Rione nodded. “That might explain it, then. In any case, your reputation is such that she probably would have realized such an attempt would have been futile.”
“Thanks.” Rione always seemed to know how to keep him off-balance.
“But Kila wouldn’t work as a human shield for those pulling the strings in these actions against you and the fleet,” Rione continued. “If she were behind this, why would Kila be drawing attention to herself?”
“If my hidden foes are as smart as we think, she wouldn’t be.” Geary shook his head. “The systems-security people are watching for more dangerous worms but can’t guarantee they know every possible back door into fleet control systems. What else can we do?”
“I don’t know.” Rione’s frustration was easily apparent. “I understand you haven’t received any more offers to become dictator.”
“Not in the last few days.”
“The only thing between you and being able to do that,” Rione noted, “is the distance remaining to Alliance space and whatever Syndic forces are left to get past.”
“And me,” Geary replied. “I won’t do it.”
Rione gave him a weary look. “Why do you think that is a critical factor? When we reach Varandal, those who want you to seize authority from the elected leaders of the Alliance will expect you to act.”
Desjani replied this time, her voice cold. “Captain Geary will not violate his oath to the Alliance, no matter how badly the politicians leading the Alliance do their jobs.”
Rione ignored her, speaking pointedly just to Geary. “They won’t accept your denials forever, and they know the vast majority of the fleet would support them if they acted allegedly on your behalf. They don’t need your approval to launch a coup in your name. You have to expect that they will do that and try to present you with a fait accompli. You need to have a plan for how to deal with that before the Alliance government is overthrown.”
“All right.” He couldn’t help noticing that Rione was essentially offering the same advice as Desjani had earlier. No way was he going to be foolish enough to mention that, though. “Do you have any suggestions on a plan?”
“If I were dealing with other politicians, it wouldn’t be too hard to come up with ideas,” Rione replied with an exasperated scowl. “But my grasp of the military mind is still limited.”
Geary gave Desjani a sidelong glance. “Perhaps we should run with the military angle. Think of it as a military problem, a matter of strategies and tactics.”
Rione’s expression altered as she pondered the idea. “That might be very useful.”
Unseen by her, Desjani flashed a very unmilitary smirk.
Geary tried to flick a cautioning look at Desjani, which, of course, Rione noted, and she turned slightly to watch Desjani with narrowed eyes, though too late to catch the mocking expression. “Can you do that?” Rione asked Geary. “Explain it to them in their terms in such a way that they won’t act?”
“I’m trying to, but I haven’t yet thought of any argument powerful enough.”
This time Rione snorted in derision. “Think in terms of disasters, because that’s what a military coup would be. A very big disaster, the biggest you can bring to mind.”
Desjani lifted one eyebrow toward Geary. “That sounds like a description of the results of the attack on the Syndic home system that trapped this fleet far inside enemy territory.”
“That’s good,” Rione conceded. “Very good. Something recent enough that the memories and emotions are fresh, and something that sounded attractive but was actually a debacle that could have lost the war. Surely you can come up with something drawing on that.”
Geary nodded. “I just need to figure out who the enemy is in that scenario.”
Rione exhaled in exasperation. “That’s the easiest part. Ask your captain, there. She’ll tell you. Or ask Captain Badaya. Who’s the enemy at home? I am, and every other politician. That’s what they believe.” Desjani nodded once, her eyes on Rione and all trace of mockery fled. “You see? Your strategy should be based on what people like Badaya already consider to be the truth. They’ll be much more likely to accept it if you do that. Then you can test out your ideas on this one. She has a military mind, and you haven’t got anyone more trustworthy.” That praise startled both Desjani and Geary into letting their reactions show. Rione smiled, her lips a thin, tight line. “I’m neither blind nor stupid. If you don’t keep that woman guarding your back, you’re an idiot, Captain Geary. However, will she tell you if she doesn’t think your ideas will be effective?”
Geary’s mouth twisted into an ironic return smile. “I feel confident that Captain Desjani will let me know if there are any shortcomings on my part.”
“Good. I don’t want the government of the Alliance overthrown by anyone claiming to act in the name of the great hero whose legend the government created, and I don’t want to have to deal with you if that does happen and you decide you like it.” Rione turned and left, the hatch sealing behind her.
“Did she just threaten you?” Desjani asked.
“Yeah. It’s not the first time, though I think it’s the first time she’s done it in front of someone else.”
“Why do you tolerate it?”
“Because,” Geary replied, his eyes on the hatch, “there are times when I wonder if I can trust myself, and at those times I’m glad to have a threat hanging over me.”
Desjani considered that for a few moments. “I have to admit that she was right about a number of things. Among them that I have your back, sir.”
“I know that, but you have an oath to the Alliance, too.”
She shook her head. “We already discussed this. You won’t violate your oath, so I won’t have to violate mine. Why do you trust her?”
