“You’re going to leave the fleet,” Geary said. “If that’s what you want, go for it. You’ve done your time and served with honor. The fleet, the Alliance, has no right to demand more of you.” He felt a wave of sadness, thinking of how many of his relatives had died during the last century because of his supposed example, but kept it inside. His great-nephew didn’t need to be consoling him at a moment when Michael was finally confessing his true feelings.

  Michael nodded in reply to the words Geary spoke, then unexpectedly smiled. “I needed to hear that. I needed to hear that from you. I don’t know why. It’s like only you could give me permission. Release me from my fate. Like some old fairy tale, where I’d been cursed and only one thing could lift the curse.”

  “I’m sorry,” Geary said again, feeling inadequate to be hearing these things, and still feeling guilt at the way his supposed example had warped the lives of his relatives. “What do you want to do after you leave the fleet?”

  “I don’t know.” Michael laughed. “I never thought about it. Why bother? I was a Geary. I had to go into the fleet.”

  “Go home,” Geary urged him. “To Glenlyon. Go to the bunker and talk to Lyn.”

  Michael’s smile turned into a grin. “Did you do that, too? Go down there and try to trigger the AI so you could talk about things you couldn’t say to anyone else?”

  “Yeah, I did that,” Geary admitted. “I’ve dealt with a lot of AIs, but whatever Lyn did all those years ago is still the closest I’ve encountered to feeling like the real person is there. That woman was a genius.”

  “Did you show Tanya that secret room?” Michael asked.

  “Yes,” Geary said, laughing himself this time. “She signed her name on the wall alongside my old signature.”

  “What about the Room?” Michael asked. “Your old room? I was allowed to look in when I was kid, even take a couple of steps inside, but not touch anything.”

  “We stayed in, uh, the room,” Geary said. “Stuff was touched.”

  Michael’s face softened. “Good. I always felt as if . . . the way that room was kept unchanged . . . kept other things from changing. Like time and life were frozen in there. It felt wrong.”

  “It certainly weirded me out,” Geary said. “Put in your resignation, Michael. You’ve earned it. How about Jane? She hasn’t said anything about leaving the fleet, but I thought that was because we were looking for you.”

  “Jane.” Michael shook his head. “Funny thing. She was just as unhappy as I was to be forced to serve by the Black Jack thing. But she not only got good at it, she learned to love it. Space is in her blood now. She is a Geary, after all, and that seems to be a family curse, too. A lot of us love space more than we do home. She’ll serve as long as the fleet wants her. But I can’t resign yet. I’ve got one mission left. I need to go back with those guys, the other survivors from Repulse, the others who were prisoners with me, and make sure they all get taken care of.”

  Geary nodded again. “Feel free to throw around the Geary name if you aren’t getting results. Admiral Timbale is in charge at Varandal. He’ll be happy to see you.”

  Michael made a face. “Timbale and I had words once . . . I was a jerk. Maybe if I apologize he won’t hold it against me.”

  Feeling a little awkward, Geary remembered something. “I was forwarded a message by General Drakon yesterday. One of Midway’s warships came back from Kane and carried a situation report from Colonel Aragon.”

  “Colonel Aragon?” Michael asked, raising his eyebrows. “Do you mean Executive Aragon?”

  “Midway’s people use normal military ranks,” Geary said. “While we were still at Kane, Colonel Rogero told Aragon to start calling herself colonel instead of executive.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Not great,” Geary said. “The locals are just barely abiding by their agreement not to attack Aragon’s soldiers or the civilians they’re guarding until Midway’s transports get back there to lift them all off-planet. But there’ve been frequent attempts to provoke Aragon’s soldiers into firing, probably to provide an excuse for an all-out attack to massacre the civilians.”

  Michael made a face. “War brings out the beast in a lot of people, doesn’t it? Destina ran a tight ship, though. If anyone can keep those soldiers from overreacting, it’s her.”

