The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

She leaned in, one forefinger to his chest. “I know who you’re thinking of. You think she’s like Midea? I knew Midea a lot longer than you did. Jane Geary isn’t close to that. She’s been a bit reckless, she’s pushed for more action, but she hasn’t been stupid.”

“What about Falco?”

“Falco? Falco was epically stupid, and he thought nothing of spending ships and the lives of crews in the pursuit of his victories.” Her eyes narrowed at him. “You’re thinking of someone else.”

“You really are reading my mind, aren’t you?” At the moment, it didn’t seem a strange thing to believe at all.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who’s the other one you’re thinking of?”

“Kila.”

Desjani glared at him silently for several seconds. “No one deserves to be compared to that murderous bitch, especially not your own grandniece. Keep this in mind, Admiral. I am death on incompetent officers. You know that. Jane Geary isn’t incompetent. She’s smart, but she needs a firm, guiding hand right now. You are her leader. Lead her.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s not funny, Admiral. Now let’s go teach some Kicks not to mess with the Alliance fleet.”

“That reminds me.” Desjani paused to look back at him as Geary frowned at her. “Why didn’t you bring up to me the possibility that the bear-cows would aim at the spider-wolves when we split our fleet?”

“Because you already knew! I knew that you wouldn’t want to admit knowing that could happen, but you know I know my job well enough to spot that, and I know you know enough about tactics to spot that as quickly as I did.”

It took him a moment to work his way through her statement. “Tanya, I hadn’t seen that before it was pointed out.”

“Seriously?” She stared at him, then shrugged. “Sorry, Admiral. You’re good at tactics. You know that. I assume you know things that look obvious and, in this case, were just being diplomatic to avoid saying, ‘Better those ugly suckers than us.’”

“You need to point out things like that to me rather than assume I already know them.”

“So you can say, ‘I know all that’?” Desjani demanded.

“I’ve said that once.”

“I respectfully beg to differ, sir.”

“I— Tanya, why the hell can you sometimes read my mind and other times not have a clue as to what I’m thinking?”

“I knew you were going to say that! No, I can’t ever read your mind. Can we go fight the battle now?”

“Yes.” Unlike this argument, at least he would have a chance of winning the battle.

HE took his seat on the bridge of Dauntless, trying to put out of his mind everything except the coming battle. 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. It sounded very easy. Actually doing it was going to be hard as hell.

But his attempt to concentrate was interrupted by a blip from his comm unit indicating that someone was trying to call. At least that was working right now.

No. It wasn’t working right. The incoming call was from Captain Vente, who had apparently finally realized that he had been completely sidelined since the loss of Invincible. But a call from Vente should have been automatically blocked.

Should he tell Tanya? She didn’t need distractions, either.

But if Dauntless’s comm system was acting up again, she needed to know, and he needed it fixed. “Captain Desjani, my comm settings aren’t being honored by the system.”

Her expression hardened. “Communications. The Admiral’s comms are not working properly. You have fifteen minutes to get everything functional, or this ship will have a new comm officer.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Geary made another effort to get his mind into battle readiness, only to have an alert flash red on his display. Before he could acknowledge it, the image of Spartan’s commanding officer appeared before him. “Admiral, half of my ship just went dark. Preliminary estimate is several power junctions failing nearly instantaneously.”

Damn. Damn. Damn. “Do you still have maneuvering and propulsion?”

“Yes, sir, we have propulsion. We’re jury-rigging maneuvering circuits to get around the problem on the port side and should have adequate capability within five minutes.”

It could be worse. It could be far worse. “How about replacing the power junctions?” Geary asked.

“We only have enough onboard spares to get five of the seven junctions that failed replaced.” Spartan’s captain looked grim. “I am ensuring all records are sealed and damage sites maintained except for necessary repair work. If this was sabotage or negligence, we will identify how it was done.”

“Thank you,” Geary said. “Good thinking. There’s a strong chance, unfortunately, that it was just equipment failure. Were you putting extra stress on your ship’s power systems before the loss of power?”