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 reasonable 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
