Lieutenant Yuon gave Casque a pained look. “Donkeys are animals.”
“Oh. Captain, donkeys are—”
“Thank you. I know.” Desjani seemed skeptical as she questioned Lieutenant Casque. “How old is this story? What does ancient mean?”
“Captain, the source is marked as ‘ancient book—Earth’ and that’s as old as it gets. I guess the Marines read about it in that book.”
“Excellent assumption, Lieutenant.” Desjani made a who-knew gesture toward Geary. “There’s your answer, sir. The Marines heard this ancient story. Maybe they study it as the first documented case of deception in warfare. No, that’d be that wooden horse thing I heard about once. Anyway, old story.”
“Even older than I,” Geary replied. “At least I’m pretty sure that must have happened before I joined the fleet.” He’d never expected to be able to joke about how long ago that had been, but in the glow of relief after the ground engagement, such things didn’t seem to hold as much anguish as they once did.
“Sir,” the operations watch called, “all shuttles have been recovered.”
“Excellent.” Geary sent the orders accelerating the Alliance fleet toward a rendezvous with the repaired warships, auxiliaries, and escorts back in the region of the engagement with the Syndic flotilla. Once joined up again, the fleet would head for the jump point for Padronis. “Something just occurred to me. We knew how badly the Syndic fleet has been hurt lately, but how did the rebels in this star system know? They broke their leash almost as soon as we’d destroyed the Syndic flotilla here.”
Rione answered, her voice thoughtful. “There’s bound to have been rumors among the citizens of the Syndicate Worlds, but the only ones who would know the true extent of the fleet’s losses would be senior personnel and CEOs. Which means some of the senior Syndics and CEOs are part of the forces that are trying to overthrow Syndic control of Heradao. The rot is just as bad as we suspected.”
“Then this could be happening in a lot of places as news spreads,” Geary said.
“Perhaps. But the Syndics still have considerable ability to try to retain control of individual star systems. Any collapse of the Syndicate Worlds will take a long time to work its way through all of the star systems.”
“A long time? Too bad,” Desjani murmured as she checked her display. “The shuttles bringing some of the liberated POWs to Dauntless are preparing to off-load.”
Geary came to his feet. “Let’s go welcome them.”
“Yes,” Rione agreed, “if the commanding officer of Dauntless doesn’t object to my presence as well.”
“Of course not, Madam Co-President,” Desjani replied with a professionally detached tone of voice. They arrived at the shuttle dock as the first bird dropped its main hatch, and the former prisoners began walking down the ramp. The liberated prisoners filed off the shuttle, gazing around with expressions of joy and disbelief. In the remnants of their old uniforms and cast-off, badly worn civilian clothes provided by the Syndics, they looked very much like the prisoners who had been liberated way back at Sutrah Star System. The entire scene, the emotions present in everyone, felt like that at Sutrah.
“I guess the thrill of liberating our own prisoners of war never goes away,” Desjani murmured, somehow echoing Geary’s own thoughts.
Just about then a voice called across the shuttle dock. “Vic? Vic Rione?” One of the newly liberated prisoners, tall and thin and wearing commander insignia on an old coat, was staring their way, his eyes widening with disbelief.
Victoria Rione was peering back at the man, her expression puzzled, then she gave a quick intake of breath. Recovering quickly, she called out a reply. “Kai! Kai Fensin!”
Rione stepped forward to meet Fensin as he left the line and walked quickly toward her. Some of the sailor escorts herding the former prisoners along to sick bay made abortive motions to stop Fensin but halted when Desjani made a quick gesture. “Vic?” Fensin asked in a wondering voice as he reached them. “When did you join the fleet? You haven’t aged a day.”
“Vic?” Desjani muttered too low for anyone but Geary to hear.
“Be nice,” he muttered back to her before joining Rione.
Rione was shaking her head and looking embarrassed. “I feel much older, and I haven’t joined the fleet, Kai. May I introduce the fleet commander, Captain Geary?”
“Geary.” Commander Fensin smiled, his expression disbelieving. “They told us on the shuttles who was in command of the fleet. Who else could have brought it here to free us?” Looking suddenly aghast at himself, Fensin straightened to attention. “It’s an honor, sir, a great honor.”
“At ease, Commander,” Geary ordered. “Relax. There’ll be plenty of time for ceremony later.”
“Yes, sir,” Fensin agreed. “I served with another Geary once. Michael Geary. A grandnephew of yours. We were junior officers together on the Vanquish.”
Geary felt his own smile slide away. Fensin caught it, looking anxious now. “I’m sorry. Did he die?”
“He may have,” Geary answered, wondering how his voice sounded. “His ship was destroyed in the Syndic home system, covering this fleet’s withdrawal.”
“He pulled a Geary?” Fensin blurted, invoking the last stand for which Black Jack had become famous.
“Of all people. I mean…” Fensin seemed simply horrified at his own verbal gaffes.
“I understand,” Geary said. “He didn’t think much of Black Jack after having to grow up in his shadow. But he seemed to understand me better at the end, when faced with the same situation.” Time to change the subject to something that would hopefully be more comfortable. “How do you know Co-President Rione?”
“Co-president?” Fensin’s stare shifted to Rione.
She nodded back to him. “Of the Callas Republic. And, uh, member of the Alliance Senate, of course, because of that. I went into politics to serve the Alliance after Paol…” Rione paused, blinking rapidly.
“I’d been told he was dead, but recently learned he was still alive when taken prisoner. Do you know anything?”
Kai Fensin closed his eyes briefly. “I was on the same ship with Vic’s husband,” he explained to Geary.
“Excuse me, I mean, Co-President Rione’s—”
“I’m still Vic to you, Kai. Do you know anything?”
“We were separated soon after being captured,” Fensin stated miserably. “Paol was severely injured. Somebody had told me he’d died on the ship, so I was surprised to see that he was still hanging on. Then the Syndics took the badly wounded away, supposedly for treatment, but…” He grimaced. “You know what happens to prisoners sometimes.”
“They killed him?” Rione asked in a thin voice.
“I don’t know. As my ancestors are my witness, Vic, I don’t know. I’ve never heard anything else about him or the others taken with him.” Fensin shrugged, his expression twisted with regret. “There were some others at the camp from our ship. I don’t think any of them came to Dauntless, but we’ve talked a lot. There’s not all that much to do but talk in the camps when the Syndics aren’t making you dig ditches and break rocks. None of the others could say what had happened to Paol, either. I wish I could give you some last memory, some parting words, but everything was chaos and the Syndics were pulling us apart and he was barely conscious.”
Rione managed a smile. “I know what his words would have been.”
Fensin hesitated, his eyes going from Rione to Geary. “There was a lot of gossip on the shuttle, people trying to catch up. Somebody said something about a politician and the fleet commander.”
“Captain Geary and I had a brief relationship,” Rione said in a steady voice.