Текст книги "Valiant"

Автор книги: Jack Campbell

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“No. Any military value it has doesn’t outweigh the suffering such actions would cause civilian inhabitants of this star system.”

“And you truly saved people from Wendig? We thought no one was left there.” The woman seemed about ready to break down. “Everyone was supposed to have been removed when the system was abandoned.”

“The people we evacuated told us that the corporation they or their parents were employed by never sent ships. They had no way of finding out why, of course. Perhaps you can help them with that,” Geary added pointedly.

“H-how many?”

“Five hundred sixty-three.” He could see the question on her face, the same question all of the Syndics, and many of the Alliance personnel, kept asking. Why? Irritated at again having to be faced with a question whose answer he thought obvious, Geary spoke roughly. “That’s all.”

Desjani was once again pretending to be absorbed in something on her own display.

“When are we loading the Syndics into the shuttles?” Geary asked, his voice angry still.

“They should be on their way to the shuttle dock now,” Desjani replied in a tone that sounded suspiciously soothing to Geary. He was trying to decide whether to get irritated by that, too, when she stood up. “I was about to go down to see them off.”

Calming himself, Geary stood as well. “May I come along?”

“Of course, sir.”

The same scene as from eleven days ago was playing out on the shuttle dock, though in reverse as the column of Syndic civilians shuffled onto the shuttle, some pausing to wave quickly to individual members of Dauntless’s crew who had come to the shuttle dock and stood to one side, watching silently. The Marines seemed as menacing as ever in their battle armor, but the Syndics appeared to be less terrified of them.

The former mayor of Alpha turned to Geary and Desjani as they walked up. “Thank you. I wish I knew what else to say. None of us will forget this.”

To Geary’s surprise, Desjani answered. “If given the chance in the future, offer the same mercy to Alliance citizens.”

“I promise you that we shall, and we’ll tell others to do the same.”

The mayor’s wife moved forward to gaze intently at Desjani. “Thank you, lady, for my children’s lives.”

“Captain,” Desjani corrected, but bent one corner of her mouth in a crooked smile. She looked slightly down and nodded to the boy, who gazed back at her solemnly, then saluted in the Syndic fashion. Desjani returned the salute, then looked back to the mother.

“Thank you, Captain,” that woman stated. “May this war end before my children have to face your fleet in battle.”

Desjani nodded wordlessly again, then watched with Geary as the last of the Syndic civilians walked quickly into the shuttles. As the last hatch sealed, she spoke so quietly only Geary could hear. “It’s easier when they don’t have faces.”

It took him a moment to realize what she meant. “You mean the enemy.”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever met a Syndic before?”

“Only prisoners of war,” Desjani replied in a dismissive tone. “Syndics who’d been trying to kill me and other Alliance citizens a short time before.” Her eyes closed for a moment. “I don’t know what happened to most of them. I do know what happened to some of them.”

Geary hesitated to ask the obvious question. A short time after assuming command of the fleet, he’d learned to his horror that enemy prisoners of war were sometimes casually killed, the outgrowth of a hundred years of war in which atrocity had fueled atrocity. He’d never asked Desjani if she had participated in such a crime.

But she opened her eyes and looked steadily at him. “I watched it happen. I didn’t pull any triggers, I didn’t issue any orders, but I watched it, and I didn’t stop it.”

He nodded, keeping his own eyes on hers. “You’d been taught that it was acceptable.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“Your ancestors-”

“Told me it was wrong,” Desjani interrupted, something she rarely did with Geary. “I knew it, I felt it, I didn’t listen. I take responsibility for my actions. I know I’ll pay the price for that. Perhaps that’s why we lost so many ships in the Syndic home system. Perhaps that’s why the war has kept going all of these years. We’re being punished, for straying from what was right because we believed wrong to be necessary. ”

He wasn’t about to reject her, or condemn someone who’d already accepted a full measure of blame. But he could stand alongside her. “Yeah, maybe we are being punished.”

Desjani frowned. “Sir? Why would you be punished for things done while you weren’t with us?”

“I’m with you now, aren’t I? I’m part of this fleet and loyal to the Alliance. If you’re being punished, then so am I. I didn’t suffer through all the years of war that you have, but all I knew was taken from me.”

She shook her head, frowning deeper. “You just said this is your fleet, and the Alliance has your loyalty. Thosethings weren’t taken from you.”

