Dauntless

SEVEN

About nine hours later, Geary made sure he was on Dauntless’s bridge to watch the Syndic merchant ships “come home.”

“They blew a couple of them to star dust using some really big missiles,” Desjani advised. “Too bad you missed it, but the recording of the events are in the tactical library if you want to catch a late showing.”

“What kind of missile would do that kind of damage?” Geary wondered.

“My weapons techs say they must’ve been planetary bombardment weapons. No chance of hitting a warship, but the merchants were coming in on fixed courses and couldn’t evade. Half the things still missed their targets, though.”

Planetary bombardment weapons? Why would the Syndics have needed those in a backwater system like Corvus? They must’ve been based on one or both of those orbiting facilities since there’s no big warships in the system, so the things were positioned here on purpose. Geary rubbed his chin as he pretended to study the positions of the fleet but actually tried to think through the puzzle. The only thing the Syndics could’ve done with those weapons is employ them against one of the planets in this system. But why would … oh. Wake up, Geary. You know how the Syndic authorities maintain control. By any means necessary. I guess holding planetary bombardment munitions in orbit was just one more way of making sure the local population didn’t get any ideas about not following orders.

I never liked the Syndic leadership. I’m starting to really dislike them. He stared at the image of the inhabited world. It wasn’t a perfect place for humans. Not enough water, for one thing. Atmosphere’s a little weak. But it’s a good enough planet to sustain a decent population. I’m glad I didn’t retaliate against those people. They’ve had enough to worry about from the threat posed by their own leaders. “Any developments on the escape pods we launched from the merchant ships?”

“They’re coming in behind the merchants now.” Desjani looked as she’d tasted something foul. “The Syndic orbital defenses have taken out a few.”

“Damn.”

“It’s a safe bet that they assumed we’d lied about not turning them into weapons somehow, and they’d rather kill some of their own than risk us tricking them. You know what they’re like.”

“Yes, I do.” Geary shook his head. “But I had to try.”

Desjani shrugged. “For what it’s worth, the fact that the Syndic defenses have been forced to concentrate on the merchant ships means that it’s reasonable to expect that maybe half the escape pods will reach the surface intact.”

“Thanks. Once they get down, the Syndic population of that planet is going to find out we told the truth.”

“I suppose that might make them feel bad about killing the Syndics in the other pods,” Desjani stated doubtfully.

“I suppose it will.” Geary hunched forward to study the images projected in front of his seat. “Not long until impact.”

“No.” Now Desjani sounded gleeful. “Orbital installations are always sitting ducks.”

Despite his unhappiness at hearing the fate of some of the Syndic “merchant crews,” Geary almost smiled himself at the truth in her statement. The military kept proving that objects in fixed orbits were not just sitting ducks but dead ducks when faced with mobile opponents, and the civil leaderships kept building orbital fortresses anyway. “They make the populations of the planets they’re orbiting feel more secure. At least, that’s what they told us the last time I was in Alliance space. I don’t know if the rationale has changed since then.”

“It hasn’t. They still haven’t learned. Maybe we should send them video of this,” Desjani suggested with another grin.

Geary focused back on the visual display, where a highly magnified view of the area near the inhabited world was pocked with tags indicating the identities of various objects. Despite the best efforts of the Syndic defenders, several merchant ships were still rushing toward collisions with each of the military orbital installations. He’d worried a bit about hitting the planet by mistake, but the merchants had come up from the plane of the system to reach the Alliance fleet and had been sent back down. From that angle, the merchant ships were actually splitting to hit targets on either side of the planet. None were coming in at a high angle relative to the planet, so any that wandered into atmosphere ought to bounce off.

He glanced at the time and the distance, reminding himself that he was watching events that had played out about an hour and a half ago. The images seemed so immediate it was hard to recall that light from the events had been on its way out here for that long.

“Ten minutes to sighting of first impact,” the weapons watch called out.

Small flashes of light were blinking into and out of existence near the bright dots that were all Geary could see of the merchant ships. He picked one orbital installation to focus on and increased the magnification of his view until the merchant nearest its target was visible as a ship rather than a point of light. A moment later, the ship started getting bigger, causing Geary to check his controls to make sure he wasn’t still zooming in.

