Guardian

Fourteen

“I’ve been officially notified that I and my Marines are to remain attached to your fleet until further notice,” General Carabali said.

Geary’s smile told her how he felt about that. “I’m glad to hear it. General, I’ve already authorized every ship in the fleet to grant stand-down liberty and leave, letting as much of their crew as possible take as much leave as possible. You are authorized to apply that same policy to the Marine units attached to the fleet.”

“Thank you, Admiral, though I understand that policy will not include the Marine detachment aboard Dauntless?”

“Unfortunately, no, it will not,” Geary said.

“They’ll have a special task to carry out, anyway. Old Earth is also Home for the Marines. The detachment will be responsible for a small ceremony marking that.”

After ending the call with Carabali, Geary looked ruefully at his own message queue. The Marines weren’t the only ones who wanted some special ceremony or commemoration when Dauntless went to Old Earth. The requests for special events were coming in right and left.

His stateroom had felt oddly quiet of late even though Dauntless was trembling with anticipation of this journey. The crew’s disappointment at not going on leave to Kosatka, where most of them had come from, had been more than offset by the excitement of seeing Home. The crew’s stock on Kosatka, already high due to Dauntless’s being Black Jack’s flagship, would be astronomical after they had personally visited Sol Star System.

That train of thought led Geary to wondering why he hadn’t heard from Tanya today. He called her stateroom.

“Good afternoon, Admiral.” Desjani greeted him with a brief smile.

“I’m sorry we haven’t gotten that day off yet.”

“Maybe we’ll get it on Old Earth. We can visit someplace famous, like Tranquility Base Site.”

“That sounds romantic,” Geary said.

She didn’t rise to the humor, frowning at her desk. “There’s a lot to do. Dauntless has a lot of battle scars. That’s all right. She earned them honorably. But everything else has to be perfect.”

“I seem to recall someone lecturing me on not seeking perfection,” Geary said. “Dauntless got priority on replacement of aging systems, so she’s practically as good as new, and even before that she was the best battle cruiser in the fleet.”

“She’s the best battle cruiser, anywhere, anytime,” Desjani corrected him, then frowned again. “Can you afford to leave Smythe in charge of overseeing the fleet’s repair work while we’re gone?”

“Admiral Timbale will be watching Captain Smythe. Tanya, are you sure there’s nothing else besides getting ready for this trip? I know it’s not pleasant thinking of having those three senators on board, but you won’t have to interact with them much.”

“I won’t if my prayers are answered.” Desjani buried her face in both hands for a moment, then looked up at Geary. “I need to ask a favor.”

“What is it?”

She was uncharacteristically hesitant. “There’s someone coming aboard to see me, someone who came to Varandal because she hoped the fleet would still be here. She wants to see me… and I can’t deny her that. I know she would like to see you as well. Can you make time?”

“Tanya, time is one of the things I have in shortest supply, but if there is anyone who has a priority claim on my time, it’s you. Even though there are a million things I have to be doing, and half of them should have been done yesterday.” If this was what running a fleet required, what would trying to run the Alliance as a dictator entail? Anyone who really thought about it would never want such a job.

But then, Admiral Bloch hadn’t struck Geary as a deep thinker.

“I know there are a lot of demands on you,” Desjani said. “This is important to me. Please, Jack.”

She rarely called him that, even when they were alone. Geary gave her a startled look. “Tanya, I already promised I would do it. What is this about? Who is this woman?”

“What’s it about?” Her hand rose to touch the Fleet Cross ribbon on her breast. “It’s about this. Who is she? She’s the daughter of a man I sent to his death.”

Greta Milam was tall, thin, with a face that seemed serious even when she was trying to smile. Even though she was probably in her earlier twenties, she appeared older. “I am honored to meet you, Admiral,” she said as she took the seat in Desjani’s stateroom that Tanya had offered.

“The honor is mine,” Geary replied. “I understand your father served with Captain Desjani.”

That had obviously been a very clumsy and stupid thing to say. Desjani winced, and Milam looked distressed.

Greta Milam looked at Tanya, her expression flickering with mixed feelings. “Yes. On the Fleche. I have always been grateful for the letter you sent after that action, Captain, describing what my father had done. It gave my mother and me as much comfort as anything could have.”

