Victorious

“I’m not,” she assured him. “I’m trying to monitor all of Badaya’s. Getting through your security screens is very difficult thanks to the diligent efforts of Dauntless’s commanding officer, but in that particular case I came in through Badaya’s transmission. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt the man unless he becomes a loose cannon. Right now all of his illusions are useful to us.”

That sounded wrong in any number of ways. “I’m not deceiving him for personal gain. Neither are you.”

“Don’t think you know everything about me, Captain Geary.” Rione smiled coldly. “Trust no one any more than you have to.”

Instead of arguing, he just nodded. Rione remained a riddle, but as far as he could tell, she also remained an ally. He also had no doubt that Desjani, Duellos, and Tulev were keeping a close eye on her for any signs of betrayal.

The wait dragged. Geary could only stand stiffly while Rione leaned against the opposite wall, her eyes distant. Not the first time, Geary wished he could tell what she was thinking.

Timbale eventually returned, shaking his head. “General Firgani was planning an operation to take out your Marine ‘honor guard.’ I finally convinced him of the stupidity of that by contrasting his available assets with the massed weaponry of the fleet, and demonstrating that it would be impossible to overcome a platoon of armored Marines in an outer-shell compartment like that without the entire star system spotting the fireworks. Even Firgani isn’t dumb enough to start a battle that one-sided.”

“And Admiral Otropa?” Rione asked.

“He had a lot of questions about what had gone on after he was asked to leave.” Timbale made no effort to hide his glee. “He wanted me to give him a full report. I told him I was needed back here.” The admiral’s demeanor had changed dramatically, with Timbale now acting as if he were firmly on Geary’s team instead of being terrified of what Geary might do next. “There’s no hidden game here, is there? I can’t see the point of one, but my ancestors know I wouldn’t have seen half of what you did in Syndic space.”

Geary shook his head. “No hidden game, sir.”

“That’s a relief. I don’t mind telling you that.” Timbale looked older for a moment. “A lot of us knew what Bloch intended. Plenty of other officers were jockeying for similar moves.”

“What would you have done had Bloch returned victorious?” Rione asked.

The admiral took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t even answer that, but Captain Geary obviously trusts you. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what I would have done. Truly. A lot of us didn’t. We were as despairing as the rest, didn’t trust the government, knew how frayed the entire Alliance was becoming, didn’t know what else to do. But a coup . . . Have you heard of the quantum cat, Madam Co-President? The one where you have to look in the box to tell whether it’s alive or dead, and the universe doesn’t actually decide one way or the other until you look? It was like that. If Bloch had come back, a lot of us would have been opening that box to see what our hearts told us. Only then could we have seen the answer. I’ll never know that answer now, to my relief and to my shame. As that one senator said, it used to be a lot easier to know what loyalty to the Alliance meant. But maybe it wasn’t easier, and maybe now it’s not really all that complicated. Maybe the answer never changed, just the questions we were asking.”

Rione seemed impressed by Timbale’s candor. “What about when Captain Geary brought the fleet back? You had no similar internal uncertainty?”

“At that point? The fleet believed lost, the Syndics running amuck in this star system, our few defenders barely hanging on, then the fleet appears and swoops down like angels of vengeance on the Syndics, and transmissions tell us that Black Jack is back, that he’s saved the fleet, and now he’s saving us.” Timbale laughed softly. “At that moment, Black Jack was a god.”

“That’s not—” Geary began.

“It’s how you were seen,” Rione said. “I told you it would be that way.”

“Exactly,” Timbale agreed. “Black Jack didn’t need me. It didn’t matter what I did. If I got in the way, I’d be run over, that’s all. I admit I was worried, for myself and for the Alliance, so I kept my distance and watched Captain Geary’s actions, but I’m not fool enough to think he needed my support or would be stopped by my opposition.” He turned a still-puzzled look on Geary. “When you told me at the shuttle dock that you were here to follow orders, I doubted my sanity for a moment. How could you have said that? But you were leaving all of the Marines behind, so you were either sincere or crazy. I decided to hope for sincerity, since if you were crazy, we were all doomed anyway.”

Timbale checked his comm unit as it beeped urgently. “The grand council is ready for us.”