Any lingering doubts he had felt that the grand council was going to play games with their promises to him vanished.
But he could play games, too. He had managed to defeat the tricks played on him by the Syndics and the aliens, and he would do the same with the grand council.
As he left the shuttle dock, Geary couldn’t help noticing the irony that just like Badaya, he was now seeing the Alliance government as one more obstacle to overcome. Unlike Badaya, though, his goals were purely personal. The government could make policy, but Geary wanted at least a little control over his own life.
He figured that he had earned that much.
Geary rejoined Desjani on the bridge, watching as the Alliance shuttle mated with the Syndic heavy cruiser, Desjani seeming ready to launch specters in an instant if the heavy cruiser opened fire on the shuttle. But after several minutes the shuttle reported a successful transfer and broke away from the Syndic warship, heading back to Dauntless.
As the shuttle reentered the dock on Dauntless, Desjani herself finally seemed to relax. “Are we going home now?”
“Yes.” He leaned back, gazing at the images of the fleet on the display. “We’re going home.”
TWELVE
IT felt odd to be going home with no immediate prospect of combat facing them, to be using the Syndic hypernet, to transit Syndic star systems (or former Syndic star systems) without fear of attack. Some of the Syndic CEOs even offered to sell raw materials to restock the bunkers on the fleet’s auxiliaries, but no one in the Alliance fleet was willing to trust in such a transaction yet.
As they crossed the last Syndic star system before jumping for Varandal in Alliance space, Geary held what felt like a last meeting with his most trusted advisers. Desjani appeared pensive, but she had been finding reasons not to talk to him lately, so he didn’t know why. Duellos had lost the air of melancholy that had always been mostly hidden behind his jauntiness. Tulev seemed like he was considering relearning how to smile but hadn’t yet convinced himself. “Is this what peace feels like?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Geary confessed. “To me, with all of the threats that still remain, it’s not peace.”
“But the Syndicate Worlds will be a shadow of its former self.”
“The Alliance may face the same pressures. Rione expects a lot of star systems, and larger groupings like the Rift Federation and her own Callas Republic, to push for more autonomy and fewer commitments to the Alliance.”
“Fewer commitments,” Desjani said scornfully. “You mean less money. Now that they’ll feel safe, they’ll still want the Alliance to keep defending them, but they won’t want to have to pay to be defended.”
“That’s pretty much it, yeah. The big common threat is gone, and getting across the need to deal with the successor states to the Syndicate Worlds as well as the unknown size of the alien threat isn’t going to be easy with such a war-weary population.”
“The price of winning was very high,” Duellos said. “Almost too high for the Alliance. But then the price of defeat is far worse for the Syndics.”
They toasted victory and survival, then the virtual presences of Duellos and Tulev took their leave.
Desjani stayed sitting at the table, though, her hands clasped before her, head slightly bowed.
Geary waited for a while, but she didn’t say anything, so finally he did. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice came out low.
“Is it anything you can talk about?”
“It’s the one thing I can’t talk about.”
“Oh.” He waited a little longer. “Can we talk about you?”
“About me? No, Admiral. I don’t think that would be wise.”
That hatch had slammed shut firmly. Geary couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed. She seemed to be wanting to talk but wouldn’t. “Let’s try this, then. The admiral is concerned about one of his best commanding officers, who appears to be considerably upset about some personal matter. Is there anything about it appropriate to share with him?”
“Maybe there is.” Desjani looked away, running one hand through her hair. “I’ve spent so many years becoming me. The idea of everyone looking at me and seeing someone else is very hard to accept.”
“You told me that before. I wish I had an answer.”
“I can’t expect an answer, let alone an open discussion. All I need to know right now is whether you can really understand how I feel.”
“Extremely well,” Geary replied. She glanced at him with a frown as he continued. “When I first woke up on Dauntless, and you were all standing there and talking about this Black Jack guy, this hero and these legends, and you were all looking at me. I’ve understood how that feels ever since then.”
Her frown vanished, replaced by embarrassment. “You have me there. It took me a while to look at you and see you, not Black Jack.”
“But, as you’ve said, the universe is always going to look at me and see Black Jack.”
“Do two wrongs make a right?” Desjani wondered. “Two wrong visions of people. I don’t know. I just don’t know. And I don’t know if you really see me. Who do you see? Who do you think I am? Don’t say anything. We can’t go there.”
“I believe I see the real you,” Geary said carefully.
“You’ve been on Dauntless since you awoke. Confined to this ship, for all intents and purposes, while we endured great stresses together because you were required to be in my company.”
“So?”
“Think about it.” She stood abruptly and walked out.
