“He expressed the same sentiment to me about you,” Geary replied.

“Among other sentiments?” Rione asked. “You know what you’re dealing with now.” She nodded and left as well.

Geary closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead in a vain attempt to relax as the hatch closed. He sat down again, drumming the fingers of one hand on the armrest next to him, then paged Captain Desjani. “Do you have time to stop by my stateroom? I’d like to discuss a few things.”

It took Captain Desjani only a few minutes to arrive. She gave him a quizzical look. “You needed to speak privately, sir?”

“Yes.” Geary waved her to a seat, sitting forward and waiting until Desjani had sat down, stiff enough in her posture that she seemed to be sitting at attention. I need to know how other officers feel. “Captain, I’d like your candid assessment of Captain Falco.”

Desjani hesitated. “Technically, Captain Falco is senior to me.”

“Yes, but you’re the same rank, and he won’t be commanding this fleet.”

She seemed to relax a bit. “I’ve only known Captain Falco before this from his reputation and from stories told by older officers, sir.”

“I’ve been given to understand he’s well regarded.”

“Yes, in the sense of a dead hero. Captain Falco was seen as an inspiring example.” Desjani grimaced. “You wish me to speak frankly, sir?” Geary nodded. “If Black Jack Geary was regarded as the fleet’s god, then Fighting Falco was a sort of demigod. Officers I’ve spoken to told tales approving of Captain Falco’s fighting spirit and his general attitude.”

Geary nodded again, pondering the irony of the fact that the two things Captain Falco had been admired for were the exact two things Geary disliked most in Falco. “He’s still thought of as a good commander?”

Desjani thought for a few seconds. “If any captain but you had been in command of this fleet, then Captain Falco would’ve very likely ended up in command instead.”

“How would you feel about that?”

Desjani grimaced again. “At one time…I’ve gotten used to dealing with a commander who wasn’t seeking my vote in a fleet conference, sir. You gave me some praise while we were on the shuttle dock if you recall, and that meant a great deal, because you had grounds for making an assessment of me and my ship. When Captain Falco offered praise…I knew it couldn’t have been earned. The contrast was very clear: one commander who respected what I did and another who saw me as someone he could flatter and use.”

Geary thanked whatever had prompted him to say what he had when he had. Perhaps his ancestors were lending him a hand sometimes. “Did you have any other impressions?”

She hesitated, thinking. “He’s very personable, sir. I thought Admiral Bloch was good, but he wasn’t in Captain Falco’s class at all. And I’ve had time for a couple of more brief talks with Lieutenant Riva. He and the other liberated prisoners believe Captain Falco is deeply devoted to the welfare of the Alliance. Captain Falco dedicated great efforts in the labor camp to keeping up morale and assuring everyone that Alliance victory would come. Lieutenant Riva thinks many prisoners would have given up hope and let themselves die without Captain Falco’s example.”

This would be easier if Falco was simply a glory hound, Geary reflected. But he is an inspiring leader, and he does care about the Alliance. Unfortunately, his vision of saving the Alliance would mean turning it into a reflection of the Syndicate Worlds. May our ancestors preserve us from those who would destroy the things that make the Alliance worth fighting for in the name of defending it. “Thank you, Captain Desjani. I have reason to believe that Captain Falco intends promoting himself as the rightful commander of the fleet.”

That got another grimace from Desjani. “Sir, as I said, if it were any captain but you, if you had not already successfully brought us this far and won a great victory at Kaliban, then Captain Falco would be in command within a few days at the most. He’s…um…”

“A little more charming than me?” Geary asked dryly.

“Yes, sir.” She paused. “In truth, sir, if I’d met him before you, I might feel differently. The changes you’ve brought about were often hard to accept. But you truly have changed how I see senior officers.”

Geary looked away, embarrassed by the praise. “How about the other ship commanders? Do you think they’ll feel the same way?”

“It’s hard to say. There remains a hard core of ship captains who would rather lose fighting in what they see as the ‘honorable’ way than win by fighting in the more disciplined fashion you’ve brought. They believe that fighting spirit is the most important element in battle, and that you lack that spirit, sir.”

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. “So I understand. ‘The moral is to the material as three is to one.’ Surely there’s been enough disasters as a result of that attitude to impress even the firmest believers in fighting spirit as the silver bullet of warfare.”

Desjani smiled humorlessly. “A belief doesn’t rest on evidence but on faith, sir.”

Like the belief in him, or rather in Black Jack Geary, which he had been able to put to good use. Geary nodded. “True enough. Are there enough of these true believers in fighting spirit to give Captain Falco command?”

“No, sir. There’s many fence-sitters, still, but that wouldn’t incline them to support Captain Falco. Many have been impressed by your performance, sir.” She must have seen Geary’s self-consciousness this time. “You showed everyone at Kaliban, sir, even though the lessons from that battle are taking time to filter through the fleet. And I have to add, because you asked me to speak frankly, sir, that your moral stands have deeply moved a lot of officers and sailors because they’re based on what our ancestors truly believed and would expect from us. We’ve forgotten so much, or allowed ourselves to forget so much, and you’ve allowed us to regain those things.”

Geary kept his eyes on the deck, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. “Thank you. I hope I can live up to that sort of assessment. Captain Desjani, there may be trouble at the fleet conference I’m about to call.”

“There usually is trouble at fleet conferences,” Captain Desjani observed.

Geary smiled briefly. “Yeah. But I expect this to be worse than usual. Partly because I expect Captain Falco to be there, trying to throw his weight around, and partly because of what I’m going to propose to do.”

“What are you planning, sir?”

“I’m planning on taking this fleet to Sancere.”

“Sancere?” Desjani seemed puzzled, trying to recall where that was; then her eyes widened. “Yes, sir. There’ll be trouble.”

GEARY walked to the bridge, checking the time and barely arriving before the scheduled launch of the kinetic bombardment. He settled into his command seat as Captain Desjani nodded in welcome as if she’d been on the bridge for hours instead of getting there just minutes before Geary himself.

The planetary display obligingly popped up, the target sites glowing. Geary scanned them again, thinking about the power he had to ruin worlds. Falco had seemed ready and willing to exercise such power, but then after twenty years on a cold rock like Sutrah Five, maybe Geary would’ve also been eager to bomb the living hell out of the place. “You may proceed with launch of bombardment as scheduled.”

Desjani nodded again, then gestured to the combat system watch-stander, who tapped a single control, then entered the authorization.

It all seemed so simple, so clean and neat. Geary called up the fleet display, waiting, then saw his battleships and battle cruisers begin pumping out the bombardment rounds. Just solid chunks of metal, aerodynamic and with special ceramic coatings to keep them from vaporizing from the heat of atmospheric friction before impact. Inheriting a lot of speed from the ships that had dropped them, the kinetic rounds would fall toward their planetary targets, accelerating to even higher velocities under the pull of gravity and gaining more energy every meter of the way. When those simple metal chunks struck the surface of the planets, all of that kinetic energy would be released in explosions that would leave nothing but large craters and twisted wreckage in their wake.