Steadfast

Two

Geary, his expression grim, tapped the comm panel near his seat. “No response from the pilot.”

“None here, either,” Tanya said, rapping a fist against the surface of her seat’s comm panel. “What do you suppose they’re planning?”

“Didn’t you say Dauntless was tracking us?”

“Yes, indeed.” She smiled unpleasantly. “If I know my crew, and I do know them better than anyone, my battle cruiser is currently accelerating to a fast intercept with this shuttle.”

The shuttle lurched as it twisted up and to their right. “Evasive maneuver,” Geary commented, checking his comm unit again. “The automated antijamming routines on my unit have found something.”

Desjani studied hers. “Mine, too. It found a path through the jamming to something, but it’s not Dauntless. Oh, hell, it’s internal.”

“The control deck on this shuttle,” Geary suggested.

“Probably. We might be able to screw with their controls if we established contact, but our units can’t shake hands with the Earth systems. This won’t get us anywhere.”

The shuttle rolled to their left.

Tanya frowned, then looked at Geary. “If they are trying to evade Dauntless, why aren’t they diving into atmosphere?”

“You think there’s—?”

The panel next to Geary suddenly flared to life, revealing a woman in the flight-engineer seat on the control deck. “Whatever you’re trying to do, please be so good as to stop. The signals coming out of there are confusing our systems.”

“Stop jamming our comms,” Desjani demanded before Geary could say anything.

“Your comms?” The woman appeared to be genuinely puzzled as she checked some of her readouts. “Oh. Our stealth systems cut in jamming automatically when they identified your signals.”

“Then manually override them,” Geary said.

“If you emit signals, you’ll compromise our stealth!” the woman pleaded. She looked to one side as if listening, then back at Geary. “Your ship keeps adjusting its track to maintain an intercept. You must still be sending it some locating data despite our jamming.”

“My ship doesn’t need any help from us to track this shuttle,” Desjani said. “You can’t evade her. I strongly suggest you give up trying.”

Puzzlement appeared on the woman’s face again. “Evade your ship? We’re not trying to evade them.”

Tanya glared at the woman’s image. “Who are you trying to evade?”

“We don’t know, exactly, but our flight controllers on the ground say there are at least two other stealth craft up here that are trying to close on us. We’re trying to remain clear of them until we reach your ship, which is very difficult when we have only vague ideas of where the other stealth craft are and is being complicated even more by your systems interfering with ours.”

“If that’s true,” Desjani said in a voice that contained considerable skepticism, “then stop jamming our comms so my ship can send you position and vector data on those other craft.”

“Precise positions and vectors,” Geary added.

“You can—?” The engineer turned again, speaking rapidly to the pilot, her words and lip movements obscured by the security functions in the panel.

But Geary could make out her expression, which quickly went from questioning to insisting to demanding. “She’s reading the pilot the riot act.”

“Good,” Desjani retorted. “Pilots need that done to them every once in a while. It’s the only thing that keeps them even a little humble.”

The woman looked back at Geary. “I’m overriding the jamming of your comms and releasing the lock on the control-deck hatch. Please come forward so we can see the positioning data your ship provides.”

Tanya unstrapped from her seat and triggered the hatch, watching as it opened and gesturing Geary to stay back. “All right. It looks safe. Come on, Admiral. This shuttle crew may be playing straight with us, but I’ve still got a bad feeling about this.”

The flight deck was roughly similar in layout to an Alliance shuttle. The basic design must have been settled on long before humans went to the stars, Geary speculated. He grabbed a handhold to steady himself while Tanya took a free seat next to the male pilot. “I’ve got comms again,” she announced. “Dauntless, give me a remote look at the vicinity of this shuttle.”

She tapped her unit to bring up the 3-D display, which popped into existence above her hand.

“There are three of the Gorms!” the flight engineer cursed. “And closer than we thought.”

“You don’t know who they are?” Geary asked.

“No. Whoever they are, they must have been waiting for us up here. We got snookered, Matt,” she said to the pilot.

“They were watching for anyone lifting out of there en route that warship,” the pilot agreed. “Good thing they’ve had as much trouble seeing us as we did seeing them.”

“But your ship can see us and them that easily?” the engineer asked Desjani. “How?”

“Do you really expect me to answer that?” Tanya asked.

“No. But it was worth the asking, wasn’t it?”