Desjani sounded as if she were fighting to keep her own emotions in check. “Master Chief Milam was a true hero. He deserved the Fleet Cross much more than I did.”

“I have learned that you insisted he receive that award,” Greta Milam said. “I have it. It means so very much to me.”

“I’m glad,” Desjani said in a low voice.

“I have always wondered… you were the last to speak with him?”

“Yes. While he was alive.”

“What were his last words? Your letter didn’t specifically say, so I’ve wondered. It’s odd the things people latch onto. As a little girl, I noticed the letter didn’t say that, so… I’ve always wondered.”

Tanya gazed at Master Chief Milam’s daughter for a long moment before answering. “He told me that I only had about a minute.”

“Excuse me?” That was apparently not something that Greta Milam had expected to hear.

“He was at the power core on the Syndic heavy cruiser we had boarded,” Tanya said. “He was setting it to suffer a partial collapse. I was at one of the boarding tubes aboard the cruiser, engaging the Syndic boarding parties that were trying to get back to their own ship to stop us. He said… he said there were only six sailors left alive with him, and the Syndics were breaking into the compartment. He asked me to tell you, his family, that he had died with honor. I did. I told you what he had done. I told you he said that.”

Tanya looked away, composing herself, then back at Greta Milam. “I wished him an honored reception by the living stars, and then he told me to take any sailors left with me back to Fleche, that if we could make it back within the next minute, we might survive even though Fleche was a total wreck.”

“How many sailors was that?” Geary asked, feeling like an intruder into a place he did not belong.

“With me? Nine. We had started with a hundred. No. We had started with two hundred thirty-five. Only a hundred were left to fight when the Syndics boarded us.”

Greta Milam blinked back tears. “I have to confess to you, Captain, that I blamed you for a while. For living while my father died.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Desjani replied. “I did the same.”

“But I’ve already talked to some of the others who survived. They said you all expected to die. It was a miracle some of you made it back off the Syndic heavy cruiser. But they said you did that. If not for you, my father would have died anyway, and the Syndics would have won the whole battle, and no one would have ever known how my father died. Because of you, he got the chance to die doing something that everyone will remember, and we all were allowed to know what he had done. I wanted to thank you and beg your forgiveness for ever blaming you.”

Desjani nodded slowly. “Of course. I… often wish I could have saved him as well. He saved me and the rest.”

“It’s a tangled web, isn’t it?” Greta Milam said. “Who owes whom what. But the war is over now. We can be grateful for that.”

“Sailors are still dying.”

Greta Milam stayed silent for several seconds. “I did not mean to sound as if that didn’t matter.”

Desjani grimaced and shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s still hard to remember that day. I don’t… talk about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Your father… I could not have ordered him to do what he did. I would not have. He chose to sacrifice himself so that many others could live, and I am certain his last living thoughts were of you and your mother.”

Milam bent her head in an unsuccessful attempt to hide tears, then rose. “I should go. Thank you. This… this is something I wanted badly. Thank you.”

But Milam paused as Desjani led the way out of her stateroom, her eyes on the plaque near the hatch. “My father’s name is on that. Are… are all of these friends of yours who have died?”

“Yes,” Tanya said in a low voice. “I don’t forget any of them.”

After Milam had left in the care of Master Chief Gioninni, resplendent in his dress uniform to honor the daughter of a deceased Master Chief, Desjani sat down again. “That was hard.”

“Now I know something about the fight where you earned the Fleet Cross,” Geary said.

“I didn’t earn it. Master Chief Milam did. I don’t know why I got it, too.” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes tightly as if in pain. “Did I ever tell you about my dream after that action?” Desjani asked abruptly.

He shook his head. “No. You’ve never told me anything about it, or after it.”

“Look, I give you permission to call up the official record of the action if you want to. I’m not going to talk about it. But you deserve to know…”

“You had some dream?” Geary prompted.

She was looking steadily at the deck, avoiding his eyes. “I was… stressed. My ship destroyed, the crew almost wiped out, hand-to-hand fighting… I wasn’t in very good shape. They gave me some meds to make me sleep. I dreamed. I dreamed I saw you sleeping.”

“What?”