Geary sat for a while longer, then called his niece on Dreadnaught. They talked awhile longer, Jane Geary finally confessing that she couldn’t decide what her future held. “As long as I could understand what being a Geary meant, I’ve always seen the fleet as an inescapable doom. But it’s also what I’ve known as an adult, it’s what I know how to do. I know the survivors from Repulse that we picked up along with other Alliance POWs when we came back through the Syndic home star system don’t think he made it off his ship, but they weren’t certain that he died. Maybe, just maybe, Michael is still alive out there. In the fleet, I can help find him.”
“It’s your choice,” Geary told her, and for the first time he saw Jane Geary smile as she realized that really was true.
THE next morning they jumped for Varandal, Geary feeling increasingly restless as the last few days passed slowly. He wanted to ensure critical functions could continue without him personally remaining at Varandal, but there were only so many plans you could make for repairs of battle damage and maintenance and rotation of duty among warships so that crews could get some leave and rest.
Three days out, Rione paid one of her now-rare visits to his stateroom. “My conscience is bothering me, believe it or not. Do I have to warn you what’s going to happen when we get back?”
“I don’t think so, not if you’re talking about the grand council’s promises to me.”
Rione smiled crookedly. “They’ll stand by the exact letter of those promises. Don’t count on anything more than that.”
“So I’ve heard from others. But I’m going to take some time off, some leave, to get some personal things done.”
“Leave?” Rione asked skeptically. “You think they’ll grant you leave?”
“As commander of the fleet, I approve my own leave,” Geary replied.
“How convenient. Do you intend being gone long?”
“No. Thirty days.”
She looked impressed. “If you manage to stay away from the Alliance bureaucracy that long, it’ll be quite an achievement. You must have accumulated a great deal of leave in survival sleep, though I imagine the pay you accumulated during that century is a greater comfort to you.”
“Pay? Leave?” Geary shook his head. “I didn’t accumulate any.” He saw Rione’s puzzlement. “Sometime while I was asleep there were rulings, ‘clarifications’ of the pay and leave regulations, because some guys had been picked up after be
ing in survival sleep for a couple of years. The personnel bureaucracy ruled that time spent in survival sleep did not count toward pay, accumulation of leave, or obligated service time.”
“I see.” Rione also shook her head, smiling ruefully. “The bureaucracy figured out how to avoid paying anyone or giving them credit toward the length of their service contracts. How did they justify that?”
“Because you’re not in a ‘duty status’ while in survival sleep since you are not ‘available for duty if called.’ ” Geary shrugged. “Fortunately, the issue of seniority never came up, so officially my years in survival sleep did count in terms of accumulated seniority in my rank. Otherwise, I might have been the most junior captain in the fleet.”
“I shudder to think how events might have differed if that had been the case.” Rione sighed. “Even an agnostic would have to admit that some very critical things for the Alliance went right in your case, Admiral Geary.”
He laughed briefly. “Too bad the living stars didn’t look after my old bank accounts. They were closed out once I was declared dead, so I don’t even have the benefit of a century’s worth of interest on what I had in them. I have whatever I’ve earned since being found and awakened. The fleet admiral pay I’ve earned lately will be a nice bonus, but I’m not coming out of this well-off. I do have some extra leave time available, because what I had already accumulated a hundred years ago didn’t go away.”
“Ah, well, at least you know that she’s not after your money.”
Geary shot an irritated glance at Rione. “I never suspected her, or anyone else, of being motivated by that.”
Rione feigned a mock spasm of pain. “That hurt.” Geary didn’t respond to her humor, and she raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s the matter? Isn’t everything wonderful now? In another few days you can actually talk to her. Believe it or not, I know how hard it must have been to avoid doing or saying anything that might have compromised either of you.”
“Thank you.” He knew he was frowning as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just . . . I don’t know.”
“Cold feet?” she asked softly.
“No. Not on my part.”
“Oh.”
He looked at her quickly. Rione was gazing into a corner of the room, her expression once more unreadable. “What’s that mean?”
“It means, Admiral, that you need to deal with this yourself.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I am not the person to discuss your personal relationship problems with. She is the one you need to talk to.”
“I can’t. Not for another week. I just hope I say the right things then.”
Rione shook her head again, but before leaving gave Geary a sharp look. “Follow your instincts, Admiral.”
After Rione had left, Geary sat for a while, thinking, then left his stateroom, walking through the passageways of Dauntless, the passageways filled even at this late hour with excited crew members talking about going home and the end of the war. They looked at him not with hope now but with thanks, and that was much easier for Geary to endure even though he made a point always to tell them that they had won the war and all of the victories leading to its end. He had just been fortunate enough to lead them.
