“Will the Syndics trust our design?” Desjani pressed.
Cresida answered. “Any team of halfway-competent engineers will be able to see that it’s a closed system that does what it’s advertised to do and nothing more. Hell, the Syndics are probably already working on their own safe-fail system, but odds are it’s caught up in that bureaucracy and the bureaucratic mania to keep things secret from your own side.”
Desjani exhaled slowly. “Then my answer is yes. Give it to the Syndics. Because ultimately that decision protects the Alliance.”
“All right.” Geary looked around, knowing what he had to do. “Thank you for volunteering, Captain Tulev, but I won’t ask you to take an action that’s my responsibility. I’ll—”
“No, you won’t.” Rione interrupted, then sighed. “I should lecture you all on your duty and remind you of your oaths and the laws of the Alliance and regulations of the fleet. But I’m a politician, so who am I to speak of honoring oaths? Enough has already been asked of you all, and of your ancestors, in a hundred years of war. Let this politician prove to you that all honor is not dead among your elected leaders. I will release the information to the Syndics.”
“Madam Co-President,” Geary began, as the other officers present looked at Rione with varied looks of surprise.
“I am not under your command, Captain Geary. You cannot order me not to do it. The arguments made here are convincing, but we don’t have time to try to convince the authorities back home. Not just the fate of this fleet but the lives of untold billions of people ride on this decision being made quickly. If it is seen as treason, you must remain unstained by it for the good of the Alliance. Unless you are prepared to arrest me and openly charge me with treason, I will do this.” Rione turned to Cresida. “Captain, is your design within the fleet database?”
Cresida nodded, her eyes on Rione. “Yes, Madam Co-President. Under the file name ‘Safe-fail’ in my personal files.”
“Then I will acquire it without your assistance since I have the means to access those files. Your hands will be clean.”
“Clean? But we know you’re going to do this,” Duellos pointed out.
“No, you don’t.”
“You told us.”
“The words of a politician?” Rione smiled again, almost as if she were enjoying this. “You have no reason to believe anything I say is true. You probably think I’m just trying to entrap you by urging a course of action I won’t actually carry out. You can’t be absolutely certain I’m not doing that.”
She left quickly, before anything else could be said. Cresida, a pondering expression on her face, suddenly nodded, looking from Geary to the door by which Rione had left. “I finally understand why—”
Biting off the words and reddening slightly, doing her best not to look at Desjani, Cresida rose to her feet, saluted hastily, then her image vanished.
Tulev rose with unusual speed, saluted as well, and also departed.
Desjani, a look of weary resignation on her face, stood up. “I’ll get back to the bridge.”
“But—” Geary began.
“I’ll see you up there, sir.” Desjani saluted with careful precision, then stalked out of the room. Geary frowned at Duellos. “What was that about? What Cresida said?”
Instead of replying, Duellos held up a warding hand. “You’re not getting me involved.”
“In what?”
“Talk to your ancestors. Some of them must know something about women.” Duellos paused before leaving, then shook his head. “Oh, I can’t leave you hanging hopelessly. I’ll give you a hint. When two people get involved, however briefly, other people who know at least one of them naturally wonder what they saw in each other.”
“You mean Rione and me? You all wondered what I saw in her?”
“Good heavens, man, how can that surprise you?” Duellos cast a bleak look at the deck. “We humans are a strange bunch. Even in the midst of dealing with a threat to our entire race, we can be sidetracked for a moment by the oldest and smallest of personal dramas.”
“Maybe we’re trying to avoid thinking about all of this,” Geary suggested. “The consequences if we fail. Before, failure could mean our deaths, the loss of our ships, perhaps eventually the defeat of the Alliance. Now, it could mean the loss of everything. What do you think of our chances?”
“I didn’t think we’d make it half this far home,” Duellos reminded him. “Anything is possible.”
“Why? Why are they doing it?”
“The aliens? Perhaps, before all is said and done, we’ll have the chance to ask them directly.” Duellos’s face grew uncharacteristically harsh. “And when we do, perhaps we’ll have hell-lance batteries pointing at their faces to ensure we get a reply.”
“Another war?” Geary asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe not. The aliens don’t seem to like stand-up fights.”
“But we do.”
“Yes.” Duellos smiled unpleasantly. “Maybe that’s why they’re acting already. Maybe right now they’re getting scared.”
SEVEN more hours until they reached the jump point for Varandal. About six more hours until the fleet crossed the path of the second badly damaged Syndic battle cruiser, the one hurt by Intractable’s final blows. Geary wandered restlessly through Dauntless’s passageways, exchanging brief words or conversations with the crew, acutely aware that in some critical ways events were coming to a head. A successful battle at Varandal was the key to saving the fleet and the Alliance, even though getting the fleet back to Alliance space would still leave some critical issues to resolve. Without victory at Varandal, there could be no next step. So he strode through the now-familiar passageways of the battle cruiser, speaking with the hell-lance battery crews, the engineers, the cooks, the administrative personnel, the specialists of every kind, and all of the other individuals who made Dauntless a living ship. For the first time, he realized that even though he wasn’t her captain, losing Dauntless would hurt at least as much as losing Merlon.
He went down to the worship spaces and consulted with his ancestors, finding small comfort this time. If only his ancestors could warp time and space, bring the fleet to Varandal now so the Syndic reserve flotilla could be confronted now. Decide it now, end it now. But space was huge, and there were still six hours to jump for Varandal, then almost four days in jump space afterward. Finally, he made his way back to the intelligence spaces. “Where’s the Syndic commander?” Geary asked.
“On her way to the brig, sir,” Lieutenant Iger responded. “Captain Desjani is accompanying her there.”
Something about that felt odd. “Is there something unusual about that?”
Lieutenant Iger nodded. “Yes, sir.” He looked toward the interrogation room, making an expression of distaste. “We don’t allow physical harm to be inflicted on prisoners, sir. But, they get escorted to and from their cells through the same passageways the crew uses. The crew reacts by making those trips as unpleasant as possible.”
“The prisoners have to run a gauntlet.”
“Yes, sir.” Iger shrugged. “No physical harm, but words, gestures, noninjurious things thrown at them and their uniforms. Emotions run high, sir. The Marines do have orders to protect their prisoners, but certain things are accepted.”
Easy enough to understand. Ships’ crews rarely saw the hated enemy face-to-face. Geary looked at the hatch through which Desjani had gone. “But the crew won’t do those things to this prisoner if Captain Desjani is with her.”