Geary didn’t look at her. “Are you mocking him?”
“No. I sometimes wonder how different Falco’s delusions would be from what you and I are doing.” She paused. “Faresa, Kerestes, and Falco have died in battle. At least that spares you the worry of three court-martials if we make it back to Alliance space.”
His temper boiled over. “Dammit, Victoria, if you’re trying to find a silver lining in this, you’re not doing a very good job! I didn’t want two ships to die so those three could find some measure of justice! I don’t even know what the hell justice would be for Falco!”
She stayed silent for a moment after his outburst. “I know you looked at records from Falco’s past, before he was captured by the Syndics. You saw his speeches. Triumphantly celebrating so-called victories in which dozens of major Alliance warships were destroyed in exchange for at best equal numbers of Syndics. Do you think he would spend a single moment worrying about the loss of a few battleships?”
“That’s not the point,” Geary objected bitterly.
“No, of course not. You don’t judge yourself in relation to people like Falco.” Rione exhaled slowly. “As far as I can tell, all three of those officers did indeed die on their ships.”
The idea that they might not have hadn’t even occurred to Geary. “Is there some reason to think they didn’t?”
Her smile held no humor. “A suspicious mind. Had Captain Faresa had time, I think her sympathizers among the crew would’ve helped her get off Majestic. But no one had such an opportunity. Those seeking to use Falco might have tried to get him off of Warrior, but…” She paused. “A fool and insane, but his last act was to refuse the chance to be evacuated from Warrior. You hadn’t heard? A few witnesses survived. Falco declared it his duty to remain with Warrior, though it’s hard to say if he truly realized what was happening. I suppose we can be charitable to the dead and assume he did.”
Geary had no trouble believing it. He could see in his imagination Captain Falco moving dramatically through the shattered passageways of Warrior, Falco’s practiced expression of confident camaraderie being turned to the officers and sailors with him awaiting their doom. The perfect theatrical role, and if Falco had recovered any of his sanity long enough to realize the fate that awaited him in Alliance space, perhaps a welcome chance to find his end as a dead hero rather than in disgrace at a court-martial. But, knowingly or not, he had chosen to die well and given his space in an escape pod to someone else who had lived as a result. “No one living knows what his last thoughts were like, so I don’t see any reason not to grant him that.” Geary frowned slightly as a thought occurred to him. “Is that right? There’s no one alive who saw enough of him to tell?”
Rione frowned back. “How would I know?”
“You’ve obviously heard from eyewitnesses. You must have had some of your spies on those ships, too.”
Her expression twitched, then settled back in emotionless lines. “Had. Past tense. One got off Warrior. Nobody got off Majestic, as you already noted.”
Hell. “I should have realized that your spies on those ships died along with everyone else that didn’t get off. I’m sorry.”
She nodded once, still revealing no feelings. “They ran the same risks as everyone else in this fleet.”
Geary glared at her, his nerves stretched to their limit. “Sometimes you act like a cold-blooded bitch.”
Rione returned an impassive glance. “And you prefer your bitches warm-blooded?”
“Dammit, Victoria-”
She held up one hand. “We all deal with our pain in our own ways, John Geary. You and I handle that very differently. ”
“Yeah, we do.” He looked down at the deck, knowing he was still frowning. Something else was bothering him, something he hadn’t connected yet. Something about the Alliance fleet’s losses. Majestic, Warrior, Utap, Vambrace… Vambrace?
He must have reacted as realization hit, because Rione spoke in a gentler tone. “What’s the matter now?”
“I just remembered something.” The heavy cruiser Vambrace, the ship to which Lieutenant Casell Riva had been transferred from Furious. A Syndic prisoner for almost ten years, liberated from a Syndic labor camp by this fleet and brought to Lakota, perhaps dead now. He tried to recall how many crew had gotten off Vambrace before she blew up. Had Riva been among them? Desjani hadn’t said anything, even though she’d surely realized much sooner than he had.
“Something?” Rione pressed.
“It’s a personal personnel issue.” He had to pronounce the words carefully so they made sense to her. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you.” Rione stayed quiet for so long that Geary looked up finally, seeing her watching him. “What?”
“Can you keep going?” she asked.
“Of course I can.”
“Of course?” Rione shook her head. “We took significant losses again, and I know the havoc created on the inhabited world in this star system by the destruction of the hypernet gate weighs heavily on you. For a long time after assuming command of this fleet, you were balanced on a knife-edge, ready to fall off if the pressure grew too great. You weren’t used to the sort of combat losses the Alliance has become accustomed to, so each ship lost weighed very heavily on you. You needed someone to prop you up, to keep you going, and for a while I filled that role, both as an ally to turn to and as an adversary to be bested. I don’t anymore.”
“Excuse me?” He studied her, trying to figure out what Rione was saying.
“Why are you fighting?” Rione asked, turning to face the star display again.
“For the people in this fleet. For the Alliance. You know that.”
“I know that those things are abstractions. You don’t know a fraction of the people in this fleet. The Alliance you knew is changed, your own home altered in ways I know have worried you.” Rione glanced his way again. “You’re not fighting for abstractions. No one does. Humans pay lip service to that, to big causes and great purposes, but any politician of any skill soon learns that what really motivates people is the small, personal things. Close friends, family, the small area they call home. They wrap those things around ideals and call them precious, but they’re precious for the smallest and closest of reasons. Soldiers may swear to fight for their flag, but they really fight because of the soldiers next to them. You’ve found something like that, John Geary. Here in this fleet, some personal connection that gives you the strength and resolve to continue.”
Geary eyed her. “And just what is that connection?”
“Not what. Who. Someone besides me.” Rione was back to studying the stars. “I know who. I don’t think you know yet. Or you haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”
“Then tell me.”
“No. You’ll figure it out eventually. Then you’ll have to deal with it. For now, I and this fleet need you at your best, so I just accept what is.” She took a deep breath, then turned to face him. “Where are you taking the fleet next?”
The sudden shift in topic startled him, but Geary wasn’t interested in pursuing whatever Rione’s idea of his personal connection could be, so he just pointed to the display. “You heard. We’re heading for the jump point for Branwyn.”
She raised one eyebrow. “That didn’t mean you were going to use that jump point. Your old objective from the first time we were in this star system. As close to a straight shot for Alliance space as you can manage.”
“That’s right. The Syndics should have enough major combatants left to bring us battle, and we know they’re building replacements for their losses despite what we did to the shipyards at Sancere because they have a lot of other shipyards in other star systems. But after what we did here, they’ll have to gather those ships. We should be able to transit Branwyn without much trouble, then go from there to Wendig. Branwyn is supposed to have a minimal Syndic presence left, and the records we’ve captured from the Syndics say that Wendig was completely abandoned almost thirty years ago. From there we’ll have a couple of options, but I’m leaning toward Cavalos. There’s a strong Syndic presence there, so they’ll probably expect us to avoid it.”