Guardian

Three

“Maneuvering thrusters firing on all warships in the Syndic flotilla,” Lieutenant Yuon called out. “Vectors changing toward hypernet gate.”

“There you go,” Desjani said approvingly. “He’ll wait until the last possible second to cut in his main propulsion, too,” she predicted.

“What if Boyens miscalculates?” Geary said.

“Then we punch some holes in the hide of that battleship to remind him that he should allow a little larger margin for error in the future.” She smiled at him. “Right?”

“Yeah. Whoever is driving our ‘chartered’ heavy cruiser is doing a good job.”

The lone heavy cruiser had kept accelerating all out away from the pursuing Syndic cruisers and HuKs while twisting slightly to one side and down in order to put the oncoming missiles into the most difficult possible stern chase. Geary’s eyes went to where the Midway flotilla was swooping in from the side, aiming to intercept the heavy cruisers of the Syndic force that had gone after the lone cruiser. “They’re not faking this at all. They’re going to try to take out those Syndic warships.”

Desjani gave him a sidelong glance. “The Midway ships are outnumbered three to six in heavy cruisers. Having a few light cruisers along won’t compensate for that. If their Kommodor goes straight in, the Midway flotilla will get its butt kicked pretty hard.”

“Probably,” Geary agreed. “Let’s hope she’s smarter than that.” Something else caught his attention, the Dancer ships swinging outward from their last orbit and heading this way. “I wonder what the Dancers are thinking while they watch this.”

“If they’ve been secretly watching us as long as we suspect they have, then they’re probably thinking business as usual for those humans.”

Charban spoke in a thoughtful voice. “There must be many things they still don’t know about us. I feel certain that the Dancers are watching all we do very closely.”

By contrast, Rione sounded amused. “It would be interesting to know their interpretation of what they are seeing right now.”

Geary didn’t answer this time, his eyes once more on a time count scrolling downward. If the Syndic flotilla did not light off their main propulsion in another twenty seconds, Geary’s fleet would be certain to get within firing range before the Syndics could use the hypernet gate to escape.

“He’s not giving himself much margin for error,” Desjani commented. “Even if he— All right. Finally.” She sounded slightly disappointed.

“Main propulsion units have lit off on all Syndic warships,” Lieutenant Castries declared. “They’re accelerating at maximum.”

“They’re cutting it very close,” Desjani said. “I wonder…”

“What?” Geary asked.

“Maybe this isn’t about Boyens’s pride. Maybe he’s trying to tweak us one last time, by staying just barely out of reach and entering the gate just before we can hit him.”

“It’s still a dangerous game. If he cuts it that fine and misses by a hair, he could take a lot of hits.”

His display rippled as a string of updates appeared. “What’s this?”

“Tactical data link from the Midway flotilla,” Desjani said. “I told my systems people not to pass it through in real time but to scrub it and let periodic updates through.”

You’re letting transmissions from a flotilla of former Syndic warships through at all? Geary wondered. But he could see that those tactical links provided some useful information on the readiness state of the Midway warships as well as the single heavy cruiser fleeing the Syndics. That lone heavy cruiser was now identified as the Manticore.

The missiles fired at the Manticore had shifted their own vectors to maintain intercepts after the Manticore accelerated and maneuvered. They were still closing, but the slow relative speed with which they were overtaking Manticore made them good targets for the heavy cruiser’s armament. Geary watched as hell-lance shots slammed into the leading Syndic missiles, knocking out four. That left twenty incoming missiles, though.

Manticore’s vector altered abruptly as the cruiser’s main propulsion cut out, then her thrusters pitched her up and over, facing back the way she had come. Hell lances from Manticore’s forward batteries fired on the still-pursuing missiles as the heavy cruiser’s bow pointed toward them, but the ship’s movement continued away from the missiles.

I know this maneuver. The next thing to happen will be…

Manticore’s main propulsion flared to life at maximum, now braking the heavy cruiser’s velocity. The oncoming missiles could not slow their own speed quickly enough, instead using maneuvering thrusters at maximum to try to claw around fast enough to still manage intercepts as their closing speed grew rapidly, and Manticore got closer a lot faster than the missiles had planned for.

Missile vectors swung wildly, sliding past the oncoming shape of Manticore, stresses on the missile structures causing many of the weapons to come apart in mid–vector change. The missiles that survived the radical change in course were burning their remaining fuel off trying to match Manticore’s movement, which caused them to come to a near stop relative to Manticore. That made them perfect targets.