Geary frowned back at her, surprised to realize he’d never thought of it that way.

Desjani gave him an intent look. “They sent you when we needed you. They gave us a second chance. They gave youa second chance, instead of letting you die in the battle at Grendel or afterward, when your escape pod’s systems would have eventually given out. We’re being offered mercy if we can prove ourselves worthy of it.”

She had startled him again, with a point of view he’d never considered, and by including him as part of them all. Not a separate hero out of myth but one of them. “Maybe you’re right,” Geary stated. “We can’t win this war by destruction unless we go all out with the hypernet gates and commit species suicide. If this war is ever to end, we’ll not only have to beat them on the battlefield but also be willing to forgive the Syndics if they’re willing to express real remorse. Maybe we’re being given an example to follow.”

She was silent for a few moments, and he stayed quiet as well. The shuttle dock internal doors sealed between them and the shuttle, then the external ones opened, and the bird lifted off, carrying its passengers to the Syndic facility. Finally, Desjani looked back at him. “I’ve spent a long time wanting to punish the Syndics, to hurt them as they’ve hurt us.”

“I can understand why,” Geary said. “Thanks for going along with me on helping those civilians. I know it went against a lot of what you believe.”

“What I believed,” Desjani amended. She was quiet for a moment longer, but Geary waited, sensing that she had something else to say. “But that cycle of vengeance never ends. I realized something. I don’t want to have to kill that boy someday, when he’s old enough to fight.”

“Me, neither. Or his father or his mother. And I don’t want that boy trying to kill Alliance citizens. How can we end this, Tanya?”

“You’ll think of a way, sir.”

“Thanks.”

He meant it sarcastically, and was sure it sounded sarcastic, but Desjani smiled slightly at him. “Did you see how they looked at us? They were afraid, then they were disbelieving, and finally they were grateful.” She stopped smiling and looked outward. “I like fighting. I like going head-to-head with the best the Syndics have. But I’ve had enough of killing people like those. Can we convince the Syndics to stop bombarding civilian targets?”

“We can try. Our bombardment weapons are accurate enough that we can certainly continue to keep taking out industrial targets while minimizing civilian losses.”

Her face was grim now. “They kill ours, and we don’t kill theirs?”

“It’ll have to be a mutual deal. When we get back, we’ll tell them, stop bombarding our people, and we’ll continue not bombarding yours.”

“Why would they-?” Desjani stopped talking in mid-question, then gave Geary a long look. “And they might believe we’d abide by that since you’ve been demonstrating the willingness to do so.”

“Maybe.”

“And if they don’t stop?”

“We keep taking out their industry and military targets.” Desjani grimaced. “Listen, Tanya, if there’s nothing for those people to build or fight with, they’re a burden to the Syndics who have to worry about feeding them and taking care of them.”

“They’ll build new industrial sites. New defenses.”

“And we’ll blow those away, too.” Geary jerked his head to indicate roughly the space outside of Dauntless’s hull. “Ever since humanity achieved routine space travel, we’ve had the ability to destroy things with rocks tossed from space far faster and easier than humans on planets can build things. The Syndics can sink endless effort and resources into rebuilding and never catch up.”

She thought about that, then nodded. “You’re right. But that same logic applied a long time ago when we started bombarding civilian populations as well as military and industrial targets. Why did we start, all those decades ago?”

“I don’t know.” Geary cast his mind back, trying to imagine the point at which the people he had known a century earlier had changed to become people like those now. But there hadn’t been any point, any single event, rather what Victoria Rione had called a slippery slope in which one seemingly reasonable decision to escalate led to another. “Maybe revenge for Syndic bombardments of Alliance worlds. Maybe a tactic of desperation when the war kept going on and on. An attempt to break the enemy morale. We studied that when I was a junior officer, but as a lesson in what hadn’t worked. Time and again in history people tried bombarding enemies enough to make them quit. But when the enemies thought their own homes or beliefs were in danger, they never quit. Totally irrational, but then we’re human. ”

“Syndic bombardments never made us want to give up,” Desjani agreed. “We’re very frustrated with our leaders, but we want them to win. We don’t want them to surrender. But not many people, especially in the fleet, still believe our leaders can win this war. That’s why-”

He glanced at her as she stopped speaking again. “Why I got a certain offer from Captain Badaya? You know about it, too?”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. It’s being widely talked about.”

