Dreadnaught

Geary caught the flash of melancholy in her eyes at that praise, but Tanya simply nodded. “I will keep an eye on things while you’re in the meeting, Admiral,” she said.

“You don’t have to be formal with your husband among just us,” Timbale advised her.

“Yes, sir, I do,” Desjani told him. “When in any professional context, he is Admiral Geary, and I am Captain Desjani. We’re both agreed on that.”

They turned a corner and at the other end of that corridor saw what must be the first layer of security, a checkpoint occupied by an entire squad of soldiers. “How many of these are there?” Geary asked Timbale.

“Enough soldiers and checkpoints spread through this sector of the station to occupy an entire ground forces brigade,” Timbale said. “No money for a lot of other things but plenty of money for obsessive security. Every way in and out, and I mean every way, has more than one checkpoint securing it. No communications in or out, either. Totally secure and totally isolated. Once you get past a couple of those checkpoints, you won’t be able to send or receive messages.”

Geary’s comm link beeped urgently. “I guess we’re lucky that whatever this is got here now.” He gave it a look, saw who the message was from, and called it up while still walking. As he read, he came to an abrupt halt, causing Timbale and Desjani to stumble to a stop as well and stare at him with mingled curiosity and worry. “What’s happened?” Desjani asked.

“Nothing yet. But—” Geary choked off his words, fury building inside him as he tried to stay calm. “Captain Duellos informs me that the fleet has just received notification of courts-martial charges being filed against a large number of commanding officers. He’s forwarded the message to me.”

If Timbale was feigning surprise and disbelief, he was doing a good job of it. “What? I haven’t seen—May I, Admiral?”

Geary offered his unit, and Timbale read rapidly. “Unbelievable. Over a hundred of the current commanding officers. The charges are technically justified, but what kind of idiot . . .” His jaw tightened. “Actually, I can think of several idiots who might be responsible. A few of them are assigned to fleet headquarters at the moment. I told you that headquarters was trying to assert their control, but I didn’t think they’d do something this stupid.”

“I see that I am also under charges,” Desjani said, her voice again deadly calm. “They want to gut the fleet’s command structure, Admiral.”

Timbale waved his free hand at the comm unit. “Every one of those commanding officers would have to be at least temporarily relieved of command! While we’re still trying to get the fleet repaired, refitted, and resupplied! It’ll cause total chaos!” He made a motion as if to throw the comm unit in frustration, then remembered that it was Geary’s and handed it back. “It’s a good thing you got here just before this broke. If it had been received earlier, all hell would have broken loose. You’re the only one who can stop a very serious overreaction by the fleet.”

But Desjani had adopted her combat-cool attitude again, her eyes fixed on Geary’s own. “It might be that you’re wrong, Admiral Timbale. Not about the fleet’s reaction, but about when this message was supposed to be received. Is it possible that somebody jumped the gun? Perhaps it was intended for this to be received by the fleet while Admiral Geary was already inside with representatives of the government and thus unable to learn of it in time to do anything about it while facing the government representatives, or to keep the fleet from immediately overreacting when the fleet heard of it.”

“Is that the intention?” Geary asked from between clenched teeth. “Making the fleet overreact? My first thought was that this is directly aimed at me, because most of these officers could be seen as loyal to me, but . . .”

Admiral Timbale took a moment to calm himself, then shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe. But with you out of communications, we also wouldn’t have been able to tell the fleet what you were doing, what your status was. If anyone wanted to assume that you’d been seized by the government—”

“That’s too big,” Desjani said. “You’re right, Admiral Timbale. It could far too easily happen, but I can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to want it to happen.”

“As opposed,” Geary said, “to being stupid enough to cause it unintentionally?”

Timbale nodded quickly. “Yes. That would fit with the other things that fleet headquarters has been doing. ‘We’re in charge!’ They probably got some reports back of the fleet’s attitudes toward their earlier dictates and are escalating with this.”

“Probably not the government, then?” Navarro had not struck Geary as the type, or as foolish enough to push such an action, but then, Geary wasn’t a politician.