The six surviving missiles blew up as hell lances stabbed through them.

“You’re not supposed to try that maneuver with anything bigger than a light cruiser,” Geary commented.

“That must be prewar doctrine,” Desjani said. “I’ve done it with a battle cruiser. So has Bradamont. She must be showing those former Syndics how to really drive ships.”

With Manticore now slowing, the vectors of all the other forces near the hypernet gate were angling in toward the gate. Boyens, with his sole battleship and four light cruisers, was accelerating toward the gate at the lumbering pace which was the best a battleship could manage. Geary’s much-larger formation was bearing down on Boyens, but the projected intercept point with the Syndic flotilla was just past the gate. If Boyens kept accelerating at his current pace, he would get away just before Geary’s force closed to firing range.

The six heavy cruisers and ten HuKs that Boyens had detached to chase Kraken had come over and about and were now angling back to meet up with the battleship a few minutes prior to the entire flotilla’s reaching the gate.

And the Midway flotilla was coming in from almost the opposite side as Geary’s formation, aiming to hit the Syndic heavy cruisers before they could join with the rest of Boyens’s flotilla.

Not the simplest situation, with five different groupings of ships belonging to three different players near the gate, but far from being too complex to get his mind around. As long as the Syndics keep their vectors steady, all I really need to worry about now is whether Kommodor Marphissa is going to stage a senseless charge into a force that outnumbers her two to one. Should I—

Geary jerked in surprise as one of the Syndic light cruisers blew up. “What the hell happened?”

So surprised was everyone on the bridge that it took close to three seconds for anyone to reply.

“There have been no weapons fired at that light cruiser,” Lieutenant Yuon said.

“It just blew up?” Desjani asked sharply.

“It wasn’t hit by any weapon we could see,” Lieutenant Yuon insisted. “They’re still well out of range of us and the Midway flotilla, and none of the Syndic ships near it fired.”

“Could it be something the Midway flotilla did? A drifting mine?” Desjani questioned.

Lieutenant Castries answered. “Our sensors indicate it was an internal explosion, Captain. Not external. It couldn’t have been a mine.”

“Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon said, “we’re picking up indications consistent with a power core overload. But our systems also say there weren’t any warning indications, no signs that the power core on that ship was having problems. It just blew.”

“No hits and no indications of problems,” Desjani mused as she tapped an internal comm control. “Chief engineer, can a power core blow without sending out signs of instability that we could detect?”

“No way, Captain,” the chief engineer replied. “We would have picked up something. This went from fine to critical as fast as a power core can overload. There’s only one thing that could explain that.”

Desjani waited for several seconds, then prompted her chief engineer. “And that would be?”

“Oh. Sorry, Captain. Someone blew it on purpose. That’s the only thing that fits”

“A deliberate core overload?” Geary questioned. “Why would they do that?”

“Damned if I know, Admiral. Even Syndics don’t usually do something that stupid.”

“Admiral!” Lieutenant Iger’s image had appeared in a virtual window near Geary. “If we’re interpreting the data right, about three minutes before that Syndic light cruiser exploded, it severed its links to the Syndic flotilla command and control net.”

“It cut its links to the Syndic net?” Geary looked over at Desjani and saw she was reaching the same conclusion he was. “Isn’t that consistent with a mutiny?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Iger agreed reluctantly. “It could mean that. We don’t have nearly enough information to support or reject such a conclusion, though.”

“Do you have an alternative explanation for a ship’s suddenly blowing up? Did we pick up any unusual signals sent from the Syndic flagship to that light cruiser before its core exploded?”

“No, Admiral, but a burst transmission on a special frequency would be very difficult for us to spot. We’ll have to comb through all of the signals we’re intercepting to try to spot any strange transmissions.”

“You think they blew up their own ship to keep mutineers from getting away?” Desjani asked Geary.

“I think,” he replied, “that knowing what I do about Syndic leaders, and knowing how many ships of theirs have taken off on their own after killing any internal-security agents aboard them, that the Syndic leaders would have come up with some sort of additional fail-safe.”

Lieutenant Iger had been listening, and nodded. “Admiral, we’ve got this entire star system seeded with collection and relay sats. If a signal was sent, and it’s that important, we’ll find it.”