Her head came up, eyes catching his, daring him to disbelieve, to question what she said. “I saw you sleeping. I knew it was you. Black Jack.”

“Me? You saw me?”

“Not exactly.” Her voice remained firm, though. “I couldn’t make out your face. It was shadowed. But I knew who it was. You were lying there in the dark. I didn’t understand that. Black Jack was supposed to be among the living stars, or in the lights in jump space, somewhere bright. But it was dark around you. And cold. I remember that.”

Dark and cold. At the time, he had been in survival sleep, frozen, drifting through space in a damaged escape pod. Geary stared at her. “Are you sure this isn’t some memory influenced by what you learned after your ship picked me up?”

“No. I never forgot one detail of that dream. I saw you in the dream, and I yelled at you.”

“Your reaction on seeing me was to yell at me? That I have no trouble believing.”

“Very funny.” Desjani ran both hands through her hair, her expression that of someone reliving old trauma. “I was telling you to wake up. To come help us. But then the Master Chief was there. Milam. He gestured to me that it wasn’t time yet. Then you and he just faded away. I couldn’t remember any other dream when I woke up from that sleep, not even a fragment, but I remembered everything about that.” She gazed at him again. “And when we found you years later, and they brought you aboard my ship, I looked at you, and I knew. I didn’t need the DNA or the other tests. I knew you were the man I had seen in that dream. Come back to save us at last.”

He felt the old discomfort arise, the sense of being totally inadequate to the myths that had grown up around the hero he was supposed to be. Her faith in that hero still burned strong, though somehow Desjani could keep the hero separate in her mind from the man he really was. She worshipped Black Jack. She loved John Geary, but she would never worship him, and thank the living stars for that. “Tanya, by now you know who I really am.”

“I knew you then, and I know you now. Do you remember the first time you saw me?”

“Yes. Very clearly.” Coming out of the stupor brought on by the very long period of survival sleep, he had seen above him a female captain who inexplicably wore an Alliance Fleet Cross. When he had fought at Grendel, no one in the fleet had earned that award for a generation. The sight of that Fleet Cross had been his first clue that his sleep had been far longer than it should have been. “You looked at me like…”

“Like I knew you. I’ve never told anyone else of that dream. I didn’t know if it had just been born of fever and stress. Or had my ancestors sent me a vision? Would I someday meet that man in my dream? Would I help him end the long and bloody war? And then you showed up, and I knew I did have a role. It would be shown me.”

No wonder Tanya had offered any support he needed, had even offered him her honor if that was what he demanded of her. “You did everything because you thought it was some job you’d been given?”

“Oh, please. I wanted to do it. No, I didn’t want to end up in love with a superior officer. I fought that. It happened anyway. But, every other thing I did because I chose to. The living stars can lead us to tasks, but only we can decide whether or not to carry them out. Of all the people in the universe, Black Jack should be able to understand that.”

“I guess he should.” Geary tried to find words that felt right, and failed. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Desjani blinked, straightened in her seat, and looked back at him as if they had just been discussing some routine matter. “My pity party is over. Now, how about you? I haven’t been so preoccupied that I hadn’t noticed you are worrying about something else.”

There wasn’t any sense in avoiding the truth when Tanya was watching him. “It’s the grand council. I’ve never gotten the impression the grand council is a smooth-running machine, but they seem a lot worse. Instead of talking over issues, they’re just zinging each other with verbal put-downs.”

“Haven’t they always been that way?”

Of course, that would be Desjani’s reaction. Her opinion of the politicians running the Alliance could probably not get a single notch lower. “Not as bad. Not during my first meeting with them. And at the second meeting, the one where I got the orders for our mission into enigma space, I had the feeling the grand council was pretty much united in agreeing on those orders even though different senators had different reasons for wanting us to go on that mission.”

She nodded, smiling without any hint of humor. “Including the hope that we’d go out and never come back.”

“Including that,” Geary said. He didn’t know how many had felt that way. He suspected even Rione didn’t know the exact number. It wasn’t the sort of sentiment anyone would advertise or leave a written record of. “I don’t know how to fix the Alliance, Tanya. The people who might know how to do it are on the grand council, but they don’t seem to be interested in actually doing it.”

