Relentless by Jack Campbell

that does happen and you decide you like it.” Rione turned and left, the hatch sealing behind her.
    “Did she just threaten you?” Desjani asked.
    “Yeah. It’s not the first time, though I think it’s the first time she’s done it in front of someone else.”
    “Why do you tolerate it?”
    “Because,” Geary replied, his eyes on the hatch, “there are times when I wonder if I can trust myself, and at those times I’m glad to have a threat hanging over me.”
    Desjani considered that for a few moments. “I have to admit that she was right about a number of things. Among them that I have your back, sir.”
    “I know that, but you have an oath to the Alliance, too.”
    She shook her head. “We already discussed this. You won’t violate your oath, so I won’t have to violate mine. Why do you trust her?”
    That was a reasonable question given that Rione was a politician, but more than that Geary had been shocked to learn that in the century of war fleet officers had developed a corrosive distrust for the elected leaders of the Alliance. So now Geary inclined his head toward the hatch through which Rione had left. “Because despite all that she has hidden from me and everyone else, I am absolutely certain that Victoria Rione deeply loves two things. The first is her husband, who we discovered may still live and be a prisoner of the Syndics somewhere, but the second is the Alliance. She’d die for the Alliance, Tanya, just like you and I would. Don’t think that because she doesn’t wear a uniform that isn’t true. Rione is loyal to the Alliance, and I think she’s as incorruptible as a person can be. She’s often a royal pain in the butt, too, but we can trust her.”
    “One good thing about Heradao,” Desjani remarked, “is that our enemies there will be easy to identify.” She shrugged with an uncharacteristic air of melancholy. “Sometimes I miss the days before you were found, when the answer to everything was killing Syndics in any way we could and as fast as possible. They were the enemy. Victory would come when we’d killed enough of them. It didn’t work, but it was much simpler. You’ve made things much more complicated.”
    “The Syndics are still the enemy,” Geary pointed out. “As long as we stay focused on that, it shouldn’t be too complicated.”
    “You’re asking me to respect a politician,” she reminded him. “That is not going to be a simple or easy thing.”
    He watched her for a moment, trying to understand how fleet officers like Desjani could be loyal to the Alliance yet disdain the elected leaders of the Alliance. Part of it was doubtless a very human need to find someone else to blame for the failures in the war, but Rione herself had admitted to him that the Alliance’s political leaders deserved a full share of culpability for their own actions over the last hundred years. Maybe he himself was just a living anachronism in that way, an officer who believed respect was automatically due to the leaders of the Alliance and the idea of things being otherwise was simply too hard to accept. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me that we can trust her.”
    Desjani made a contemptuous noise. “I will do my best to treat her with due respect since that is my duty as an officer and you vouch for her, but I don’t ever expect to trust her.” She stepped back, toward the hatch, her eyes on him. “I’ll accept your judgment because I trust you.”
    Hundreds of warships and their crews were trusting him to get them home, the fate of the Alliance and perhaps humanity itself rested on his decisions, but it was the trust of this one woman that really mattered to him. Rione had told him once that people didn’t really fight for grand causes or great purposes, but for the closest and most personal of reasons. They might say they fought for the high ideals, but in practice they fought for the comrades beside them and their loved ones at home. Geary looked back at the star