The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“No, but however they evolved, they didn’t think in terms of ‘this has to be down and this has to be up.’”

“Have you passed that analysis on to the civilian experts?” Geary asked Smythe.

“Um . . .”

“Please do so as soon as this meeting is over.” He took a moment to be certain he hadn’t forgotten anything. “We know from our encounter at Pandora that the bear-cow superbattleships are extremely tough. Instead of focusing on them, our combat systems will be told to prioritize concentrating fire against the smaller warships accompanying the superbattleships. We’ll peel away those escorts, destroy all of them if necessary, and once the superbattleships are stripped of support, we’ll go after them one by one.”

“What if they run?” Captain Jane Geary asked.

“Then we wave ’bye and watch them go back to the jump exit.” He wasn’t sure how that answer would be taken, not in this fleet, which had long ago fallen back on a single-minded emphasis on attack to replace the tactical expertise wiped out by bloody losses in decade after decade. “If they run, we’ve won. Pursuing a bigger victory would surely cost more lives in this fleet, and I believe that we’ve lost enough humans already at the hands of the bear-cows.”

“We need to teach the Kicks a lesson,” Jane Geary insisted. “Now is the perfect time and place to do that.”

“We need to get home,” Captain Hiyen grumbled in response. “The ships of the Callas Republic are part of this fleet for the purpose of defending our homes. Turning back the Kicks with a bloody nose so they can’t follow us and have no idea where our homes are accomplishes that.”

“The Alliance fleet,” the commander of the heavy cruiser Barding began, “does not turn from battle and does not settle for less than complete victory.”

“Speak for yourself,” the captain of Sapphire replied. “That’s Black Jack, remember? If he says a victory satisfies honor, then I won’t question him. How can any of us?”

“Even Black Jack was just a man,” Jane Geary said, in the manner of someone who had made that kind of statement many times before. From what Geary had learned of her, his grandniece had spent her life resenting the Black Jack legend, which had constrained her and her brother Michael, forcing them into the fleet in the footsteps of their legendary great-uncle. “We do neither ourselves nor our fleet commander any credit by not raising appropriate questions—”

“This is not a debate.” Geary didn’t realize that he had said that, in tones that sliced across the conversation, until after every face turned toward him. “I am in command. This is the plan we will follow. Are there any other questions?”

There weren’t. As the officers vanished around him, leaving only Tanya Desjani still with him, Geary struggled to get his temper under control.

“I tried talking to her earlier,” Desjani said. “She was polite enough to me but no more than that. I made some joke about being part of the family now, and the temperature around her seemed to drop close to absolute zero.”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“I think I’m beginning to.” Tanya stood up, her lips pressed tightly together. “She hated being a Geary, all her life she hated having to live in your shadow—”

“It was never my shadow!”

“All right. Black Jack’s shadow. The point is, she might have hated it, but it was her. She was a Geary. Everyone looked at her as being part of that, even if she didn’t like it. Now . . .” Tanya shrugged. “Now you’re back. You’re Black Jack himself, and don’t bother interrupting again to deny it, and you suck all of the oxygen out of her world just by being here. She’s just Jane now. And I’m your partner. Chosen to be with you. Where does that leave her?”

Geary stood silently for a while. “Trying to be something.”

“Yeah. Because she thinks everything she was is gone. Something has to replace that. She changed after she went back to your home world, remember? What do you think people said there? In how many ways was she forced to measure herself against not a legend but against a real person? Now she’s going to prove she’s a Geary.”

He stared toward the bulkhead before him, seeing not the surface there but images of other captains who had sought glory. Captain Midea charging Paladin to destruction at Lakota. Captain Falco, leading Triumph, Polaris, and Vanguard to their deaths at Vidha. Captain Kila, cold-bloodedly arranging the destruction of Lorica at Padronis, while also trying to cause the loss of Dauntless with all hands.

Those officers had thought themselves heroic, and ships and crews had paid the price.

There was a way to prevent that.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Tanya said.

He focused on her. “What wouldn’t be a good idea?”

“Relieving her of command.”

“How did you—?”