Geary looked at the display, feeling a growing sense of unease. “Why haven’t the Syndics destroyed everything? A lot of the defenses in this system have been hit by kinetic bombardment, but the Syndics haven’t hit a lot of other things. All of the other facilities seem intact.”
“What are they up to?” Desjani muttered.
“Alliance fleet!” The incoming transmission surprised Geary, who only then realized that a destroyer had been positioned near the jump point as a scout, the lone Alliance ship lost in the midst of the scores of warships that had just arrived. Now the voice of Howitzer’s commanding officer rang out. “Praise the living stars!”
Desjani turned to her operations watch. “Get a full record from that destroyer of what’s happened here since the Syndics arrived. We need to see it now.”
“Linking to their combat systems now,” the watch reported. “On your display.”
“Maintain station, Howitzer,” Geary ordered, then concentrated on his own display, where historical events were playing at an accelerated pace. The Alliance defenders had made a stand half a light-hour from the jump point, losing another battle cruiser and a battleship along with numerous escorts. “Odds that bad, and they charged right at the enemy again,” Geary grumbled. Admiral Tethys had commanded that action, but had died when Encourage was destroyed. Captain Deccan on the Contort had assumed command then, until Contort was blown apart during another Syndic firing pass. Then Captain Barrabin on the Chastise took charge, but Chastise’s power core had overloaded during another clash well over two light-hours from the jump exit. According to the records from Howitzer, since the destruction of Chastise, the remaining warships in Varandal had been commanded by Captain Jane Geary on Dreadnaught. Aside from Dreadnaught, only the battleship Dependable, the battle cruiser Intemperate, and their surviving escorts still faced the enemy.
Between those events, the Syndic reserve flotilla had launched kinetic bombardments, leveling the Alliance defenses in the star system. But they hadn’t launched any subsequent bombardments, nor had the reserve flotilla yet closed with the few surviving Alliance defending warships even though to Geary it seemed that there had been opportunities to do so.
Why hadn’t the Syndics finished off the defenders? Why hadn’t they destroyed more of the Alliance facilities here? Of course the images they were seeing of the enemy were three hours old. It was possible that had happened by now.
“What the hell.” Desjani had been watching her display intently, and now her hands moved rapidly, replaying part of the record. “Look at this. After the last clash with the Alliance defenders here.”
Geary peered at the detail she was highlighting, zooming in on the Syndic reserve flotilla. The fleet’s optical sensors were sensitive enough to pick out small details across immense distances of airless space.
“Shuttles? What are they doing?”
“From heavy cruisers to other ships,” Desjani murmured, then she entered more commands, and the view tightened even more, showing the access points where shuttles had been next to one of the heavy cruisers. “Personnel. See? They’re taking personnel off the heavy cruisers.”
“Why?”
Rione answered, her voice stressed. “Automated controls. You told me the Syndics can automate their ships and command them by remote.”
“But why would they want to automate heavy—” The reason hit him and Desjani at the same moment.
“They’re going to use those heavy cruisers to take down the hypernet gate,” Desjani said. “It makes sense. It all ties together. Look. The Syndics have penetrated deep within the star system, but they haven’t wiped out the Alliance defenders or heavily bombarded the Alliance facilities here.”
“Bait,” Geary breathed.
“Right. If they’d wiped out the defenders and destroyed most of the facilities in this star system, we might well hang around this jump point when we arrived, knowing that the Syndics would have to come back here through us sooner or later. But if there’s still someone and something to save—”
“We’re going to come charging at them.” Geary ran a finger across his display, imagining the fleet movements. “When they see us, they wait until the right moment, then they hit the remaining defenders hard enough to wipe them out and send those heavy cruisers toward the hypernet gate. The rest of their force heads for the jump point, tearing past us. By the time we know what’s happening, the shock wave is on its way, and the Syndics can jump out just ahead of it. If we hadn’t already figured out they intended to collapse the hypernet gate here, their plan might well have worked.”
“They get us and the entire star system.” Desjani looked ready to kill Syndics with her bare hands. “How can they be sure the gate does enough damage though? That’s the flaw in their plan.”
“It’s possible to scale up the level of an energy discharge from a gate collapse just like it’s possible to scale it down,” Geary replied. He didn’t look back at Rione. When Cresida had worked up the calculations on how to scale down a gate energy discharge, she’d had to work up the reverse solution as well. Geary had entrusted that doomsday program to Rione, hoping it would never be used by anyone.
“We have to assume the Syndics have figured out how to do that, too.”
They’d already been here for fifteen minutes. The enemy wouldn’t see the fleet for another two hours and thirty minutes, but he couldn’t afford to waste another second of that time, since any orders he sent would require the same amount of time to reach the remnants of the defenders in this star system. The first priority had to be orders to the remaining defenders of Varandal. “This is Captain John Geary, acting commanding officer of the Alliance fleet, to Captain Jane Geary, commanding the Alliance task force defending Varandal. The Syndic objective is to collapse the hypernet gate in this star system by destroying enough of the tethers on the gate. If the gate collapses, the resulting energy discharge will annihilate everything within this star system. We assess that the Syndics plan to collapse the gate using uncrewed heavy cruisers operating on automatic controls since any ship near the gate when it collapses will be destroyed. You are ordered to protect that gate,” his voice caught for an instant before he could say the next part, “at all costs. Protection of the gate takes priority over all other actions, including the destruction of Syndic warships not menacing the gate and protection of other Alliance assets within this star system. Do not allow your force to be eliminated as a threat unless that is required to protect the gate. Hold out. Help is on the way. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary out.”
He’d made it back, reached the star system where his grandniece was located, and his first words to her had been orders to sacrifice herself if necessary to defend the hypernet gate here.
“Are you sure your orders won’t be overridden?” Rione asked. “There may still be a surviving admiral within this star system.”
“No one’s asserted command over Jane Geary yet,” Desjani pointed out as if answering something that someone else had said. “But we’re back in home territory, and someone might try to order senseless assaults by the defenders or by this fleet.” Desjani turned to face her communications watch. “Should any orders come for Captain Geary from any officer senior to him within this star system, I want to ensure that this ship does not develop a serious problem with receipt and relay of incoming messages. Any error would be unacceptable. Under the circumstances, I will personally screen all such messages before receipt is acknowledged and before they are relayed to any other ships in the fleet to ensure they aren’t garbled and that Captain Geary isn’t distracted at an inopportune moment.”