Guardian

Eleven

“Tell the Syndics we’re going to make two passes above the prison-camp area,” Geary told Rione, “because we require two shuttle lifts to get all of the prisoners up.”

The fleet’s orbital track had been very carefully calculated so that the planet’s surface would track a bit to one side under it between passes. On the first pass, the fleet would pass just west of the prison-camp area. On Syndic displays in their control centers and command posts, the fleet’s orbit would be projected with one hundred percent certainty that the second pass would bring the fleet directly over the camp.

Windows showing Captain Armus of Colossus and Captain Jane Geary of Dreadnaught were open near the fleet command seat on Dauntless’s bridge. “You’ve got your initial maneuvering orders. Captain Armus, once your portion of the battleship force is cut loose, I want you to do everything you can to support the Marines on the ground at the trigger site. I don’t care how much of the surrounding landscape you have to tear up.”

Armus nodded, stolid and unperturbed. This fire-support mission was right up his alley.

“Captain Geary,” Geary continued, “your part of the battleship force is to keep those four groups of Syndic warships off Armus’s units and off the shuttles going down to pick up the Marines. Anticipate the movements of the Syndics and be there first. They don’t have the muscle to stand up to your ships, and if they try, I want them shot to pieces.”

“It will be a pleasure, Admiral,” Jane Geary replied. If anyone could use battleships in an active defense role, it would be her.

Desjani, sitting on the other side of the admiral, was trying not to let her displeasure show at the lesser role of the battle cruisers.

Orion had been destroyed. Relentless, Reprisal, Superb, and Splendid were tied to Invincible, not only towing the superbattleship but also providing point defense for her. That left Geary with eighteen battleships, many of them scarred by fighting against enigmas, Kicks, and Syndics. Those battleships also lacked the maneuverability and speed of other warships, but all were massive, heavily armored, and bristling with weapons. Nothing but superior firepower, and a lot of it, could best them in a fight.

Armus would have Colossus, Encroach, Amazon, Spartan, Gallant, Indomitable, Glorious, and Magnificent. Jane Geary would have Dreadnaught, Dependable, Conqueror, Warspite, Vengeance, Revenge, Guardian, Fearless, Resolution, and Redoubtable.

The images of the two battleship commanders disappeared. Geary called Carabali. “Are your people ready to go, General?”

Carabali saluted formally. “Yes, Admiral. Twenty-nine Marines, and one fleet engineer. Commander Hopper has received a crash course in stealth armor operation and employment, as well as planetary infiltration, and has received emergency certification as qualified for this action.”

To say the Marine force-recon scouts had been less than thrilled to have a fleet engineer tapped to join their mission would have been seriously downplaying their reaction. Geary could have sworn he heard their chorus of protests even across the empty space separating ships. But the Marines had been forced to acknowledge that none of their personnel had a fraction of Hopper’s expertise and experience with the sort of challenge the trigger would pose, and she had completed the necessary simulator work.

“Launch your people on schedule,” Geary ordered.

He sat back, trying to relax, studying his display. The globe of the inhabited world slowly grew closer. The fleet had drastically scaled back its speed again for this operation and to achieve a stable orbit about the planet. That would give the Marines a little less than two hours after launch to reach the surface, reach their objective, infiltrate it, and seize control of the trigger before the fleet made its second orbital pass directly above the Syndic version of a Continental Shotgun.

“Tanya, I want you to be ready.”

Desjani perked up and looked at him. “For what?”

“If necessary, or if a good opportunity offers, I’m going to set loose the battle cruisers by divisions to chase off or chase down those Syndic warships that have been hounding us.”

“That just leaves escorts and the four battleships tied to Invincible to protect the assault transports and auxiliaries,” she pointed out.

“It will depend on the situation,” Geary said. “And I’ll keep Adroit within the formation as a last-ditch defense, too. Just be ready to go all out if I give the order.”