The pilot had been studying the display and now turned and climbed slightly to avoid the nearest other stealth craft, which was just below them and angling in their direction. The second craft was in higher orbit, tracking slightly away as it searched for them, and the third lower, but rising and converging on their track. All around, following their own orbits or trajectories, scores of other spacecraft, satellites, shuttles, and ships operating without any stealth equipment wove through space oblivious to the four hidden craft playing hide-and-seek among them.

“Martian,” the flight engineer declared, pointing to the nearest pursuer.

“Are you certain?” the pilot said.

“Absolutely. The signature on that bird is Martian. I can’t tell if the other two are also Reds.”

“Why are people from Mars after us?” Geary asked.

“Hired guns,” the pilot answered. “If you’ve got money, and you want a job done, no questions asked, Mars is the place to put up your offer. The only difference between the three primary Red governments is how much they charge for looking the other way and how much control they actually have over their countries. Speaking of looking the other way, you haven’t been up here or seen me or the flapping ear or talked to either of us. All right?”

“You get us to Dauntless, and officially we won’t breathe a word otherwise,” Geary promised. “Flapping ear?”

“Flight engineer.”

“Oh.” He studied the movements of the three other stealth craft. “If your ground controllers can spot indications of those three, why aren’t they trying to target them?”

“Target?” Both the pilot and the flight engineer shook their heads before the pilot continued speaking. “You mean engage with weapons? There aren’t any antiorbital weapons allowed on Earth or in Earth orbit. Even if there were, our rules of engagement are straight out of Gandhi.”

“What?” Desjani asked.

“We don’t shoot,” the flight engineer clarified. “Not if you’re Earth-based or -controlled. Those three hunting us might shoot if they get a good chance at us, but that’s because they’re Reds, and because even if they’re one hundred percent official property of some Martian government, there won’t be anything on them to prove that.”

“You can’t shoot?” Tanya demanded as if unable to comprehend the words.

“Not while we’re in Earth orbit,” the pilot explained as he twisted the shuttle between the tracks of two other passing craft. “Beyond that, if we’re past Luna, we can fire back, but only if we get hit at least twice. One hit might be an accident, you see. So we have to wait for two hits. Two hits means it’s definitely deliberate. Then, if there’s anything left of us, we can try shooting back.”

“That is insane.”

“I suppose it might look that way,” the flight engineer agreed. “But, officially, it means we’re at peace and staying that way. And we’ve got ships out beyond Luna. If something happens to us, and then some unfortunate accidents happen to any of those three craft before they make it home, well, that’s just too bad.”

“Hey,” the pilot cautioned. “Watch the loose lips.”

“I’m just letting them know how things work here,” the engineer protested. “They should know.”

“Why didn’t any accidents happen to the Shield of Sol ships before we got here?” Geary asked.

The engineer and the pilot both shrugged. “If someone was planning that,” the engineer said, “and I’m not saying anyone was, it would have been very hard because the Shield of Sol gang knew how we did things, being neighbors and all. They were on guard for it, and they were big, and they stayed together.”

“You guys didn’t play by the rules,” the pilot added. “But we always have to. If anyone shoots at us, all we can do is dodge.”

Desjani smiled. “My ship will intercept us in seven minutes, and we still don’t have to follow your rules. If those Martian craft give us any trouble, they’ll be sorry.”

Both the pilot and the flight engineer gave her horrified looks. “No,” the engineer protested. “You can’t. Not in Earth orbit.”

“I know it’s crowded up here, but my ship’s fire-control systems can make the shots at the right angles—”

“No. You can’t shoot in Earth orbit. It’s not about rules or regulations. It’s… wrong.”

Desjani stared at the two, perplexed.

Recalling some of the things they had seen on the surface, Geary nodded slowly. “It’s because of your history, isn’t it? The damage that was done to Old Earth from orbit.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot confirmed in a low voice. “Not just things being dropped on us but what happened when fighting up here disrupted space-based systems that had become critical. There were some ugly things on the ground after that. All hell, and everything that could deal with it knocked out, too. For a while, no one knew if Earth would pull through or if we’d end up like the dinos through what amounted to racial suicide. Nobody from down there is going to start a fight up here. And if you do, well, it will mark you, and in the worst way. I don’t doubt you could take out anything you wanted up here. But it would be a mistake. A very big mistake.”

Tanya shook her head and looked down at her comm unit. “All right. I understand. Dropping rocks on civilian targets is an ugly thing.”

