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  Geary finally recalled what had started his (latest) argument with Rione, and called up the preliminary listing of Alliance personnel who had been liberated from Audacious. The list was gratifyingly long, though he didn’t want to compare it to a list of the total crews of all of the Alliance ships that had been lost in this star system. For that matter, he didn’t want to linger on the knowledge that those liberated prisoners would be needed to make up combat losses on his surviving ships. Most of the former prisoners were enlisted personnel, of course, with a decent number of junior officers among them. Only one officer above the rank of lieutenant was listed. Geary’s gaze lingered on Commander Savos’s name for a few moments, then he noted that Savos was currently aboard the battle cruiser Implacable and called that ship. “If Commander Savos is up for it, I’d like to speak with him.”

  Ten minutes later, Implacable reported that Savos was standing by for his interview. Geary stood up, made sure his uniform looked decent, then told Implacable to activate the link.

  The image of Commander Savos, former commanding officer of the light cruiser Spur, which had been destroyed during the Alliance fleet’s first visit to Lakota Star System, looked like hell. His uniform appeared new, obviously provided by someone on Implacable to replace the one Savos had worn while abandoning his ship, then being captured and imprisoned, but the rest of the man reflected what he’d been through in recent weeks. Commander Savos appeared slightly gaunt, his face lined with the strain of his time as a prisoner. One side of his head was covered by a flex-patch, and his eye on that side bore the remnants of a nasty bruise. Commander Savos nonetheless tried to stand at attention and salute. Geary returned the salute quickly, feeling guilty for having summoned the man and wondering why no one had bothered telling him that Commander Savos wasn’t in good shape. “At ease, Commander. Sit down. Are they taking good care of you on Implacable?”

  Savos sat down carefully, keeping himself slightly stiff as if trying to sit at attention, then nodded. “Yes, sir. Implacable’s been wonderful for all of us, sir. Excellent treatment, though the captured Syndic food leaves a bit to be desired.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that. I’m already starting to miss Danaka Yoruk bars, and I never thought that would be possible.” Geary paused. “How are you doing?”

  “Happier than I imagined I could be a couple of days ago, sir,” Savos stated with a grin that quickly faded. “The Syndics didn’t feed us enough and worked us hard at times. We’ll be okay now, though.”

  “You’re the senior surviving officer among the liberated prisoners.”

  “Among those on Audacious, yes, sir,” Savos confirmed. “I heard some things that make me think one or more captains may have been captured but taken to Syndic warships for interrogation.” The commander paused, looking distressed. Geary knew what he was thinking, the same pain that troubled Geary at the very real possibility that some of the Syndic warships they’d destroyed had held Alliance prisoners of war. There had been no way to know and no way to save them, but the thought would still disturb Geary whenever he thought about the battles here.

  Savos began speaking again. “After I had to order Spur abandoned, I’m afraid I was knocked out for a while when the ship suffered some more hits. My crew helped get me off in one of the escape pods, but it took me a few days to get thinking again. That may be why I was left on Audacious instead of being taken for interrogation like other senior officers.”

  “What do our medics say about your concussion?”

  “Nothing they can’t fix, sir.” Savos gave a smile that was almost a grimace and raised one hand toward the bandage on the side of his head. “If it hadn’t been treated, I’d have developed serious problems down the road, but I’m told everything should be fine now.”

  “Good. I’m sorry about Spur.”

  Savos looked distressed again before answering. “She wasn’t the only ship lost, sir.”

  “No. But she also didn’t go without making the enemy pay. Your ship fought well.” He knew that was what any good commanding officer would want to hear. “The battle with the Syndic pursuit force scrambled up the released prisoners with crew members from other ships we just lost. We’re getting the liberated prisoners sorted out, and once we have a list of those from Spur, I’ll make sure you get a copy.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We’ll probably distribute them around the fleet on ships that need replacements for battle casualties,” Geary told him. “Let me know if there are any you’d like to be on the same ship with.”

