That brought up a whirl of more recent painful memories, centered on the Syndic home system. “Yeah,” Geary agreed softly. “My grandniece. Captain Michael Geary’s sister. He gave me a message for her.”
Desjani was looking at her data pad. “Commander Jane Geary? She’s not just on Dreadnaught. She’s the commanding officer.” Then Desjani frowned. “A battleship commanded by a Geary. There’s something odd there, but I never heard any negative stories about her.”
Geary tried not to snort. The modern fleet assigned its best officers to battle cruisers, where they could charge into battle first, and die first. “Maybe she’s being judged by an impossible standard.”
“That of her legendary great-uncle?” Desjani asked, then smiled. “It’s possible.” The smile went away. “And when we get back, you’ll have to tell her that her brother is probably dead. I’m sorry.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“But you have a message for her from him?”
“Yeah. Just about the last thing he said before Repulse was destroyed.” He thought about it, then decided if there was anyone who would comprehend that message who wasn’t a Geary, it might be Desjani. “He told me to tell her that he didn’t hate me anymore.”
She looked briefly shocked, then the expression faded into thoughtfulness. “The impossible standard. Michael Geary hated you for what he’d been forced to live with?”
“That’s what he said.” In the very brief time that Geary had been granted to speak with his grandnephew, there hadn’t been much opportunity to say more.
“But he changed his mind.” Desjani gave Geary a long look. “Because he was using Repulse to hold off the enemy. A last-ditch rearguard action to allow the rest of the fleet to escape, the same sort of action that you became legendary for. He understood then, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” He felt a great sense of relief at being able to share the story. Tanya Desjani got it. Of course she did. “He realized I hadn’t done it because I thought I was a hero or because I wanted glory. I did it because so many others were counting on me. That’s all.”
“And he had to do the same.” She nodded. “It does take a hero, sir.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Geary shrugged, feeling old pain rising to the surface as he thought of the death of his old ship a century ago and more recent sorrow from ships in this fleet that had been lost fighting the same sort of hopeless rearguard actions. “It’s pure chance who ends up in a situation like that.”
“Maybe.” Desjani gave Geary a serious look. “But what someone does when faced with that situation isn’t pure chance, sir. They make choices, as we all do. Those choices define us. I know you don’t like me to say it, but you are a hero, sir. If you were a fraud, people would have seen that by now.”
“I’m human, Tanya.”
“Of course you are. That what makes it heroic. Humans fear death and pain, and when we reach beyond that fear to protect others, we have done something to be proud of.”
Startled, Geary walked silently for a moment before replying. “I’d never thought of it that way. You’re pretty good with words, you know. No wonder your uncle wanted you to be part of his literary agency.”
She looked down at the deck and smiled in a slightly wistful way. “My fate lay among the stars, Captain Geary. I think I’ve always felt that way.”
“Any idea why?”
“No. They just always called to me. Strange that I should gaze up at the vast emptiness of space since I was little and believe that the emptiness would hold what really mattered to me, but that’s how it always felt.”
“Dauntless?” Geary teased. “I can tell you love being on the bridge of a battle cruiser.”
Desjani laughed, something so rare that Geary wasn’t certain if he’d heard it before. “I hope not! I adore Dauntless, but battle cruisers are very demanding queens to their captains. It’s an extremely one-sided relationship, as you know. I was hoping for something a little more balanced.” She was smiling, still, and despite himself, he wondered what such a relationship with Desjani would be like. But he couldn’t, of course, and she couldn’t, of course, so they walked on down the passageway, the conversation safely turning to the latest modifications in hell-lance targeting systems.
When he reached his stateroom he was surprised to find Rione there despite the late hour, standing before the star display as if she’d been studying it for a long time. “Is something wrong?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Rione said. “I’m just your former lover. You’ve been talking to her.”
Geary frowned at Rione. “Captain Desjani, you mean. She’s my flagship captain—”
“And you weren’t just talking about your beloved fleet,” Rione finished, but she didn’t sound angry this time, just defeated.
“There won’t be anything between us, Victoria. You know why there can’t be anything between Tanya Desjani and me.”
Rione kept her face averted for a while, then looked back at Geary, her expression unreadable. “There’s already something between you. Nothing physical. No. No improper actions of any kind. I freely admit that. Neither of you would do that. But there’s an emotional bond, feelings that go far beyond professional, and you know that’s true, John Geary.” She exhaled slowly, looking away again. “I won’t be any man’s second choice.”
He wondered what to say. “I didn’t think—”
“No. You didn’t. Not that I ever encouraged you to think I’d be interested in anything more than the physical relationship we’ve sometimes enjoyed. But a strong woman needs a strong man, and I’ve found myself wanting more from you than sex. But I can’t have that. Admit it. You don’t love me. You lust for my body, but you do not and cannot love me.”
“I can’t honestly say I love you,” Geary admitted. “But I wouldn’t lust after you if I didn’t admire who you were.”
Rione directed a pained smile to a corner of the stateroom. “That’s just what every woman wants. To be lusted after and admired.”
“I’m sorry. You always said we were promising each other nothing.”
