Geary smiled slightly. “I assure you that I’m not miraculous, Captain Badaya.”
“No,” Badaya agreed. “You’re human enough. Which is what has led me to join with those who believe most fervently in you. I don’t agree with their abstract faith in you, but I do agree that you have proven to be an exceptionally able commander. No other officer I’ve met could have brought the fleet this far or won the victories that you have. But that’s what I must talk to you about. Should we reach Alliance space again, it will be because you brought this fleet there. You did something no one else could do.”
Geary suddenly realized where this might be heading and desperately hoped he was wrong.
“How foolish would it be for someone of your talents, someone who could indeed finally win this war, to submit himself to the control of the fools in the Alliance Grand Council and the Senate, who have played such a distasteful part in prolonging this war?” Badaya asked. “You have the idealism of the past, which has served us well, but you need to see what has happened at home in the last century. Yes, the politicians are supposed to answer to the people of the Alliance, but they long since stopped doing anything but looking after their own interests. They’ve played politics with the fate of the Alliance and the fate of the military that defends the Alliance. How many have died, civilian and military, in a war that has had no end because thoughtless civilian politicians have meddled in the decisions that by rights should belong to those risking their lives on the front lines?”
Geary shook his head. “Captain Badaya—”
“Listen, please! You can make the difference. You can rescue the Alliance from politicians who the people of the Alliance no longer trust or believe in. When we reach Alliance space, you can claim the authority needed to make the decisions necessary to win this war, to end the ceaseless bloodshed. The people will follow Black Jack Geary if he calls on them.” Badaya nodded, his expression solemn. “There are many commanders in this fleet who believe the same. I was asked to speak for them to assure you that this belief is not based solely on faith in your legend. And, yes, there are those who will oppose you no matter what. Those officers can be dealt with, for the good of us all.”
The implicit opportunity to become a dictator had never actually been offered to Geary so explicitly. Just the statement of the offer constituted treason, and yet he needed officers like Badaya in order to get the fleet home. “I…appreciate your reasoning. I am…grateful that you think highly of me. But I cannot in good conscience consider what you offer. It goes against everything I believe in as an officer of the Alliance.”
Badaya nodded again. “I didn’t expect you to jump at the offer. You’re far too capable to make such a leap without careful consideration. We merely want you to be aware of what you could do, of the backing you have, so that you may mull it over prior to our return to Alliance space. Once you’ve really looked over the misgovernment of the politicians in the Council and the Senate, you’ll feel differently.”
“Captain Badaya, similar sentiments were expressed to me by Captain Falco, though in his case he thought himself the natural one to seize power.”
Badaya grimaced. “Captain Falco was always eager to express his confidence in himself. I never liked that. You’re different, as different as the great victory you achieved at Ilion compared to the disaster that Falco presided over at Vidha.”
Say it. Just say it clearly. He could not leave any grounds for anyone to believe that he would seriously consider the offer. “Captain Badaya, because I’m not Captain Falco, I cannot imagine any circumstances under which I would seize power from the civilian government of the Alliance.”
Badaya didn’t seem offended, just nodding once more. “We expected to hear that. You are Black Jack Geary, after all. But Black Jack Geary is devoted to the Alliance, isn’t he? All we ask is that you consider the good you could do. The people of the Alliance need you, Captain Geary, to save them just as you’re saving this fleet. I didn’t believe that when we first recovered you, but you’ve made me believe that is true. And don’t expect gratitude from the politicians when you bring this fleet home. They’ll see you as a rival and try to destroy you. But I assure you that any arrest order will be resisted by the majority of the fleet. Thank you for your time, sir.” Badaya saluted, waiting for Geary to return the gesture before his image vanished.
Geary collapsed into his seat and pressed his palms against his forehead. Damn. “Think of the good you could do.” Ancestors, save me from those who hate me and from those who admire me.
When I found out the Syndic citizens on Baldur were unhappy with their leaders, I thought it was great news. Maybe the Syndics would finally act against their own government. And now I learn as clearly as possible that a lot of the Alliance’s own officers are just as unhappy with their government.
Wouldn’t that be ironic, if the governments of both the Alliance and Syndicate Worlds collapsed because of the frustrations of their people with this apparently endless war? To be replaced by what? Lots of small, squabbling, fighting gatherings of a few star systems?
What if I face a choice of seeing that happen or accepting the sort of dictatorship that Badaya and his friends want to hand me?
SIX
“I need to talk to you.” Geary’s voice was brittle as he spoke into the intercom. He knew it. He couldn’t help it.
Rione didn’t answer.
“Damn it all, Madam Co-President, this is about the Alliance. It’s about Black Jack.”
Her voice ripped into him like a dull knife. “I’ll consider it. Now leave me alone.”
Geary broke the connection, glaring at the bulkhead. Part of his fleet was ready to mutiny against him, part wanted to back him in treason against the Alliance, and part just accepted him as a decent commander. He couldn’t help wondering what the last part would do if Geary gave in to the temptation offered by the second part. Would his fleet end up in a three-way fight against itself, or a twoway fight?
