Had he really been outnumbered ten to one at Grendel? Funny how he couldn’t remember general things like that, just lots of details of the battle.
Geary suddenly realized that Captain Midea had the potential to be a thorn in the side of every fleet commander, not just him. When not facing an immediate threat from the enemy, she was difficult and challenging, and when facing the enemy she wanted to charge straight into battle. He couldn’t fault her courage, but being reckless in every environment wasn’t a good thing in an officer. He wondered how Numos had managed to keep her under control.
Was the chance of reaching that hypernet gate worth the chance of increasing the risk of losing one or more of his auxiliaries? After all, if the fleet could get home quickly through the gate, it wouldn’t need the resupply capability the auxiliaries offered.
Hell, if he believed sacrificing ships like that was a good idea, then why bother attaching the three good battleships of the Seventh Division to the formation? Why not just send the auxiliaries and his crippled warships off alone and let them get wiped out while Geary took the fleet home?
Geary shook his head. “I want to lure the Syndics out, but I cannot expose the auxiliaries or the damaged ships in Echo Five Five to destruction. We need to ensure they have adequate protection.”
“Alliance sailors are ready to die for their home worlds,” Captain Midea insisted, which earned her a number of looks suggesting that not all Alliance sailors were all that eager to die, even if they were ready to do so.
“My objective,” Geary stated, “is to make sure that any Syndics who are ready to die have that particular wish fulfilled.” That brought him some smiles and some relieved looks. He wondered what he was doing, how he was acting, that those relieved officers thought he would sacrifice ships that way. “I’ll run some simulations to check possible outcomes, but for now I don’t want Formation Echo Five Five to drop back more than three light-minutes behind the rest of the fleet. Is that understood?”
“May Paladin join that formation?” Captain Midea demanded. “Two of the ships from my division are already there.”
Geary switched his gaze to Captain Casia. “You’re the commander of the division containing Paladin. How do you feel about that?”
Casia bent a dark look toward Midea. “Certainly. Paladin can join with Orion and Majestic.”
“Captain Mosko?” Geary asked. “You’re in command of Echo Five Five. Do you need Paladin?”
Mosko shrugged. “Need it? No. But Indefatigable, Audacious, and Defiant are always ready to welcome a sister ship alongside us, under my command.” The last three words were emphasized slightly, resulting in Midea narrowing her eyes at Mosko. She didn’t object to them, though.
“What about Conqueror?” Captain Duellos asked innocently. “If she also joined Echo Five Five, then the entire Third Battleship Division would be together again, fighting as one.”
The look Casia gave Duellos would have killed if that were possible. “Conqueror should remain in a position to…to coordinate with the fleet commander.”
Geary eyed the man, trying to decide if putting so many of the bad eggs in the Third Battleship Division into one formation again was just asking for trouble, and if sending Casia there wouldn’t create more problems. But in a way Duellos was right. Sending Paladin to Echo Five Five and keeping Conqueror in Echo Five Four didn’t make sense.
No. If I send Casia back there, too, I’ll have to keep my eye on him constantly. I can’t afford that distraction.
Captain Mosko frowned slightly. “If Captain Casia were also in the formation, it might create some confusion about command arrangements in Five Five.”
Geary nodded judiciously, grateful for another reason to turn down Duellos’s mischievous suggestion. “That’s true. And we can’t let Echo Five Five get too strong, or the Syndics won’t be attracted to it. Paladin will ensure the formation is not too badly outmatched in terms of numbers. Are there any other questions?”
“What about the Syndics we left at Ixion?” said Commander Neeson of Implacable, not asking a leading question but a real one. “Four battleships and four battle cruisers. They haven’t shown up yet, but they will.”
“They’re waiting,” Captain Tulev announced. Everyone looked at him, clearly wondering at his reasons for the statement, so Tulev shrugged and continued his explanation, his face impassive. “Lakota wasn’t the most expected destination for us. Correct? So they think maybe we’re not going there for real but intend jumping there and jumping right back to Ixion to confuse the Syndics.”