Desjani grinned like a wolf. “I’m always ready to do that. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Geary smiled back, then called Captain Tulev on Leviathan, Captain Badaya on Illustrious, and Captain Duellos on Inspire to pass on the same heads-up.

The four Syndic warship groups had come within several light-seconds, teasing the Alliance warships and forcing the Alliance fleet to remain in a tight defensive formation. Geary smiled as he watched them. It won’t be too long before you have to react to us. Then we may finally get a chance to grapple with you.

A soft alert tone notified Geary that the Marine scouts were launching from some of the assault transports, using special launch tubes that ejected them without using any energy or propellant that would alert watching Syndics that anything had happened.

He gazed at the planet turning below the fleet, the north pole currently behind the fleet to the right, and the south pole ahead to the left. The city holding the Syndic command and control center, and the site of the trigger, was off below and to Geary’s right. Just coming into view again on the globe’s horizon was the prison-camp location slightly to Geary’s left. On the planet’s surface, the trigger site and the prison camp were far apart. From this high, they could both be seen at once.

The Marines were dropping toward that surface now, in suits equipped to slow and conceal their descent while preventing detection by any available sensor. The suits weren’t foolproof. Good enough sensors focused on the right spots at the right times would pick up indications that something unusual was going on. But right now every available Syndic sensor and set of eyeballs would be focused on the Alliance fleet as it headed for the vicinity of the prison camp and began launching shuttles.

What would it be like for the Marines? Falling for kilometers toward the planet, the land growing in size beneath them, knowing that hostile eyes, ears, and weapons were on the lookout for intruders. The inside of the armor becoming uncomfortably hot as the suits absorbed heat they could not radiate without betraying the location of the wearer. Heavily armored and armed Marines planning to hit dirt after a kilometers-long fall in such a gentle way that even seismic sensors would not spot anything untoward.

And Commander Hopper among them, doing something she had never trained for except in a few hasty simulator sessions.

He couldn’t activate links to see through the eyes of the Marines. Not this time. The scouts would maintain silence except for occasional low-power microburst transmissions among their own force.

“All shuttles launched,” Lieutenant Castries said.

Geary nodded. “Very well.” He hoped his voice sounded steady, in contrast to the tightness strumming through his nerves.

Eighty shuttles fell toward the planet, their descents graceful and oddly like the birds they were nicknamed for. Unlike the Marine scouts, these shuttles carried only standard detection-avoidance gear, and were visible to a variety of sensors.

Geary’s eyes went back to the four groups of Syndic warships. Still close, still not getting closer. “That should have been a hint for us the first time. Why didn’t those four groups of ships try to hit the shuttles or at least disrupt their movement? Because they wanted to make sure we didn’t halt the recovery or break up the fleet to chase them.”

“Uh-huh,” Desjani said.

“I can’t even imagine going on an operation like those Marine scouts. The trip down, the attempts to avoid detection while walking among alert enemy sentries, everything.” Geary knew he was talking too much, but it helped relax his nerves as he waited. “I don’t know how they do it.”

Desjani glanced at him. “They do it because they’re crazy. All Marines are crazy. Force-recon Marines are even crazier than other Marines.”

“How do you know so much about different kinds of Marines?”

She looked back at her display. “There are parts of my dating history that you probably don’t want to know about.”

“You’re… probably right.”

He was saved from further comment by a call from intelligence. “Admiral,” Lieutenant Iger’s image reported, “the drones we have on the planet are spotting an unusual level of activity at and around the trigger location.”

Trying not to let that news rattle him, Geary looked at the images Iger was forwarding. “Is this some sort of alert? Extra security?” If the Syndics have picked up the Marines coming in…

“No, sir. As far as we can tell, it’s just extra traffic into and out of the trigger location. They’re definitely gearing up for something, but there’s not increased security activity. If anything, the sentries are being distracted by checking the visitors in and out.”

In a normal operation, that information and those images would be forwarded to the Marines. But not in a stealth op. That kind of comm linkage would all too easily betray the presence of the Marines. “Make sure General Carabali sees these images.”

