Jack Campbell - Guardian

After ending the call with Carabali, Geary looked ruefully at his own message queue. The Marines weren’t the only ones who wanted some special ceremony or commemoration when Dauntless went to Old Earth. The requests for special events were coming in right and left.

His stateroom had felt oddly quiet of late even though Dauntless was trembling with anticipation of this journey. The crew’s disappointment at not going on leave to Kosatka, where most of them had come from, had been more than offset by the excitement of seeing Home. The crew’s stock on Kosatka, already high due to Dauntless ’s being Black Jack’s flagship, would be astronomical after they had personally visited Sol Star System.

That train of thought led Geary to wondering why he hadn’t heard from Tanya today. He called her stateroom.

“Good afternoon, Admiral.” Desjani greeted him with a brief smile.

“I’m sorry we haven’t gotten that day off yet.”

“Maybe we’ll get it on Old Earth. We can visit someplace famous, like Tranquility Base Site.”

“That sounds romantic,” Geary said.

She didn’t rise to the humor, frowning at her desk. “There’s a lot to do. Dauntless has a lot of battle scars. That’s all right. She earned them honorably. But everything else has to be perfect.”

“I seem to recall someone lecturing me on not seeking perfection,” Geary said. “ Dauntless got priority on replacement of aging systems, so she’s practically as good as new, and even before that she was the best battle cruiser in the fleet.”

“She’s the best battle cruiser, anywhere, anytime,” Desjani corrected him, then frowned again. “Can you afford to leave Smythe in charge of overseeing the fleet’s repair work while we’re gone?”

“Admiral Timbale will be watching Captain Smythe. Tanya, are you sure there’s nothing else besides getting ready for this trip? I know it’s not pleasant thinking of having those three senators on board, but you won’t have to interact with them much.”

“I won’t if my prayers are answered.” Desjani buried her face in both hands for a moment, then looked up at Geary. “I need to ask a favor.”

“What is it?”

She was uncharacteristically hesitant. “There’s someone coming aboard to see me, someone who came to Varandal because she hoped the fleet would still be here. She wants to see me… and I can’t deny her that. I know she would like to see you as well. Can you make time?”

“Tanya, time is one of the things I have in shortest supply, but if there is anyone who has a priority claim on my time, it’s you. Even though there are a million things I have to be doing, and half of them should have been done yesterday.” If this was what running a fleet required, what would trying to run the Alliance as a dictator entail? Anyone who really thought about it would never want such a job.

But then, Admiral Bloch hadn’t struck Geary as a deep thinker.

“I know there are a lot of demands on you,” Desjani said. “This is important to me. Please, Jack.”

She rarely called him that, even when they were alone. Geary gave her a startled look. “Tanya, I already promised I would do it. What is this about? Who is this woman?”

“What’s it about?” Her hand rose to touch the Fleet Cross ribbon on her breast. “It’s about this. Who is she? She’s the daughter of a man I sent to his death.”

Greta Milam was tall, thin, with a face that seemed serious even when she was trying to smile. Even though she was probably in her earlier twenties, she appeared older. “I am honored to meet you, Admiral,” she said as she took the seat in Desjani’s stateroom that Tanya had offered.

“The honor is mine,” Geary replied. “I understand your father served with Captain Desjani.”

That had obviously been a very clumsy and stupid thing to say. Desjani winced, and Milam looked distressed.

Greta Milam looked at Tanya, her expression flickering with mixed feelings. “Yes. On the Fleche . I have always been grateful for the letter you sent after that action, Captain, describing what my father had done. It gave my mother and me as much comfort as anything could have.”

Desjani sounded as if she were fighting to keep her own emotions in check. “Master Chief Milam was a true hero. He deserved the Fleet Cross much more than I did.”

“I have learned that you insisted he receive that award,” Greta Milam said. “I have it. It means so very much to me.”

“I’m glad,” Desjani said in a low voice.

“I have always wondered… you were the last to speak with him?”

“Yes. While he was alive.”

“What were his last words? Your letter didn’t specifically say, so I’ve wondered. It’s odd the things people latch onto. As a little girl, I noticed the letter didn’t say that, so… I’ve always wondered.”

Tanya gazed at Master Chief Milam’s daughter for a long moment before answering. “He told me that I only had about a minute.”

“Excuse me?” That was apparently not something that Greta Milam had expected to hear.

“He was at the power core on the Syndic heavy cruiser we had boarded,” Tanya said. “He was setting it to suffer a partial collapse. I was at one of the boarding tubes aboard the cruiser, engaging the Syndic boarding parties that were trying to get back to their own ship to stop us. He said… he said there were only six sailors left alive with him, and the Syndics were breaking into the compartment. He asked me to tell you, his family, that he had died with honor. I did. I told you what he had done. I told you he said that.”

Tanya looked away, composing herself, then back at Greta Milam. “I wished him an honored reception by the living stars, and then he told me to take any sailors left with me back to Fleche , that if we could make it back within the next minute, we might survive even though Fleche was a total wreck.”

“How many sailors was that?” Geary asked, feeling like an intruder into a place he did not belong.

“With me? Nine. We had started with a hundred. No. We had started with two hundred thirty-five. Only a hundred were left to fight when the Syndics boarded us.”

Greta Milam blinked back tears. “I have to confess to you, Captain, that I blamed you for a while. For living while my father died.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Desjani replied. “I did the same.”

“But I’ve already talked to some of the others who survived. They said you all expected to die. It was a miracle some of you made it back off the Syndic heavy cruiser. But they said you did that. If not for you, my father would have died anyway, and the Syndics would have won the whole battle, and no one would have ever known how my father died. Because of you, he got the chance to die doing something that everyone will remember, and we all were allowed to know what he had done. I wanted to thank you and beg your forgiveness for ever blaming you.”

Desjani nodded slowly. “Of course. I… often wish I could have saved him as well. He saved me and the rest.”

“It’s a tangled web, isn’t it?” Greta Milam said. “Who owes whom what. But the war is over now. We can be grateful for that.”

“Sailors are still dying.”

Greta Milam stayed silent for several seconds. “I did not mean to sound as if that didn’t matter.”

Desjani grimaced and shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s still hard to remember that day. I don’t… talk about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Your father… I could not have ordered him to do what he did. I would not have. He chose to sacrifice himself so that many others could live, and I am certain his last living thoughts were of you and your mother.”