The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (9 page)

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.

“Syndicate? No! Never again. We are free. We’ll die free before we become slaves of the Syndicate again.” She turned to go, then looked back at the Alliance officers, uncertain once more. “You . . . have my thanks.”

“Sorry we couldn’t tell you what happened to your brother.”

“You told me what you knew, and that’s a lot more than I knew.” She paused, then came to attention and saluted in the Syndic fashion, right arm coming across so her fist rapped her left breast. Turning again before the Alliance officers could decide whether or not to return the salute, she walked back toward the other shuttle pilots.

“Hey,” one of the Alliance officers called sharply.

The shuttle pilot jerked as if she had expected a bullet instead of a shout, then turned back to face them.

“Tell me one thing.” The voice of the Alliance officer was openly hostile, angry but also puzzled. “One thing I never understood. Why? Why the hell did you attack the Alliance?”

“Us? Attack? We did not—”

“Not now. A century ago. Why did the Syndicate Worlds start that damned war in the first place?”

This time the shuttle pilot just stared for a long moment, her face working. When her voice finally came out, it was half-strangled by emotion. “They told us you started it. The Syndicate. They taught us that
we’d
been attacked.”

“We didn’t—”
the Alliance officer began hotly.

“
No! I believe you!
Our government lied to us about everything! Why the hell wouldn’t they have lied about that as well?”

She spun on her heel and stumbled back to the other shuttle pilots.

Geary glanced at Desjani, trying to judge her reaction, but Tanya wasn’t revealing anything this time. “What’s your impression?” he asked.

Desjani shrugged. “If she’s faking her feelings about the Syndicate Worlds, she’s a great actor.”

“I noticed that. When she talked about the, uh, snakes, it sounded like she had personally slit a few of their throats.”

“Why did they fight?” Desjani said in a low, angry voice. “They hated the Syndicate Worlds, they hated those snakes. What the hell were they fighting for? Why the hell did they kill so many people when they hated their own government?”

“I don’t know.” Or did he? “We know they thought they were defending their own people from us.”

“By attacking us?” Desjani asked, her tone now savage.

“They’d been told we were the aggressors. I’m not saying they were right, Tanya. I’m not saying they should have fought. Their own efforts kept alive the Syndicate Worlds that they hated. It was stupid. But they must have thought they were doing the only thing they could.”

“As long as you’re not excusing them,” she muttered.

“I lost a lot, too, Tanya.”

She sat silent for a minute, then nodded. “You did. Well, if I have to choose between former Syndics who now hate the Syndicate Worlds, or others like the Syndicate Worlds, the enigmas, and the Kicks, I guess I can give the ex-Syndics a chance.”

On
Haboob
’s loading dock, the turnover process must have been completed. The eighteen former prisoners who were leaving walked slowly in their own tight group toward the hatches leading to the shuttles.

And then the other three hundred fifteen former prisoners surged after them en masse, crying out a babble of pleas and shouts. The Marine guards, taken totally by surprise, jolted into motion, trying to stop the sudden mob with yells and threats. The doctors and technicians from both sides, as startled as the Marines, milled about, their own movements and cries adding to the confusion.

“What the hell is going on?” Geary demanded.

IT
took a couple of long minutes before the Marines, assisted by extra personnel who had been standing by in case they were needed, corralled the agitated former prisoners and shouted them into a tight group, shivering and whimpering but otherwise quiet. With the situation calmed enough, Dr. Nasr spoke to Geary over the bevy of voices in the loading area. “Admiral, we have a situation.”

“I noticed,” Geary snapped, trying not to sound too angry. “What’s the problem? Did the eighteen who were going to leave decide not to stay at Midway?”

“No, Admiral. We’re still trying to sort things out, but as far as I can determine, now they
all
want to get off and stay at Midway.”

“All?” Geary repeated.

“Yes. All three hundred thirty-three of them.”

Geary heard a thudding sound and glanced over the see that Tanya, looking pained, had slapped her palm against her forehead.

He felt the same way. “How many times did we already ask them if they wanted to stay here?”

Dr. Nasr came as close to rolling his eyes as a senior medical officer could. “On the record, with official refusals? Twenty times, Admiral. But they changed their minds when they saw the others going. They want to stay together. They want to go home. This isn’t home for the other three-hundred-odd former prisoners, but it’s a lot closer to their previous homes than Varandal or any other point in Alliance space. And we are Alliance. We frighten them.”

“We frighten them?” Desjani asked, incredulous. “Do they think Syndic CEOs are warm and cuddly? Did they hear that shuttle pilot talking about snakes?”

“Syndic CEOs, the entire Syndic system, is the devil they know. And they know from hearing that pilot that the snakes are gone from Midway. The pilot is one of them. They believed her where they would not believe us. Faced with separation from those who have been part of their group for decades, they decided to stay together rather than risk the unknowns of the Alliance.”

“Doctor,” Geary growled, “Midway only agreed to take eighteen.”

