“They’re not the ones you have to worry about! What did the living stars give you for brains, John Geary?” Rione stepped closer and grabbed his arms. “The ones most dangerous to you are the ones who believe in you enough to offer you a dictatorship but not enough to accept changing their own ways of thinking! Ask the officers you trust most. Roberto Duellos. He’ll tell you. Even Tanya Desjani will tell you. If you don’t believe me, then ask them!”
It made a great deal of sense. “I guess there are advantages at times to thinking like a politician.”
“Thank you. I think,” Rione flung at him as she stomped off and pointed at the display again. “If they’d never believe you’d go to Kopara—”
“No! If we get trapped at Kopara, there’s no way out! Lakota leaves us options.” He glared at the display, then shifted his gaze to Rione. “Why haven’t you said it?”
She glared back. “What?”
“Threaten to tell the ships from the Callas Republic and the Rift Federation not to follow my orders anymore. Why haven’t you warned me that you’d do that?”
“Because I don’t make threats I can no longer back up,” Rione replied angrily. “Please don’t pretend that you don’t know the loyalties of my own commanders are now split. No matter what I said, many would still follow you.”
“Really?” His surprise must have showed. “I haven’t tried to subvert their loyalty to—”
“Aiyee!” Rione yelled in rage, stepped close again, and thumped a fist onto Geary’s chest. “Stop pretending that you’re that big a fool! They believe in you, John Geary! Because you’ve brought the fleet this far and won some notable victories along the way! They believe that you are Black Jack and that you’ll save them and the Alliance! They believe that you’re not a politician, and in that they are certainly correct. But you’ve earned their trust.” She thrust an angry forefinger at the display. “Don’t repay that trust by taking them to Lakota!”
“Hell.” Geary let himself drop into a nearby seat, feeling suddenly weary. “Do you think I don’t spend every minute of every day trying to do the best I can by the people who’ve placed their trust in me?”
Her rage visibly faded, leaving Rione eyeing Geary with apparent helplessness. “What are you going to do?”
“Call a fleet conference. See how they react to Lakota.”
“They’ll love it. Just the sort of bold stroke that Black Jack Geary would do.” Rione sagged into a seat as well.
After a minute of silence, Geary looked over at her. “Madam Co-President, have you ever heard of something called a Geary Complex?”
Rione raised her head and bent one eyebrow upward. “Yes. It was first mentioned to me years ago when a fellow senator was telling me about Captain Falco. You finally heard about it?”
“I’m curious as to why you never accused me of having one.”
“You could scarcely be accused of imagining you were Captain John Geary.”
“I think there’s at least one fleet doctor who suspects that,” Geary replied dryly. “I don’t get it. You’re different this time.”
“Why, thank you,” Rione ground out. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Among other things, that you haven’t given me any warnings about the dangers posed by Black Jack, about what might happen if I start believing I really am him.”
Rione shrugged. “I’ve stated those warnings many times, and you seem well aware of them. Saying them again would probably be overkill.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“Perhaps it’s time I warned you about that misplaced sense of humor you have,” Rione stated in a dangerous voice. “Is there some point you’re trying to make?”
“Yes.” Geary studied her before answering. “You’re strongly opposed to the idea of this fleet going to Lakota. You think I’m mistaken; you think I may be trying to live up to the reputation of Black Jack. But you haven’t exploded at me. You haven’t stormed out of this stateroom or uttered barely veiled warnings about what might happen to me personally if I really start acting like Black Jack would act. Why haven’t you done any of that?”
She shrugged, looking away. “Maybe I’m trying to be unpredictable. You think I’ll do that, and I know you think I’ll do that, so I’m doing something else. Though in my case what I’m doing isn’t stupid.”
“You’ve got quite a sense of humor yourself.” Geary dropped any pretense or mockery from his voice. “Seriously. What’s changed?”
It took Rione a little while to reply; then she finally looked back at him. “To put it bluntly, I have issued dire warnings before about the actions you planned to take. Every single time I was certain that I was right, and every single time it turned out that I was wrong and you were right. Sancere is only the largest of those misjudgments I’ve made. There’s no way of knowing where this fleet would be if you’d listened to me, but I find it hard to believe that it would be in a better state or that our enemies would have suffered anything like the losses they have endured.”
“You trust me?” His surprise must have been obvious.
Rione smiled wryly. “I’m afraid so. I think going to Lakota is a mistake. I’ve told you that, and I’ve told you my reasons. You’ve listened. Yes, I noticed that you did. Now, given our respective track records, I don’t feel I have the right to work against your instincts. They’ve been right too many times.” She paused, searching his eyes. “Yes, I know you’re wondering if your instincts are right about me. You aren’t sure why I returned to you, why I chose to share your bed in the first place, or why I came back to it.”
He nodded. “That’s true.”
“And you won’t ask me, because you don’t know if you’d believe whatever I’d tell you. Don’t deny it. I see the hesitation within you. I deserve it.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You don’t have to.” Rione spread her hands. “Do you want me to say I love you? I won’t. You know where my heart is.”
“Then why?” Geary demanded. “Why are you sleeping with me?”
