Now he had to tell them that the job wasn’t done. Geary stood up, and everyone turned to look at him with smiles, but the smiles grew a little uncertain as they noted his somber attitude. “I expect you’ve all heard that the new leaders of the Syndicate Worlds have agreed to an end to the war and immediate cessation of hostilities. Verification procedures have been agreed upon. They have also promised to repatriate all prisoners of war and provide a full accounting of those prisoners who died while in Syndic custody.”
A wave of joy mixed with melancholy rolled through the men and women facing him. Those who had died in battle could never return, but their numbers would no longer be swelled by new battles. Those thought lost forever to Syndic prisoner-of-war labor camps would be returned, but many others had died of health problems or just old age while awaiting a liberation that came too late for them. Geary heard more references to the witch singing as officers congratulated each other.
“That’s the good news,” Geary continued, hearing his voice becoming harsher. Well, that reflected how he felt, angry that the end wouldn’t end everything it should. “The bad news is that the Syndicate Worlds are disintegrating. We’re going to have to deal with long-term problems of successor states, which may need to be dealt with and required to abide by the terms of the treaty.”
Commander Landis of Valiant spoke as Geary paused. “But we’re talking minor actions compared to the war, right, sir?”
“Relatively speaking,” Geary agreed. “But a lot of such minor actions, and to someone involved in them, they won’t feel minor.”
“Policing the decaying corpse of the Syndicate Worlds,” Armus grumbled.
Commander Neeson shook his head. “That corpse may spawn some regional powers that are strong enough to worry about. This is a real can of worms, but I guess it was inevitable. The Syndics depended on their warships to keep their individual star systems intimidated, and we needed to destroy those warships to win.”
Badaya snorted. “If the Syndics had shown the brains to quit a long time ago, they could have held on to their power. But they pushed it too far, and they’re getting what they deserve.”
“Scores of star systems like Heradao?” Captain Vitali of Daring asked. “The Syndics are certainly going to keep paying a price for this war.”
“Regardless,” Badaya said, “we have won, and the military threats we face from now on will be comparatively minor.”
“Except for one,” Geary said. He saw puzzlement, as he adjusted the star display over the table to show the Syndic border region facing the aliens. “The Syndics have admitted to us that an intelligent, nonhuman race exists on the other side of Syndic space from the Alliance, along this border.”
The silence was so absolute for a few moments that Geary wondered if he had suddenly gone completely deaf. “What are they?” Captain Duellos asked, in tones as if he, too, had just learned of this.
“The Syndics don’t know. These aliens have successfully hidden themselves, maintaining a quarantine so tight that the Syndics have been unable over the course of a hundred years to learn anything significant about the aliens, which they call the enigma race.”
General Carabali exhaled loudly. “Let me guess. They’re hostile.”
“Apparently, though to what extent we don’t know.”
Badaya finally recovered enough to speak. “What proof did the Syndics provide that this race actually exists?”
“I’ll lay it out for you, but one proof has been in our hands. You all recall the discovery in fleet operating systems of worms using quantum probability as their programming. Such worms were beyond our own capabilities to create, and we’ve now confirmed that the Syndics have no such ability, either. As far as we can tell, they remain ignorant of the existence of such worms, which General Carabali can confirm were recently found in the systems of wrecked Syndic warships here. Those worms must instead have been the work of this race, implanted in our ships so the aliens could track our movements and actions.”
“They’ve been working against us, or just monitoring us?”
“Working against us. They can collapse gates with some kind of remote signal. That’s what happened at Kalixa. That’s what happened here.”
“They tried to wipe us out?” Neeson asked.
“Apparently. Let me lay out everything we’ve been able to reevaluate in light of our knowledge of these aliens and what the situation is on the Syndic border with the aliens.”
He went on, outlining the evidence, showing the Syndic CEO pleading for help, and reporting what little could be said about the aliens’ capabilities. When he finished, no one spoke for a long time.
Dragon’s captain finally broke the silence. “Are we talking about allying ourselves with the Syndics against these aliens?”
“No.” Geary saw some of the tension go out of the men and women before him. “No one has suggested that we agree to defend the Syndicate Worlds. Such an agreement could be too easily twisted.” Many nods came in response to that. No one here trusted the Syndics at all. “But stopping an invasion is another matter. We don’t know what the goals of the enigma race are, and we don’t know where they would stop if the former Syndic border collapsed.”
“You’re not talking about a threat to the Alliance, are you? That’s so distant.”
“Four weeks’ travel time from the border with the Alliance to the border facing the aliens,” Desjani said. “By hypernet.”
“Can they use the hypernet?” Warspite’s captain asked.
“It’s possible,” Geary answered. “We have reason to believe that the aliens may in fact have covertly provided the hypernet technology to both the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds.”
Everyone stared again, then Commander Neeson spoke as if to himself. “That would explain … there’s so many things about the hypernet we barely understand … and the quantum-probability worms came from hypernet keys, didn’t they?”
“Apparently so.”
“Why?” Badaya asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Give both sides such technology? What was their game?”