Duellos nodded. “So they wait.”
“Yes,” Tulev emphasized. “Jump takes five and a half days here, five and a half days back. They wait, say, twelve days total. We don’t reappear at Ixion, they jump after us then.”
“We could be clear of Lakota by the time they jumped in here,” Captain Cresida objected.
“So? There’s a Syndic flotilla at the hypernet gate. There’s Syndic facilities and the inhabited world. If we just pass through and jump elsewhere, they know, but if we’re here to create long-term trouble, they catch us anyway.”
“They might also have been waiting for reinforcements they expect to meet them at Ixion,” Captain Badaya objected.
Tulev frowned, then nodded. “True. Either way, they come here eventually, but not right behind us.”
“That sounds like a good assessment,” Geary agreed. “We can’t forget about that force, but we don’t know when they’ll get here. We should be a long way from the jump exit from Ixion by the time they do, though. Anything else?”
Captain Tyrosian spoke with visible reluctance, as if not wanting to draw attention to herself and the state of the auxiliaries. “Raw materials stocks on the auxiliaries are getting low, but we have new fuel cells and munitions available for transfer to warships.”
“Can we risk transferring supplies while the Syndics are out there?” Tulev asked.
Geary tapped some controls and rechecked the status of his warships. Not great, but okay. “Go ahead and transfer their share of fuel cells and new munitions to the ships in Echo Five Five,” he told Tyrosian. “That activity will help provide a plausible cover for you falling behind the rest of the fleet and maybe make you look a little more vulnerable. Captain Tyrosian, there are two destroyer squadrons rounding up some Syndic ore carriers not far from the track we’re following. Hopefully we’ll be able to manage an intercept, and you can bring some material off those ships for the bunkers on the auxiliaries.”
He thought that would be all, but then Midea spoke again. “Captain Geary, if you wish to offer the Syndics an inviting target, then transfer to one of the ships in the trailing formation in such a way that the Syndics know you’ve done that. The chance to eliminate Black Jack Geary will be a very powerful temptation.”
There was plenty of truth to that. Especially since he was asking other sailors to risk their own lives as bait. But Dauntless has the hypernet key on board. A lot of people still don’t know that, but I do. I have to stay with Dauntless. Was he grateful that the hypernet key offered an out? It wasn’t that Dauntless was necessarily safer than a ship in the trailing formation, but the battle cruiser and her crew were familiar, the only truly familiar things Geary had in this universe a century removed from his own. It probably was a weakness, but he didn’t want to go through the emotional turmoil of trying to get accustomed to another set of surroundings, not with battle looming and so much else to deal with. Two big reasons for staying on Dauntless, neither of which he wanted to discuss here and now. “Thank you for the suggestion, Captain Midea, but I feel I can best continue to command the fleet from Dauntless within the main body of the formation.”
To Geary’s surprise, Midea briefly revealed a flash of success, as if Geary had done what she wanted. Her next words explained why. “Is the fleet best served by a commander who’s making decisions for the wrong reasons?”
Desjani was giving Midea a murderous look.
Geary shook h
is head. “Explain that statement, Captain Midea.”
She shrugged lightly in reply. “We’re aware that you have strong reasons for not wanting to leave Dauntless,” Captain Midea stated, giving the name of the ship an ironic twist as if actually referring to something else.
Now Desjani flushed with anger, and Geary understood what that something else was. Yet in order to counter Midea’s sly innuendo, Desjani or Geary would have to explicitly bring up the rumors of their being involved together.
Desjani’s tone was as hot as her face. “I will not—”
Victoria Rione’s voice, as cool as Desjani’s was warm, cut across the conference like a saber forged from ice. “Captain Midea, do you know something I do not? Or are you referring to me?”
