The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

by Jack Campbell

  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 mea
n 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 th
at 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.”