“Yes, sir. The Marines should be on the ground now, so the lack of reaction by the Syndics is a good sign.”

Iger’s image had no sooner vanished than Rione’s image appeared. “I’ve heard from CEO Gawzi again. An explicit warning that if we do not go through with the pickup this time, there are no guarantees for the safety of the prisoners. That confirms how badly the Syndics want us to go through with this. The fact that it wasn’t CEO Gawzi speaking to me, but a digital avatar instead, confirms that the Syndic internal-security forces are calling all the shots now.”

“How certain are you that it was an avatar?” Geary asked.

“Completely certain.”

He didn’t question her assessment any further. Machines could be easily fooled by digital avatars, but people rarely were. No matter how perfect the illusion, people sensed something that couldn’t be detected by equipment. He had read speculation once that this skill had developed after the creation of nearly perfect digital-avatar technology, but no one really knew if that was true or if humans had always been able to feel the difference between the fake and the real.

“Gawzi may well be dead,” Rione continued. “Her level of nervousness in our last few conversations told me that she was very unhappy with the Syndic plan here. Maybe she attempted something to stop the plan. Maybe she was blocked, and the extreme horror of the information she could not divulge caused her to lose her sanity in fairly short order.”

Geary felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for the elderly Syndic CEO. Perhaps she had cared about the people in this star system, cared about them the same way that the manager at the facility near the gas giant cared. But she had been able to do nothing to help them, nothing to prevent tragedy. She had spent her life supporting a system which in the end had repaid her with callously efficient betrayal. Maybe she deserved such a fate for a lifetime of work in support of a system she must have known was capable of such deeds. But perhaps she hadn’t had any choice, and had done all she could to protect those under her. I don’t know. It’s not my place to judge her. If she’s already dead, that judgment is being rendered by those far wiser than I’ll ever be. My job is to make sure the Syndic plans fail. “Thank you for the update. The Marines should be on the surface. Keep your fingers crossed. They are running incredible risks.”

She nodded slowly. “They will have my prayers. As does everyone else in this fleet. Is it not amazing, Admiral Geary, what remarkable efforts some will go to in order to save the lives of their fellow humans, and what remarkable efforts others will go to in order to take the lives of their fellow humans?”

He was still fumbling for some kind of reply when Rione’s image disappeared. “Tanya, I was wondering at one point how to explain what’s going on to the Dancers. Now I’m wondering how to explain it at all.”

Desjani lowered a furious brow at him. “I should never let you talk to that woman.”

“She’s an emissary of the Alliance government!”

“And I’m… the commanding officer of your flagship! The first wave of shuttles is hitting dirt.”

The Marines would not need his personal oversight of what was becoming a routine for them, recovering Alliance prisoners under nonpermissive conditions. He could have tapped into the Marine command and control net, seeing events on the ground in the prison camp, but not this time. General Carabali will notify me if anything goes wrong on the Marine end, and the watch-standers here on Dauntless will tell me if anything happens to the shuttles.

Instead of focusing on that, Geary looked to other parts of his display. The four groups of Syndic warships had not yet moved. They shouldn’t move until it became apparent that the Alliance fleet was not playing the game as the Syndics intended, but those warships remained an unpredictable element. If they started moving before any other signs of problems below, it would be a sign that the Alliance plan was in trouble.

The Marine plan allowed half an hour for the scouts to assemble at the trigger location and infiltrate close to the entrance, and another twenty minutes to actually penetrate the installation and gain control of the trigger just before the fleet approached the region above the prison camp on its second orbital pass. If anything went wrong, Lieutenant Iger’s drones would spot the uproar before the Marines could report in.

“Loading first wave of shuttles. No problems reported with crowd control,” Lieutenant Castries called. “Prisoners report no Syndics in the camp or nearby for the last twenty-four hours.”