Geary went all the way down to the worship spaces, crowded with those giving thanks to higher powers than mere admirals, and found a room for himself. Inside, he sat for a while in the solitude before lighting the candle and speaking to his long-dead brother. “I still sometimes wonder if it’s all real. From commanding officer of a single heavy cruiser to commanding officer of a fleet a lot bigger than anything the Alliance could muster in my own time. Who would have thought that I’d be stuck with trying to save that fleet lost far behind enemy lines, that I’d be expected to save the Alliance? I know your granddaughter Jane says you always told her I was what the legend said, but you and I both know better. I’m just me. I don’t know how I got through this, but I do know I had a lot of help.
“Tell your grandson Michael I’m sorry. He was a fine officer. He was a real hero. We’re bringing some of the crew from Repulse home with us. They were still being held in the Syndic home star system. They can’t confirm he died, but none of them think he could’ve gotten off the ship alive. I will always regret not being able to save him.
“Your granddaughter Jane is a fine woman. I’ll try to look out for her. But she’s a Geary. Stubborn and willful. I don’t know if she’ll stay in the fleet now, or leave it to become an architect.
“Now she has a choice. So do Michael’s kids. I thank the living stars that I was able to do that.”
“ADMIRAL, the last units of the fleet have assumed their assigned orbits in Varandal Star System.”
“Thank you.” The comm panel in his stateroom went dark again, and Geary looked toward the display floating over the table. Dauntless and a number of other warships had been in position not far from Ambaru station for more than half a day. Shuttles had already taken some personnel from Dauntless to the station for official business or to start long-postponed personal leave. But other warships had taken more time to reach their assigned orbits, some of them near different orbital stations. The fleet was large enough that no one wanted to overwhelm one or two facilities with the amount of personnel traffic all of the warships would generate.
That was it, then. The orders and plans he had worked up for the fleet once it got back had been sent and set in motion. He had now satisfied everything, his promises, his sense of duty, his honor, and the conditions to which the grand council had agreed. Even the threat of a military coup had vanished for the moment, with Badaya and his allies convinced that every important decision was covertly being made by Geary and more than satisfied by the formal end of the war. Geary reached up and removed the admiral of the fleet insignia, not without a pang of regret since Tanya had pinned them on. He stood before the mirror for a moment, attaching his captain’s insignia.
Geary looked around his stateroom on Dauntless, the starscape on one bulkhead, the chairs, the table over which he had worked out countless simulations and battle plans. Except for the couple of weeks before Admiral Bloch died, this had been Geary’s home in this time. His only home in this time.
He was going to leave it for a while. Surely the Alliance owed him a few weeks to rest, and things couldn’t go awry in such a short time. He wondered where to go in Alliance space and what to do there. Everywhere there would be people wanting to mob him, and all he wanted to do was find someplace to hide for a little while, to not have to worry for a brief period about grand decisions or the fates of warships and the Alliance.
Not alone, hopefully. There was someone to whom he could finally speak his heart. Though Tanya Desjani had definitely been avoiding him the last couple of days. Maybe she had felt the same way he had, fighting off an urge to blurt out feelings just a short while before they could honorably speak of them.
Even though he was leaving the ship, he was certain that he’d be back on Dauntless. The Alliance was surely going to be calling on Black Jack again because the universe hadn’t been tied up in a neat package. Just how much the Alliance could or should do inside the mess that had once been the Syndicate Worlds was very much open to question, but Geary had no doubt that the fleet would be called upon. If nothing else, there were a lot of Alliance prisoners of war stranded among the wreckage of the Syndicate Worlds, people to be found and brought home.
And the aliens remained, still far too little known about them, a lingering threat on the far side of Syndic space, doubtless watching humanity, doubtless coming up with new tricks to cause humanity to work against itself, perhaps planning new offensives of their own, their feelings about their own recent losses as unknown as just about everything else about them. What lay beyond the aliens remained a mystery as well. Where there was one nonhuman intelligent race, there could be many others.
No. History hadn’t come to a happy end. But he’d saved the fleet. He’d stopped the war. He had done more than he ha
d believed possible.
Geary did a final check of his message queue, ignoring the long list of transmissions from fleet headquarters. Whatever they were would wait. He was certain that at least one of the messages would be notifying him of a promotion back to admiral, and at least one other would contain orders for him, but the grand council and fleet headquarters had outwitted themselves by giving the messages all standard priorities and innocuous titles. That had been intended to keep him from guessing what was in those messages before he read them, but it also offered him a perfect excuse not to read them since none of them looked important. I may be just a fleet officer, but I’m not a dumb fleet officer, especially not after hanging around Rione and watching her at work.
Geary tapped out a quick message to his chain of command.
In accordance with agreements made earlier, I hereby relinquish my temporary war rank, revert to my permanent rank of captain, and yield command of the fleet. In my last acts as Admiral of the Fleet, I have authorized myself thirty days of leave beginning today, and hereby temporarily transfer command of the fleet to Admiral Timbale pending any decisions in that regard by fleet headquarters and the Alliance grand council.
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