“Rione will help you handle them,” Badaya noted with a dismissive gesture. “You’ve got her in your pocket, and she’ll keep the other politicians in line. Since you say time is tight, I’d better let you go, sir.” With a final parting grin and a salute, Badaya’s image vanished.
Geary shook his head, wondering what Madam Co-President of the Callas Republic and Senator of the Alliance Victoria Rione would do if she heard Badaya saying Rione was in Geary’s pocket. Nothing good, that was certain.
He walked through the passageways of Dauntless toward the shuttle dock, returning enthusiastic salutes from the crew members he passed. Dauntless had been his flagship since he’d assumed command of the fleet in the Syndic home star system, the Alliance fleet trapped deep inside enemy territory and apparently doomed. Against all odds, he’d brought most of those ships home, and their crews believed he could do anything. Even win a war their parents and grandparents had also fought. He did his best to look outwardly calm and confident despite his own internal turmoil.
But Geary couldn’t help frowning slightly as he finally reached the shuttle dock. Desjani and Rione were both there, standing close together and apparently speaking softly to each other, their expressions impassive. Since the two women usually exchanged words only under the direst necessity and often had seemed ready to go at it with knives, pistols, hell lances, and any other available weapon, Geary couldn’t help wondering why they were getting along all of a sudden.
Desjani stepped toward him as he approached, while Rione went through the hatch into the dock. “The shuttle and your escort are ready,” Desjani reported. She frowned slightly as she examined him, reaching to make tiny adjustments to some of his ribbons. “The fleet will be standing by.”
“Tanya, I’m counting on you, Duellos, and Tulev to keep things from going nova. Badaya should be working with you to keep anyone in the fleet from overreacting and causing a disaster, but you three also need to make sure Badaya doesn’t overreact.”
She nodded calmly. “Of course, sir. But you do realize that none of us will be able to hold things back if the grand council overreacts.” Stepping closer, Desjani lowered her voice and rested one hand on his forearm, a rare gesture, which emphasized her words. “Listen to her. This is her battlefield, her weapons.”
“Rione?” He had never expected to hear Desjani urging him to pay attention to Rione’s advice.
“Yes.” Stepping back again, Desjani saluted, only her eyes betraying her worries. “Good luck, sir.”
He returned the salute and walked into the dock. Nearby, the bulk of a fleet shuttle loomed, an entire platoon of Marines forming an honor guard on either side of its loading ramp.
An entire platoon of Marines in full battle armor, with complete weapons loadout.
Before he could say anything, a Marine major stepped forward and saluted. “I’m assigned to command your honor guard, Captain Geary. We’ll accompany you to the meeting with the grand council.”
“Why are your troops in battle armor?” Geary asked.
The major didn’t hesitate at all. “Varandal Star System remains in Attack Imminent alert status, sir. Regulations require my troops to be at maximum combat readiness when participating in official movements under such an alert status.”
How convenient. Geary glanced toward Rione, who didn’t seem the least bit surprised at the combat footing of the Marines. Desjani had obviously been in on this, too. But then Colonel Carabali, the fleet’s Marine commander, must have approved of the decision as well. Despite his own misgivings at arriving to speak to his political superiors with a combat-ready force at his back, Geary decided that trying to override the collective judgment of Desjani, Rione, and Carabali wasn’t likely to be wise. “Very well. Thank you, Major.”
The Marines raised their weapons to present arms as Geary walked up the ramp, Rione beside him, bringing his arm up in a salute acknowledging the honors being rendered him. At times like this, when he seemed to have been saluting constantly for an hour, even he wondered at the wisdom of having reintroduced that gesture of respect into the fleet.
He and Rione went through to the small VIP cabin just aft of the pilots’ cockpit, the Marines filing in behind them to take seats in the shuttle’s main compartment. Geary strapped in, gazing at the display panel before him, where a remote image showed stars glittering against the endless night of space. It might have been a window, if anyone had been crazy enough to put a physical window in the hull of a ship or a shuttle.
“Nervous?” Rione asked.
“Can’t you tell?”
“Not really. You’re doing a good job.”
“Thanks. What were you and Desjani plotting about when I got to the shuttle dock?”
“Just some girl talk,” Rione said airily, waving a negligent hand. “War, the fate of humanity, the nature of the universe. That sort of thing.”
“Did you reach any conclusions I should know about?”
She gave him a cool look, then smiled with apparently genuine reassurance. “We think you’ll do fine as long as you are yourself. Both of us have your back. Feel better?”
“Much better, thank you.” Status lights revealed the shuttle’s ramp rising and sealing, the inner dock doors closing, the outer doors opening, then the shuttle rose, pivoted in place with jaunty smoothness, and tore out into space. Geary felt himself grinning. Autopilots could drive a shuttle technically as well as any human, and better in many cases, but only humans could put a real sense of style into their piloting. On his display, the shape of Dauntless dwindled rapidly as the shuttle accelerated. “This is the first time I’ve been off Dauntless,” he suddenly realized.
“Since your survival pod was picked up, you mean,” Rione corrected.
“Yeah.” His former home and former acquaintances were gone, vanished into a past a century old. Dauntless had become his home, her crew his family. It felt odd to leave them.
The journey seemed very brief, the huge shapes of Ambaru space station’s exterior structures looming near as the shuttle slid gently toward its assigned dock. Moments later, the shuttle grounded. Geary watched until the status lights indicated that the dock was pressurized, then took a deep breath, stood up, straightened his uniform yet again, and nodded to Rione. “Let’s go.” Rione nodded back at him, something about her feeling both familiar and yet out of place. Geary realized that Rione was exhibiting the same manner Desjani showed when combat loomed. Like Desjani facing Syndic warships, Rione seemed in her element at that instant, ready to do battle in her own way.
The dock was much larger than the one on Dauntless, but the first thing that Geary registered was that his Marine honor guard had deployed around the ramp in a circular formation, facing outward, their weapons in ready positions rather than at present arms and their armor sealed. Raising his gaze, Geary saw that on three sides of the shuttle dock the bulkheads were lined with what seemed to be an entire company of ground forces, all of them armed but none of them armored, the ground troops staring nervously at the Marines.
So Rione had been right. She’d warned him that the grand council might try to arrest him immediately and isolate him from the fleet, in the belief that he would want to become a dictator. Feeling a tight coldness inside at the insult to his honor, Geary stalked down the ramp to where a familiar shape waited. He’d never actually met Admiral Timbale, but he had received several messages from the man, every one begging off any conversation and completely deferring to Geary.