“You’re irresistible to women. Didn’t you know that?” Rione laughed. “You should have seen the look on your face.”
He smiled back at her, realizing that Rione would never actually answer the question but just provide more words, the sincerity of which he could never prove. “I’ll think some more about it.”
“About Lakota? Will you?” Rione’s laughter faded, and she nodded. “Maybe that’s why I came to you, John Geary. Maybe that’s why I’ll be with you tonight.”
“What about when we return to Alliance space? Assuming we make it. Will you walk off this ship on my arm? Will you still spend the nights with me?”
She regarded him silently for a long moment. “You ask a politician what she’ll do in the future? Yes. Do you believe me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good job. I’ll teach you a bit about politicians yet. You’ll need that when you get home.” She stood up and extended one hand. “Come on. Let’s get something to eat. Publicly. Together. We need to let the fleet see that their hero is happy.”
Geary stood up as well, still feeling tired. “I suppose I can try to pretend to be happy for a few hours.”
“You’ll do fine.” She smiled again, differently this time. “And then we’ll come back here, and you and I will make each other truly happy for a while.”
Even through the excitement that promise generated, Geary wished he could see what she was really thinking at that moment.
“It hasn’t been easy deciding on our next course of action,” Geary announced to the images of the fleet captains gathered in the conference room. The tension was like that before a battle. Obvious opponents like Captains Casia and Midea and Commander Yin were poised to pounce if Geary suggested anything that could be construed as insufficiently aggressive.
His allies, like Captains Duellos, Tulev, and Cresida, were just as clearly worried that Geary would propose something designed to placate the
fleet, which would also put it in serious danger. He’d talked to all of them, one-on-one, before this meeting, trying to assure them that he’d thought this out. He hoped he’d convinced them.
Near him, the real presence of Captain Desjani waited, her attention focused on Geary’s opponents as if she were a bodyguard. Farther down the table, where the commanders of the ships from the Callas Republic were gathered, the virtual presence of Co-President Rione sat among them. She’d chosen that over physical attendance to ensure that the ships from her republic felt that Rione was still committed to them. But it left Geary wondering how much Rione might have held back in their discussion, whether she would really back him or stay silent or offer a telling word against Geary’s plan when debate started.
The star display flared to life. “You’re all familiar with our options, I’m sure. T’negu, attractive as it looks, is certainly a trap.”
“We made it easily this far along a straight track for Alliance space,” Captain Casia interrupted.
“And have thereby established a pattern the Syndics can see with both eyes closed,” Duellos responded. “T’negu is tailor-made for extensive minefields.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Geary agreed, then pinned Casia with a glare before he could speak again. “The other stars we can reach all offer various shortcomings, various degrees of threats. After long thought and consultation with others, I’ve concluded our best objective is Lakota.”
Captain Midea made to speak, then choked off the words as what Geary had said got through to her. “Lakota?” she finally asked.
“Yes.” Whether or not he ended up surprising the Syndics, he’d certainly surprised Midea. That was reassuring, since it meant his opponents’ spies in the fleet hadn’t been able to discover his plans earlier. “There will be a Syndic flotilla there to guard the hypernet gate in that system. But the Syndics may regard our arrival there as so unlikely that the flotilla will be too weak to stop us.”
“Can we use the gate ourselves?” someone demanded breathlessly.
“If possible,” Geary replied in an even voice. He couldn’t afford for any illusions to exist about that. “But we know the Syndics are willing to destroy their own hypernet gates to avoid us using them, and the flotilla at Lakota will certainly have orders to do just that. If we’re very lucky, we may catch that flotilla out of position and be able to reach the gate before the Syndics can. That’s a very long shot, though. If the Syndics do start to destroy that gate…” He let the sentence hang, allowing each officer to bring up their own memories of what the collapse of the hypernet gate at Sancere had been like.
“We can still charge the gate, try to stop them,” argued Commander Yin.
“Speaking personally,” the captain of Daring said, “I’d really prefer not to be near a collapsing hypernet gate again.”
“Me, either,” the captain of Diamond added. “If Orion wants to take on the job, I’ll gladly let her do so.”
Commander Yin glowered at both of the other commanding officers but apparently had enough sense to realize that picking a fight with them would only expose her to further ridicule.
“How many Syndics might be at Lakota?” asked the captain of the Warspite. “We’ve hurt them a lot in the last several battles and torn up the ships under construction at Sancere along with the shipyards there. If the bunch we found waiting for us here at Ixion is any measure, the Syndics are desperate for ships right now.”
Captain Tulev answered, his voice somber, “Recall our own serious losses in the Syndic home system. Every loss we have inflicted on the Syndic fleet since then has only gone to balance out the ships we lost in the ambush there.”
Grim silence fell around the conference table. No one denied the truth of Tulev’s statement.
“But the Syndic warships we destroyed here had totally green crews,” Commander Neeson of the Implacable noted. “They shouldn’t have been sent on an actual combat mission.”
“True,” Captain Duellos agreed. “Captain Geary and I have discussed this, and we believe the Syndics regarded our arrival at Ixion as unlikely and sent their most qualified ships to other star systems.”
“But that means they are short of ships,” Neeson argued.
