She gave an apologetic shrug. “Yes.”
“But even if you could subvert fleet systems that much, so many people would know—”
“No one talks. No one.” Tanya’s gaze challenged him now. “It doesn’t happen very often. But sometimes we had to. And because we had to, we figured out how to. If you need this badly enough, we can do it, and there will be no evidence.”
“The systems belonging to the occupants of this star system will see everything!” he protested, still only half-believing her words.
“Oh, please, Admiral. If official records on the ships of the Alliance fleet say one thing and some systems belonging to people who were recently Syndics claim something else happened, what is going to be believed?”
Geary turned away from her, trying to think. If the people of this fleet had been comfortable with acts like bombarding civilians from orbit and killing prisoners, what sort of actions would have required total concealment from official records? I can’t even imagine—
Desjani’s voice cut through his increasingly dark thoughts. “It wasn’t about atrocities, Admiral. We could do those above the board.”
Her tone was scathing, bitter, but when he looked back at her, Geary could tell that Tanya was aiming those emotions at herself.
“It was about evading orders,” she continued in a quieter voice. “Doing what needed to be done. Or not doing something stupid, and you know almost as well as I do how stupid things on the record could be, so just imagine what sort of orders motivated us to develop a way of acting invisibly to every official record.”
“Tanya, I can’t even picture something like that.”
“Count your blessings.” She said it even more harshly this time, then looked away. “You can’t picture it. You didn’t live it. Be glad for that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry for me! For anyone in this fleet! We did what we had to do with what we were given!”
He stared at the deck, biting his lip hard enough to taste the tang of fresh blood. “All right. How do you make happen something of which there’s no record?”
“I spread the word. Don’t ask how. The groundwork gets laid. When it’s ready, I tell you, and you order the op. After the last shot is fired, fleet records will say every ship involved was just engaging in routine operations, and no sailor or officer will contradict those records.” She shook her head. “Don’t look shocked. People have been doing that kind of thing ever since the first ones were sent out to kill other people. It takes more work now to keep the official record clean, but it’s an old, old practice. You know that as well as I do.”
His eyes went to the plaque by her hatch, the one listing a long line of names. Absent friends. The many dead companions whom Desjani had served with and wanted to be sure she never forgot. “Yes. I do know that. Tanya, here’s the thing. If I go with your suggestion, we fight another battle and more die, quite possibly including some of our own. Battleships are damned hard to kill. If shots start flying, Boyens might even target the hypernet gate as a last bit of defiance. But if I go with the plan proposed by those colonels, I may not need to fight, and I’ll still have your option available if necessary.”
She took a while to respond. “Boyens might not react the way they hope.”
“But his track record, what we know of him, makes it likely he will. And they know him better than we do.”
“I… can’t deny that,” Tanya said with obvious reluctance.
“Tanya, if we start shooting, I don’t care what the fleet’s records show. The Syndics could take it as an excuse to go hot war again. And you know what the reaction in this fleet and in the Alliance would be if that war started once more.”
“Yes.” Desjani turned toward her desk and leaned on it with both arms, her body slumping. “By my ancestors, I am so tired, Jack. Tired of having to do things like this. But I will, if that’s what needs to be. If you don’t think we should, I’ll accept your judgment. You’ve been right a lot more than I have.”
“No, I haven’t.” He reached out, very carefully, and barely touched her arm. He ached to hold her, to wrap his arms tightly about Tanya and give all the comfort he could, but that could not happen. Not between an admiral and the commanding officer of his flagship. Aboard Dauntless they were always on duty. “Tanya, I’ll keep your option in mind. But I don’t want to do it.”
“You and your damned honor.” But she said it with a self-mocking tone this time and turned a rueful smile Geary’s way. “As long as we’re being honest, did you really not notice how that Colonel Morgan was looking at you?”
“I noticed.” Geary rubbed the back of neck and grimaced. “And I thought she was one of the most dangerous things I’d ever seen.”
“Right again.” Tanya smiled a little more. “I guess I have taught you something.” Her hand went to the hatch controls. “Let’s get out of here before any rumors start, Admiral.”
Geary called both of the Alliance government emissaries into the same secure conference room where he had listened to Colonel Morgan and Colonel Malin, then played the record of the meeting, images of the two Midway officers appearing where they had stood.
After the recording ended, Victoria Rione canted a look toward Geary that was disturbingly like the one Tanya had given him. “She’s a real piece of work, isn’t she?”
“Colonel Morgan, you mean.” He frowned at Rione. “If she so clearly provokes you and… other people, I have to wonder why she was sent along with Colonel Malin.”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Rione smiled in amusement. “First of all, you might have been, shall we say, intrigued by what Colonel Morgan was offering. You wouldn’t be the first powerful man to fall for that sort of bait, and if you did, it could open all sorts of possibilities for them to exploit. Including the possibility that you would accept their proposal in hopes of, how shall I put it, working closer with Colonel Morgan.”
His anger at her words, Geary realized guiltily, was generated at least partly by the realization that some small part of him might well have pondered that idea. “I would not—”
“I didn’t say you would, Admiral. But I suspect two other reasons also played a role in her presence. Did you notice how you and your captain reacted more positively toward Colonel Malin as you reacted negatively toward Colonel Morgan? She made you more accepting of him.”
“Damn.” Geary wanted to argue that point as well, but he realized it held a great deal of truth.
“That’s not all. If I know anything about body language, those two trust each other about as much as we trust them. I believe it is safe to say that Colonel Morgan and Colonel Malin were keeping an eye on each other.”
Emissary Charban was watching Rione with the expression of a man who was realizing how much he had to learn. “They’re still operating like Syndics, aren’t they?” Charban said. “There are a dozen different things going on at once, layers and layers and intertwining plots.”
“It’s what they know,” Rione said. “And they are good at it, if ‘good’ is the right term to use.” She tapped some controls. “Did you see this? The room’s sensors picked it up.”
On the recorded images of the two colonels, a bright object now glowed on one of Morgan’s wrists, something so carefully matched to her skin that it was invisible to the naked eye. “What is it?” Geary asked.
Rione tapped a few more times, then glanced at him and Charban. “Not a threat, or you would have been alerted to it as soon as she entered here. It’s a very sophisticated recording device. Unless I’m wrong, it’s also sealed. Neither Morgan nor Malin could change anything on it.”