• • •
AS Geary and Desjani walked down the ramp off the shuttle, the sound of six distinct bells resounded through the dock, followed by the announcement “Admiral, Alliance fleet, arriving,” then four more bells and “Dauntless, arriving.”
“No damage from the, uh, accidental collisions,” the battle cruiser’s second in command reported, saluting, his expression unaccountably grim despite that good news.
“Well done,” Desjani said, with a brief I-told-you-my-ship-could-do-it glance at Geary. “A lot of people saw those collisions. We’ll file a standard collision report with the Sol Star System authorities about encountering stealthed craft we could not see in time to avoid. With their reverence for rules here, the local authorities are certain to still abide by the one that says stealth craft are obligated to stay clear of all others, and any collision is automatically their fault. Is everyone else back?”
“No, Captain. We’re short two officers. Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon. They didn’t report back on time to the shuttle that returned their group, and local authorities have so far failed to locate them.”
“Why wasn’t I informed earlier?” Desjani said in a low, angry voice.
“I was waiting on a report from the local authorities, Captain,” her second in command replied, both his posture and his voice stiffening. “When I tried notifying you, you were already aboard this shuttle.”
“Why did you wait on a report from the locals?” Desjani asked.
“Because we thought that they might have decided to elope, and the locals were certain they could locate them quickly.”
“Castries and Yuon? When did they become a couple?”
“They haven’t, officially, Captain. They’re usually arguing, though.”
“Oh, for the love of my ancestors! That is not a surefire sign of pending romance! I want to find those two lieutenants now. If they were civilians, they might be eloping,” Desjani said. “Since they’re officers in the Alliance fleet, they would instead be deserting. But I don’t like this. It doesn’t match what I know of Castries or Yuon. I take it the locals didn’t find them yet?”
“No, Captain. But they remain confident that they will find them within an hour. Old Earth is laced with so many surveillance networks that just about everything anyone does gets spotted.”
“It sounds like a Syndic planet,” Desjani grumbled.
“All of the senators are back?” Geary asked.
“Yes, Admiral. And both envoys as well. We didn’t have time to tell the Dancer ships what we were doing, but they stuck with us when we came for you, holding position exactly one hundred kilometers from us through every maneuver we did, so they are also accounted for.”
Among those awaiting them was Master Chief Gioninni, carrying a bottle. Desjani beckoned to Gioninni and examined the bottle. “Whiskey from Vernon? Is this from the ship’s supply?”
“Yes, Captain, properly signed for and everything,” Gioninni assured her with a slight wariness as he judged her mood. “You know the tradition. When sailors get rescued, the ship pays a ransom to whoever picked them up. From what I hear, the folks on this bird deserve the ransom.”
“They do,” Desjani agreed. “But we’ll hold them here while you also get some beer sent to the dock. We owe Lady Vitali a ransom, too.”
“Beer, Captain?”
“Yes, Master Chief. The good stuff. Not from the officers’ supply. Get it from the chiefs’ supply.”
“If you say so, Captain. I will, uh, have to charge—”
“I’m sure I can count on you to take care of the paperwork, Master Chief,” Desjani said. As Gioninni hastened off to do her bidding, she looked at Geary again. “He’ll write off twice as much beer as he actually provides to the shuttle.”
“I was wondering why you were trusting Gioninni to play it straight in the face of that kind of temptation and how large his profit margin would be. Are you going to nail him for it?”
“Not for that, but I’ll use it to make him cough up the extra bottle of whiskey he surely pulled out of our stocks when he got that one. He won’t have left any tracks, so it’s the only way I’ll get the extra bottle back. Do you think my missing lieutenants fell afoul of the same sort of people who came after us?”
“Let’s hope not. But if Castries and Yuon did, the locals may be our best hope for locating them.”
“That was my thought,” Desjani said. “Which is why I approved of Gioninni’s ransom payment and sweetened it a little.”
Several minutes later, they watched the shuttle depart and begin its dive back into the atmosphere of Old Earth, lighter by two passengers and heavier by bottles of some of the best whiskey and the best beer the Alliance had to offer.
“So much for our vacation,” Desjani commented. “For some reason, I don’t feel very rested. I hope you’re not too eager to leave, Admiral.”
“No, Captain,” Geary said. “Even if we weren’t waiting to hear more from the locals, I don’t want anyone thinking we’re bolting out of here as if we were guilty or scared. We’ll hold here for at least the next few hours. That will also give us time for the envoys to get across to the Dancers that we’re leaving Home and heading back to our homes.”
She saluted, all formality again now that they were back aboard her ship. “Yes, sir. I’ll pass that on to General Charban as soon as I get to the bridge.”
“Thank you, Captain. I’m going to drop off my gear in my stateroom, then I’ll join you on the bridge.” He returned the salute, then left the shuttle dock, walking through the now-familiar and comforting passageways of Dauntless, passing officers and sailors and Marines whom he knew by sight and in most cases by name now. Technically, Old Earth was Home to all humanity, and, technically, Geary’s personal home was on the planet Glenlyon in the star system of the same name. But the reality was that Dauntless was as close to a real home as he had in this time a century removed from his own.