“Good thing you’re not dictator of the whole mess, huh?” Desjani asked. “Speaking of which, have you noticed who hasn’t been around?”

“Who hasn’t been around? Tanya, I have no idea—”

“Sure you do.” She waved grandly. “Captain Badaya, who represents those who think Black Jack can wave his magic wand and cure everything that ails the Alliance.”

Geary started to answer her, then stopped. “You’re right. Why hasn’t he been around?” In order to forestall a coup attempt in Geary’s name, Badaya had been led to believe that Geary was secretly running the government already. But then why hadn’t Badaya been by since the fleet made it back to Varandal to ask what Black Jack was doing about the damned politicians?

“If you want my honest opinion, and I know you do,” Desjani said, leaning forward with both elbows on her desk and gazing at him, “Captain Badaya has slowly figured out that if Black Jack did take over, the Alliance house of cards would collapse even quicker. He’s been thinking, which I know is uncharacteristic of him, and he’s putting two and two together at last. He probably figures now that you’re just nudging the grand council in the right directions and otherwise trying to prop up the Alliance rather than knock the legs out from under it.”

She sighed, looking upward. “And after you got us through enigma space, and Kick space, and beat the Kicks and the enigmas and the Syndics again, and didn’t throw him to the wolves because he made some mistakes during the battle at Honor, Badaya is one of your closest allies now regardless of what you do. Which makes it a real shame that I can’t stand the man, but what are you going to do?”

“I hope you’re right. Fleet headquarters has also been oddly silent. We haven’t received any rants from them, any demands to yield important ships or personnel to immediate reassignment, nothing except routine acknowledgment of the reports we’ve forwarded.”

“Do you want my opinion again?”

“You know I do.”

“Yes.” Desjani waved again in the general direction in which fleet headquarters lay numerous light-years distant. “I think they’re scared of you and trying to figure out what to do next.”

“Tanya—”

“I am serious. They thought they had screwed you. Different parts of fleet headquarters thought they had handed you a rotten job and tripped you up in different ways, and at the best you were going to limp home with your reputation and your fleet in shreds. Instead, you came home having far exceeded the scope of your orders, the fleet mostly intact, and won the day for humanity!” Desjani nodded at him. “You’ve got them scared. They’re wondering if you can be beat.”

That was not good news, but it would explain the mysterious silence from fleet headquarters, and perhaps the increased disarray on the grand council. “I hope you’re wrong because I don’t want people trying to think up ever-more-challenging ways to beat me.”

Last time they had lost Orion, and Brilliant, and the-Invincible-before-the-latest-Invincible, along with a number of smaller warships. He didn’t want any more ships and their crews to die because various people were separately trying to figure out how to beat him instead of jointly trying to figure out how to save the Alliance.

Two days before departure, and Geary had to pry more time out of his day in order to grant a request from the senior fleet physician for a meeting. He greeted Dr. Nasr as the physician debarked from a shuttle onto Dauntless. Despite their many face-to-face conversations, this was the first time they had had actually met.

Dr. Nasr looked tired and sad. Geary had often seen him tired, especially in the wake of battles when the fleet’s medical staff had bent every effort to save every injured man and woman they could. But the sadness was a different thing.

“What brings you to Dauntless?” Geary asked.

“May we speak privately?” Dr. Nasr requested.

“My stateroom?”

“I would be honored, Admiral.”

They walked through the ship’s passageways, Nasr silent and carrying a thermal carafe. Once inside Geary’s stateroom, with the hatch sealed, the doctor carefully removed the lid of the carafe and brought out two small, white, porcelain glasses, which he set on Geary’s desk. The doctor then poured a dark, steaming liquid into each glass, not spilling a drop, his every move that of someone used to the most careful and precise motions.

Nasr offered one of the glasses to Geary. “Coffee, Admiral. A special blend. Will you drink a toast with me?”

“Certainly,” Geary said, taking the small glass gingerly. It was warm from the coffee, but not painfully so. “What are we toasting?”

“Our efforts, our failure, the eternal struggle of humans to do what is right, the eternal disagreement on what right is, and the death of the last two bear-cows.”

Geary halted his movement with the glass poised near his lips. “They’re dead?”

“Yes. Please drink, Admiral.”

