Geary felt a sense of déjà vu as the image appeared before him. He had sat in this chair before, in this star system, and seen this same Syndic CEO. “Him?”
“The one who commanded the Syndic forces here before and ordered the murders of Admiral Bloch and the other senior officers in the fleet,” Desjani confirmed, each word coming out harder than the one before. She hadn’t had any personal admiration for Admiral Bloch, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t mad as hell about his being killed under the guise of negotiations.
“Yeah. That guy.” Geary’s memories flashed back to when that same CEO had arrogantly demanded the unconditional surrender of the Alliance fleet warships that had survived the initial ambush. He could, if he wanted to, call up the record of the transmission sent to the fleet of Bloch and the others being shot inside the shuttle dock of the Syndic flagship. A surge of old anger filled Geary as he looked at that face again.
The Syndic CEO on the screen smiled as if he knew he would be recognized and wanted to let them know he would enjoy their reactions. “The Syndicate Worlds send their greetings to Admiral Geary. I am CEO First Rank Shalin.”
“He’s wearing more medals than before,” Desjani breathed with barely controlled fury. “Awards for what he did here last time.”
CEO Shalin continued speaking. “We’re prepared to offer a cease-fire within this star system, in the interests of humanity. We are willing to engage in negotiations with your fleet.”
Geary stared at the image, wondering if his mouth was literally hanging open. To have this man speak of negotiating after the atrocity committed during the last “negotiations” with him labeled him as either unbelievably tone-deaf or viciously insulting.
“We have a number of Alliance prisoners of war within this star system” the CEO went on in an almost negligent tone of voice. “They were acquired during your fleet’s last visit here. Those prisoners are dispersed in a wide number of locations. It would be a pity if any were harmed by bombardments. I await your reply and trust that you will exercise discretion in your actions to avoid escalating tensions and casualties.”
The image blanked, and Geary shook his head in disbelief. “What was the purpose of that? Are they just trying to make us angry?”
“They’re succeeding,” Desjani growled.
“Would they actually place our prisoners of war at their defensive sites?” He already knew the answer but needed it confirmed. Intelligence still hadn’t found any POW camps, which meant any Alliance prisoners in this star system would have to be dispersed and confined in relatively small groups.
“They would.” Desjani shook her head. “But it’s stupid to make that threat after our barrage was launched. We can’t stop it any more than they can, so claiming our POWs are at those locations has no result except to make us madder.”
His and Desjani’s reactions to the Syndic transmission had been the same. “That’s the idea, isn’t it? Make us mad, enraged, in the hope that it causes us to do the wrong thing, We’ve used that tactic against them, and I can’t imagine any other reason for the tone and wording of that transmission.” He thought for a moment. Senator Sakai was occupying the observer’s chair on the bridge just then and, while watching intently, hadn’t offered any comments. “Senator, do you have any thoughts on this?”
Sakai, his face impassive, slowly shook his head. “Nothing beyond what you and Captain Desjani have speculated, Admiral. I agree with you that the enemy commander’s message seemed designed to provoke us into heedless actions. However, I am accustomed to the tricks employed in political combat, not those used in actual fighting. I don’t know what actions the Syndics hope to goad us into taking, and since you are aware that they are attempting to provoke us, I can think of nothing further to add at this time.”
“Thank you, Senator.” At least Sakai was intelligent enough to recognize his limits and candid enough to admit to them. “Captain Desjani, please forward a copy of that transmission to Co-President Rione. I’d like her assessment of what the Syndics are up to.”
Desjani gestured to a watch-stander to carry out the task, her expression still furious. “If I get within weapons range of that man, and I pray to the living stars that I do, I’ll blow his everlasting soul into enough tiny pieces that even his ancestors won’t be able to put it back together.”
A muted alert sounded, drawing Geary’s eyes to his display. “The Syndic flotilla is turning toward us.”
Her eyes lighting with eagerness, Desjani focused on her own display. But as the minutes went by and the course of the flotilla steadied out, she scowled. “They’ve come starboard, but that flotilla’s track still has a closest point of approach to us of about a light-hour. If we come onto an intercept, they can still easily evade us.”
“What’s their game?” Geary wondered. “Make us mad, then hang out of reach. What is it they expect us to do?”
Desjani took a long, slow breath, clearly mastering her own anger enough to think, then glanced at him. “Do you remember Sutrah? As well as Corvus?”
He didn’t like to dwell on those engagements early in his command of the fleet, but it wasn’t hard to see her point. “This fleet, back then, would have charged that flotilla even knowing they had no chance of intercepting it.”
“Because going on the attack was always right, and they would have expected the Syndics to countercharge.” Desjani’s brow furrowed in thought. “That CEO is the one we most want revenge against, he says things designed to make us want to go after him, and their flotilla cruises along just out of reach.”