Duellos seemed to be looking into the distance. “The hypernets provided boosts to the economies of the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds just as the costs of the war were growing too great. They also greatly simplified fighting the war by improving logistics and allowing the rapid transfer and concentration of forces.”
“They wanted us to keep fighting?” Badaya leaned back, his face reddening, but his expression thoughtful as well as angry. “Weaken us. Both sides. Set us up for their own takeover.”
“That may be what was happening,” Geary agreed. “Our intent is to get across to these aliens that such meddling in the affairs of humanity will not be tolerated and that internal conflicts will not prevent part of humanity from striking back at any attempt to invade human space.”
“Which may require a battle,” Jane Geary said. “A battle against a foe of unknown strength and unknown resources, with unknown weapons and unknown defensive capabilities.”
“That’s right. But if we don’t fight now, we’ll have to fight some other time, when we’re weaker, and they’re stronger. We have a chance to draw a line in the sand at that border, make it clear that they cannot force humanity to retreat.”
That went over right. He could see spines stiffen at the idea of being forced to retreat. They believed that they had never retreated from the Syndics. They wouldn’t accept the idea of retreating from anyone or anything else.
“You said they’ve taken Syndic planets before this,” Captain Parr of Incredible remarked. “Planets with some humans left on them? But we don’t know what happened to those humans?”
“No, we don’t. Nothing has ever been heard from any humans in areas taken by the aliens.” That bothered everyone, he could tell. It wasn’t simply fears born of millennia of stories about alien races intent on enslaving or destroying humanity, stories that in recent centuries had come to be regarded more and more as fantasy since no inte
lligent nonhuman species had been discovered until now. No, Geary thought, it was about leaving people behind. The fleet didn’t do that by choice, and if it did, it always vowed to somehow return for those left behind. In practice, those vows had rarely been able to be carried out, but that didn’t mean they were any less heartfelt.
Badaya glowered at the star display. “They’re Syndics, but they’re human. Or maybe they won’t be Syndics anymore. They’ll hang or shoot the CEOs and set up governments that we can deal with. These star systems that need to be evacuated. The Syndics can’t do it, can they?”
“No,” Geary agreed. “Not enough ships, not enough time. You know how hard it is to evacuate even one star system, even drawing on all the resources of the Alliance. Millions of people would be abandoned on those worlds.”
“Then we need to get there and stop the aliens! They may have been able to mangle the Syndics, but they’ll find the Alliance fleet on full attack is a threat beyond their abilities to match!”
A spontaneous roar of approval followed Badaya’s words.
After the conference ended, Geary stayed standing, wondering how long the enthusiasm for another offensive action against another foe would last.
Duellos had remained, and shook his head, smiling wryly. “Captain Badaya sees the fleet as a hammer, the greatest hammer humanity has ever fielded. Once he saw the problem as a nail, he was bound to urge the fleet’s use.”
“Yeah,” Geary agreed. “Badaya has given me plenty of headaches in the past, but his direct approaches can be useful.” That sounded disturbingly like something Rione would say.
Desjani suddenly laughed. Noticing Geary and Duellos staring at her, she pointed at the star display. “That Syndic CEO at Midway is going to be waiting for help to arrive, expecting the aliens to show up in force at any time, and instead of a Syndic flotilla dashing to the rescue, she’s going to see the Alliance fleet come popping out of her hypernet gate. Can you imagine? She’s going to bounce so high from shock that she’ll clear atmosphere.”
It took a few days to get damage repaired as much as possible. In a perfect world, Geary would have sent off the most badly damaged ships on a journey home, but even though the Alliance was manufacturing more Syndic hypernet keys using the data taken from the one on Dauntless, none of those keys had been available before the fleet left. Only ships accompanied by Dauntless could use the Syndic hypernet, so the damaged ships would have to stay with the fleet, accompanying the auxiliaries. The auxiliaries also distributed replacement fuel cells, missiles, and grapeshot to the fleet, along with the spare parts and repair materials they had been manufacturing.
He could either jump the fleet for Mandalon or back to Zevos, and chose Zevos since that star system had a hypernet gate. Even though the Syndicate Worlds and the Alliance were now formally and technically at peace, Geary still felt like an occupying power as he led the fleet to the jump point, knowing that every man, woman, and child in the star system was watching the Alliance fleet with dread and distrust.
If Desjani was bothered by the scrutiny of distrustful Syndics, she didn’t show it. “Back to Zevos through jump space, then by hypernet to Midway. If the Syndic data can be trusted, we’ll be cutting it very fine, getting there about a day before the ultimatum expires.”
“I don’t think the Syndics will complain.”
“They’d better not.”
He called Carabali. “General, I just want to be sure we’ve off-loaded every Syndic guest your Marines picked up from wrecked warships.”
“Every one of our guests was escorted into repaired escape pods and launched toward safe locations,” Carabali confirmed. “The fleet database reported that there is one Syndic still remaining aboard Dauntless, but I was informed that he was a special case.”
“That’s right, General. We’re taking CEO Boyens back to his home.”
“What about our own POWs here, Admiral?” Carabali asked. “They surely want to go home, too.”
