Victorious

Desjani stepped toward him as he approached, while Rione went through the hatch into the dock. “The shuttle and your escort are ready,” Desjani reported. She frowned slightly as she examined him, reaching to make tiny adjustments to some of his ribbons. “The fleet will be standing by.”

“Tanya, I’m counting on you, Duellos, and Tulev to keep things from going nova. Badaya should be working with you to keep anyone in the fleet from overreacting and causing a disaster, but you three also need to make sure Badaya doesn’t overreact.”

She nodded calmly. “Of course, sir. But you do realize that none of us will be able to hold things back if the grand council overreacts.” Stepping closer, Desjani lowered her voice and rested one hand on his forearm, a rare gesture, which emphasized her words. “Listen to her. This is her battlefield, her weapons.”

“Rione?” He had never expected to hear Desjani urging him to pay attention to Rione’s advice.

“Yes.” Stepping back again, Desjani saluted, only her eyes betraying her worries. “Good luck, sir.”

He returned the salute and walked into the dock. Nearby, the bulk of a fleet shuttle loomed, an entire platoon of Marines forming an honor guard on either side of its loading ramp.

An entire platoon of Marines in full battle armor, with complete weapons loadout.

Before he could say anything, a Marine major stepped forward and saluted. “I’m assigned to command your honor guard, Captain Geary. We’ll accompany you to the meeting with the grand council.”

“Why are your troops in battle armor?” Geary asked.

The major didn’t hesitate at all. “Varandal Star System remains in Attack Imminent alert status, sir. Regulations require my troops to be at maximum combat readiness when participating in official movements under such an alert status.”

How convenient. Geary glanced toward Rione, who didn’t seem the least bit surprised at the combat footing of the Marines. Desjani had obviously been in on this, too. But then Colonel Carabali, the fleet’s Marine commander, must have approved of the decision as well. Despite his own misgivings at arriving to speak to his political superiors with a combat-ready force at his back, Geary decided that trying to override the collective judgment of Desjani, Rione, and Carabali wasn’t likely to be wise. “Very well. Thank you, Major.”

The Marines raised their weapons to present arms as Geary walked up the ramp, Rione beside him, bringing his arm up in a salute acknowledging the honors being rendered him. At times like this, when he seemed to have been saluting constantly for an hour, even he wondered at the wisdom of having reintroduced that gesture of respect into the fleet.

He and Rione went through to the small VIP cabin just aft of the pilots’ cockpit, the Marines filing in behind them to take seats in the shuttle’s main compartment. Geary strapped in, gazing at the display panel before him, where a remote image showed stars glittering against the endless night of space. It might have been a window, if anyone had been crazy enough to put a physical window in the hull of a ship or a shuttle.

“Nervous?” Rione asked.

“Can’t you tell?”

“Not really. You’re doing a good job.”

“Thanks. What were you and Desjani plotting about when I got to the shuttle dock?”

“Just some girl talk,” Rione said airily, waving a negligent hand. “War, the fate of humanity, the nature of the universe. That sort of thing.”

“Did you reach any conclusions I should know about?”

She gave him a cool look, then smiled with apparently genuine reassurance. “We think you’ll do fine as long as you are yourself. Both of us have your back. Feel better?”

“Much better, thank you.” Status lights revealed the shuttle’s ramp rising and sealing, the inner dock doors closing, the outer doors opening, then the shuttle rose, pivoted in place with jaunty smoothness, and tore out into space. Geary felt himself grinning. Autopilots could drive a shuttle technically as well as any human, and better in many cases, but only humans could put a real sense of style into their piloting. On his display, the shape of Dauntless dwindled rapidly as the shuttle accelerated. “This is the first time I’ve been off Dauntless,” he suddenly realized.

“Since your survival pod was picked up, you mean,” Rione corrected.

“Yeah.” His former home and former acquaintances were gone, vanished into a past a century old. Dauntless had become his home, her crew his family. It felt odd to leave them.