But he wasn’t. “Lead merchant aiming for Syndic Orbital Installation Alpha has been destroyed,” the weapons watch announced. The ship was getting bigger because its hull had been broken, and everything that had once made up the ship and its cargo was now spilling out into space, momentum still carrying the wreckage toward the target even though the engines had been silenced.

Something like hell-lances was being fired from the Syndic base, flaying the wreckage but unable to divert enough of it, and while the Syndic fire concentrated on the wreck of the lead merchant, the next in line, its engines still pushing it ever faster, came even with the debris of the first. Geary felt his jaws tighten as the Syndic close-in defenses shifted their fire to the still-intact merchant, though to what purpose he couldn’t imagine. The installation was obviously doomed. He hoped the defenses were on automatic and no personnel had been left to die in a futile attempt to save the orbital facility.

Minutes later, the second merchant slammed into one side of the Syndic installation, shattering a large section into fragments of junk. The remains of the ship itself, also reduced to junk by the collision, bounced off and kept going.

On its heels, the huge cloud of wreckage from the former lead merchant started impacting. Geary stared, fascinated despite himself, as the Syndic orbital base staggered under repeated impacts, its whole structure warping and breaking as hundreds of tons of matériel rammed into it at very high speed. It looked oddly as if the Syndic base was dissolving under the impacts as the wave of debris tore it apart. The view shifted as the optics on the Dauntless followed the installation’s movement. Under the force of the blows from the wreckage, the remains of the Syndic base were being shoved out of orbit, reeling farther and farther away from the planet it had both protected and menaced for who knew how long. The image became blurry as debris spread out from the impacts, hindering the Alliance fleet’s view of the devastation.

Geary decreased the magnification so he could see a larger area, watching as the remaining merchant ships shot past where their target had been. As expected, the angle between the ships’ courses and the planet meant none of the merchants plowed into the planet itself. One of the merchants hit the upper atmosphere of the planet at a high angle and glanced off, the friction and impact breaking its hull and spilling its cargo as the wreckage flew off into space. Three others drilled into the upper regions of the atmosphere at high speed, boring incandescent holes through the planet’s sky as the ships’ hulls vaporized into plasma, the slagged remnants of what had been a ship and cargo finally exiting back into space, still glowing brightly from radiated heat.

“That must’ve been quite a show from the planet’s surface,” Geary noted.

“Better show on the other side, Captain Geary,” Desjani advised. “That side of the planet was in darkness. Do you want the replay?”

“Yeah.” The details differed in that the first three surviving merchant ships all missed their target by varying distances, but the end result was the same, as by chance the fourth scored a direct hit, blasting a deep crater into the Syndic installation and surely destroying every piece of equipment on it by the force of its impact. This side only had two merchant ships enter and then exit atmosphere, but Geary had to concede that Desjani was right. Against the dark sky, the fiery trails of the dead ships stood out so bright that the optical systems on the Dauntless had to adjust sensitivity downward to keep the image from being whited out.

I wonder what the Syndic pursuit force thought of our little show? Geary checked their location. They won’t see it for another two hours. Then we won’t see their reaction to it for at least another eight hours. Not that there’s much they can do besides yell insults at us.

“Why haven’t we received another surrender demand?” Desjani wondered, just as if she’d been reading Geary’s last thoughts. “There’s been plenty of time for that Syndic force to get one to us.”

“Good question. It wouldn’t hurt them in any way to make another demand. Maybe they don’t intend offering the opportunity to surrender anymore.”

Desjani smiled crookedly. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t think that the Syndics ever intended making a sincere offer to accept our surrender. Whatever terms they’d have offered, and whatever terms we’d have accepted, would’ve meant nothing.”

“Based on what they did to Admiral Bloch and his companions in the Syndic home system, I’d have to agree with you.”

“I was thinking as well of what just happened in this system.”

“Another good example, Captain. You’re quite right.” Geary scratched behind one ear. “But if they never intended abiding by any terms of surrender, what would they have to lose by making offers or demands?”

He was answered this time by Co-President Rione. “They don’t want to appear weak by making demands they can’t enforce.”

