The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible

by Campbell, Jack

  She sat down, apparently oblivious to the stares turned her way and to the openmouthed shock with which Desjani watched Rione until Desjani came to her senses and snapped her jaw shut. No one else but Geary, perhaps, could have spotted the way suspicion grew in Desjani’s eyes as she banished her earlier surprise and hid her subsequent feelings about Rione’s speech.

  Captain Hiyen stood up, stiff at attention. “I withdraw my question, Admiral. Not because it should not have been asked but because it has been answered.”

  Feeling extremely embarrassed, Geary managed to find his voice again. “If that is all, thank you. I’ll notify you all of our plans as they develop.”

  The images of the ship captains attending by virtual means vanished rapidly after Geary ended the meeting, the apparent size of the room and the table shrinking just as fast. Blinking to reorient himself to the actual size of the compartment, Geary turned to leave in Desjani’s wake, only to find Rione standing waiting for him. “Thank you,” he said.

  She waved a dismissive hand. “I knew you were too humble and modest to say what needed to be said. Do you have a moment?”

  “Is there something else?” He heard the accusatory edge in his voice, honed by Rione’s enigmatic behavior for the last few months, and wondered how she would respond to that.

  Desjani glanced back at Rione, her own face impassive, then, at Geary’s gesture, stepped through the hatch and closed it, leaving Geary and Rione alone.

  Rione nodded in reply to his question. “You know that the answer I gave in here is only a bandage on the wound. The problem still festers.”

  “Believe me, I’m fully aware of that.”

  “Once this fleet is on its way toward home again, it will help morale a great deal. You got them home once. They believe you will do it again.” She paused to eye him speculatively. “You will do it again, won’t you?”

  This was the old Rione, taunting and sarcastic even as she offered assistance. “I hope so,” Geary answered. “At the moment, I’m not sure how we’re getting out of this star system, but I’m working on it.”

  “Not alone.” She made the statement into something that sounded almost like an order.

  “Tanya will help me, and I’ll pull in whatever other help I need.”

  “Good. Working relationships sometimes suffer when they become personal.” Rione looked to one side, her mouth twisting. “I’m ready to answer one question, Admiral.”

  He paused, eyeing her with renewed suspicion. “You’ve been acting like you’ve been carrying a lot of extra secrets ever since this mission began, Madam Emissary. Why are you willing to finally say something now?”

  “Circumstances, Admiral. Assuming I did have orders unknown to you, the discovery of this new species of intelligent aliens might have triggered a different portion of them.”

  “I see. One question?” He got another nod. “Fine. What are your orders?”

  She gave him one of her old looks, thinly veiled amusement with a hint of superiority. “I can’t answer that one. Try another. I’d suggest asking what I will do, rather than what such orders might say.”

  Geary sat down, gesturing her to one of the other seats. “Victoria, I’d be grateful to know what you’ll do.”

  Sitting down, Rione met his eyes with her own. “I will do whatever I can to ensure that this fleet returns home.”

  “Is that a change?”

  “In what I would do or in what my orders might have said?”

  “Both.”

  “That’s two questions,” Rione said. “Or possibly three.”

  “Can you tell me where these orders came from?”

  “No.” She looked away then, her face suddenly bleak. “There’s—I promise you, Admiral. I am on your side though my actions have been constrained up until now.”

  “Good.” Could he believe her? At least she was talking. “Are you working with anyone? I assume you still have agents in my fleet.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Do you know what happened with Captain Jane Geary? Why she started acting so aggressively?”

  Rione raised an eyebrow at him. “I had nothing to do with that. I don’t know of anyone’s influencing her to act like Captain Falco’s illegitimate offspring. That’s not to say there is no one, but as far as I know, she’s made that change on her own.”

  He didn’t know why he believed Rione, but he did. Whatever had made Jane Geary change her behaviors couldn’t be blamed on Rione’s actions. “What do I need to know that I don’t know?”

  “That’s another question.” Rione wagged an admonishing finger at him. “You’ve become pretty aggressive yourself, Admiral.”

  He hunched forward, regarding her. “I’ve got a lot of lives riding on what I do, Madam Emissary.”

  “So you do.” She paused, hidden thoughts passing behind her gaze, then focused on him again. “I honestly believe that you know everything that you need to know at the moment. You may know things that I don’t.”

  “I wish I knew what was driving you these days.”

  Her expression went somber. “My priorities have never changed.”

  Which meant the Alliance, and one particular man. “How is Paol doing?” Her husband, captured during the war, presumed dead for years, and liberated not too long ago from a Syndic labor camp. Geary had received reports from medical on Paol Benan, so he knew Commander Benan’s status, but he wanted to see what Rione said.

  She didn’t answer for a moment, then shook her head. “Medical is keeping an eye on him.” It was a statement, not a question. “Watch him.”

  Geary felt unease at her tone. “Are you safe?”