“It’s important to the Syndics,” Geary said. “Are you saying it’s important to us, too?”

“Yes, sir. If we can find that message, we can analyze it, break it down, copy it, and perhaps use it ourselves if it should ever become necessary.”

Desjani leaned over, grinning. “Blow up their ships using their own fail-safe? I like the way you think, Lieutenant.”

“There’s no guarantee we can do it, Captain. Even if we can locate the signal, there may be specific codes and authentication requirements for each Syndic warship. But if the Syndics cut corners to get the capability fielded fast, they may have left some large back doors open.”

“Captain?” Lieutenant Castries said. “The Midway flotilla has altered vector.”

Geary pulled his attention back to his display, seeing the Midway flotilla swinging wider now, pushing their track farther in toward the star and farther away from the Syndic heavy cruisers. As he watched that movement, an explanation suddenly came to him. “They weren’t making an attack.”

“What?” Desjani asked.

“The Midway flotilla. They weren’t going to hit that heavy cruiser force. They were going to come close enough that if any of the heavy cruisers or HuKs decided to mutiny and veer off, the Midway flotilla would be able to screen them.”

Rione laughed like a teacher whose favorite student had just guessed the right answer. “Yes, Admiral, that’s probably exactly what they were doing. President Iceni has been frank with me that she and Drakon have been sending transmissions to the Syndic warships encouraging them to mutiny.”

“But,” Charban said, “when they saw that light cruiser blow up, they knew that the Syndics had a countermeasure in place that would keep any other Syndic warships from trying to mutiny and join them.” He shook his head. “Haven’t the Syndic leaders figured out yet that short-term solutions like that don’t actually solve the underlying problem?”

“They stopped at least one mutiny,” Desjani said.

“At the cost of a light cruiser,” Charban said. “They still lost the ship. Crews on other ships will be trying to figure out how to stop that Syndic fail-safe from working. They will figure out how to do that because the enlisted always figure out ways around the brilliant schemes of their superiors, and the mutinies will again succeed. In the short haul, it’s easier to blow something up than it is to fix what’s wrong with it. But blowing it up isn’t a solution. It’s just a way of trying to forestall something without figuring out how to really fix it.”

“Ten minutes until we’re in range of the Syndic flotilla,” Lieutenant Yuon cautioned.

Geary eyed the remaining distance, hoping that Boyens wouldn’t develop a last-moment desire for a grand, suicidal gesture. The Alliance formation’s combat systems were choosing targets, assigning weapons, preparing to fire when the Syndic warships were in range, and the order was given. He decided to send one more message. “CEO Boyens, if you or any other Syndicate Worlds formation enters this star system again without approval, you had better be ready to deal with the consequences. Geary, out.”

“Not that I disapprove of threats aimed at Syndics,” Desjani said, “but why do you think they’ll pay attention to that?”

“Because of one other thing I’ve had Captain Smythe’s engineers working on. The light from that event should be showing up right about now. I wanted it to be revealed earlier, but this will do.”

The combat systems on Dauntless sounded an alert, highlighting on displays distant movement, the light of which had only just reached here. Far off, at the Midway facility orbiting a gas giant, the new battleship Midway was underway. To all appearances, as far as any sensor could tell, Midway was fully operational and ready to fight.

“Their battleship works?” Desjani asked, sounding as if she didn’t know whether to be happy or worried.

“Not even close. A lot of the work is deceptive, designed to make the ship look fully combat-ready. But as far as Boyens will be able to tell, the authorities at Midway now have their own battleship ready to engage the next Syndic attack.”

“And he’ll carry that news back to Prime with him,” Rione commented. “Very nice, Admiral.”

“What if the Syndics try another attack soon anyway?” Charban asked.

“I’m doing what I can,” Geary said, glancing at Desjani, “with what I have.”

“Dealing with reality?” Charban commented. “How did you make high rank with that kind of attitude?”

“Damned if I know.” On his display, the entire Syndic flotilla was together again, every ship headed for the hypernet gate, less than a minute from the point at which Geary could order his weapons to fire.

Desjani gave him a look, her hand hovering near her weapons controls. Everyone on the bridge was looking at him, everyone in the fleet waiting for his next words.

The Syndic flotilla vanished as it entered the gate.

He let out a long breath. “All units in Formation Alpha, reduce velocity to point zero two light speed, come port one nine zero degrees at time three zero. All units return to normal readiness condition.”