It’d be far different if he didn’t know about the hypernet gates, about the very real chance that the Alliance government would learn about the destructive potential of the gates and vote to use them. It wasn’t just about saving the Alliance, but potentially about saving the entire human race.
And he didn’t know if he had the strength to resist that, especially since he didn’t know which course of action would be right when the survival of humanity was at stake.
Arrest order. He couldn’t get that out of his mind. Would the political leadership of the Alliance actually order him to be arrested? And whether they would or not, the fact that an officer such as Captain Badaya believed they would told Geary some things that he didn’t like at all.
He considered calling Captain Desjani to ask her about everything. But Desjani might endorse what Badaya had said, and Geary simply didn’t want to deal with facing the reality that she believed in him that much. She’d never shown much regard for politicians, Co-President Rione being a notable example. Proper outward respect, yes, but it was clear enough that Desjani didn’t trust the political leaders of the Alliance. And now it was abundantly clear that she wasn’t unique at all in that respect.
Ancestors, what’s happened? I thought I was getting a good grasp on how the people in this fleet thought, on the changes that a century of war had caused, but now I realize there’s a lot more, some of it a lot worse, than I had thought.
He finally fell asleep without any answers to the questions plaguing him.
GEARY woke without knowing why, then glanced around his stateroom.
Someone was sitting nearby watching him. He squinted against the darkness, making out the figure’s identity. “Madam Co-President?”
“That’s correct.” Her voice was calm, which was a considerable reassurance. “It frankly surprised me to see that you hadn’t reset your security settings to bar my access to your stateroom.”
He sat up, trying to clear the lingering traces of sleep from his mind. “It occurred to me that
it might be a good thing to let you have continued access.”
“I know some of what I said the night I was drunk, John Geary. I know what I told you.”
“That you’d do whatever it took to stop Black Jack. Yeah.”
“I said more than that,” she insisted.
“You said you’d kill me if you had to,” Geary agreed. “Maybe I think it’s a good thing to have that threat hanging over me.”
She sounded exasperated now. “You’re either very trusting, very naïve, or very stupid.”
“Try scared,” he suggested.
“Of yourself?” Rione didn’t wait for an answer. “I hear you received an offer.”
Geary wished he could make out her expression. He’d wondered if Rione’s spies in the fleet would somehow find out about that. “What else did you hear?”
“That your answer was that you’d think it over.”
“No. My answer was that it wouldn’t happen. Clear and unequivocal.”
She actually laughed. “Oh, John Geary, you don’t know the first lesson any politician learns. It doesn’t matter what you say, it’s what people think they hear. Anyone wanting to offer you control of the Alliance isn’t going to hear you say no.” Rione paused. “You needed to talk. You’re tempted, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Because of the hypernet gates.”
“You don’t trust politicians with knowledge of those weapons? I can’t say I blame you. I don’t want the Alliance government to learn of them, either. But you don’t trust yourself with that knowledge, do you? That’s why you gave me the program for scaling up the energy released when a hypernet gate collapses.”
“Maybe you should be the dictator.”
“I think I’ve given you abundant evidence of my own human failings, John Geary.” She paused, then sighed. “You gave me hard words, and I recognized their truth. You may now make another joke about a woman admitting you were right.”
“No, thanks.”
“By my ancestors, you have learned a little about women, haven’t you? Why is the fleet going to Ixion?”
The sudden change of topic startled Geary. “Because it’s the best of a lot of bad options.”
“You expect the Syndics to be there in force.”
“Yeah. I expect them to be present in force at any star we can reach.” He tossed off the covers and turned to face her. “I can’t stay lucky forever. Daiquon was so close. We might have lost the same number of ships to a finished minefield and not had any Syndic warships taken out to balance the scales. What else have your spies told you? I really need to know what you’re hearing.”
“Casia and Midea aren’t leading the officers opposed to your continued command of this fleet. I haven’t been able to find out who is, but they’re answering to someone else. Despite being under arrest and guarded by Marines, Numos and Faresa have found ways to pass messages to those who still believe in them.”
That shouldn’t have been surprising. “But Numos and Faresa aren’t the leaders of my opponents, either?”
“No.” Rione’s voice altered, becoming strained. “And you should know that rumor holds that I am intensely jealous of your relationship with Captain Desjani.”
Geary slammed a fist onto his thigh. “My imaginary relationship?”
Rione took a moment to answer. “It seems the best counter to those rumors is for me to cease avoiding you and for me to act civilly toward Desjani again. Besides, as you pointed out, I’ve been neglecting my duties. If you’ve been honest with me, my advice has been of value to you. You can count on it once more.”
“Thanks.” Geary hesitated, not knowing how to phrase the obvious next question.
“What’s done is done,” Rione stated softly. “What I first told you remains true—my heart will always remain another’s. But nothing has really changed. Even if my husband still lives, he’s just as lost to me, and me to him, as if death had claimed him. My duty will be to the Alliance. I know you need me.”
That sounded wrong. “Madam Co-President—”
“Victoria.”
It had been a while since she was Victoria to him. “Victoria, I need your advice, and I value your companionship. There’s nothing I can ask of you beyond that.”
