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  Duellos cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m doing as well as can be expected for a captain without a ship.”

  “Do you want another ship?” Geary asked bluntly. “I’ve got a couple of battle cruisers that suddenly need captains.”

  “Brilliant and Inspire?” Duellos drew in a long breath. “Which one?”

  “Which one can you handle? I don’t think Brilliant has any special problems aside from the shock the crew must be feeling.”

  Duellos bared his teeth in a humorless grin. “But you need me on Inspire.”

  “That’s true.” Geary sat down opposite Duellos. “I need the best I’ve got on Inspire, and that’s you. I have no idea how badly Kila messed up that ship, but it might be a real snake pit. The former commanding officer is dead, the former executive officer, systems-security officer, and communications officer are all under arrest, and the remaining officers are all going to have to be investigated.”

  “A real opportunity to excel,” Duellos murmured with more than a trace of sarcasm. “Many of my officers got off Courageous, so if I was authorized to bring some of them along…”

  “Granted. Take as many of Courageous’s old crew as you want. Inspire took some serious personnel losses while Kila was making glorious charges against the enemy and needs the replacements.”

  Duellos thought for a few moments while Geary waited, then finally nodded. “Inspire’s crew will be needing a lot of rebuilding. I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you. I couldn’t ask for more, or a better officer for the job. Inspire herself needs a lot of rebuilding, too. She’s pretty badly shot up.”

  “Having to focus the crew on repairing the ship may help repair their own morale.” Duellos quirked a small smile. “At times like this, seeing something tangible accomplished can make a big difference. I assume you want me on Inspire an hour ago?”

  “Yes,” Geary agreed, “but take the time you need to choose which personnel from Courageous you’re taking with you. Like I said, you can have all of them if you want. I’ll position Inspire near the auxiliaries so they can provide repair support and services easily.”

  “Another ship and right back near the auxiliaries? I may get a reputation as a bad-luck captain out of this.” Duellos smiled slightly again. “Thank you for not asking me to take Orion.”

  “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with Orion.”

  “Put Numos back in command,” Duellos suggested. “He’ll cause Orion to be destroyed in the next engagement for certain.”

  “If her crew doesn’t start performing, I may do just that.” Geary looked upward as if addressing the living stars. “I’m joking.” Lowering his gaze to Duellos again, he indicated the fleet status display. “The First Battle Cruiser Division is down to one ship, Formidable, and the Seventh only has Brilliant and Inspire. I was thinking of folding them into a single division, a reconstituted First Division containing all three ships.”

  Duellos shook his head, looking haggard for a moment. “Combining two battle cruiser divisions and getting only three ships in the result. I think that’s a good idea, but it also indicates how badly torn up this fleet has been.” He paused, then nodded firmly. “Yes. A good idea. Formidable won’t be lonely, and Inspire and Brilliant will have a fine ship as a division mate and a symbolic new start. Who do you plan to give Brilliant?”

  “Beats the hell out of me. Captain Baccade off Intrepid was pretty badly hurt along with her ship. She’s in no shape to take another command yet.”

  “I understand Commander Vigory is eager for a ship,” Duellos commented blandly. Geary shot him an annoyed look. “He told me that within a day of being liberated from the POW camp. I’m not impressed by his record, and I don’t have time to teach a new commanding officer how I fight.”

  “Just thought I’d mention it since he’s devoting a great deal of time to complaining about your decisions. That one regarding him and many others.” Duellos smiled wryly. “I was watching him to see if he’d be contacted by the conspirators against you and lead us to them. But events here in Padronis took place before anyone working for Kila or Caligo could contact him.”

  “Not everyone opposed to me is a traitor,” Geary grumbled. “I’ll make sure he’s being kept busy, but I’m not going to give Vigory Brilliant or any other ship. I think he’s just too assertive on his own behalf. Self-confidence is important, but not when it tramples on discretion.”

  “As recently demonstrated to us in as graphic a way as possible.” Duellos seemed to think for a moment.