That was a reasonable question given that Rione was a politician, but more than that Geary had been shocked to learn that in the century of war fleet officers had developed a corrosive distrust for the elected leaders of the Alliance. So now Geary inclined his head toward the hatch through which Rione had left. “Because despite all that she has hidden from me and everyone else, I am absolutely certain that Victoria Rione deeply loves two things. The first is her husband, who we discovered may still live and be a prisoner of the Syndics somewhere, but the second is the Alliance. She’d die for the Alliance, Tanya, just like you and I would. Don’t think that because she doesn’t wear a uniform that isn’t true. Rione is loyal to the Alliance, and I think she’s as incorruptible as a person can be. She’s often a royal pain in the butt, too, but we can trust her.”
“One good thing about Heradao,” Desjani remarked, “is that our enemies there will be easy to identify.” She shrugged with an uncharacteristic air of melancholy. “Sometimes I miss the days before you were found, when the answer to everything was killing Syndics in any way we could and as fast as possible. They were the enemy. Victory would come when we’d killed enough of them. It didn’t work, but it was much simpler. You’ve made things much more complicated.”
“The Syndics are still the enemy,” Geary pointed out. “As long as we stay focused on that, it shouldn’t be too complicated.”
“You’re asking me to respect a politician,” she reminded him. “That is not going to be a simple or easy thing.”
He watched her for a moment, trying to understand how fleet officers like Desjani could be loyal to the Alliance yet disdain the elected leaders of the Alliance. Part of it was doubtless a very human need to find someone else to blame for the failures in the war, but Rione herself had admitted to him that the Alliance’s political leaders deserved a full share of culpability for their own actions over the last hundred years. Maybe he himself was just a living anachronism in that way, an officer who believed respect was automatically due to the leaders of the Alliance and the idea of things being otherwise was simply too hard to accept. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me that we can trust her.”
Desjani made a contemptuous noise. “I will do my best to
treat her with due respect since that is my duty as an officer and you vouch for her, but I don’t ever expect to trust her.” She stepped back, toward the hatch, her eyes on him. “I’ll accept your judgment because I trust you.”
Hundreds of warships and their crews were trusting him to get them home, the fate of the Alliance and perhaps humanity itself rested on his decisions, but it was the trust of this one woman that really mattered to him. Rione had told him once that people didn’t really fight for grand causes or great purposes, but for the closest and most personal of reasons. They might say they fought for the high ideals, but in practice they fought for the comrades beside them and their loved ones at home. Geary looked back at the star display, centered on Heradao, then beyond that star to Padronis, Atalia, and finally Varandal.
So very close. They’d come so far. He’d have to make sure they made it the rest of the way no matter what awaited the fleet at Heradao.
Because a lot of people trusted him to be able to get the fleet home. And one of those people was Tanya Desjani.
HE had to hold one more meeting before the fleet left Dilawa. Once in jump space, only simple and short communications could be passed between ships. There was a small and select group with whom Geary had to consult before then.
He sat in the conference room once more, but this time the table didn’t seem much larger than it really was. Around it sat the images of Captains Duellos, Tulev, and Cresida, as well as the real presences of Geary, Desjani, and Rione. “We’re getting close to home,” Geary began. “We’re not there yet, and I anticipate a nasty fight at Heradao or one of the other Syndic star systems we still have to get through. But we can feel reasonably confident of handling the Syndics. What we still don’t know is how the aliens might react to this fleet’s getting home.”
Tulev resembled a bull as he nodded slowly and stolidly. “The aliens tried to ensure this fleet’s defeat and destruction at Lakota. That argues that they will not be pleased by our making it home.”
“But what will they do?” Cresida wondered. “If our speculations are right, they could trigger the collapse of every hypernet gate in human space. Will they actually do that when we get home?”
“That’s one of the things I’m worried about,” Geary said.
“We’ll have a little time,” Rione stated quietly but confidently. Everyone else gave her a questioning look, so Rione waved one hand at the star display over the table. “Consider first of all what we know of their tactics. They don’t appear to have acted directly against either us or the Syndics. Instead, they’ve tricked us into doing harm to each other.”
“True enough,” Duellos agreed.
“Now, what do the aliens know about this fleet?” Rione continued. “That we have learned that the hypernet gates make extremely powerful weapons. Do these aliens have agents or sources of intelligence, even if only automated worms and ’bots, within Alliance space? We have to assume so.”
“They had them threaded through the systems on our ships,” Cresida noted. “Those quantum-level probability-based worms. We think we found and cleared them all out, but for all we know they can activate new ones, or new ones can be triggered by certain events.”
“Exactly.” Rione pointed to the star display again, beyond Syndic space. “They’ve been watching us. They’ve been seeing how we act. Based on that, the aliens can reasonably conclude that when presented with the existence of such weapons, the Alliance will choose to use them.”
Cresida bared her teeth. “I think you’re right, Madam Co-President. They’ll wait to see if we do that, if we tell our political and military superiors that the hypernet gates in Syndic star systems can be used to wipe out the Syndics. And if our political authorities then order that such actions begin. If I’d been watching the progression of this war over the last century, I’d believe it was just a matter of time before one side used those weapons and the other retaliated in kind.”