“I won’t, Tanya. I won’t betray the Alliance that way, by accepting the offer to become a dictator. I told Badaya that.” She looked at the deck, her face expressionless. “It wouldn’t work, and it’d be wrong.”

Desjani spoke very, very quietly. “I have to ask you, have you been offered something else? If you agreed?”

He tried to remember, because whatever it was seemed to bother her a great deal, but couldn’t come up with anything.

“No. Nothing specific. It’s all been couched in very general terms.”

“You’re certain?” Her voice was angry now though still very quiet. “You haven’t been promised anything else, Captain Geary?” He shook his head, letting his puzzlement show. “Any oneelse, Captain Geary?”

Anyone else? What could-? He was certain his shock showed. “You mean you?” he whispered, too stunned to speak in euphemisms.

She looked at him again, studying his face, and seemed to relax. “Yes. I’ve been urged by some individuals to… offer myself. I’ve wondered if they had offered me on their own.”

Geary felt heat in his face, embarrassment and anger rising in tandem. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so filled with rage. “Who?” he whispered savagely. “Who the hell had the bloody nerve to dare suggest such a thing to you? You’re not some prize or playing piece. Tell me who they are, and I’ll-” This time he had to choke off his words, aware that even a fleet commander couldn’t threaten to rip subordinates into tiny pieces and vent them out the air lock.

Desjani gave him a thin-lipped smile. “I can defend my own honor, sir. But thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Tanya, I swear, if I find out-”

“Let me deal with it, sir. Please.” He nodded reluctantly. “We should get back to the bridge, sir, to monitor what’s going on.” Another nod. One corner of Desjani’s mouth bent farther upward. “You wouldn’t make a good dictator, would you?”

“Probably not.”

“Perhaps there’s a reason for that, too.”

He kept waiting for something to go wrong, but the Alliance shuttles dropped off every Syndic civilian and lifted off again, then returned to their ships without any Syndic attempts to interfere with the operation. “Did we actually carry out an operation without the Syndics trying to double-cross us and booby-trap everything in sight?” Desjani asked.

“Looks like it. And so far our own double-crossers haven’t sprung any more traps on us, either.” Geary studied the display, as unwilling to believe it as Desjani. The shuttles all recovered, the Alliance fleet was cutting across one arc of Cavalos Star System toward the jump point that could access either Anahalt or Dilawa. “Three more days to the jump point?”

“Yes, sir. Unless something else happens.” Desjani clenched her jaw as alerts sounded. “And something just did.”

Syndic warships were becoming visible at the jump point they were heading toward.

TEN

“TEN Syndic battleships, twelve battle cruisers, seventeen heavy cruisers, twenty-five light cruisers, forty-two Hunter-Killers, ” the operations watch-stander announced.

“Roughly half our strength,” Desjani observed, “though we’ve got a much bigger advantage in lighter units. Will they avoid action or fight?”

“They’ve got to have orders to stop us or delay us,” Geary pointed out. “To do either of those things, they have to fight.”

“They might be too frightened to fight after what this fleet did at Lakota.” Then Desjani paused as something occurred to her. “They may not know what happened at Lakota. They may assume the pursuit force we destroyed at Lakota is still after us and may appear at any moment.”

“You’re probably right, since they came from either Anahalt or Dilawa.” Geary watched as the eight-light-hours-distant images of the Syndic formation could be seen coming around onto a new vector. The Syndics had already had eight hours to decide what to do and get started doing it. “It’s a standard Syndic box formation so far.”

“Maybe this CEO will be as stupid as the one at Kaliban,” Desjani suggested. That enemy commander had simply charged head-on at the superior numbers of the Alliance fleet, allowing Geary to annihilate the enemy forces by bringing all of his firepower to bear.

“That’d be nice,” Geary agreed, “but we can’t count on it. I’ve got a suspicion that we’re killing stupid CEOs faster than the Syndics are promoting them.”

“I’ve found it hard to overestimate the ability of any system to promote stupid people.”

With the promise of combat looming, Desjani was in a good enough mood to crack jokes, although Geary had to admit she had a point. “Let’s assume he or she isn’t stupid. Do you think they’ll try hitting our flanks with fast runs, or if I have the formation divided, will they try to hit one of the subformations head-on?”

Desjani considered that. “They’ve been taught to fight like we used to fight, with head-on charges. Even if they try something fancy, it’s more likely to be a charge against one portion of our formation rather than a firing pass against a flank or corner like you taught us. That’s what I’d expect.”

