“Admiral.” Rione’s voice broke through his rage. She sounded odd, too, as if emotions were boiling just beneath the rigid mask of her face. “I wanted to ask, Admiral, if the hypernet gate had been damaged during the fight so close to it. It would be a great loss to this star system if their hypernet gate was damaged so badly during this unnecessary and brutal attack that the gate collapsed.”
It took him several seconds to get it, then Geary felt a cold resolve warring with the heat of his anger. He touched a control. “Captain Smythe.”
Tanuki was only a few light-seconds distant, so the reply came quickly. “Yes, Admiral?” Smythe asked in a subdued voice.
“I am worried that the hypernet gate may have sustained damage from stray shots or from debris from some of those courier ships. I want it inspected at close range to make sure it has not sustained the level of damage that would cause it to collapse. Even though the safe collapse mechanism will prevent a devastating pulse of energy from being emitted by the collapse, such an event would still cripple commerce through this star system for the foreseeable future.”
Smythe pursed his lips. “Admiral, the fight wasn’t that close—” He hesitated, a light of understanding dawning in his eyes, then nodded. “But the gate still might have sustained damage. Damage we can’t see, except up close. Catastrophic damage. It would be… so unfortunate for this star system if the gate were to collapse.”
“Yes, Captain Smythe, it would be. Will you see to it?”
“I will, Admiral. Perhaps some of the debris from Orion will prove to have impacted on some of the gate tethers. That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, Captain Smythe. Ironic. I’m going to slow the fleet to give your engineers time to do a thorough job.”
“Oh, we will do a thorough job, Admiral. Have no fear of that.” Smythe’s grin as he saluted bared his teeth but held no humor.
Rione’s image was still visible, showing no reaction to Geary’s orders. “Admiral,” she said when he closed the call to Smythe, “we should contact the Syndic authorities in this star system, both to formally report our presence and to register a formal protest over the attack on us.”
He kept his gaze focused on nothing as he pondered a reply. “I take it accusing them of complicity in murder wouldn’t accomplish anything.”
“No. If you don’t think you can speak to them without spitting blood in their faces, and believe me I would sympathize if that is the case, I can send the message on behalf of the Alliance government.”
Geary looked over at Rione’s image. “I would be grateful if you would. I don’t know what I might say to those… individuals, given the way I feel right now.”
“I understand, Admiral.” Rione closed her eyes briefly before opening them to gaze at him. “Part of being a politician is being able to speak in a civil fashion to people whom you really want to strangle with their own intestines.”
“Thank you, Madam Emissary.”
“And may I also extend my official condolences at the loss the fleet suffered this day.” Rione’s voice almost cracked on the last few words. She hurriedly broke the connection before he could comment on it.
Geary touched his comm controls with a carefully gentle gesture, fearing that if he lost control, he would pound the controls into uselessness. “All units in the First Fleet. Immediate execute, re-form in Formation Delta and reduce velocity to point zero two light.” Smythe’s engineers would need time to do their work.
The bridge of Dauntless was very quiet.
“Commander Shen,” Desjani said in a dull voice, “has a daughter in the fleet. I’ll let her know what happened.”
“I’m… sorry, Tanya. I know Shen was your friend.”
“I’ve lost a lot of friends, Admiral.” Desjani bent her head, breathing deeply. “You saw what he did, right?”
“Yes. That last-moment maneuver. I don’t know how, but he figured out what he needed to do to swing Orion into the path of the suicide attackers aiming at Titan, Typhoon, and Mistral.”
“Instinct, Admiral. He was one hell of a good ship driver.” Desjani took another deep breath. “Better than me. So, the hypernet gate here was damaged?”
“I think there’s a very high probability that it was too badly damaged to save.”
“What a shame.” One more slow breath, then Tanya straightened, her expression smoothing out. “Lieutenant Yuon.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Dauntless took out one of those couriers. Well done. Notify the weapons crews that I will be coming to personally congratulate them.”
“Yes, Captain.”
As Desjani began to rise from her seat, Geary gestured for her attention. “Is there anything I can do?”
“There are lots of things you need to do, Admiral,” she said. “You’ve got a fleet to take care of. And I’ve got a ship to look after.”
“True. I’ll talk to you later, Tanya.”
She sketched a salute, then headed off the bridge.
Geary turned back to his display, watching his ships re-form into one large grouping, while shuttles winged their ways from two of the auxiliaries toward the hypernet gate.
The one thing he wished he could do right now was order ships to search for survivors from Orion. But that would be a meaningless order and a hopeless task. The dead could not be forgotten, but he had to focus his attention on the living.
As Geary’s hand moved to send further orders, he paused, looking at his display. Invincible was still struggling to get into position, huge and unwieldy.
Invincible. None of the attacking ships had gone after Invincible.
Had the ships ordered to strike at Invincible been destroyed far enough short of their target that their tracks didn’t point to that target?
Or had the attackers been ordered not to strike Invincible?
Because the Syndics wanted that ship. He knew they did.
Which could mean—
“Tanya! Captain Desjani!”
She heard him just before the bridge hatch closed. It reopened almost instantly, and she was back beside him almost as fast. “What?”
“I think you’d better stay up here.” He hit a comm control. “Admiral Lagemann, do not relax alert status on Invincible.” Another control. “All units in First Fleet, remain at full combat alert.”
Desjani was in her seat, staring at her display. “What do you see?”
“It’s what I didn’t see.”
“You think they have other things planned? Another attack about to go down?”
“I think it’s a certainty. They made us come to this star system so those courier ships could hit us, but even under the most optimistic scenario for the Syndics, those suicide attacks couldn’t have stopped us.”
“But what can they be planning to do when there’s nothing else—?”
“Admiral Geary!” the comm watch yelled at the same moment alarms burst from the combat systems. “Invincible reports she is under attack!”
“The other shoe just dropped,” Geary snapped, as a virtual window appeared next to him.
“We have intruders aboard,” Admiral Lagemann said quickly yet calmly. Lagemann’s face was in shadow. The entire area of Invincible that he was in was darkened, with only stray lights from displays providing light. “They cut what looked like the main comm line out, but that was a decoy.”
“You had a decoy comm line, too?” Geary asked, tapping controls to bring up a display showing the Marines aboard Invincible as well as a direct line to General Carabali.