Valiente (85 page)

. . .”

“There could be more. Almost certainly are more,” Desjani murmured. She looked at Geary.

“We have to understand this enemy, and that’s a very important possibility.
They
might feel penned between potential foes. They might even be fighting a war or wars unimaginably far away from our own battles with the Syndics. Maybe they need to keep us tied down because of that, because they need to protect their flanks. Maybe that means we’ve got potential allies against these creatures. Or even worse potential enemies.”

Rione looked like she’d swallowed something unpleasant. “That’s a real possibility. We have no way of knowing if it’s true. There’s too damned much we don’t know.”

“We’ve learned a lot. We’ll learn more.” He hoped that was true, anyway.

THE expanding balls of debris that had been the wrecks of
Opportune
,
Braveheart
, the heavy cruiser
Armet
, and the light cruiser
Cercle
were well behind the Alliance fleet now as it proceeded toward the jump point for Anahalt and Dilawa. Geary had kept the fleet’s speed down to point zero four light to make it easier for badly damaged ships like
Courageous
and
Brilliant
to keep up, hoping they’d soon get more propulsion units repaired. No more attempts to plant worms in fleet systems had occurred. Geary wondered if that was because those responsible for the earlier attempts were busy dealing with damage to their ships, or were trying to find new ways to plant the worms, or were rethinking that tactic after the previous attempts had backfired by alienating most of the fleet. It seemed very unlikely that they’d given up.

He still wasn’t certain which star to jump to next. Nor did he feel like thinking of that at the moment. The fleet had lost a lot of personnel as well as several ships in the latest battle. He’d spent a long time in the fleet at peace, a hundred years ago, and fought one hopeless battle before going into survival sleep. Others had fought countless battles during the next century, growing accustomed to losing ships and men and women in large numbers. Geary had kept trying to avoid dealing with that but realized he couldn’t keep it up. He had to accept the cost that even victories required, and he needed to call up the personnel records, which would tell him the private prices the people he knew now had paid before he had known them. He owed that to them.

Geary called up the personnel files and read through them. Captain Jaylen Cresida. Home world Madira. Her first fleet assignment had been as gunnery officer on the destroyer
Shakujo
. Married five years ago to another fleet officer. Widowed three years ago when her husband had died aboard the battle cruiser
Invincible
when the ship was destroyed while defending the Alliance star system of Kana against a Syndic attack. Not the same
Invincible
that this fleet had lost at Ilion, but the previous ship to bear that same name.

Cresida had told him that if she died, she had someone waiting for her.

Geary closed his eyes for a moment, trying to dull the pain inside as he read the dry report. Then he read more, forcing himself to confront the costs of this war that had changed the Alliance he knew and helped forge the personalities of the people around him.

Cresida’s mother and brother were also casualties of the war, the mother dead when Jaylen had been only twelve. The older brother had died a year before Cresida joined the fleet. Not wanting to tally the losses through the generation before that, Geary stopped looking back through the file.

Steeling himself, Geary pulled up Captain Duellos’s file. His wife was a research scientist in a star system safely back from the front line, but Duellos’s father and an uncle had died in the war.

His oldest daughter would be eligible for call-up by the draft next year.

Captain Tulev had lost his wife and three children to a Syndic bombardment of their home world.

And Captain Desjani. She’d told him that her parents were still both alive, and that was so.

Desjani did also have the uncle she’d spoken of a few times. But she’d never mentioned the aunt who’d died in ground fighting on a Syndic world. Nor the younger brother dead six years ago in his first combat engagement.

He remembered the young Syndic boy with whom Desjani had spoken when the refugees from Wendig were brought aboard, the way Desjani had treated the boy and the way she’d looked at him as he moved to defend his family. Had she seen her little brother in that boy?

Geary spent a long time staring at the display, then punched in the other commands he’d never had the nerve to face. The records of what had happened to his family.

Gearys popped up. A lot of them. He’d left no wife or children behind, something for which he’d often given thanks. But he’d had a brother and a sister, cousins, an aunt. Most of them had children. Many of those had ended up in the fleet. Geary remembered his grandnephew’s bitter words, that it was expected that Gearys would join the fleet. A lot of them had done that, and a lot had died.

