the fleet best served by a commander who’s making decisions for the wrong reasons?”

Desjani was giving Midea a murderous look.

Geary shook his head. “Explain that statement, Captain Midea.”

She shrugged lightly in reply. “We’re aware that you have strong reasons for not wanting to leave Dauntless,” Captain Midea stated, giving the name of the ship an ironic twist as if actually referring to something else.

Now Desjani flushed with anger, and Geary understood what that something else was. Yet in order to counter Midea’s sly innuendo, Desjani or Geary would have to explicitly bring up the rumors of their being involved together.

Desjani’s tone was as hot as her face. “I will not—”

Victoria Rione’s voice, as cool as Desjani’s was warm, cut across the conference like a saber forged from ice. “Captain Midea, do you know something I do not? Or are you referring to me?”

Midea might resemble a Syndic CEO in the perfection of her uniform and her attitude, but Co-President Rione had about her all the cold authority and aloofness that Geary remembered from his first encounters with her. Intimidating was an inadequate word to describe Rione at times like this.

Captain Midea obviously felt the same way, clearly groping for some way to avoid openly stating what she had previously implied. Casia was giving Midea the look of a superior whose subordinate had just royally screwed up. To Geary’s annoyance, his closest allies among the officers, such as, Duellos, Tulev, and Cresida, were silently watching Midea’s discomfort with ill-concealed satisfaction and not changing the topic, even though pursuing it would just generate more discontent.

Fortunately, Captain Badaya stepped in, speaking as if imparting a lesson that his students should already know. “Every officer in the fleet is surely aware that Captain Geary has developed a good working relationship with the commanding officer of his flagship. That’s an important and beneficial command arrangement. It’s easy to understand why Captain Geary wouldn’t want to disrupt that situation and attempt to forge a similar working relationship with a new flagship commander when the fleet is in an enemy star system and facing combat.”

Badaya’s statement had the virtue of being absolutely true and not open to dispute. It also offered Midea an out, which she jumped on. “Of course that’s so. I was expressing my concern that the fleet commander might benefit from shaking up the current command arrangement, but as you say, this is not the optimum time to do so.”

The entire room seemed to relax, but then Geary spotted Rione turning an icy gaze back on Midea. He managed to catch Rione’s eye and silently convey a wish for letting the matter drop. Rione gave him a stare that briefly made Geary feel cold as well, then subsided.

“That’s all,” Geary added quickly. “We’re just under seven days from the jump point for Branwyn if the Syndics don’t take the bait we’re going to dangle. We’ll have to see what happens and be ready to react. Thank you.”

Within moments almost every virtual presence vanished, though Badaya lingered just long enough to give Geary what might have been a subtle wink. Hoping that Desjani hadn’t seen that, he turned to her as Badaya left. “I’m sorry, Captain Desjani.”

“It’s not your fault, sir,” she replied firmly. “By your leave, I need to return to the bridge.” Desjani hastened out, her back stiff as she marched past Rione.

That left only Rione and the virtual presence of Captain Duellos with Geary. Duellos inclined his head respectfully toward Rione, then faced Geary. “Sorry. My fun made things a little more difficult for you.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Just remember that if I die and you inherit command of this fleet, my spirit is going to be watching you and laughing as you try to deal with these people.”

Duellos smiled slightly. “I’ll remember that. Knowing your spirit is watching would be a comfort, even if it was mainly for your spirit’s amusement.” His smile faded into a look of concern. “Does everything feel too calm to you?”

“Now that you mention it, yes,” Geary agreed. “I’m wondering if it’s just because we expected a lot of trouble here, and it didn’t materialize.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Duellos cautioned. “I have a premonition that our troubles in this star system won’t remain confined to fleet conferences.”

“We should be able to deal with anything that shows up now,” Geary observed. “But I’m a bit worried, too. Speaking of troubles, though, do you have any ideas short of relieving her of command for shutting up Captain Midea?”

“I was already trying to figure that out,” Duellos admitted. “Midea was Numos’s executive officer before being promoted to captain and given command of Paladin. As we discussed back in Ixion, he knew how to keep her quiet. We could ask Numos.”

