The image stuttered, then the message began repeating.
Geary shut it off, letting out a long, despairing breath. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Desjani nodded gloomily. “We can’t even run shuttles down into that atmosphere right now without risking their loss.”
“Did you find any signs of Alliance prisoners of war on the planet?”
She shook her head, looking depressed now. “A few marginal indications. But even if they were there, we couldn’t get to them. The planet is going to be a hellhole until the atmosphere stabilizes again.”
Geary tapped his communications controls. “Authorities on Lakota Three, this is Captain John Geary, commanding officer of the Alliance fleet. We deeply regret our inability to offer immediate assistance, but have no capability for disaster relief. We will notify any and all Syndicate Worlds’ entities encountered of your need.” It occurred to him that with so many electronic systems destroyed, the authorities on Lakota Three might have no idea what was going on above the world’s atmosphere. “Be advised that a few Syndicate Worlds’ civilian ships survived the energy pulse and are heading for jump points out of this star system. I have given orders that they not be engaged by my units and have provided them with clear records of the disaster here to assist authorities in other Syndicate Worlds’ star systems in responding to your need. May the living stars provide for you and may your ancestors offer you what comfort they can.”
He ended the transmission, then looked to the communications watch. “Try to punch that through to the origin of the distress message, and set it to repeat until we leave this star system. Also forward that distress message to the Syndic merchant ships heading out of the star system.” With a fleet configured for war, there wasn’t much else he could do. “Captain Desjani, I’m going to hold a small meeting in one hour. I’d like you to be there.”
“Of course, sir,” Desjani acknowledged. “Is there anything I should do to prepare for the meeting?”
“Just bring your brains and your common sense.”
ONE hour later, Geary looked around the conference room, where he, Captain Desjani, and Co-President Rione were physically present and Captains Duellos, Cresida, and Tulev were virtually present. To the naked eye, all six figures appeared identical, but the occasional extra couple of seconds’ delay in reactions from the three who were attending via conferencing software betrayed their virtual nature. “I wanted to talk to you because you’ve all been told about our belief that there’s a nonhuman sentient species on the other side of Syndic space.”
“Belief?” Captain Cresida questioned. “From the evidence I’ve seen, it’s a lot stronger than a belief.”
“And there’s more evidence that I haven’t had a chance to share before this.” Geary paused, uncertain how to say it. “You know we were on our way to defeating one of the Syndic flotillas in Lakota when a much larger Syndic force arrived via the hypernet gate. This fleet was almost trapped and destroyed as a result.” Rione knew what he was talking about, but none of the other officers did, and they were all watching him, plainly trying to figure out the connection to the aliens. “Intelligence on Dauntless intercepted a number of signals from the Syndic ships that had arrived via the hypernet gate, messages that clearly revealed that the Syndics were shocked to be in Lakota. They’d entered their hypernet system with a destination of Andvari Star System.”
He let them absorb that for a moment. Cresida, perhaps the fleet’s best expert on the hypernet, responded first. “They made that big a mistake? No, it’s impossible to make that kind of mistake. There’s no way to set one destination on the hypernet and end up in another.”
Geary nodded. “So I was told. No way that we know of.”
Desjani got it first, her face reddening with rage. “They did it. Whatever they are. They changed the destination of those Syndic ships so we’d be confronted by an overwhelming force.”
“That’s the only conclusion that makes sense,” Geary agreed. “They intervened in an attempt to destroy this fleet.”
“Why?” Tulev, not surprisingly, had been the first to look past the outrage of the aliens’ actions and search for a reason.
“Damned if I know. They don’t want us to get home. Is it because they want the Alliance to lose? I don’t think so. If they wanted to help the Syndics defeat us, they could provide the Syndics with more of their technology, but as best we can tell, they secretly gave the hypernet technology to both the Alliance and Syndicate Worlds at about the same time several decades ago.”
“What are they?” Desjani demanded. “What do we know of them?”
This time Geary shrugged. “Shadows and scientific wild-ass guesses. We see signs of them, apparent proof they’re out there and intervening in this war, but nothing about them directly. If they did redirect that Syndic flotilla, it not only means they can mess with a hypernet in ways we don’t understand, it also means they can covertly monitor where this fleet is and where it’s going, and get that information somewhere at something close to real time over interstellar distances.” The others stared at him as the implications of that struck home, but none of them denied his logic.
“The Syndics certainly know more about the aliens,” Rione added to the group. “But that knowledge has apparently been kept very close, and even the existence of the aliens kept secret from most Syndic citizens. Only the Syndicate Worlds’ highest leaders may know everything there is to be known. We’ve found nothing in captured records.”
“Are they human?” Tulev wondered.
“I don’t think so,” Geary answered. “If they were human, why would the Syndics have kept them secret? And how could another human power strong enough to hold the Syndics on a border exist without us knowing something? They would have had to come from somewhere.”
“Not human.” Tulev shook his head. “How do they think? Not like us.”
“Surely we can still figure out their intent,” Desjani insisted.
Duellos was frowning in thought. “My grandmother taught me an ancient riddle when I was quite young. That riddle might help us understand what we’re dealing with.”
“Really? What is it?”
Duellos paused dramatically. “Feathers or lead?”
Geary waited, but nothing else came. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. Feathers or lead?”
“What kind of riddle just asks you to chose between two things?” Cresida asked, then shrugged. “I give. What’s the answer?”
“It depends.” Duellos smiled as everyone looked aggravated. “The one asking the riddle is a demon, you see. The demon chooses which answer is right. In order to guess the right answer, you have to know what the demon thinks it should be that particular time.”
“How are you supposed to know what a demon thinks?” As soon as Geary said the words, he got Duellos’s point. “Like the aliens.”
“Exactly. How do we answer a question posed by something that isn’t human, when we have no idea what the question means or what the ones asking it want the answer to be?”
“And what do they expect from us? Honor or lies?” Captain Cresida asked. Everyone turned to look at her. “Who have these aliens been in contact with? The Syndics.”
Rione nodded. “Whose leaders have broken every agreement made with us, even when abiding by those agreements would have been in the long-term interests of the Syndicate Worlds.”