Geary looked back, seeing Rione seated in the observer’s seat. “I’m sorry, Madam Co-President. I didn’t know you’d come onto the bridge.”

“I entered while the Syndic merchant ships were arriving at the inhabited planet, Captain Geary.” Rione’s face shadowed momentarily with some dark emotion. “I understand the agreement I negotiated was violated.”

“You might say that,” Desjani responded in a bland voice.

“But that’s not your fault,” Geary added, with a glance at Desjani.

“Nonetheless, I offer my apologies.” Rione nodded her head toward the displays before Geary’s and Desjani’s seats. “As I said, the Syndicate Worlds commanders cannot continue demanding our surrender. It’s a matter of politics and image. This fleet has escaped a trap at the Syndicate home system, and run through Corvus System without real hindrance. The appearance grows that the Syndicate commanders cannot bring us to heel. Under the circumstances, they must destroy us or force us to sue for surrender in order to reaffirm their strength.”

Geary rubbed his lower face, contemplating Rione’s words. “That sounds very plausible.” He glanced at Desjani, who nodded back reluctantly. “There may be another reason, too. I’ll bet you that right now the commander of that pursuit force knows there’s a big reception party waiting for us at Yuon. He’s figuring he’ll come through to Yuon on our heels, while we’re trying to fight our way through that ambush, and finish us. So he or she doesn’t want to talk surrender when he or she sees themself as on the way to being the Hero of Yuon.”

“That is certainly possible as well,” Rione agreed.

He took another look at the display, pulling out the scale so that almost all of the Corvus Star System was visible on it, the Alliance fleet and the Syndic pursuit force both reduced to mere dots crawling across the great distances between jump exit and the new jump point. The Alliance force was most of the way through Corvus now, only a day away from being able to jump to hoped-for safety at Kaliban. Which reminds me. There’s some important unfinished business to attend to. “I’ll be in my stateroom.”

Geary swept past Rione, who gave him a look that was just a shade shy of suspicion. Once safely alone, he began calling up the list of names Captain Duellos had forwarded to him, looking for a new commander for Arrogant. He’d vowed that Commander Vebos wouldn’t be the captain of that ship when they left Corvus, and he meant to fulfill that vow.

with an entire fleet to draw from, there were plenty of candidates. However, Duellos had taken the trouble to highlight certain names. Geary, checking the names against their service records and whatever brief memories (if any) he had of the individuals, realized those names belonged to officers who were good at their jobs but not among the worshippers of Black Jack Geary.

One caught his eye. Commander Hatherian, currently weapons officer on the Orion. One of Numos’s officers, which would’ve made Hatherian automatically suspect in Geary’s eyes. In Geary’s experience, people like Numos tended to surround themselves with subordinates who were at least willing to pretend they thought their boss was the brightest star in the heavens. But Duellos thought Hatherian was worth considering. And Hatherian’s last fitness report from Numos had been good but not glowing. Clearly, Hatherian wasn’t Numos’s favorite.

Hmmm. Hatherian’s a commander. So is Vebos. I was wondering what to do with Vebos.

Geary crafted a pair of messages with great care, finally downloading them and then returning to the bridge where Rione still sat, her and Captain Desjani both apparently oblivious to the other’s presence. “I’m sending orders to Arrogant and Orion,” Geary informed Desjani.

“Yes, sir.” Desjani obviously wondered why she needed to be told that, but she read the outgoing messages and then fought to keep her expression unremarkable. “Do you anticipate any trouble having these orders followed?”

“Not on Orion’s part.” If he’d judged Numos right, the man thought himself an inspiring leader. Even if Captain Numos didn’t think too highly of Commander Hatherian, Numos would likely assume that Hatherian would be more loyal to Numos than Geary. Having himself worked for people like Numos, Geary knew things often didn’t work that way. Getting out from under such a commander was often a great relief, and little if any loyalty flowed from the past association.

Geary sat down, waiting.

Less than an hour later, a shuttle left Orion, heading for Arrogant. Desjani ran some figures. “It’ll take the shuttle about two hours to reach Arrogant.”

