In fact, as his head cleared, he saw that there were no threats at all anywhere near them.
The jump point from Yokai was a bit above the plane in which the planets of Batara orbited, and nearly four light-hours from the star. Geary had a stronger-than-usual sense that the Alliance battle cruisers had a godlike vantage of the entire star system, looking down and across the vast distances between worlds as if occupying divine box seats.
Like other front-line star systems, Batara had been heavily battered during the decades of war. But the Syndics had followed the same perverse logic as the Alliance in rebuilding and reinforcing it time and again. Marginal star systems, those with barely any population like Yokai, could be turned into purely military enclaves. But any star system with a significant population, cities, and industries had to be maintained as much as possible no matter how many times the enemy hit it and no matter how much it cost to sustain the civilian population there. Anything less would mark yielding to the enemy, would be admitting defeat, and the century-long war had often been more about refusing to admit defeat than it had been about any hope of victory.
Geary could see the small cities on the main inhabited world at Batara, all of them characterized by roughly circular patches of similar buildings that marked reconstruction where orbital bombardments had hit, the patches often overlapping. In a few places, such battered cities occupied areas near the heavily cratered ruins of a former city too badly damaged to rebuild on its original site. Defenses sat in craters where generations of bombardments had knocked out generations of rebuilt weaponry and sensors in an apparently endless cycle. The “empty” spaces between worlds were filled with fields of debris, the remnants of warships from both sides, some of the debris widely dispersed over many years and other clusters fairly compact, marking the deaths of ships and their crews within the last few years. It was a depressing sight, but also an astounding sight. Humans could choose to abandon star systems, but if someone tried to force them to leave, then by all the grace of the living stars and all the blessings of their ancestors they would plant their feet and stay.
“Two light cruisers and four HuKs,” the operations watch reported. “All standard Syndic construction and all orbiting near the primary inhabited planet. Most of the fixed defenses appear to be nonoperational.”
Duellos cast a suspicious eye on Geary. “You told me that you expected those defenses to be out of commission. Was it a guess based on likely Syndic budget problems?”
“No,” Geary replied. “If the defenses had remained active, the people at Batara wouldn’t have had to worry about raids from Tiyannak or Yael. I knew something must have taken out most of the active defenses. But the deep shelters will still be there, meaning Batara’s population can ride out a lot of raids even if they can’t stop them.”
“Those raiders,” Duellos observed, with a gesture toward the light cruisers and HuKs, “don’t appear to be raiding. They’re close enough to that planet to be engaged by some of the defenses that still exist, but they’re not shooting, and neither are the defenses. Are you looking for something?” he asked Geary.
“Yes. I’m looking for that HuK that was performing picket duty at Yokai and jumped here ahead of us. Where is he?”
“He must be one of the HuKs in that group near the primary world. He had plenty of time to join them before we arrived.”
A reasonable assumption, Geary thought. But, still, an assumption. He parked a mental worry chit on the question of where that HuK was as more information about Batara came in.
“Captain,” the operations watch-stander said, “we’re spotting significant crowd activity in the cities that are visible to us. The population is in the streets, not sheltering against bombardment.”
“Crowd activity?” Geary asked. “How full are the streets?”
“Packed, Admiral.”
“Lieutenant Barber,” Duellos ordered, “we need to know what’s going on here.”
“We’re analyzing all the communications and other traffic we can pick up,” Barber said. “There’s a lot for a star system with a population this size. The official newscasts say nothing is happening.”
“But we all know what official news amounts to, don’t we, Lieutenant?” Duellos turned back to Geary. “What are you going to tell them?”
“Batara?” Geary said. “Nothing, yet. We’ll wait here until the refugee ships show up, then all proceed in-system toward that inhabited world. I’ll wait to send any messages to anyone until we have a better idea of what’s happening.”
A flurry of updates on the displays marked the arrival of the refugee ships and their escorts, scores of ships suddenly there in space near the battle cruisers. A thought struck Geary, and he tapped another control. “Colonel Kim, give the refugee leaders Naxos and Araya listening access to the comms on that freighter and see what they think the situation is based on what they hear and who is saying it.” It was annoying not having Lieutenant Iger and his intel team available to handle all this, but he could improvise.
“Let’s get going,” Geary said. “Immediate execute, all units turn starboard one eight degrees, down zero seven degrees, maintain point zero five light speed.”
Since the light cruisers and HuKs were near the primary inhabited world, and that world was swinging in orbit on the far side of the star relative to Geary’s ships, it would be a bit over four hours before the light from here reached them and they learned that the Alliance warships had arrived. It gave him some time to figure out what the situation was in Batara.
It only took about half an hour before Colonel Kim called back. “The refugee leader Araya is certain from the transmissions we’re picking up that what she calls the damned cowardly greedy revolution-betraying traitors-to-the-people who have been running Batara have sold out to Tiyannak.”
“Sold out? They’ve allied with Tiyannak?”
Colonel Kim shrugged. “Even Araya isn’t sure what their status is. Ally. Vassal. Slave. She and Naxos both say if they didn’t know exactly whom to pay attention to in all the transmissions out there, they wouldn’t know what was going on. There are a lot of broadcasts where even they can’t figure out who’s sending them and what side they’re on.”
“You’re certain of that?” Geary demanded. “Araya and Naxos thought the transmissions we’re picking up are unusual for Batara?”
“Pretty certain, yes, Admiral. While she was listening to them, Araya kept saying stuff like what the hell? and what is this? She kept asking Naxos who different people and different organizations were, and he spent a lot of time shaking his head.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” Geary turned to Duellos as Kim’s image vanished. “How is Lieutenant Barber doing on his analysis of the situation?”
Duellos grimaced. “I checked with him while you were talking to Colonel Kim. Barber is doing his best, but he says it’s very complex. He’s a good, smart officer, Admiral. He’ll figure it out.”
“If he doesn’t, it won’t be because he isn’t smart.” Geary pointed to where the primary inhabited world showed on his display. “The refugee leaders say there are a lot of transmissions out there that they have trouble identifying, transmissions that confuse the situation and make it very hard to understand exactly what the status of Batara is.”
“Confuse?” Duellos repeated, his jaw tightening. “The HuK that told them we were coming.”