The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“Yes, Admiral.” Bradamont came to attention again. “Thank you.”

Barely half an hour later his hatch alert chimed. “Come in.”

Rione entered, walking in as if she owned the place, went to a seat, and dropped into it. “I had a thought that I wished to share,” she began.

He watched her warily, wondering why Rione seemed so casually cheerful. She hadn’t acted that way since she had rejoined the fleet at the start of this mission. “And what would that be?”

“Wouldn’t it be of great benefit to the Alliance to have an officer assigned to duty here long term? In this star system? What do you call it, a liaison officer?”

Now what was Rione up to? “A liaison officer. Left here.”

“Right.” Rione paused as if thinking. “Of course, that officer would have to be relatively senior given the importance of the assignment, and given the suspicions between our people and those here, it would be very helpful if she already had some sort of liaison among them.”

“Liaison?”

“A personal relationship. Perhaps with one of their officers. I know that’s a crazy idea, but—”

“How the hell did you break into my conferencing software this time?” Geary demanded.

“In any event,” Rione continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “you’d have to find someone willing to accept official orders to remain here. Someone who knows the Syndics well enough to spot some of their tricks because even though these Syndics have changed their spots, they still doubtless play the same games.”

“Official orders?” Was she actually helping?

“The Alliance needs someone to keep an eye on things,” Rione said, studying her fingernails as she spoke. “Someone who can offer guidance to these people on proper military and governmental relationships. Someone who can perhaps suggest democratic reforms.” She cocked her head sideways as if a thought had just occurred to her. “Perhaps even a little advice on how to fight battles if the defenders of this star system needed it.”

“You’re suggesting the perfect solution to both my problem for offering support to this star system, and to Captain Bradamont’s personal problem. Why?”

Rione frowned in thought. “It could be my inner compassionate nature asserting itself.”

“It doesn’t do that very often,” Geary observed. “Especially not lately.”

“Then maybe my inner bitch, which doesn’t differ too much from my outer bitch, wants to ruin the plans of certain parties back in Alliance space.” Rione met his eyes. “A fleet officer who communicated with the enemy after she was liberated from being a Syndic prisoner of war? Who passed information to the enemy? To an enemy officer for whom she had personal feelings? Think of the possibilities if a leak of that information was threatened.”

Geary leaned toward her, his voice hardening as he spoke. “If you’re aware of that much, then you also know that those communications were at the orders of military intelligence to pass false information to the Syndics.”

“Yes, Admiral, I know that, too. I also know that people can be blackmailed, especially if the matter involved is classified so that those who actually know extenuating information aren’t allowed to speak.”

He sat back, wondering that he could still be shocked. “Someone is blackmailing Bradamont? You know that?”

“Yes. I do know,” Rione replied in a low voice, her eyes on her fingernails again. “Or, rather, someone is prepared to blackmail her. It’s all ready to go. Hints have been dropped to Bradamont, vague warnings of what might happen if certain things became widely known.”

That explained some of the stress he had seen in Bradamont. “Why?”

“To force her to spy again, this time against someone other than the Syndics, someone who might occupy this very stateroom, and perhaps even to force her into actions that she would not otherwise ever agree to.”

Geary had to pause awhile to absorb that, then to fight down the anger that arose inside him at the thought of such tactics. “Captain Bradamont was given command of Dragon before I was found.”

Rione raised one eyebrow toward him. “Do you think that you’re the only possible target of such spying and sabotage? The virtue of such a weapon put into place is that it can be employed against whatever target is deemed necessary. If you had never been found, and if Admiral Bloch had lived, he would have been the target.”

“And what would have happened to the weapon?”

“Weapons, by their nature,” Rione said, “are expendable.” Her tone of voice, flat and hard, made it clear what she thought of such an approach.

“If I judge Bradamont right, she wouldn’t give in to that blackmail,” Geary said.

“And you’d lose a battle cruiser commander.”

“One way or the other.” Recalled by the government, ordered relieved of command by fleet staff until the “allegations” were investigated, charges leaked to the media so that her name was dragged through the mud, perhaps even driven to an “honorable” suicide by the contempt and anger of her fellow officers. “You’re not just helping Captain Bradamont’s love life. You’re saving her life and her honor.”