The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

by Jack Campbell

  “And they would blame us,” Rione said. “Count on it. The Syndic rulers on Prime would announce that we had bombarded that planet, causing all of that damage. No wonder CEO Gawzi looks so nervous. Her planet is about to be shaked and baked, and most of the remaining population killed.”

  “An expendable planet in an expendable star system,” General Carabali agreed. “It’s logical enough if you’re cold-blooded enough. When will we be clear of this threat?”

  “When we get the shuttles aboard and take a course away from the planet,” Geary said.

  “What about the prisoners in the camp?” Rione asked.

  “If Lieutenant Jamenson is right, the only way to keep those prisoners alive is to stay away from the trap. We either get the Syndics to lift them out to us, or we leave them.” The words had no sooner left his mouth than Geary felt bitterness fill him. Leave them. Leave Alliance military personnel taken as prisoners, who might have been held by the Syndics for several decades, who knew Alliance ships were here because of the Marine surveillance drones, who might have seen some of the Alliance shuttles high above them turn about and head back for space. “We’ll do everything we can to get them out of there.”

  It sounded weak. It sounded bureaucratic.

  I’m getting too good at saying bureaucratic things.

  “Ten minutes to complete recovery of all shuttles,” Lieutenant Yuon reported.

  “Admiral,” Rione said, “CEO Gawzi is on the planet. Do we know where other senior Syndic personnel are?”

  “We know the senior internal-security officials have gone off planet.”

  “Do you remember Lakota? Where a Syndic flotilla was ordered to destroy a hypernet gate at close range?”

  “And not warned about what would happen,” Geary said. “Yes. I saw a former Syndic officer at Midway saying no one was warned by the Syndic leaders.”

  Rione nodded, smiling unpleasantly. “You can be certain that the junior Syndic internal-security personnel holding guns on the CEO and other important officials on the planet, and the people who will trigger the weapon because that is too important to risk a malfunction in an automated system, have not been told what use of that weapon will do to the planet they are on. Perhaps we should tell them.”

  “But the CEO knows?” Carabali asked. “Why wouldn’t she tell them?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she knows it will be bad but doesn’t know how very bad it will be. Maybe she has had a mental block implanted to keep her from talking.”

  “Barbarians,” Carabali spat.

  Rione slid her eyes toward Geary, but instead of pursuing that dangerous subject, her next words referred back to her earlier statement. “Shall I work on an announcement to the people of the Simur Star System?”

  “Yes,” Geary said. “But don’t send anything until I clear it.”

  “What about the expanded formation?” Desjani asked.

  “Let’s hold off on that. We’re about to get far away from where that Syndic continental shotgun is aimed, then our main threat will still be those four groups of ships. The Dancers are staying tucked in close to Invincible, thanks be to our ancestors, and if we’re lucky, they’ll remain there.”

  Seven minutes later, the last shuttle had been docked. Geary took his fleet out of its close-in orbit, aiming for another orbit out past the moons that kept the Alliance warships far from the region of space above the prison camp. The Dancers maintained their positions near Invincible, for once offering no extra complications for Geary to deal with.

  “What are we going to do?” Desjani muttered. “The Syndics in this star system can’t revolt, not with all of those Syndic warships free to bombard them. We can’t go anywhere near that prison camp. The Syndic warships can’t hurt us as long as we stay in this formation, but as long as we stay in this formation, we can’t hurt them.”

  “Stalemate,” Geary agreed. “Even worse than before. I don’t know, Tanya. The Syndic CEOs are playing a game as ugly as it gets. How do we counter that? How do we get those prisoners out of there when they’re sitting on top of a huge weapon?”

  She started to shake her head, then straightened, eyes intent. “What fires the weapon? If we can break the trigger, we can get the prisoners out.”

  He felt the first sense of hope in a while. “That’s an idea worth checking out.” It was time to call Lieutenant Jamenson again.

  “But, first,” Desjani suggested, “you might tell the rest of the fleet’s commanding officers what’s going on.”