He finished raising the glass, tasting a powerful, bitter, yet smooth coffee that he could feel flowing all the way down to his stomach. “What happened?” Even though the news had been expected, even though there had been nothing else he could have done, Geary still felt a great sorrow at the news. Now he understood Dr. Nasr’s sadness.

“The Shilling Institute was keeping them alive, doing a very creditable job,” Nasr said, lowering his own now-empty glass. “But the bear-cows were taken from the Shilling Institute.”

“The government?”

“No. The courts.” Nasr shrugged. “Well-meaning individuals, well-meaning groups, claimed that the bear-cows deserved a chance to speak on their own behalf, to express their own wishes, to not be kept in what they called a living death. I understand. I was not happy with it, either. But I knew it was all we could do. However, the courts did what they felt obligated to do. They appointed lawyers to act as guardians for the bear-cows, to speak for them in court. And the lawyers argued very well that the bear-cows must be given the same rights as humans.”

Geary sat down heavily, shaking his head. “But they’re not humans. That doesn’t mean they are less than us, but it does mean you can’t use our standards with them. They think differently than we do.”

“So the Shilling Institute argued,” Dr. Nasr said, sitting down opposite Geary. “I was called to testify. I spoke of my experiences with treating the bear-cows. I showed them my medical records. Let them awake, and they would die by willed suicide. It was that simple.”

“But they didn’t believe you.”

Nasr frowned at the deck. “It is a difficult argument, Admiral, to claim that the best treatment for a thinking creature is to keep it forever unconscious. The lawyers, the courts, the well-meaning individuals and groups, they did not want to believe me. Custody was given to the court-appointed guardians. The bear-cows were moved to another medical facility. Well-meaning individuals gathered about them, ready to welcome a new species into friendship with humanity, the sedation was reduced until awareness came to the two bear-cows, and, five seconds later, both were dead.”

The doctor shook his head. “One of the well-meaning people came from the room, looked at me, and cried why? And I said, because they are who they are, not who you wanted them to be.”

“Damn,” Geary whispered.

“It was inevitable, Admiral. You and I deluded ourselves. We did what we would do for humans. Keep them alive and try to find a solution. But any solution is far off. You know some blame you for the awful slaughter of the bear-cows when capturing their ship. I have never been comfortable with that battle, yet I also knew we tried everything we could to avoid such a slaughter. Some commentators outside the fleet, though, have assigned us sole blame for the deaths of the bear-cows, for any hostilities with the bear-cows.”

“I know,” Geary said. “I’ve heard that. Half of the critics claim we caused it because those critics distrust the government, and the other half claim we caused it because those critics distrust the military. There don’t seem to be a lot who are willing to consider the possibility that the Kicks might have had their own reasons for acting.”

“There are many,” Nasr said. “Many who note our attempts to communicate and avoid fighting. But those are not nearly as loud as the others.” The doctor’s tone took on an acid edge of bitterness as he continued. “I have never before been accused of malpractice, not until now. In the court, they said I must have caused the deaths of the other bear-cows by somehow radiating an attitude that led the bear-cows who gained consciousness to assume they had to immediately kill themselves.”

“You’re being blamed?” Geary asked, appalled. “Nobody cared more for the fate of those creatures than you did.”

“But there must be a villain, Admiral.” Nasr sighed heavily. “I was not permitted in the room, or near the room, where they awakened the bear-cows. I understand from those who were there that the well-meaning individuals were offering wide smiles of welcome to the bear-cows as the sedation was reduced.”

“Smiles? Did no one read our reports? Didn’t they realize that to a prey animal those smiles looked like predators getting ready to chow down?”

“Data that conflicts with beliefs is often ignored,” the doctor said. “It has been a serious problem in every field, including in medicine, even among those who should know better.”

Geary closed his eyes, trying to calm himself instead of shouting out in anger. The coffee in his stomach felt heavy now. “So those last two Kicks didn’t just die. In a very real sense, they were murdered by willful ignorance.”

“That is too harsh, Admiral. They meant well, as did we. The difference is that we formed our intentions based on our ideals and what we saw. They formed their intentions based on their ideals and what they wanted to see. I should mention that we are already being blamed by a few for these last two deaths,” Nasr said, “even though news of the deaths is being kept very quiet. Some former critics have been convinced that we spoke the truth, but not all. The self-generated toxins in the bear-cows that caused their deaths are undeniable proof. Except to those who would accept no proof that conflicts with what they have decided must be true.”