“My honor is already compromised, John Geary. I have to do what I think best from this point on. And I have missed you. It’s not entirely a matter of duty.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
“I didn’t mean to make it sound so impersonal. Will you have me? I’m not drunk. I…need you.”
He regarded her in the dimness, barely seeing the shape of her face. She sounded sincere. Yet if Rione’s highest priority was saving the Alliance from Black Jack, then she’d want to have him sleeping next to her again. She knew he’d received the offer that she had predicted he’d get someday. And she knew he felt tempted by that offer. Was it a coincidence that she’d finally unbent toward him again on the night of the same day on which Captain Badaya had offered him a dictatorship with the backing of what was claimed to be a majority of the fleet?
Did she truly want him, or was she willing to do whatever it took to be able to act if the time came, or was she hitching herself firmly to his power, an amoral politician ensuring she’d be the consort of the possible future ruler of the Alliance?
Victoria Rione stood up, her clothing falling down around her feet, then walked across the short distance separating them and molded herself against his body. As her lips met his, Geary realized that at some level he didn’t care what the answer was as long as she was in his bed again. As she pushed him down and straddled his body, he realized he didn’t care if she had a knife in her free hand at that very moment.
“ALL ships prepare to jump.” The star Daiquon wasn’t much more than a bright point of light to the naked eye now. The fleet had been in Formation Kilo One for days now, ready for anything when they arrived at Ixion. Or so he hoped.
Victoria Rione was in the observer’s chair on the bridge of Dauntless again, watching the action as if there had never been an interval in which she avoided the bridge. Desjani had greeted Rione politely but with what Geary thought was an undercurrent of worry. For Rione’s part, Geary had suspected he caught a gleam of triumph in her eyes as she acknowledged Desjani’s welcome. But that was certainly just his imagination, wrought to a fever pitch by worries about what awaited them at Ixion.
“All units in the Alliance fleet, upon arrival at Ixion, immediately execute all preordered maneuvers and engage any enemy warships within range. Jump for Ixion now.”
SLIGHTLY less than four days in jump space to Ixion. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but Geary found himself increasingly unhappy with the intervals in jump space. Given the risks they were running, he wished going to Ixion were bringing them closer to Alliance space than it was. Instead of offering a chance to rest and think without the pressure of an immediate Syndic threat, the jump space time felt more and more like wasted periods, the hours and days dragging by while nothing changed outside the ship. Nothing ever had changed outside a ship in jump space, of course, but now that bothered him. He wanted to do something. Confront the Syndics, beat them once and for all in battle, find out the truth about the alien intelligences he and Rione suspected lurked on the other side of Syndic space, and end this damned war.
The fact that he had no chance of actually accomplishing those things even in real space didn’t seem to make a difference to the frustration he felt. And he was coming to recognize that in jump space he had more dreams about the past, dreams with people he had known who were now long dead. It wasn’t pleasant to wake up from a dream holding a conversation with an old friend and realize the old friend would never speak with him again. Not in this life, anyway.
At least he didn’t have to spend this interval in jump space making guilty and sporadic attempts to locate Victoria Rione to learn how she was doing. Rione came to his stateroom every evening and spent every night, her lovemaking seeming to mix passion
and desperation in equal measure. When not in bed with him, though, she continued to hide her innermost self, revealing neither passion nor desperation nor anything else.
Geary distracted himself by running simulations, trying to guess what Ixion would hold, what the fleet would have to do there. But it was all guesswork, and only arrival at Ixion would reveal any answers.
GEARY tried to focus his attention on the display as the time to leave jump space at Ixion approached. Right now all it showed was what had been in the obsolete Syndic records they had looted a dozen star systems ago. The data, several decades old, showed a relatively prosperous system with a nearly ideal planet holding a very respectable population and a lot of off-planet activity and facilities. The records, intended for use by merchant ships, contained nothing about defense capabilities except various standard warnings to do exactly as told if contacted by military authorities.
“Is something wrong, sir?” Captain Desjani asked.
“Just wondering what’s there,” Geary confessed. “And wondering why a star system this well off didn’t get a hypernet gate.”
Victoria Rione answered from her position in the observer’s chair, once again watching and listening to what happened on Dauntless’s bridge. “It could have been politics. In the Alliance, many more planets wanted hypernet gates than there were funds to construct them, and past a certain point, the practical differences between worlds were very minor. Then it became a question of whose politicians could outmaneuver the others.”
Desjani, her face turned away from Rione but visible to Geary, rolled her eyes in silent commentary on politicians. Geary managed to keep a straight face, nodding in such a way that Rione but hopefully not Desjani would read it as agreement.
“Stand by to exit jump,” a watch-stander called. “Five…four…three…two…one…exit.”
Grayness was replaced by black space and white stars, quiet by pulsing alarms as Dauntless’s sensors picked up enemy warships nearby. Simultaneously, Geary felt himself pressed back as the battle cruiser’s maneuvering systems executed the preplanned minefield evasion, shoving the bow upward and pushing so hard with the main drives that the inertial dampers couldn’t quite block all of the effects on ship and crew.