  —

  THE small conference room didn’t require the software to make it appear larger for this meeting. Besides Geary, Desjani, Rione, and Lieutenant Iger, who were physically present, the other attendees were limited to the virtual presences of Captain Smythe, Lieutenant Jamenson, General Carabali, and a Commander Hopper, whom Smythe introduced as “a wizard, or a sorceress, at anything to do with comm linkages, coding, and remote signals.” Whether that was true or not, Hopper, lean and middle-aged, radiated a reassuring aura of competence from where she sat.

  “Have you found anything else?” Geary asked Lieutenant Jamenson.

  Jamenson shook her head, her eyes slightly glazed from tension and work, her green hair still vivid against skin still pale. “No, sir. Was I right, sir?”

  “We all think so. Captain Smythe?”

  Smythe smiled crookedly. “I wouldn’t have seen it. I’d never heard of the Continental Shotgun. But I’ve reviewed Lieutenant Jamenson’s findings, and I agree with them.”

  Lieutenant Iger nodded unhappily. An engineer had discovered a major threat that Iger’s office was supposed to have spotted. But, to his credit, Iger hadn’t tried to discredit Jamenson’s conclusions. “Nothing about that program was in the intel files, but from what the engineers have provided us, it all fits, Admiral. Either the Syndics learned about the Alliance’s experiments with the concept or they came up with it independently.”

  “You think the Syndics could have thought of that by themselves?” Rione asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Smythe said. “In engineering terms, it’s a really cool concept. The BFG to beat all BFGs. I’d love to build one and set it off just to see the fireworks. But, uh, you’d need a spare planet. That is, a planet you weren’t planning on using for anything else.”

  Rione raised one eyebrow at Smythe. “My reading of the Syndic CEO also fits our conclusions. From the beginning, she seemed oddly encouraging in our desire to recover the prisoners at the camp, and has been just as oddly nervous when we halted our recovery, repeatedly asking what the delay is and making vague warnings about what might happen if we don’t recover the prisoners soon.”

  “They want us back there,” Iger agreed.

  “What do we know about the trigger for the weapon?” Geary asked. “There’s no way to strike at the weapon itself without killing the prisoners.”

  Smythe spread his hands, looking to either side at Jamenson and Hopper, then to Iger. “The few records we have available on that concept don’t specify design features like that.”

  Hopper made a face. “The trigger is the weak point,” she said. “You cannot afford to have something like that go off by accident. Or not go off when you want it to. The trigger has to be extremely reliable and extremely secure.”

  “Landline?” Smythe said.

  “Armored landlines,” Hopper agreed. “Buried. Redundant.”

  “Wouldn’t there be one place from which the fire command was sent?” Jamenson suggested.

  This time Hopper nodded. “A single location. Multiple locations would drastically increase the risk of a stray signal or of someone’s tapping into the extra cables required. Most of all, a single location can remain firmly under control. That trigger has to be accessible only by the highest authority. It really is a doomsday weapon.”

  “What are the odds we can locate and cut or subvert the comm cables?” Carabali asked her.

  “Astronomical,” Hopper replied. “These wouldn’t be standard cables. They’d
not only be heavily armored and shielded against radiation, but also coated with multiple layers of intrusion-detection material and surrounded by other intrusion-detection sensors. I am certain that you couldn’t even get a nanoprobe near one of those cables without setting off alarms.”

  “That leaves the trigger,” Carabali said.

  “Yes. If you get to the trigger, you can either set off the weapon prematurely or keep anyone else from setting it off. But you have to find the trigger, then you have to get to it. It’s going to be the most securely guarded spot on the planet.”

  “Can we get an attack force down to the surface undetected?” Geary asked.

  “Yes, Admiral,” Carabali said. “The Syndics left most of the defenses in this star system unrepaired, so we wouldn’t suspect what defensive work they had done. Their orbital and atmospheric sensors are few and obsolete. Normally, I wouldn’t want to drop scouts in stealth armor through atmosphere onto a heavily guarded area, but under these circumstances, they should be able to reach the target undetected.”

