Smythe sighed dramatically. “You’re right. Keep good people in servitude, and you end up like the Syndics. We’ve almost completed repairs on Revenge, Colossus, and Fearless, by the way. They’ll be fine before we jump. Until something else breaks on them or other ships.”
“We’ll be home soon and have time to work on everything,” Geary said. “Everything except my report on what’s been going on from the time we left Varandal, since I have to turn it in as soon as we arrive. That’s going to be a book before I get everything into it.”
“Too bad we don’t have a faster-than-light message system like the enigmas, isn’t it? Not having to physically send ships with messages could be useful at times.”
Or a pain in the neck if it allowed fleet headquarters to reach across the light-years to try to micromanage us in real time. “If you come up with one, or figure out how the enigmas do it, let me know.”
After talking to Smythe, and before he could forget, he called Lieutenant Iger. “Just for the sake of observing all of the formalities, let me know when Lieutenant Jamenson has destroyed all the files she was sent and signed off on all of the debriefing and disclosure paperwork.”
Iger nodded quickly. “I don’t anticipate problems with that, Admiral. Shamrock is extremely professional in her work.”
“Shamrock?”
“Uh… I mean, Lieutenant Jamenson… of course, sir.”
Geary made sure that he didn’t smile. “Then all of your misgivings regarding her have been put to rest?”
“Absolutely, sir! Lieutenant Jamenson has requested to visit Dauntless and tour the intelligence spaces here once we return to Varandal. With your permission and approval, Admiral, and that of Captain Desjani.”
Apparently Jamenson wasn’t really feeling harassed. No wonder Smythe was worried about losing her. Geary hoped for Lieutenant Iger’s sake that her interest wasn’t entirely in the intriguing new world of intelligence. “I don’t anticipate any problem with that, Lieutenant.”
Nor was there any problem at the jump exit. Perhaps the Syndics had temporarily run out of mines in this region.
Geary felt relief as the stars around Simur vanished, and the gray of jump space appeared. Not just relief, but a sense that the last major hurdle had been crossed for now.
They would learn whether that was true when they reached Padronis.
Twelve
There was almost nothing at Padronis.
The fleet came out of jump space prepared for surprises, for threats, and found only two ships in the star system.
Under normal circumstances, even that would be surprising. A white dwarf star, Padronis had no companions in space, no planets or asteroids in orbit. White dwarf stars slowly accumulated helium in their outer shells, causing them to go nova at wide intervals. If anything natural had once orbited Padronis, it had been blown away long before humans reached this part of space.
The formerly Syndic light cruiser that had mutinied was trucking at a good rate toward the jump point for Heradao, already far from where Geary’s warships had arrived. The light cruiser’s crew clearly wanted nothing more to do with fighting the Alliance.
The abandoned Syndic station they had seen when last passing through Padronis was still here, circling in lonely orbit about the star, which would someday in the distant future blast it apart. That’s where the other ship was, a single freighter docked to the emergency rescue station the Syndics had built at Padronis over a century ago, before the hypernet, when ships had to jump from star to star to get anywhere, including stars with nothing at them like Padronis. The station had been decommissioned decades ago, everything shut down and left in place because it would cost more to move it than it was worth.
“What’s the freighter doing?” Geary asked. Nothing else was visible in the star system even though the fleet’s sensors were looking for anything, even the tiniest anomaly. “Make sure nothing unusual the sensors spot gets stuck in the noise filters. I want even junk that looks like junk to be checked carefully.”
“There’s nothing,” Desjani said, shaking her head. “That freighter at the station is three light-hours from us, so it isn’t any possible threat.”
“Captain?” Lieutenant Castries said. “We’ve spotted material being loaded on the freighter.”
“Material?”
A call came in from Tanuki. It wasn’t high-priority, but Geary didn’t have much else to do at the moment. “What’s up, Captain Smythe?”
Smythe twitched a brief smile. “That freighter. He’s looting the station.”
“Looting? Are you sure?”
“There’s a very minor chance that the Syndic authorities chartered the ship to pick up equipment that they need elsewhere, but it’s unlikely. Now that the Syndicate Worlds’ government has little authority around here and a lot of other things to worry about, that freighter has come out to this mothballed, off-limits station to haul away everything and anything its owners can sell, even if just for scrap.”
Geary stared at the image of the freighter, his instincts urging him to do something. But what? “Even though that station was mothballed, it still must have held a lot of equipment and supplies that could be critical for any ship passing through Padronis that suffered a serious problem.”
“Right,” Smythe agreed. “Absolutely right. And the looters don’t care. They’re out to make some money even though it could cause tragedy for someone else. That’s how things go when central authority collapses, Admiral. The rich and powerful can still take care of themselves. It’s the people who need help who get hurt the worst. As usual.”
“Thank you, Captain Smythe. I guess there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“No. We could chase this looter off, but another one would show up after we left.” Smythe ended the call with a resigned shrug.
“Admiral,” Desjani said, “look at the Dancers.”
He looked. At Sobek, the Dancers had tried to warn the fleet of danger. At Simur, they had stayed close to Invincible, apparently because of the threats from the Syndics there.
But here the Dancers had left the confines of the Alliance formation, swooping around in a way that made Geary think of giddy elation. “They look like they feel safe.”
“I don’t,” Desjani admitted. “I can’t forget what happened the last time we were here.” The dust that had been the heavy cruiser Lorica and her crew still circled this star, a fate that had nearly befallen Dauntless as well. “Can we head for home?”
“Yeah. Let’s go. Head straight for the jump point for Atalia.”
Atalia was a living star system though a badly hurt one because of its front-line position during the long war. The fleet came out of jump cautiously again, but Geary had not really expected trouble here. Atalia was too close to Alliance space and had already declared its independence from the Syndicate Worlds. The Syndics would have had a nearly impossible task setting any traps here.
Which made it all the more surprising when combat systems sounded alerts as they arrived from jump.
“Syndics!” Desjani glared at Geary. “Two heavy cruisers near the jump point for Kalixa and four light cruisers and six HuKs near the jump point for Varandal. The Syndics must have moved to take back this star system. Don’t we have grounds for kicking them out again?”
“Maybe.” After everything they had been through, the idea of pushing the Syndics out of Atalia had a great deal of appeal despite its questionable legal basis. “That’s strange. The courier ship is still here, and near those light cruisers and HuKs.”