you planning to manipulate me into doing for you next? Do you think I have no pride? Do you think I have no sense of honor?”
He tried to get his temper back under control. “I have not fooled you, I have not manipulated you, I have been honest every step of the way.”
Rione leaned closer, her eyes blazing. “I have endured many things for the sake of the Alliance, Captain Geary. But to find that I have been treated in this fashion by a man I had come to assume was above such things is the most humiliating thing I have ever experienced. Worse, the fact that you succeeded in using me to further your aims means these ships and perhaps the Alliance itself are doomed. The people of the Callas Republic, who I swore to serve faithfully, are doomed. I have failed, Captain Geary. You can take satisfaction in that much. You don’t need to continue pretending to be unjustly accused.”
Geary glared back at her. “Believe it or not, this isn’t about you.”
“No, Captain Geary. It’s not. It’s about the thousands of men and women you are leading to their deaths.”
Geary looked away, trying to regain his composure. “If you would do me the courtesy of letting me explain my intentions-”
“I’ve already heard them.” Rione pivoted, walked one step away, then swung back to face him again. “The simulations you claimed to have run don’t exist. You haven’t even tried to claim otherwise.”
“I never claimed to have run simulations!”
Rione paused, then a bitter smile curved one corner of her mouth. “So the simple warrior chose his words with such great care? Implying something existed when it didn’t?”
“I didn’t intend that anyone misinterpret my reasons for this course of action! You just have to take my word for it that I worked this out.”
“How convenient,” Rione stated in a voice suddenly gone icy. “I only need to take your word again. I hadn’t realized you held me in such contempt. Am I really so easy to manipulate?”
“I did not manipulate you! That was never my intention!”
“So you say.” Rione shook her head slowly, never taking her eyes off of Geary. “Your real intentions are already clear to me.”
“Fine,” Geary almost snarled. “Then why don’t you tell me what you think they are?”
“I already told you. When confronted with a serious challenge to your command of this fleet, you have chosen to do the sort of insanely risky and ill-considered action that you have spent the last few months claiming to abhor. Your intention, Captain Geary, is to prove that you can be as brainlessly aggressive as Captain Falco, thereby ensuring these ships continue to follow you, regardless of what happens to them as a result.”
“This isn’t brainless,” Geary snapped back at her. “I considered all options.”
“And clearly disregarded all of the intelligent ones!”
“I don’t want this fleet destroyed! If we’d continued ahead as planned, we would’ve been trapped by superior Syndic forces after having been worn down by more minor losses in every system along the way!” He was yelling at her again, Geary realized, more angry than he could remember feeling since being rescued.
She kept yelling back. “Where is the proof that you considered these options? Where are the simulations you ran?”
“In my head!”
“Do you seriously expect me to believe such a self-serving argument? One that I cannot verify? I’m just supposed to continue trusting you?”
“Yes! I think I’ve earned the right to some benefit of the doubt!”
“Benefit of the doubt? I’ve granted you that in the past, Captain Geary, to my eventual sorrow. But you can’t offer one solid piece of evidence to excuse this course of action, not one! This decision of yours is totally unjustified by any proof except your assertions. You’re supposed to hold on to your command by proving that you’re a better man than Captain Falco! Not by proving that you’re an even bigger idiot than he is!”
Geary shook his head like an angry bull. “I never claimed to be a better man.”
“Yes, you did,” Rione accused him. “You spoke of caring for the lives of the sailors in this fleet, you spoke of leading them wisely. You-” She broke off, her face twisted with fury. “How could you do this to me?”
“To you?” There it was again. Geary managed to rein in his temper again with a supreme effort, wondering why Rione’s anger was affecting him so strongly. “I did not misuse your trust. I didn’t manipulate you. I swear this is my best judgment. To keep this fleet alive and get it home.”
“You actually believe that?” Rione demanded. “You can’t be such a fool, so you must be lying.”
“It’s true.” He flung an arm out toward the star display. “If you don’t believe me, run simulations yourself! See what happens if we kept going to any of the destinations we’d been considering.”
“I will! I will run simulations and produce a verifiable record of my deliberations. And when I prove the conclusions you claim to have reached were totally wrong, I’ll show you the results, assuming that this ship is still intact at that point and not a broken derelict awaiting the arrival of a Syndic salvage crew!”
She swept out, leaving Geary alone with the echoes of her anger and disappointment. He turned to the projection of a starscape on one bulkhead and punched it several times viciously, but though the stars rippled each time, his efforts had no other result.
THE Alliance fleet turned again, hundreds of ships large and small rolling and pitching as their bows swung around. Main drives lit off, pushing the ships onto a new course, arching over the top of the Sutrah Star System’s plane and back down toward the jump point where the fleet had entered not long before.
Geary, pleased at the smooth execution of the maneuver even though he knew it had been handled by automated controls, kept his eyes on the Syndic light warships still hanging around the fringes of the star system. The closest enemy warships were almost two light-hours away, so they wouldn’t realize the Alliance fleet had made a big change of course until that time. They’d have to wait after that, determining what the Alliance fleet’s new objective was, making sure the Alliance fleet was actually heading back to the first jump point, and confirming that it had actually made use of that jump point.
They’ve got one ship left there, one more there, and three there. They can’t send updates to the three possible stars that could be reached through the other jump points without sending a ship each time. They can send a warning to all of them that we seem to be backtracking, or they can send an alert to all when we actually use our arrival jump point to leave the system. But not both, so they’ll have to wait until they know we’ve left. It buys us more time and leaves the Syndics with more uncertainties. It’ll also teach them to assume they can use the most “efficient” number of ships to shadow my fleet instead of having enough to deal with the unexpected.
Not that he wanted the Syndics to actually learn from experience with him. They’d learned enough already to seed Sutrah system with unpleasant surprises, and he prayed Strabo wouldn’t be the same.
FOUR
SEVEN more hours until the jump to Strabo. Geary arranged the formation for departure carefully. When the fleet arrived at Strabo, it would be in the same disposition as when it left Sutrah, so he wanted to try to set things up so there wouldn’t be any more out-of-control charges. With so many commanding officers to deal with, Geary couldn’t assess how all would react in any given situation, so he tried to place the ones he had reason to believe he could trust best to the forefront. Unfortunately, there weren’t as many of those commanding officers as he would have liked. He glanced at the current fleet formation, wondering why so many shuttles were winging their way between ships.
He looked up as the alert on his stateroom hatch chimed, followed by the entry of Captain Desjani. Geary smiled in greeting. “Good timing. I was just about to call you and ask if you knew what all those shuttle trips were about.”
“It’s a swap meet,” Desjani explained. “Personnel. As the liberated prisoners have been fully debriefed and their particular skills and experience entered into the fleet personnel database, each ship has been checking to see if individuals they need are available. Most of the ships are swapping people right now to get skills they need and transfer surplus skills to other ships that need those individuals more. The fleet database automatically coordinates
