“No problem, Admiral. Do you want that implemented right away?”
“No. Hold off on it. I want to avoid moving Invincible around until the Marines have finished their job.”
His gaze went back to the display. Sobek only had the one jump point, so anyone arriving through the hypernet gate who didn’t also leave that way en route another destination could only go to Simur. From Simur, the fleet could jump to Padronis, and from there to Atalia. The Varandal Star System, in Alliance space, could be reached from Atalia. Not that long a path, but one all too predictable if the Syndics had laid other traps. It’s not just Sobek, it’s that our options from Sobek are so limited. Sobek to Simur to Padronis, if we want to get home. Atalia wasn’t cooperating with the Syndic government anymore when we last went through there, but every star system until Atalia is going to be a gauntlet to run.
Another call brought him out of his worried thoughts about their route home. Rione was wearing the icy look that meant she was extremely frustrated, but fortunately the frustration wasn’t aimed at him.
“If you were counting on diplomacy or negotiations resolving the matter inside Invincible, you might want to consider other options,” she said.
“I wasn’t counting on it. More like it can’t hurt to try,” Geary admitted. “You don’t see any hope for ending this with words instead of actions?”
Rione shook her head. “It might be the environment in there, or it might be the result of finding themselves cut off in a hopeless situation, but the woman I’m talking to isn’t giving any ground even though she seems rattled. It’s like talking to people with their backs to the wall. They know they can’t run, but they won’t give up. I was informed that you were willing to promise that we would treat them as military prisoners if they give up. I’m not so sure that you could make that promise stick once we returned to Alliance space, but that doesn’t matter because the offer did not make any difference. They don’t seem inclined to believe promises from senior officials.”
“Of course not. They’re Syndics. Did General Carabali tell you that there are indications they may been mentally conditioned?”
“Yes. I can’t say from my conversations whether that is true or not. It’s not really possible in cases like this to tell the difference between someone who had a mental block implanted and someone who is so certain she is right that she has blocked her own mind,” Rione added.
Geary ran one hand through his hair, considering his options. “Do you think they’ve really got a nuke, and if they do have one, do you think they’ll actually detonate it?”
“Those are good questions,” Rione said. “I don’t have good answers for them.”
What else? “Did you get the impression that they still expect some form of rescue? Do they know we’ve destroyed all of their shuttles?”
“They know what we’ve told them, Admiral. I doubt that they believe us.”
Geary nodded, feeling exhausted. “Keep talking to them. Please.”
“Since you ask so nicely, I will.” Rione’s mouth moved with distaste. “I will keep talking to them until the Marines kill them. Perhaps it will distract them and make the task of the Marines a little easier. Have you ever been speaking with someone at the moment they died?”
“No,” Geary said.
“Neither have I. Until today. I suspect I will soon know how it feels.”
He closed his eyes tightly, grimacing, after Rione ended her call. After a long moment, he straightened and refocused on the Marine situation map.
Aboard Invincible, the Marines had closed and tightened their spherical cordon around the area where Major Dietz had estimated the Syndics would be holed up, sealing off passageways and compartments on all sides and above and below the enemy-held compartments. On Geary’s image of Invincible’s deck plan, those five compartments were now marked as enemy-occupied. “We know that’s where they are?” Geary asked Major Dietz.
“Yes, sir,” Dietz reported. “We managed some recon, but with the Syndics still in stealth mode, it’s hard to get a good count. Our best guess is about twenty of them are in there, Admiral.”
“Good call on where they would hole up, Major. Do we know if they’ve really got a third nuke?”
Major Dietz flushed slightly at the praise from Geary, then hesitated. “Admiral, we’ve sent in gnat sensors, which were all we could get in through the bug-netting countermeasures the Syndics have hung across the accesses into there. The gnats aren’t picking up any extra radiation that would indicate the presence of a nuke. But gnat sensors are limited because of size and power issues, and if the Syndics have the nuke under extra shielding, it would be very hard to spot even with better gear.”
“What would it take to be sure?”
“To be absolutely sure? Fight our way in there and look, Admiral.”
Admiral Lagemann was studying the deck plan for the Invincible. “I was thinking about something,” he said. “We’ve got a good picture of how Invincible looks inside because it’s based on our patrolling of the ship and automated mapping drones. We’ve got a solid picture of the deck plan. Watch this.”
On the deck plan, dots began appearing. “Each of these,” Lagemann said, “is an indication of Syndic presence. If you look at how the detections develop, they show us where the Syndics went initially.”
“What are these detections based on?” Geary asked.
“Lamarr sensor spoofing and fragmentary indications picked up by other sensors,” Admiral Lagemann explained. “Not a perfect picture, but the best we can expect when dealing with stealthy opponents in an environment like Invincible. Watch the paths the Syndics followed. They converged on the decoy main engineering control and the decoy bridge simultaneously, using a variety of routes that in some cases must indicate backtracking because the Syndics knew nothing about Invincible’s layout. But, as spread out as they were, everything we spotted was headed for those two compartments. After they occupied the two decoy spaces, they spread out again and moved along this axis.”
Major Dietz nodded. “Roughly toward the living and operations spaces we actually occupy. The emissions from the Donkeys helped mask our own actual presence. The Syndics must have picked up some trace indications of our real location on board once the Donkeys were shut down.”
“The point being,” Lagemann continued, “they only went for two locations initially instead of a third grouping trying to also seize the weapons control compartment they would have expected to find.”
“Which would argue in favor of their only having two nukes?” General Carabali asked. “That analysis makes sense, but do we want to bet the farm on it?”
Lagemann smiled crookedly. “If we’re wrong, and they do have a nuke, I’ll be buying the farm.”
“We wouldn’t be in this position if they hadn’t tried to farm our ship,” Dietz pointed out.
“Are you all done?” Geary asked, exasperated.
“Sorry,” Admiral Lagemann said. “Those jokes weren’t exactly breaking new ground. Sorry, sorry. But I think I can be forgiven for a little levity to distract me from the possible consequences for me and the rest of my crew of urging you to order the Marines to go in.”
Geary let his eyes rest on the deck plan of Invincible. “Does anyone think time is on our side?”
Only Carabali answered, and that was in the negative. “No, sir. If they’re ready to die carrying out their mission, and if they’ve got a nuke, we need to hit them as soon as possible before the nature of Invincible drives them crazy enough to just set it off.”