  “We lost Tarian at Heradao. Her former commanding officer, Jame Yunis, has a fine reputation.”

  Geary pulled up Yunis’s records and skimmed them. “He does look good. You think he’s up to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ll give him a good look and make a decision before we jump for Atalia.” Geary exhaled slowly.

  “Would you mind hanging around a couple of more minutes while I call Captain Desjani down here and we go over something with you? I’d like your impressions because I’m only going to get one chance to get it right. I will have to ask that you never divulge it, though.”

  Duellos watched him for a long moment. “I can’t agree to anything that would violate my oath, you understand.”

  “This won’t. I swear.”

  Desjani only required a few minutes to join them. Geary went over his planned pitch, then waited. Once again, Duellos spent a while thinking, then nodded. “I can’t think of any way to improve that, but you’re walking a tightrope, you know.”

  “One of many,” Geary agreed.

  “If you’re going to speak with Badaya now, I’ll be happy to wait a few moments to make it appear as if I am, uh, ‘backing’ what you’re not really doing.”

  Desjani nodded. “That’d be a good idea. Duellos is widely regarded as a special confidant of yours. His presence when Badaya arrives would please Badaya.”

  “As would yours,” Duellos pointed out.

  She gritted her teeth. “Do I have to? He’s going to say something. I know he will. And I’ll have to pretend I didn’t hear it.”

  “Just for a few minutes, Tanya,” Duellos suggested. “Then we can leave and let Badaya have his special talk with Black Jack.”

  “Roberto, you know that Captain Geary and I haven’t—”

  Duellos held up both hands to forestall her. “Of course I do. All of your friends know that, Tanya. You wouldn’t do such a thing with your commanding officer, no matter what.” Desjani looked away, her gaze on the deck. “I imagine having to deal with the rumors is no fun at all.”

  “Many things are difficult to deal with,” Desjani muttered. “I’ll manage.”

  Duellos gazed at Geary as he answered her. “I’m certain you will, Tanya. All right, then. Let’s summon Badaya and get this over with. What happens if you can’t convince him?”

  “I don’t know. I might have to bring the whole thing out in the open, make a public speech to the entire fleet declaring that I will not support a coup against the Alliance government, but I’m afraid some people would just read my bringing up the subject of a coup as implying I’m actually trying to sound out backing for one.”

  “That’s exactly how those favoring a coup would see it,” Duellos agreed. “Let’s hope you can divert Badaya and the many who believe like him onto a course that we can all live with. Otherwise, the victory of bringing the fleet home may turn into the greatest defeat the Alliance has ever suffered.”

  NINE

  As Duellos had guessed, Badaya seemed very pleased to be summoned to a conference featuring himself, Geary, Duellos, and Desjani. “You’re getting Inspire, Duellos? Excellent. Too bad you’ll have to share Inspire with Kila’s remains for a little while longer.”

  “I thought we’d dispose of Kila’s remains here,” Geary commented. “Why wait until Atalia?”

  Badaya gave Geary a surprised look. “You’re not familiar with fleet regulations regarding the disposition of the b
odies of traitors?”

  “No. I assumed Kila would have an unceremonious burial in space.”

  “She doesn’t deserve an honorable burial,” Desjani interrupted.

  “More to the point,” Badaya said, “regulations deny that option for Kila. They state that the remains of traitors are to be disposed of in jump space. No exceptions, no alternatives.”

  Geary stared at him, then at Desjani and Duellos, both of whom nodded back solemnly. “I’ll admit I’m surprised. That’s the harshest possible treatment, consigning someone to jump space for eternity. How did a measure that extreme get approved?”

  Duellos ran one hand across the table before him, speaking with unusual somberness. “The answer to that lies in some very unpleasant history that you had the good fortune to sleep through, Captain Geary. About fifty years ago, wasn’t it?” Desjani and Badaya nodded. “I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say that if a harsher punishment had been possible, it would have been approved.”