  “You seem to admire her.”

  “I do,” Michael said, smiling again. “Can you believe I’m saying that about a Syndic executive? But you know I owe her my life. All of us who were prisoners in that orbital facility owe our lives to her.” He gave Geary a speculative look. “Did I ever mention that? One of the things that tipped Destina off that the internal security agents, the ones the Syndics call snakes, were planning something bad was that stockpiles on the facility were all being drawn down. Like, at a certain point there’d be no more food. That’s what made her dig to discover her unit would be getting orders to go fight Drakon’s people. She’s pretty certain that if she hadn’t led her unit in a revolt and freed us, once that Syndic battle cruiser showed up it would have taken on all the snakes at the facility as well as Destina’s unit. Then they would’ve set the facility’s power core to overload and sailed off.”

  “Leaving you all to be blown to dust?” Geary said, shocked. “But . . . you at least were a great bargaining chip.”

  “Or a tremendous liability,” Michael said. “Bring me out into the open and all the Syndic promises to free the Alliance POWs they were holding would be shown to be lies. I’m not surprised they decided to just get rid of the evidence.”

  “Damn.” They talked a bit more, but the gap between their shared experiences was so great that they kept going back to the war, which was at least a form of bonding.

  “I should be going,” Michael finally said, checking the time. “It’s nice of Tanya to put one of Dauntless’s shuttles at my disposal, but believe it or not I never wanted special treatment.” He stood up, extending one hand. “I’m glad I got to know the real you. To finally understand.”

  Geary got up, gripping Michael’s hand. “Me, too. Go have the life you always wanted.”

  “I hope there’s still time for that.” Michael Geary smiled slightly and walked to the door, but paused before opening it. He looked back with a rueful expression. “I just had a thought. What if the life I lived, the life I was forced into, kicking and screaming every step of the way, what if it turns out that was the life I really wanted? And I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, even myself? Do you think the living stars would mess with someone that way?”

  “You’re asking me what the living stars might do to someone? The guy who drifted frozen in survival sleep for a century while everyone he knew grew old and died?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “I guess they would. I guess it’s up to us how we deal with what the living stars send us.” He hesitated, frowning. “I see Pelleas is still in command of Gallant. And Burdock is still captain of Encroach.”

  “That’s right,” Geary said, wondering why Michael had brought up those two battleship captains. “Pelleas distinguished himself during our last transit through Indras.”

  “Good.” Michael shrugged. “Before . . . you were in command, they kept trying to get me to vocally support Admiral Bloch. Of course, they weren’t alone in that back then.”

  “No,” Geary said, remembering those days, and incidents like the Captain Falco mutiny. “Burdock and Pelleas haven’t caused those kinds of problems for me. Why did you bring it up now?”

  “Jinani Burdock sought me out yesterday,” Michael said. “She wanted to talk about things back home. Politics. Saying the Alliance still needed a Geary to lead it. I told her the same thing I’d said when Bloch was in command of the fleet, that I wasn’t that Geary.” Michael turned a twisted smile toward Geary. “It was like she was waiting for me to take charge of the conversation. She and Pelleas are like that. Perfect Alliance battleship commanders. Steady and predictable to a fault, but not much in the way of initiative.”

  “Don’t let Jane hear you say that,” Geary commented, wondering what Captain Burdock had wanted Michael to say or do.

  “Ha! Jane’s heard it a lot. But the only reason she was given a battleship instead of a battle cruiser was to rebuke her for refusing to act like Black Jack supposedly did.” Michael snorted in what seemed like self-mockery. “Anyone like Burdock or Pelleas looking for that in me is still going to be disappointed as well. See you on Glenlyon.”

  “Make sure you say goodbye to Tanya before you go!” For just a moment, he wasn’t an admiral. He was a great-uncle saying goodbye to the grandnephew he barely knew, and trying to end this conversation on a high note. What would it have been like if he’d met great-grandnephews on Glenlyon?

