of it. They’ve been waiting to use that information for when it will do the most damage. They will employ it at Ixion, where your lover will be exposed as an opportunistic whore lacking in honor and you will either share that stain by defending me or look weak by letting me be shunned and isolated. Not every weapon aimed at you will strike you directly.”
There wasn’t anything he could think to say except the weakest possible thing. “I’m sorry.”
“Should I be grateful for that?” Rione shot at him, then stood up, turned, and paced angrily. “I don’t need you to defend me. I chose to come to you. Any shame is mine.”
“I’ll defend you.”
“Spare me the chivalry!” She thrust an angry forefinger at him. “Defend this fleet! It needs you! I can’t save it. I can tell the men and women of this fleet how much I admire and respect them, I can tell them how the Alliance honors their service and sacrifice, but I cannot command them! I don’t know how. Nor can any of your allies in this fleet. I know you expect Captain Duellos to assume command, but he will be in a far weaker position than you and likely fail.”
Now he was getting angry, too. “I’m indispensable? Is that what you’re saying? I’m the only one who can command this fleet? Ever since we first exchanged words, you’ve been telling me that I don’t dare ever actually believe that! That if I do, I’ll be dooming this fleet and myself and the Alliance. And believe it or not, Victoria Rione, I do listen to what you say and consider it very carefully. I’m not Black Jack.”
“Yes, you are.” Rione came close, held his head in both hands so she could gaze straight into his eyes. “You’re Black Jack. You really are. Not a myth, but the only person who can save this fleet and the Alliance. I didn’t believe that for a long time. I didn’t believe the myth. Maybe you’re not that myth, but the legend gives you the ability to inspire and lead. You haven’t misused that. Just as important, you brought knowledge with you of how to fight, which has saved this fleet several times already and hurt the Syndics badly. And you can do it again, because so many believe you are Black Jack and because you’ve done the sorts of things only Black Jack was supposed to be capable of.”
“I can’t-”
“You must!” She stepped back again. “I’m not saying the right things. We’ve shared a bed and known each other’s bodies, but our souls remain hidden from each other. You need someone whose words you’ll believe, someone who can speak to you in the terms you know as a fleet officer.”
The anger was gone, replaced by weariness again.
“Words aren’t going to make a difference, no matter who speaks them.” Words could not change the state of this fleet, change the losses and damage suffered at Lakota, change the size of the Syndic force coming after this fleet.
“We’ll see.” Rione left, only the automatic closing mechanism on the hatch keeping it from slamming behind her.
Some indeterminate amount of time later, his hatch alert chimed, which at least meant it wasn’t Rione back to give him another pep talk since she could have walked in on her own. “Come in.”
“Captain Geary, sir?” Captain Desjani stood in the entry, betraying uncertainty.
Geary struggled into a more upright sitting position and straightened his uniform a bit. “Sorry, Captain Desjani.” He ought to say something else. “What brings you down here?”
“I…may I sit down, sir?”
She never asked that. This wasn’t routine business. Well, he should have known that. “Certainly. Relax.” Ask about her ship, you idiot. “How is Dauntless?”
Desjani sat but of course didn’t relax. “We’ve got all of our hell lances back online. Only a single partial volley of grapeshot left in our ammo lockers, and no specters. Hull damage won’t be totally repaired by the time we reach Ixion, but we’ll patch things up well enough to fight.” She paused. “We lost seventeen personnel and had another twenty-six wounded badly enough to be out of service for a while.”
Seventeen dead. He wondered how many of those seventeen he would have recognized. Probably most. “I’ll be at their services. Tell me when.” The funerals couldn’t be until they reached Ixion. No one’s remains were ever consigned to jump space.
“Of course, sir.” Desjani looked away from Geary for a moment, then spoke quickly. “Sir, Co-President Rione asked me to speak with you. She said you’d taken our losses at Lakota very hard and that I might be able to discuss that with you.”
Great. As if he wanted Desjani to see him depressed. Why couldn’t Rione let sleeping dogs lie? Or in this case let a depressed dog stay depressed? “Thank you, but I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Desjani’s eyes came back to Geary, flicking over his face and uniform, then lowered. “Sir, with all due respect, it doesn’t look that way.”
He could get mad at Desjani, but that would be unfair and probably too much work. “Point taken. Okay.”
She paused again as if waiting to be sure he’d agreed, then spoke with sudden intensity. “I knew you’d feel the losses, sir. That’s who you are. It’s one of the things that makes you such a great commander. But you’re also someone who understands the need to keep fighting. I’ve seen that so many times. You don’t really need my words or anyone else’s. You’ll come around, and you’ll figure out what to do, and then we’ll beat the Syndics again.”
He had to say it. “We didn’t beat them this time.”
Desjani frowned and shook her head. “That’s not true, sir. They wanted us trapped and destroyed. They didn’t achieve that. We wanted to get out of Lakota. We did.”
That made Geary frown, too, because Desjani was right. Seen that way, the Syndics had lost, and the Alliance fleet, by surviving and escaping, had won. Still…“Thank you. But…Tanya, we lost a lot of ships. A battle cruiser. Four battleships-”
“I know, sir,” Desjani interrupted. “I wish this victory had been like your others, with our losses negligible. But every battle can’t be like that, especially when we’re facing those kinds of odds.”
He shouldn’t need her to tell him that. Geary let his real feelings show for a moment, his sorrow and anguish, and saw Desjani react. “They trusted me to get them home. Now they won’t get home.”
“Sir.” Desjani leaned forward, her face lit with the intensity of her feelings. “Not everyone returns from battle.
We all learn that early on, and we’ve all lost many friends and comrades in action, as did our fathers and mothers and their fathers and mothers before them. But you were sent to save us. I know that. So do most of the officers and almost every sailor in this fleet. You are on a mission from the living stars to get this fleet home and save the Alliance, and that means you cannot fail. We all know that. Soon you’ll remember that, and you’ll figure out what to do next.”
Her belief was almost terrifying to him, because he knew how fallible he really was and couldn’t really believe that someone like him could be on a mission for any greater power. “I’m as human as you are, Tanya.”
“Of course you are! The living stars and our ancestors work through the living! Everyone knows that!”
“This fleet doesn’t need me. The Alliance doesn’t need me. I’m not-”
“Sir, yes we do!” Desjani almost pleaded this time. “I don’t know what I-what this fleet would do if you weren’t here, what would happen to the Alliance without you. You came to us when you did for a reason. Because if you hadn’t been there with us in the Syndic home system, then this fleet would have been wiped out and the Alliance lost. We followed you because we trusted you, and you have shown us again and again by your deeds and your words that you deserve that trust.”
Geary opened his mouth to protest again, then understood as if one of his ancestors had whispered it into his ear. He had let down the crews of the ships lost at Lakota. That was an awful thing. But it would be far more awful to let down the crews of all the surviving ships still in the fleet, to break faith with their belief in him when that faith was what was keeping them going. They were counting on him, and he knew it, just as the crews of Audacious, Defiant, and Indefatigable had known the rest of the fleet was counting on them. He had to come through, and Desjani and Rione were both right that it had to be him.
Because that faith others had in him meant only he had a halfway decent chance of keeping this fleet together, though keeping it from being destroyed would be just as hard a task. But he had to do it. And that meant he had to figure out what to do next.
So he sat a bit straighter, nodded, and spoke in a firmer voice. “I do have a responsibility.” Like it or not, and I don’t like it one bit. “Thank you for helping me remember that.”