Desjani seemed to be out of sorts as she passed on the commands, so Geary smiled at her. “Are you unhappy that it worked?”

She didn’t return the smile. “We should have blown him away. We’re going to have to deal with him and that battleship again.”

“You may be right,” Geary conceded. “But I didn’t want to restart the war here and now.”

“Which sort of implies you expect to restart the war at some other place and time?”

He had a denial ready to go but felt a great uncertainty inside that stopped the words before they were spoken.

Now the only things holding the First Fleet at Midway were some final repair work and a personnel transfer. The personnel transfer was no afterthought, of course. Some of the humans once held prisoner by the enigmas would be handed over to the authorities at Midway. Those people had come from Midway and nearby star systems, and now dreamed of going home. Dr. Nasr, and Geary himself, didn’t believe that dream could come true, not as the former prisoners hoped and wished, but those individuals had the right to choose their own fates.

The repair work was only final in the sense of being the last to be done here. Only a few of Geary’s ships didn’t need additional work, and overage systems continued to fail on ships at random intervals that somehow seemed to occur in clusters whenever he was starting to feel better about the material condition of the ships in his fleet.

“We could spend the next six months here,” Captain Smythe explained, his image standing in Geary’s stateroom aboard Dauntless while Smythe remained physically aboard Tanuki, “and I couldn’t really get ahead of the game. Not with only eight auxiliaries and so many old ships to deal with.”

Old ships. Meaning more than two or three years since they were commissioned and sent off to battle in the expectation that they would be destroyed within a couple of years or less. “You and your engineers have done wonders,” Geary said. “I didn’t think some of the battleships would hold together this long.”

“It takes a lot to kill a Guardian-class battleship, Admiral,” Smythe reminded him. “All of that armor holds them together when by all rights they ought to be coming apart, and it’s not like warships in space can sink when they get too many holes in them.”

“Sink?”

“You know,” Smythe explained, “when a ship or a boat on a planetary ocean or sea loses buoyancy, when it takes on too much water, it sinks. It goes beneath the water. Some are designed to do that. Sub… somethings. But those can come up again. A ship designed to ride on the surface of the water is a write-off if it sinks. That’s how battleships and battle cruisers on planets, on oceans, used to be destroyed. They’d get enough holes in them to sink. I suppose at least a few must have blown up, but usually it was a matter of getting them under the water.”

Geary frowned at Smythe in puzzlement. “Why couldn’t the crews keep operating the battleships? Why did being under the water matter so much?”

“They didn’t have survival suits, Admiral. They couldn’t breathe! And the equipment didn’t work under the water. The engines used… internal combustion and… steam and… other methods that required oxygen and flame and… things.”

“Things?” Geary asked, smiling. “Is that the technical term?”

Smythe grinned. “Things. Junk. Stuff. All perfectly good engineering terms. But in all seriousness, if a ship designed to ride on the surface of the water were to sink, it was in some ways like a ship designed to operate in space making a destructive atmospheric entry. It’s not something they’re designed to survive.”

“All right, that comparison I understand. Have you had time to look at any of the data on Invincible? This conversation is making me wonder if the Kicks might not have designed it to handle things we don’t design our ships for.”

“It’s possible.” Smythe threw his hands upward helplessly. “There’s so much about that ship that is almost familiar, but not. As an engineer, it’s a fascinating and frustrating puzzle. Of course, it would help a great deal if we were able to power up any of the components aboard that ship.”

“No.”

“Something small? Something harmless?”

“How can you be sure it’s harmless?” Geary asked.

“Ah…” Smythe made the same gesture of confusion and bewilderment. “You have me there, Admiral. But maybe if we found out how at least one piece of equipment worked, we could put a dent in the superstitions developing about that Kick ship.”

“Superstitions?”

“The ghosts,” Smythe said apologetically.

“Captain, have you actually been aboard Invincible?”

“You mean physically? In person? No.” Smythe eyed Geary. “You have?”

“Yes.” Geary felt a sudden urge to shudder come over him and swallowed before he could speak. “I don’t know what the ghosts are, but the sensation is real and powerful. Is there some device that could create a sensation of immaterial dead crowding around you?”

“If they’re immaterial, they can’t crowd,” Smythe pointed out with an engineer’s precision. He pursed his lips in thought. “I’d have to discuss it with medical professionals. Maybe some sort of subsonic vibrations, but we haven’t picked any up on our equipment.”