  The thought caused a long-buried memory to suddenly resurface. “Michael, do you have children? Jane said something about that to me once, but there wasn’t anything in the family home about them.”

  The face Michael turned to him this time was rigidly controlled, as fixed as the visage of a statue. “I don’t have any children waiting for me,” he said, his voice also oddly emotionless.

  “Is there something . . . ?” Geary asked, startled and worried by Michael’s reaction to the question.

  “No. It’s just . . . a difficult topic.” With an obvious effort, Michael smoothed out his expression and his voice. “It’ll be nice to see Glenlyon again. I hope to see you there. May our ancestors guide you safely home.”

  And then he was gone before Geary could say anything else.

  Geary kept his eyes on the closed door for a moment, wondering if he’d see Michael again, but knowing there was more than a small chance he wouldn’t. Especially after what had happened at the diplomatic reception.

  Which made him realize something else.

  Michael had already left, but he could send him a message, warning him to be careful. Geary sat down, also quickly tapping out new orders for Admiral Timbale and the captain of Chinook as well as some requests. Chinook would carry Timbale’s orders back to Varandal, delivering them well before the ship arrived at Umbaru Station.

  The people who were trying to kill him might also target Michael. Because he was a Geary. He’d need protection.

  Damn.

  Maybe there was a Geary curse.

  * * *

  EARLY the next day, Chinook’s thrusters fired, followed by her main propulsion, accelerating the assault transport toward Midway’s hypernet gate for the trip back to Alliance space. On the bridge of Dauntless, Geary watched Chinook for a moment, marveling that the long and dangerous journey through Syndic and former Syndic space once required to reach Midway had now been reduced to a single hypernet leap. “Sometimes I feel like we’re just treading water,” he said to Desjani. “Not getting anywhere. But that new hypernet link might really change things for the better.”

  She tossed him a skeptical glance. “One of these days, Admiral, that optimism of yours will lead you into trouble.”

  “It might. How’s the shuttle bringing Colonel Rogero and Kommodor Bradamont doing?”

  “Two minutes out. Then two minutes to secure it for acceleration. We can head out in four minutes.”

  “Good.” As much as he was dreading what the enigmas might do, he was extremely tired of waiting here with little to do but worry. He took another look at his display, the armada of Alliance warships arrayed in orbit about the distant star of Midway. Over two hundred and sixty warships, all told. Michael Geary had looked at them with eyes that had looked on too many battles and commented that the fleet had sometimes lost nearly that many in one fight, Alliance and Syndic warships slamming at each other until one side finally crumbled, tens of thousands dead on both sides. And then the immense resources of the Alliance and of the Syndicate Worlds, scores of star systems with many planets, churned out new ships and found new sailors to replace those who’d died. And so it had gone, year after year, for nearly a century.

  Michael had been stunned to learn that Geary’s ships now represented the majority of the Alliance fleet. Stunned, and hopeful that the people and the resources once fed into the endless maw of the war were being put to better use.

  But . . . “The gate.”

  “Hmmm?” Desjani said.

  “Midway’s hypernet gate,” Geary said. “Now that it’s linked to the Alliance hypernet, we’re on the front lines of the defense against the enigmas. It’s no longer a far-distant fight. The defense of human space is at our front door.”

  That had changed, too.

  He’d already arrayed the fleet for the transit to Pele, and arrival there. Maybe the enigma ships that had nearly destroyed Passguard were gone. Maybe they’d been reinforced, and were waiting to hit the next human ships to come out of jump at Pele. Either way, the fleet would be ready. The twenty battleships under Geary’s command, massive, heavily armed and armored, were formed in a three-dimensional defensive lattice at the front of the formation along with numerous heavy cruisers and destroyers. In the center were the assault transports, the auxiliaries vital to the fleet’s long-term survival, and Boundless with its scientific and diplomatic embassies, surrounded by more destroyers and light cruisers. Behind them was another lattice made up by the eleven battle cruisers that were all that remained in Geary’s fleet. Able to react most quickly, the battle cruisers would intercept anything trying to attack from other angles.