  Commander Savos nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  Geary regarded the officer for a moment. Savos had impressed him, and he needed a new commanding officer for Orion. Could Savos handle it? Going from a light cruiser to a battleship might be too big a step, especially if Savos was suffering aftereffects from combat injuries. It would be best not to push him. He’d see what shape Savos was in when the fleet reached Branwyn and make a decision then. “I know intelligence is debriefing all of the liberated prisoners, but is there anything you think I ought to know right away?”

  Savos pondered that for a moment. “We heard very little. They’d haul us out in small bunches and put us into working parties, but otherwise we were kept in our compartments. There is one thing you probably ought to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We didn’t know what was going on yesterday, but the Syndics knew I was the senior officer among the prisoners on Audacious. A bunch of their Mobile Assault Forces guys hauled me outside the compartment, stuck their weapons in my face, and asked me if you were really in command of the fleet and whether it was true that you’d forbidden the killing of Syndic prisoners.” Savos shrugged. “I didn’t know why they were asking, but I told them the truth, yes and yes. I told them that you’d insisted on following the old rules of war and that all of us were following those orders. I said you always did what you promised. Then one of them said something like ‘screw our orders,’ they shoved me back into the compartment, and that’s all I knew until the Marines broke the hatch open. Our Syndic guards must have bolted for their escape pods right after they talked to me.”

  Geary wondered what the “orders” had been. Shut off life support to the prisoner compartments? Set Audacious’s power core to overload? Apparently his threat, backed by his record, had worked in this case. “Thank you, Commander. Get yourself some rest. You’ve earned it. I’ll talk to you again at Branwyn.”

  “Yes, sir.” Savos made a gesture toward the controls at his location, then paused. “They’re scared, sir. They’re scared of this fleet. They’re scared of you. I could feel it.”

  “Huh.” How did he respond properly to that? He’d never led by fear, though it was one thing for your own personnel to be afraid of you and another for the enemy to fear you. Still, it wasn’t how he saw himself. “Well, they ought to be scared of everyone in this fleet, Commander Savos, because I couldn’t have done a single blessed thing without every man and woman on every ship in this fleet.” Savos looked grateful, as if, Geary thought, he couldn’t have been expected to state the obvious. Then Commander Savos’s image disappeared, leaving Geary alone once more.

  “The shuttle carrying Captain Casia and Commander Yin to Illustrious is on its way,” Desjani reported, as if transporting one senior officer to meet a firing squad and a second to be imprisoned were the most routine event in the fleet.

  “They’re both on one shuttle?”

  Desjani’s image on his stateroom communications display nodded. “Conqueror and Orion are still close to each other, so there wasn’t any sense wasting fuel with two shuttle flights. The bird should be at Illustrious in twenty-five minutes.”

  Which would leave about four and a half days before the fleet jumped to Branwyn. Plenty of time for the firing squad to do its work at Lakota just as Geary had promised Casia, but somehow the time available still felt rushed.

  It felt wrong to sit in his stateroom, working or not, while that shuttle wa
s en route to Illustrious with its small cargo of prisoners and Marine guards. Geary made his way up to the bridge and sat down near Desjani, noting that the shuttle was now twenty minutes from Illustrious. He wondered if Colonel Carabali had managed to find enough volunteers for Captain Casia’s firing squad yet but decided he wasn’t ready to ask. He didn’t want to think about it at all, but couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Ten minutes later an alert pulsed.

  “Accident on shuttle flight Omicron Five One,” a watch-stander called out.

  Geary was still focusing on his display when Desjani gasped in recognition. “That’s the bird with Casia and Yin on it.”

  He stared at the display with a sick feeling. “The bird that had them on it.” Images and text presented the same picture, that the shuttle had blown up. “It’s gone?”

  Desjani was scowling now, tapping controls. “Shuttle accidents are uncommon but not impossible. But that level of failure—our systems say it must have been the shuttle’s fuel cell suffering a catastrophic containment failure. What the hell could’ve caused that?”