Something in her words or her tone of voice might have given away some of the recent history that haunted the Alliance fleet, because the two from Earth eyed Desjani with startled dismay. Geary spoke quickly to distract them. “Can you stay clear of the craft pursuing you until Dauntless reaches us?”

The pilot jerked his attention back to Geary and nodded. “With the data your ship is sending us, yes. It’s not certain, because they might accidentally box us in, and I have to stay clear of all the other traffic up here, which can’t see us and might run into us if I don’t avoid them.”

“But you said they might shoot?”

“They might,” the flight engineer confirmed. “They’re not from here, they’re hiding their origins to keep their bosses in the clear, and the reputations of the Reds couldn’t sink any lower without going below absolute zero. Uh-oh. That low one is coming up more, and the high one is dropping and swinging in. They must be picking up something from those transmissions of yours.”

Tanya raised her eyes to study the pilot and the flight engineer. “Do you prefer having the precise data on those guys, or do you think I should shut down the data feed?”

Both hesitated, then the pilot grimaced. “I’d rather have the good picture, ma’am.”

“Captain.”

“Right. Captain. From their movements, our hunters still only have a vague idea of where we are. But they know where we’re going, to meet up with your ship, which they can see coming. That narrows down our possible vectors a lot for them.”

“I’ll see if I can tweak our gear to mask what they’re picking up,” the flight engineer added, concentrating on her controls.

A few minutes passed, the shuttle making gentle adjustments up, down, right, left, to weave along vectors toward the most open path between their hunters and all the other objects moving through this portion of space, all while still heading toward an intercept with Dauntless.

Geary had almost relaxed when he heard Tanya draw in breath in a hiss between her teeth. “Something’s happened. Those guys are zeroing in on us.”

The pilot nodded, stress visible on his face. “They shouldn’t be. But they’ve started reacting to our movements as if they’ve got a much better idea of where we are than they should.”

“Whatever gear they’ve just activated, it’s not as good as what Dauntless is using to track them.” Desjani switched her gaze to Geary. “About a generation behind our best gear, I’d guess.”

“Which means a generation ahead of what’s in this star system?” he asked. “It looks like whoever wants us provided money and some equipment.”

“Can I do anything against it?” the flight engineer asked.

Desjani made an angry gesture. “I don’t know. I’m not a tech. If we had Senior Chief Tarrini here, she’d probably know exactly what to do with your gear to confuse the guys hunting us.”

“We could have Tarrini pass instructions to the flight engineer over my comm unit,” Geary suggested.

Tanya shook her head. “It would take too long for her to study the equipment remotely, figure out how it’s configured and what to tweak. By the time that was done, Dauntless would already be here, or we’d already be screwed. It is older stuff, though. Do you know anything about it, Admiral?”

It was his turn to make a negating motion. “The gear I trained on was at least three generations behind what the Alliance uses now. Maybe four generations. And I wasn’t a tech, either. I just have a general knowledge of how it works.”

“This is what happens when you only have officers and no chiefs or other enlisted,” Desjani grumbled. “Plenty of people to give orders but no one who knows how to carry them out. How good are you?” she asked the pilot.

The pilot smiled crookedly. “Pretty damned good.”

“Every pilot thinks that.” Desjani looked to the flight engineer, who nodded confirmation.

“He’s not bad,” the engineer said. “Got a decent feel for the bird. Only crashed once since I’ve known him.”

“That wasn’t a crash,” the pilot replied, his voice sharp. “It was an abrupt landing aggravated by adverse conditions.”

“Glad to hear it,” Desjani said. “Because it’s up to you to get us through those guys. What do I tell Dauntless, Admiral?”

He knew what she meant. Do I give the Alliance battle cruiser permission to fire on the three pursuers if necessary? It shouldn’t have been that hard a question to answer; except from the way these people of Earth had reacted to the idea it was clear that doing so would cause a huge outcry, far greater than any upset over the annihilation of the Shield of Sol ships in the outer reaches of the star system.

“Just tell Dauntless to get here as quickly as she can,” Geary said.

“She’s coming around the curve of the planet now and braking to match velocity with us. Estimate three more minutes until we’re along-side.”

The shuttle lurched up, swinging to the left as it did so. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?” the pilot muttered fiercely, his eyes fixed on the display over Desjani’s comm unit.

The closest hunter slid past just beneath them, not realizing it had missed by a few hundred meters getting close enough to establish a firm lock on the shuttle’s position.

