The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (7 page)

CEO Boyens would be realizing that right about now. Geary found himself smiling at the thought of the Syndic CEO’s becoming very, very unhappy as he spotted, too late, the trap laid for him.

“The Syndic heavy cruisers have launched missiles!” Lieutenant Castries said, as alarms from
Dauntless
’s combat systems accentuated her report.

“CEO Boyens must have received your message before those ships fired,” Desjani said, the words going into the official record as she spoke them.

“That’s right,” Geary agreed. “We have to assume that he has deliberately attacked an Alliance ship, and we have to make sure the Syndics don’t get away with such an act of aggression.” He tapped his comm controls again, this time pretending only anger. “CEO Boyens! Your forces have fired on a ship
after
you were informed that ship was operating under the Alliance flag! This is a hostile act, a clear violation of the peace treaty the Syndicate Worlds pledged to observe. Under the terms of that treaty, I am authorized to take all necessary measures to protect Alliance life and property. I will now do so and eliminate any threats to the Alliance within this star system! Geary, out!”

Just to add to CEO Boyens’s headaches, the apparently crippled main propulsion unit on the lone Midway heavy cruiser suddenly came to life at full power, dramatically boosting the acceleration of the warship. “That,” Desjani observed, “will create some serious problems for the missiles the Syndics launched based on their earlier assumptions of the maximum acceleration that heavy cruiser could achieve.”

“But they’ve still got two dozen missiles coming at them,” Geary said.

“They’ll be all right,” Desjani said, her eyes on her display. “If they listen to Captain Bradamont. She’s aboard that heavy cruiser, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” It had not been easy to arrange Bradamont’s transfer to the Syndic ship without her movement being detected, but routine resupply operations could mask a great deal of nonroutine activity. “Her presence on the heavy cruiser establishes clearly and legally that the ship is temporarily Alliance property. The authorities on Midway,” Geary added, “also assigned a Kapitan-Lieutenant Kontos to ride the cruiser while it was under Alliance charter.”

“Kontos?” she asked. “Do we know him?”

“He’s the one who thought up fastening the battleship to the mobile forces facility so it could tow that facility out of the path of the enigma bombardment,” Geary said.

“Oh.” Desjani smiled knowingly. “And now Captain Bradamont can provide us with detailed observations about this Kapitan-Lieutenant who is such a quick and innovative thinker?”

“That’s right,” Geary agreed.

“Well done, Admiral.” She tapped her weapons controls. “We’ll be within range of Boyens in forty-five minutes if you hold us at point two light speed.”

Geary nodded, gazing at his own display again.
What will I do if Boyens doesn’t run? If he stands his ground? I’ll have to engage that battleship and take out the heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and HuKs escorting it. It’ll be a massacre, but they could still inflict damage
on some of my ships, and when I get home, it’ll be a lot harder to explain annihilating a Syndic flotilla than it will be to explain chasing one away.

Boyens had a limited period of time in which to act. Battleships excelled at firepower and armor, but not at acceleration. If Boyens wanted to avoid the Alliance attack, he would have to head for the hypernet gate soon enough to overcome the Alliance advantage in coming up to speed first.

“The gate’s his only option,” Desjani commented. “If Boyens heads toward the only jump point he could reach before we could catch him, he’ll run right into that Midway flotilla.”

“Isn’t that a lucky coincidence,” Geary said.

“We need to keep after him,” Desjani added in a low voice. “Boyens isn’t going to enter that gate if he has any doubts that we might veer off. We need to stay on a firing run, maintaining our velocity, until his flotilla leaves. If we bobble at all, if we slow down, if we give him any reason to doubt our intent, he’ll veer away from the gate. Then we’ll
have
to destroy him.”

“You’re right.” He had been trying to estimate when he could order his attack force to break off, but Desjani was correct. “He’ll cut it as fine as he possibly can, to see if we actually open fire.”

“Count on having to open fire,” she said.

“I hope you’re not right about that.”

But as the minutes went by, Boyens’s flagship remained stubbornly in the same orbit. Geary checked the combat systems readouts, seeing the steady scrolling down to the time when the Syndic battleship would be within range of the weapons on the leading Alliance warships. One number for the specter missiles, another for hell-lance particle beams, a third time for the ball bearings called grapeshot used at close range, and finally a time for the very-close-range null-field generators carried by the Alliance battle cruisers and battleships.

Desjani shook her head as she studied her display. “If he doesn’t start moving in the next five minutes, we’ll catch him before he reaches the gate.”

Rione spoke from where she had come to stand on the other side of Geary. “Why hasn’t CEO Boyens tried to communicate with us?” she wondered. “Accused us of setting him up, tried to apologize, anything at all? Ah, I know.”

“Do you feel like telling me?” Geary asked.

“Certainly, Admiral.” Rione held out her open hand, palm up. “Syndic CEOs hold their positions through fear. Subordinates know they cannot cross their CEOs. But if a CEO is seen to be weak, subordinates will see wounded prey.”

“And an apology, an attempt to deflect our attack, would make Boyens look weak.”

“Extremely weak, as well as foolish.” Rione closed her hand into a fist. “He knows we set him up. To openly admit that he fell into a trap we set might drive the last nail into his coffin.”

“Do you think he’ll stay and fight?”

“That would be suicide.” She made an uncertain gesture. “But the price of failure here for him might be high, and his own anger at being humiliated might drive him to fight a hopeless battle. I don’t know.”

“Two minutes left for him to start running,” Desjani said. “We need to see thrusters firing on those Syndics ships within the next thirty seconds to get them faced on a course for the gate.”

Thirty seconds to wonder if the cunning and twisted plot dreamed up by the rulers of Midway would blow up in everyone’s face. On the main inhabited world light-hours from the hypernet gate, President Iceni and General Drakon would not see what happened until a long time after it took place. Thirty seconds to wonder what they would think as they saw the same limited time rapidly running out. CEO Boyens must be angry, frustrated, knowing he was trapped, knowing that failure would be punished by his superiors in the Syndic hierarchy but knowing also that if he lost that battleship, the punishment would certainly be death. Thirty seconds to wonder if Boyens would choose to risk that rather than fail here.

Ten seconds.

Five.

“MANEUVERING
thrusters firing on all warships in the Syndic flotilla,” Lieutenant Yuon called out. “Vectors changing toward hypernet gate.”

“There you go,” Desjani said approvingly. “He’ll wait until the last possible second to cut in his main propulsion, too,” she predicted.

“What if Boyens miscalculates?” Geary said.

“Then we punch some holes in the hide of that battleship to remind him that he should allow a little larger margin for error in the future.” She smiled at him. “Right?”

“Yeah. Whoever is driving our ‘chartered’ heavy cruiser is doing a good job.”

The lone heavy cruiser had kept accelerating all out away from the pursuing Syndic cruisers and HuKs while twisting slightly to one side and down in order to put the oncoming missiles into the most difficult possible stern chase. Geary’s eyes went to where the Midway flotilla was swooping in from the side, aiming to intercept the heavy cruisers of the Syndic force that had gone after the lone cruiser. “They’re not faking this at all. They’re going to try to take out those Syndic warships.”

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 mean 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.