  “But where do we land those scouts?” Desjani wondered.

  Lieutenant Jamenson looked surprised at the question. “At the most heavily guarded spot on the planet, of course.”

  Iger grinned at Jamenson, his earlier gloom replaced by enthusiasm and perhaps something else as he looked at the green-haired lieutenant. “And we already know where that spot is.” Iger worked his controls rapidly, until sharp images appeared above the table. “Not new construction, but recently modified, and close to the main command and control facility on the planet, which is also close to the main Syndic administrative offices. See where the paving is widely cracked along this route leading toward the site? They brought in heavy materials. And these signal signatures indicate an extensive localized sensor net using state-of-the-art Syndic equipment.”

  Carabali nodded, her eyes studying the images. “New defensive bunkers, too. Automated, from the looks of them, but there are at least three occupied sentry posts. Layered defenses, heavily camouflaged. How did you get these images?”

  Iger swelled with pride but kept his tone of voice matter-of-fact. “We identified the Syndic headquarters and sent down stealthed drones for close-in collection when we first approached the planet. That’s standard procedure. We had planned to recover the drones during the prisoner pickup, but when that was stopped, and the drones were stuck down there, we took advantage of the extra time to conduct more in-depth surveillance.”

  “Well done,” Carabali said. “Where are the drones now? Still active?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Iger was clearly trying very hard not to smile widely. Praise from operational commanders for fleet intel did not come all that often. “The drones are flying random, low-observable patterns, conserving power.”

  “The Syndics haven’t spotted the uplinks from the drones?” Geary asked.

  “No, sir,” Iger replied confidently. “If they had a decent satellite net about the planet, they would have a good chance of picking something up even though we’re using highly directional burst transmissions. But the sat net is old, with a lot of holes in it.”

  Desjani tapped one finger on the table, looking dissatisfied. “Isn’t it a bit obvious? Why didn’t they fix the cracks where the heavy stuff was brought in?”

  Smythe smiled indulgently. “Not in the task order, most likely. Someone would have had to anticipate the pavement there would crack and write in that the cracks needed to be repaired in ways that weren’t easily detected as new work. Someone probably did spot the need for that after the pavement was cracked, but fixing that would require a task order modification, which would need approval from all the right authorities up the chain of command, and—”

  “They’ll probably get approval to fix the cracks in another couple of years or so,” Geary said.

  “At best,” Smythe agreed. “If it gets approved at all. Most of this work we’re seeing is pretty good. A few sloppy places, but they must have been terribly rushed. Those sloppy places are what keyed Lieutenant Iger’s drones to focus on particular spots. I keep telling you, Admiral, that it is always a good idea to give engineers enough time to do a job right.”

  “When I have the luxury of having enough time,” Geary said dryly, “I’ll give you enough time as well. Can we do this with a reasonable chance of success? How many Marines can you send down, General?”

  “Same as before,” Carabali said. “Thirty. That’s how much stealth armor we have. Can thirty do the job? Looking at these images, I think so, but I’ll have a talk with my most experienced force-recon officers and senior enlisted and see what they say.”

  Desjani made a face. “We’ll have to coordinate the drops of the Marines and the movements of our ships and shuttles so that everything happens within an extremely precise timeline. I don’t like timelines that require that kind of precision, that don’t have room for the unexpected, but I guess we don’t have any choice. How do we get those Marines out after we’ve pulled up the prisoners?”

  “I think our battleships can handle that,” Geary said. “General, consult with your experts, give me a firm go/no-go, then get me a plan. Emissary Rione, please contact the Syndic CEO again, tell her the military bureaucracy and regulations are still holding things up but we’re planning on heading back in soon to get the prisoner recovery done. Lieutenant Iger, have your drones keep a close eye on that area and collect any more information they can without compromising their presence. Ensure that Lieutenant Jamenson is kept apprised of new information. Lieutenant Jamenson, keep doing what you’ve been doing. Commander Hopper, anything you can tell the Marines about the likely configuration of the Syndic trigger will be a great help. Contact General Carabali directly but keep Captain Smythe in the loop.”