But the evasive maneuver had brought them up toward the higher hunter, and now the pilot brought the shuttle back down with a swift change in vector. “They’ll see that!” the flight engineer warned the pilot. “You’re maneuvering too hard.”

“I know! They’re getting too close! We can’t hide any longer. Our only chance is to keep dodging away from them until that battle cruiser gets here!”

“But they might—”

“I don’t have any other options!”

The shuttle ducked and darted through space, evading each time one of the hunters threatened to get too close, maneuvers complicated by the need to avoid hitting anything else around them. Geary’s breath caught as they zipped over a stodgy tug plodding obliviously through space, then narrowly avoided hitting a satellite racing along on its fixed orbit. Despite the pilot’s evasive moves, the net kept tightening around them, the distances to the pursuers shrinking as they gradually converged on the desperate flight of the shuttle.

“One minute until Dauntless gets here,” Desjani reported.

A high-pitched keening sounded just as she finished speaking. The flight engineer silenced the alarm and called to the pilot. “They’re targeting us! Trying for a lock-on!”

“Try active jamming!”

“If I do, they’ll fire on the jamming source! We wouldn’t last five seconds! I’m doing all I can with passive countermeasures.”

“Dauntless,” Desjani said in a voice whose calm tone contrasted with the frantic words of the pilot and the flight engineer. “We are being targeted. I see you forty seconds from intercept, stern on. Override the collision-avoidance systems and maximize after shields. Your relative speed at contact should be enough to brush aside the two closest of our pursuers without hazarding the ship.”

“Captain?” the reply came. “We can nail them with hell lances easy.”

“Firing is not authorized,” Desjani said.

“Captain, just to be clear, you are directing us to make shield contact with the closest pursuers of your shuttle.”

“That’s correct. Do it.”

“Follow your captain’s orders,” Geary said, leaning in toward her comm unit. I just concurred in ordering my flagship to deliberately collide with other spacecraft. “Are you sure?” he muttered to Desjani.

“I know my ship,” she insisted. “And I know maneuvering in space. Right now, those guys after us are moving just a little faster than we are and in the same direction, so they can stay close. Dauntless is slowing to match our speed, so when her shields make contact with any of them, the impact should be at a relative velocity of only about ten meters per second and dropping.”

“About ten meters per second? There’s a significant amount of mass in whatever is hunting us. That will still be a dangerous impact.”

“Dauntless’s shields can handle it.”

It was one of those moments in which he either accepted her judgment or undercut her, and he knew that Tanya had a lot more combat experience than he did, as well as a lot more experience with current warships. “All right.”

“Steady out,” Desjani ordered the pilot. “Get on a vector and hold it. I don’t want my ship hitting you, too, because you’re bouncing around.”

With a stunned look at her, the pilot did as he was told, settling the shuttle onto a single course and speed. Almost instantly, the three pursuers, unaware of how accurately they were being tracked by Dauntless, turned onto intercept vectors that would get them close enough to lock onto the stealthed shuttle and open fire.

A bright star coming toward them grew rapidly in size as the remaining distance dwindled, Dauntless’s main propulsion units straining at full capacity to reduce her speed to match that of the shuttle. Her dark, shark-shaped hull was invisible behind the hellish glare from the propulsion units.

One of the pursuers, with less nerve or more brains than its companions, broke off and accelerated away moments before Dauntless slid with enormous grace and enormous mass into position next to the shuttle. One of the pursuers took a glancing blow from the battle cruiser’s shields, knocking it off in a wild tumble as the craft’s stealth systems failed under the impact and made clear to all there was a small vessel careening uncontrolled among them. Other ships and craft frantically dodged the wreckage, filling emergency communications with warnings and complaints about the sudden appearance of a navigational hazard.

The third pursuer wasn’t nearly so lucky. Dauntless hit it almost dead center on her stern, bracketed by the energies being hurled out by the battle cruiser’s main propulsion units. The craft blew backwards under the impact, disintegrating as it went, the pieces, most of them too small for anyone to worry about evading, showing up easily now to all observers.

The pilot and flight engineer were staring at the menacing bulk of Dauntless next to them as if fearing they would be next.

“My ship is opening up her shuttle dock,” Desjani told them with a smile. “Drop your stealth systems, and they’ll guide you in.”

As Geary and Desjani walked down the ramp off the shuttle, the sound of six distinct bells resounded through the dock, followed by the announcement “Admiral, Alliance fleet, arriving,” then four more bells and “Dauntless, arriving.”

