“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 officer. 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?”
“If an officer doesn’t want to execute orders—” Geary began.
“He or she can resign,” Badaya finished. “Certainly. Walk away and leave his or her fellows to fight on without them, to fight and die following orders one personally thinks are foolish. Where’s the honor in that? We can’t leave our comrades in arms. Yet we can’t let them keep dying for nothing, and we can’t let the Alliance be destroyed by politicians who care nothing for those who die. You see? It’s a hard road, yet it leads to one option, to honor our oaths to the Alliance and our loyalty to our comrades by backing a leader who will do what’s right.”