Midea might resemble a Syndic CEO in the perfection of her uniform and her attitude, but Co-President Rione had about her all the cold authority and aloofness that Geary remembered from his first encounters with her. Intimidating was an inadequate word to describe Rione at times like this.
Captain Midea obviously felt the same way, clearly groping for some way to avoid openly stating what she had previously implied. Casia was giving Midea the look of a superior whose subordinate had just royally screwed up. To Geary’s annoyance, his closest allies among the officers, such as, Duellos, Tulev, and Cresida, were silently watching Midea’s discomfort with ill-concealed satisfaction and not changing the topic, even though pursuing it would just generate more discontent.
Fortunately, Captain Badaya stepped in, speaking as if imparting a lesson that his students should already know. “Every officer in the fleet is surely aware that Captain Geary has developed a good working relationship with the commanding officer of his flagship. That’s an important and beneficial command arrangement. It’s easy to understand why Captain Geary wouldn’t want to disrupt that situation and attempt to forge a similar working relationship with a new flagship commander when the fleet is in an enemy star system and facing combat.”
Badaya’s statement had the virtue of being absolutely true and not open to dispute. It also offered Midea an out, which she jumped on. “Of course that’s so. I was expressing my concern that the fleet commander might benefit from shaking up the current command arrangement, but as you say, this is not the optimum time to do so.”
The entire room seemed to relax, but then Geary spotted Rione turning an icy gaze back on Midea. He managed to catch Rione’s eye and silently convey a wish for letting the matter drop. Rione gave him a stare that briefly made Geary feel cold as well, then subsided.
“That’s all,” Geary added quickly. “We’re just under seven days from the jump point for Branwyn if the Syndics don’t take the bait we’re going to dangle. We’ll have to see what happens and be ready to react. Thank you.”
Within moments almost every virtual presence vanished, though Badaya lingered just long enough to give Geary what might have been a subtle wink. Hoping that Desjani hadn’t seen that, he turned to her as Badaya left. “I’m sorry, Captain Desjani.”
“It’s not your fault, sir,” she replied firmly. “By your leave, I need to return to the bridge.” Desjani hastened out, her back stiff as she marched past Rione.
That left only Rione and the virtual presence of Captain Duellos with Geary. Duellos inclined his head respectfully toward Rione, then faced Geary. “Sorry. My fun made things a little more difficult for you.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Just remember that if I die and you inherit command of this fleet, my spirit is going to be watching you and laughing as you try to deal with these people.”
Duellos smiled slightly. “I’ll remember that. Knowing your spirit is watching would be a comfort, even if it was mainly for your spirit’s amusement.” His smile faded into a look of concern. “Does everything feel too calm to you?”
“Now that you mention it, yes,” Geary agreed. “I’m wondering if it’s just because we expected a lot of trouble here, and it didn’t materialize.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Duellos cautioned. “I have a premonition that our troubles in this star system won’t remain confined to fleet conferences.”
“We should be able to deal with anything that shows up now,” Geary observed. “But I’m a bit worried, too. Speaking of troubles, though, do you have any ideas short of relieving her of command for shutting up Captain Midea?”
“I was already trying to figure that out,” Duellos admitted. “Midea was Numos’s executive officer before being promoted to captain and given command of Paladin. As we discussed back in Ixion, he knew how to keep her quiet. We could ask Numos.”
“No thanks. I don’t think I’d trust anything he told me. Hell, he could be getting messages to her.”
“That’s possible.” Duellos paused to think. “Numos could actually be prodding Midea into acting like this. Hopefully he’s not goading her into anything more than rash words.”
“Yeah. That’s definitely something to worry about, though I don’t know what I can do about it.” Geary gave Duellos an aggravated look. “Speaking of goading other officers, at the next conference please restrain yourself from taunting our opponents, okay?”
Duellos grinned, saluted, and vanished.
Rione was still seated, and now she turned an apparently unruffled expression on Geary. “You should let me deal with people like that Midea woman. I’m not a fleet officer and I can’t debate movements of ships in these meetings, but she’s playing politics, and I can run rings around her in that area.”