  “Destroyer Rapier is closest to the accident site,” the operations watch called out. “She’s requesting permission to proceed to the area in search of survivors and to collect physical evidence.”

  He should have already thought of the need to send a ship to do that. “Tell Rapier that permission is granted,” Geary stated, still trying to grasp what had happened.

  Desjani shook her head, looking angry. “Chances of survivors are nil, but maybe Rapier can find something in the wreckage that will help explain what happened.”

  Rapier was still on her way to the field of debris that had been shuttle flight Omicron Five One when Rione came quickly onto the bridge, then bent down close to Geary to speak in the barest whisper. “A very unusual accident, and two officers who might have named names are now dead.”

  He stared at her. “You think—?”

  “Casia might have made a final statement when he faced the firing squad. Yin might have crumbled or revealed something if we decided to interrogate her. What do you think?”

  He didn’t want to accept the idea, but the coincidence of a deadly accident on that particular shuttle flight made Rione’s suggestion too convincing to ignore. Someone had escalated their efforts against Geary into the realm of deadly force. He hadn’t really believed Rione’s warning before. Now there seemed little doubt. Whoever they were, they were willing to kill Alliance personnel in the name of contesting Geary’s command of the fleet. Though if what had turned out to be Commander Yin’s final statement was to be believed, they also wanted to prevent him from becoming a dictator if the fleet made it home, and, like Rione, were willing to kill to keep that from happening. Unlike Rione, they had not merely threatened such actions but carried them out, and, unlike her, they had struck not directly at Geary but at other officers in the fleet.

  Which meant they were doubtless willing and able to commit more such attacks. The only questions were where, when, and how.

  SEVEN

  He hadn’t seen Captain Numos since after the battle at Ilion. Numos didn’t get up when Geary’s image appeared in his stateroom/cell, instead eyeing Geary with the same mixture of contempt and dislike that he’d shown from their first meeting. “What do you want?”

  Refusing to let Numos get to him, Geary shook his head. “As I’m sure you’ve already heard, the crew of a shuttle, four Marines, and two fleet officers are dead. Do you think I care right now how you act?”

  “Are you accusing me of being involved?”

  “No.” The direct answer seemed to startle Numos. “I just want you to consider the implications. Captain Casia and Commander Yin were silenced to prevent them from saying things. If you could say anything, you should be worried about what your alleged friends were planning.”

  Numos snorted derisively. “I’m supposed to trust you instead? How do I know you didn’t arrange that little accident to get rid of two officers who had challenged your authority?”

  “If I had wanted either of them dead,” Geary pointed out, “I had full justification to order it openly under fleet regulations. Captain Casia was on his way to face a firing squad. Why would I have destroyed a shuttle to kill a condemned man?”

  “You’ve already eliminated Captain Franco, Captain Faresa, Captain Midea, Captain Kerestes … Have I missed anyone?”

  Geary sat down, gazing intently at Numos. “You aren’t that stupid. You know those deaths happened in action. You know that Midea caused her own death. I’ve been wondering how you kept her under control.”

  Numos shrugged. “She respected legitimate authority.”

  He’d wondered if his dislike of Numos had tinged his memories, making them worse. Apparently not. “Maybe you are that stupid. Your friends have cold-bloodedly murdered members of the Alliance fleet.”

  “I thought you said it was an accident.”

  “Actually, no, I never said that. You’ve used the word repeatedly. Funny that you should be so certain.” Geary’s thrust went home as Numos’s eyes glittered with anger. “I don’t know whether you think there’s some tiny chance that you would be accepted as fleet commander if I were gone. There isn’t. I don’t know whether you think I plan on making myself dictator when we return to the Alliance. That isn’t going to happen.”

  “I’m supposed to believe you?”

  Geary studied Numos for a few seconds. “I did think you’d show a little more emotion over the deaths of fellow officers.” Numos gazed back impassively. “If any more accidents happen, you’re going to be in an interrogation facility, Captain Numos. I know you’ve received training on wording your replies to fool even brain scans, but we’ve got some very good interrogators in this fleet. I also know that while I can’t justify subjecting a fleet captain to interrogation without some grounds right now, another accident will arouse enough concern for me to do so.” Numos reddened but remained silent. “Tell your friends.”

