Victorious tlf-6

by Jack Campbell

  “They’re planning on doing something before they run,” Desjani replied.

  “That’s what intel thought. But what?”

  “I don’t know. I can only think of one reason why as a military officer I’d want to get away fast after performing an action.”

  Memories flashed into Geary’s mind. The last moments of his heavy cruiser Merlon in Grendel star system. “If you’ve activated a power-core overload on your ship. A self-destruct command. You need to be able to get off the ship fast after you give that order.”

  “Right. But what could the Syndic Executive Council want to do that’s anything like that?”

  Rione answered Desjani, though her reply sounded more like a prayer. “May the living stars preserve us.” She stood up, her face growing pale as an expression of horror flitted across it. “Senator Sakai was correct. We’re looking at it. Ancestors save us, it’s right there, and we didn’t see it.”

  Desjani frowned, searching her own display. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about what we expect to see and what really is there! How did this fleet defeat that Syndic flotilla at Lakota? It used a large number of ships as an improvised minefield, and the Syndics didn’t realize what it was because it didn’t look like a minefield.” Rione’s hand came up, pointing. “The hypernet gate.”

  Geary felt a hard knot tighten in his guts. “It has a safe-fail system installed. We confirmed that.”

  “Yes, we did.” Rione turned a burning gaze on him, then stepped forward quickly, leaning over close so only Geary and Desjani could hear her. “But systems can be reprogrammed, Admiral Geary. The collapse of a hypernet gate can be scaled down to minimize the energy release, or scaled up to make it a deadlier weapon.”

  He got it then. When Captain Cresida had first worked up the necessary algorithms to scale down the energy release from a collapsing hypernet gate, she had also had to work up the reverse, the ways to increase the energy release. He had given that set of algorithms to Rione, not trusting himself with such a weapon.

  But the Syndics would have done the same calculations, eventually reached the same conclusions, discovered how to reliably turn their own hypernet gates into weapons that could kill fleets and star systems at a single blow. A self-destruct command encompassing an entire star system, aimed at taking down this fleet.

  Desjani’s face had gone rigid, and she spoke with extreme care. “Can a safe-fail system be reversed? Made to trigger a powerful blast? Worse than at Kalixa?”

  “I don’t know,” Geary replied, marveling at the steadiness of his own voice. “I can find out.” Like Desjani, he didn’t question that the Syndic leadership might annihilate even this star system if that price bought the destruction of the Alliance fleet. He had seen far too many incidents where star-system CEOs had ordered actions with a similar callous disregard for their own people living in those star systems.

  Rione pointed again, this time to the battleship and heavy cruisers at the jump point for Mandalon. “They had it all set up. They’re ready to escape. If the ambush failed, they send the collapse command, then jump to safety.”

  “And afterward blame us,” Desjani finished. “We’d all be dead. Damn. Sir, she’s right. The Syndics have the biggest bomb in the galaxy staring us in the face, and we didn’t even realize it.”

  “That’s because we’d stopped thinking of the gates as weapons after the safe-fail devices were installed. If Cresida hadn’t died at Varandal, she would have warned us, I’m certain.” Geary tapped his controls. “Commander Neeson, I need an analysis from you, and I need it five minutes ago.” The commanding officer of Implacable was one of the best hypernet experts remaining in the fleet since Cresida had died. “Can a safe-fail system be reprogrammed to increase rather than decrease the output of a hypernet gate’s collapse? And, if it can, how long would that take?”Implacable was several light-seconds distant, but Neeson’s image stared at Geary longer than that time delay alone could account for. Finally, he nodded. “Yes, Admiral. I don’t have to run any analysis. The equipment could be used that way even though that option had never occurred to me.” Neeson paused, swallowing, before speaking again. “How long? Once the necessary algorithms were calculated, they could be added as an option to the controlling software. Toggling between options would be essentially instantaneous.”