The fleet had crossed over the nighttime southern portion of the globe and was now climbing back over the sunward side. The shuttles, when loaded, would lift to meet the fleet as it crested the top of the globe and headed back down, on a path aimed to go straight over the prison camp in low orbit.

The Syndics plotting this attack must be watching the fleet’s movements like gamblers following each turn of a card. Just keep on going. Finish the orbit. Get into position. And then…

“Admiral!” Lieutenant Iger couldn’t suppress his excitement. “Look.”

Geary peered at the image of one of the Syndic sentry posts near the trigger.

The sentry wasn’t there.

“The sentry must have spotted something,” Iger explained, “and the Marines took them out before they could sound an alarm.”

“Why aren’t the sentry alerts sounding? Aren’t those set to go off automatically if anything happens to the sentry?”

“Yes, sir. They can be spoofed—”

The feed from the drone blanked for a moment.

“—but not for long,” Iger continued, as the drone feed came to life again. “The Syndics just lit off jammers, and our drone had to work around them.”

Extra security lights had flared to life near the trigger installation, and nozzles were pumping out a fine mist designed to reveal anyone in a stealth suit. Geary couldn’t hear alarms sounding but knew they must be. Syndic ground forces personnel and security guards were running about, weapons at the ready. “Where are the Marines?”

“We don’t see any being engaged by the Syndics, sir. That’s a good sign. It means they’re inside.”

Inside an installation of unknown design, with unknown security features, and an unknown number of armed defenders.

Geary’s eyes went back to his display. How long until the Syndic warships reacted? The Syndics would be rushing additional ground forces to the trigger site, trying to figure out what had happened, whether there was a real threat, how serious the threat was—

“Shuttles docking,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “The prisoners are being dumped into quarantined loading docks until full medical and security screening can be conducted. Screening on the way up didn’t find any threats in or on the prisoners. Estimated time to shuttles heading back down is two minutes.”

“Why bother sabotaging the prisoners when the Syndics expected them to be blown to atoms?” Desjani commented.

Geary didn’t reply, looking at the globe scrolling by below, the location of the prison camp directly ahead of the tight fleet formation.

For the first time, it occurred to him that they didn’t know if the particle beams were rigged to fire straight up, or at a slight angle to catch an orbiting formation just before it reached a point over the camp.

It’s time. “Captain Armus, your force is detached to proceed on previously assigned duties. Captain Geary, your force is detached to proceed on previously assigned duties. All units in the First Fleet, immediate execute, come starboard five degrees.” Enough to get the fleet out of line with those particle beams but close enough for the shuttles to be able to make the second drop and recovery.

Eighteen battleships swung away from the fleet formation, ponderous and majestic. Armus kept his eight battleships close together in a roughly circular arrangement. Once positioned over the trigger site, they would all be able to fire the majority of their weapons downward. Jane Geary sent two battleships to hover just above Armus’s grouping, the other eight arranged in pairs around the ground-support battleships.

“Shuttles launching,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “Second wave on its way.”

Alarms chirped as a hell-lance battery lost power on Revenge, partial shield failure afflicted Colossus, and the forward part of Fearless suffered spot power interruptions in a score of places. Geary glowered at his display, knowing the systems had failed as aging components on ships which had exceeded their planned hull lives were brought to full power for the action. I guess I should be glad there weren’t more failures. “All ships in First Fleet, bring your systems up to full power now.” If there were going to be more failures, better to have it happen right away, so there would be time to try to fix or jury-rig the problems.

Something caught Geary’s eye. He swung his gaze to see explosions erupting on the drone image of the trigger site.

“Our people are inside and holding the entrance,” General Carabali said as her image appeared. “The situation farther inside is uncertain. I don’t know if we have control of the trigger. Request all available fleet ground support as close to the trigger building as possible.”

“Captain Armus,” Geary ordered, “you are cleared to engage any target and lay down a suppression barrage. Don’t hit the trigger building. General Carabali is linking to your coordination circuit.”