Ideally, he’d just concentrate his own fleet into one big formation for the Syndic to charge toward. But such a big formation wouldn’t allow all of his ships to engage the smaller enemy formation, negating a lot of his superiority. On the other hand, if the Syndic was going to aim for a subformation rather than going straight for the main body of the fleet, tactics like those at Kaliban wouldn’t work either. He’d have to use something different.

Rione reached the bridge then, pausing to look at the display before her seat before addressing Geary. “What do you plan on doing?”

Geary indicated his own display, where the sweeping arc of the Syndic formation’s projected course and speed was coming around and steadying on a vector that intercepted the arc of the Alliance fleet’s own path, the two curved lines bending across light-hours of distance to join like twin sabers clashing. “I plan on meeting the enemy, Madam Co-President, in a little less than a day and a half.”

Rione looked from her display with its readout of the enemy’s numbers, then to Geary, and shook her head. “It’s like fighting a hydra. No matter how many Syndic warships we destroy, there are always more.”

“They keep building them, and unlike us, they can get reinforcements,” Geary pointed out.

“I’d recommend trying to capture this CEO alive, Captain Geary. He or she may be able to answer some questions for us.”

“I’ll do my best, Madam Co-President.”

“CAPTAIN, we’re receiving a very tightly focused transmission from the direction of the primary inhabited world. It’s addressed to Captain Geary.”

Desjani gave him a wary look. They were still almost eight hours from contact with the Syndic flotilla, not having assumed their combat formation yet. “I’ll take it,” Geary advised. “Let Captain Desjani see it, too.”

The window that popped up before him showed an older woman seated at a desk, wearing a midrank Syndic CEO uniform. “I suppose you’re wondering why the senior Syndicate Worlds’ officer in this star system is communicating with you, Captain Geary, and doing it in a manner that minimizes any chance anyone else will discover that she did so.”

She gestured to a picture on the desk, of a young man Geary vaguely recognized. “I had a brother, long dead in an accident, I thought. Now I havea brother, and the knowledge that a corporation tied to a very senior Syndicate Worlds’ leader wrote off actually removing him and hundreds of his coworkers from Wendig because it shaved a small amount off the expenses column in that corporation’s annual report. I also have a sister-in-law and some nieces and a nephew I’d never known of, all of whom owe their lives to you.”

The face in the picture suddenly clicked in Geary’s mind. It was the mayor of Alpha, though decades younger.

The Syndic planetary CEO shook her head. “Not to mention all of the lives that would have been lost in this star system if you had chosen to bombard this planet. But I’ve heard from people in places like Corvus and Sutrah and even Sancere, so I know you’ve been behaving the same way everywhere, striking only at military targets or industrial sites in retaliation for our own attacks on you. I don’t know how many millions or billions of Syndicate Worlds’ citizens you might have easily killed, but I do know you didn’t do it.”

Now the Syndic planetary CEO smiled grimly. “Now I find myself thanking the Alliance fleet for all of those lives even though my orders are to take any actions that might cost you any ships or delay you in any way, regardless of the potential loss to the inhabitants of this star system. I’m well aware of the situation you find yourself in. We’ve been told a half dozen times that your fleet was trapped and soon to be destroyed. How you’ve made it this far the living stars alone know. That you came to be in command, Captain Geary, and the identification the Syndicate Worlds have been able to do on you seems positive, leads me to wonder if the living stars have actually intervened in this war. That you took a force built for war and used it to save the lives of your enemies causes me to be grateful that they have.

“I owe you, Captain Geary, and I believe in repaying debts. Your fleet is headed for an engagement with a substantial Syndicate Worlds’ force, but one you outnumber significantly. Even though our leaders are trying to keep everything about you and your fleet highly classified, there are plenty of credible unofficial reports circulating. Based on those, I don’t expect the Syndic force to prevail here, but based on your actions to date, that expectation does not fill me with fear. Your fleet will be less a threat to the people here than one answering to the Syndicate Worlds’ Executive Council.”

The Syndic CEO shook her head again. “I won’t forget what you did, Captain Geary. A lot of us have come to the understanding that this war stopped making sense the day it began. We’re tired of trying to hold things together in our star systems while our leaders squander the wealth of the Syndicate Worlds in a war that can’t be won. When you get home, tell your leaders that there are people here who are weary of fighting and want to talk.”