“Thank you, Captain Cresida. After which,” Rione said, “the aliens will sit back and watch as the Alliance begins wiping out Syndic star systems, and the Syndics respond with the same tactic. The aliens wouldn’t have to lift a finger as humanity wiped itself out using weapons the aliens provided.”
Geary nodded, tasting something acidic in his throat. “So they’ll wait a little while to see what we do. That does give us some time.”
“Not too much time, Captain Geary.” Rione gazed at the star display, her expression somber. “I’ve been considering this in light of what we’ve guessed about the start of the war, that the aliens tricked the Syndics into attacking us by pretending to ally with the Syndics. But did the Syndics attack out of greed, or did the aliens tell them things that led the Syndics to believe an attack on the Alliance was a good idea?”
“What could they have told the Syndics?” Desjani demanded.
Rione gave her a look cold enough to liquefy oxygen. “Anything and everything. False intelligence that the Alliance intended to attack the Syndics, for example.”
“We didn’t have the forces in existence to allow that,” Geary objected.
“Not as far as the Syndics knew,” Rione stated sarcastically. “Why shouldn’t the Syndics have been ready to believe that the Alliance was hiding forces? But the specifics don’t matter. Stop focusing on that. They tricked the Syndics into attacking us. They can do that again.”
“Again?” Captain Cresida leaned forward, her eyes intent. “How?”
“If we don’t seem to be acting, the aliens might try to goad us into using the hypernet gates as weapons. There’s a good chance that they know we’re learning things, and they probably don’t want to give us time to apply that knowledge. We’ve speculated that the aliens have a means to cause hypernet gates to collapse. A trigger signal, somehow propagating faster than the speed of light.” She indicated different stars in the display, one by one. “Suppose a few hypernet gates collapse within Alliance space, one by one, destroying the star systems they served? Who would the Alliance blame?”
“Damn.” Geary could hear the others softly cursing as well. “If we don’t start genocidal attacks, the aliens will provoke us or the Syndics into it by making us think the other side is already doing that.”
Rione’s gaze seemed distant, but it was still fixed on one star far off to one side of the display, on the far-distant fringes of Alliance space. “Sol Star System has a hypernet gate,” she added. “Even though it stands apart from the Alliance and remains weak from the ancient wars that raged there, old Earth abides in that star system, along with the first colonies on the other planets of Sol. The homes of our most ancient and revered ancestors, circling the star we view as the foremost symbol of the living stars. It was given a hypernet gate out of respect and to ease pilgrimages there, even though economically Sol system couldn’t justify such an investment.” She looked around at the others. “What if the people of the Alliance believed that the Syndics had destroyed that star system?”
Duellos answered, his voice unusually harsh. “Nothing would stop them, no argument would dissuade them. They’d want every Syndic dead by any means possible.”
“Bloody hell.” Geary wondered why most of his contributions to these discussions were curses. “All right. We can guess that we have some brief grace period after getting home in which the aliens will wait to see if humanity takes the poison bait. If we don’t go for it within whatever period of time they think reasonable, the aliens will start trying to trigger what could well be humanity’s last offensive. I wish I knew what they wanted or intended.”
“We have no way of answering that,” Rione said. “We believe we know what they’ve done. They seem very comfortable with placing weapons in our hands and waiting for us to use them on each other. But we don’t know if they’re avoiding direct actions against us as some sort of strategy or if it reflects some moral or religious aspect of their thinking.”
“What could possibly be moral about that?” Cresida wondered.
“From an alien pe
rspective? They could believe that simply providing the tools places no guilt on them as long we’re the ones who pull the triggers. I don’t know that, it’s just a possible explanation.”
“Or,” Tulev stated, “it could be equally possible that it is a totally amoral strategy to ensure humanity is eliminated or contained as a threat or rival in the most efficient manner possible for these aliens. We have no way of knowing, so we must base our assumptions of future actions on what they have done in the past.”
“You’re right. Unfortunately, if our guesses are accurate, what they’ve done in the past has been very bad for us.” Geary turned back to Rione. “Co-President Rione, can you put together a list of the stars with the highest symbolic importance? We’ll have to make sure those star systems get the highest priority on safe-collapse systems for their hypernet gates.”
“Do you think such a thing could be done? Opinions on levels of symbolic importance will vary.” She eyed Geary for a long moment. “If they wish to incite a massive retaliation against the Syndics, the aliens might target the home star system of the fleet commander and legendary hero Black Jack Geary.”
His breath caught, his eyes suddenly seeing not the compartment they were in or the companions with him, but the world where he’d grown up. The world where his parents and other family members were buried. Home, even though it had surely changed a lot in the century he had been in survival sleep. He imagined a shock wave hitting it like the one that had devastated Lakota Star System, instantly turning a pleasant, well-populated world into a corner of hell and a charnel house.
How could he accept a low priority for his home world? Geary’s vision cleared and he looked at those with him. They all had their own home worlds. Which one did he bump down in priority for his home? Geary sighed, shaking his head. “I’m not very good at making the sorts of decisions reserved for the living stars, I’m afraid. Madam Co-President, if you could just make your best appraisal—”
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