“It might be something totally new to us,” Geary pointed out.

“Which is another reason for investigating the ship’s equipment!” Smythe pointed out triumphantly.

“But all power has been shut down on that ship, and all stored energy sources disconnected. How could something still be operating to unnerve anyone on that ship?”

Smythe leaned back, put a hand to his mouth, and thought. “Maybe… no… or, hmmm. If it was some sort of vibration or harmonic, operating at a level so low we couldn’t detect it even though humans could somehow sense it, you could in theory at least construct a structure like a ship so that it generated such harmonics naturally.” He nodded and smiled. “That could explain it. Purely guesswork at this point, but if the ship’s structure was designed to generate such harmonics, and the ship was equipped with some device that generated counterharmonics to damp out the effect, then shutting down everything would have shut down the counterharmonic equipment.”

“Seriously?” Geary asked, amazed.

“In theory,” Smythe emphasized. “I have no idea if that’s even remotely true, or how you would do it in practice. But then, I’m not a Kick.”

“Well, it may be just a wild-assed guess, but it’s still the only rational explanation I’ve heard for what Invincible feels like inside.”

“Admiral,” Captain Smythe said with exaggerated dignity, “I am a trained engineer. I don’t make wild-assed guesses. I make scientific wild-assed guesses.”

“I see.” Geary laughed, grateful for the diversion from too many problems and too few solutions. “Has Lieutenant Jamenson come up with any new scientific wild-assed guesses?”

“No, sir. She’s mined what we have for all that can be found. Once we get home and acquire more resources, I am confident she will be able to produce the sort of material we’re looking for.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Geary said, as an alert blinked for his attention. He ended the call to Smythe and tapped to accept the new call from the bridge of Dauntless.

Tanya Desjani gave him one of her I’m-tolerating-this-but-not-liking-it looks. “The freighter the locals sent to pick up former enigma prisoners is matching movement to Haboob.”

The former enigma prisoners. Humans captured over at least decades, some from Syndic ships that had mysteriously vanished, some from planets in star systems that the enigmas had taken over. There were more than three hundred of them aboard Haboob. Three hundred thirty-three, to be exact, a number that the prisoners said had been kept constant and so must have meant something to the enigmas. Figuring out what to do with those people was an ongoing headache, but eighteen of them had asked to be left off at Midway because they had either lived here or at the nearby star Taroa.

Agreeing to that hadn’t been an easy decision, either. The rulers of Midway claimed to be no longer despotic Syndics but could easily just be stringing Geary along for their own purposes. “Where is Dr. Nasr?”

“Physically on-scene aboard Haboob,” she replied.

“Good. Can you join me in the conference room to watch this go down? I want to link in with Dr. Nasr.”

“We could do that on the bridge,” Desjani complained. “Oh, you want a less public location in case something unpleasant happens when we try to hand over some of those head cases the enigmas kept locked up?”

“Yes, Captain,” Geary said patiently. “They’re head cases because the enigmas kept them locked up. Let’s not forget that.”

“Aye, Admiral. See you in the conference room in ten.”

He made it to the conference compartment well short of ten minutes later and found Tanya already there. “Have the Syndic—I mean, have the Midway shuttles docked yet?”

She shrugged. “I’d know if I were on the bridge…”

“You know anyway.”

“Damn. You know me too well.” Desjani waved the way inside. “The first Midway shuttle docks in two minutes.” She sat down, tapping out the commands that brought the display above the table to life. Virtual windows popped up, one showing a wide-angle view of the hangar deck on the assault transport Haboob.

The main display zoomed in on Haboob, the exterior shot automatically compiled by the fleet’s sensors from every warship with a view of that transport. The Midway freighter hung near Haboob, the two ships apparently unmoving against the background of infinite stars and infinite space. Even after so many years in space driving ships, Geary always had to remind himself that the ships, which looked motionless, were actually traveling at great speed as they orbited the star Midway. It was only because of the huge distances involved and the lack of anything nearby to scale their movement against that they appeared still.

Four shuttles were on their way to Haboob, making the short crossing from the freighter to the Alliance transport.

“I thought we were only dropping off eighteen of the former enigma prisoners,” Desjani remarked. “That’s a lot of shuttles for eighteen human passengers.”