  Geary had to pause to ensure his voice remained steady before replying. “Thank you, Commander. Please keep that assessment to yourself for the time being. We’re considering possible enemy options over here, not dealing with certainties.”

  “Yes, sir.” Neeson rubbed one hand across the lower half of his face. “Sir, if the Syndics here do that …”

  “We know.” Geary broke the connection, facing Desjani and Rione again, Sakai standing back deferentially but listening intently. “It can be done. If the Syndics have worked up the calculations, then they could switch the safe-fail system into a catastrophic-fail system in an instant.”

  “There’d still be time delays for the signal to reach the gate,” Desjani said.

  Rione had her eyes closed, obviously trying to regain her composure. “Would we have any warning?”

  “We’d see the gate starting to collapse, but unless we were very close to a jump point, that wouldn’t help,” Geary admitted. “But if that was the Syndics’ backup plan, why haven’t they done it already?”

  Desjani, studying her display again, nodded sharply. “They need those ships.” She looked at Geary. “The Syndic leaders need the warships in that flotilla. That’s their last major force. Without those warships, their ability to keep the Syndicate Worlds together by coercion disappears. They won’t want that flotilla destroyed here with us.”

  “That’s why the flotilla didn’t head for the hypernet gate to leave after the ambush failed,” Geary realized. “Cresida told me no one knew for sure what would happen to ships in transit if a gate anchoring one end of a hypernet path is destroyed. One possibility was that they’d be destroyed as well, but she said the most likely probability was that the ships would drop back into normal space somewhere along their route.”

  “Light-years away from any star?” Desjani asked. “They’d get somewhere they could use jump drives eventually, but it would be decades, and until they got somewhere, those ships would be of no use to anybody. So the Syndics wouldn’t try to use the gate to get their flotilla clear of this star system. We could have intercepted that flotilla if it headed for the jump point for Tremandir. They could have easily reached the jump point for Corvus before we got to them, but instead they bypassed that jump point. Now they’re positioned where they can safely reach the jump point for Mandalon before we could catch them.”

  “But why did the flotilla bypass the jump point for Corvus? What makes Mandalon a better objective than Corvus? Is it just because the Syndic Executive Council is forted up on the battleship there? And why isn’t the flotilla headed straight for the Mandalon jump point instead of cutting closer to our path like they are doing?”

  “They want us to chase that flotilla. That would draw us deeper into the star system.” Desjani’s expression grew thoughtful. “Time lags. Look at the geometry. When we arrived in this star system, we were a little more than ten light-hours from the jump point for Mandalon, and about three light-hours from the hypernet gate. The Syndic leaders on that battleship could only see what we were doing as of ten hours before. Any signal they transmitted to the hypernet gate would have taken … about seven hours to reach it. Then the shock wave would have taken three hours to reach our location near the jump point from Zevos. Their information about us would be ten hours old, and it would take ten more hours for their surprise attack to reach us.”

  “We could go a long ways in twenty hours,” Geary agreed. “The fleet could turn around and jump out of this star system while the Syndic signal was on its way to the gate. So they’re trying to get the time lag down and get us deeper into the star system, farther from any jump points we coul
d use. That’s why the flotilla and that damned CEO are luring us onward. They want us chasing after the Syndic flotilla with no thought for other possible threats and too far from any jump point to leave the star system between the time the collapse order is given and the shock wave hits.”

  Sakai shook his head. “Surely even the Syndic leaders realize the effect it would have on their people once it was learned that those leaders had deliberately wiped out one of their own star systems and murdered every Syndic citizen within it? Fear of retaliation from their own government has helped keep the Syndicate Worlds together, but if the Syndic people know they could be sacrificed en masse anyway, they might indeed finally revolt.”

  “The Syndic leaders would blame us,” Rione replied. “They’d tell their people that the Alliance had collapsed another hypernet gate, after practicing at Sancere and Kalixa, but had been caught by our own weapon this time. Enough Syndic people would probably accept that to avoid revolt.”