“I’ll be back.” Geary headed out, forcing himself back down to another mess area to pretend to eat another meal and pretend to be confident of their return to Alliance space. Then he vainly attempted to rest for a while before returning to the bridge.

“Orion’s shuttle is still a half hour out from Arrogant.”

“Thank you, Captain Desjani. Has Arrogant sent any messages to the shuttle?”

“No, sir. As far as we can tell, Arrogant hasn’t acknowledged the shuttle at all.”

Geary drummed his fingers on his chair arm, pondering what options he had if Vebos continued to act like an idiot. There were several, but he didn’t want the situation to escalate any worse than it absolutely had to. Reaching a decision, he tapped in a communications address that was becoming all too familiar. “Colonel Carabali, I have a shuttle en route to Arrogant from Orion.”

“Yes, sir.” Carabali eyed him, obviously curious as to why she should care.

“The shuttle carries Commander Hatherian to relieve Commander Vebos as commanding officer of Arrogant. Commander Vebos has orders to report to Orion as that ship’s new weapons officer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re familiar with the fleet tradition of sideboys, Colonel Carabali?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It occurs to me that it would be a nice gesture if your detachment of Marines onboard Arrogant were to give the departing commanding officer a ceremonial send off.”

Carabali, who’d doubtless spent a career dealing with odd requests from superior officers, managed to keep from looking startled. “Sir?”

“Yes.” Geary smiled in what he hoped was a benign manner. “Like sideboys. I think it would be a good thing if your Marines onboard Arrogant reported to Commander Vebos and informed him that they were there to escort him to the shuttle.”

Colonel Carabali nodded slowly. “All of my Marines on Arrogant? You want them to find Commander Vebos and tell him they’re … sort of an honor guard.”

“Yes. Exactly. An honor guard. To escort him off the ship.”

“And if Commander Vebos declines to avail himself of that honor? What should my Marines do then?”

“Should that happen,” Geary stated, “have them maintain position around Command Vebos while they contact you and you contact me. We’ll decide on the proper way to persuade Commander Vebos to accept the honor based on the exact situation.”

“Yes, sir. I will issue the necessary orders, sir. I assume there’s no chance of weapons-release authority being given?”

Geary tried hard not to smile. Colonel Carabali hadn’t forgotten that it had been Vebos who had ordered the bombardment of her troops. “No weapons, Colonel. If we have to, we’ll frog-march him off the Arrogant. But I think even Commander Vebos will realize his options are limited when he’s surrounded by Marines. Besides, he’s going to Orion.”

Carabali’s face lit with understanding. “I see. Yes. That should help. I’ll keep you informed, Captain Geary.” Carabali saluted, and her image vanished.

Geary leaned back to see Desjani watching him and trying not to smile. “An honor guard?” she wondered.

“Yes,” Geary replied with all the dignity he could muster.

“Why to Orion, if I may ask?”

Geary looked around to make sure no one could hear and lowered his voice. “It seemed one way to minimize the number of places I need to keep my eye on. Besides, it gives Numos the opportunity to work with Vebos. And vice versa.”

“I understand. They deserve each other. Orion’s shuttle is on final approach. Arrogant still hasn’t acknowledged it.”

Arrogant, being smaller than Orion, didn’t have a shuttle dock. Instead, the shuttle swung close to Arrogant’s main airlock, extended a mating tube and moored to the outside of Arrogant.

“According to our remote readings, Arrogant’s airlock hasn’t opened yet.”

Geary checked the time. “I haven’t heard anything from Colonel Carabali. Let’s give it a few minutes.”

Five minutes later, Colonel Carabali called in, her expression carefully composed. “Commander Vebos and his honor guard are enroute to the airlock on Arrogant.”

Geary nodded back solemnly. “Any problems?”

“Nothing that a dozen Marines in full dress uniform couldn’t overawe. Though I must admit that the deciding factor was probably that Arrogant’s crew appeared unresponsive to Commander Vebos’s orders regarding the matter.”

“Naturally. They know Commander Hatherian has been appointed their new commanding officer. Commander Vebos no longer has command authority over them.”

“Yes, sir,” the Colonel agreed. “They don’t appear to be in great distress over losing Commander Vebos.”