“Understood,” Captain Armus said as laconically as if Geary had just ordered the fleet to stand down for the night. “Opening fire.”

The image from the drone wavered as dozens of hell-lance particle beams stabbed down from high above, hitting targets with pinpoint precision. Armored vehicles and bunkers shuddered as the hell lances tore large holes completely through them.

Alerts were popping up all over the fleet as minor and major systems on a few dozen warships suffered failures or partial failures. Not nearly as many as at Honor, and nothing that would render any ship unable to fight at all, but still a concern. Ironically, but understandably, many of the ships suffering system failures now had avoided major damage during earlier fights. Without immediate need to repair and replace battle damage, their older systems had remained in place and were now showing their age.

Geary’s attention jerked back to the scene from Iger’s drone. The view was momentarily obscured completely as small bombardment projectiles launched from the battleships plummeted to contact with the ground. Nothing but rocket-shaped chunks of solid metal, the bombardment rounds gained their destructive power from the immense energy built up as they dropped from orbit.

Geary shifted his view to an overhead look from Armus’s battleships. Dust and debris now filled the air around the trigger site, but multispectrum sensors could partially penetrate the murk to spot moving objects. More hell lances stabbed down, aimed at targets ranging from individual Syndics to more vehicles screeching to halts at the edge of the bombardment area. More rocks headed down from the battleships, aimed not only at Syndics trying to reach the trigger site but also at forcing anyone near the building to keep their heads down. Rubble from collapsed buildings in the area around the trigger site bounced, producing false moving-target alerts on the fleet’s sensors, as another bombardment plunged home.

The trigger building itself remained untouched except for scars on its sides where shrapnel from nearby bombardment impacts had exposed the heavy armor beneath the unassuming facade.

Geary yanked his attention away from that scene, checking on the Syndic warships again. How long until they got orders to intervene? The Syndic leaders would be shocked, trying to grasp what was going on, disoriented by the sudden unraveling of their plan, which had seemed to be going perfectly before the Alliance abruptly altered the game.

The fleet was well clear of the prison-camp region by now, but the shuttles were dropping back down toward it as fast as they could without coming apart, and three thousand prisoners of war still waited for rescue.

If the Syndics still controlled the trigger, an apocalypse centered on that prison camp would very soon erupt, taking with it the shuttles, the Marines on them, and the waiting prisoners.

Alerts sounded as the four Syndic warship groups finally surged into motion, whipping around and accelerating at maximum. Two were coming around toward Armus’s battleships, and the other two were angling toward either the fleet or the shuttles that would be rising back to meet it.

“They screwed up,” Desjani said with a fierce grin. “They split their effort, and the only way they can make a difference is by coming within range of us.”

“Yes, they did,” Geary agreed. “Work up an intercept for Group Cable. I’ll tell Duellos to go for it as well, and send Tulev and Badaya after Delta.”

They would have this, they would totally frustrate the Syndic plans and hit the Syndics hard, if only the Syndic weapon didn’t go off…

“I have comms from the force recon on the surface,” General Carabali announced. “They’re requesting pickup.”

“What about the trigger?”

“Commander Hopper says the trigger is Bravo Delta. That’s a slang term, Admiral. It stands for—”

“I know what it stands for. The trigger is out of commission. That term has been around a lot longer than I have. Captain Geary! The Marines need a ride.”

“On the way,” Jane Geary replied.

More alerts on the display. Ground forces on the planet had launched atmospheric combat aircraft, old models that were easy to spot from low orbit. Guardian, almost skimming the stratosphere, took out the aircraft with a series of hell-lance shots, then launched four shuttles that spiraled downward, protected by a wall of fire from Guardian and the other battleships.

Syndic Group Alpha, already rocketing toward the trigger site, altered vector slightly to skim atmosphere, their hulls glowing with heat as the friction wore down their shields, aiming for Guardian’s shuttles.