“They want us angry enough to chase them even though we have no chance of catching them.” Geary leaned back, searching his display for something they might have missed earlier. “Why? What’s the point? Surely we’d spot any minefields in our path, and in any case, our possible courses cover too much space for this to be an attempt to lure us into prepositioned mines. A delaying action? At best such a tactic would buy them a few days before this fleet got tired of a futile chase.”
“If our formation dissolved, and the fleet was strung out, they might be able to hit portions of it that couldn’t be supported by the rest of the fleet,” Desjani suggested.
“Maybe. I suppose that would give them a chance to hit our battle cruisers if they had charged too far out in front. But we would still have a strong advantage in numbers.” Another possibility came to mind. “Do you think they’re delaying because they expect help from . . . anyone?”
Desjani frowned. “External help?” she asked, avoiding speaking directly about the aliens. “Why would the Syndics trust them again?”
“Because it’s their only chance? But why try to draw us into a chase instead of just delaying through negotiations?” Too many questions, not enough answers. “Let’s hold course for a while and see what they do once it becomes obvious we’re not playing their game.”
“Are you going to answer that motherless scum?” Desjani asked.
“Not yet.” Partly because he didn’t trust himself to speak calmly to the man, and partly because he wanted to learn more before deciding what to say.
Half an hour later, long before it could have seen the Alliance fleet’s reaction to its previous maneuver, the Syndic flotilla veered to starboard again, coming onto a vector that would intercept the Alliance fleet in about three days. “Now we don’t even have to maneuver,” Desjani observed, scowling. “I want to blow away those bastards, but if they really wanted to fight, they’d be coming toward us on a much faster intercept. They’re just going to run again once we get a bit closer.”
“So even though we’re not chasing them, for the time being they’re happy if we just keep doing what we’re doing.” Geary squinted at his display as if that would make him see hidden objects there. “There’s nothing on our track that could be a threat, right?”
“Not a thing, not unless their stealth mine technology has suddenly improved by several orders of magnitude.”
That wasn’t impossible if the aliens h
ad rendered more direct assistance to the Syndics, Geary realized. But there had been no way for the Syndics to predict that the Alliance fleet would be on this particular path through space, no way for the Syndics to have laid minefields along that path, so why were the Syndics content to keep luring the Alliance fleet down that path?
Rione came back onto the bridge as he was still considering the question. “We think they used that CEO to goad us into attacking. What do you think?” Geary asked “That’s as good a guess as any,” Rione replied, sitting down herself, as Senator Sakai rose but stayed standing beside the observer’s seat. “Yet the odds as we know them offer no reason why that tactic would succeed. I expected the Syndic leaders to stall for time, but this is different, an attempt to ensure we remain focused on that flotilla. Is there anything else in this star system to which they wouldn’t want us paying attention?”
He studied his display with that in mind, then pointed.
“I expected that battleship and those three heavy cruisers to head for the flotilla and join forces. Instead, they’re just waiting there, and the flotilla has gotten steadily closer to them.”
“They’re near a jump point,” Desjani said. “For Mandalon. I don’t know why the Syndics would waste a battleship and three heavy cruisers guarding a jump point, though. Maybe they do expect reinforcements to come through that jump point, and the flotilla is moving to join up with them when the reinforcements get here.”
“That’s possible.” Geary rubbed his neck, trying to figure out what the Syndics might be up to. “They must be thinking of fighting us eventually, and waiting for reinforcements would explain what they’ve been doing. If the Syndic flotilla just wanted to run, they could have used their own hypernet gate or headed straight for the jump point.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Rione said, “but one more battleship and three more heavy cruisers won’t make any significant change to the odds against the Syndics. Nor can they have significant numbers of reinforcements still coming unless our intelligence is far from the mark. There’s still something missing, something the Syndics don’t want us to see.” Rione shook her head, gazing at the display before her. “The Syndic leadership has stayed in control because they are willing to do whatever it takes to maintain that power. They know you have defeated their flotillas time and again. They know their fixed defenses in this star system couldn’t defeat a fleet. We’ve seen the ambush they prepared if this fleet had come through the hypernet gate here. It was thorough and deadly, but the fleet under the command of Admiral Geary has escaped certain doom more than once. What is their hidden card, the one the Syndic leaders planned to play if all else failed to stop a man whom they have failed to stop time and again?”
Desjani spoke with exaggerated patience. “Madam Co-President, the fleet’s sensors aren’t infallible, but they have scanned this system repeatedly. It is not overconfidence to say that we know everything the Syndics have here. They planned on the ambush at the hypernet gate destroying this fleet.”
“I’m aware of what the sensors report.” Her tone remaining almost distant, Rione stared at her display. “There’s something missing,” she repeated. “Every instinct I have tells me that the Syndics would have insurance, something else in the all-too-likely event that Black Jack Geary produced another miracle.”
