Jack Campbell - Victorious

“Maybe there is.” Desjani looked away, running one hand through her hair. “I’ve spent so many years becoming me. The idea of everyone looking at me and seeing someone else is very hard to accept.”

“You told me that before. I wish I had an answer.”

“I can’t expect an answer, let alone an open discussion. All I need to know right now is whether you can really understand how I feel.”

“Extremely well,” Geary replied. She glanced at him with a frown as he continued. “When I first woke up on Dauntless , and you were all standing there and talking about this Black Jack guy, this hero and these legends, and you were all looking at me. I’ve understood how that feels ever since then.”

Her frown vanished, replaced by embarrassment. “You have me there. It took me a while to look at you and see you, not Black Jack.”

“But, as you’ve said, the universe is always going to look at me and see Black Jack.”

“Do two wrongs make a right?” Desjani wondered. “Two wrong visions of people. I don’t know. I just don’t know. And I don’t know if you really see me. Who do you see? Who do you think I am? Don’t say anything. We can’t go there.”

“I believe I see the real you,” Geary said carefully.

“You’ve been on Dauntless since you awoke. Confined to this ship, for all intents and purposes, while we endured great stresses together because you were required to be in my company.”

“So?”

“Think about it.” She stood abruptly and walked out.

Geary sat for a while longer, then called his niece on Dreadnaught . They talked awhile longer, Jane Geary finally confessing that she couldn’t decide what her future held. “As long as I could understand what being a Geary meant, I’ve always seen the fleet as an inescapable doom. But it’s also what I’ve known as an adult, it’s what I know how to do. I know the survivors from Repulse that we picked up along with other Alliance POWs when we came back through the Syndic home star system don’t think he made it off his ship, but they weren’t certain that he died. Maybe, just maybe, Michael is still alive out there. In the fleet, I can help find him.”

“It’s your choice,” Geary told her, and for the first time he saw Jane Geary smile as she realized that really was true.

The next morning they jumped for Varandal, Geary feeling increasingly restless as the last few days passed slowly. He wanted to ensure critical functions could continue without him personally remaining at Varandal, but there were only so many plans you could make for repairs of battle damage and maintenance and rotation of duty among warships so that crews could get some leave and rest.

Three days out, Rione paid one of her now-rare visits to his stateroom. “My conscience is bothering me, believe it or not. Do I have to warn you what’s going to happen when we get back?”

“I don’t think so, not if you’re talking about the grand council’s promises to me.”

Rione smiled crookedly. “They’ll stand by the exact letter of those promises. Don’t count on anything more than that.”

“So I’ve heard from others. But I’m going to take some time off, some leave, to get some personal things done.”

“Leave?” Rione asked skeptically. “You think they’ll grant you leave?”

“As commander of the fleet, I approve my own leave,” Geary replied.

“How convenient. Do you intend being gone long?”

“No. Thirty days.”

She looked impressed. “If you manage to stay away from the Alliance bureaucracy that long, it’ll be quite an achievement. You must have accumulated a great deal of leave in survival sleep, though I imagine the pay you accumulated during that century is a greater comfort to you.”

“Pay? Leave?” Geary shook his head. “I didn’t accumulate any.” He saw Rione’s puzzlement. “Sometime while I was asleep there were rulings, ‘clarifications’ of the pay and leave regulations, because some guys had been picked up after being in survival sleep for a couple of years. The personnel bureaucracy ruled that time spent in survival sleep did not count toward pay, accumulation of leave, or obligated service time.”

“I see.” Rione also shook her head, smiling ruefully. “The bureaucracy figured out how to avoid paying anyone or giving them credit toward the length of their service contracts. How did they justify that?”

“Because you’re not in a ‘duty status’ while in survival sleep since you are not ‘available for duty if called.’ ” Geary shrugged. “Fortunately, the issue of seniority never came up, so officially my years in survival sleep did count in terms of accumulated seniority in my rank. Otherwise, I might have been the most junior captain in the fleet.”

“I shudder to think how events might have differed if that had been the case.” Rione sighed. “Even an agnostic would have to admit that some very critical things for the Alliance went right in your case, Admiral Geary.”

He laughed briefly. “Too bad the living stars didn’t look after my old bank accounts. They were closed out once I was declared dead, so I don’t even have the benefit of a century’s worth of interest on what I had in them. I have whatever I’ve earned since being found and awakened. The fleet admiral pay I’ve earned lately will be a nice bonus, but I’m not coming out of this well-off. I do have some extra leave time available, because what I had already accumulated a hundred years ago didn’t go away.”

“Ah, well, at least you know that she’s not after your money.”

Geary shot an irritated glance at Rione. “I never suspected her, or anyone else, of being motivated by that.”

Rione feigned a mock spasm of pain. “That hurt.” Geary didn’t respond to her humor, and she raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s the matter? Isn’t everything wonderful now? In another few days you can actually talk to her. Believe it or not, I know how hard it must have been to avoid doing or saying anything that might have compromised either of you.”

“Thank you.” He knew he was frowning as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just … I don’t know.”

“Cold feet?” she asked softly.

“No. Not on my part.”

“Oh.”

He looked at her quickly. Rione was gazing into a corner of the room, her expression once more unreadable. “What’s that mean?”

“It means, Admiral, that you need to deal with this yourself.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I am not the person to discuss your personal relationship problems with. She is the one you need to talk to.”

“I can’t. Not for another week. I just hope I say the right things then.”

Rione shook her head again, but before leaving gave Geary a sharp look. “Follow your instincts, Admiral.”

After Rione had left, Geary sat for a while, thinking, then left his stateroom, walking through the passageways of Dauntless , the passageways filled even at this late hour with excited crew members talking about going home and the end of the war. They looked at him not with hope now but with thanks, and that was much easier for Geary to endure even though he made a point always to tell them that they had won the war and all of the victories leading to its end. He had just been fortunate enough to lead them.

Geary went all the way down to the worship spaces, crowded with those giving thanks to higher powers than mere admirals, and found a room for himself. Inside, he sat for a while in the solitude before lighting the candle and speaking to his long-dead brother. “I still sometimes wonder if it’s all real. From commanding officer of a single heavy cruiser to commanding officer of a fleet a lot bigger than anything the Alliance could muster in my own time. Who would have thought that I’d be stuck with trying to save that fleet lost far behind enemy lines, that I’d be expected to save the Alliance? I know your granddaughter Jane says you always told her I was what the legend said, but you and I both know better. I’m just me. I don’t know how I got through this, but I do know I had a lot of help.