The Syndic CEO paused. “When our facilities at Dilawa were mothballed about twenty years ago, it was judged uneconomical to remove the stockpiled materials at the mining facilities there. A lot of things were left in place. Just in case you have need of supplies after you leave here.”

The window blanked, and Geary leaned back, thinking.

“Can we trust her?” Desjani wondered.

“I don’t know. Where’s Co-President Rione?”

“In her stateroom, I think.”

“Shoot her a copy of that and ask for her assessment.” Desjani’s mouth twitched, and she hesitated just enough for Geary to see. “Never mind. I’ll do it.”

Five minutes later Rione was on the bridge. “I think she’s being honest.”

“She wants to talk peace, and expects us to defeat this Syndic flotilla, and told us where we can find raw materials to resupply the auxiliaries,” Geary pointed out. “If the Syndic authorities find out any of that, they’ll have her head off in a heartbeat.”

Rione nodded to Geary, her face thoughtful. “This implies a higher degree of rot within the Syndic hierarchy than we expected. A star-system CEO telling us directly that she no longer supports the war.”

“She’s also sympathizing with us against her own forces,” Desjani pointed out to Geary, seeming to be torn between gratitude and revulsion.

Instead of replying to her, Rione spoke to Geary. “The Syndic fleet has been a critical part of the mechanism by which the leaders of the Syndicate Worlds have maintained control over their territory. Anyone trying to display any independence would find warships arriving to enforce the will of their Executive Council. The more damage you do to that fleet, the greater the opportunity for local leaders such as this one to act on their own.”

“That fleet is nonetheless made up of their own people,” Desjani told Geary. “The fact that she’s apparently willing to cheer us on against them should play a role in our assessment of her.”

Rione shook her head as she addressed Geary again. “A hypernet-bypassed star system probably has proportionally fewer citizens in the fleet and feels far less a part of the Syndicate Worlds as time has gone by.”

Geary looked back at Desjani, only then realizing that both women were talking just to him and ignoring each other, as if they were in separate rooms and could only communicate directly with him.

Desjani shrugged slightly. “The Syndic CEO we saw is a politician, and I suppose a politician might feel less compunction about the sacrifices of military personnel.”

That made Rione’s jaw visibly tighten, but she still didn’t look at Desjani. “You have myassessment, Captain Geary. Now if you will excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.” She swung around and left the bridge.

Geary pressed the fingertips of one hand against his forehead for a moment in an attempt to push away an impending headache. “Captain Desjani,” he murmured so only she could hear, “I would appreciate it if you refrained from engaging in open combat with Co-President Rione.”

“Open combat?” Desjani replied in similar low tones. “I don’t understand, sir.”

He gave her a sharp look, but Desjani was eyeing him with what was surely pretended innocent puzzlement. “I really don’t want to go into details.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to, sir.”

Desjani might consider him guided by the living stars when it came to command of the fleet, but when it came to dealing with Rione, she obviously had a different opinion. “Just try to act like she’s in the same room with you.”

“She’s not, sir. She left the bridge.”

“Are you mocking me, Captain Desjani?”

“No, sir. I would never do that, sir.” Perfectly serious, as far as he could tell.

It was clearly time to withdraw from the engagement. He couldn’t go into more detail or get angry without drawing attention from the watch-standers on the bridge, and he didn’t need that. “Thank you, Captain Desjani. I’m very happy to hear that. I have enough other things to worry about.”

Desjani at least looked a little regretful as Geary left, trying to catch up with Rione. He suspected she’d had some other important insights to share, and he wanted to ask Rione something.

She wasn’t moving fast, so he caught up with her halfway down the passageway. “Tell me the truth,” Geary requested. “Is the Alliance that badly off as well? Is the Alliance ready to crack?”

“Why do you ask?” Rione’s tone was as unemotional as ever.

“Because you didn’t seem happy at the evidence of how bad things are for the Syndics. You’ve told me the Alliance military is unhappy with the Alliance government, you’ve told me that everyone is tired of war, but is it as bad as here in Syndic space? Is the Alliance threatening to fall apart?”

Rione stopped walking, her gaze directed at the deck, then slowly nodded without looking at him. “A century of war, John Geary. We can’t be beaten, neither can they, but both sides can push until they fracture.”