  “I don’t know. I believe so. I suspect things were done to him by the Syndics, things he cannot recall, things invisible to those who examine him for harm. He is still a very angry man, Admiral.” Rione looked directly at him again. “I have told him he must stay away from you, or I will leave him. That is why there have been no more confrontations. I am the last anchor to who he once was that he can grasp.”

  With the vast responsibilities weighing on him, with all the lives hanging on his decisions, Geary still felt a great guilt and sorrow over this relatively small human drama. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I pursued you, and you cut it off before we knew Paol was still alive. Just get this fleet home.” She was all business again. “You are properly focused on the current situation. I believe that General Charban was right that the enigmas will not pursue us here. But you cannot forget them.”

  Geary sighed, sitting back and rubbing his eyes. “There are a lot of immediate problems to address. What can the enigmas do now?”

  “I don’t know. Neither do you. That should concern you.”

  THREE

  HE glared at Rione, angered as much by his realization of the truth of her statement as by his own failure to spot that earlier. “I can only deal with so many issues at once.” An excuse. Why was he offering an excuse instead of figuring out an answer?

  Rione gave him an arch look. “A wise leader, which you usually are, doesn’t try to do everything. I would suggest that you tell someone you trust to evaluate what the enigmas are likely to do.”

  “I can’t spare Tanya for that.”

  “Is your captain the only person in your universe, Admiral? Is there no one else in this fleet who can think besides you and her?”

  Geary smiled crookedly. “Maybe.” He reached out to hit a command link but paused before completing the gesture. “Those prisoners of war we picked up at Dunai.”

  Rione nodded, her expression once again unrevealing. “The many generals, admirals, captains, and colonels who have made life difficult for you?”

  “Yes. I want this question answered. Why did the government order me to pick them up on the way out here instead of letting me do it on the way home?”

  “I’d just be speculating,” Rione answered after a moment.

  “Go ahead and speculate.”

  “There are undou
btedly some who would be happy if those senior officers never returned to trouble current high-ranking officers and officials.”

  Geary nodded, his expression hardening. “Then those same officers and officials would also be happy if this fleet didn’t return?”

  She stayed silent this time, as still and unrevealing as a statue.

  “We are getting home,” Geary finally said. “With all of those officers, assuming none of them do anything that requires me to order them to be shot.” At the last moment he realized that statement applied very specifically as well to Rione’s husband, Commander Benan, and couldn’t avoid flinching.

  Rione noticed. “You don’t want to shoot anyone.”

  “I will order it done if it is necessary. You know that.”

  She sat back, looking thoughtful. “Do you know how many people there are who believe that gaining great power and responsibility means you get to do whatever you want to do, and you never have to do things you don’t want to do?”

  His laugh echoed harshly in the almost empty compartment. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “Wouldn’t it. Of course, some people who do attain such power believe the same thing. They get to do whatever they want.” Rione eyed him steadily. “You know I feared Black Jack would be such a person. I was wrong. But now you want to know whether any of the former prisoners are cut from that cloth?”

  “There have already been some attempts to interfere with the running of the fleet,” Geary said. “I’m sure you’re already aware of them.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m aware of nothing else. If their plots continue, they do not include me or anyone who reports to me in their confidence.”

  “Can you tell me anything about Admiral Lagemann? His record is spotless. Battlefield promotions got him to the rank of admiral, not politics.”

  Her gaze grew briefly puzzled. “Then why ask me about him? I know of nothing negative about the man. His name never appeared in any of the internal-security reports I’ve read in the past. Apparently he was too busy actually fighting the war to spend time politicking for advancement or maneuvering against the government.”

  “That was my assessment of him,” Geary said. “But I’ve been wrong before, and if there was any dirty laundry in his past, I thought you would know of it.”

  “That hurts, Admiral.” She almost sounded truly wounded by the suggestion.

  “My apologies,” he replied, letting the sarcasm come out clearly before finally activating his controls.

  A few moments later, the figure of Admiral Lagemann appeared from Mistral. Lagemann, who had been among the few from Mistral allowed to view the recent fleet conference, cocked his head at Geary. “Something new already, Admiral Geary? We’re already tossing around ideas for what to do to get through that jump point.”

  “Got any good ones?” Geary asked.

  “Not a one.”

  “There’s something else I need looked into besides the current situation here,” Geary explained. “Something critically important. You and your fellow veterans gave me a very important heads-up about what tactics the enigmas might employ at Alihi. I would be very grateful if you could now assess what the enigmas will do knowing that we jumped to this star.”

  “You mean aside from celebrating that we jumped into this briar patch?” Lagemann asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s a really interesting question.” Lagemann stood silent for a moment, his eyes hooded with thought, then nodded. “We’ll see what we can come up with. May I ask you something, Admiral?” Lagemann accompanied the question with a subtle glance toward Rione.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are we really heading back, or is that for public consumption to keep morale from heading for the nearest black hole?”