“True. I broke the bargain. In part. Don’t flatter yourself that I’m madly in love with you. But I will not be your second choice,” she repeated. “I have my pride.” Walking to the hatch, Rione paused before opening it and looked back at him. “Once I leave here, change your security settings so that I no longer have free access.”
Geary nodded. “If that’s what you want.”
“What I want scarcely matters anymore. But you must know that I mean what I say. I will not be back here except as an adviser.”
“Thank you. Your advice has been more valuable than I think you ever realize.”
She twisted her mouth, then shook her head. “The Alliance needs this fleet, and it needs you. I will remain your ally and confidant as long as you remain true to your beliefs and the Alliance. But I will not come to your bed again, and I ask you not to come to mine, because I know that while you were making love to my body you’d be thinking of her, and that I will not endure.”
He sat for a long time after the hatch closed, realizing the truth of Victoria Rione’s words. The one woman he could have in this fleet wasn’t the woman he wanted, and Rione had every right to refuse to accept any lesser place with him.
Getting up, he went to the hatch controls and reset them to eliminate Rione’s free access to his stateroom. Somehow the finality of that gesture served to make it certain that this time Rione would not be returning except for talks about the fleet’s situation. He couldn’t help feeling both guilty and relieved.
EIGHT
Two days in Branwyn, two days left until they reached the jump point. The Syndics here continued pulling up stakes as fast as they could. There hadn’t been any acknowledgment of the messages the Alliance fleet had sent about the situation at Lakota, so Geary could only hope that the people in the system would react somehow to help provide relief. “And what do your spies tell you these days?” Geary asked, slumping int
o his seat.
The virtual image of Captain Duellos looked offended as it lounged in a seat. “Politicians have spies, but I have sources, my good Captain Geary.”
“My apologies.”
“Accepted. I don’t honestly have that much, but I thought you could use a talk.”
“You thought right. Thanks. So what do we talk about?”
“Pressure.” Duellos waved toward the star display. “If we make it through Cavalos, this fleet will be within five or six jumps of a Syndic border star system from which we can jump into Alliance space. The casual thinker might assume you’re feeling relieved at how close we are to home. I’m inclined to think you’re increasingly waiting for the sword to fall.”
Geary nodded. “Good guess. Every step closer to home makes me wonder if I’m being set up for a disaster at the last moment. I make it six jumps past Cavalos, by the way, since we have to avoid Syndic star systems with hypernet gates.”
“True.” Duellos eyed the depiction of the stars. “The Syndics have to be increasingly desperate. They’ll be pulling in everything they’ve got left to stop you.”
“To stop us.”
“Correct, although it’s natural to personalize something as impersonal as a fleet.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Geary made a face as he looked at the display. “Having the Syndics concentrating their remaining warships against us should create some real opportunities for the Alliance warships that were left behind when this fleet headed for the Syndic home system. At the very least they’d be able to send reinforcements to meet us in whatever Syndic border system we aim for. But there’s no way to tell our people back in Alliance space what’s happening or where we are.”
“Too bad the aliens won’t tell them, but I suppose we’ll have to be grateful if they don’t tell the Syndics where we are.”
“Yeah.” Geary pressed his palms against his eyes, feeling a headache threatening. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Duellos seemed to be thinking. “Do we want to discuss personal matters?”
“Yours or mine?” Geary asked dryly.
“Yours.”
“I was afraid of that. What now?”
Duellos frowned slightly, looking downward. “You and Tanya Desjani.”
“No. We’re still not involved with each other, and we won’t be.”
“The fleet is increasingly certain that you are. Everyone knows that Co-President Rione has ceased spending nights in your stateroom and that she and Captain Desjani remain on barely civil terms with each other.” Duellos shrugged.
“The assumption is that the better woman won, the fleet naturally accepting that Tanya Desjani is better than any politician.”
Geary gave an exasperated sigh. “She’s a wonderful woman. But she’s also my subordinate. You know the regulations as well as I do, and as well as she does.”
“You could get away with it, you know,” Duellos suggested. “You’re a special case. You’re Black Jack Geary.”
“The almost mythical hero who can do anything he wants. Right. I can’t afford to believe that about myself.” Geary stood up and began pacing restlessly despite his sense of weariness. “If I break that regulation, why not others? Where along that path do I find myself accepting the offer of Captain Badaya to become dictator because I can? Besides,” he added, “Tanya wouldn’t do it. She won’t do it herself, and she wouldn’t let me do it.”
“You’re probably right,” Duellos agreed. “But you’ll have to work at not getting that longing look in your eyes when you say her name.”
Geary pivoted to stare at Duellos. “I hope you’re joking. Do I really?”
“Enough for me to notice, but don’t worry. It only seems to happen when you say ‘Tanya.’ Just saying ‘Captain Desjani’ you appear thoroughly professional.” Duellos grimaced. “And it’s not as if she doesn’t get the same look sometimes when watching you.”
She did? “I swear we’ve done nothing—”
Duellos held up one hand in a forestalling gesture. “You don’t need to. I never doubted it. Jaylen Cresida and I know Desjani well enough to tell that she feels not only anguished but also guilt-stricken over her feelings for you. To become emotionally involved with her commanding officer goes against all she once believed in.” Duellos shrugged. “Now, of course, she believes in you.”