  If the enigmas were waiting at Pele, they’d be in for a nasty surprise.

  “Dauntless’s shuttle is secure,” Lieutenant Yuon reported from his bridge watch station.

  “Good,” Geary said. “Let’s go.” He tapped the command already prepared on his display.

  On more than two hundred and sixty warships, thrusters and main propulsion lit off, accelerating the Alliance fleet toward the jump point for Pele and whatever waited there.

  FIVE

  JUMP space was notorious not only for the way it wore on human nerves with increasing force as the days went on, but also for the inability to do anything outside of the ship. Technically, bots or humans could work on the outside of the hull while in jump space, but if they lost physical contact with the ship for even a moment they’d be instantly and forever lost in the gray nothingness. Any task worthy of that level of risk was extremely rare. But even looking outside the ship brought no relief from the shut-in feeling, since no stars were visible, only the endless gray of jump space. Occasionally, at unpredictable intervals, bright lights with no known origin would suddenly flare in jump space. But those were too infrequent to watch for, and if seen could be just as likely to induce feelings of dread as of wonder. The resulting enforced inward focus while in jump space usually left too much time for worrying about things that couldn’t be changed by worrying.

  It did at least give Geary time to formally welcome Midway’s representatives aboard Dauntless. Although even that felt odd, to have a formal dinner in the admiral’s stateroom while thinking about what the enigmas might have waiting at Pele.

  At least his dress uniform wasn’t too uncomfortable. And Tanya looked outstanding in her uniform. “Captain Desjani, why are you fussing so much more than usual with my uniform?” Geary asked her.

  “Just checking the modifications,” she said, peering intently at one lapel.

  “Modifications? I thought it went out for cleaning.”

  “As long as we had it, Senior Chief Tarrani and I decided to see about adding a few enhancements,” Desjani said. “It’s probably stuff a Syndic CEO would laugh at, but you’ll be better protected next time we have to attend a diplomatic reception.”

  “What did you do to my uniform?” Geary demanded.

  “Relax. Nothing is armed yet.”

  “ ‘Armed’? Are there weapons built into this outfit?”

  “Just a few. We’re adding stuff to your working uniform, too.”

  “Tanya—”

  “Oh, look, your guests are here.”

  It still felt strange to see Honore Bradamont wearing not the uniform of the Alliance fleet but that of Midway.

  “Admiral Geary,” Bradamont said, “I have the honor to present my husband, Colonel Donal Hideki Rogero of the ground forces of the free and independent Midway Star System.”

  “It’s nice to see both of you again, this time in person,” Geary said. The expandable table in the admiral’s stateroom could have handled larger parties than the four of them, but Geary liked it this way. Four people, one on each side of the table. Each place was already set with plates and utensils, the plates automatically keeping the food on them at the right temperatures. Though they looked like fine china and crystal, the settings were made of materials strong enough to stop anything short of a hell lance. Sailors joked that the only thing tougher than the fleet’s plates were the steaks sometimes served on special occasions.

  As they gathered, before sitting, Geary reached for the wineglass at his seat. So did the others. “To absent friends,” Geary said, raising his glass in the ancient toast to those dead in battle.

  Rogero matched the movements of the Alliance veterans while saying nothing. “The Syndicate banned that toast,” he explained. “They claimed it harmed morale by emphasizing those who’d died. As a result, we always do the toast silently, saying the words inside ourselves.”

  The toast over, everyone sat down, Geary moving with particular care despite Tanya’s assurances that nothing had yet been armed.

  “What delicious meal has the fleet prepared for the admiral tonight?” Bradamont asked.

  “See if you can guess,” Desjani said.

  Bradamont speared a piece of meat from her plate and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “It tastes like chicken. Which means it’s not chicken.”