And he had become increasingly grateful for that.
• • •
HE found Alliance Envoy Victoria Rione waiting at the hatch to his stateroom. “Did you get the message about talking to the Dancers?” he asked. She had been visiting locations on Earth for the past week as well, supposedly just as a tourist/touring representative of the Alliance, but he suspected Rione had been up to more than that.
“Yes,” she replied. “Charban is handling it. There is something else we need to talk about.”
“The missing lieutenants?”
“Among other things.”
“Good. There’s something else I need to ask you as well,” he said, waving her inside the stateroom and following her. He didn’t feel an urgent need to reach the bridge despite his concerns for Castries and Yuon. If any word came about them, it would reach him just as quickly here as on the bridge, and Rione might have some important information. “Have a seat.”
She had already made herself at home, lounging into one of the seats around the low table in the stateroom. “I understand that you had an interesting trip back to the ship.”
“It wasn’t boring. And I understand you had a working vacation on Old Earth,” Geary observed, sitting down across from her.
Rione gave him a blandly uncomprehending look. “Why do you say that?”
“We encountered Lady Vitali.”
“Lady Vitali of Essex? I hear she throws a good party.”
“She does. But I want to know how Lady Vitali knew to tell me the name Anna Cresida when I needed to know whether or not to trust her.”
Rione studied him, her eyes hooded with calculation, then shrugged and made a casting-away gesture with one hand. “I told her. One of my clandestine assignments on this mission, one I’m not supposed to let you know about, was to establish ties with some of the governments in Sol Star System. Our experience with the surprise attack by the Shield of Sol sh
ips only emphasized the importance of that task. Lady Vitali is one of those contacts who struck me as potentially very useful to us.”
“Did she?” Geary sat back, glaring at Rione. “She appears to have rendered very valuable aid to Tanya and me, but Lady Vitali didn’t strike me as the sort to just be used by people.”
“You’re absolutely right about that,” Rione agreed, examining her fingernails as she spoke. “She, or rather her government, doubtless intends using us as well. They help us, we help them.”
“So you trusted her, and who knows how many other people on Old Earth, with a code name that was only supposed to be shared among us.”
Rione raised an eyebrow at him. “Trust has nothing to do with it. Self-interest is the factor here. You can rarely go wrong depending on that. You had a demonstration of that on your trip back to this ship, didn’t you? Lady Vitali’s government saw just how useful we can be to them when your captain annihilated those Shield of Sol ships. So, if Lady Vitali’s friends learn anything more about those craft that tried to interrupt your shuttle trip, or learn anything from the surviving assassins who were after you on the ground, they will let us know so that, in the munificence of our gratitude, we might offer more favors in return.”
Surviving assassins? He wondered if Lady Vitali was personally deadly enough to have helped take down the attackers, or if she just controlled events and directed others from behind that friendly smile. “The favor we need the most at the moment is information about Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon.”
“I know. I’ve already asked all of my contacts for anything they can find out. Even if it is something that officially their governments won’t admit to, they’ll tell me.”
For reasons he didn’t quite understand, Geary believed that Rione’s confident statement was right. “All of your contacts? Just how many contacts did you establish with how many governments?”
Another wave of her hand, this one careless. “Oh . . . ten . . . twenty . . . something like that. I haven’t had much time to work.”
Geary shook his head in open amazement. “Every time I think I’ve figured you out and know exactly what you’re capable of, you surprise me with something else.”
“I’m a woman, Admiral.”
“I don’t think that entirely explains it.” Geary tapped the controls on the table between them, bringing up an image of Sol Star System, the planets and minor planets and multitudes of smaller objects tagged with names out of the distant past. Venus. Mars. Jupiter. Luna. Callisto. Europa, whose doom still haunted the rest of human space. And Old Earth herself. “I hope they can help find our lieutenants, but beyond that, what good does the Alliance think agents working for one small part of one planet can do for us? In the Alliance, none of those governments still ruling over portions of Old Earth would count for anything. They’re far too small and far too weak.”
Rione looked annoyed. “Our enemies are already at work here. Hopefully, they aren’t involved with the matter of your missing officers, but regardless, I want to know who told those Shield of Sol ships to attack us, and who paid for assassins and stealth spacecraft, and who spied on our movements and attempted a few other tricks that our various hosts managed to block or frustrate. Aside from that, you’re military. You know the importance of certain places, an importance that is based on factors that may have nothing to do with equations of physical strength and power. Any place on Old Earth carries a lot of leverage inside the Alliance. I don’t know all the ways we can use that. But I know I can use it in ways others may not expect. Any individual who can claim backing from Old Earth, leaving aside little matters like how small a portion of Old Earth that backing actually comes from, will gain additional prestige in the Alliance from that alone, perhaps enough so to give him a crucial edge.”