“Somehow that doesn’t come as a great shock to me, Colonel.”

Geary glanced over at Desjani as she interjected. “Arrogant’s airlock has opened,” Desjani reported. “Commander Hatherian is exiting. Commander Vebos is being marched—Excuse me, Commander Vebos is being escorted aboard the shuttle by his honor guard.” Several moments passed. “The honor guard is leaving the shuttle. Arrogant’s airlock is closing.”

Geary nodded to Carabali’s image. “Thank you for the services of your Marines, Colonel.”

Carabali saluted. “It was our pleasure, sir.”

The shuttle detached from Arrogant and began making its way back to Orion. Geary felt a moment’s pity for the crew of the shuttle, who were confined with a doubtlessly very unhappy Commander Vebos until they could off-load him. Then he pulled back the scale on his display, looking back to see the Syndic pursuers very slowly gaining on the Alliance fleet, and then ahead to where the jump point waited. If only every thing I had to do could be as neatly and quickly done as removing Vebos from command.

In seven more hours, the Alliance fleet would reach the jump point and bid farewell to Corvus. Assuming nothing went wrong before then. Assuming Titan’s propulsion systems didn’t shift into full reverse and then fall off and spiral into a mini–black hole to be lost forever. Geary thought through that scenario twice, realized he’d not only thought of it but was actually taking it half-seriously, and realized just how tired he was. “I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

He stood and headed off the bridge, slightly surprised to see Co-President Rione still in the observer’s seat. She gave him an arch look as he passed. “An interesting show, Captain Geary.”

“You mean the bit with Vebos?”

“Yes. I assume that was meant to encourage the others?”

He frowned, trying to remember where he’d heard the phrase. “Not exactly. Vebos demonstrated he isn’t smart enough to be entrusted with command of a ship. That’s not about me. It’s about looking out for the crew of Arrogant, and looking out for anyone depending on Arrogant for anything.”

Rione gave him back a look with just a trace of skepticism apparent. Geary flicked the briefest possible smile at her, then left the bridge.

He was back several hours later, having ensured the bridge would give him a wake-up call, when the Alliance fleet jumped out of the Corvus Star System, the Syndic pursuit force still far behind them.

He’d been watching the strange lights in jump space for a while, slumped in a seat in his stateroom, knowing he had a couple of weeks ahead transiting jump space before he and the rest of the Alliance fleet would learn what, if anything, awaited them at Kaliban. So much I need to do, and so little ability to do it in jump since I have only most rudimentary communications capability with the rest of the fleet until we return to normal space. I ought to just rest. Try to regain the strength I’ve never recovered since they woke me up from that survival pod.

The fleet medics, tsking over Geary’s physical state, had prescribed certain medications, exercise, and rest. Try to avoid stress, they’d advised. Geary had just stared at them, trying to figure out if they had any idea how ridiculous the prescription was in his case.

what made it all worse was the fact that he couldn’t be sure how much weakness he could reveal to anyone else. Desjani worshipped the space he traversed, but Geary still didn’t know how she’d take it if she truly came to be convinced that Geary wasn’t a hero sent from the living stars. It’d be different if he had a long-term working relationship with Desjani or any other officer. But having almost literally fallen into the fleet from out of the past, he really knew none of them well.

Rione didn’t worship Geary and would probably be unsurprised to hear Geary’s worries. She might even have good advice, since so far Geary had been impressed by the quality of her thinking. But he still didn’t know how much he could trust the Co-President of the Callas Republic. The last thing he needed was a politician knowing his secrets and capable of trading them to his enemies for whatever political advantage they might bring.

No one he could talk to, no one he could share the burden of command with.

No, that wasn’t true. As a matter of fact, there was someone he was overdue for a conversation with. Fine one I am to talk about honoring our ancestors when I haven’t even paid my formal respects to them since I was woken up out of survival sleep.

He called up directions to the right area of Dauntless, certain that despite everything else that might’ve changed there would still be the place he was looking for on the ship. And there was. Checking the time to make sure the area wouldn’t be crowded at the moment, Geary pulled himself out of the chair, straightened his uniform, took a deep breath, then headed for the ancestral area.

