The implication didn’t please Geary either, but he wasn’t about to defensively explain his relationship with Desjani to these two. “Then get on with it.”
Colonel Malin spoke with respectful formality again. “President Iceni asked us to forward her personal request for a meeting with the Dancers.”
Geary shrugged. “We’ve already told President Iceni that the Dancers have turned down direct contact with her or anyone else from Midway. We don’t know why. The Dancers haven’t explained their reasons. I’ll have them asked again, but I don’t expect the Dancers to change their answer.”
“Your president,” Desjani added dryly, “might not want to the meet the Dancers personally.”
“We have seen the pictures you provided,” Colonel Malin said with a hint of a smile. “We know the Dancers are…”
“Hideous,” Colonel Morgan said.
“They saved your butts,” Desjani replied in a deceptively pleasant voice.
“We do wish to thank the Dancers for diverting the enigma bombardment aimed at our planet,” Malin interjected before Morgan could speak again. “Ideally, we’d like to thank them in person, if you could tell them that.”
“I’ll pass that on,” Geary said in noncommittal tones.
“General Drakon also sends his personal request that we be given access to the ship you call Invincible, Admiral. We understand that any access would be strictly limited—”
“No,” Geary said. “There’s too much we don’t know about that ship. I’ve been told by your general that you are still very concerned about deep-cover Syndicate Worlds agents operating in this star system. I cannot risk what little we do know about Invincible ending up in the hands of the Syndicate Worlds. Colonel, I’ll be blunt. Neither of the requests you have made justify the extreme concern for the security of your visit here. What’s this really about?”
Malin nodded, with the look of a man admiring an adversary who has refused to be distracted or diverted. “An opportunity has presented itself, Admiral. An opportunity to resolve a matter which is of concern to you as well as to General Drakon and President Iceni. As long as CEO Boyens commands a Syndicate Worlds flotilla which is here and is stronger than our own mobile forces, we will not be secure. From your previous actions and discussions with our superiors, General Drakon and President Iceni believe that you would also like to see CEO Boyens and his flotilla depart this star system before you leave.”
“Or, if you’re in the mood for that, an opportunity to destroy that flotilla,” Colonel Morgan added, this time with a slight smile, as if they were sharing a mutually understood joke.
“What is this opportunity?” Geary asked, not replying directly to Morgan. The more he was around her, the more she unsettled him. It wasn’t just her attractiveness; it was the casual, pantherlike attitude of deadliness combined with allure. This was a very dangerous woman, in ways very different from Tanya, and it annoyed Geary that part of him found that danger fascinating.
It was hard to tell how much Tanya could sense of that. She was keeping her eyes on Malin, apparently not watching Morgan, but Geary had seen that sort of misdirection in Desjani before. Morgan probably sensed Tanya’s attitude, too, and was reacting with thinly veiled amusement, which was simply provoking Tanya all the more.
But then Geary noticed Desjani visibly relaxing, a quiet smile appearing. A tactic. She had analyzed what Morgan was doing and altered her own approach.
Malin, pretending like Geary to be unaware of the byplay between Desjani and Morgan, continued speaking. “The opportunity involves the heavy cruiser that recently arrived in this star system. C-712 has declined our offer to remain here. We have offered one of our own heavy cruisers as an escort for C-712 to ensure they reach their home star safely.”
“How kind of you,” Desjani commented in a flat, insincere voice.
“Doing an important favor for someone is a way to gain a friend, and Midway needs all the friends we can get,” Malin replied. “Friends with heavy cruisers could be particularly important once you leave here, Admiral. Those friends can, in fact, do us a service now without even realizing it. General Drakon and President Iceni are proposing a course of action involving our escort that would serve your interests as well as ours, Admiral. If we work together, we can deal with Boyens, as long as we make every effort to ensure he does not even suspect the trap we are laying for him.”
Geary had no trouble assessing Desjani’s unspoken reaction. No. No deals with Syndics. No “working together” with Syndics. But there was no harm in finding out exactly what was being proposed. “Tell me what you’re suggesting,” he ordered Malin.
They had escorted the two colonels back to the shuttle and seen it depart before Geary looked a question at Desjani.
“No.”
“Because…?” he prompted.
“They can’t be trusted.” She waved toward where the shuttle had been. “What kind of sick, twisted mind comes up with a plan like that?”
“But it might well work and resolve our problem with Boyens.”
Desjani frowned, then shrugged. “It might. What are you going to do?”
“We need at least one of the Alliance government emissaries to sign off on the idea, or it won’t work. I’ll show them the pitch Colonel Malin made and see what they say.”
“That should be interesting. I’ll want to know how they react to the suggestion that you use this plot as an excuse to actually destroy Boyens’s battleship.” Desjani gave him a wry look. “Speaking of which, you didn’t seem to enjoy the attention Colonel Morgan was giving you.”
“She wasn’t—”
“Oh, yeah. Not at all. Hey, Mr. Admiral. Want a bite of the apple? Just give me a wink.”
“I didn’t—”
“No, you didn’t. You have more sense than that.”
“Tanya, I’m sure she didn’t know I was married.”
“Ancestors preserve us! Do you really think she would have cared?” Desjani paused as she was about to head back to the bridge, her attitude that of someone fighting an internal struggle. “Before you make a decision on this, you need to come with me.” She didn’t say anything more as he followed, puzzled, until they reached her stateroom. “We’ll risk gossip for a few minutes of privacy because we need that.”
“Why?” He had rarely been inside her stateroom, maintaining that distance for the sake of discipline.
“Inside.” Tanya waited until Geary had entered, then closed and sealed the hatch. She stood for a moment before speaking, running one hand through her hair. “Look, I know a lot of the things we’ve done, and by we I mean the people of this time, violate your sense of honor.”
“You stopped—”
“Wait.” She dropped her hand and looked at him with a frank expression. “If you want that Syndic battleship gone, there’s a way to do it without leaving any fingerprints or cooperating with people who say they aren’t Syndics anymore but still think like Syndics.”
“And by gone you mean…?”
“Destroyed.” Tanya walked a few paces, turned, and walked back. “You know what it’s like. Sometimes you have to do things. Things you’ve been ordered not to do. And you have to know how to do those things anyway, without leaving any records or traces of what was done.”
Geary watched her, baffled. “Are you saying that, with all of the records automatically created and maintained on every single detail of what every ship in the Alliance fleet does for every moment of its existence, that there is a way to conduct an operation as major as destroying a Syndic battleship without leaving any indications of what was done?”