Geary nodded. “I wish… Hell, I wish there had been another answer. I do know that you did everything that you possibly could.”

“As did you, Admiral.” Dr. Nasr stood up. “I have taken enough of your time.”

Geary rose to forestall his departure. “Doctor, the Dancers have asked to be escorted to another destination in human space. I’m sure you’ve heard. Would you be willing to ride Dauntless on that trip?”

“I am honored by the offer, Admiral. Is the destination truly what I have heard?”

“Yes. Old Earth.”

Nasr took a while to speak again. “I see. Yes, a great honor. I will certainly come along, Admiral. Perhaps Old Earth will hold some answers to the questions that we struggle with.”

“That would be nice,” Geary agreed.

But he didn’t believe it.

The three senators who would represent the grand council and the government of the Alliance had been brought aboard Dauntless with all of the pomp and ceremony mandated in protocol regulations. Dr. Nasr had been assigned a stateroom on board as well. Both Rione and Charban had remained in the same staterooms they had previously occupied, though the nameplates had been changed to reflect their new titles as envoys. Every storage compartment on Dauntless was filled with every spare part, every material for making other parts, every solid and liquid and soggy form of food and drink, and every weapon that regulations mandated for a battle cruiser of her class.

It felt very odd for Dauntless to be breaking orbit on her own. Instead of being the center of a fleet, the battle cruiser moved with solitary dignity toward Varandal’s hypernet gate. The Dancer ships would join her at the gate, but for now the alien spacecraft were still performing an intricate series of maneuvers distant from human installations.

The rest of the First Fleet remained in their orbits, a seemingly unshakable armada. Those warships had bested every threat thrown at them while under Geary’s command, but Geary had grown to realize that they were in fact highly vulnerable to the same pressures undermining the Alliance. The fleet could not be stronger than the Alliance that it represented. Factionalism, cynicism, uncertainty, and shortsighted political games might destroy a fleet that the Syndics, the enigmas, and the Kicks could not defeat.

The night before, Geary had held a meeting with Captains Badaya, Duellos, Tulev, Armus, and Jane Geary. “I’m going to announce tomorrow that Captain Badaya will be acting commander of the fleet while I’m gone. I hope the other four of you will do everything you can to support him. Hold everything together. No matter what happens, keep this fleet stable and focused on its duty. I know the five of you can do that.”

Badaya shook his head. “Not with me in command,” he said.

“It would be a mistake,” Duellos agreed.

Geary stared at them, disbelieving. “Captain Badaya has the most seniority. There are no grounds for denying him the position of acting fleet commander.”

“I do not have enough backing,” Badaya insisted. “There are a number of ship commanders who will follow me without hesitation, but many others who don’t trust me.”

“Not as many as there were,” Duellos said, “but if something serious were to happen, there would be doubt in some quarters as to Captain Badaya’s standing.”

“And loyalty,” Badaya added. “Let’s have it out there. There have been strong disagreements in the past about the right courses of action. My opinions at those times are well-known. If the fleet faces a strong challenge while I command, a challenge dealing with political matters, it very well could fracture.”

Geary looked from one captain to another. One by one, they nodded in agreement with Badaya. “You’re putting me in a difficult position,” Geary said, frustrated. “If I bypass Captain Badaya, it will be seen as a snub to him. But if I select him, you’re saying it could create serious command issues in a crisis.”

“It will not be seen as snub,” Armus said, each word coming out with careful deliberation, “if it is known you intended Captain Badaya for the assignment but he declined. Hold a fleet meeting tomorrow as you intended, say you want Badaya to take temporary command, and allow him to decline the honor.”

Annoyed, but seeing the wisdom of their advice, Geary nodded. “Fine. Then after Captain Badaya declines I will appoint Captain Tulev—”

“No, sir,” Tulev said. “I must also decline.”

Annoyance was becoming anger. Why did something so simple have to be so difficult? “Why?” Geary demanded.

