“You didn’t have much choice, and your intentions were good.” She sighed. “I can’t ask one man to carry every burden in this fleet.”

“I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to share those burdens.”

“Ah, well, you’re a man, aren’t you?” Rione shrugged. “It’s worked out all right.”

“Has it?”

Rione tilted her head slightly and regarded Geary. “What’s bothering you now? Unless I miss my guess, that last wasn’t about Syndics or aliens or robotic slayers of mankind.”

He returned her look. “It’s about you and me. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on between us.”

“Good sex. Comfort. Companionship. Are you looking for anything else in our relationship?”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know.” Rione considered the question, then shook her head. “I don’t know,” she repeated.

“You’re not in love with me, then.”

She had that cool, amused expression again. “Not as far as I know. Are you disappointed?” Geary’s face or body language must have betrayed his feelings, because Rione dropped the amusement. “John Geary, there has been one love in my life. I told you that. He’s dead, but that hasn’t changed my love for him. I’ve dedicated myself since then to the Alliance, trying in my own way to serve the people my husband gave his life for. What’s left over is currently yours, for what it’s worth.”

Geary found himself laughing softly. “Your heart can’t be mine, and your soul belongs to the Alliance. Just what is left over?”

“My mind. That’s no small thing.”

He nodded. “No, it’s not.”

“Can you be happy with that part of me, knowing the rest belongs to others?” Rione asked calmly.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re too honest, John Geary.” She sighed. “But then so am I. Perhaps we should try lying to each other.”

“I don’t think that would work,” he stated dryly, unable to keep from wondering if she was being honest, if there wasn’t still some agenda here that he didn’t know about. In many ways, Victoria Rione’s mind seemed as unknown to him as the far frontier of the Syndicate Worlds.

“No, lying probably wouldn’t work.” Rione gazed past Geary. “But then, will honesty work?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“Time will tell.” She reached to turn off the display of stars, then stood up, regarding him with an expression Geary couldn’t interpret. “I forgot that there’s one more part of me available to you. My body. You haven’t asked, but I’ll tell you. That has been offered to no one else since my husband died.”

He couldn’t see any trace of insincerity in her and wouldn’t have been fool enough to question her statement even if he had. “I really don’t understand you, Victoria.”

“Is that why you’re keeping your emotional distance from me?”

“Maybe.”

“That may be for the best.”

“You’re not exactly opening up to me,” Geary pointed out.

“That’s true enough. I haven’t given you any promises. You shouldn’t give me any. We’re both veterans of life, John Geary, scarred by the losses we’ve endured because we cared for others. Someday you should tell me about her.”

“Her?” He knew exactly who Rione meant but didn’t want to admit it.

“Whoever she was. The one you left behind. The one I see you thinking of sometimes.”

He looked down, feeling an emptiness inside born of might-have-beens. “I should. Someday.”

“You told me you weren’t married.”

“No. I wasn’t. It was something that could have happened and didn’t. I’m still not sure why. But there was a lot left unsaid that should have been said.”

“Do you know what happened to her after your supposed death in battle?”

Geary stared at nothing, remembering. “Something happened before my battle. An accident. A stupid accident. Because her ship was a long ways off I didn’t even hear about it until she’d been dead for three months. I’d been planning on getting back in touch and apologizing for being an idiot, rehearsing what I was going to say.”

“I’m very sorry, John Geary.” Rione looked at him with eyes filled with shared sorrow. “It’s not easy for dreams to die, even when they’ve remained only dreams.” She reached down to take his hand and pull Geary up to stand next to her. “When you’re ready, you can speak more of it. You never have spoken of it to anyone, have you? I thought not. Open wounds don’t heal, John Geary.” She stepped close and kissed him slowly, her lips lingering on his. “That’s enough companionship for one night and far too much thinking for both of us. I’d like to enjoy the other benefit of our relationship now.”

Her body was warm and alive in his arms, and for a short while at least the concerns of the present and memories of the past were forgotten.

THE right formation had been the dilemma. The Alliance fleet was pretty close to the jump point from which any Syndic force would exit. That meant he would have little time to adjust his formation and would probably have to fight from whatever formation he had the fleet in when the enemy arrived. But he wouldn’t know how the enemy was formed up until they got here.

The one thing he did know was that if the Syndics were in hot pursuit of a small, badly battered Alliance force, they wouldn’t be wasting time. It was a safe bet that there would be fast, light units coming in right behind any fleeing Alliance ships. Those would be easily disposed of no matter what formation Geary adopted. The problem was what came next. Heavy cruisers would be quickly annihilated, but if the Syndics had battleships coming in soon after the light units, Geary had to make sure those capital ships couldn’t take too many of his own ships with them.

In the worst case, the Syndics would have a superior force, in which case the Alliance would have to strike fast and hard to take advantage of any element of surprise and any momentary numerical lead as Syndic ships exited the jump point.

“It could be very ugly,” Geary remarked after discussing options with Captain Duellos. “But we’ll be close to the gate, which means they can’t be spread out. I’m going to keep us in a modified cup formation.” On the display floating between them, the formation resembled its namesake, with a thick circular bottom formed by over half the fleet in a matrix with interlocking fields of fire, the remainder of the ships arranged in flat, semicircular formations extending outward toward the enemy. “We’ll be able to hit them hard in one spot, then come back and hit another part of whatever formation they’re in.”

“If they’re truly superior in numbers to us, we will beat the hell out of them even if we’re destroyed in the process,” Duellos replied. “Not the best outcome, but combined with the losses we inflicted at Kaliban and Sancere, it will leave the Syndics without numerical advantage in the war.”

Geary nodded, gazing at the star display. “So the war would just go on.”

“The war would just go on,” Duellos agreed.

“I’d like to manage a better outcome than that.”

Duellos grinned sardonically. “You can count on the fleet. Everything’s coming together here. The pride of the fleet, the need to rescue our fellow ships, the confidence born of recent victories, and the training you’ve given us. We’ve got a chance, even if the odds are bad.” His grin widened. “And I just thought of something else we can do to even the odds a bit.”

YOU would think someone who had spent so many years in the fleet would be used to waiting by now, Geary thought as he wandered the passageways of Dauntless. A very large amount of time in the fleet was spent just waiting. Waiting to get somewhere, waiting once you got there, waiting for an emergency or crisis that might not happen, waiting to find out how long you would have to wait. That seemed to be as much a part of military life as risking your life and bad food.

None of which made waiting to find out if any ships would rejoin them here any easier. The fleet had been positioned facing the jump point from which any of the missing ships would have to come, hanging in space with its movements slaved to the slow progression of the jump point around its star. The auxiliaries were busy enough building new weapons and parts, and every other ship needed routine upkeep and repair, but Geary had done everything he personally could do to prepare. Too restless to address other tasks, he went through Dauntless seeing the crew, finding his increasing ability to recognize the sailors and officers he encountered to be a source of comfort. Slowly, very slowly, he was beginning to feel like he belonged here.