Geary leaped to his feet, his angry gaze fixed down on her. “Him? You mean me. Backing from Old Earth? For what purpose? What the hell makes you think you can use me?”
She looked up at him steadily, cool and unruffled. “I have no intention of trying to use you. The last thing you need is for someone to be trying to guide you in the right political moves. Your greatest strengths are your lack of political ambition and your refusal to even think about political tactics.”
“I’m doing what any good officer would do!”
Her smile was mocking. “I can name a dozen senior fleet officers off the top of my head who reached their exalted ranks by using political tactics and would be pursuing more political tactics right now if they were in your shoes. Tactics such as cultivating relationships with the likes of Senator Costa, Senator Suva, and Senator Sakai.”
“But not you?” Geary demanded.
“Me? I’d be a liability. All you would want me for is a scapegoat.” She waved him back. “Relax. I never wanted you to charge in and take over the Alliance, remember? The Alliance doesn’t need someone who thinks he or she is the savior of us all.” Rione stood up as well, her eyes on the display, one finger rising to point toward Old Earth. “You’ve been there now. We’ve been there. We’ve seen the history of our ancestors firsthand. How much tragedy grew out of individuals certain that they had a special destiny or that they deserved to rule?”
He considered the question, his jaw tightening with frustration, then spun away from her and looked at the familiar starscape displayed on one bulkhead. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t think I’m someone like that, but a tremendous number of other people believe it. Senator Sakai thinks who I am could easily destroy the Alliance.”
“He’s right.” She made a helpless gesture, both hands partially raised as if anticipating defeat. “I don’t know what to do to save the Alliance. There are many forces working to tear it apart, and many people contributing to those forces either through greed or malice or hope or despair or good intentions. I don’t know how to counter the stresses built up by a century of war, and the debts from a century of war, and the simple and understandable but also naïve desires of many people to live as they wish without bowing to some distant authority, which they forget was created because its absence led to much worse things than its existence does. Senator Costa thinks she knows an answer built around an iron fist. Senator Suva still believes the answer lies in good intentions and everyone’s singing in harmony around a common campfire. Senator Sakai no longer believes there is an answer. But you . . .”
She shook her head, looking at him. “You aren’t wise enough to think you know the answer or wise enough to think you know there isn’t an answer. Which means you’re probably far wiser than the others. And you’re the most powerful piece on the board.”
“A piece you would, however, be willing to sacrifice,” Geary said.
“Only if necessary. And I would feel bad about it afterwards.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her sardonic reply. “You wouldn’t feel bad for long. Tanya would kill you.”
“Very likely, yes. Though I’m sure that your captain would prefer to have grounds for murdering me that didn’t involve your death.” Rione went back and sat down, rubbing her forehead with one hand. “I haven’t been able to figure out something that’s very important, and you’re the only person on this ship I can talk to about it. I was able to confirm from their reactions that all three of the senators on this ship know about the new warships being built despite public declarations that new construction was halted when the war ended. That means that Suva and Costa, who are ideological opposites, agreed to the project. What rationale convinced both of them that a new, secretly constructed armada was a smart idea?”
“They don’t see eye to eye on much,” Geary agreed, looking back at the depiction of Sol Star System. “But they appeared to find some common ground when the Dancers returned that man’s remains to Old Earth.”
“That won’t last,” Rione said. “More importantly, they both must have signed off on that secret armada some time ago, well bef
ore the Dancers gave them reason to rethink their attitudes toward others.”
“Senator Sakai voted for it, too, I think. Did they tell you who would command that secret force?”
Rione gave him a demanding look. “No. Do you know?”
“Sakai told me it would be Admiral Bloch.”
She didn’t answer for almost a minute, then shook her head, looking pained. “Why? Why did the Grand Council agree to such a thing? It doesn’t make sense. Bloch manufactured for himself a reputation as a great fleet commander, a reputation I believe was unsupported by actual ability, but even if they still believe Bloch could be a match for you, they know that Bloch had been planning a coup before the Syndics captured him. If that attack on the Syndic home star system hadn’t been a disaster that led to your assuming command and his being captured, if Bloch had won that battle, had defeated the Syndics, he would have turned his victorious fleet against his own government. The Grand Council was desperate enough for victory that they were willing to risk that.”
“And you would have done your best to kill him even though it would have meant your own death as well.”
“I thought my husband was dead in the war. I didn’t have anything else to live for except preserving the Alliance. And, yes, you’ve never asked, but some of my fellow senators knew what my intent was. I was their fail-safe to stop Bloch.” Another long pause as Rione thought. “They must believe that this time they have some other means of ensuring he doesn’t betray them. But what?”
Geary sat down again across from her, catching her eyes with his own. “While we were at Midway, we heard firsthand about some of the tricks the Syndics employed to keep their high-ranking individuals in line.”
“No,” Rione said, shaking her head again. “Costa would have signed off on tactics like holding Bloch’s family hostage, but Suva never would have agreed to that. Neither would Sakai. It would have to be something the entire Grand Council would support, and I have no idea what that might be.”
“We’ll have to find out.”