“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.
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian Page 8