  Desjani’s own response was stiff and formal. “Even the Syndics know that this fleet under the command of Admiral Geary does not commit atrocities.”

  “That is true,” Rione conceded. “But it would be a cold comfort to us if the Syndic leaders’ cover story wasn’t accepted after this fleet was destroyed. Can we still get out?” she asked Geary. “Turn about and make it back to the jump point from which we arrived before the Syndics could react?”

  “Probably not,” Geary replied, trying to decide how long the Syndics might hesitate before ordering the gate to collapse. “We’re already more than fourteen hours travel time at point one light speed from the jump point we came in on, and that much closer to the Syndics at the Mandalon jump point. If they ordered a gate collapse as soon as they saw us turn, we’d have to be very lucky to avoid getting hit.”

  “Go faster! If they know you’re leaving anyway—”

  “I can’t turn the fleet on a dime, and I can’t accelerate every ship like I can a destroyer or a battle cruiser. It might work if we tried it right now, but I doubt it.” He paused, wondering if that was, nonetheless, exactly what he needed to do, if that was the only chance the fleet would have.

  “But you can’t just turn this fleet around and run for the jump point!” Desjani shook her head, keeping her voice low but intense. “This wouldn’t be like Lakota, where we could say we were heading to attack another part of the Syndic forces. It would be running with no apparent reason, fleeing this star system. Our fleet believes in you, Admiral Geary, but please do not test their faith this way. It would go against everything they believe in besides you.” Her eyes went to Rione. “And because they wouldn’t accept that you would choose to do such a thing, they would instead believe that the retreat had been ordered by the politicians, and that you had either been coerced or had caved in to their demands. Do I need to spell out what might happen then?”

  Rione gazed back at Desjani dispassionately, then nodded to Geary. “She is absolutely right. It would be assumed within the fleet that we, the politicians, had sold out the Alliance either because of bribery or simple treachery and ordered you to retreat.”

  Geary blew out an exasperated breath. “Why is it whenever you two are in agreement, it’s about something that’s going to make my life harder?”

  “Good advice tends to do that,” Rione said. “If you haven’t figured it out already, bad advice usually makes you feel better in the short run.”

  Desjani was eyeing her display. “Every second that passes means we’re traveling deeper into a Syndic trap, but if we turn around and head for the jump point to escape, the Syndics will trigger the trap as soon as they see us running and before we can reach safety, and our own fleet will mutiny. I don’t have any good ideas at the moment.”

  Geary drummed his fingers on his seat’s arm, trying to think of alternatives. “Is there any chance we could get to the hypernet gate before the Syndic flotilla reaches the jump point for Mandalon? Head that way instead so we could take it down safely?”

  “Let’s see.” Desjani’s fingers danced across her controls as she ran the maneuvers, then she made a tired gesture. “Yes and no. We could charge the gate with just our battle cruisers, accelerating, then decelerating at maximum, and in theory get there in time, but in order to get close enough to the gate to counter the Syndic collapse we’d have to get through the minefields first. We’d lose every ship trying to ram our way through them. We could blow a path through the mines using null fields, but in order to do that we’d have to slow down a lot.”

  “Meaning we wouldn’t get there in time.”

  “No, not even if the Syndics held off blowing the gate that long.”

  “You could fire those bombardment projectiles,” Rione urged.

  “No. Rocks could take down the gate, but the Syndics would see them en route in plenty of time to order the gate to collapse destructively before the rocks got there. It might cost them that flotilla they want to save, but if we launched rocks at the gate, it would guarantee this fleet’s destruction. As much as the Syndic leaders must want that flotilla to get out of this star system intact, I think they’ll sacrifice it to get us.”

  Desjani nodded. “What’s one more flotilla or star system to them? Just numbers on a balance sheet as long as they can avoid taking the blame for the losses.”

