Geary stared at Otropa in disbelief, only slowly becoming aware that everyone else was watching him, waiting for his response to the admiral, who looked back at Geary with a smug expression. “Admiral,” Geary began slowly, “my own honor has been called into question by the charges you have just made without any evidence to support them. You have also questioned the honor of every officer and sailor in the fleet. I have never suggested that they lack valor, that they ever failed to press the enemy to the utmost. The ships and crews lost during our long journey home are a testament stronger than any words I could say to the courage of our personnel.”
“I’m not—” Otropa began.
I’m not finished, Admiral.” Geary had been dealing with recalcitrant officers long enough while in command of the fleet not to want to suffer Otropa gladly, superior rank or not. For a moment, he was seeing Numos blunder at Kaliban, Falco leading ships to their deaths at Vidha, Midea charging Paladin blindly into destruction at Lakota, and all his patience with fools had fled. “Our ancestors fought with wisdom as well as courage. I know. I was there. They made their battles and their sacrifices count. I had the honor to command the ships in our current fleet and the men and women of their crews, and I had the honor to show them how our ancestors truly fought. In battle the competition is against the enemy, not against each other. Within the teamwork of a well-trained and disciplined fleet, there is abundant room for individual courage and competitiveness, but not at the cost of our duty to the people and worlds we protect.”
Otropa frowned, seeming to be searching for a reply. Beside him, Admiral Timbale didn’t show any signs of being interested in coming to his assistance, instead gazing off into a corner of the room as if disassociating himself from his fellow admiral.
The stout woman chuckled. “Do you have any proof for your assertions that the fleet records displayed here have been falsified?” she asked Otropa mockingly.
“No, Madam Senator,” the admiral got out in a strangled voice. “But these results, to claim to have destroyed so many enemy ships while losing so few of our own—”
“Then perhaps we should allow Captain Geary to continue his presentation while you go in search of such evidence,” she suggested.
Otropa reddened, but Senator Navarro nodded and jerked his chin toward the door.
After Otropa had left, Geary waited an uncomfortable moment, then continued, finally adding the highly classified portions of his presentation, what was known and reasonably conjectured to be known about the alien race beyond Syndic space. The expressions of the civilian politicians betrayed first disbelief, then growing worry. When Geary explained how the aliens had tried to ensure the Alliance fleet’s destruction at Lakota Star System, one of the other women shook her head. “If there were any other explanation, Captain, I wouldn’t spend five seconds believing this.”
Geary twisted his mouth. “Believe me, ma’am, if there were any other explanation, we would have jumped on it just as quickly as you would have.”
When he explained the alien worms in the navigational and communications systems on the Alliance warships, Timbale’s jaw dropped, and Senator Navarro lurched forward. “You found these worms? Our own ships have been sending their positions to these … whatever they are?”
“We haven’t figured out how they work,” Geary added. “We did come up with a means to scrub them from our systems in the fleet, but we have to assume that other Alliance ships and installations are riddled with similar worms. The Syndics’, too.”
“I wonder why none of us knew this before now?” the thin man asked in a bland way that made Navarro’s expression tighten slightly.
“We weren’t looking,” Rione answered. “None of us were looking. Not for something like that, which is so much more advanced than anything we or the Syndics have.”
“Maybe not,” the thin woman replied. “Though the reasons we weren’t looking doubtless varied.”
The stout woman laughed. “Is that a comment on the intellects or the morals of your fellow council members, Suva?”
Navarro managed to get the group quiet again, his displeasure more and more obvious. “Please continue, Captain Geary.”
Everyone flinched when Geary replayed the destruction of Lakota Star System after Syndic warships guarding its hypernet gate destroyed that gate. “We were lucky here. As I described in my earlier reports, experts have stated that the potential level of energy discharge from a collapsing hypernet gate ranges up to nova scale.” The politicians cringed some more. “We believe that the aliens have the capability to cause spontaneous collapses of hypernet gates anywhere in Alliance or Syndicate Worlds’ space. That seems the only explanation for what happened at Kalixa.”
Timbale nodded rapidly. “We managed to shove a scout through to Kalixa. It just got back. The star system has been totally devastated.”
Senator Navarro, who had one hand over his eyes, slowly lowered it. “Then you weren’t really concerned about spontaneous collapses as the message broadcast by the fleet when it arrived at Varandal said. You were worried that these aliens would start causing collapses of hypernet gates.”
“Yes, sir. As they did at Kalixa. I thought it best not to broadcast that information, however.”
The thin woman shook her head. “You caused enough panic with what you did send to everyone. Those images from Lakota scared the hell out of everybody.”
Rione answered. “It was judged important to motivate everyone to get safe-fail systems on their hypernet gates as soon as possible.”
“You certainly achieved that,” Navarro agreed. He blew out a long breath. “Just before this meeting, I was informed that the hypernet gate at Petit Star System has collapsed. It took them a little while to jump a ship to the next star system with a hypernet gate and get word here. Thanks to the safe-fail system they had finished installing twelve hours prior to that, the resulting energy discharge was only on the level of a midrange solar flare.”
Admiral Timbale glanced at Geary. “We’ve built a lot of shipyards at Petit in the last fifty years. Aside from being heavily populated, it’s important to the Alliance war effort. If what I saw of Kalixa had happened at Petit, it would have been a horrible tragedy and a horrible blow to our defenses.”
“Do all Alliance star systems with hypernet gates have safe-fail systems installed?” Rione asked.
“They should,” Navarro replied. “We haven’t had time to get confirmation back from all planets, but even the gate at Sol Star System should have a safe-fail in place now, and that’s at the farthest extent of the Alliance hypernet.”
A short male senator bared his teeth. “We’ve got the war-winning weapon at last! We have these safe-collapse systems, and the Syndics don’t! We can destroy their gates and wipe out their star systems and—”
“Are you insane?” the thin female senator named Suva interrupted. “You saw what one gate did at Lakota.”
“But it could win the war,” the heavyset female senator agreed reluctantly.
Geary could see them wavering, just as he and his most trusted officers and Rione had guessed. Presented with an inhuman weapon that offered a means to end the century-long war, the leaders of the Alliance were seriously considering setting off novas in human-occupied star systems. But before he could say anything, Rione spoke. “No, it can’t. The Syndics also know their gates can collapse, and they certainly already have similar safe-collapse systems installed on them.”