“Because I am a man with no world,” Tulev said, betraying no hint of the feelings that statement must evoke in him. “The Syndics destroyed my home planet during the war. There are portions of the fleet that regard me as only belonging to the Alliance now, without loyalty to a home world to counterbalance that.”

Geary tamped down his anger. If Tulev could speak so calmly about something so personally painful to him, upset by others for lesser reasons could only seem petty. “Should I bother naming a third choice, or have you all decided on that for me?”

“This isn’t a mutiny,” Duellos pointed out. “You chose to gather us now instead of just announcing your decision to everyone in the fleet because you trust our judgment, and we are giving you that judgment. You wanted to see what we would say about selecting Captain Badaya as acting commander, didn’t you?”

After a brief hesitation, Geary nodded. “I suppose I did. What’s your advice then?”

“It would help,” Captain Tulev said, “if the fleet remained under command of a Geary.”

To Geary’s surprise, the others nodded, while Jane Geary looked uncomfortable. “She’s not senior to any of you,” he pointed out to the others.

“She has the name,” Badaya said. “As well as an impressive record. And we will all back her. Together, those things will keep the fleet safe until you return.”

Duellos was examining one hand intently as he spoke with studied casualness. “Tanya agrees, too.”

It would have been nice if she had told me about that before this. “This fleet shouldn’t be commanded on the basis of some family hierarchy,” Geary protested.

“It’s not that,” Duellos said. “Jane has earned her right to the position, and because for a long time she was not part of this fleet, she has no baggage from earlier political squabbles. But the name is important not just to the fleet. If anyone in the government or at fleet headquarters is planning any surprises after you and Tanya leave on Dauntless, they would not reconsider their plans on the basis of going up against a Captain Badaya, or a Captain Tulev or Armus or Duellos. But if the fleet commander is named Geary? Then the political fallout becomes much greater, because a descendant of Black Jack has a standing with the populace that no one else can match except Black Jack himself.”

Jane Geary nodded, looking unhappy. “I spent a lifetime running away from the name because I knew how much power it held. I did not suggest this to anyone, and I agreed only reluctantly, but I have to admit the strength of the reasoning behind it.”

“I see.” And I don’t like it. It gives me, and it gives Jane, too much power. But that’s the point. It’s the sort of power that might give pause to anyone planning on doing anything stupid. “All right. Tomorrow morning, I’ll hold a meeting, Captain Badaya will decline the role of acting commander in my absence, then—”

“I will nominate Captain Geary in your stead,” Armus said. “I belong to no faction. Everyone knows I’m just about getting the job done. It will come best from me.”

The others nodded in agreement, and the next morning the deal was done.

As Dauntless approached the hypernet gate, the six Dancer ships came zooming in from one side and below to take up station in a ring about the Alliance battle cruiser. Senators Sakai, Suva, and Costa came crowding onto the bridge to watch the event, Captain Desjani greeting them with respectful but cool formality before turning back to her duties.

Geary nodded to her. “Enter the destination, Captain Desjani.” He felt a strange sense of fate hovering about them as Tanya manipulated the simple hypernet key controls.

Tanya gave him a half smile and a sidelong look as Sol appeared on the hypernet control. “I never expected to enter this destination,” she murmured, then spoke more loudly. “Request permission to enter hypernet, destination Sol Star System.”

Geary nodded again. “Permission granted.”

She entered the command, and the stars vanished.

They weren’t in jump space this time. They were, literally, nowhere. There was nothing outside the bubble in which Dauntless and the six Dancer ships existed. They weren’t moving. They would instead simply be at their destination after the proper amount of time had elapsed, having gone from Varandal to Sol without (as far as the physics were concerned) having traveled between those two places. It didn’t make any sense, but then a lot of things about physics didn’t make sense to humans once you went far enough up or down the scale from the narrow band of reality in which humans normally operated.

Because so little else made sense, it seemed perfectly appropriate that the length of the journey meant it would take less time than shorter journeys in the hypernet required. “Sixteen days,” Desjani said.

“Just a hop to a demilitarized star system and back home again,” Geary said. “For once, we don’t have to worry about anything going wr—” He broke off at the ferocious glare that Desjani turned on him. “What?”

“Were you really going to say that?” she demanded.

“Tanya, what could—”

“Stop it! I don’t want to find out, and neither do you!”