Jack Campbell - Guardian

He was sitting slumped at his desk when Tanya stopped by his stateroom. “What’s the occasion?” he asked. “You never come by here.”

“I don’t come by often because I don’t want people thinking I’m grabbing a quick one with my Admiral and my husband,” she replied, eyeing him. “But my Admiral and my husband has been holed up in his stateroom for long enough that my crew is starting to comment on it. And now I’m looking at him, and he looks like hell. What’s the matter?”

His reluctance to talk shattered like a dam under too much pressure, words pouring out to his own surprise. “I’m not good enough for this, Tanya. I keep making mistakes. People keep dying. I screwed up with the enigmas and the Kicks. I shouldn’t have accepted the orders for this mission, and I shouldn’t have accepted command of this fleet.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

He stared at her in disbelief for several seconds before he could find his voice again. “How can you—?”

“Admiral, I’d be dead now if not for you. Because I would have fought Dauntless to the last when the Syndics crushed the Alliance fleet at Prime. You do remember that, right? What would have happened if you hadn’t been there?”

“Dammit, Tanya, that’s not—”

“You have to remain focused on the positives, Admiral. Because, yes, you will make mistakes. People under your command will die. Guess what? Even if you were perfect, even if you were the greatest, luckiest, most brilliant, and most talented commander in the entire history of humanity, people under your command would still die.”

She was speaking slowly, her tones hard enough to edge against being harsh. “Do you think you’re the only one who ever lost someone? Who ever wished they had done things differently? Who felt like they had let down everyone who had depended upon them? If you keep judging yourself against perfection, you will fall short. Feel free to aim for perfection. I like that in a commander and much prefer it to superiors who aim for perfection in their subordinates. But when you inevitably fall short of perfection, don’t consider yourself a failure. Look at what might have happened. Look at how many might have died. Look at what you couldn’t have done. We need Black Jack in command because he is the worst commanding officer we’ve ever had with the exception of every other commanding officer I have ever served under.”

“Is that everything?” he asked.

“No.” She leaned in closer, her eyes on his. “You’ve still got me.”

He felt the darkness that had been weighing upon him lighten. She was a child of war, but they had connected in a way he had never connected with anyone a hundred years before. He wasn’t alone. “So, it could be worse.”

“Hell, yes.” Desjani raised one eyebrow at him. “What else?”

“There isn’t anything else.”

“Are you lying to me as my Admiral or as my husband?”

Geary shook his head. “I should have known I couldn’t get anything past you. I’ve been wondering.”

After a long moment waiting for him to continue, Tanya smiled with obvious insincerity. “Thank you for filling me in on that.”

“Why do you put up with me? You could do a lot better.”

She laughed, which was the last reaction he had expected. “You found me out! I’m just keeping you around until something better shows up.”

“Tanya, dammit—”

“How could you even ask me that? How could you say that?” Desjani blew out a long breath, regaining her composure. “When was the last time you checked in with the head-menders in sick bay?”

“I haven’t… I don’t know offhand.”

“You’re supposed to be providing a good example to every other officer, sailor, and Marine in this fleet, Admiral. That includes getting your head checked when trauma stress gets too hard to deal with. If the men and women of this fleet don’t see you going to get taken care of, they’ll think they shouldn’t, either. They need to see you getting help, so they’ll get it when they need it, too.”

He nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t start with that! You know I’m right! Why did I have to come looking for you to find out what was wrong? Why didn’t you call me? And when’s the last time you had a good talk with your ancestors? Our ancestors, that is, since you and I tied the knot.”

“About a week ago. To talk about Orion .”

She bit her lip, taking a moment to reply. “Good. I’ve been trying to put together a message for Shen’s daughter.”

“And I’ve been too sunk in my own slough of despair to help.” Geary extended a hand toward her but didn’t touch her. “Thanks, Tanya, for reminding me about my responsibilities. I have to use them to motivate me instead of letting them overwhelm me. I’ll go down to sick bay.”

“When?”

“Uh… later.”

“Fifteen minutes, Admiral. I’ll give you that long to straighten up. Then meet me at my stateroom, and we’ll both go to sick bay, and when we’re done there, we’ll go down to the worship spaces and have a talk with our ancestors.”

“Yes, ma—” Her eyes narrowed at him intensely enough that Geary halted in midword. “What I meant to say was, all right, Tanya.”

“Fifteen minutes,” she repeated sternly, then left.

He went to get cleaned up but paused for a moment to thank the living stars for her presence in his life. Even Black Jack needs a good kick in the rear every once in a while, and I’m lucky enough to have someone around who’ll do that when necessary.

Charban spread his hands, shrugged, and shook his head, all at the same time. “I don’t know! I don’t know what the Dancers think of us beyond the fact that they seem to see us as allies. It occurred to me as I was analyzing my own attempts to communicate with them that I was thinking of the Dancers as children. Perhaps because they can’t speak clearly to us, perhaps because they’re unpredictable, perhaps because it’s more comfortable for me to think of them that way. Do they think of us as children? It’s entirely possible. But is it true? I have no idea.”

“Has Dr. Shwartz mentioned any impressions like that?” Geary asked. They were in his stateroom, any evidence of Geary’s earlier depression put away and neatened up. Dr. Shwartz herself was on one of the assault transports, out of reach of all but the simplest communication while the ships were in jump space. There were other so-called experts on nonhuman intelligence with the fleet, but over time Geary had learned to trust in the insights of Dr. Shwartz far more than those of any other academic.

“No, she hasn’t.” Charban leaned back, looking up at the overhead. “Admiral, what do you see up there?”

“On the overhead?” Geary bent his head upward as well, seeing the welter of cable runs, piping, tubes, and vents that were a common feature of overheads throughout Dauntless and every other warship. “Equipment. It’s like an organ system in a living creature. The lifeblood of the ship flows through that junk up there, as does the air, all of the signals that make up what you could call the nerve system of the ship. We keep it uncovered so it’s easy to access if it needs repair.”

Charban nodded. “Do you see patterns? Pictures?”

“Sure. Sometimes. Doesn’t everybody?”

“Every human,” Charban said. “But what do the Dancers see? We haven’t been inside their ships. Do they have exposed ‘organs’ like those on human ships? Or is everything inside their ships as carefully smooth and clean-lined as the exterior of their ships? How would they describe what we are looking at? Would they see obscene clutter? Would they see pictures in that overhead? If they did, what pictures? Or patterns? We don’t know. And yet it is exactly those kinds of things that would help us understand the Dancers. We share those things with other humans, forming a connection, a shared understanding, even with humans we might detest. That allows us to guess at their motivations, their reasons for anything they do. But the Dancers? Why do they do anything?”