Geary looked up again. Casia was waiting, his eyes pleading now. Let me die with honor.
“Very well.” Geary nodded slowly. “Your request is granted, Captain Casia. I will approve execution by firing squad.”
Casia’s mouth twitched into a ghastly smile. “In Lakota. I want it done before the fleet leaves Lakota.”
“Very well,” Geary repeated. “Colonel Carabali, please canvass your Marines for volunteers for the firing squad.” He took a deep breath, then fixed his gaze on Commander Yin. “Commander, do you also wish to appeal?”
He thought she might break down completely, but Yin suddenly leaped to her feet. “I was following orders!” she shouted.
A moment of baffled silence followed. “Not my orders,” Geary finally stated.
“You are not competent to command this fleet!” Yin answered, her eyes wide. “You’re only a figurehead for those using you against the Alliance! They want to bring you home with all of these victories to your ‘credit’ and install you as a dictator! You and your… your female companion! ”
It had been a little while since the last attack on Co-President Rione, so Geary wasn’t surprised that Yin was dragging her into this. But then he realized that everyone in the conference was either looking at or obviously not looking at Captain Desjani. In turn, Desjani had her eyes fixed on Yin. If Desjani’s eyes had been hell-lance batteries, there would have been nothing left of Commander Yin but drifting ash.
The rumors of his being involved with Desjani clearly hadn’t died. There wasn’t any good way to address those now, however. Geary focused instead on the rest of Yin’s accusation. He’d been assuming that those opposed to his command of the fleet had been motivated primarily by personal ambition or personal dislike or distrust. Instead, if Yin’s words were to be trusted, at least some of them were motivated by fear that Geary or those backing him intended to overthrow the government of the Alliance. Those enemies might be working against him for reasons he could respect.
He was still thinking that through when Captain Duellos spoke sharply. “Commander Yin, whose orders were you following if not Captain Geary’s?”
She wavered, gulped once, then answered unsteadily. “Captain Numos.”
“Captain Numos is under arrest,” Duellos observed. “He is not able to issue orders. You know that.”
“I know that the arrest and all orders pertaining to it were themselves unlawful!”
Commander Neeson of Implacable spoke in a puzzled voice. “Does the charge of cowardice before the enemy stand if Commander Yin claims to have been following orders she believed to be legitimate?”
“She knew they weren’t legitimate,” Captain Badaya of Illustrious argued. “Commander Yin had to know that.”
“But if she’s saying she avoided action for that reason, it’s not the same as cowardice. Or is it?” Neeson appeared frustrated now.
Geary rapped one fist on the table to draw Commander Yin’s attention again. “Commander, I understand you to be claiming that you avoided engaging the enemy in accordance with orders from Captain Numos. Are you denying the charge of cowardice?”
Yin visibly quivered, but choked out one word. “Yes.”
Tulev shook his head. “That still amounts to disobedience of orders in the face of the enemy, which is also a battlefield execution offense.”
Low conversations broke out all along the table, officers debating the issue. Geary thought about it himself for a moment. “Commander Yin, there are issues here that don’t have simple answers. I am hesitant to order the execution of an officer in circumstances under which she may have thought her actions justified.” Everyone was listening intently. “Nonetheless, by your own admission you have violated orders from me, not only on the battlefield but also in conferring with Captain Numos. That alone is more than adequate grounds for relieving you of command. However, I will not unilaterally order the execution of an officer who claims to have believed her behavior was required by duty. You will be held under arrest, Commander Yin, until such time as this fleet returns to Alliance space, there to have proper charges lodged against you in a court-martial in which you can defend your actions and receive such justice as is considered appropriate by the judgment of your peers.”
No one called out objections. Captain Armus frowned, then nodded unenthusiastically. Commander Yin made to sit down again, but it looked more like she fell into her seat as her legs gave way.
Geary turned back to Captain Casia. “Captain, were your actions in command of Conqueror in the last battle also the result of following orders from someone other than the acting fleet commander?”
Casia hesitated, then shook his head roughly. “No one is responsible for my actions but me.”
Why did Casia have to display admirable behavior now? “All right, then. Colonel Carabali, please instruct your Marines on Conqueror and Orion to take Captain Casia and Commander Yin into custody and prepare them for transfer to Illustrious. Captain Casia, Commander Yin, please leave this conference.”
Casia took a moment to glare around in defiance, then reached for the controls at his location and disappeared. Commander Yin, her hand visibly shaking, followed suit quickly.
After that, discussing movements of the fleet seemed anticlimactic. Geary brought up the star display, a three-dimensional image of nearby space hovering over the table. “We’re going to take advantage of our victory here to continue toward Alliance space. Our next objective will be Branwyn. I don’t expect to encounter any resistance there, but we’ll be prepared for mines at the jump exit and a possible Syndic delaying force.” He pointed onward, to a dim red star a few light-years from Branwyn. “After that, we head for Wendig. That star system is supposed to be totally abandoned. Unless something unexpected happens in Wendig, we’ll then continue on to Cavalos.”
“Why not Sortes?” Captain Armus asked.
Geary indicated the star system in question. “Because it has a Syndic hypernet gate. We’ve inflicted serious losses on the Syndics at Kaliban and since, but we’re low on a lot of supplies and many of our ships have sustained damage. I’d prefer to avoid another major battle until our auxiliaries have had time to manufacture all of the fuel cells, expendable weapons, and replacement parts they can using the raw materials we’ve acquired here, and until our warships have had time to repair as much damage as possible.”
“But we can still try to use that hypernet gate to get home,” Armus argued. Apparently Geary’s earlier praise wasn’t going to incline Armus to accept Geary’s plans quietly.
“I believe, Captain Armus,” Geary stated patiently, “that the Syndics will ensure that they have sufficient means on hand at that hypernet gate to destroy it before we could reach it.”
“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” No one answered him, causing Armus to frown and look around impatiently. “We easily survived the collapse of the hypernet gate in this star system.”
“We were very, very lucky,” Captain Cresida replied. “Next time, every ship in this fleet might be destroyed.”
Duellos nodded. “Not to mention what the gate collapse did to this star system. I won’t speak for anyone else, but I have enough on my conscience as it is.”
“Will the Syndics follow orders to destroy another gate after what happened here?” Commander Neeson asked.
“I would think that would depend on whether they hear what happened at Lakota,” Duellos speculated. “And whether they believe it. Some surviving Syndic civilian ships are already headed for jump points to spread the news and ask for help, but we have to assume that the Syndic leadership will attempt to downplay the disaster here, censor the news to the maximum extent possible, and to the degree it admits something happened, blame it on our actions.”