Two decks down and near the Dauntless’s centerline, the place Geary was heading for was located in one of the most protected areas of the ship. Geary paused outside the hatch leading into the ancestral area, grateful for the lack of anyone else present to see him entering, then pushed through, finding himself facing a comfortingly familiar series of small rooms. He picked an unoccupied one at random, closing the soundproofed door carefully, then taking a seat on the traditional wooden bench facing the small shelf on which a single candle rested. Picking up the lighter on the shelf, he lit the candle, then sat watching it silently for a while.

Finally, he sighed. “Honored ancestors. Sorry I’ve taken so long,” Geary apologized, speaking to the spirits who’d supposedly been drawn by the candle’s light and warmth. “I should’ve rendered honors to my ancestors some time ago, but as I’m sure you know, things have been busy. And I’ve been dealing with many things I never expected to have to face. That’s no excuse, but I hope you’ll accept my apologies.”

He paused. “Maybe you’ve been wondering where I was all this time. Maybe you knew. Maybe Michael Geary has filled you in by now, if, as I fear, he died on his ship. Let me tell you, he did you proud. Please tell him I wish we’d had more time together.

“A lot of time has passed since I last spoke to you. There’ve been a lot of changes. Most if not all of those changes seem to have been for the worse. That’s what I believe, anyway. I can’t pretend I don’t need all the guidance and reassurance I can get these days. Whatever you can provide, I’ll be grateful for. Thanks for whatever help you’ve provided in getting us this far.”

Geary paused again, wondering not for the first time why speaking to his ancestors almost always brought comfort. He wouldn’t have described himself as a deep believer of any kind, but nonetheless always felt that someone was listening at such times. And if a man couldn’t trust his ancestors with confidences, who could he trust? “This is very difficult. I’m doing my best, but I’m not at all sure my best will be good enough. There’s a lot of people depending on me. Some of them are going to die. I can’t pretend that won’t happen. Even if I somehow do absolutely everything just right, some ships are going to be lost before this fleet gets home. If I make mistakes—” He stopped, thinking of Repulse. “If I make more mistakes, a lot of these people could die.

“It’s a long way back to Alliance space. I can’t even be sure what we’ll find if we get there. Hopefully I can tie up enough of the Syndicate Worlds fleet trying to catch us that they won’t be able to exploit our defeat at the Syndicate home world. But we’ll have no way of knowing whether the Syndics have gone after the Alliance using the advantage gained by their victory and by us being trapped out here, not until we get close enough to home to have a chance of getting fairly recent intelligence.”

He paused again. “It’s not that I’m worried about what’ll happen to me. I feel like I should’ve died a century ago. But I can’t give in to that feeling because I do care about what happens to the people who’ve placed so much trust in me. Please help me make the right decisions and do the right things, so I lose as few ships and sailors as possible. I swear I’ll try my best to do right by you and by the living.”

Geary sat for a while longer, watching the candle burn, then reached out, snuffed the flame, stood, and walked out of the room.

As he left the area, several sailors saw him. He nodded in greeting while they watched him with awed expressions. Hell, I ought to be one of the dead ancestors people are talking to, instead of walking these decks. They know that.

But the sailors didn’t act like they’d seen someone who didn’t belong here. A couple of them saluted with the stiff awkwardness of someone who’d recently learned the gesture. Geary found himself smiling as he returned the salutes. Then he caught a flash of wariness in the eyes of two other sailors and his smile vanished. His own people shouldn’t be afraid of him. “Is something wrong?”

The sailor he’d addressed went white. “N-no, sir.”

Geary eyed the man for a moment. “Are you sure? You seem to have concerns. If you need to discuss them privately, I’ve got some time.”

The sailor was still groping for a reply when his companion cleared her throat. “Sir, it’s none of our business.”

“Really?” Geary looked around, reading the disquiet in the others. “I’d like to know what’s bothering you anyway.”

The woman paled slightly as well, then spoke haltingly. “It’s just, seeing you here. There’d been some talk.”

“Talk?” Geary tried to keep from frowning. He didn’t like making a public spectacle of his belief, but this seemed to be something beyond that. “About what?”

