Falco blinked and smiled again. “Good. Exactly as I’d planned. I’ll review the behavior of all ships in the battle and issue commendations and promotions where appropriate.” Captain Falco gazed around, frowning once more. “Why are we holding this conference on Dauntless? Warrior remains the fleet flagship,” he lectured. “Where’s Captain Exani?”
It took Geary a moment to remember that Exani had been commanding officer of Triumph. “He’s most likely dead.”
“Triumph will need a new commanding officer, then,” Falco stated crisply, giving another smile, this one saddened but resolute, to everyone in the meeting. “Any officers who aspire to the command should contact me directly after this conference.”
“Ancestors save us,” someone whispered.
Captain Duellos spoke in a somber voice. “I fear Captain Falco may be more badly impaired than we suspected.”
Geary spoke carefully. “Captain Falco, Triumph was destroyed covering the retreat of the ships with you from Vidha Star System.”
Falco blinked, his smile crumbling. “Vidha? I haven’t been to Vidha. That’s deep in Syndic space. Why was Triumph there?”
That brought a few gasps from the table.
“Following you,” Captain Tulev stated shortly.
“No,” Falco corrected, then stood silent for a moment before speaking crisply. “I need to address the Alliance senate. There’s a way to win this war and I can do it.”
Geary tasted something bitter as he activated a special circuit to speak with the Marine guards on Warrior. “Remove Captain Falco from the conference and return him to his quarters.” The figure of Falco, frowning once again at everyone, vanished. Geary closed his eyes briefly. How could he try a man who had obviously lost his mind? Duellos had been more right than he realized when he said Falco would fall apart when faced with the ruin of the dreams that must have kept him going in the Syndic labor camp. Fantasy had met reality at Vidha, and as fantasy had fallen apart, Falco’s reality had shattered as well. Perhaps Falco couldn’t handle a reality in that he wasn’t the savior of the Alliance.
Painful as watching Falco’s behavior had been, at least it had made it obvious to everyone here that Captain Fighting Falco wasn’t in any shape to exercise command.
Opening his eyes again, Geary focused on Kerestes, Numos, and Faresa. “Do you three have anything to say?”
Numos answered, speaking with all of his usual arrogance. “We followed orders given by a superior officer. We’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing to justify this.”
“Nothing?” Geary felt a stirring of the rage he was keeping bottled up just beneath the surface. “You knew full well that Captain Falco was not part of this fleet’s command hierarchy. You knew the fleet was proceeding to Sancere. You heard my commands to return to the fleet.”
“Captain Falco informed us we were participating in a diversion, and any orders heard from you were part of that,” Numos replied. “He insisted we must keep this secret, sharing it only among the captains of the capital ships.”
Captain Tulev’s voice was as cold as the emptiness between stars. “All of whom are dead except for you three, and the man who you claim told you this is insane. How convenient.”
Numos actually looked outraged. “We had no way of knowing a superior officer had lost his grasp upon reality and followed his orders to the best of our ability as our duty required. How dare you question my honor?”
“Your honor?” Geary demanded, knowing full well how harsh he sounded. “You have no honor. Not only did you break your oath to the Alliance, not only did you violate orders in the face of the enemy, but now you lie about it, depending upon the sealed lips of dead officers and the broken mind of another officer to protect your lie.”
“We demand a court-martial,” Captain Faresa insisted, speaking for the first time, her expression somehow even more acidic than Geary had remembered. “That is our right under Alliance law.”
“A court-martial?” Captain Duellos marveled. “So you can claim innocence based on secret orders supposedly given by Captain Falco? So you can deny the responsibility you share for what happened to twenty-six warships of the Alliance? So you can deny any role in the deaths of their crews? Have you no shame?”
“We have nothing to be ashamed of,” Numos stated with every trace of his old pride.
“I should have you shot now.” It took Geary a moment to realize he was the one who had spoken those words. And even as he realized he had said it, he knew he could do it. Officers accused of mutiny in the face of the enemy would find few defenders and no friends back in Alliance space. Numos and Faresa at least seemed to have no friends left here, though Geary had learned from bitter experience that the friends of people like Numos could hide from his sight. But they weren’t Falco, who had a reservoir of hero worship from the past and a current spate of horror and pity to win him sympathy.
He could do it. He could give the order. Not even bother with a court-martial, let alone a tribunal. This was a battlefield. As fleet commander, he could order summary justice. Who would try to stop him here and now? And when he brought this fleet safely back to the Alliance, who would raise any questions about one of his actions? Who would debate his decisions when he, and he alone, had brought this fleet home? No one in the Alliance would dare.
He could have Numos shot. And Faresa. Maybe Kerestes, too, though the man didn’t seem worth a bullet. No one could stop him. Numos could get what he deserved. Justice would be done and done quickly and damn the legal niceties.
It was so very tempting because it felt so very right and because it was what his anger wanted him to do.
Geary took a long, slow breath. So this is what life as Black Jack Geary could be. Do what I want. Make my own rules. I’m a hero. The hero of the Alliance. The hero of this fleet. And I want so badly to make Numos and Faresa pay.
Badly enough to use the sort of power I swore I had no interest in? Badly enough to act like a Syndic CEO? Badly enough to become the man Victoria Rione believed me to be? Is that what all my lectures to these people about doing what is honorable come down to? Myself breaking the rules because I can when the reason matters enough to me? At least Falco genuinely believed he could break the rules because he was special and the only one who could save the Alliance. I wouldn’t even have that excuse. I’d be doing it because others thought I was special when I didn’t believe it myself.
He looked down the table to where Rione sat. She was watching him, her face devoid of expression, but her eyes bored into him like a battery of hell lances. She knew what he was thinking, knew what he was feeling.
Geary did not look at Numos, not sure he could refrain from giving an order for an execution if he kept seeing Numos’s ugly pride. “I won’t. This will be handled in accordance with the letter and spirit of fleet regulations. Charges will be preferred. If opportunity permits, court-martials will be held before our return to Alliance space. If not, you’ll be handed over to Alliance authorities with charge sheets signed by me.”
“We demand to be released,” Faresa insisted. “There’s no grounds for this unlawful detention.”
“Don’t push me,” Geary warned, realizing as he did so that both Numos and Faresa would probably derive a last satisfaction from driving him to compromise his principles by having them executed. You won’t get that from me. I won’t grant you that victory. Not today. Every day I’m going to wake up and go to sleep knowing I could make them pay. May my ancestors help me avoid the temptation to inflict vengeance upon those two and that idiot Kerestes. “You have the blood of Alliance sailors on your hands,” Geary stated. “If you had honor, you’d resign your commissions in shame. If you had courage, you would’ve stayed and let Triumph escape.” He was using his power to browbeat them now, when they had Marine guards standing nearby and had to just take it. Abuse of power was too damned easy. Calling the Marines guarding Numos, Faresa, and Kerestes, Geary had them dropped from the conference circuit.