Syndic Group Bravo, higher up, aimed a hopeless firing run at Armus’s group of battleships. Jane Geary was vectoring Conqueror, Dependable, Vengeance, and Revenge to box in Bravo if that group continued its strike.

The main shuttle force was grounding at the prison-camp site again.

Syndic warship groups Cable and Delta were swinging wide around the Alliance fleet formation, their goal obviously the shuttles when they lifted back toward the fleet loaded with freed prisoners.

“Go, Tanya,” Geary said, transmitting similar orders to Duellos, Tulev, and Badaya. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute formation guide shifts to Invincible. Admiral Lagemann, take any necessary action to provide cover for the shuttles as they return.” There shouldn’t be any action necessary, but if Lagemann did have to order any more ships out of the formation, he had well over two hundred heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers to play with.

Desjani whooped as she sent Dauntless, Daring, Victorious, and Intemperate on an angled climb toward an intercept with Syndic Group Cable. Behind her, the other battle cruisers in the Alliance fleet tore away on their own intercept vectors.

“Shuttles lifting!” Lieutenant Yuon cried.

Geary checked to ensure Yuon meant the shuttles at the prison camp. Those headed to pick up the Marines at the trigger site were still weaving downward through a hail of fire from Syndic ground defenses that were being knocked out by Guardian almost as fast as they opened up.

Syndic Group Alpha kept coming, probably still under automated maneuvering control in response to orders from distant superiors, as Guardian and Warspite opened up on the Syndic warships. Captain Armus, lacking enough decent targets in the heavily cratered wasteland around the trigger site, shifted the fire of four of his battleships to engage Alpha as well.

Their shields already weak from fighting through the upper atmosphere, the ships of Alpha ran head-on into the fire of six battleships.

The heavy cruiser and four of the Hunter-Killers simply exploded under the hammerblows, coming apart as specter missiles, hell lances, and grapeshot hit in quick succession. One of the light cruisers was shredded by hits and knocked even farther into the atmosphere. Without shields, traveling at tremendous velocity, the remains of the light cruiser dissolved in a flash of heat and light, a ball of plasma forming a brief, fiery streak across the planet’s sky.

The second light cruiser survived only because it had wrenched onto a new vector seconds before impact, leaping upward and away from the Alliance barrage.

Syndic Group Bravo, bearing down on Armus’s force, saw the fate of Alpha and also whipped into turns, the Syndic ships sliding through wide arcs as they tried to avoid the fate of Alpha’s warships. The heavy cruiser slid too far, coming deep enough inside the battleships’ missile envelopes to catch a dozen specters that broke it into several large fragments that spun away, some heading out into space and some falling to their doom in the planet’s atmosphere.

“Marine recovery shuttles are on the ground,” Jane Geary reported.

“Shuttles lifting from prison camp,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “Half of them are overloaded. They’re requesting the fleet brake to assist their recovery.”

“Admiral Lagemann,” Geary said as he hit his comm controls. “Brake the fleet formation as necessary to help the shuttles catch you.”

He felt a sense of liberation despite the chaos of the battle raging from the surface of the planet up into space above it. I don’t have to call all the shots. I have commanders I trust who can manage the details if I give them the job. All I have to do is make sure I keep a handle on the big picture, so everything is coordinated, and every threat is dealt with.

Syndic Groups Cable and Delta had realized that they were too late to bombard the prison camp, and that the Alliance battle cruisers were going to ensure that none of the Syndic warships made it through to the climbing shuttles. The Syndics bent away, their groups breaking into individual ships as commanders overrode the automated maneuvering controls. One of the inexperienced Syndic commanders overstressed his or her ship’s structure on the turn, the light cruiser shattering into pieces that spun toward the planet below.

As the Syndics tried to flee, Desjani cursed, altering Dauntless’s vector a bit to close on another one of the light cruisers that was the only Syndic warship the Alliance battle cruiser still had a hope of catching. “We’re going to get one shot,” she warned her crew. “Make sure it counts.”

