Dreadnaught

But Desjani glanced up when she realized that Shen had arrived, then smiled and gave him a friendly wave. Commander Shen’s eyes went to her, then the lower half of his face seemed to crack like rock being ravaged by an earthquake as he briefly returned the smile before nodding in reply and resuming his irritated expression.

“You know him?” Geary asked Desjani.

“We served together on a heavy cruiser,” she replied. “He’s a very good officer.” As if knowing what Geary was thinking, Desjani added one more thing. “Looks can be deceiving.”

“I’ll take your word for it when it comes to him, anyway.”

“Orion followed orders,” Desjani pointed out.

“Very good point.” If Shen could turn around Orion, he would earn the right to bear any expression he favored.

A moment later, Geary blinked as another commanding officer appeared. This captain seemed to be nearly a twin of Commander Shen, right down to the aggravated appearance, which looked like it rarely varied. Sensing Geary’s focus, the meeting software brought the captain’s image closer and identifying information appeared next to him. Captain Shand Vente. Invincible.

“What happened to Commander Stiles?” Geary asked in amazement.

Desjani glanced up again, then at Vente with clear distaste. “Somebody more senior in rank and with better political connections must have pulled some strings and gotten orders to assume command. Remember, command of a battle cruiser is regarded as an essential ticket punch on the way to making admiral, and if it was hard to make admiral during the war, it’s going to be damn near impossible now that admirals won’t be dying by the handfuls in battles.” Her glance strayed to Geary. “Except for you, of course, who can’t stop getting promoted to admiral over and over again.”

“Lucky me,” Geary muttered. Every once in a while, something like this still happened, something that drove home just how much the century-long war with the Syndics had warped the fleet. It wasn’t that politics had been foreign to senior officers a hundred years before, but political jockeying had been carefully hidden, never blatantly displayed by acts such as relieving another officer of command after only a few months so someone else could get their promotion ticket punched. “Is Vente related to Shen?”

“Why—?” She looked at Vente and did a double take. “Not that I know of.”

Vente, alerted by the conference software that Geary was looking his way, turned his face toward the head of the table. Unlike Shen’s, his annoyed expression didn’t waver as he hesitated, then nodded abruptly before resuming his stare at the table before him as if something irritating rested there.

Feeling sorry for the crew of Invincible but not sure that he would be able to do anything about Vente in the time available, Geary felt comforted by the arrival of Captain Tulev. Almost immediately after Tulev, the commanding officers in his division showed up in their seats, including Commander Bradamont. She sat quietly, looking at no one in particular, just as Geary recalled seeing her at past conferences when he had noticed her at all. If he hadn’t had so many other things to worry about, he probably would have wondered why someone so forceful in combat was so retiring in conferences. But then, considering his problems during that period with officers like Captain Numos, who were more forceful in conferences than in combat, if he had really taken much notice of it, he would probably have just been grateful.

That thought diverted him enough that Geary entered a fast query on Numos’s status. Still awaiting court-martial. The wheels of justice grind slowly sometimes. But they still had time to generate those idiotic charges against over a hundred fleet commanding officers when they should have been dealing with Numos.