Valiant

on Inspire right now.”

“I’m sure he’ll be happy there,” Desjani responded, her tone notably cooler. “There are any number of attractive female officers on Inspire, assuming he doesn’t try for an attractive enlisted this time.” She saw his reaction and shrugged with every appearance of uncaring. “Lieutenant Riva burned his bridges with me a decade ago, sir, though I didn’t fully appreciate that until recently. I’d regret the loss of any member of the Alliance fleet, but on a personal level, I really don’t care if I never hear his name again.”

“Sorry,” Geary offered, “for bringing it up, I mean.”

“That’s all right. I’ve learned a lot about men since I was involved with him, a lot about what a man should be.” She looked down and bit her lip. “But we were talking about getting home, about you being able to do that.”

“Yeah.”

She must have heard the lack of enthusiasm in Geary’s voice, and somehow knew what it meant. “It’s still your home, too, sir.”

“Is it?” Geary fell silent again but knew Desjani was waiting for him to say more, as if she knew he had more he should say. “How much has changed in a century? The people I knew are gone. I’ll be greeting their now- elderly children and grandchildren. The buildings I last saw new will be old. Old ones will be torn down, with something else in their place. On this ship I can pretend not much time has passed, but once we get back to Alliance space, then everywhere I look there’ll be reminders that my home is dead and gone.”

Desjani sighed. “You won’t lack for friends.”

“Yes, I will. What I won’t lack for is people wanting to be near Black Jack Geary,” he answered, letting the bitterness he felt at the thought enter his voice. “They won’t be interested in me, just in the great hero they think I am. How can I avoid that? How can I get to know anyone when that will be following me everywhere?”

“It won’t be easy,” Desjani admitted. “But people will get to know you. Just like people in this fleet did. Who you really are besides being a hero, and I see how you react when I say that, but I’m sorry, you are a hero. Everyone in this fleet would be dead or in Syndic labor camps long ago but for you. You have to accept that.”

“I could still screw up so badly that we’ll end up that way anyhow,” Geary noted. “Look, I wish you wouldn’t call me a hero.”

“The fleet knows-”

“Not the fleet. You.”

She stayed silent for a moment, then nodded. “You need to be able to escape that at times. I understand. But I do believe you’ll be happy once we get home. You’ll get to know people. People will get to know you,” Desjani repeated. “Just as some of them know you now.”

“Sure. People in the fleet know me. People I’ll have to leave.” She didn’t answer this time, and Geary looked over to see Desjani staring at the deck, her face rigid with suppressed emotions. For the first time he really thought of leaving her, of not seeing her every day, and felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Geary wondered how his own expression looked as he realized that. “Tanya-”

“Please don’t. It’ll just make it harder.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant, but in some way knew that she was right. “Okay.”

“You’ll have Co-President Rione,” Desjani added in a rush.

“No. I don’t have her now. Not like that.” He shrugged, hoping he wasn’t sounding callous. “We’re using each other. I need someone who is skeptical of me and willing to speak openly her every doubt to me, and she needs… I’m not sure what she needs.”

Desjani spoke in a very low voice. “It seems that you’re giving her what she wants.”

Geary barely managed not to flinch. Desjani had a point. A very good point. Why was he having sex with a woman when he wasn’t even remotely sure of his feelings about her? “Not lately. But maybe that should stop completely.”

“If the fleet needs it-”

“That’s a fine justification for me to use, isn’t it? Just the sort of abuse of power I’m supposed to be avoiding.”

She smiled slightly. “Yes.”

“It’s not like Rione and I get along that well. Especially when-” He broke off, suddenly realizing that he’d been about to say “when she acts jealous of you.”

But Desjani looked even farther away for a moment, as if she’d actually heard those words. “I’ve given her no grounds for that. Nor have you.”

“She seems to think so,” he noted in frustration. “So does most of the fleet, apparently. What the hell are we going to do, Tanya?”

She knew that he wasn’t referring to the Syndics or the fleet this time. Desjani gazed toward a corner of the room for a while before answering in a calm and controlled voice. “We can’t do anything. Sir.”

“No. We can’t.” The carefully emphasized “sir” was meant to remind him of their relative positions. She was his subordinate, he was her commander, and nothing could be done about either of those things. He looked down, trying to understand the feelings inside himself and wishing Desjani hadn’t gotten dragged into the politics surrounding him. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “I’m sorry, too.”

It was only after she left that it occurred to him to wonder exactly what she felt sorry for, and only then because he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d meant it the way he’d thought he had.

“CAPTAIN Geary, this is Captain Desjani. The accounting of prisoners liberated from Audacious was scrambled by the subsequent engagement and the losses of some of the ships involved in the recovery, but a preliminary list is now available. They’re working on verifying it and hope to have a finalized list before we reach the jump point for Branwyn.”

Geary felt a sense of satisfaction at the news, a reminder that he had succeeded in liberating some of the Alliance sailors captured during the first battles in Lakota Star System, as he reached out and tapped the comm unit in his stateroom. “Thank you, Captain Desjani. You didn’t need to track that for me. You’re not my chief of staff.” He didn’t have a chief of staff, of course. Admiral Bloch’s had died along with Admiral Bloch in the Syndic home system, and Geary hadn’t wanted to pull any officers out of badly needed primary duties on any of his ships. The automated systems available could do most of the work staffs used to do, anyway.

“I’m happy to help however I can, sir.”

Geary smiled and broke the connection, then turned to see Victoria Rione glowering at him. She’d come here to discuss the fleet conference she had observed but not attended, but had been interrupted by Desjani’s call. “Now what?” he asked. “That was good news.”

“Yes,” Rione agreed in an icy voice, “eagerly delivered by your happy little helper.”

He felt heat rising to match her coldness. “Are you talking about Captain Desjani?”

“Who else? Everyone in this fleet knows how she feels about you. You don’t have to flaunt it in front of me.”

“Those are rumors, and you know it! I’ve never seen her act that way, and I don’t act that way with her,” Geary objected. “No one I meet in the passageways of Dauntless gives me looks of disapproval. If the crew of this ship thought Captain Desjani and I were even thinking of that, they’d-”

“No, they wouldn’t!” Rione gave him a look mixing anger and exasperation. “If you and that woman were screwing on the bridge of this ship, the watch-standers would politely look away and joyfully approve that their respected captain and their legendary hero had found happiness together! How can you not know that?”

“That’s ridiculous. They know you and I are together.”

“We may walk together at times, but anyone can see that we’re no more emotionally tied to each other than we were the day you were defrosted from survival sleep!”

He started to object, then thought better of it. Rione was right about that. Even when their bodies were joined, their spirits were separate. Lust and love were two different things. He knew which of those motivated him to desire Victoria Rione, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. “We’ve still publicly been companions. If I left you for Desjani-”

“They’d applaud! I’m a civilian and a politician! They don’t trust me, they don’t think I’m one of them, and I’m