Dauntless tore past the intercept, hell lances stabbing out at the light cruiser, which rocked under the impacts, straining to get away. Before the light cruiser could recover from the hell-lance hits, two specters slammed into its stern, blowing apart the back half of the Syndic warship.

Inspire managed to take out a HuK, as did Dragon. Daring and Victorious battered a heavy cruiser, but the Syndic ship didn’t take any damage to its propulsion and kept going.

The Syndics, their groups broken into individual warships, were fleeing all out on dozens of vectors. “We can’t catch any more,” Geary said.

Desjani, her face red with frustration, nodded. “Not if they keep running.”

“They will. Get your division back into formation.” He called Duellos, Tulev, and Badaya with the same orders, knowing the disappointment they would all feel. But you couldn’t beat the physics of time, distance, and available acceleration.

“Shuttles are docking,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “Estimate twenty minutes to complete recovery.”

Geary checked the status of Guardian’s shuttles, themselves rising out of the maelstrom of dust raised by the Alliance bombardment.

“Admiral?” General Carabali called. “My Marines and Commander Hopper recommend we flatten the trigger site. Commander Hopper says there is no chance the destruction of the site will set off the Syndic weapon, but destroying the site will seriously complicate attempts to rebuild the trigger.”

“Captain Armus,” Geary ordered. “Destroy the trigger site.”

Another barrage of bombardment projectiles dropped, these rocks bigger, falling from orbit onto the trigger-site building, which sat bizarrely almost undamaged amid the sea of wreckage around it.

As Guardian recovered her shuttles, the rocks hit the trigger site, producing a gratifying series of explosions that tossed debris high up toward the battleships and leaving twisted ruins and craters in their wake.

“Admiral, look at this,” Desjani urged.

Geary checked his display. The Syndic light cruiser that was the sole survivor of Group Alpha, which had left the group in time to save itself, had launched several bombardment projectiles.

A bombardment aimed at the larger moon of this planet.

Aimed at the luxury resort where the senior Syndic internal-security leaders in this star system had fled. If those leaders weren’t already in hidden deep shelters, they would have time to flee the resort in the available ships there before the rocks hit, but the bombardment was still a powerful symbolic act.

“I guess they had a mutiny,” Geary commented. “A successful one. I wonder if their ship had that remote power-core-overload device we saw at Midway, and if the Syndic crews are already figuring out how to block it. All units in First Fleet, rejoin formation. General Carabali, please pass on my personal admiration for the skill with which your force-recon team carried out its mission. Emissary Rione, now is the time to let the people of this star system know what fate their Syndic overlords intended for that planet.”

Desjani looked around her bridge, smiling. “Good job, everyone. I think we reminded the Syndics who’s boss. What now, Admiral?”

“We’re heading for Padronis,” Geary said, knowing his next words would be repeated around the fleet. “For the sake of the Syndics, I hope they don’t try to mess with us there.”

As the fleet neared the jump point for Padronis, they watched the mutinous Syndic light cruiser jump through well ahead of them. “Looks like this jump exit is clear,” Desjani commented.

“We’ll go through carefully anyway,” Geary said. He turned at a sound and saw that Rione had come onto the bridge. “Have we heard any more from the Syndics?”

“No,” Rione replied. “Aside from two fragmentary messages using the avatar of CEO Gawzi that complained of unprovoked aggression, there’s been nothing else. They can’t complain about the warships we destroyed since they insisted those weren’t under Syndic control, and I suspect the Syndics in Simur are too busy with internal matters to pursue further complaints about events we were involved in.”

“Internal matters? Internal revolt, you mean.”

“Of course. There’s no telling who will win this one. We don’t know enough about the Syndic security forces here and what the locals might be able to muster. Did you want me to look into getting supplies from anywhere within this star system? Some of the facilities in the outer reaches of the star system might be willing to deal.”

