Jack Campbell: The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

“Yes,” she replied. “Charban is handling it. There is something else we need to talk about.”

“The missing lieutenants?”

“Among other things.”

“Good. There’s something else I need to ask you as well,” he said, waving her inside the stateroom and following her. He didn’t feel an urgent need to reach the bridge despite his concerns for Castries and Yuon. If any word came about them, it would reach him just as quickly here as on the bridge, and Rione might have some important information. “Have a seat.”

She had already made herself at home, lounging into one of the seats around the low table in the stateroom. “I understand that you had an interesting trip back to the ship.”

“It wasn’t boring. And I understand you had a working vacation on Old Earth,” Geary observed, sitting down across from her.

Rione gave him a blandly uncomprehending look. “Why do you say that?”

“We encountered Lady Vitali.”

“Lady Vitali of Essex? I hear she throws a good party.”

“She does. But I want to know how Lady Vitali knew to tell me the name Anna Cresida when I needed to know whether or not to trust her.”

Rione studied him, her eyes hooded with calculation, then shrugged and made a casting-away gesture with one hand. “I told her. One of my clandestine assignments on this mission, one I’m not supposed to let you know about, was to establish ties with some of the governments in Sol Star System. Our experience with the surprise attack by the Shield of Sol ships only emphasized the importance of that task. Lady Vitali is one of those contacts who struck me as potentially very useful to us.”

“Did she?” Geary sat back, glaring at Rione. “She appears to have rendered very valuable aid to Tanya and me, but Lady Vitali didn’t strike me as the sort to just be used by people.”

“You’re absolutely right about that,” Rione agreed, examining her fingernails as she spoke. “She, or rather her government, doubtless intends using us as well. They help us, we help them.”

“So you trusted her, and who knows how many other people on Old Earth, with a code name that was only supposed to be shared among us.”

Rione raised an eyebrow at him. “Trust has nothing to do with it. Self-interest is the factor here. You can rarely go wrong depending on that. You had a demonstration of that on your trip back to this ship, didn’t you? Lady Vitali’s government saw just how useful we can be to them when your captain annihilated those Shield of Sol ships. So, if Lady Vitali’s friends learn anything more about those craft that tried to interrupt your shuttle trip, or learn anything from the surviving assassins who were after you on the ground, they will let us know so that, in the munificence of our gratitude, we might offer more favors in return.”

Surviving assassins? He wondered if Lady Vitali was personally deadly enough to have helped take down the attackers, or if she just controlled events and directed others from behind that friendly smile. “The favor we need the most at the moment is information about Lieutenant Castries and Lieutenant Yuon.”

“I know. I’ve already asked all of my contacts for anything they can find out. Even if it is something that officially their governments won’t admit to, they’ll tell me.”

For reasons he didn’t quite understand, Geary believed that Rione’s confident statement was right. “All of your contacts? Just how many contacts did you establish with how many governments?”

Another wave of her hand, this one careless. “Oh… ten… twenty… something like that. I haven’t had much time to work.”

Geary shook his head in open amazement. “Every time I think I’ve figured you out and know exactly what you’re capable of, you surprise me with something else.”

“I’m a woman, Admiral.”

“I don’t think that entirely explains it.” Geary tapped the controls on the table between them, bringing up an image of Sol Star System, the planets and minor planets and multitudes of smaller objects tagged with names out of the distant past. Venus. Mars. Jupiter. Luna. Callisto. Europa, whose doom still haunted the rest of human space. And Old Earth herself. “I hope they can help find our lieutenants, but beyond that, what good does the Alliance think agents working for one small part of one planet can do for us? In the Alliance, none of those governments still ruling over portions of Old Earth would count for anything. They’re far too small and far too weak.”

Rione looked annoyed. “Our enemies are already at work here. Hopefully, they aren’t involved with the matter of your missing officers, but regardless, I want to know who told those Shield of Sol ships to attack us, and who paid for assassins and stealth spacecraft, and who spied on our movements and attempted a few other tricks that our various hosts managed to block or frustrate. Aside from that, you’re military. You know the importance of certain places, an importance that is based on factors that may have nothing to do with equations of physical strength and power. Any place on Old Earth carries a lot of leverage inside the Alliance. I don’t know all the ways we can use that. But I know I can use it in ways others may not expect. Any individual who can claim backing from Old Earth, leaving aside little matters like how small a portion of Old Earth that backing actually comes from, will gain additional prestige in the Alliance from that alone, perhaps enough so to give him a crucial edge.”

Geary leaped to his feet, his angry gaze fixed down on her. “Him? You mean me. Backing from Old Earth? For what purpose? What the hell makes you think you can use me ?”

She looked up at him steadily, cool and unruffled. “I have no intention of trying to use you. The last thing you need is for someone to be trying to guide you in the right political moves. Your greatest strengths are your lack of political ambition and your refusal to even think about political tactics.”

“I’m doing what any good officer would do!”

Her smile was mocking. “I can name a dozen senior fleet officers off the top of my head who reached their exalted ranks by using political tactics and would be pursuing more political tactics right now if they were in your shoes. Tactics such as cultivating relationships with the likes of Senator Costa, Senator Suva, and Senator Sakai.”

“But not you?” Geary demanded.

“Me? I’d be a liability. All you would want me for is a scapegoat.” She waved him back. “Relax. I never wanted you to charge in and take over the Alliance, remember? The Alliance doesn’t need someone who thinks he or she is the savior of us all.” Rione stood up as well, her eyes on the display, one finger rising to point toward Old Earth. “You’ve been there now. We’ve been there. We’ve seen the history of our ancestors firsthand. How much tragedy grew out of individuals certain that they had a special destiny or that they deserved to rule?”

He considered the question, his jaw tightening with frustration, then spun away from her and looked at the familiar starscape displayed on one bulkhead. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t think I’m someone like that, but a tremendous number of other people believe it. Senator Sakai thinks who I am could easily destroy the Alliance.”

“He’s right.” She made a helpless gesture, both hands partially raised as if anticipating defeat. “I don’t know what to do to save the Alliance. There are many forces working to tear it apart, and many people contributing to those forces either through greed or malice or hope or despair or good intentions. I don’t know how to counter the stresses built up by a century of war, and the debts from a century of war, and the simple and understandable but also naïve desires of many people to live as they wish without bowing to some distant authority, which they forget was created because its absence led to much worse things than its existence does. Senator Costa thinks she knows an answer built around an iron fist. Senator Suva still believes the answer lies in good intentions and everyone’s singing in harmony around a common campfire. Senator Sakai no longer believes there is an answer. But you…”