Relentless

SEVEN

Calls from Lieutenant Iger in the intelligence section were usually interesting and sometimes very surprising. Never pleasantly surprising in Geary’s experience, but the unpleasant news had often proven to be critically important.

Since Iger looked unhappy when Geary arrived, he assumed this would be one of those unpleasant news times. “Tell me the civil war in this star system isn’t going to cause us any more problems, Lieutenant.”

“Uh, yes, sir. The civil war here shouldn’t cause us any more trouble, sir. This is an entirely different problem.”

“Oh. Wonderful. Big problem?”

“Yes, sir. Real big.”

Geary rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a headache coming on. “All right. Lay it out.”

“We’ve been analyzing Syndic communications in this star system, Captain Geary,” Iger reported. “That is, the messages that were already on the fly when we arrived here. It’s standard procedure, trying to identify traffic patterns and important messages so we can try to break them out and decipher as much of them as we can. The first thing we noticed is that there’s been a much-higher-than-usual concentration of highest-priority messages sent in this star system. Again, that’s before central authority collapsed.”

Geary nodded. Light-speed limitations were usually a problem, but not if you were trying to intercept messages sent days or hours ago, before anyone knew the enemy would be arriving in a particular star system. Those messages were still heading outward at the speed of light if you could find them. “Any idea what they’re about? The Syndics thought we were coming here, so that might account for them.”

“No, sir, not all of them. We’ve been able to do some partial breaking of the high-priority messages we’ve intercepted.” Iger turned and tapped controls, bringing up a series of lines of information. “These are pulled from voice transmissions and various forms of text messaging. Those kind of informal communications are usually the most useful because people say things without thinking. There are several references in these to something we’ve never seen before. Right here, and here, and in this one.”

Geary read the indicated lines, frowning. “Reserve flotilla? You haven’t heard the Syndics use that phrase before?”

“No, sir. A search of intelligence databases turned up only three references to the term in reporting about the Syndics over the last few decades. No actual data exists, just identification of the use of the term ‘reserve flotilla’ by the Syndics without any means of determining what it meant.” Iger pointed to another line. “This was a requisition for supplies. We’ve been able to break a fair amount of this message because we know how the Syndics format those requisitions and so knew what certain sections had to mean. These parts are segments of the overall requirement, then here’s some of the portion of that requirement that Heradao was supposed to provide. One of the things about the Syndics is they use very rigid logistics. If you want to provide food for a D-Class battle cruiser for sixty days, you order X of this and Y of that and so on.”

“That looks like an awful lot of Xs and Ys,” Geary commented as he read the intercepted requisition.

“Yes, sir.” Iger blew out a long breath. “Assuming it’s a standard sixty-day supply, which the Syndics tend to adhere to, and a standard mix of units, this requisition would cover a force estimated to include fifteen to twenty battleships, fifteen to twenty battle cruisers, and somewhere between one hundred and two hundred heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and Hunter-Killers.”

Geary felt a lot of reactions, some of them very negative. How could a Syndic force of that size still exist?

His fleet had fought heroically and taken serious losses, but the path home had finally seemed clear. Right up until that moment. He tried to focus on the most constructive questions. “This definitely isn’t related to the force we just destroyed?”

“No, sir. Definitely not. It was being sent out of the star system.”

“You’re estimating that a Syndic force of that size exists right now and is in a star system not too far from here?”

“Yes, sir.” Give Iger full credit, he didn’t try to weasel around when it came to bad news.

“How? How did the Syndics have a force of that size that our intelligence resources weren’t aware of before this?”

Iger pointed again. “We can only guess, sir, but I think it’s a good guess. Some of the message traffic we believe is related to this reserve flotilla mentions two Syndic star systems. Surt and Embla.”

“Surt? Embla?” The names were vaguely familiar, though Geary couldn’t remember why. “I can’t recall where those are.”

“That’s because they’re a long ways from Alliance space,” Iger advised, moving to the star display nearby. “Here. On the Syndic border farthest from the Alliance.”

It suddenly all made sense. “A reserve flotilla. Held on the Syndic border facing the aliens as insurance in case the aliens attacked the Syndics.”