“No thanks. I don’t think I’d trust anything he told me. Hell, he could be getting messages to her.”

“That’s possible.” Duellos paused to think. “Numos could actually be prodding Midea into acting like this. Hopefully he’s not goading her into anything more than rash words.”

“Yeah. That’s definitely something to worry about, though I don’t know what I can do about it.” Geary gave Duellos an aggravated look. “Speaking of goading other officers, at the next conference please restrain yourself from taunting our opponents, okay?”

Duellos grinned, saluted, and vanished.

Rione was still seated, and now she turned an apparently unruffled expression on Geary. “You should let me deal with people like that Midea woman. I’m not a fleet officer and I can’t debate movements of ships in these meetings, but she’s playing politics, and I can run rings around her in that area.”

He thought about that, then nodded. “Okay.”

“And you should be more worried about placing that woman’s ship any farther away from your control,” Rione added. “As Captain Duellos said, she’s either getting out of the habit of deferring to Numos or she’s being provoked into foolish actions. She’s been more aggressive and argumentative in each successive conference since Numos was arrested.”

“You think that she’ll act the same way in her ship?”

“I’m certain of it. You shouldn’t have let her go to the other formation. She’ll do something contrary to orders. I’m sure of it. And when she does, she may haul some other ships along with her.”

That took Rione’s assessment out of the realm of troublesome and into the area of major concern. “Damn. You may be right. I wish—” He managed to choke off the next words.

But Rione knew what they would have been. “You wish I’d expressed that during the conference? The same conference where you made a clear sign to me to sit down and shut up?”

“I didn’t tell you to sit down and shut up!”

“You made it plain I should stop speaking,” Rione stated in a voice lacking warmth. “I don’t blame you. It would have put you between a black hole and a supernova.”

“Why?” Geary asked, thinking that Rione probably qualified as the supernova.

“Because if I’d spoken up against Midea’s ship going to the other formation, any agreement by you would have looked like confirmation that I, the unspeakable politician, exercise too much influence over you.” Rione made an angry gesture. “But if I don’t speak up, as I didn’t, you don’t get a perspective you might find worthwhile. You can’t act on opinions I don’t give you.”

Geary sat down, thinking. “That’s what my opponents in this fleet want, isn’t it? To drive wedges between me and the people whose support and advice I need. You’re a prime example. The prime example.” Rione sketched a mock bow from her seat. “And those rumors are getting in the way of Desjani and me working together. How do I deal with this?”

“With Captain Desjani or with me?” Rione asked in a voice gone cold again.

“Both of you! She’s my flagship captain, and you’re my adviser and my … uh…”

“Lover. That’s the polite term. If you call me your mistress, I promise you’ll be sorry.”

“Warning noted. So what do you suggest?”

“Make sure your behavior around Captain Desjani is so impeccable that it cannot be used to feed rumors any reasonable person would accept. I assume there’s at least a few reasonable officers among your commanding officers? For me, continue to display your independence of me in public. I assure you that I was far from the only one to notice your command that I silence myself.”

“I didn’t—”

“And I’m sure most people who noticed will see it as I described it.” Rione twisted one corner of her mouth up. “Evidence that you’re dominating me will help calm the worries of those who think I’m controlling you.”

“Dominating you?” Geary couldn’t help laughing. “That’s one concept that honestly never occurred to me.”

Rione raised one eyebrow.

“You’re not the dominatable type,” Geary added.

“At least you’ve learned that much,” she noted dryly.

“I’ve had a few lessons.” Geary stood again. “I think I’ll go to the bridge and go through some of the fleet status information again and maybe run some simulations.”

“Why the bridge? You can do all of those things in your stateroom.”

“That’s true.” He frowned slightly at her, wondering why she’d made a point of that. “Are you headed that way?”

Rione shrugged. “Eventually. I’ve a few things to deal with first.”

“If Captain Midea is found dead with a knife in her, I’ll probably have to have the knife checked for your fingerprints and DNA,” Geary remarked, trying to defuse a renewed sense of tension he couldn’t understand.

She smiled in reply, her tone half-mocking, half-serious. “There wouldn’t be any fingerprints or DNA on the knife, John Geary. Not if I did it.”