Geary looked from Rione to Desjani, his own misgivings springing back to life. “The Syndic flotilla’s actions imply there’s something else going on here, but if there is another threat big enough to imperil this fleet, we haven’t found it. What could it be?”
Sakai spoke for the first time. “As I said, I have little direct experience with military matters, but I do have some knowledge of dealing with opponents in ways they do not expect. If what you seek is here, and you are confident that we have seen all that is here, then we must have seen it and not known what it means.”
“Maybe intelligence has spotted something. It’s their job to figure out what things mean.” Geary called Lieutenant Iger again. This time, Lieutenant Iger had the unhappy look of an intelligence officer who was about to impart something that wasn’t going to make his superior happy. “Lieutenant, do you have anything regarding any threats in this star system that wouldn’t have been apparent before now?”
Iger appeared startled by the question. “No, sir. Nothing we haven’t reported. We’ve fed everything we’ve found regarding threats into the fleet combat systems. But, sir, I was going to call you after we ran a triple check on our analysis of the Syndic net. We do apparently have something odd going on.”
Naturally. Something else odd. “And what would that be?”
“Sir, regarding the location of the Syndic Executive Council.” Lieutenant Iger frowned down at something on his own display, then made a helpless gesture. “We have identified a location that has firm priority within the Syndic net.”
“Which planet is it?” Geary pressed.
“It’s not a planet, sir. It’s in the small group of Syndic warships at the jump point for Mandalon.”
Geary’s eyes went to his display. “They’re on that battleship?”
“That is our assessment, yes, sir. As I said, we were rerunning our analysis—”
“Why? Why would they be on that battleship?”
“We have to assume that they’re preparing to run, sir.”
“But if the Syndic leaders are on that battleship so they can escape, why haven’t they already run? It would have made more sense to leave this star system before we arrived so it wouldn’t so obviously be running. And how can they hope to maintain their authority if they flee this star system?”
Iger looked apologetic. “Sir, we don’t know the answers to that. We have to assume that there is a reason the Syndic leaders haven’t yet fled and that they have some grounds for thinking they can politically survive such a flight.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Geary looked to Desjani, Rione, and Sakai. “Intelligence says the Syndic Executive Council is on that battleship at the jump point for Mandalon. Intelligence doesn’t know why they haven’t already run if that’s their intention.”
“They’re planning on doing something before they run,” Desjani replied.
“That’s what intel thought. But what?”
“I don’t know. I can only think of one reason why as a military officer I’d want to get away fast after performing an action.”
Memories flashed into Geary’s mind. The last moments of his heavy cruiser Merlon in Grendel star system. “If you’ve activated a power-core overload on your ship. A self-destruct command. You need to be able to get off the ship fast after you give that order.”
“Right. But what could the Syndic Executive Council want to do that’s anything like that?”
Rione answered Desjani, though her reply sounded more like a prayer. “May the living stars preserve us.” She stood up, her face growing pale as an expression of horror flitted across it. “Senator Sakai was correct. We’re looking at it. Ancestors save us, it’s right there, and we didn’t see it.”
Desjani frowned, searching her own display. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about what we expect to see and what really is there! How did this fleet defeat that Syndic flotilla at Lakota? It used a large number of ships as an improvised minefield, and the Syndics didn’t realize what it was because it didn’t look like a minefield.” Rione’s hand came up, pointing. “The hypernet gate.”
Geary felt a hard knot tighten in his guts. “It has a safe-fail system installed. We confirmed that.”
“Yes, we did.” Rione turned a burning gaze on him, then stepped forward quickly, leaning over close so only Geary and Desjani could hear her. “But systems can be reprogrammed, Admiral Geary. The collapse of a hypernet gate can be scaled down to minimize the energy release, or scaled up to make it a deadlier weapon.”
He got it then. When Captain Cresida had first worked up the necessary algorithms to scale down the energy release from a collapsing hy
pernet gate, she had also had to work up the reverse, the ways to increase the energy release. He had given that set of algorithms to Rione, not trusting himself with such a weapon.
But the Syndics would have done the same calculations, eventually reached the same conclusions, discovered how to reliably turn their own hypernet gates into weapons that could kill fleets and star systems at a single blow. A self-destruct command encompassing an entire star system, aimed at taking down this fleet.
Desjani’s face had gone rigid, and she spoke with extreme care. “Can a safe-fail system be reversed? Made to trigger a powerful blast? Worse than at Kalixa?”
“I don’t know,” Geary replied, marveling at the steadiness of his own voice. “I can find out.” Like Desjani, he didn’t question that the Syndic leadership might annihilate even this star system if that price bought the destruction of the Alliance fleet. He had seen far too many incidents where star-system CEOs had ordered actions with a similar callous disregard for their own people living in those star systems.