“No damage from the, uh, accidental collisions,” the battle cruiser’s second in command reported, saluting, his expression unaccountably grim despite that good news.

“Well done,” Desjani said, with a brief I-told-you-my-ship-could-do-it glance at Geary. “A lot of people saw those collisions. We’ll file a standard collision report with the Sol Star System authorities about encountering stealthed craft we could not see in time to avoid. With their reverence for rules here, the local authorities are certain to still abide by the one that says stealth craft are obligated to stay clear of all others, and any collision is automatically their fault. Is everyone else back?”

“No, Captain. We’re short two officers. Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon. They didn’t report back on time to the shuttle that returned their group, and local authorities have so far failed to locate them.”

“Why wasn’t I informed earlier?” Desjani said in a low, angry voice.

“I was waiting on a report from the local authorities, Captain,” her second in command replied, both his posture and his voice stiffening. “When I tried notifying you, you were already aboard this shuttle.”

“Why did you wait on a report from the locals?” Desjani asked.

“Because we thought that they might have decided to elope, and the locals were certain they could locate them quickly.”

“Castries and Yuon? When did they become a couple?”

“They haven’t, officially, Captain. They’re usually arguing, though.”

“Oh, for the love of my ancestors! That is not a surefire sign of pending romance! I want to find those two lieutenants now. If they were civilians, they might be eloping,” Desjani said. “Since they’re officers in the Alliance fleet, they would instead be deserting. But I don’t like this. It doesn’t match what I know of Castries or Yuon. I take it the locals didn’t find them yet?”

“No, Captain. But they remain confident that they will find them within an hour. Old Earth is laced with so many surveillance networks that just about everything anyone does gets spotted.”

“It sounds like a Syndic planet,” Desjani grumbled.

“All of the senators are back?” Geary asked.

“Yes, Admiral. And both envoys as well. We didn’t have time to tell the Dancer ships what we were doing, but they stuck with us when we came for you, holding position exactly one hundred kilometers from us through every maneuver we did, so they are also accounted for.”

Among those awaiting them was Master Chief Gioninni, carrying a bottle. Desjani beckoned to Gioninni and examined the bottle. “Whiskey from Vernon? Is this from the ship’s supply?”

“Yes, Captain, properly signed for and everything,” Gioninni assured her with a slight wariness as he judged her mood. “You know the tradition. When sailors get rescued, the ship pays a ransom to whoever picked them up. From what I hear, the folks on this bird deserve the ransom.”

“They do,” Desjani agreed. “But we’ll hold them here while you also get some beer sent to the dock. We owe Lady Vitali a ransom, too.”

“Beer, Captain?”

“Yes, Master Chief. The good stuff. Not from the officers’ supply. Get it from the chiefs’ supply.”

“If you say so, Captain. I will, uh, have to charge—”

“I’m sure I can count on you to take care of the paperwork, Master Chief,” Desjani said. As Gioninni hastened off to do her bidding, she looked at Geary again. “He’ll write off twice as much beer as he actually provides to the shuttle.”

“I was wondering why you were trusting Gioninni to play it straight in the face of that kind of temptation and how large his profit margin would be. Are you going to nail him for it?”

“Not for that, but I’ll use it to make him cough up the extra bottle of whiskey he surely pulled out of our stocks when he got that one. He won’t have left any tracks, so it’s the only way I’ll get the extra bottle back. Do you think my missing lieutenants fell afoul of the same sort of people who came after us?”

“Let’s hope not. But if Castries and Yuon did, the locals may be our best hope for locating them.”

“That was my thought,” Desjani said. “Which is why I approved of Gioninni’s ransom payment and sweetened it a little.”

Several minutes later, they watched the shuttle depart and begin its dive back into the atmosphere of Old Earth, lighter by two passengers and heavier by bottles of some of the best whiskey and the best beer the Alliance had to offer.

“So much for our vacation,” Desjani commented. “For some reason, I don’t feel very rested. I hope you’re not too eager to leave, Admiral.”

“No, Captain,” Geary said. “Even if we weren’t waiting to hear more from the locals, I don’t want anyone thinking we’re bolting out of here as if we were guilty or scared. We’ll hold here for at least the next few hours. That will also give us time for the envoys to get across to the Dancers that we’re leaving Home and heading back to our homes.”