“We’re talking to the representatives from Midway, Admiral.” In the wide-view image, Geary could see the civilian specialists and fleet physicians on
Haboob
speaking, arguing, debating, and, in general, looking as frustrated as he himself felt, while the panicky former prisoners of the enigmas wailed and clamored in the background. “They seem willing to take the others, and their freighter has the capacity though it will be crowded, but they need high-level approval.”

Which would take nearly five hours since the planet where President Iceni and General Drakon were located was currently about two and a half light-hours from where the Alliance fleet was orbiting. “Damn.”

Tanya was wisely saying nothing, letting him burn off steam before he spoke again.

“All right,” Geary finally said. “Should we send the former prisoners back to their rooms while we wait to hear from the authorities on Midway?”

“No!” Dr. Nasr protested. “If they’re panicky now, sending them to their rooms as if we’re keeping all of them would just add fuel to the fire.”

“All right,” Geary repeated, trying to sound much calmer than he felt. “Hold them all there on the loading dock. Tell the Midway people to get off a message immediately asking their superiors if they can take all of the liberated prisoners. Have the officer in charge of the loading dock arrange for food and water for everyone who needs it and keep the guards in place.”

“Yes, Admiral. I will pass on those instructions.”

As Dr. Nasr went to work on his end, Geary shook his head in frustration at the images from
Haboob
, where the assembled former prisoners were now crying and holding on to each other. “I know they’re emotional wrecks because of their long confinement by the enigmas, but did they have to make this difficult by changing their minds at the last moment?”

“Like you told me,” Tanya said. “They’re wrecks. You have spotted the bright side here, right?”

“There’s a bright side?” Geary asked, glumly surveying the slowly subsiding mess aboard
Haboob
.

“Hell, yes, there’s a bright side. If we dump them all here, they’ll be Midway’s problem from now on. We’ll be free of worrying about them.”

He paused, then felt a smile appear on his face. “That’s true. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to protect them from Alliance researchers and media vultures once we got back. We’ll have freed them and taken them home. The honorable and the right thing to do. Hooray for us. What are you doing?”

“Research.” Tanya continued tapping some of her controls, zooming a virtual sound pickup in on the Alliance officers who had spoken with the shuttle pilot. “This is a recording from just before our many freed prisoners decided to freak out on us. I want to know what these officers thought of their conversation with that former Syndic.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know the answer, and I want to find out, Admiral, sir.” She finished entering her commands. The officers had all been muttering or speaking in low voices, which would normally have made it hard to sort out the conversations they were having with each other. However, the sound systems automatically analyzed everything and broke out each voice digitally, producing a series of phrases that could be heard clearly by Geary and Desjani.

“Lakota was that bad?” “Worse.” “Like Kalixa?” “Worse.” “What was that about Taroa? We ought to report that.” “They called their own cops snakes?” “Not cops. She said secret police or something.” “Maybe she was lying.” “Hell of a good liar if she was.” “How could they believe we started it?” “Bitch.” “She lost her brother.”
“So did I!”
“We don’t trust our own politicians, do we?” “Hell, no.” “Syndics are worse. Everybody knows that.” “Maybe our government isn’t so bad after all.” “Not if you compare it to the Syndics.”

“The one great virtue of the Syndics,” Desjani said, as the recording ended with the beginning of the former prisoners’ panic session that swamped the sound pickups with a cacophony of noise. “Everything about the Syndics makes everything else look so much better when weighed against the Syndics.”

“That’s something I hadn’t thought about,” Geary admitted. “We’ve gone through Syndic space once on this mission, and we’ll be doing the same on the way back. The personnel in this fleet are seeing firsthand what happens as the Syndicate Worlds falls apart. They’re seeing how bad Syndic rule was. No matter what they think of the Alliance government, no matter how unhappy they are with how our government does things or with Alliance policy or with Alliance politicians, they’re seeing firsthand how much worse things could be.”

Desjani rolled her eyes. “Saying our government is better than the Syndics’ isn’t exactly high praise. Anything is better than the Syndics. And claiming our politicians are better than Syndic CEOs might generate some debate.”

“Not all politicians are the same. Take a look at some of the star systems where Syndic authority has collapsed,” Geary suggested. “The people of Midway were lucky.”

“Maybe they were lucky. So far, this place hasn’t fallen apart. Doesn’t mean it won’t. You heard that woman, the shuttle pilot. We’re free, she said. How long do you think she and others like her are going to keep taking orders from a couple of former CEOs?”

“It depends upon what those former CEOs do,” Geary said. “President Iceni has been asking Rione a lot of questions about the different governments in the Alliance. How they maintain order, how stable they are, how they retain popular support.”

“She’s asking that witch for advice on how to be a good politician? Or maybe Iceni figures that woman has good advice for dictators.”

“Tanya, for all of Victoria Rione’s faults, she does believe in the Alliance.”

“You may think that counterbalances the faults. I don’t.”

He sighed and stood up. “All right. There’s nothing to do now but wait about five hours, at least five hours, to hear what Iceni says about taking all of them.”

“Nothing to do?” Desjani asked, getting up as well. “What world are you living in?”

“Dreamworld,” Geary admitted. “There are plenty of other things to do.”

