Valiant by Campbell Jack

Author:Campbell, Jack [Campbell, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub

“CAPTAIN Geary, this is Captain Desjani. The accounting of prisoners liberated from Audacious was scrambled by the subsequent engagement and the losses of some of the ships involved in the recovery, but a preliminary list is now available. They’re working on verifying it and hope to have a finalized list before we reach the jump point for Branwyn.”

Geary felt a sense of satisfaction at the news, a reminder that he had succeeded in liberating some of the Alliance sailors captured during the first battles in Lakota Star System, as he reached out and tapped the comm unit in his stateroom. “Thank you, Captain Desjani. You didn’t need to track that for me. You’re not my chief of staff.” He didn’t have a chief of staff, of course. Admiral Bloch’s had died along with Admiral Bloch in the Syndic home system, and Geary hadn’t wanted to pull any officers out of badly needed primary duties on any of his ships. The automated systems available could do most of the work staffs used to do, anyway.

“I’m happy to help however I can, sir.”

Geary smiled and broke the connection, then turned to see Victoria Rione glowering at him. She’d come here to discuss the fleet conference she had observed but not attended, but had been interrupted by Desjani’s call. “Now what?” he asked. “That was good news.”

“Yes,” Rione agreed in an icy voice, “eagerly delivered by your happy little helper.”

He felt heat rising to match her coldness. “Are you talking about Captain Desjani?”

“Who else? Everyone in this fleet knows how she feels about you. You don’t have to flaunt it in front of me.”

“Those are rumors, and you know it! I’ve never seen her act that way, and I don’t act that way with her,” Geary objected. “No one I meet in the passageways of Dauntless gives me looks of disapproval. If the crew of this ship thought Captain Desjani and I were even thinking of that, they’d—”

“No, they wouldn’t!” Rione gave him a look mixing anger and exasperation. “If you and that woman were screwing on the bridge of this ship, the watch-standers would politely look away and joyfully approve that their respected captain and their legendary hero had found happiness together! How can you not know that?”

“That’s ridiculous. They know you and I are together.”

“We may walk together at times, but anyone can see that we’re no more emotionally tied to each other than we were the day you were defrosted from survival sleep!”

He started to object, then thought better of it. Rione was right about that. Even when their bodies were joined, their spirits were separate. Lust and love were two different things. He knew which of those motivated him to desire Victoria Rione, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. “We’ve still publicly been companions. If I left you for Desjani—”

“They’d applaud! I’m a civilian and a politician! They don’t trust me, they don’t think I’m one of them, and I’m not!”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Yes, it does! If an election on the

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