“I don’t want to load them now,” Geary explained. “They’d overcrowd our ships, and there’s no sense risking those liberated POWs in combat if we end up fighting the aliens. Once we finish with the aliens at Midway, we’ll come back through here to pick up our own POWs from the Syndics and take them home with us. I’ve talked to the senior POWs to explain that, and the new Syndic leaders know they’d better treat our people very well until we get back.” Geary smiled. “I personally told those Syndics that if they didn’t take good care of our people, then they’d be getting individual visits from Alliance Marines when we returned.”
Carabali laughed for the first time since Geary had known her.
Two and a half weeks later, the Alliance fleet flashed out of the hypernet gate at Midway, farther from Alliance space than any Alliance ship had ever been. They had star charts of that region of space, but none of them had ever expected to sail through it.
The first things that the fleet sensors keyed on were the streams of transports rigged with extra passenger modules, the transports strung along long arcs from the inhabited planets toward the hypernet gate and jump points for other human-occupied star systems. But indications from the planets themselves made it clear that the great majority of the human population remained on them, unable to be evacuated in the time remaining before the alien deadline expired.
There were Syndic warships present, too, but not many. A small Syndic flotilla orbited five light-hours distant from the Alliance fleet. “Six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, fifteen HuKs,” Desjani commented. “That’s probably everything they’ve been able to scrape up in this entire region.”
“Captain?” the operations watch-stander called. “Some of those ships show signs of not being fully fitted out. It looks like they were under construction and rushed here before they were finished.”
“Their crews won’t be worth a damn then. Totally untrained and inexperienced.” Desjani turned a yearning look on Geary. “They’d be so easy to blow away.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you preferred fair fights.”
“Well … yes. It doesn’t matter anyway. We’d never catch them unless they charged us, and I doubt they’re that inexperienced.”
“Or that suicidal. In any event, that’s not why we’re here.” As the light revealing the fleet’s arrival spread through the star system, panic would spread just as fast through the helpless transports and their human cargoes. Geary composed himself, then tapped his comm controls. “People of Midway Star System, this is Admiral Geary, commanding officer of the Alliance fleet. A peace agreement has been reached between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds. The war is over. We are not here to attack. We have come here at the request of the current leaders of the Syndicate Worlds to repel any attempt to enforce demands that this star system be evacuated. I repeat, we are here to repel aggression against this star system. We will undertake no action against any human ship, facility, installation, or person unless we are attacked, and then we will act only in self-defense. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary out.”
He ended that transmission, then keyed another, a tight beam aimed at where Boyens said the Syndic main command and control center would be located on the primary inhabited world. “CEO Iceni, this is Admiral Geary, commanding officer of the Alliance fleet. We have come here at the request of your new leaders to assist you in repelling aggression by the enigma race. We request that you immediately send us situation updates and any information regarding the enigma race you have any reason to believe might not have already been made available to us.”
Geary gestured to Boyens, and the Syndic CEO stepped into the transmission field. “You know me, Gwen. I was captured when the reserve flotilla was destroyed. It won’t be coming back. Everything is gone. The Syndicate Worlds have nothing to send you, but what Admiral Geary says is true. The war is over, and the Alliance has agreed to help defend this star system. Admiral Geary is a man of honor. He can be trusted. Please work with him. It’s our only hope to save this
star system and the many other star systems that would have to be evacuated if this one falls to the enigma race.”
Boyens stepped back, and Geary spoke again. “We request that you order your flotilla and other defensive assets not to take any provocative actions, and ask once again that you provide all information that could be of any assistance to us in defending this star system. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary out.”
Desjani was frowning at her display. “We’re here. Where do we go?”
“I’d recommend heading over to this region,” Boyens suggested, indicating a portion of the star display. “That’s on the side of the star system facing the alien territory. If they come in, it will be somewhere around there.”
“Thank you,” Geary replied. He waited until Boyens had been escorted off the bridge again, then ordered the fleet into a vector toward the region the CEO had suggested.
Then they waited some more, while crews on the damaged warships continued their efforts to repair damage, while the fleet swept onward past Syndic merchant ships crammed with evacuees who were surely watching the Alliance fleet with mixed hope and fear.
The eventual Syndic response came as quickly as transmission times allowed. “CEO Iceni is still here,” Rione observed. She was back on the bridge, having once again timed her rotation with Sakai and Costa to try to be present when anything important happened. “I suppose Iceni deserves credit for staying instead of finding a reason to get herself evacuated first.”
Desjani mumbled something that sounded like, “Not in my book.”
CEO Iceni appeared both confused and shocked. “This is the senior Syndicate Worlds’ official in this star system. We were unaware of the signing of a peace agreement, but the documents you transmitted and the authentication with them appear to be valid. Nothing prepared us for your arrival. This is … unprecedented. But … we are … grateful for your assistance. We had no expectations of victory, or of survival. My staff is assembling any information we think could assist you. The primary item we can pass on is that the enigma-race ships are likeliest to appear at the jump point from the star we know as Pele. I have sent instructions to the CEO commanding the Syndicate Worlds’ flotilla in this star system to contact you directly and to undertake no actions against your fleet unless attacked themselves. All Syndicate Worlds’ defenses have been ordered not to engage your ships.
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