“No, sir. That would create a weak spot within the wall of battleships. But Dauntless should be directly behind those battleships.”
Geary closed his eyes, not wanting to look at her as he pronounced what could be Desjani’s death sentence. His own, too, but in a sense he had been living on borrowed time ever since being awakened from survival sleep. “Very well, Captain. Dauntless will be in her rightful place should the fleet face that situation.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He opened his eyes to see her saluting him, her own eyes on his, Desjani’s expression grateful. “I owe Dauntless, and you, at least that much,” Geary added as he returned the salute. “But I hope it won’t come to that. If it does …”“Nil Desperandum,” she reminded him with a half smile, then Desjani left with a quick but relaxed stride.
Rione watched Desjani leave, then shook her head. “Do any of us deserve to have people like that fighting for us?” she asked.
“I thought you didn’t like her.”
“I don’t. She can be almost as big a bitch as I am. But I thank the living stars that she’s commanding this ship and not someone like Badaya.”
Geary sat down again, his eyes on Rione. The virtual images of Senators Costa and Sakai had vanished earlier, neither of them realizing in time that Rione might hang around to speak privately with Geary. “Badaya is a competent enough officer. If we can rebuild his faith in the Alliance government, he’ll be a credit to the fleet.”
Rione smiled, but in a sad way. “I think that as long as nothing disastrous happens, Captain Badaya will convince himself that you are really still in charge but pulling the strings in secrecy. He won’t be the only one believing that.”
He didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to deal with the aftermath of the war when he hadn’t yet managed to end it. “Madam Co-President, have you thought of anything we can say or do that will convince the Syndics that we are ignorant of any peril from that hypernet gate? We need to keep them fooled until we’re close enough to being in the lee of the star.”
Rione twisted her mouth as she thought. “I think we need to continue on as we have, expressing confidence by our actions and our words. You should resend the demand for negotiations, using a bit more arrogance this time and displaying an appropriate level of contempt for that CEO in charge of the flotilla. Perhaps a few taunts about how much smaller it is than the last Syndic force we faced here would be proper.”
“Perhaps one of our governmental representatives could give our demands and taunts a suitable amount of arrogance and contempt,” Geary suggested.
“Meaning me? I am better at the arrogant thing than you are.” Rione leaned back. “But Costa is even better. I’ll tell her you thought she should issue the next demand. It’ll make Costa think you’ve been impressed by her.”
“Will she give away our concerns about a trap?”
“Costa? She protects secrets tighter than celibates protect their virginity. That’s the last thing you have to worry about with her.” Rione smiled. “I’ll be up front with her about this being aimed at keeping the Syndics fooled. She’ll love that, as well as a chance to mock a Syndic CEO to his face. How long do we have to keep the Syndics fooled, anyway?”
Geary waved toward the star-system display. “As you saw, we can’t just charge straight for a lee position without giving away our intent, so we’re going roundabout. A bit more than two more days, then we head directly for the lee of the star.”
“The Syndics will give us that much time?”
“If their own flotilla continues on its own roundabout transit, it will take three more days to reach the jump point for Mandalon.”
“We should have the time, then. Would you like to hear what Sakai said about you?”
He pondered that question for a moment, then nodded.
“Senator Sakai said, ‘He listened to us.’ ”
Geary waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. “That’s all?”
“That is a great deal, Admiral Geary.” Rione studied him again, shaking her head. “I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it’s always there and just got a lot worse. But at some point the senior officers and the senior politicians in the Alliance stopped listening to each other. We all pretend we’re listening, but all we hear and see is what we expect.”
“Like Badaya.”
“Or Costa.” Rione stood, heading for the hatch, then paused and looked back at him. “Maybe there was another reason that I came along with the fleet when Admiral Bloch was in command, a reason that I didn’t know of. Healing the Alliance will take officers who trust politicians, and politicians who trust officers.”
He made a crooked smile. “Don’t you get all mystical on me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Admiral. If the living stars were depending on the likes of me to carry out their missions, they’d really be scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
SEVEN
The Syndic flotilla hadn’t initially responded to the change in path by the Alliance fleet, but after about ten hours had turned away toward the jump point for Mandalon while also decreasing speed. “They couldn’t be more blatant about wanting us to chase them,” Geary remarked.
Desjani made a face. “It’s more taunting of us. You don’t see it that way?”
“It’s too obvious.”
“Maybe to you.” She shook her head, eyes looking somewhere into the past. “To you maneuvering around like that is just reasonable tactical positioning. But we’re used to seeing the enemy and charging straight for him, while he does the same right at us. You really haven’t understood how your maneuvering tended to drive the Syndics crazy, have you? Because it wasn’t how the game was supposed to be played. Now the Syndics are playing it back at us. ‘Here we are, try to catch us and kill us.’ The Syndics are hoping that we’ll get as angry as they would and head for them, trying to force a proper battle.”
He had never thought in terms of proper and improper ways to fight, just of smart ways and dumb ways. In peacetime training there had been some dumb things demanded by doctrine or whoever the current senior commander happened to be, but those had always come with an implied or open message that in actual combat things would be done differently. Maybe in peacetime it was easier to figure out what was smart, or maybe it just seemed easier because real battles and real lives weren’t on the line. “I’ve still got a lot to learn, I guess.” Desjani managed to look skeptical in a mostly respectful way as Geary continued. “In any case, it shouldn’t make much difference now whether we chase after them or not. We’re too far from any jump point to reach any of them before that flotilla would be able to jump for Mandalon.”
This time Desjani rubbed her neck, then ran some more maneuvers through the system. “The Syndic flotilla is just shy of two light-hours away from us. In theory, it’s just possible that we could head for the Tremandir jump point like bats out of hell starting about now and, factoring in all of the time delays for the Syndic leaders at the Mandalon jump point to see us start that way and send orders to the Syndic flotilla to accelerate at maximum for the Mandalon jump point, to get there as fast as possible, and the time required for the flotilla to reach the jump point, and the time needed for the Syndic leaders’ signal to reach the hypernet gate after that, and then for the shock wave to get to us, for this fleet to be able to jump for Tremandir in time. I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it, but the Syndic leaders may be trying to make absolutely, positively certain that they can get their flotilla out while leaving us no way we could escape when they collapse that hypernet gate.”