She saluted, all formality again now that they were back aboard her ship. “Yes, sir. I’ll pass that on to General Charban as soon as I get to the bridge.”

“Thank you, Captain. I’m going to drop off my gear in my stateroom, then I’ll join you on the bridge.” He returned the salute, then left the shuttle dock, walking through the now-familiar and comforting passageways of Dauntless, passing officers and sailors and Marines whom he knew by sight and in most cases by name now. Technically, Old Earth was Home to all humanity, and, technically, Geary’s personal home was on the planet Glenlyon in the star system of the same name. But the reality was that Dauntless was as close to a real home as he had in this time a century removed from his own.

And he had become increasingly grateful for that.

He found Alliance Envoy Victoria Rione waiting at the hatch to his stateroom. “Did you get the message about talking to the Dancers?” he asked. She had been visiting locations on Earth for the past week as well, supposedly just as a tourist/touring representative of the Alliance, but he suspected Rione had been up to more than that.

“Yes,” she replied. “Charban is handling it. There is something else we need to talk about.”

“The missing lieutenants?”

“Among other things.”

“Good. There’s something else I need to ask you as well,” he said, waving her inside the stateroom and following her. He didn’t feel an urgent need to reach the bridge despite his concerns for Castries and Yuon. If any word came about them, it would reach him just as quickly here as on the bridge, and Rione might have some important information. “Have a seat.”

She had already made herself at home, lounging into one of the seats around the low table in the stateroom. “I understand that you had an interesting trip back to the ship.”

“It wasn’t boring. And I understand you had a working vacation on Old Earth,” Geary observed, sitting down across from her.

Rione gave him a blandly uncomprehending look. “Why do you say that?”

“We encountered Lady Vitali.”

“Lady Vitali of Essex? I hear she throws a good party.”

“She does. But I want to know how Lady Vitali knew to tell me the name Anna Cresida when I needed to know whether or not to trust her.”

Rione studied him, her eyes hooded with calculation, then shrugged and made a casting-away gesture with one hand. “I told her. One of my clandestine assignments on this mission, one I’m not supposed to let you know about, was to establish ties with some of the governments in Sol Star System. Our experience with the surprise attack by the Shield of Sol ships only emphasized the importance of that task. Lady Vitali is one of those contacts who struck me as potentially very useful to us.”

“Did she?” Geary sat back, glaring at Rione. “She appears to have rendered very valuable aid to Tanya and me, but Lady Vitali didn’t strike me as the sort to just be used by people.”

“You’re absolutely right about that,” Rione agreed, examining her fingernails as she spoke. “She, or rather her government, doubtless intends using us as well. They help us, we help them.”

“So you trusted her, and who knows how many other people on Old Earth, with a code name that was only supposed to be shared among us.”

Rione raised an eyebrow at him. “Trust has nothing to do with it. Self-interest is the factor here. You can rarely go wrong depending on that. You had a demonstration of that on your trip back to this ship, didn’t you? Lady Vitali’s government saw just how useful we can be to them when your captain annihilated those Shield of Sol ships. So, if Lady Vitali’s friends learn anything more about those craft that tried to interrupt your shuttle trip, or learn anything from the surviving assassins who were after you on the ground, they will let us know so that, in the munificence of our gratitude, we might offer more favors in return.”

Surviving assassins? He wondered if Lady Vitali was personally deadly enough to have helped take down the attackers, or if she just controlled events and directed others from behind that friendly smile. “The favor we need the most at the moment is information about Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon.”

“I know. I’ve already asked all of my contacts for anything they can find out. Even if it is something that officially their governments won’t admit to, they’ll tell me.”

For reasons he didn’t quite understand, Geary believed that Rione’s confident statement was right. “All of your contacts? Just how many contacts did you establish with how many governments?”

Another wave of her hand, this one careless. “Oh… ten… twenty… something like that. I haven’t had much time to work.”

Geary shook his head in open amazement. “Every time I think I’ve figured you out and know exactly what you’re capable of, you surprise me with something else.”

“I’m a woman, Admiral.”

“I don’t think that entirely explains it.” Geary tapped the controls on the table between them, bringing up an image of Sol Star System, the planets and minor planets and multitudes of smaller objects tagged with names out of the distant past. Venus. Mars. Jupiter. Luna. Callisto. Europa, whose doom still haunted the rest of human space. And Old Earth herself. “I hope they can help find our lieutenants, but beyond that, what good does the Alliance think agents working for one small part of one planet can do for us? In the Alliance, none of those governments still ruling over portions of Old Earth would count for anything. They’re far too small and far too weak.”