“That’s my admiral.” She raised one hand to gently brush a nonexistent speck from Geary’s shoulder. “I miss my husband.”

“He misses you.”

“Hopefully, the admiral will get us home so we can spend a little while off my ship and his flagship. A little off-duty, private time.” She stepped back and smiled briefly. “I’ll be on the bridge, Admiral.”

“I’ll be in my stateroom, Captain.”

Five hours and ten minutes later a message came in from
Haboob
. “Midway says they will take them all,” Dr. Nasr said, looking happier than he had in months.

That had been quick. Iceni must not have spent much time thinking about it at all.
Does she really care about them and their fates? Or does she see them as something to exploit, a source of information about the enigmas and leverage with the Syndic government and other star systems? The more, the better.

But those people aren’t prisoners. We freed them from imprisonment. They have expressed the desire to leave this fleet here at Midway, and Midway has agreed to take them. Do I have any choice but to hope Iceni does the decent thing?

No, I don’t.
“Do you recommend that we turn them all over to Midway?” Geary asked, wanting that to be part of the official record.

“That is my recommendation, Admiral. I think the authorities here will treat in a civilized fashion those we liberated from the enigmas.”

“Then get them all on those shuttles. It’ll take a few extra runs, but get it done.”

One headache disposed of. Too bad there were a lot more left.

But now he could set a departure time. He had no trouble imagining how well received the news would be that the fleet was finally continuing its voyage home.

—

HUMANITY
had built many large objects since the first hand grasped the first tool. Some of those objects had seemed awesomely large to those who constructed them, only to eventually be eclipsed by some new work that dwarfed what came before.

But the hypernet gates were in a class of their own. The many “tethers” that held together a matrix of energy formed a circle so large that even a human battleship appeared small as it approached a gate. Geary’s entire fleet, hundreds of warships, could enter a gate simultaneously. And the net created by the gates was unimaginably huge, spanning a volume hundreds of light-years across and granting direct access to scores of star systems.

The hypernet gate at Midway was close now, looming in space before the Alliance warships, looking like exactly what it was—a gateway to somewhere else.

Geary had his fleet together again, all of the warships in one titanic, egg-shaped formation that would serve well for defense but convey no offensive intent. In the most protected part of the oval were the assault transports, the auxiliaries, and the captured Kick superbattleship, the
Invincible
. Near those ships were most of the battleships in the fleet, forming an armored shell close to the weakest, most valuable units. Ranged outward from them were the battle cruisers, the heavy cruisers, the light cruisers, and the destroyers.

Battered and tired as they were—the crews as well as the ships—they still looked magnificent.

Geary took his eyes away from the reassuring image of strength on his display, carefully touching his comm control. “Captain Bradamont, we’re about to depart. I have every confidence in you. Use your best judgment. To the honor of our ancestors, Admiral Geary, out.”

He sighed, hoping that he had made the right decision about leaving Bradamont here as a liaison officer. At times it had felt far too much as if he were abandoning a fellow officer to the clutches of an enemy. But Bradamont had volunteered when given the opportunity. Her presence at Midway might make a big difference in the survival of Midway’s independence and provide a means to learn how sincere President Iceni was about her claims to be seeking a freer form of government to replace the Syndic tyranny. “Let’s go, Tanya.”

“Indras?” Desjani asked, her hand poised over the input for the hypernet key.

“Yes. That’s the quickest way back to the Alliance.” Geary watched her selecting the name of the star. Not every star had a hypernet gate. Not even close, given how expensive the gates were to construct. And the only thing allowing this Alliance fleet to use the Syndic hypernet was a Syndic hypernet key acquired as part of a complex Syndic plot to destroy the Alliance, a plot that had very badly backfired on the Syndicate Worlds.

He waited for the simple procedure to be complete, but instead of indicating that all was ready, Desjani gave him a concerned look. “The Syndic hypernet says it can’t access a gate at Indras.”

“Something happened to the gate at Indras?”

“Must have.” She bit her lip, eyeing her display. “Kalixa would have been the next best alternative, but we know Kalixa’s gate is gone. How about Praja?”

He studied his own display, then nodded. “Go for Praja.”

Several seconds passed, then Desjani blew out a long breath. “No access to a gate at Praja.”

“Try Kachin.”

Another pause, then she shook her head. “No access.”

“Could there be something wrong with our key? Could the Syndics have somehow reprogrammed their hypernet so our key won’t work in it anymore?”

“Admiral, I have no idea. I’m just a ship driver.”

Already thrown off-balance by this totally unexpected hurdle, Geary felt an irrational stab of annoyance at her reply but recognized it as being candid and accurate. “Let’s ask someone who might know.” He tapped in some commands. “Captain Hiyen, Commander Neeson,” he said, as his message went out to the commanders of
Reprisal
and
Implacable
. “We have a problem.” He explained what had happened, then sat back to wait for replies that would take a few seconds at least. Hiyen and Neeson were the nearest things to experts on the hypernet that he had left. Having to depend on their limited expertise was not reassuring when something unusual happened, especially given how little humanity really understood about the hypernet.