  Commander Hopper sighed, her eyes reflecting fatalistic acceptance. “I need to go along with the Marines when they drop.”

  “What?” Geary, Smythe, and Carabali all said the same word at the same time.

  “There are too many uncertainties about the trigger, and comms may be interrupted when the Syndics realize what we’re doing. You need someone there to look at that trigger and figure out what to do with it.”

  “My scouts—” Carabali began.

  “If they do the wrong thing, we lose six thousand prisoners,” Hopper said. “This trigger is going to be unique. It may have been designed to thwart the usual disabling techniques. The training and experience of your scouts won’t be sufficient to deal with it.”

  “Can you do a stealth landing?” Smythe asked. “Keeping up with the Marines?”

  “I’ll have to.”

  Carabali eyed Hopper, nodding. “Let’s see whether you can. I’ll need you on Mistral as soon as possible, so we can see how you do in the simulators.”

  “She’s even tougher than she looks,” Smythe offered.

  “Let me know how it goes,” Geary ordered. “Let’s get to work.”

  After the images of the others vanished, Lieutenant Iger lingered. “Admiral, about Lieutenant Jamenson . . .”

  “Are you still concerned about her access to intel materiel?” Geary asked.

  “No, sir! Absolutely not. She would be—she is—a tremendous asset. If she could be transferred to the intelligence office aboard Dauntless, I am certain that we would, uh, work very well together.”

  “I see.” Unseen by Iger but visible to Geary, both Desjani and Rione grinned, though as soon as each realized the other was smiling both changed their expressions. “Don’t you think Lieutenant Jamenson’s hair would be distracting?”

  “Distracting?” Iger asked. “I, uh, didn’t . . . really . . . notice . . . That is, no, sir.”

  Geary nodded solemnly, grateful that a career of dealing with sailors had taught him how to keep a straight face in situations like this. “I will consider your recommendation, Lieutenant. However, I did make Captain Smythe a firm promise that I wouldn’t poach Lieutenant Jamenson from his staff, and she is carrying out some extremely important
tasks for me aboard Tanuki.”

  “Oh. I see, Admiral. I wouldn’t—”

  “But I didn’t promise Captain Smythe that you wouldn’t offer her a different position. Feel free to speak to her about it.”

  “Yes, sir!” Iger saluted hastily and rushed from the compartment, pausing only to hold the hatch as Rione followed.

  Desjani waited until the hatch closed before she laughed. “A tremendous asset?”

  “She would be,” Geary said.

  “And I’m absolutely sure that’s all that Lieutenant Iger is thinking about.” Her smile faded again. “This op is going to be a bitch to carry off successfully.”

  “I know.”

  ELEVEN

  “TELL the Syndics we’re going to make two passes above the prison-camp area,” Geary told Rione, “because we require two shuttle lifts to get all of the prisoners up.”

  The fleet’s orbital track had been very carefully calculated so that the planet’s surface would track a bit to one side under it between passes. On the first pass, the fleet would pass just west of the prison-camp area. On Syndic displays in their control centers and command posts, the fleet’s orbit would be projected with one hundred percent certainty that the second pass would bring the fleet directly over the camp.

  Windows showing Captain Armus of Colossus and Captain Jane Geary of Dreadnaught were open near the fleet command seat on Dauntless’s bridge. “You’ve got your initial maneuvering orders. Captain Armus, once your portion of the battleship force is cut loose, I want you to do everything you can to support the Marines on the ground at the trigger site. I don’t care how much of the surrounding landscape you have to tear up.”

  Armus nodded, stolid and unperturbed. This fire-support mission was right up his alley.

  “Captain Geary,” Geary continued, “your part of the battleship force is to keep those four groups of Syndic warships off Armus’s units and off the shuttles going down to pick up the Marines. Anticipate the movements of the Syndics and be there first. They don’t have the muscle to stand up to your ships, and if they try, I want them shot to pieces.”