Rione looked annoyed. “Our enemies are already at work here. Hopefully, they aren’t involved with the matter of your missing officers, but regardless, I want to know who told those Shield of Sol ships to attack us, and who paid for assassins and stealth spacecraft, and who spied on our movements and attempted a few other tricks that our various hosts managed to block or frustrate. Aside from that, you’re military. You know the importance of certain places, an importance that is based on factors that may have nothing to do with equations of physical strength and power. Any place on Old Earth carries a lot of leverage inside the Alliance. I don’t know all the ways we can use that. But I know I can use it in ways others may not expect. Any individual who can claim backing from Old Earth, leaving aside little matters like how small a portion of Old Earth that backing actually comes from, will gain additional prestige in the Alliance from that alone, perhaps enough so to give him a crucial edge.”

Geary leaped to his feet, his angry gaze fixed down on her. “Him? You mean me. Backing from Old Earth? For what purpose? What the hell makes you think you can use me?”

She looked up at him steadily, cool and unruffled. “I have no intention of trying to use you. The last thing you need is for someone to be trying to guide you in the right political moves. Your greatest strengths are your lack of political ambition and your refusal to even think about political tactics.”

“I’m doing what any good officer would do!”

Her smile was mocking. “I can name a dozen senior fleet officers off the top of my head who reached their exalted ranks by using political tactics and would be pursuing more political tactics right now if they were in your shoes. Tactics such as cultivating relationships with the likes of Senator Costa, Senator Suva, and Senator Sakai.”

“But not you?” Geary demanded.

“Me? I’d be a liability. All you would want me for is a scapegoat.” She waved him back. “Relax. I never wanted you to charge in and take over the Alliance, remember? The Alliance doesn’t need someone who thinks he or she is the savior of us all.” Rione stood up as well, her eyes on the display, one finger rising to point toward Old Earth. “You’ve been there now. We’ve been there. We’ve seen the history of our ancestors firsthand. How much tragedy grew out of individuals certain that they had a special destiny or that they deserved to rule?”

He considered the question, his jaw tightening with frustration, then spun away from her and looked at the familiar starscape displayed on one bulkhead. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t think I’m someone like that, but a tremendous number of other people believe it. Senator Sakai thinks who I am could easily destroy the Alliance.”

“He’s right.” She made a helpless gesture, both hands partially raised as if anticipating defeat. “I don’t know what to do to save the Alliance. There are many forces working to tear it apart, and many people contributing to those forces either through greed or malice or hope or despair or good intentions. I don’t know how to counter the stresses built up by a century of war, and the debts from a century of war, and the simple and understandable but also naïve desires of many people to live as they wish without bowing to some distant authority, which they forget was created because its absence led to much worse things than its existence does. Senator Costa thinks she knows an answer built around an iron fist. Senator Suva still believes the answer lies in good intentions and everyone’s singing in harmony around a common campfire. Senator Sakai no longer believes there is an answer. But you…”

She shook her head, looking at him. “You aren’t wise enough to think you know the answer or wise enough to think you know there isn’t an answer. Which means you’re probably far wiser than the others. And you’re the most powerful piece on the board.”

“A piece you would, however, be willing to sacrifice,” Geary said.

“Only if necessary. And I would feel bad about it afterwards.”

He couldn’t help smiling at her sardonic reply. “You wouldn’t feel bad for long. Tanya would kill you.”

“Very likely, yes. Though I’m sure that your captain would prefer to have grounds for murdering me that didn’t involve your death.” Rione went back and sat down, rubbing her forehead with one hand. “I haven’t been able to figure out something that’s very important, and you’re the only person on this ship I can talk to about it. I was able to confirm from their reactions that all three of the senators on this ship know about the new warships being built despite public declarations that new construction was halted when the war ended. That means that Suva and Costa, who are ideological opposites, agreed to the project. What rationale convinced both of them that a new, secretly constructed armada was a smart idea?”

“They don’t see eye to eye on much,” Geary agreed, looking back at the depiction of Sol Star System. “But they appeared to find some common ground when the Dancers returned that man’s remains to Old Earth.”

“That won’t last,” Rione said. “More importantly, they both must have signed off on that secret armada some time ago, well before the Dancers gave them reason to rethink their attitudes toward others.”

“Senator Sakai voted for it, too, I think. Did they tell you who would command that secret force?”