  Going back wasn’t an option. Going ahead just pulled them deeper into the Syndic trap. “You warned me,” he muttered to Rione. “Don’t start believing that you’re really Black Jack. I did. I thought I was being so damned clever. But the Syndics expected that I might well do something they hadn’t anticipated, so they planned for that, too.”

  “You’re not the only person who missed it,” Rione corrected, her voice harsh. “But you may be the only one who can get us out of this.”

  “She’s right,” Desjani said.

  “Stop agreeing with each other!” Geary snapped. He knew they were both correct, but at the moment hearing them in agreement was a little too weird given all of the other pressures on him. “We’re too far from the jump point to ensure that the fleet could make it out in time even if we turned this instant. Retreating won’t work if the Syndics have laid the sort of trap we think they have, and we can’t just hang around this part of the star system, which means we continue to close on the primary world and the Syndic flotilla while we try to figure out another option. As long as the Syndics think we’re diving deeper into their trap, and they still have a chance to get their flotilla out intact, they’ll hold off collapsing the hypernet gate. Do you both agree with that?”

  Desjani shrugged. “I expected to die the last time I was in this star system. If it happens this time, I’d prefer to go down fighting, or at least heading toward the enemy.”

  It took Rione a moment to reply. “I can’t think of any other course of action, Admiral Geary, but I hope one of us manages to do so before too much longer.”

  “Then let’s show the Syndics what they expect to see.” He took a moment to work up a maneuver to shorten the time to intercept of the Syndic flotilla, then transmitted it to the fleet. “Should I send an answer to that CEO?”

  “What would you say to him?” Rione asked.

  “Nothing my mother would approve of.”

  “Then leave him hanging for now. We need to know what we want to say before we speak to that CEO.”

  What they wanted to say would, of course, depend on what they were going to do. He wished he had some idea what that was. “I need to walk around and think.” Nothing would happen now for a while, if their guesses were right, and just sitting would drive him crazy. Walking at least created an illusion of purposeful movement so that his mind could focus better on finding an answer.

  Rione stepped back. “You’ve always found a solution.”

  “That’s because there have always been solutions to choose from in the past. I don’t know of even one at the moment.”

  To Geary’s surprise, Desjani gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Sir, have you ever read Dauntles
s’s commissioning emblem?”

  “I’ve seen it.” The information deeply engraved on a bulkhead near the heart of the ship told when Dauntless had been launched, when she had been commissioned, and included very brief notations about distinguished other ships of the same name stretching back to the days when every human warship rode only the waters of Earth.

  “Including the ship’s motto?” Desjani asked.

  “It’s in some old language.” Geary couldn’t count how many times he had resolved to ask someone or look up what it meant, but with all of the distractions and other tasks at hand, he had never gotten around to either.

  “A very old language, passed down like the name Dauntless from far in the past, but every commanding officer is told what it means. ‘Nil Desperandum.’ It means ‘Never Despair.’ ” She shook her head. “There was a time when I thought that motto mocked us, on the last occasion we faced the Syndic fleet here in their home star system, with destruction certain, with no way to escape any of us could see. Then you assumed command of the fleet, and I have not despaired since.”

  He gazed back at her wordlessly for a moment. If Desjani had just said she was certain he would find an answer, it would have felt like an added and unwelcome pressure. But instead she had expressed her confidence in him indirectly, invoking ancient words whose meaning held the same force they must have always had. So Geary returned her smile with a grim one of his own, nodded to Rione, then left to walk the passageways of Dauntless as if they held the solution he needed.

  An hour later, tired but uninspired, he strode into his stateroom and more flopped than sat down in one of the chairs, glaring at the star display over the table. The star itself seemed to be gazing back with a gloating gleam, so Geary moved to block its light.

  Then stopped in midmotion, staring at the star.

  They had been looking at the danger posed by the Syndic hypernet gate without realizing what it was. Maybe they had also been looking right at the way to save themselves and not knowing it, either.