“They’re unusual passengers,” Geary replied. He checked the manifest for each shuttle, seeing a long list of medical and technical personnel as well as a couple of security officers on each craft. “Only two cops per shuttle. I expected more.”

“From Syndics, yeah,” she agreed, peering at the manifests. “Maybe some of those docs and techs are security muscle, too.”

“Maybe.” Desjani didn’t trust the people here. He didn’t entirely trust them, either. He could only hope that the home the former prisoners sought to return to would treat them better than the enigmas had.

Dr. Nasr’s image appeared in a separate window. “Admiral.” He acknowledged Geary. “Captain,” he said to Desjani.

“How are you feeling about this?” Geary asked.

“The best option from a lot of less-than-perfect options,” Nasr replied. “I still believe that.”

Desjani grimaced. “I can’t imagine wanting to go back under control of the Syndics.”

“But they are Syndics,” the doctor said. “Their families live here or nearby. And Midway is no longer ruled by the Syndics, so even those who once seemed hesitant are now eager to return to their native stars. I have talked to all eighteen within the last hour, and I am convinced all sincerely wish to leave us here.”

“Then we will respect their wishes,” Geary said. That would only leave three hundred fifteen more former enigma prisoners to deal with somehow. “I wish we had been able to find out why the enigmas had kept the number of prisoners at exactly three hundred thirty-three,” he commented to Tanya Desjani.

She snorted. “Add that to the list. We found out damned little about the enigmas except that they’re insanely protective of any information about them. We’re breaking up the enigmas’ little number game, though. It would probably drive them crazy if they knew,” Tanya added in a way that made it clear the prospect of inflicting mental anguish on enigmas didn’t bother her at all. “Are you sure the people here will treat well the former prisoners we’re dropping off and won’t treat them all like lab rats?”

“No.”

The single word might have inspired another comment from Desjani, but the way he said it made her glance at him and remain silent. She had come to know him pretty well, too.

The video feed from the assault transport Haboob provided crystal-clear images of what must be the entire group of former prisoners clustered together in the transport’s starboard loading area. Having spent so long confined in their small world and knowing only themselves, the people freed from the enigmas tended to bunch together at all times since their liberation. Now they formed a tight group in which the eighteen who were to leave the others could be marked by the small Alliance fleet duffel bags they carried, which held the tiny amount of personal possessions they had brought from their asteroid prison or acquired on the voyage back here.

The Marines standing guard around the edges of the loading area were relaxed, talking among themselves. The former prisoners of the enigmas had caused no trouble since arriving on Haboob, acting as if they feared the slightest misstep would result in their being sent back to their confinement. That anxiety had caused the fleet medical personnel no end of anguish as they tried to reassure their patients, but as far as the Marines responsible for good order and discipline aboard Haboob were concerned, it had made their job a lot easier.

Lights glowed above four main hatches into the loading area as the Midway shuttles finished docking and sealed their own accesses to the transport’s. The Alliance Marines stiffened into alert postures as the lights came on, fingering the weapons they held. The Midway shuttles had been built by the Syndicate Worlds and were piloted and crewed by men and women who had fought for the Syndicate Worlds. No one on Haboob was going to relax while those shuttles and those men and women were aboard.

The civilian specialists from Midway came out first. Someone had been smart enough not to lead with military personnel. A group led by Dr. Nasr went forward to meet them. Geary didn’t bother zooming in on the meeting or activating audio from Dr. Nasr’s feed. Even from a distance the routine nature of introductions and the sizing up of each other that occurred whenever two groups of experts met could be easily made out.

Geary studied the civilians from Midway, seeing no signs of the various standard Syndic garments that had been required wear in different levels of the Syndicate Worlds organizational hierarchies. “At least somebody had the sense not to send people wearing Syndic suits.”

After the last doctors and technicians boarded Haboob, they were followed by the four pilots from the shuttles. The pilots gathered in their own small group near the hatches as the civilians from Midway met with the Alliance medical personnel.

Desjani nodded. “And the pilots have uniforms different from Syndic ones. The outfits the officers on the warships are wearing look like modified Syndic gear, but those shuttle pilots have on entirely new outfits.” It was hard to tell from her voice whether she approved of that or thought it just one more Syndic trick.

The anxious former prisoners of the enigmas watched the people from Midway as if searching for anyone they knew. The Marines watched the specialists from Midway and the prisoners. A group of Alliance fleet officers and Marine officers came into the loading area as well, stopping almost immediately to look curiously at everyone else. Sightseers. Anytime anything out of the ordinary took place, anyone without other duties would come to have a look around.

