“Tanya.” He pressed one palm hard against his eyes. “How am I supposed to support the government, and support the fleet, when each of them thinks the other is out to destroy it?”
Desjani’s hand came to rest on his, and he heard her speak in a somber voice. “Try to keep either one from doing anything stupid.”
“Is that all?” He felt a disbelieving laugh coming and let it out, the sound filling the compartment for a moment. “How can anyone keep other people from doing stupid things? Humans are good at doing stupid things. It’s one of our talents, and one we like to exercise frequently.”
She didn’t answer immediately. “If you don’t exercise a talent, you get rusty,” Desjani finally said. “We stay in practice by doing stupid things often. Can you imagine if humans were bad at being stupid? It might take centuries to do the amount of damage to ourselves that we can now achieve within months.”
He opened his eyes, staring at her serious expression, then noticed one corner of her mouth quivering as Desjani tried to keep a smile suppressed. “When did you acquire this wicked sense of humor, Tanya?”
“It’s a small part of my attempts to remain sane. And, speaking of insane people, shall we talk about events during the almost revolution a short time ago? You should have a rundown on that before you meet with everyone.”
Geary grasped her hand for a moment before releasing it. “I may have to steer the course, but you’re keeping me on it. You’re right. I couldn’t hear any of the messages that must have been flying in the back channels. I saw one update, so I know some of the ships involved. Illustrious, of course.”
She bared her teeth. “Badaya kept raising hell. He was the hardest to deal with, insisting that the government was trying to get rid of you and all of your supporters in the fleet while all but calling me a widow. If we’d been in the same compartment, I would have been extremely tempted to empty a sidearm into him.”
“That would have shut him up,” Geary said.
“Well, yeah, that would have been an extra benefit.”
Deciding not to pursue the problem of Badaya for the moment, Geary mentally ran through the long list of warships present in Varandal. “Dreadnaught.”
“Yes.” Desjani seemed uncomfortable, then shrugged. “She insisted that you needed help.”
“Even though you passed on my order.”
“Right. Jane Geary was very aggressive about confronting the government, and she hauled more than one other warship in her wake as you probably saw.”
It didn’t make sense. “She wasn’t one of the officers being charged or relieved of command by that message. Dreadnaught wasn’t even part of the fleet until after the battle here. And Jane ended up in command of a battleship instead of a battle cruiser because she was judged not to be forceful enough. What made her fly off the handle?”
“I really don’t know. But people noticed that she was urging everyone to do what I was telling them not to do. On the private channels, there was a lot of chatter about how she wasn’t backing me up. Not that I took that personally,” Desjani took pains to add. “Professionally, I was seriously ticked off, though. I would suggest talking to her.”
“I will.” Geary went through his memories again. “Did anything or anyone else stand out on your end?”
“Hmmm.” She thought, then gave Geary an enigmatic look. “Dragon.”
“Dragon?” Commander Bradamont, one of Tulev’s officers. “What was surprising? All of Tulev’s battle cruisers, including Dragon, stayed on station.”
“That’s right,” Desjani agreed. “But in the private channels, Bradamont was out in front when it came to backing me up.”
“Why is that a problem?” Geary paused to think. “It’s unusual, isn’t it?” His memories of Bradamont were of a commander who fought her ship well and aggressively, but at conferences always remained silent and in the shadow of Tulev. He couldn’t recall her ever speaking up or even doing anything that would have drawn attention at conferences.
“Right again. Bradamont’s been keeping her head down since assuming command of Dragon, and for good reason.”
“Wait a minute.” Something about Bradamont teased at his memory. Her service record. Something unusual. “She was a Syndic prisoner of war.”
“Very good, Admiral. Who got liberated while she was being transferred to another POW camp.” Desjani gave him another hard-to-interpret look. “Her transport was intercepted by an Alliance raiding force. That didn’t happen very often. Neither did transfers of POWs from one Syndic labor camp to another.”
Geary sat back and watched Desjani. “There was a security flag on her record, but nothing high priority, so I hadn’t gotten around to checking it.”
“I’m not surprised. About the security flag that is. It’s funny how hard it still is to say it.”
“To say what?”
“Bradamont fell in love with a Syndic officer while she was a prisoner of war.”
That had been the last thing he expected to hear. That she had been a difficult prisoner, prone to organizing resistance among other prisoners. Or that she had been in possession of special intelligence that the Syndics were trying to pry out of her. Or that Bradamont had some family connections in the Alliance that the Syndics wanted to try to exploit. “She fell in love. With a Syndic. In a POW camp?”
“He was some kind of officer or liaison at the camp.” She saw Geary’s expression. “Now you know why she’s stayed quiet. No sense attracting attention with that in your past.”
Hatred toward the Syndics had grown poisonous during the extended war, its corrosive effects on honor and professionalism shocking to Geary when he had learned of those things. But even without that, such a relationship between officers on opposite sides was hard to understand. “How did she get command of a battle cruiser?”
Desjani shrugged. “Excellent question, Admiral. But no one knows why. It’s absolutely certain that security must have given her a clean bill of health after debriefing her. Naturally, everyone has their own theories about connections she might have had or if she was on some secret mission while a prisoner. All I know for certain is that after being cleared by security, Bradamont was assigned to be executive officer on Dragon, and after Captain Ming transferred off Dragon, Bradamont was promoted to command. Bloch was in charge of the fleet then, and at the time I heard him grumbling about the command being given to Bradamont by higher authority rather than his being able to use it as a reward for some officer politically loyal to Bloch.”
“She seems like a good officer and good fighter, but . . .”
“Yes,” Desjani said. “But. For a while, I couldn’t even stand to look at her.”
He watched Desjani curiously, remembering that soon after they had first met, Desjani had expressed regret at not being able to wipe out entire Syndic planets. “How do you feel now?”
“She’s . . . done her duty. Fought bravely.” Desjani gave him a cross look. “I respect her actions in battle. Just before you assumed command, in the chaos of the Syndic ambush, Bradamont made a risky firing run with Dragon that drew fire from two Syndic battleships that had Dauntless in their sights. She probably saved my ship.”
Geary nodded slowly. “Then she probably saved both of our lives, too.”
“That had also occurred to me, but that was less important than the fact that she fought her ship as well as Black Jack.” Desjani paused. “That’s an old saying in the fleet.”
“I’ve heard it,” Geary replied.
“Sorry.” She knew how little he liked most of the sayings about and attributed to the legendary Black Jack, especially since he couldn’t recall ever actually having said most of them. “Anyway, that’s why I’ve been all right with Bradamont since then. That and, uh, gaining some personal understanding of the tricks a heart can play on people whether they want it to happen or not. Obviously, Bradamont never compromised herself in that prison camp, or security wouldn’t have cleared her even if she was a Geary. Sorry. That’s another saying. But that’s why Bradamont tried not to draw attention to herself. Which makes her highly visible attempts to help control things a short time ago unusual. Things have changed a bit, of course. Not too long ago, if she’d spoken up, someone like Kila or Faressa would have gone after her, but the war is officially over, and they’re both dead, may my ancestors and the living stars forgive me for not being the least bit sorry in either of their cases.”