  “Then you’re saying I’m probably the only person in this fleet who’d be surprised to learn about consigning the bodies of traitors to jump space?”

  “Most likely.”

  Geary sat down, looking at his hands clasped on his knees before him. “I guess this is one of those places where I’m old-fashioned. I fully accept that we have the right to judge people like Kila and impose our punishments upon them, but burying her remains in jump space… isn’t that sort of eternal punishment supposed to be the province of powers greater than us?”

  After a moment, Desjani answered. “I’m not an expert at such things, but the burial in jump space is a symbolic gesture by humanity. It’s not the last word because we don’t get the last word. Just because we can’t find something lost in jump space doesn’t mean the living stars can’t do so. If they want her, they’ll get her.”

  “You don’t see it as eternal?” Geary asked, genuinely surprised by Desjani’s reasoning but unable to think of an argument against it.

  “Nothing humans do is eternal. Nothing we do binds the decisions of powers greater than us. The final judgment always rests with them.” Desjani gestured outward. “I know what fate I think Kila deserves, but in the end it’s not my call, or yours. The gesture of burial in jump space expresses our feelings about her crime, and that is as far as it goes, speaking in terms of eternity.”

  “I see.” He thought of the dead on Lorica, sailors struck down without warning by someone they trusted to fight alongside them. He thought of the crews of Dauntless and Illustrious and Furious, all of whom would have died if the first worm planted by Kila hadn’t been discovered. “All right. I understand the appropriateness of the gesture. Kila’s remains will be consigned to jump space on the way to Atalia.”

  Duellos made a face. “They’ll be disturbing the sleep in any number of the crew until then, I have no doubt.”

  “Are you willing to carry out the punishment, or would you prefer I ask some other captain to volunteer?”

  Geary asked Duellos.

  He spent a few moments thinking, his eyes turned aside, then nodded. “If not me, then who? I won’t curse her as her body leaves. I’ll regret what she could have been.”

  Badaya laughed harshly. “You’re a better man than I am, then. I know courtesy bids us not to speak ill of the dead, but that rule is going to be sorely tried when it comes to Kila.”

  This time Geary nodded. “I understand. I’m not exactly thrilled with her myself. Now, what about Caligo? I appreciate you taking him aboard Illustrious. Is he cooperating as he promised?”

  The unforgiving humor vanished, Badaya’s face now reflecting distaste. “Cooperating? He’s babbling. In my opinion, Caligo is saying anything he thinks we want to hear, and he’s going to keep talking as long as he thinks it will help keep him alive. The interrogation gear is having a lot of trouble evaluating him because Caligo seems to have the ability to convince himself that whatever he’s saying at the moment is true.”

  Duellos shook his head. “Meaning we can’t trust it?”

  “No, not in my opinion. There may be truth in his statements, maybe a lot of truth, but we need to double-check everything he’s saying and find out if there’s any proof to support it.”

  Geary drummed his fingers on the table. “How long will that take?”

  “I don’t know.” Badaya made a motion as if he wanted to slap Caligo right then and there. “But I doubt we can check it all out before we return to Alliance space. I don’t say that lightly. I want the little bastard dead. But if we execute him before we investigate some of his allegations, it could permanently tar individuals who might be innocent. It’s bad enough what he and Kila did. Compounding the damage with injustice would make us their accomplices. In my opinion.”

  “I agree,” Duellos said. “We don’t always see eye to eye, Captain Badaya, but I believe you’re absolutely right about that.”

  “You should order psych evals of Caligo, too,” Desjani insisted. “You can do that, Captain Geary, whether Caligo approves or not.”

  Badaya scowled at her. “Are you trying to give Caligo a medical defense against his actions?”

  “No,” Desjani replied coldly. “We’ve all seen him. That defense wouldn’t fly. But I think it might be important to try to understand how anyone could go so far off course. Destroying Alliance warships and killing their crews. There are plenty of ambitious officers in the fleet, and some who would do almost anything to earn promotion and authority, but Caligo was willing to do anything. If something in particular led him to make such decisions, something beyond the desire for power, I think it’s worth finding out.”