“No,” Geary said immediately. “We don’t need anything they could provide, and there’s no source here we could trust. Even the people fighting the Syndic security police might see us as still just another enemy. In any case, I don’t want to linger here. That would just give the Syndics more time to prepare surprises at Padronis. What have you heard from the Dancers? Emissary Charban says the Dancers have been singularly uncurious about everything that happened here.”

“Yes. Strangely so,” Rione agreed. “Either they understood it all without our having to explain it, or it was so incomprehensible to them that they aren’t trying to understand it.”

Geary gave his display a glance as it beeped for his attention. “The last shuttle run is complete. I thought we’d never find room for all of those prisoners we liberated. Let’s hope we don’t have to go into battle with all of those extra people clogging our ships.”

That reminded him of something. He called Tanuki. “Captain Smythe, how is Commander Hopper? Home safe and sound?”

Smythe grinned. “And happy to be home. We had some trouble prying her away from the Marines. They wanted to keep her. I think the stock of fleet engineers has risen considerably among the Marines. They really did need her. She says that trigger was an impressive mess of misleading circuitry, false mechanisms, and trip wires, all of it designed to fool anyone trying to disable it or override it by standard methods.”

“I’d like to see Commander Hopper’s postaction report when she completes it,” Geary said. “Oh, you can have Lieutenant Jamenson back full-time. Have her destroy all intel files she was sent.”

“Of course,” Captain Smythe said.

“We’ll know if they aren’t destroyed,” Geary added casually. “Special tags embedded in the files.”

“Why would that be a problem?” Smythe asked heartily. “Speaking of Lieutenant Jamenson, she’s being harassed by some fellow named Iger.”

“Harassed? Is that the term she is using?”

“Possibly not. I can’t spare her, Admiral.”

“Understood, Captain, but we have to think of her career and well-being, too. I won’t hijack her. But if she wants to move on, I hope she’ll get the assistance in that effort that she has earned from both of us.”

Smythe sighed dramatically. “You’re right. Keep good people in servitude, and you end up like the Syndics. We’ve almost completed repairs on Revenge, Colossus, and Fearless, by the way. They’ll be fine before we jump. Until something else breaks on them or other ships.”

“We’ll be home soon and have time to work on everything,” Geary said. “Everything except my report on what’s been going on from the time we left Varandal, since I have to turn it in as soon as we arrive. That’s going to be a book before I get everything into it.”

“Too bad we don’t have a faster-than-light message system like the enigmas, isn’t it? Not having to physically send ships with messages could be useful at times.”

Or a pain in the neck if it allowed fleet headquarters to reach across the light-years to try to micromanage us in real time. “If you come up with one, or figure out how the enigmas do it, let me know.”

After talking to Smythe, and before he could forget, he called Lieutenant Iger. “Just for the sake of observing all of the formalities, let me know when Lieutenant Jamenson has destroyed all the files she was sent and signed off on all of the debriefing and disclosure paperwork.”

Iger nodded quickly. “I don’t anticipate problems with that, Admiral. Shamrock is extremely professional in her work.”

“Shamrock?”

“Uh… I mean, Lieutenant Jamenson… of course, sir.”

Geary made sure that he didn’t smile. “Then all of your misgivings regarding her have been put to rest?”

“Absolutely, sir! Lieutenant Jamenson has requested to visit Dauntless and tour the intelligence spaces here once we return to Varandal. With your permission and approval, Admiral, and that of Captain Desjani.”

Apparently Jamenson wasn’t really feeling harassed. No wonder Smythe was worried about losing her. Geary hoped for Lieutenant Iger’s sake that her interest wasn’t entirely in the intriguing new world of intelligence. “I don’t anticipate any problem with that, Lieutenant.”

Nor was there any problem at the jump exit. Perhaps the Syndics had temporarily run out of mines in this region.

Geary felt relief as the stars around Simur vanished, and the gray of jump space appeared. Not just relief, but a sense that the last major hurdle had been crossed for now.

They would learn whether that was true when they reached Padronis.