Feeling his own share of anguish and guilt, Geary rubbed his face with both hands. “I should leave Dauntless. I don’t have any right to put her through that.”
“Leaving Dauntless wouldn’t accomplish anything. As Captain Cresida remarked to me, ‘Once Tanya locks on to a target, she doesn’t let it go. She can’t.’ And Jaylen is right. You can’t leave Tanya’s focus just by leaving this ship, and not being able to sight her target might just increase her distress. Besides which, frankly, the crew of Dauntless has taken quite a pride in having you aboard. I’d advise against leaving her.”
Geary nodded in response, then wondered whether Duellos’s last “her” referred to Tanya Desjani or Dauntless. “But if the fleet thinks there’s something going on between us—”
“They don’t. Not that way. Despite a sustained whispering campaign claiming otherwise, most of the fleet believes you two are thoroughly involved yet remaining professional with each other and at properly chaste arm’s length.”
“Even that is wrong,” Geary insisted, dropping back into his chair.
“True, by a strict reading of the regulation, but there’s a certain romantic aura to the love that cannot be fulfilled, and I believe the fact that you two are abiding by the rules despite your feelings is actually enhancing your standing. It’s like one of those ancient sagas.” Duellos smiled as Geary gave him a sour look. “You asked, and I’m telling you.”
“Don’t a lot of those ancient sagas end tragically?”
Another shrug from Duellos. “Most of them, anyway. But this is your saga. You’re still writing it.”
For some reason that made Geary laugh briefly. “I need to have a long talk with myself about the plot, then.”
“Sagas wouldn’t be interesting if terrible things didn’t happen to the people in them,” Duellos pointed out.
“I never wanted my life to be interesting, and I sure as hell don’t have any right to make Desjani’s life interesting that way.”
“She’s writing her own story. You can command Tanya Desjani on the bridge, but she doesn’t strike me as the sort to let someone else, anyone else, dictate how her personal saga goes.”
He couldn’t argue that point. “It’s all speculation, anyway. Let’s get back to nonpersonal matters,” Geary grumbled. “I hope people aren’t giving Tan—Captain Desjani a hard time about this.”
“She’s fully capable of returning fire if they do. I have to admit to being surprised at your apparent preference for dangerous women, but then they seem to prefer you as well.”
Unable to come up with a decent response to that observation, Geary changed the subject. “I didn’t know that you and Cresida were friends.”
Duellos shrugged. “We weren’t. We barely knew each other. But since you’ve assumed command, we’ve had reason for many talks. She’s quite impressive. I’m not sure if she has the temperament for a larger, independent command, but Jaylen Cresida is a brilliant scientist. One wonders what she might have done in peaceful pursuits if not for this war.” He looked thoughtful. “My wife and I have some friends back home we’ll have to contrive to introduce her to. They and she could do much worse.”
“That’s easy to believe.” He’d avoided looking into his ship captains’ personal-data files, but it was long past time he learned more about them as individuals. “So, getting away from my non-love life and your desire to fix up Captain Cresida …”
Duellos grinned momentarily and leaned back himself, thinking again and quickly looking unhappy. “I can’t find out what Captain Numos is up to. Surely he hasn’t finally accepted being under arrest. But any messages he’s sending out to s
upporters are now being kept so closely that not even the rumor of them is reaching anyone willing to pass that on to me.”
“What about Captain Faresa? Did anything trace back to her before Majestic was destroyed?”
“Nothing that I could find. Faresa always followed Numos’s lead in any case. Captain Falco made occasional clumsy attempts to send out orders, but even if he were still alive, he couldn’t serve as a figurehead now.” Duellos frowned deeply this time. “Your enemies need someone to rally around, some officer respected enough to appear an alternative to you. I haven’t been able to find out who that is, and it worries me.”
“Surely we can make guesses,” Geary noted, glad that the talk had veered firmly away from his personal life.
“I’m not so sure. The figurehead who replaces you has to appeal at least a little to those who believe in you. That means someone who isn’t known as an opponent of yours and someone who’s at least a decent commanding officer.”
Geary mentally ran through the officers he knew. “Some-one we likely trust, then?”
“Not Tulev or Cresida, certainly. Not Armus, though we don’t trust him. But he’s a blunt instrument, speaking and doing things forthrightly. He couldn’t carry off the deception. Badaya has been increasingly vocal, but his loyalties are locked on you as long as he believes you will seize power when this fleet returns to Alliance space.”
“That leaves a lot of possible candidates.”
“It does,” Duellos agreed. “I’m working it. Hopefully we’ll learn something that will help.”
“Thanks. I’ll ask Co-President Rione to see what her spies can find out.” Duellos made another face. “You don’t trust her?” Geary asked.
“That’s not it. I trust her to do what’s best for the Alliance. But I’m worried about what she might decide is best for the Alliance.”
It was a legitimate concern. Geary nodded, then a memory struck him. “What about Caligo on Brilliant and Kila on Inspire?”
Duellos pondered the question for a moment. “What brought them to your mind, if I might ask?”
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