“That’s why you came along on this expedition? Not just because you were afraid that Bloch might try to become a dictator, but because you were sure that he’d succeed, that the war-weary citizens of the Alliance would follow him because they’d lost belief in the Alliance.”

“Bloch would not have succeeded,” Rione stated calmly. “He would have died.”

“You would have killed him.” She nodded. “Bloch must have known what you intended. He must have had precautions in place against you.”

“He did.” A very small smile flicked on and off Rione’s face. “They wouldn’t have been enough.”

Geary stared at her. “And what would have happened to you?”

“I’m not certain. It wouldn’t have mattered. What counted was stopping a dictator in his tracks.”

He couldn’t spot any trace of mockery or dishonesty in her. Rione meant it. “You were willing to die in order to make sure he was dead. Victoria, sometimes you scare the hell out of me.”

“Sometimes I scare the hell out of me.” She still seemed absolutely serious. “I told you, John Geary. I believed the man I loved had died in this war. I’ve had nothing else to live for since then but my devotion to the Alliance. If the Alliance itself was about to crumble, then I’d have nothing left at all. My husband died for the Alliance, and if necessary, I could as well.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this right from the start?”

Rione watched him for a moment before answering. “Because if you were someone in the mold of Admiral Bloch, you didn’t need encouraging. But if you were truly like Black Jack, you wouldn’t believe me, because the idea of the Alliance falling apart would have been too hard for you to accept. You needed to see enough for yourself to understand how bad things are. And I did tell you things, though you may not always have recognized it.” Rione shook her head. “I sounded you out, I watched you, I did what I had to do in order to influence your attitudes toward the way things are now.”

“What you had to do?” The phrase sounded cold even for Rione. “You told me once that you didn’t sleep with me just to influence me.”

Her eyes stayed on his. “That wasn’t the only reason, no. But it was part of it. Satisfied? You got my body, I got yours, and in the dark watches of the night I whispered to you about the need to protect the Alliance from those who would destroy it in the name of saving it. Oh, I enjoyed the sex. I admit that freely. But the day came when I knew that I no longer need fear you, and when I knew that my feelings were beginning to betray the husband I still love and who may still live. I didn’t give you to her because I’m noble, John Geary. I did it for myself, and because I’d done what I needed to do.”

He didn’t believe all of that. Rione’s posture and expression hadn’t changed, but he remembered the drunken words she’d once spoken, and he noticed that even while dispassionately justifying all she had done, Rione still didn’t say Tanya Desjani’s name. “You haven’t givenme to anybody, let alone Captain Desjani.”

“You may have to lie to yourself, John Geary, but give me some credit.”

“Why are you staying on Dauntless, then? There are plenty of surviving ships from the Callas Republic to which you could transfer.”

“Because you’ll need me close when we get home. Not as a threat, as an ally. I know how the political leaders of the Alliance will react to you. Black Jack has returned, the savior of the fleet and the Alliance. You won’t take what some of them will offer in exchange for more power for themselves. You won’t do what others of them will fear, taking all power for yourself. No, John Geary,” Rione insisted, “you will stand atop the bulwarks of the Alliance and defend it against all enemies, both those inside and those outside, because that’s who you are, someone out of a simpler past. And I will help you against those inside who seek to use you or act against you out of fear.”

“Against me? Do you think I’ll be in danger from the political leadership of the Alliance?”

“If I had been on the Governing Council when you returned, I would have argued for your immediate arrest and isolation under the public deception of your being on some secret mission. Because I would have thought you were someone in the mold of Admiral Bloch or Captain Falco. I’ve learned different, and I will tell the other senators what I know. Believe me, you will need me,” Rione declared. “Even those politicians who dislike me, and there are plenty of those, know that I will not betray the Alliance. My words will matter to all of them.”

Geary looked away, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and trying to think. No matter how complex getting this fleet home in one piece had always been, life once the fleet got home had seemed so simple. Resign his commission, go somewhere he wouldn’t be recognized, try to hide from the legend of Black Jack and the unrealistic, devout expectations of those who believed he had been sent by the living stars themselves to this fleet to save it and the Alliance. He’d kept focused on that to keep everything from overwhelming him, even as the idea of walking away from this fleet and its people felt less and less right. Now he had to admit that at the very least he’d have more problems to deal with before he could leave these responsibilities behind. “Thank you, Victoria. I’m sure your help will be critical.”