I don’t want to be blamed for what happened here. It’s over the line. I’ll kill as many Syndics as I have to kill to win this war. I don’t want to kill any star systems.”

“Yes,” Tulev agreed. “It’s important the Syndics know we didn’t do this, so there will be no popular demand for retaliation in kind. Also important is the impact it will have on the Syndic population.” He gestured at the star display again. “They’ll see it, all over, no matter how much the Syndic leaders try to suppress it. They’ll see what can happen to a planet with a hypernet gate in the same star system. What do the Syndic leaders say then? If they try to blame us, their people in star systems with hypernet gates will fear we could do the same to their worlds. If those leaders try to claim they can stop us, their people will want to know why they didn’t stop us in Lakota. If they say their people need not fear Alliance attacks of this nature because it was not an Alliance attack that caused it, then their people will demand to know what did cause it.”

Everyone thought about that, and grim smiles started appearing on a lot of faces.

“They’ll be in an impossible position,” Badaya noted approvingly. “That’s a brilliant suggestion, Captain Tulev. It will generate intense public worry all through Syndic space and confront the Syndic leaders with serious problems in how to handle mass fear of the hypernet gates.”

Commander Neeson, looking concerned, shook his head. “But what happens when our people hear about it? We can’t keep that news from crossing the border into Alliance space. We’ll face the same problem.”

“Our leaders need to know this problem exists,” Captain Badaya stated. He gave Geary a meaningful look. As far as Badaya was concerned, Geary should be the only leader of the Alliance, a dictator backed by most of this fleet. Commander Yin hadn’t been totally paranoid in her worries, though Geary himself wanted nothing to do with the idea.

“We need to figure out what to do, too,” Badaya continued, “before the Syndics decide to attack our gates.”

Geary frowned, worried again about what the Alliance’s elected leaders might decide, then saw Captain Cresida nodding.

“I think we can counter this threat,” she stated. “I’ve been thinking. We have two experimental results to draw on now, the only two known cases of collapsing hypernet gates. This fleet has the only full sets of observations from both incidents. With that data, I can refine the targeting algorithm we used at Sancere, make it more reliable and more certain to minimize energy output from a collapsing gate.”

“What good does that do?” Badaya demanded. “We can’t get close enough to a Syndic gate to stop them in time, and we don’t want to destroy our own gates.”

“But if the Syndics tried to destroy one of our gates,” Cresida replied, “and we had attached self-destruct charges to all of the gate tethers, tied into an automated safe-collapse program that would trigger if the gate suffered enough damage-”

The wave of relief was almost palpable. “We could make sure none of our gates destroyed their own star systems!”

“Maybe,” Geary cautioned. “We have no way of knowing how reliable the algorithm is because we only have two gate collapses to draw on for data. If it wasn’t as reliable as we think, we wouldn’t want to find that out the hard way. It’s also going to take time to get such a design finalized, approved, and installed on every hypernet gate within reach of the Syndics.”

Captain Cresida grimaced but nodded. “That’s true, sir.”

“But it’s better than nothing,” Tulev added.

“Much better,” Geary agreed. “Captain Cresida, please continue work on that concept. If we can offer that when we return to Alliance space, it will protect our homes from what happened here.” His eyes went back to the star display, realizing how far they had yet to go. A fleet still low on supplies, still pursued by Syndic forces able to destroy it if the fleet was caught in a bad position, still too deep in enemy territory.

No one else seemed worried about that. No one questioned Geary’s use of “when” they got back instead of “if” they got back. He found himself unnerved by the fear that this fleet (or most of it, at least) would do whatever he asked now, all of them certain that whatever Geary ordered would succeed. That would have been fine if he were some sort of genius, but he’d already made plenty of mistakes. Ancestors, I want their confidence, but I don’t want their faith. Unfortunately, it seemed he would get both whether he liked it or not, and this was coming on top of his distress over ordering Casia’s execution.

“Thank you,” Geary stated. “Thank you and all of your crews again for achieving the sort of victory that will be remembered as long as the Alliance endures.” He caught Duellos’s eye, then Badaya’s, sensing that both intended staying after the conference for private talks. Right now he couldn’t handle that and shook his head subtly to each to indicate they’d speak later. “I’ll see you all in Branwyn Star System.”

The images of officers vanished, and the room seemed to shrink with incredible speed. Geary sat down heavily as the last image disappeared, his eyes on the star display, wondering how long he could keep from making a mistake fatal to the entire fleet, wondering if he could really help defuse the hypernet gate bombs that the unknown aliens had succeeded in tricking humans into seeding throughout the regions of space they occupied.

“We’ll make it.”

Geary hadn’t remembered that Desjani was physically present, or realized that she had stayed in the room and was now watching him.

“I know it’s hard, sir. But you’ve brought us this far.” She indicated the display.

“I can’t do miracles,” he noted in a bleak voice.

“If you provide the right leadership, then this fleet will perform the miracles. You saw that here at Lakota.”

He laughed shortly. “I wish I could believe that! But the fleet has certainly done an amazing job. I won’t argue with you there.” The laugh died, and he nodded toward the stars.

“I almost made some lethal mistakes at Lakota the first time around. I can’t afford to make any more, and that’s scary, Tanya.”

“You don’t have to be perfect.”

“Don’t the living stars expect that of me?” Geary asked, hearing his voice get tense.

She frowned. “I’m not wise enough to know what they expect, but I’m smart enough to see that they wouldn’t have chosen a human agent if they wanted perfection. Sir, winning is usually a matter of making one less mistake than the enemy or just getting up one more time than you get knocked down. You’re doing both.”

He gave her an appraising look. “Thank you. I know you’ve told me on a few occasions that you know I’m human, but sometimes I still think you expect me to be some perfect, godlike being.”

Desjani’s frown deepened. “That would be blasphemy, sir. And unfair to you.”

“But you still think I can do it?” It was one thing for Desjani to say that if she believed him perfect, but if she knew he wasn’t perfect and still believed in him, it would mean much more.

“Yes, sir.” She looked down for a moment. “My ancestors tell me to trust you, that we were meant to… to serve together. ”

He took a moment to answer, trying to make sure he didn’t say the wrong thing. “I’m glad we’re serving together. You’ve been invaluable.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt the need to bring up something. “Vambrace was destroyed in the battle. I saw Lieutenant Riva made it off. He’s on Inspire right now.”

“I’m sure he’ll be happy there,” Desjani responded, her tone notably cooler. “There are any number of attractive female officers on Inspire, assuming he doesn’t try for an attractive enlisted this time.” She saw his reaction and shrugged with every appearance of uncaring. “Lieutenant Riva burned his bridges with me a decade ago, sir, though I didn’t fully appreciate that until recently. I’d regret the loss of any member of the Alliance fleet, but on a personal level, I really don’t care if I never hear his name again.”