“No, sir.”
It was definitely a knotty predicament, the sort of personal dilemma that made commanding officers wish they could gaff the problem off on someone else. But handling things like this, or trying to handle them, came with the job. And, unfortunately, in this particular case he had some personal experience of his own to draw on. “Okay, here’s my advice. If Lieutenant Riva stays on this ship, you can’t pursue a personal relationship with him. That’s true even if we got him a job working directly for me. He’d be as uncomfortable as you would. And if I judge you right, Tanya, anything you think is professionally improper is going to be doomed.” She nodded silently.
“I think he should go to another ship,” Geary advised. “Pick a commanding officer you think well of. You’ll be able to communicate pretty freely while we’re in normal space, and you’ll have the distance to keep things appropriate and to deal with the reality of the changes that’ve taken place since you two last knew each other.”
Desjani nodded, then gave Geary a haunted look. “What if the other ship is lost in combat? The ship I sent him to?”
He wondered if there wasn’t something he hadn’t heard yet. “Why weren’t you and Riva on the same ship at Quintarra?”
“We … needed some time apart.” She clenched her jaw. “I needed some time apart. The ship Riva chose to transfer to was lost.”
Geary sighed, thinking of the guilt Tanya Desjani had certainly been carrying around with her since the battle of Quintarra. “We wouldn’t want that to happen again. Listen, Tanya, all I can say is that I’m doing my best not to lose any more ships. Pick a good captain, someone like Duellos or Tulev or Cresida, someone who you know will fight smart, and ask them to take Riva as a personal favor. If you’re uncomfortable with that, I’ll ask them.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And I want you to tell Lieutenant Riva in no uncertain terms why he’s leaving this ship,” Geary ordered. “Not because you need more time apart or because you want him on another ship. Don’t leave him guessing, because if something happens to you, or to him, he’ll never know how you really felt.”
“Yes, sir.” She stared at him, leaving Geary wondering what he’d betrayed of his own past. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“It was a long time ago,” he replied, looking away. Most things in his life had been a long time ago. “I hope you and Lieutenant Riva work things out for the best, whatever happens.”
He sat for a while after Desjani left, haunted by memories of a woman long dead, and wondering why he kept wishing Victoria Rione were here to talk to about it. But Victoria Rione believed Geary had given in to the worst temptations the situation offered and wasn’t talking to him about anything. With her off-limits, the last friends Geary had known had all been gone for many, many years.
Geary strode onto the bridge of the Dauntless, frowning as Captain Desjani turned an angry face his way, though the anger obviously wasn’t aimed at him. Her watch-standers looked as if they’d all just been given the verbal equivalent of ten lashes with a cat-o’-nine-tails. “What’s up?”
“Captain Falco is no longer aboard,” Desjani reported. “He arranged transport on one of the shuttles without my knowledge.”
Geary glanced at the watch-standers. “We assumed Captain Falco was authorized,” one of them explained, his eyes shifting from Geary to Desjani.
Geary sat down, shaking his head. He should’ve guessed Falco would be able to charm junior officers into doing whatever Falco wanted. “Where’d he go?”
“The Warrior, sir.”
“The Warrior?” Geary would have guessed Numos’s ship, Orion, or Faresa’s Majestic. “Who’s the commanding officer of Warrior?” he muttered even as he worked the controls to bring up that information.
Captain Kerestes. The man’s service record was available at a touch, and Geary scanned it quickly. Of course. Kerestes had managed to survive much longer than most officers, so he’d actually served under Falco at the same battle Duellos had mentioned. On the same ship, actually. The inflated language of the performance reports on Kerestes told Geary little, but the fact that he couldn’t recall having noticed either Kerestes or Warrior for any particular reason up to now led him to suspect Kerestes was not the most dynamic and forceful of commanders.
Geary tapped a privacy circuit and called Captain Duellos on Courageous. “What can you tell me about Captain Kerestes? You and he were on the same ship at Batana.”
Duellos seemed surprised by the request. “Did he actually do something that merited attention?”
“Captain Falco managed to get to Warrior. I’m wondering why he chose that ship.”
“Because what Captain Kerestes lacks in initiative and intellect he makes up in slavish obedience. He will do what Falco says.”
Geary nodded, trying not to smile. Don’t hold back, Captain Duellos. Tell me what you really think of the man. “Kerestes isn’t a problem in and of himself, then?”
“Don’t worry about him,” Duellos advised. “Consider Captain Falco to now be the commanding officer of Warrior in every way that matters.”
“Thanks.” Geary hastily checked his planned formation after he had finished talking to Duellos. He’d placed Warrior out on one flank to support the lighter units there. Now it was too late to haul Warrior in and position her somewhere with less room for Falco to cause mischief. I’ll have to live with it and hope Falco is more willing to compromise than I think.
Geary frowned, trying to remember what else he had been planning to ask before the news about Falco threw him off stride. “Captain Desjani, that other officer we discussed. Was that situation resolved in a satisfactory manner?” Given enough time in the fleet, you could learn to describe anything in official-sounding terminology.
“He was transferred to Furious, sir,” Desjani replied in a routine-report sort of voice. “As you suggested, I ensured he was fully briefed on the situation and the reasons for his transfer before his departure.”
“How did he feel about the transfer?”
“He seemed pleased by the opportunity it presented, sir,” Desjani stated.
“Good.” It all sounded so official that Geary had trouble remembering they were discussing personal issues. He hoped his advice resulted in a better outcome for Desjani and Lieutenant Riva than Geary had himself experienced. “Let’s get out of here,” he announced to no one in particular. With a last glance at the hours-delayed images of the Syndic light warships shadowing his fleet, then a careful look down the long list of his ships to see that all showed green ready-for-jump status, Geary ordered his ships to jump to Strabo.
The transit to Strabo through jump space wasn’t long, a mere five days. The jump to Cydoni wouldn’t take a lot of time either, but the jump to Sancere would more than make up for that.
Jump space had always been odd, a strange, apparently endless emptiness of dull black marked only by rare appearances of splashes of light. What those lights were, what caused them and why, had been a mystery in Geary’s time and remained unidentified to this day because there wasn’t any known way to explore jump space. In a way that comforted Geary: something about his past and the present that had stayed unchanged.
But that was the only comfort he felt during the journey. Bad enough that the only person he’d felt able to partially confide in, Co-President Rione, hadn’t come near him or sent any messages since their argument. Bad enough that he had to worry, as usual, that the Syndics would have a nasty surprise awaiting him and the fleet at Strabo. They could’ve thought past him, guessing that he’d guess where his current paths would lead and therefore doubling back like this. But if he surrendered to that kind of fear, then he’d be paralyzed, unable to make any decision because any possible course of action could have been anticipated by the Syndics.