Valiente (72 page)

The virtual image of Captain Duellos looked offended as it lounged in a seat. “Politicians have spies, but I have sources, my good Captain Geary.”

“My apologies.”

“Accepted. I don’t honestly have that much, but I thought you could use a talk.”

“You thought right. Thanks. So what do we talk about?”

“Pressure.” Duellos waved toward the star display. “If we make it through Cavalos, this fleet will be within five or six jumps of a Syndic border star system from which we can jump into Alliance space. The casual thinker might assume you’re feeling relieved at how close we are to home. I’m inclined to think you’re increasingly waiting for the sword to fall.”

Geary nodded. “Good guess. Every step closer to home makes me wonder if I’m being set up for a disaster at the last moment. I make it six jumps past Cavalos, by the way, since we have to avoid Syndic star systems with hypernet gates.”

“True.” Duellos eyed the depiction of the stars. “The Syndics have to be increasingly desperate.

They’ll be pulling in everything they’ve got left to stop you.”

“To stop
us
.”

“Correct, although it’s natural to personalize something as impersonal as a fleet.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Geary made a face as he looked at the display. “Having the Syndics concentrating their remaining warships against us should create some real opportunities for the Alliance warships that were left behind when this fleet headed for the Syndic home system. At the very least they’d be able to send reinforcements to meet us in whatever Syndic border system we aim for. But there’s no way to tell our people back in Alliance space what’s happening or where we are.”

“Too bad the aliens won’t tell them, but I suppose we’ll have to be grateful if they don’t tell the Syndics where we are.”

“Yeah.” Geary pressed his palms against his eyes, feeling a headache threatening. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Duellos seemed to be thinking. “Do we want to discuss personal matters?”

“Yours or mine?” Geary asked dryly.

“Yours.”

“I was afraid of that. What now?”

Duellos frowned slightly, looking downward. “You and Tanya Desjani.”

“No. We’re still not involved with each other, and we won’t be.”

“The fleet is increasingly certain that you are. Everyone knows that Co-President Rione has ceased spending nights in your stateroom and that she and Captain Desjani remain on barely civil terms with each other.” Duellos shrugged.

“The assumption is that the better woman won, the fleet naturally accepting that Tanya Desjani is better than any politician.”

Geary gave an exasperated sigh. “She’s a wonderful woman. But she’s also my subordinate. You know the regulations as well as I do, and as well as she does.”

“You could get away with it, you know,” Duellos suggested. “You’re a special case. You’re Black Jack Geary.”

“The almost mythical hero who can do anything he wants. Right. I can’t afford to believe that about myself.” Geary stood up and began pacing restlessly despite his sense of weariness. “If I break that regulation, why not others? Where along that path do I find myself accepting the offer of Captain Badaya to become dictator because I can? Besides,” he added, “Tanya wouldn’t do it.

She won’t do it herself, and she wouldn’t let me do it.”

“You’re probably right,” Duellos agreed. “But you’ll have to work at not getting that longing look in your eyes when you say her name.”

Geary pivoted to stare at Duellos. “I hope you’re joking. Do I really?”

“Enough for me to notice, but don’t worry. It only seems to happen when you say ‘Tanya.’ Just saying ‘Captain Desjani’ you appear thoroughly professional.” Duellos grimaced. “And it’s not as if she doesn’t get the same look sometimes when watching you.”

She did? “I swear we’ve done nothing—”

Duellos held up one hand in a forestalling gesture. “You don’t need to. I never doubted it. Jaylen Cresida and I know Desjani well enough to tell that she feels not only anguished but also guilt-stricken over her feelings for you. To become emotionally involved with her commanding officer goes against all she once believed in.” Duellos shrugged. “Now, of course, she believes in you.”

Feeling his own share of anguish and guilt, Geary rubbed his face with both hands. “I should leave
Dauntless
. I don’t have any right to put her through that.”

“Leaving
Dauntless
wouldn’t accomplish anything. As Captain Cresida remarked to me, ‘Once Tanya locks on to a target, she doesn’t let it go. She
can’t
.’ And Jaylen is right. You can’t leave Tanya’s focus just by leaving this ship, and not being able to sight her target might just increase her distress. Besides which, frankly, the crew of
Dauntless
has taken quite a pride in having you aboard. I’d advise against leaving her.”

