“Identical,” Geary said. “Not just each ship, the entire formation. The exact same approach vector and the same avoidance vector.”
“They’re new,” Desjani insisted. “Not just the ships. The crews. They don’t have the training to maneuver manually, so they’re letting their automated systems handle everything. Maybe they’ve got orders to do that. But if they’re using automated systems, then those systems will have patterns.”
“How long will it take us to analyze those patterns?”
She paused, then made an uncertain gesture. “A while. We’ll need examples of their attack patterns. I don’t know how many. Eventually, our combat systems will be able to predict their movements.”
“Eventually.” Hanging around Simur waiting an indefinite period while Syndic warships made repeated passes at his formation didn’t sound like a worthwhile strategy. His fleet wouldn’t be happy with remaining on the defensive while the Syndics nipped at the Alliance formation, but if the fleet kept heading home, that should counteract the unhappiness to a considerable extent. He still had to worry about getting the Dancers, and Invincible, safely back to Alliance territory. “Tanya, let’s aim for the jump point for Padronis. Circuitous path, just in case there are any more surprises in this star system.”
Desjani paused again, but whatever she planned to say was interrupted by a call to Geary from the intelligence compartment on Dauntless.
Lieutenant Iger looked almost apologetic. “Admiral, there’s a new POW camp here. A really big one, on the habitable planet, and there are Alliance military personnel there.”
Ten
His head beginning to throb in time to a familiar headache, Geary rubbed one hand hard against his forehead. “There wasn’t before.”
“Not the last time the Alliance attacked this star system, no, sir.” Images appeared next to Iger. “This is new. Recent construction on the habitable world.”
Geary studied the images, seeing large barracks and warehouses arranged in a pattern that had become familiar. The new camp was located far from any of the cities on the planet, in an especially desolate region of the generally desolate planet. That also matched Syndic practice, which placed their prison and labor camps either close to a city or in the middle of nowhere. “It looks like a Syndic POW camp,” he conceded.
“We’ve also intercepted Syndic communications that indicate the camp was recently constructed as a central location for housing Alliance prisoners of war brought from smaller camps in other star systems,” Iger continued.
“They’re supposed to be turning those prisoners over to the Alliance as part of the peace agreement,” Geary said. “Why build a new camp here?”
“Admiral… perhaps the Syndics don’t intend to honor that part of the peace agreement.”
If that was so, it would be part and parcel of Syndic behavior as far as every other portion of the peace agreement was concerned. “How many POWs are here?”
“As many as twenty thousand, Admiral.”
“Twenty thousand?” Finding room on his ships for that many liberated prisoners would be extremely difficult.
“That’s the top end, Admiral, what the camp was designed to hold. The Syndic comms we’ve intercepted since arriving at Simur indicate thousands of Alliance prisoners are there, but we don’t know how many.”
Thousands. That was enough. Hundreds would be enough. Maybe even a couple would be enough. There is so much we can’t do, but we can liberate prisoners still being held after the war that justified their imprisonment is over.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Geary sat back, rubbing his eyes with both hands, after Iger’s image vanished.
Desjani’s voice came from beside him. “This really stinks.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“Thousands of Alliance POWs. In a new camp. In a star system we had to come home through.”
It stank as badly as any bait could. “What’s the trap, though?” Geary asked.
“Do we want to find out?”
“Do we have any choice?” He called Rione. “Madam Emissary, we need to talk to the senior Syndic CEO in this star system about a prison camp.”
It took hours for Rione’s message to reach the habitable world where the Syndic CEO was probably located, and hours more for a reply to be received. Geary made good use of the time by heading his fleet inward toward the star and the habitable world.
The four Syndic ship groups made repeated passes at the fleet during that time, trying to provoke some response from the Alliance formation, but Geary held his fire, waiting for the Syndics to come in close enough to be attacked. They didn’t come near enough, and he didn’t let any of his ships leave formation to pursue the Syndics, so the stalemate continued. The fact that the Syndics were also being frustrated provided only a marginal sense of satisfaction.
The fleet had started out near the edges of the Simur Star System, about five light-hours from the star. The habitable world orbited about seven light-minutes from the star, so the curved trajectory that would intercept the habitable world was five point one light-hours long. Geary held the fleet’s velocity to point one light speed, which produced a travel time of fifty-one hours. Even at a speed of thirty thousand kilometers per second, the distances inside star systems took a while to cross. If the fleet had been limited to that velocity in journeying to the closest star to Simur, it would have required thirty-eight years of travel to reach Padronis at a distance of three point eight light-years.
“We have a reply,” Rione’s image said, her voice giving no clue as to the nature of the reply. “Do you want to see it?”
He was on Dauntless’s bridge, so Geary activated his privacy field, making sure it included Tanya so that she could hear and see the message as well. “Sure. Relay it to me.”
Another virtual window appeared next to the one that held Rione’s image. Geary found himself looking at a very stern-faced, elderly woman in a Syndic CEO suit. The suit, while immaculately tailored as CEO suits always were, appeared a bit worn, betraying how long it had been since the senior CEO at Simur could afford to replace her outfit.
The female CEO spoke in clipped tones, as if biting off the end of each word. “I must protest the aggressive actions of the Alliance armed forces in this star system. Only the commitment of the Syndicate Worlds to honoring the letter and spirit of the peace agreement between our two peoples restrains me from ordering an appropriate response to your fleet’s movements.”
He tried not to get angry, which would only make it harder to spot subtle clues in the words and actions of the Syndic CEO. But even through his attempts to stay calm and observant, Geary noticed that this CEO sounded slightly different, her posture not the same. She was speaking, he realized, not just to him but to some other audience.
“The mobile forces whose actions you protest are not under my control,” the Syndic CEO continued. Somehow, those words held an uncharacteristic ring of truth. Had there been a tiny extra emphasis on the word “my”?
“I can do nothing to stop them, I have not ordered them to harass you, they are not Syndicate Worlds’ mobile forces, and therefore I regard this as a matter between you and whoever commands those mobile forces.”
The CEO gestured impatiently, one hand flinging outward in a practiced move that must have terrified her subordinates for decades. “As to the prison camp, I am aware of the obligations incurred by the Syndicate Worlds under the peace agreement. I am nonetheless extremely unhappy to have you demanding the release of those prisoners instead of offering to discuss the issue. You have doubtless seen that we have inadequate defenses in this star system, so I cannot resist your demand to yield the prisoners of war to you. However, neither will I cooperate. Bring your fleet here, use your own means to lift the prisoners to it, then depart, the sooner the better. I will be just as glad not to have six thousand additional mouths to worry about feeding.