Dreadnaught

Cresida was the only fleet officer who could have contributed . . . Damn, I miss Jaylen. A fine officer. Brilliant, like Neeson said. But if she was the only one who could be said to have real expertise, according to Commander Neeson, who is perhaps the most capable hypernet knowledgeable person I still have in the fleet, then I believe I am justified in responding appropriately to this message.

Geary tapped the respond command. “In reply to your request, a review and evaluation of fleet personnel turned up none who in my judgment satisfy your needs.”

The worst they could do was question his judgment, and he was getting used to having people do that. Since being awakened from survival sleep, he had seen his judgment questioned more often than since he was an ensign. But all that mattered in the short term was avoiding losing a lot of personnel his ships needed. Maybe whoever at headquarters had generated this odd request would manage to shoot another demand to him before the fleet left in two weeks, but he could stall that one easily with the little time that would be left at that point. In any case, it was better to receive a complaint that he hadn’t offered a good enough reply this time than to transfer all of those men and women before the fleet left Varandal.

At least most of my problems seem to be at headquarters these days instead of being here in the fleet.

Another chime sounded, alerting him to a call. Timbale. That shouldn’t be too bad.

Admiral Timbale’s image appeared, smiling encouragingly. “Good news.”

“I could use some.”

“Your experts are arriving tomorrow.”

Geary waited, then asked. “Experts? On what?”

“Intelligent nonhuman species.”

“We have experts on that? Until we found the enigmas, we didn’t even know any existed, and we just confirmed the existence of the enigmas a few months ago.”

“That’s true,” Timbale admitted. “But science and academia have nonetheless been producing experts on the subject for centuries now. Not too many in recent centuries, I gather. Apparently, the dearth of intelligent nonhuman species actually discovered managed to slow down the production of experts on that topic. But there are some. You’re apparently getting most of the experts on the subject who exist within the Alliance. They are, I am told, thrilled to be coming along.”

Geary felt the old headache making another appearance. “How many?”

“Twenty-one. All civilians. Fourteen of them are full-scale doctors.”

“I’m still waiting to hear the good news. Where am I supposed to put twenty-one civilian experts on nonhuman intelligent species who have never actually heard about or read about or encountered an actual nonhuman intelligent species?”

Timbale made an apologetic gesture. “They are the best humanity has on that topic. If I may make a suggestion, one of the assault transports would be a good place to keep them. You should have plenty of extra staterooms on one of them, and if the professors and doctors get bored, they can study the Marines.”

“That should generate some interesting conclusions,” Geary said. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll have General Carabali take our experts in hand and decide which transport to put them on.”

A week later, he looked up in alarm. The knocks on his stateroom hatch were so forceful that they evoked images of grapeshot slamming into a warship’s armor at a velocity of several thousand kilometers a second. Before the tremors from the last of the knocks had subsided, the hatch slammed open, and Tanya Desjani stormed into the stateroom, looking inflamed enough to spit plasma. “What is that woman doing on my ship again?”

SIX

GEARY knew how stunned he looked because that matched how he felt. There was only one woman who could produce a reaction like that in Desjani. “Rione? Victoria Rione?”

Her eyes fixed on him, blazing with anger. “You didn’t know?”

“She’s aboard Dauntless? When? How?”

Still plainly enraged, but mollified by Geary’s surprise at the news, Desjani nodded stiffly. “She came aboard with the routine daily shuttle flight. I didn’t learn that until she came off the shuttle a couple of minutes ago.” Pacing back and forth, Desjani turned a sour look on him. “You’re lucky that you’re such a lousy liar. That made it obvious you hadn’t known she was coming. If you had known and hadn’t told me—”

“Tanya, I’m not that stupid. What the hell is she doing on Dauntless ?”

“Since you can’t tell me, I suppose you’ll have to ask her.”