He was still sitting there, trying to take it in, when his hatch alarm sounded. “Come in.”

Captain Desjani entered, then halted, watching him. “What’s wrong?”

“Just . . . reviewing some files.”

She hesitated for only a moment, then came around behind him to read over his shoulder.

Desjani was silent for so long that Geary began wondering what to do, then he heard her speak softly. “Haven’t you seen these before?”

“No. I didn’t want to.”

“We’ve all paid a price in this war. Your family has paid more than its share.”

“Because of me,” Geary ground out. Desjani didn’t answer, apparently unwilling to deny something she had to know was true. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about your brother?”

She was quiet again for a while. “It’s not something I talk about.”

“I’m very, very sorry. You know I would’ve listened.”

The reply took a moment to come. “Yes, and I know you would’ve understood. But I thought you had enough things to worry about. My family’s losses aren’t special.”

“Yes, they are,” Geary objected. “Every single person is special. A hundred years of this, a century of life after life cut short in a war that’s gone nowhere. What a damned waste.”

“Yes.” He felt Desjani’s hand rest on his shoulder and squeeze lightly, the gesture of a comrade sharing pain, and maybe something more.

Geary brought his own hand up to cover hers and grip it. “Thanks.”

“You need everything we can give you.”

Suddenly it all felt like too much. His responsibilities, the pain the war had brought to so many, the feelings for Desjani that he had to keep as hidden as possible. He had to get
Dauntless
home, he had to get that Syndic hypernet key back to the Alliance, but he had to do so much more as well. People expected him to do so much more. Geary felt as if he would drown under the pressure, his only lifeline the hand resting on his shoulder. He dropped his grasp and stood up, facing her. “Tanya . . .”

“Yes,” she repeated, though he wasn’t sure if she knew what it was he couldn’t say, or if she knew and was trying to deflect it. “It’s so much for one man to carry. You will end it, though,”

Desjani stated firmly. “You’ll end this war, you’ll save this fleet and the Alliance.”

Every word felt like a nail in his coffin. “For the love of my ancestors, please don’t give me that speech!”

“It’s not a speech,” Desjani insisted.

“Yes, it is! It’s a fantasy about who I am and what I can do!”

“No. It’s true. Look what you’ve done already!” Desjani gestured to the display. “You can stop this. I know it must be hard to be chosen by the living stars for such a mission, but you can do it!”

“You have no idea how it feels to have that kind of demand placed on you!“

“I see the effect it has on you, but I know you can handle it. You wouldn’t have been chosen otherwise.”

“Maybe somebody made a mistake!” Geary almost yelled. “Maybe I’m not able to save the entire damned universe by myself!”

“You’re not alone!” Desjani was clearly upset now, her face as she gazed at him twisted with hope, fear, and something deeper, all jumbled together.

“It sure feels like it!” Geary swung his own angry hand toward the display now behind him. “All of those dead, and people expecting me to end that. How can anyone accomplish that? I can’t do this!” Had he ever actually said those last four words to anyone, or had the thought only echoed inside him since he’d been forced to assume command of this fleet?

“What else do you need from me?” she asked desperately. “Of course you need help. Tell me, and it’s yours. I’ll do anything.” Desjani looked appalled as the last words slipped out, and she stared at Geary.

His despair drained away as Geary stared back at her. Something that had been at least partly hidden now lay in the open between them. “Anything?”

“I didn’t—” She swallowed and spoke with obviously forced calm. “I’m without honor now. I know that.”

“Stop it, Tanya. You’ve got honor to spare.”

“An honorable woman would not feel this way about her commanding officer! She wouldn’t speak of it. She would not be willing to—” Desjani bit off her words and stared frantically at Geary again.