One of the sailors who’d saluted answered while he gave the worried ones an annoyed glance. “Sir, nobody’d seen you here since, uh, since we picked you up. And since we left the Syndic home system, well, sir, some people thought maybe what happened there had something to do with that.”

Geary hoped he didn’t look as annoyed as felt by the vagueness of the statement. “What in particular?” Then it struck him. “You mean Repulse, don’t you?” The expressions on the sailors answered his question better than words could have. “You mean because my grandnephew probably died on Repulse.”

He looked down, momentarily not wishing to look at the others, and shook his head. “Did you think I was afraid to come here and deal with him? Deal with that?” Geary raised his head and once again read the answer in their expressions. “I don’t know how much you all know, but Captain Michael J. Geary volunteered to keep Repulse back and hold off the Syndics. If he hadn’t done that, I might’ve had to order it, because that would’ve been my responsibility, but I didn’t order it. I didn’t have to. He and his crew voluntarily sacrificed themselves for the rest of us.”

Their faces told Geary they hadn’t known that. Great. They’ve been thinking that I’d ordered my grandnephew to his death. The hell of it is that I might’ve really had to do that. “I have nothing to fear facing my ancestors. No more than anyone else, I guess. There’s just been a lot going on. That’s why I haven’t been down here before.”

“Of course, sir,” one sailor replied quickly.

“You’re not afraid of anything, are you, sir?” another asked in a rush.

One of my worshippers, Geary thought. How do I answer that? “Like anyone else, I’m worried about doing my best. It keeps me on my toes.” He grinned to show it was meant to be a joke, and the sailors laughed on cue. Now all he had to do was get out of this conversation as quickly as possible without being too obvious about it. “I’m sorry to have kept you from your own observances.”

The sailors offered a chorus of replies indicating the fault was theirs and then made way for Geary. He noted as he passed that the two worried sailors seemed much more comfortable around him now. To his own surprise, he realized he felt a little more comfortable around them. Perhaps, in his own way, he had been shying away from dealing with what had happened to Repulse, but by openly stating his feelings to others, he’d come to accept it somewhat.

He walked on toward his stateroom, feeling that the burdens on him were, for the moment, a bit lighter.

“Captain Geary, may I speak privately with you?”

Geary closed out the item he’d been working on, one of the simulations he wanted the fleet to use in practice for battle once it arrived at Kaliban. It was an older program, one whose ancestral forerunner he’d been familiar with a long time ago, but even this much newer version hadn’t been updated for a while. He wanted the simulation parameters to match the state of this fleet and what he’d seen of Syndic capabilities nowadays. But there was still plenty of time to get that done before the fleet reached Kaliban, whereas Captain Desjani was doubtless stealing time from her duties as Dauntless’s commanding officer in order to talk to him now. “Of course.”

Desjani paused as if ordering her thoughts. “I know this happened almost a week ago, but I was hoping you would tell me why you chose to send the crews of the Syndic merchant ships to safety. I understand your feelings regarding treatment of prisoners, but those individuals were not in uniform. They were in civilian garb. That made them saboteurs at best, and such people are not covered by the laws of war.” She seemed done, but hastily added one more sentence. “I’m not questioning your decision, of course.”

“Captain Desjani, I count on you to question me when you don’t understand why I’m doing something. You may know something I need to know.” Geary screwed his eyes shut for a moment and kneaded his forehead in an attempt to relieve the tension that had sprung up inside. “You’re right, of course, that we weren’t obligated to try to save the lives of those people. In fact, we could’ve executed the lot of them and not be held at fault.” He grinned crookedly. “You didn’t ask this directly, but I’ll answer it anyway. I’m certain that your ancestors and mine wouldn’t have looked askance at us if those Syndics had been dealt with in a much harsher and more permanent manner.”

He could see the puzzlement in Desjani’s eyes. “Then, why, sir? They were planning to kill many of our sailors, and destroy or disable some of our ships, in a sneak attack under the guise of civilians. Why show them mercy?”

“That’s a valid question.” Geary sighed and waved toward the starscape still displayed on one bulkhead. “I could say that sometimes it’s good for the soul to show mercy when none is required or expected. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think my soul needs all the help it can get.” Desjani looked momentarily startled, then smiled as if she’d decided Geary was joking. “But that’s far from the only reason,” Geary continued. “I had some very practical grounds for letting them go.”