“Admiral?” Dr. Nasr spoke with unusual abruptness. “The officer in charge here wants to know if it is all right for these nonassigned people to be present.”

“The looky-loos?” Geary asked. “Why not?”

“That was my opinion as well, but the operational officers here required another opinion.”

“I see. Tell them the admiral authorizes and approves the presence of nonassigned personnel to witness the event.”

As unusual as this event was, the officious attempt to chase away unauthorized personnel felt reassuringly routine to Geary. But when he looked at Desjani, he saw worry riding her brow. “What’s the matter?”

“What are they doing?”

“The specialists from Midway? They’re getting all the information they can about the people they’re taking. Dr. Nasr told me the data handover was coordinated well in advance of this meeting. Medical records, any treatments since we picked them up, records of the tests we ran on them to ensure they didn’t have enigma poisons or plagues implanted in them. That sort of thing.”

“It looks,” Desjani said in a wondering voice, “like any other handoff of people.”

“Of course it—” Geary stopped speaking as he realized that Desjani had never seen this sort of thing happen. No one living had, except for him. Before the war, there had been peaceful encounters between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds. He had viewed some of them firsthand when official delegations had met. But there had been no such meetings for a long time. As part of the degeneration of the conduct of the century-long war, the two sides had stopped talking to each other at all. If they met, it was in combat, or as prisoner and captor. “That’s how it’s supposed to work,” he finished.

Desjani didn’t answer, pointing to draw his attention as one of the Midway shuttle pilots abruptly turned toward the Alliance fleet officers and Marines watching the process and walked toward them, her face determined. Even from a wide-angle image, Geary had no trouble spotting the way tension ramped up inside the loading area at the pilot’s movement, the Alliance Marines visibly clicking off safeties on their weapons though still holding them at port arms.

But the shuttle pilot stopped a few meters short of the Alliance officers and looked at them as if baffled. “I— My pardon. How do I say? Can you… will you… tell me something?”

“Maybe,” one of the fleet officers replied in noncommittal tones. “What is it?”

“Were you,” the shuttle pilot continued, her words halting, “were any of you at Lakota? When this fleet fought there?”

After a pause, one of the Alliance fleet officers nodded. “Not on this ship. Haboob wasn’t with the fleet then. But I was there.”

“My brother died at Lakota,” the shuttle pilot said, each word now blunt and abrupt. “I don’t know anything about it. I was hoping… you might know how he died.”

The stiff postures and expressions of the Alliance officers relaxed slightly. “There were several different engagements,” the one who admitted being at Lakota said.

“He was on a light cruiser. CL-901.”

“I’m sorry.” The officer sounded as if he meant it, and he probably did. This was the sort of thing anyone who had served in the war could empathize with. “We didn’t know the designations of the ships we fought.”

The pilot bit her lip, looking downward, then back at the Alliance officers. “I heard you took prisoners. Under Black Jack’s command. There were rumors.”

“We did. We do. But not at Lakota. We didn’t get a chance.” The Alliance officer hesitated, then asked his own question. “Do you know anything about what happened there?”

“No. Security. We never heard anything official except the usual lies. Even the news that my brother had died there came to me by back channels.”

“The hypernet gate at Lakota collapsed. There was a Syndic flotilla guarding it, and I guess they had orders to destroy it if we beat the rest of the Syndic forces at Lakota. They fired on the tethers.”

The shuttle pilot twitched, her eyes shutting tightly, before she regained control and opened them again. “They didn’t know. We didn’t hear until after we killed the snakes. Then we found out what happens when gates collapse. They didn’t know,” she repeated.

“We already guessed they couldn’t have known. It was suicide. Those ships probably never knew what hit them. The shock wave spread through Lakota and wiped out escape pods, merchant ships, anything that didn’t have decent shields. We were lucky. We were far enough from the gate that the shock wave that hit us had spread out and couldn’t do much damage to us. It tore up that star system, though. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what happened to your brother.”

The shuttle pilot nodded, her face working as emotions came and went. “That’s all right. I know how it is.”

“You a warship shuttle driver?”

“No.” She jerked a thumb at the shoulder patch on her uniform. “Ground forces. Aerospace.”