He could reach out and have her. Right this very moment. Geary looked down at his hands, thinking of the price so many others had already paid. He’d been willing to use Victoria Rione when she’d offered herself to him, just as Rione had used him. But he couldn’t do that to Tanya Desjani. Even though Desjani and almost everyone else would excuse him for it, justifying to themselves whatever was done by the hero sent from the past. But he couldn’t do that to her. The very thought of it revolted him. That, more than anything, told him that his feelings for her were real, that he wasn’t just reaching out again for any safe port when the storms of his responsibilities grew too rough. “I won’t take your honor,” he whispered.

“You already have it,” Desjani replied in agonized tones.

“No. I’ll take nothing from you that you don’t freely choose to give.”

“It’s
given
. I swear I didn’t seek that, I swear I tried to fight it, but it has happened.”

Geary looked up again and saw her despair. “Either we’ll live to reach Alliance space, or we’ll die on the way. If we live . . .”

Desjani nodded. “I can resign my commission. It won’t be enough to return my honor or erase the burden I’ve put on your own, but—”

“Resign your commission? Tanya, you live to be a fleet officer! You love it! I can’t allow you to give that up on my account!”

“An officer who cannot carry out her duties according to regulations is required to—” Desjani began, her face now stiff.

“
I’ll
resign,” Geary broke in. “As soon as we get home. I never wanted this responsibility, and once I get this fleet home, no one can demand more of me. Once I’m no longer a fleet officer, your honor can’t be questioned, and—”

“No!”
Desjani now appeared horrified as she gazed at him. “
You can’t!
You have a mission!”

“I never asked or wanted—”

“It was given to you! Because the living stars knew you could do it!” Desjani backed away, shaking her head. “I can’t allow my feelings to influence you this way. Too many people are depending upon you. If I caused you to shirk that mission, I would surely be damned by them and deserving of it. Say you won’t do that. Say you didn’t mean it.” He looked back at her silently. “Say it! If you do not, I swear I shall get this ship home to Alliance space, then go as far from you as human space allows!” Geary struggled for words, and Desjani took another step backward. “If the temptation I offer you has to be removed from this ship now, I’ll do that. I’ll do whatever I must.”

He finally found his voice again. “No. Please. You’re
Dauntless
’s commanding officer. You belong on her. I . . . I promise you I won’t resign until this war is over.” The words felt acidic in his mouth, the thing he had never wanted to accept even though he knew so many expected it of him.

“Your promise should not be to me,” Desjani replied, her face and voice calmer now.

“It is,” he insisted. “I’ve avoided making it because it scared the hell out of me. But the thought of not seeing you scared me more. Congratulations.”

“I . . . I didn’t—”

“No, you didn’t. You never would have tried to manipulate me on purpose.” Unlike Victoria Rione, he realized. “I made the choice. I’ll carry out the mission. As long as you don’t resign

your
commission. I need you with me if I’m going to have any chance of succeeding. And when my mission is done, and I’m no longer in command of this fleet, I’ll finally say the words that I wish I could say to you now.”

Desjani nodded to him. “Thank you, Captain Geary. I knew you’d do what you had to do.”

“As opposed to what I want to do right now.” Amazingly, she laughed. “If you and I did what we wanted to do at this very moment, we’d be different people. But hard as it is, I must stand here instead of stepping closer to you. Much closer. No. You have my honor, I have your promise. If the gift of my honor gives you the strength to do what you must, it’s a small price for me to pay.”

“You think of it as a price, then?” Geary asked.

Desjani nodded as her laughter faded. “My honor is the thing of greatest value that I possess.

That I used to possess. I know you will not use it against me, and I know it is safe in your hands.

But there have been times when it felt like my honor was all I had left. I regret losing it.”

“Then I promise you that I will keep your honor safe until I can return it.”

“But . . . it was given. To my shame . . . but it was given.” Geary shook his head. “I want to return your honor, and you want me to keep it. There’s a way to do both if that’s what you want.”

“How could I have both—?” She seemed shocked, looking away for a moment before focusing back on him. “You mean that?”

“I can’t come out and say how I feel, just like you can’t, not until this war is over and I’m no longer your commanding officer, but I swear on the honor of my ancestors that I meant it.”