Geary nodded in response, then wondered whether Duellos’s last “her” referred to Tanya Desjani or
Dauntless
. “But if the fleet thinks there’s something going on between us—”

“They don’t. Not that way. Despite a sustained whispering campaign claiming otherwise, most of the fleet believes you two are thoroughly involved yet remaining professional with each other and at properly chaste arm’s length.”

“Even that is wrong,” Geary insisted, dropping back into his chair.

“True, by a strict reading of the regulation, but there’s a certain romantic aura to the love that cannot be fulfilled, and I believe the fact that you two are abiding by the rules despite your feelings is actually enhancing your standing. It’s like one of those ancient sagas.” Duellos smiled as Geary gave him a sour look. “You asked, and I’m telling you.”

“Don’t a lot of those ancient sagas end tragically?”

Another shrug from Duellos. “Most of them, anyway. But this is your saga. You’re still writing it.”

For some reason that made Geary laugh briefly. “I need to have a long talk with myself about the plot, then.”

“Sagas wouldn’t be interesting if terrible things didn’t happen to the people in them,” Duellos pointed out.

“I never wanted my life to be interesting, and I sure as hell don’t have any right to make Desjani’s life interesting that way.”

“She’s writing her own story. You can command Tanya Desjani on the bridge, but she doesn’t strike me as the sort to let someone else,
anyone
else, dictate how her personal saga goes.”

He couldn’t argue that point. “It’s all speculation, anyway. Let’s get back to nonpersonal matters,” Geary grumbled. “I hope people aren’t giving Tan—Captain Desjani a hard time about this.”

“She’s fully capable of returning fire if they do. I have to admit to being surprised at your apparent preference for dangerous women, but then they seem to prefer you as well.”

Unable to come up with a decent response to that observation, Geary changed the subject. “I didn’t know that you and Cresida were friends.”

Duellos shrugged. “We weren’t. We barely knew each other. But since you’ve assumed command, we’ve had reason for many talks. She’s quite impressive. I’m not sure if she has the temperament for a larger, independent command, but Jaylen Cresida is a brilliant scientist. One wonders what she might have done in peaceful pursuits if not for this war.” He looked thoughtful. “My wife and I have some friends back home we’ll have to contrive to introduce her to. They and she could do much worse.”

“That’s easy to believe.” He’d avoided looking into his ship captains’ personal-data files, but it was long past time he learned more about them as individuals. “So, getting away from my non-love life and your desire to fix up Captain Cresida . . .”

Duellos grinned momentarily and leaned back himself, thinking again and quickly looking unhappy. “I can’t find out what Captain Numos is up to. Surely he hasn’t finally accepted being under arrest. But any messages he’s sending out to supporters are now being kept so closely that not even the rumor of them is reaching anyone willing to pass that on to me.”

“What about Captain Faresa? Did anything trace back to her before
Majestic
was destroyed?”

“Nothing that I could find. Faresa always followed Numos’s lead in any case. Captain Falco made occasional clumsy attempts to send out orders, but even if he were still alive, he couldn’t serve as a figurehead now.” Duellos frowned deeply this time. “Your enemies need someone to rally around, some officer respected enough to appear an alternative to you. I haven’t been able to find out who that is, and it worries me.”

“Surely we can make guesses,” Geary noted, glad that the talk had veered firmly away from his personal life.

“I’m not so sure. The figurehead who replaces you has to appeal at least a little to those who believe in you. That means someone who isn’t known as an opponent of yours and someone who’s at least a decent commanding officer.”

Geary mentally ran through the officers he knew. “Some-one we likely trust, then?”

“Not Tulev or Cresida, certainly. Not Armus, though we don’t trust him. But he’s a blunt instrument, speaking and doing things forthrightly. He couldn’t carry off the deception. Badaya has been increasingly vocal, but his loyalties are locked on you as long as he believes you will seize power when this fleet returns to Alliance space.”

“That leaves a lot of possible candidates.”

“It does,” Duellos agreed. “I’m working it. Hopefully we’ll learn something that will help.”

