Two hours before they reached the hypernet gate, Geary was pretending to rest. Dauntless’s bridge was tense enough without him hovering there, too. He would go up in one more hour, to watch the final approach to Parnosa’s hypernet gate and make only the second hypernet journey in his experience. He had hardly noticed the first one, still sunk in post-traumatic stress, both mental and physical.
An incoming call promised a welcome diversion. “Geary here.”
“You have an incoming conference request, Admiral,” Dauntless’s communications watch officer reported. “From Dreadnaught.”
Geary stood up hastily, straightening his uniform. “Accept it.”
A moment later, the image of Captain Jane Geary appeared in his stateroom, standing before him as if she were physically present. Her expression was unrevealing, her voice controlled. “Captain Geary, requesting a personal counseling session with Admiral Geary.”
“Granted.” He couldn’t tell how she felt, what she intended saying. “Please take a seat.”
On Dreadnaught, Jane Geary sat stiffly in a chair in her own stateroom, the image before him acting the same way. She gazed at him steadily, and he looked back, still startled even now to see the signs of age on her, to realize that his grandniece had aged a few years more than he had. He’d studied her picture before, but only seeing her in person did Geary spot some resemblances to his brother. “May I inquire as to the reason for the counseling session?” he finally asked.
“Yes, sir. First off, I’d like to know why you assigned Dreadnaught and Dependable to the Third Battleship Division and placed me in command of that division.”
That question was easy enough to answer. “The Third Battleship Division had a lot of problems. Leadership, morale, and effectiveness problems. The surviving ships in that division needed good examples and a good leader. Based on what I saw during the fighting at Varandal, I believe that Dreadnaught and Dependable fill the first requirement, and you fill the second.”
Jane Geary took a moment to think about his answer before speaking again. “I understand that you have a message from my brother, Captain Michael Geary.” The words still held no apparent emotion.
“Yes. I offered to send you a copy of the transmission containing them.”
“Can you just tell me what he said?”
“Certainly.” He’d both dreaded and looked forward to this meeting, and neither feeling had yet altered. “He told me to tell you that he didn’t hate me anymore.”
Jane Geary kept her eyes on him for a long moment, then looked away, breathing deeply. “That’s all?”
“We didn’t have much time. How much do you know about what happened?”
“I’ve seen the official reports and spoken to a number of officers in the fleet, Admiral.”
Geary sat back, exhaling in exasperation. “What am I supposed to be doing here, Jane? Are you here as my grandniece or as one of my subordinate commanders? Dammit, you’re the closest family I have left.”
“A lot of us have died in the war.” She looked back at him. “Tell me the truth. Michael volunteered for the forlorn hope? You didn’t suggest it first?”
“He volunteered. I was still getting my balance as commander, still trying to adjust to what had happened. I wasn’t ready to order … to order someone to do that.”
Jane Geary seemed to slump a bit, closing her eyes. “He was all I had. You left him in the Syndic home star system.”
“Yes, I did.” He wouldn’t plead the pressures of command, his obligation to the rest of the fleet. The simple fact wouldn’t be changed by either of those things. “I still hope he survived, that we’ll get him back.”
“You know the odds against that.”
“Yeah.” A bitter taste filled his mouth. “A lot of people didn’t make it home. I’m sorry.”
She leaned forward, eyes wide, suddenly intense again. “We both hated you. Our lives were never our own. Sometimes as children we’d play a game. One of us would be Black Jack, the boogeyman chasing the other one, trying to catch him or her and drag them off to the war. You finally caught Michael, then me, didn’t you?”
“I’m not Black Jack. I want to end this war. I’m sorry for what happened to you and Michael, for what happened to all of the Gearys forced to follow in my alleged footsteps and fight. But I swear on the honor of our ancestors that I would never have agreed to what happened, to the creation of this outsize legend about who I supposedly was. I didn’t do it, but I’m still very sorry for what it did to people like you and Michael.”
Once again, Jane Geary sat quiet for a while. “Have you told anyone else about that message from Michael?”
He started to say no one, then realized he couldn’t. “Just one.”
“Let me guess who that could be.” She looked around as if expecting to see Tanya Desjani. “What am I supposed to do, Admiral?”
“Are you asking me as my niece or as Captain Jane Geary?”
“Your niece. Captain Jane Geary can maintain a totally professional relationship. I know how to do that.”
He frowned, sensing a not-so-subtle slam at Desjani. “You’re not the only one who knows how to do that.”
She unbent slightly, then. “My apologies. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’ve heard nothing offering proof of improper actions by you or anyone else. But in a short time we’ll enter the Syndic hypernet, where communications between ships can’t occur. After that we may well face hard fighting. I needed to speak with you before then, because one or both of us may not be around afterward.”
“Thank you.” Geary let himself relax. “Please be my niece for a short time. I can only imagine what it was like growing up in the shadow of Black Jack and the shadow of this war. I can’t change that, I can’t change anything that happened while I was in survival sleep. But I want to fix whatever I can. You have to understand, I—” He couldn’t speak for a moment, seeing once again the traces of his brother in her. Most of the time he could pretend things at home hadn’t really changed, that even though so much in the fleet had changed, that back at Glenlyon his brother still worked and his parents still lived. But he couldn’t pretend that while facing Jane Geary.
She watched him, then seemed to change the subject. “I served with Captain Kila for a while when we were both lieutenants.”
The memories that name brought up crowded out Geary’s grief for a moment. “My condolences. That must have been unpleasant.”
“It was,” Jane Geary agreed. “Would you have shot her?”
“Hell, yes. She had Alliance blood on her hands.”
“I knew Captain Falco, too,” Jane Geary said.
Geary grimaced. “He … died with honor.”
Something in his answers had satisfied her. Jane Geary nodded again. “There’s something I have to tell you. I also have a message, for you. I hope you can forgive me for not delivering it until now.”
That had been the last thing he had expected to hear. “A message?”
“When I was a young girl, one night when we were visiting my grandfather, your brother, I found him standing outside, looking up at the stars. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was looking for something. I asked what it was, and he said. ‘My brother. I miss him. If you ever meet him somewhere up there, tell him I missed him.’ ”
He stared at her, for a moment too overwhelmed to give in to grief again. “He told you that?”
“Yes. I never forgot a word of it even though I never expected to deliver it.” She sighed. “I should have given that message to you long before this. He always told us you were everything the legend said, you know. Absolutely perfect and the greatest hero ever.”