“Geary.”
“Really? Some relation of the great hero?”
Geary nodded. “Some relation. Yes.”
“Marvelous. Now if you’ll excuse me, duty calls.” Falco stood and looked around uncertainly.
Geary broke the connection, and Falco’s image vanished. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
“LAKOTA!? ” Victoria Rione wasn’t quite screaming. “Where did you get that idea?” Her face lit with horrified realization. “You spoke with Captain Falco this afternoon. Did he suggest that? And you listened to him?”
“I-” Geary stared at her. “You know I talked to Falco? I put that conference under my tightest security seal.”
“I don’t know what you said, if that makes you feel better.” Rione turned away, shaking her head. “Please tell me you didn’t ask his advice.”
“Not in so many words.” Geary felt defensive and knew that Rione had every reason to be incredulous with him. “I wanted to know what he would do.”
“Something stupid! I could have told you that!”
“He didn’t want to go to T’negu.”
Rione spun back to face Geary and watched him with narrowed eyes.
“Falco thought T’negu would be a trap.”
Rione threw her hands up. “And now I find that I agree with Captain Falco about something. I never thought that would happen.”
Geary checked to make sure the hatch into his stateroom was sealed. He didn’t want anyone overhearing any part of this debate. “Look, I wouldn’t go to Lakota.”
“Then don’t.”
“The Syndics probably know I wouldn’t go there,” Geary explained with all the patience he could muster. “They know where I’m likely to go, one of the other stars within reach of Ixion. They know where this fleet will go if it keeps on the straightest possible course toward home. Lakota doesn’t match either of those.”
“Because going there is stupid!”
“The Syndics know it’d be stupid for us to go there, and we know it’d be stupid for us to go there, so maybe that’s the last thing they’d expect us to do!”
Rione stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“Yes!” Geary paced, then paused to turn on the star display in his stateroom and center it on Ixion. “T’negu is too clearly a possible objective for us. We can’t go there without assuming every jump point is laced with far more mines than we found waiting for us here. Going back to Daiquon wouldn’t achieve anything except hurting morale in this fleet and might land us in the lap of a Syndic force pursuing us through systems we’ve visited. Vosta takes us up and back into Syndic territory, and there are only two stars reachable using jump drives from Vosta. Kopara takes us off to one side, neither gaining nor losing much ground toward the Alliance, and has only one star accessible using jump drives. Dansik, according to our intelligence and the records we’ve captured, is a regional military headquarters and certain to be heavily defended. That leaves Lakota.”
Rione looked from the display to Geary, her expression guarded, then back to the display. “Where would Captain Geary go?”
“Vosta.” Geary scowled at the display. “To throw off pursuit.”
“But the Syndics have already seen you backtrack that way more than once.”
“Yeah.”
“Would they think you’d go to Kopara?”
“Doubtful. They’d only have to place strong forces in two star systems to trap us. It’d be nice if they thought I was that dumb, but I can’t count on it.”
Her expression hardened. “You managed to get us to Ixion, where you don’t like any of the options.”
He almost snarled in reply but realized the truth of her statement. “I didn’t think we’d make it to Ixion. I thought the Syndics would react faster, and we’d divert at Daiquon from the dash toward the Alliance.”
“And you’re basing your plan now on the hope that the Syndics won’t think you’re stupid? Listen to yourself, taking advice from Falco! Falco has always been an idiot, and now he’s an insane idiot.” Rione walked around the star display, burying her face in both hands. “John, don’t do it. Don’t take the fleet to Lakota.”
She’d never called him by just his first name before. “The other options aren’t that good. If Lakota works-”
The hands came down, and Rione glared at him. “If! What if it doesn’t? What will your options be then?”
“We can avoid combat, proceed across the system, and jump to another objective.”
Rione’s head sagged. “Do you honestly believe that this fleet will allow you to refuse battle? Yes, it did so after the losses suffered in the Syndic home system, when everyone was so shocked their instinctive urge to suicidal charges was temporarily thrown off. But if you try to avoid battle at Lakota, some of your ships will turn to engage, and then what will you do?”
That was something he hadn’t considered. Geary stared past her, thinking. “You really believe some of them would do that? The ones who work against me, people like Casia, don’t seem the sort to risk themselves in heroic charges against huge odds.”
“They’re not the ones you have to worry about! What did the living stars give you for brains, John Geary?” Rione stepped closer and grabbed his arms. “The ones most dangerous to you are the ones who believe in you enough to offer you a dictatorship but not enough to accept changing their own ways of thinking! Ask the officers you trust most. Roberto Duellos. He’ll tell you. Even Tanya Desjani will tell you. If you don’t believe me, then ask them!”
It made a great deal of sense. “I guess there are advantages at times to thinking like a politician.”
“Thank you. I think,” Rione flung at him as she stomped off and pointed at the display again. “If they’d never believe you’d go to Kopara-”
“No! If we get trapped at Kopara, there’s no way out! Lakota leaves us options.” He glared at the display, then shifted his gaze to Rione. “Why haven’t you said it?”
She glared back. “What?”
“Threaten to tell the ships from the Callas Republic and the Rift Federation not to follow my orders anymore. Why haven’t you warned me that you’d do that?”
“Because I don’t make threats I can no longer back up,” Rione replied angrily. “Please don’t pretend that you don’t know the loyalties of my own commanders are now split. No matter what I said, many would still follow you.”
“Really?” His surprise must have showed. “I haven’t tried to subvert their loyalty to-”
“Aiyee!” Rione yelled in rage, stepped close again, and thumped a fist onto Geary’s chest. “Stop pretending that you’re that big a fool! They believe in you, John Geary! Because you’ve brought the fleet this far and won some notable victories along the way! They believe that you are Black Jack and that you’ll save them and the Alliance! They believe that you’re not a politician, and in that they are certainly correct. But you’ve earned their trust.” She thrust an angry forefinger at the display. “Don’t repay that trust by taking them to Lakota!”
“Hell.” Geary let himself drop into a nearby seat, feeling suddenly weary. “Do you think I don’t spend every minute of every day trying to do the best I can by the people who’ve placed their trust in me?”
Her rage visibly faded, leaving Rione eyeing Geary with apparent helplessness. “What are you going to do?”
“Call a fleet conference. See how they react to Lakota.”
“They’ll love it. Just the sort of bold stroke that Black Jack Geary would do.” Rione sagged into a seat as well.
After a minute of silence, Geary looked over at her. “Madam Co-President, have you ever heard of something called a Geary Complex?”
Rione raised her head and bent one eyebrow upward. “Yes. It was first mentioned to me years ago when a fellow senator was telling me about Captain Falco. You finally heard about it?”
“I’m curious as to why you never accused me of having one.”
“You could scarcely be accused of imagining you were Captain John Geary.”
“I think there’s at least one fleet doctor who suspects that,” Geary replied dryly. “I don’t get it. You’re different