“Thanks. I’ll ask Co-President Rione to see what her spies can find out.” Duellos made another face. “You don’t trust her?” Geary asked.

“That’s not it. I trust her to do what’s best for the Alliance. But I’m worried about what she might decide is best for the Alliance.”

It was a legitimate concern. Geary nodded, then a memory struck him. “What about Caligo on

Brilliant
and Kila on
Inspire
?”

Duellos pondered the question for a moment. “What brought them to your mind, if I might ask?”

“The recent realization that I’d hardly noticed either of them even though they’re both battle-cruiser captains. Kila finally spoke up at the last conference.”

“That’s the way Caligo is,” Duellos explained. “He and I have never talked much. He mostly sits and watches. He likes to stay in the background.” Duellos’s thoughtful expression shaded into a frown. “Interesting, given the sort of officer we think is working against you.”

Geary couldn’t help thinking the same thing. “But what’s he like?”

“I haven’t heard bad things about him, or all that many good things for that matter,” Duellos observed. “He does his job and doesn’t make waves, yet he’s impressed people enough to earn command of a battle cruiser.”

Under other circumstances, that would have sounded like the sort of officer Geary liked to have working for him. Now it left him wondering, and feeling angry with himself for worrying about the loyalty and intent of a fellow officer based on such nebulous information. “What about Kila?”

“Kila. She’s been unusually quiet, now that you mention it.” Duellos looked slightly embarrassed. “I’m a bit biased. She and I were involved as ensigns. It didn’t really last past our training. Once we went our separate ways, she made it clear that we had separated in more ways than one.”

“Ouch,” Geary said sympathetically.

“I was eventually very grateful,” Duellos responded. “Sandra Kila is ambitious and aggressive.

Smart, too.”

“She sounds a bit like Cresida.”

“Ummmm, more like Cresida’s evil twin. Kila tends to impress superiors but isn’t well liked by her peers or subordinates because her aggressiveness shades too easily into ruthlessness, even in matters of competition for assignments or ranking in evaluations.”

It didn’t fit. Geary shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like someone who’d just sit quiet and remain essentially unknown to her fleet commander. She won’t earn good marks that way. Why isn’t she in the forefront of argument and debate? Why hasn’t she tried to suck up to me? The points she brought up at the last conference weren’t pressed hard and seemed aimed at pressuring me, not supporting me in a way that would impress me.”

“Perhaps she has a larger goal in mind.” Duellos let that sink in, then spoke pensively. “But too many officers don’t like her because of personal experience or her reputation. If she were an animal, Kila would be known as one of those which eats its young.”

Geary raised an eyebrow at Duellos. “Did you say you were a
bit
biased?”

“Just a bit,” Duellos admitted. “But my opinions are far from unique. Kila would never be accepted as acting fleet commander, and she’s smart enough to know that.”

“Why would an officer that ambitious suddenly recognize a ceiling above her? I’ve known officers like that. They want to reach the top. They don’t aim to get so high and no higher, but don’t realize that their tactics often eventually get them tarred so that they can’t rise any further in the ranks.”

“Yes, but . . .” Duellos made an annoyed gesture. “This isn’t the fleet you knew. If Kila could continue impressing superiors, she could hope to be promoted to command despite the wishes of those serving under her. Diplomatic skills are far more important for anyone aspiring to the highest levels of command.”

“Don’t you mean political skills?” Geary asked sarcastically.

“There’s no need to be insulting.” Duellos sat silent for a moment, then nodded. “As much as we refuse to confront the issue, you’re right. Admiral Bloch was a much better politician than he was an officer, and that served him well enough for promotion and eventual command of the fleet. It didn’t serve the fleet or the Alliance nearly so well, of course. Maybe we’ve been increasingly hostile to people like Co-President Rione because we look at them and see a mirror of what we’ve become.”

“Rione’s not that bad,” Geary objected almost automatically. Duellos just gazed back at him.

After a long pause, Geary nodded in turn. “Maybe she is sometimes. But she’s on our side.”

“Let’s hope she stays there.”

Time to change the subject again. “Do you have any idea whether or not Caligo or Kila is among those supporting Badaya’s bid to make me a dictator?”