Rione gave him a demanding look. “No. Do you know?”

“Sakai told me it would be Admiral Bloch.”

She didn’t answer for almost a minute, then shook her head, looking pained. “Why? Why did the Grand Council agree to such a thing? It doesn’t make sense. Bloch manufactured for himself a reputation as a great fleet commander, a reputation I believe was unsupported by actual ability, but even if they still believe Bloch could be a match for you, they know that Bloch had been planning a coup before the Syndics captured him. If that attack on the Syndic home star system hadn’t been a disaster that led to your assuming command and his being captured, if Bloch had won that battle, had defeated the Syndics, he would have turned his victorious fleet against his own government. The Grand Council was desperate enough for victory that they were willing to risk that.”

“And you would have done your best to kill him even though it would have meant your own death as well.”

“I thought my husband was dead in the war. I didn’t have anything else to live for except preserving the Alliance. And, yes, you’ve never asked, but some of my fellow senators knew what my intent was. I was their fail-safe to stop Bloch.” Another long pause as Rione thought. “They must believe that this time they have some other means of ensuring he doesn’t betray them. But what?”

Geary sat down again across from her, catching her eyes with his own. “While we were at Midway, we heard firsthand about some of the tricks the Syndics employed to keep their high-ranking individuals in line.”

“No,” Rione said, shaking her head again. “Costa would have signed off on tactics like holding Bloch’s family hostage, but Suva never would have agreed to that. Neither would Sakai. It would have to be something the entire Grand Council would support, and I have no idea what that might be.”

“We’ll have to find out.”

“I’ll do my best.” For a moment, before the feelings were masked, anguish could be seen in her eyes. “For the Grand Council to openly move against you, when you’ve done nothing but support the Alliance, would be irrational. But I no longer have confidence in my own ability to understand the motivations of the Grand Council. You created a condition they had never experienced and never imagined facing. Peace. They are flailing for answers and, I suspect, acting out of fear rather than reason. I have no doubt that you could beat Bloch in a fight even if you were badly outnumbered, but that would mean civil war. If it comes to that, it could create damage to the Alliance too great for anyone or anything to repair.”

“There’s always duct tape,” Geary suggested in what he knew was a weak attempt to lighten their shared worries.

That brought only a thin smile from her. “As much as it impressed the Dancers as humanity’s finest achievement, I doubt that even duct tape could repair the Alliance if it broke that badly. Who do you think is behind the attacks on us here?”

“Lady Vitali said the money was coming from outside Sol Star System.”

“I believe she is right,” Rione said. “But from where?”

“The Shield of Sol ships were after not just this ship but also the Alliance senators aboard her,” Geary pointed out. “Since those senators represent a wide range of different views, targeting all of them would imply a source somewhere in Syndicate Worlds space.”

“Possible, but unlikely. Syndic space is much farther from here than Alliance space is, and Alliance space is far from close.” All trace of humor had fled again as she looked steadily at him. “I admit I was surprised by the boldness of the attempted strikes at you today. I shouldn’t have been. There are powerful people in the Alliance who would willingly sacrifice their purported friends and allies in the name of some supposedly higher purpose. That’s an old trick in crime and politics, to include some of your own people among the casualties in order to make yourself seem among the victims. We joked about my doing that to you, but I wouldn’t because I think you’re the only hope the Alliance has. Others, though, think you are either in the way of their preferred solution or the source of the danger. While Black Jack was dead he made a marvelous martyr for the government, serving exactly as needed. Don’t delude yourself. There are those who would prefer to return to the days when they could use Black Jack to their own ends because he was, they thought, safely dead and unable to act on his own. You truly do not know which of those people can be trusted in anything.”

Geary sighed, looking down for a moment, then back up to catch her eyes again. “If I can’t trust anyone, why should I trust you, Victoria?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t trust anyone. You’ve got your captain. As for me, I’m not asking you to trust me because I’m some paragon of virtue upon whom the light of the living stars shines with special warmth. You know I’m not.” The thin smile was back. “No. You can trust me for the same reason I decided to trust Lady Vitali. Self-interest. I want to save the Alliance, and I believe that only a living Black Jack can make that happen.”

It was uncomfortably close to what Tanya had told him at the ancient wall, and he had learned that on the rare occasions when those two women agreed on something, he had better listen. “Just how do I make that happen?”

“By staying alive. Without that, nothing else is possible.”