  “Hmmm.” Badaya shrugged as if he found the topic distasteful. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer to that is in what Kila offered him. And I’m not just speaking of the power of being her figurehead. There’s plenty of stories about Kila, some of them extremely lurid. More than one man has been led astray from duty and honor by his appetites.” He made an apologetic gesture to Desjani. “Needless to say, no one here would fall into Kila’s category.”

  Desjani, her face like stone, acted as if she hadn’t heard a word Badaya said, but her eyes briefly accused Duellos, who gave a contrite look back.

  Captain Duellos sighed into the awkward silence. “I wish that the Syndics had spared us the trouble of finding her out. When I think of how many battles Kila survived, and for what? To betray those who guarded her flanks. Now I feel stained by her dishonor, shamed that any officer could do such a thing.”

  “Her actions don’t reflect on you,” Geary replied. “Or on anyone but her.”

  “So you say, and I appreciate it.” Duellos gazed soberly into the distance. “I need to have a talk with my ancestors.”

  “That’s never a bad idea,” Badaya agreed.

  Geary gestured toward Desjani and Duellos. “All right. I need to have a private talk with Captain Badaya now. Would you two mind?”

  Duellos and Desjani left, both playing their roles well, as if both were part of the sort of conspiracy that Badaya expected.

  Geary stood up, feeling a bit nervous. Rione had been right when she accused him of being a lousy liar, but he had to act out this role as well as he could. He walked back and forth for a moment to work out his nerves, then faced Badaya. “Captain, I wanted to talk with you regarding what actions should be taken when the fleet returns to Alliance space.”

  “Of course.” Badaya stood up as well, his tension betraying eagerness. “You’re ready to agree? The Alliance needs you.”

  Geary didn’t look at him, bowing his head for a moment. “Captain Badaya, I hope you appreciate how very difficult even speaking of such a thing is for me. I come from a time when the idea of the fleet’s acting against the government would have been unthinkable.”

  Captain Badaya grimaced, then shook his head, the movement slow and ponderous as if a heavy weight were resting on it. “Don’t think I’ve made the offer lightly, Captain Geary. Not me, and not any other off
icer. It’s not an easy thing to decide, even for those of us who’ve endured the consequences of our government’s incompetence and corruption.”

  “I appreciate that.” Geary sat down again and gestured for Badaya to do the same. “I’m just having trouble grasping why you all came to the decision you reached.”

  “Why?” Badaya sat heavily, hunched over a bit and frowning toward his hands where they rested between his knees. “Sometimes the options all seem worse. You know that. We’ve all taken an oath to the Alliance, but what does defending the Alliance mean? Does it mean letting politicians continue to let their greed and ambition destroy the Alliance?”

  “There’s more than one way to destroy the Alliance,” Geary stated carefully. Badaya’s answering grin was tight and humorless. “True. You haven’t experienced it, though. Not enough backing when it matters, too much interference in command decisions, waste, profiteering, starving us of what we need to win, then blaming us when it goes to hell.” He looked at Geary, his gaze measuring. “They used you against us, you know. The legend of the great Black Jack Geary, who’d never go against the political leadership, never question their demands however unreasonable, never fail to salute and charge off to die. That’s one of the biggest reasons a lot of us were worried about you.”

  He hadn’t seen things in that light before, but it made sense that officers would have distrusted him on those grounds, if they thought he was a puppet of politicians they distrusted in turn. “What made you decide you could trust me? I haven’t spoken against the government.”

  “No, but you demonstrated very clearly your loyalty to your fellow officers and the fleet,” Badaya pointed out. “You won battles and kept our losses down. You’re a fighter, and only a blind fool couldn’t see how dedicated you were to those who fought alongside you.” The other captain looked down again, grimacing. “Honor says we should abide by our oath to the Alliance, but what does that mean? Does it mean letting our fellows die?”