Dreadnaught

When he finished, she shook her head. “I never knew that even Alliance politicians could pack that many contradictory commands into one single order. How are you supposed to penetrate space belonging to a species with proven hostile intent while also avoiding hostilities? How are you supposed to establish communications with them while respecting their concepts of privacy, whatever those are? And how are you to reach any agreements with the aliens without somehow restricting our own options in the future?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Geary admitted. “How big a problem do you think we’ll have with the crews? Being sent out on a mission like this when they had every right to expect a long time at home?”

“Problems?” Desjani exhaled with obvious annoyance. “The government knows that the only leader the fleet would follow is you because they trust you to bring them home again. If anyone else were in command, there’d be major trouble.”

That made him feel worse. “Because they trust me, they’ll follow me into what could be a major mess.”

“Admiral.” Her tone made him look directly into Tanya’s eyes. “You have a very difficult course to steer. Without you, the fleet would currently be blowing apart Varandal.”

“If I weren’t here, that problem wouldn’t have even come up.”

“Oh, excuse me, Admiral. If you weren’t here, then the fleet would have been destroyed several months ago back in the Syndic home star system, and the Syndics would be blowing apart Varandal and everything else they could reach in the Alliance.”

“Why isn’t that enough?” Geary demanded. “Why does the fate of the Alliance still depend upon me?”

“I told you that the living stars might not be done with you,” Desjani said. “As to why, we’ll have to ask our ancestors that question, but one thing I do know is that, in this case, those responsibilities have been given to someone who can handle them.”

“Tanya.” He pressed one palm hard against his eyes. “How am I supposed to support the government, and support the fleet, when each of them thinks the other is out to destroy it?”

Desjani’s hand came to rest on his, and he heard her speak in a somber voice. “Try to keep either one from doing anything stupid.”

“Is that all?” He felt a disbelieving laugh coming and let it out, the sound filling the compartment for a moment. “How can anyone keep other people from doing stupid things? Humans are good at doing stupid things. It’s one of our talents, and one we like to exercise frequently.”

She didn’t answer immediately. “If you don’t exercise a talent, you get rusty,” Desjani finally said. “We stay in practice by doing stupid things often. Can you imagine if humans were bad at being stupid? It might take centuries to do the amount of damage to ourselves that we can now achieve within months.”

He opened his eyes, staring at her serious expression, then noticed one corner of her mouth quivering as Desjani tried to keep a smile suppressed. “When did you acquire this wicked sense of humor, Tanya?”

“It’s a small part of my attempts to remain sane. And, speaking of insane people, shall we talk about events during the almost revolution a short time ago? You should have a rundown on that before you meet with everyone.”

Geary grasped her hand for a moment before releasing it. “I may have to steer the course, but you’re keeping me on it. You’re right. I couldn’t hear any of the messages that must have been flying in the back channels. I saw one update, so I know some of the ships involved. Illustrious, of course.”

She bared her teeth. “Badaya kept raising hell. He was the hardest to deal with, insisting that the government was trying to get rid of you and all of your supporters in the fleet while all but calling me a widow. If we’d been in the same compartment, I would have been extremely tempted to empty a sidearm into him.”

“That would have shut him up,” Geary said.

“Well, yeah, that would have been an extra benefit.”

Deciding not to pursue the problem of Badaya for the moment, Geary mentally ran through the long list of warships present in Varandal. “Dreadnaught.”

“Yes.” Desjani seemed uncomfortable, then shrugged. “She insisted that you needed help.”

“Even though you passed on my order.”

“Right. Jane Geary was very aggressive about confronting the government, and she hauled more than one other warship in her wake as you probably saw.”

It didn’t make sense. “She wasn’t one of the officers being charged or relieved of command by that message. Dreadnaught wasn’t even part of the fleet until after the battle here. And Jane ended up in command of a battleship instead of a battle cruiser because she was judged not to be forceful enough. What made her fly off the handle?”