“Practical grounds?” Desjani looked from Geary to the starscape.

“Yeah.” Geary hunched forward, pointing at the pictured stars. “What happened here is going to be heard about in every other Syndic system sooner or later. Oh, there’ll be an official version in which the Alliance fleet was planning to crater the hell out of every population center in the Corvus System, only to be repulsed by the gallantry of the Syndic defenders. They’d put out that kind of nonsense regardless of what we did.

“However, even the Syndics can’t stop unofficial news from making its way around. So what are Syndic populations in other systems going to hear through the grapevine? That we didn’t try to bombard any cities. Of course, they might think that’s because we didn’t have time. But they’ll also hear that we treated their people right when we made them prisoner. When we had the power to do anything we wanted to do, we respected the lives of every Syndic who came into our power.”

Desjani let doubt show. “Surely the Syndics won’t care. They’ll probably see that as a sign of weakness.”

“Will they?” Geary shrugged. “That’s possible. It’s possible that anything we did would’ve been seen as a sign of weakness. I remember being told that mistreating prisoners would be interpreted as a sign that we were too weak to stick to the rules, too frightened to risk any possible advantage.”

“Really?” Desjani stared at him in open surprise.

“Yeah.” Geary let his thoughts wander for a moment, remembering a room and a lecture far distant in space and time. “That was what I was taught, that sticking to the rules would convey a sense of strength and confidence. I suppose that’s arguable. But in practical terms right now, I believe that at a minimum, someone, somewhere, may treat Alliance prisoners better as a result of what we did. More directly important to us, someone we’re fighting might not be as afraid of surrendering instead of fighting to the death. They’re going to hear that we treated surrendered combatants right, that we avoided harming civilians, that we didn’t cut a path of destruction through Corvus System, that even when sorely provoked, we only struck back directly at those who ordered a sneak attack on us. Somewhere along the line, someone who we need something from may remember that.”

Desjani looked uncertain again. “I can see where that could possibly work to our advantage the next time we try to acquire supplies from a Syndic system we’re passing through. But they’re still Syndics, Captain Geary. They won’t change their policies because we act differently.”

“Won’t they? I suppose their leaders might not. Between you and me, I detest the Syndic leaders I’ve encountered so far.” Desjani grinned, doubtless reassured by Geary’s statement. “But I’m sure there’ll be no doubt in the minds of anyone who hears about this fleet, or sees this fleet, that we’re not weak. They’ll know we chose not to do certain acts that we could’ve done.” Geary stared at the stars, feeling an edge of the coldness inside him again as he thought about the century of time and events that separated him from Desjani. “Ancestors help me, Tanya, the Syndic population is human, too. They’ve also got to be feeling the strain of this war. They’ve got to be sick to death of sending their sons and daughters and husbands and wives off to die in an apparently endless conflict.” He looked directly at her. “Let’s face it, we don’t have much to lose by letting the average Syndic know we’ll deal fairly with them.”

“What about the fanatics who were willing to die? Surely they’ll just make another such attempt.”

“They might,” Geary agreed. “But they went off anticipating a glorious death. Instead, they came home unconscious, and their ships tore up their own bases. No glory there. What some of them got instead was death at the hands of their own side. Maybe all that’ll make the next set of suicide volunteers a little less enthusiastic. When someone’s ready to die, killing them just furthers their own objectives. Mind you, I’ll grant their wish if it comes to that, but I’ll do it on my terms. I don’t want their deaths inspiring anyone.”

Desjani smiled slowly. “You frustrated the Syndics’ plan for a strike against the fleet, and frustrated the desire of some fanatics to die in the course of striking or trying to strike that blow. None of them got what they wanted.”

“No.” Geary looked at the stars again, wondering where among them the major elements of the Syndic fleet were currently located, and where those Syndic forces were currently heading in their attempt to find and destroy the Alliance fleet. “If they want to die at our hands so bad, they’ll have to find another opportunity. And if it comes to that, we’ll accommodate them. On our terms.”