  “We’re really going back,” Geary said. “And then all of you guys will be the government’s problem.”

  “Not me. Get me home, and I’ll retire and find a nice, quiet job on my home world.” Lagemann paused again, thinking. “Something where I work inside at night. I’ve seen enough stars for one lifetime.”

  AS Geary departed, leaving Rione alone in the room, Desjani stood away from the bulkhead where she had been waiting and walked at his elbow. “Did you have a nice chat, Admiral?”

  “Yes, Tanya.” They walked in silence for a while. “She says she’s going to help get the fleet home.”

  “Oh, how wonderful,” Desjani declared in perfectly flat tones. “That witch is still trying to use you for her own purposes. ‘Don’t do this because I want you to. Do it because the great hero Black Jack has sacrificed sooooo much for you.’”

  “I don’t think she wanted us to come out here, Tanya,” Geary said. “I think she was forced as much as we were.”

  “You’ve said that before. You can go on believing what you want. I’ll keep an eye and a weapon on her. Notice how I’m not even commenting on how quickly you decided to trust that woman again or how gullible you can be.”

  “Gullible?” Geary asked.

  “Trusting. I said trusting, not gullible.”

  “You mean when you weren’t commenting?”

  Desjani turned a glare his way. “Someone has to watch your back. Admiral.”

  “And there’s no one I trust more than you. But she wants the fleet to get home, too.”

  “When did that change of heart occur?” Still keeping step with him, Desjani gave him a sidelong glance. “Or is she just trying to distract you when you should be bore-sighted on resolving our current situation with the bear-cows?”

  Geary waved one hand in frustration. “I’m going to refocus on that as soon as we’re done talking. She said something about finding another alien species. Maybe whoever wanted to sabotage this mission put a higher priority on learning about another potential threat.”

  Desjani smiled. “Oh, darling, you admitted that someone is trying to sabotage this mission.”

  “I never denied the possibility.” Had he? “And watch your language, Captain.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “I think Rione is also worried about her husband.”

  “So am I. I still think he’ll commit sabotage someday.”

  Geary barely managed not to glare at Desjani. He wasn’t mad at her, he was angry with . . . fate, perhaps. Whatever had caused this to happen. “I’ve looked at Paol Benan’s service record. He wasn’t like this before he was captured. He had a good record. Now he’s impulsive. Angry. Unpredictable.”

  “Well, duh,” Desjani agreed. “The Syndics tortured him. There are ways to do that without leaving conscious memories or physical traces, you know.”

  He stopped and stared at her, finally grasping what Rione had only hinted at. “Lieutenant Iger told me we never sank to using torture though he also admitted that was partly out of pragmatism. Torture didn’t produce worthwhile information. Surely the Syndics realized the same thing.”

  Desjani chewed her lip for a moment before replying. “What you and Lieutenant Iger, and the fleet doctors, are not taking into account is that for some people, torture isn’t about getting reliable information. They do it because they like doing it, or because they think someone deserves it as punishment.” She must have read his reaction on his face. “I do not believe that the Alliance ever permitted that. As far as I know, we always screened interrogation personnel very carefully to rule out those kind of tendencies. But do you honestly believe that the Syndics took such care?”

  He had met some Syndics who didn’t seem to be terrible human beings. Some had shown every sign of being decent and responsible. But he had met many others, usually senior leaders, who appeared to lack any sort of moral compass. “I’ll tell the doctors to work on that assumption and see what they can do.”

  “It’s a lot easier to break people than it is to put them back together,” Desjani said, her voice low. “For the record, I wish it had not happened to him. Or anyone.”

  “I never doubted otherwise. I know Commander Benan is under medical
surveillance. Do you have people watching him, too?”

  “Twenty-four/seven.” She paused. “They have orders to stop him if he starts to do anything wrong. I don’t want grounds for court-martial; I want to avoid damage to my ship.”

  “Good.” They reached the hatch to his stateroom. “I have a growing feeling that I need to talk to him again.”

  “That would be a very bad idea, Admiral.”

  “Just him and me,” Geary added. “To see what he says when we’re alone.”

  Her tone stayed remarkably even. “With all due respect, that would be a very bad and a very dumb idea, Admiral.”

  “I’ll let you know before I try it, and it won’t be until after we’ve figured out how to handle the bear-cows.”

  “That makes me feel so much better.” Desjani shook her head. “The living stars must be guiding you. No human would consider a one-on-one with an unstable man whose wife you slept with a good idea.”

  She rarely talked about that directly, incidents which had occurred before he and Rione knew that her husband still lived and before he and Desjani had realized their own growing feelings for each other. Desjani’s bringing it up now told him how upset she was. “I promise to discuss it with you again before I have a private conversation with Commander Benan. Now I’m going to forget that problem and work on ideas for getting out of this star system.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled wryly at him. “One crisis at a time.”