The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

Rione nodded calmly. “In my place, they would do such a thing anyway, and so they will believe that I would as well. Beware of people who are certain they are right, Admiral. That certainty allows them to justify almost any act in pursuit of their goals.”

“Like the Syndic CEOs in this star system?” Geary asked, hearing the bitterness in his voice. If only there had been some way to make them personally pay for what happened to Orion . . .

She shook her head. “I’d be very surprised if there’s any idealism there, Admiral, any sense of right and wrong. Those CEOs were doing what they thought would benefit them personally. There might have been private motives of revenge if they had lost someone to the war, but my conversations with former-CEO Iceni at Midway gave me some more insight into the CEO way of thinking. Their internal-security service produced true believers, but everyone else was motivated by self-interest or fear.”

“How does a system like that survive?” Geary asked.

“Self-interest and fear.”

“I was asking a serious question.”

Rione gave him that superior look. “And I was giving you a serious answer. Self-interest and fear work, for a while. Until self-interest, unconstrained by any higher loyalty, becomes more destructive than the system can endure, and until the people’s fear of acting against their system becomes less than their fear of continuing to live with it. Eventually, those things always happen. In the case of the Syndicate Worlds, the war meant that their leaders were able to use fear of us to reinforce fear of going against their system. The Syndicate Worlds is coming apart not just because of the stresses from the war and not just because it lost that war and a great deal of its military in the process, but also because fear of the Alliance can no longer be stoked to bind individuals, and individual star systems, to the Syndicate government.”

“I see.” Geary sat, thinking. “The Alliance is facing some of the same strains because fear of the Syndics helped hold us together.”

“An external enemy is a wonderful thing for politicians to have,” Rione said dryly. “They can excuse and justify a great many things by pointing to that enemy. But that doesn’t mean external enemies are never real. What is that old saying? Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t really out to get you.”

“And the Syndics are still doing what they can to get us.” Geary nodded as a thought came to him. “I’ve been wondering what the Syndic goal is. Why are they attacking us in these ways? They must know they can’t win. But I think you just led me to the answer.”

“I’m wonderful that way, aren’t I?” Rione said. “If you are not in further need of my wise counsel, I will now compose my reply to the latest Syndic demands.”

Geary returned to the bridge and settled back in his fleet command seat, trying for at least the hundredth time not to notice the absence of Orion in the fleet’s formation. After spending months watching Orion because the battleship had been a poorly commanded albatross hanging about the neck of the fleet, and lately watching Orion because Commander Shen had done such a miraculous job of turning around the ship, making her a real asset to the fleet, Geary kept finding himself looking for Orion and not finding her.

He gave Desjani a sidelong glance. She was working stoically, not displaying grief, but he knew Shen had been a good friend of hers. Another shipmate whose name would adorn the plaque she kept in her stateroom to list those who had died and whom Desjani was determined never to forget.

“Yes, Admiral?” Desjani suddenly asked. She hadn’t looked his way, hadn’t shown any sign of noticing his glance, but had somehow known of it.

“I was just . . . thinking,” Geary said.

She met his eyes, and he saw there that she knew what he had been thinking of. It was scary sometimes how well Tanya could read him. “We have to remember, but we can’t spend too much time thinking about things that distract us from what we have to be thinking about.”

“Believe me, I’ve done almost nothing but think about what else the Syndics might be planning to do. I’ve been holding off on a fleet conference because I wanted to have some ideas to talk about to distract everyone from . . . our losses.”

She watched silently for a few seconds. “I doubt anyone can be distracted, Admiral. Not from that. But if we can’t think of ideas, we ought to call in more thinkers. Have you talked to Roberto Duellos? Or Jane Geary? Anyone besides me and that woman?”