“Short in the sense that they need to try to establish local superiority over us at more than one location, since they can’t know exactly where we’re going,” Duellos pointed out. “They certainly have increasing difficulty doing that.”
“And with any luck,” Geary added, “that will affect the type of force we encounter at Lakota.”
“Did you discuss this matter with Senator Rione?” Captain Midea asked.
Geary eyed her dispassionately, thinking that Midea looked more like a Syndic CEO every time he noticed her. “The proper title is Co-President Rione of the Callas Republic, Captain Midea, though she is also a member of the Alliance Senate. Yes, I did discuss it with her.”
“Then going to Lakota is her decision?”
Backs stiffened all along the table. Geary had no difficulty measuring the reaction to that suggestion. He also knew that if Rione was going to object to the plan at this conference, she’d just been handed the perfect vehicle for doing that. “As I have stated before, Co-President Rione does not make decisions regarding the movements of this fleet,” he stated firmly.
Rione spoke up, her voice flat. “As a member of the Alliance Senate, I have no command authority in this fleet, Captain Midea. Were you unaware of that?”
Midea’s face reddened. “If Co-President Rione has a great deal of influence over the decisions of the commander of this fleet, it amounts to the same thing.”
Rione smiled thinly. “I’m perfectly willing to swear on the honor of my ancestors that Captain Geary has rarely followed my advice regarding the movements of this fleet.”
“The honor of a politician,” someone muttered.
Some but not all of the commanding officers from the Callas Republic ships scowled. A number of other officers around the table reacted to the insult with small smiles. Most kept their expressions unrevealing.
Geary knew his own feelings were easy enough to read. “Does my honor satisfy anyone who doubts what Co-President Rione said?” he challenged. Rione hadn’t used the opportunity to openly express her doubts in Geary’s decision, leaving him both relieved and grateful.
Only silence answered him, until Captain Mosko spoke awkwardly. “You’d be expected to defend her, Captain Geary. Under the circumstances of your relationship. That’s also the act of an honorable officer.”
“Co-President Rione does not give orders to Captain Geary, and if she tried to do so, he wouldn’t listen,” Captain Desjani stated in a clear, emotionless voice. “That is my judgment from direct observation of Captain Geary on the bridge of Dauntless. I say this on my honor, and I trust no one believes that Co-President Rione and I have any relationship that would obligate me to defend her.”
“You obviously feel obligated to defend Captain Geary,” Captain Midea replied in a tone that implied that Desjani’s obligation wasn’t based on purely professional grounds.
Desjani turned a hard gaze on her fellow officer. “Captain Midea, I will defend any officer who can defeat our enemies, especially one who can do so as Captain Geary does. He is my fleet commander, and he has honor. My enemies are the Syndics and anyone who assists them.”
The silence this time held an even sharper edge of tension. Captain Casia broke it, though with seeming reluctance to back Midea’s intemperate words. “Discussion and debate among commanding officers are accepted within the fleet. They are not cause for accusations of treason.”
“Did I accuse someone of treason?” Desjani asked.
Geary spoke in the awkward quiet that followed. “Open discussion and debate are accepted, though not once a course of action has been decided upon. I know there are some officers in this fleet who say things in private that they decline to repeat openly. I’ve said before and will repeat that I encourage suggestions and
constructive comments, but I also repeat that as the commander of this fleet, I have the duty and responsibility to make the decisions and issue the orders.”
Captain Badaya nodded. “That’s what we’ve learned to expect of you,” he stated with a scornful glance toward Casia. “If we can’t use the hypernet gate at Lakota, what will be the next objective?”
Grateful for a chance to get back to discussing operational matters rather than real or imagined relationships, Geary gestured toward the display. “We’d have a couple of good options. Which way we go will depend partly on whatever we find in Lakota and how much combat results from that.” He looked down the virtual length of the table toward Captain Tyrosian and the other auxiliaries’ commanders. “Thanks to the outstanding efforts of our auxiliaries, we’ve been able to get fuel cell and expendable munitions stocks back up to decent levels, even though we’re short of one hundred percent across the board. But doing that has used up a majority of the raw materials we’ve acquired to date. We’ll need to find more to restock the bunkers in the auxiliaries. The urgency of that restocking will depend on how many fuel cells we have to burn at Lakota and how many weapons we have to expend.”
“We seem to spend a great deal of time either guarding the auxiliaries or getting them restocked,” Intrepid’s commanding officer grumbled.
“If we didn’t,” Captain Duellos pointed out in a cheerful voice, “you’d be in a Syndic labor camp by now, since it’s hard to fight without fuel or weapons.”
The commander of Bracer nodded. “My ship took a lot of damage at Daiquon. The engineers have been working themselves to exhaustion helping us on the repairs. My crew and I are happy to continue escorting them while we’re being brought back to fully operational status.”
A number of officers looked toward Commander Yin and the acting commanding officers of Majestic and Warrior. All three battleships were having extensive damage repaired, and none of their commanding officers had spoken up for the auxiliaries. “We’re grateful, too,” Commander Suram of Warrior stated quickly. “We may be operational in time for Lakota.”
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