  Geary stood up, triggered his controls, and vanished from Numos’s stateroom.

  “I told you that it would be a waste of time,” Rione remarked, lounging back in her seat. She hadn’t been part of the virtual meeting, but she’d been able to observe the entire thing.

  “I had to try.” Geary shook his head. “I don’t know how I’ve managed to avoid ordering Numos shot and dumped out of the nearest air lock.”

  “Black Jack could do it.” Rione seemed thoughtful. “Black Jack gets to make his own rules. I think Black Jack should order Numos into interrogation now.”

  “So you told me.” Geary sat down, rubbing his forehead. “I’ve sounded out some other officers. They all agree that I could get away with it, but it would both frighten those who think I want to be a dictator and encourage everyone who wants me to be a dictator. Both things could trigger more events that I really don’t want. I need more justification.”

  “That justification may involve more deaths,” Rione emphasized.

  “I know that. Acting prematurely might cause even more. I take it your spies still have nothing to report?”

  “No.” She frowned. “The fleet is buzzing over the shuttle accident, but it all seems to be surprise and conjecture over how the fuel-cell failure could have happened. No one seems to be openly implying that you might have had a role in it, since everyone else seems smarter than Numos and knows you didn’t need to blow up a shuttle if you wanted Casia and Yin both dead. The silence is deafening among your opponents in this fleet. I wish I knew what that meant.”

  He studied her for almost a minute before asking a question that had been bothering him. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that some of those opposed to my commanding this fleet were motivated by fear of my becoming a dictator?”

  Rione made a dismissive gesture. “Because their exact motives didn’t make any practical difference.”

  “You were willing to kill me to prevent me from becoming a dictator.” She didn’t answer, and Geary felt the need to ame
nd his statement. “I suppose you still are willing to do that if you think it becomes necessary. But I think their exact motive did matter if it was the same as yours. Why didn’t they contact you since your loyalty to the Alliance is so well-known? Or did they contact you?”

  She laughed. “Getting paranoid? I’ll make a politician of you yet. No, John Geary, they didn’t. I’m convinced that our motives only partly coincided at any point. That is, both they and I don’t want you to be a dictator. But I also want the elected government of the Alliance to remain in power. I suspect that your foes such as the late Commander Yin and her friends believe in the need for a military dictator. They just don’t want you to be that dictator.”

  That made sense. “Like Falco. Some other senior officer who thinks the way to save the Alliance is to overthrow its government.” Rione nodded. “I have increasing trouble believing that they are backing Numos though. That interview just confirmed for me that he’s too arrogant to make a decent pawn, and too dumb to function on his own. But he makes trouble for me, and that probably makes him useful to them.”

  “That could well be true,” she said. “I think your assessment is right, that the conspirators are happy to take advantage of Numos’s hostility to you but that Numos is too prideful and unimaginative ever to work as a puppet for them. I suppose in that light there’s not much sense in pushing to have him interrogated quickly.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet he doesn’t know a thing that’ll help us.” Geary stared at the star display, feeling a need to bring something else up. “How many officers in this fleet are willing to back a dictatorship? I’ve been told it’s a strong majority, so maybe I should ask how many aren’t willing to do that, since that seems to be a much smaller number. Duellos wouldn’t, I don’t think Tulev would, or Cresida—”

  “Don’t be so sure about Cresida,” Rione objected. “And I’m a little uncertain about Tulev now. Even before you miraculously returned from the dead, the civilian government was increasingly worried about the loyalty of its officer corps. It’s our own fault. We know that. They’re on the front lines, watching their friends and comrades die, and we can’t tell them that it’s bringing us any closer to victory. It’s been that way for a century. Their grandfathers and grandmothers, their fathers and mothers, watched comrades die or died themselves in the same war. I’m sometimes surprised that our elected government has managed to survive a war this long.”