“Regular flights in atmosphere? Storms and wind and fog? Better you than me.”

The shuttle pilot smiled very briefly. “It gets hairy sometimes, but nothing we can’t handle. I work for General Drakon. He doesn’t send workers anywhere he wouldn’t go himself.”

“What do you do for General Drakon?” a Marine officer asked.

“Planetary defense actions and ground forces support, usually. I was at Taroa for that op, where we helped kick the Syndicate out of that star system, too. General Drakon tapped us for this run because the Midway mobile forces—I mean, the Midway warship flotilla—doesn’t have many shuttles.”

The Alliance officers exchanged glances. “What was that about snakes?” another fleet officer asked. “You said you killed snakes?”

“Snakes. Internal Security Service agents. Syndicate secret police.” The shuttle pilot looked like she wanted to spit but refrained from the action. “They used to run everything. Always watching, looking over your shoulder, hauling people away to labor camps if you did anything wrong, or if they suspected you, or if they just wanted to. We killed them. Wiped them out in this star system.” She straightened, her gaze fierce now. “We’re free of them. We’ll die before we let them back in control here. Nobody owns us. Not any corporation. Not any CEO. Not anymore.”

“You’re not Syndics?” another of the fleet officers asked with obvious skepticism.

“Syndicate? No! Never again. We are free. We’ll die free before we become slaves of the Syndicate again.” She turned to go, then looked back at the Alliance officers, uncertain once more. “You… have my thanks.”

“Sorry we couldn’t tell you what happened to your brother.”

“You told me what you knew, and that’s a lot more than I knew.” She paused, then came to attention and saluted in the Syndic fashion, right arm coming across so her fist rapped her left breast. Turning again before the Alliance officers could decide whether or not to return the salute, she walked back toward the other shuttle pilots.

“Hey,” one of the Alliance officers called sharply.

The shuttle pilot jerked as if she had expected a bullet instead of a shout, then turned back to face them.

“Tell me one thing.” The voice of the Alliance officer was openly hostile, angry but also puzzled. “One thing I never understood. Why? Why the hell did you attack the Alliance?”

“Us? Attack? We did not—”

“Not now. A century ago. Why did the Syndicate Worlds start that damned war in the first place?”

This time the shuttle pilot just stared for a long moment, her face working. When her voice finally came out, it was half-strangled by emotion. “They told us you started it. The Syndicate. They taught us that we’d been attacked.”

“We didn’t—” the Alliance officer began hotly.

“No! I believe you! Our government lied to us about everything! Why the hell wouldn’t they have lied about that as well?”

She spun on her heel and stumbled back to the other shuttle pilots.

Geary glanced at Desjani, trying to judge her reaction, but Tanya wasn’t revealing anything this time. “What’s your impression?” he asked.

Desjani shrugged. “If she’s faking her feelings about the Syndicate Worlds, she’s a great actor.”

“I noticed that. When she talked about the, uh, snakes, it sounded like she had personally slit a few of their throats.”

“Why did they fight?” Desjani said in a low, angry voice. “They hated the Syndicate Worlds, they hated those snakes. What the hell were they fighting for? Why the hell did they kill so many people when they hated their own government?”

“I don’t know.” Or did he? “We know they thought they were defending their own people from us.”

“By attacking us?” Desjani asked, her tone now savage.

“They’d been told we were the aggressors. I’m not saying they were right, Tanya. I’m not saying they should have fought. Their own efforts kept alive the Syndicate Worlds that they hated. It was stupid. But they must have thought they were doing the only thing they could.”

“As long as you’re not excusing them,” she muttered.

“I lost a lot, too, Tanya.”

She sat silent for a minute, then nodded. “You did. Well, if I have to choose between former Syndics who now hate the Syndicate Worlds, or others like the Syndicate Worlds, the enigmas, and the Kicks, I guess I can give the ex-Syndics a chance.”

On Haboob’s loading dock, the turnover process must have been completed. The eighteen former prisoners who were leaving walked slowly in their own tight group toward the hatches leading to the shuttles.

And then the other three hundred fifteen former prisoners surged after them en masse, crying out a babble of pleas and shouts. The Marine guards, taken totally by surprise, jolted into motion, trying to stop the sudden mob with yells and threats. The doctors and technicians from both sides, as startled as the Marines, milled about, their own movements and cries adding to the confusion.

“What the hell is going on?” Geary demanded.