He thought about that, then nodded. “Okay.”
“And you should be more worried about placing that woman’s ship any farther away from your control,” Rione added. “As Captain Duellos said, she’s either getting out of the habit of deferring to Numos or she’s being provoked into foolish actions. She’s been more aggressive and argumentative in each successive conference since Numos was arrested.”
“You think that she’ll act the same way in her ship?”
“I’m certain of it. You shouldn’t have let her go to the other formation. She’ll do something contrary to orders. I’m sure of it. And when she does, she may haul some other ships along with her.”
That took Rione’s assessment out of the realm of troublesome and into the area of major concern. “Damn. You may be right. I wish—” He managed to choke off the next words.
But Rione knew what they would have been. “You wish I’d expressed that during the conference? The same conference where you made a clear sign to me to sit down and shut up?”
“I didn’t tell you to sit down and shut up!”
“You made it plain I should stop speaking,” Rione stated in a voice lacking warmth. “I don’t blame you. It would have put you between a black hole and a supernova.”
“Why?” Geary asked, thinking that Rione probably qualified as the supernova.
“Because if I’d spoken up against Midea’s ship going to the other formation, any agreement by you would have looked like confirmation that I, the unspeakable politician, exercise too much influence over you.” Rione made an angry gesture. “But if I don’t speak up, as I didn’t, you don’t get a perspective you might find worthwhile. You can’t act on opinions I don’t give you.”
Geary sat down, thinking. “That’s what my opponents in this fleet want, isn’t it? To drive wedges between me and the people whose support and advice I need. You’re a prime example. The prime example.” Rione sketched a mock bow from her seat. “And those rumors are getting in the way of Desjani and me working together. How do I deal with this?”
“With Captain Desjani or with me?” Rione asked in a voice gone cold again.
“Both of you! She’s my flagship captain, and you’re my adviser and my…uh…”
“Lover. That’s the polite term. If you call me your mistress, I promise you’ll be sorry.”
“Warning noted. So what do you suggest?”
“Make sure your behavior around Captain Desjani is so impeccable that it cannot be used to feed rumors any re
asonable person would accept. I assume there’s at least a few reasonable officers among your commanding officers? For me, continue to display your independence of me in public. I assure you that I was far from the only one to notice your command that I silence myself.”
“I didn’t—”
“And I’m sure most people who noticed will see it as I described it.” Rione twisted one corner of her mouth up. “Evidence that you’re dominating me will help calm the worries of those who think I’m controlling you.”
“Dominating you?” Geary couldn’t help laughing. “That’s one concept that honestly never occurred to me.”
Rione raised one eyebrow.
“You’re not the dominatable type,” Geary added.
“At least you’ve learned that much,” she noted dryly.
“I’ve had a few lessons.” Geary stood again. “I think I’ll go to the bridge and go through some of the fleet status information again and maybe run some simulations.”
“Why the bridge? You can do all of those things in your stateroom.”
“That’s true.” He frowned slightly at her, wondering why she’d made a point of that. “Are you headed that way?”
Rione shrugged. “Eventually. I’ve a few things to deal with first.”
“If Captain Midea is found dead with a knife in her, I’ll probably have to have the knife checked for your fingerprints and DNA,” Geary remarked, trying to defuse a renewed sense of tension he couldn’t understand.
She smiled in reply, her tone half-mocking, half-serious. “There wouldn’t be any fingerprints or DNA on the knife, John Geary. Not if I did it.”
NINE
MORE than three days gone, and the Syndics hadn’t moved. As the fleet cut across Lakota Star System, the distance to the hypernet gate off to one side had gradually diminished. In another couple of hours the Alliance fleet would be at its closest point of approach to the hypernet gate (though close was a relative term when talking about a distance of three and a half light-hours), and then begin opening the range again as it proceeded toward the jump points.