“The main inhabited world eight light-minutes from the star is almost perfect,” Desjani agreed. “The planet four and a half light-minutes from the star is way too hot, but the one at fifteen light-minutes must be nice enough since there are a lot of enclosed cities on it, and that gas giant only thirty-two light-minutes from the star is really convenient for mining. It is a good star system. Can we break it?”
“Yeah. Let’s start with the fixed defenses. We’ll save industrial and transportation targets as leverage and take them out as necessary to goad the Syndics into negotiating seriously.” Geary entered commands into the combat systems, tagging as targets the enemy defenses mounted on planets, moons, asteroids, and artificial satellites in fixed orbits, as well as the command and control locations and sensor systems associated with those defenses, then asked the automated systems for a bombardment plan. The number of targets was so great that the fleet combat systems actually required a noticeable blink of time before they produced a solution. Geary didn’t quite suppress a whistle as he looked at it. “I’ll have to make certain the auxiliaries are manufacturing more rocks for us. This will seriously dent our inventories.”
He moved to confirm the command, then changed a setting and looked at Desjani. “You do it.”
“What?”
“I passed approval authority to you. Go ahead and launch the bombardment.”
She slowly smiled at him. “You do know how to make a woman happy. This woman, anyway.” The smile changed, taking on a feral cast as Desjani looked over the bombardment plan. “Thank you, Admiral. This is for the comrades we lost here last time,” she announced, then tapped the approval command.
All over the Alliance fleet, warships began hurling out kinetic projectiles. They would take hours and days to reach their targets, but the intricate network of Syndic defensive batteries would be junk once they had all struck.
Throughout the hundred years of this war, the Syndic home star system hadn’t directly felt the impact of the war. Now it would, and Geary felt some satisfaction in that. “Let’s go hit that Syndic flotilla. All units in the Alliance fleet, come port four two degrees, down zero one degrees at time three zero.” He would hold this formation for a while, until he saw what the Syndics were doing. Despite how well things seemed to have turned out, he had a nagging worry that the Syndics had placed some other traps within this star system that hadn’t been spotted yet. “Maintain an alert watch for any signs of other minefields within the star system.”
Now that immediate actions had been dealt with, it was time to address the reason the fleet had come here. He called the intelligence section aboard Dauntless. “Lieutenant Iger, how precisely can you tell me where the Syndic Executive Council is located within this star system?”
Iger had the look of a subordinate who knew that his answer wouldn’t satisfy a superior. “It’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to give you an exact location. We’re scanning all unencrypted Syndic communications right now for any information, and we’ll break out what segments of encrypted comms we can, but it’s likely that our only indications will be transmission priorities on the star-system comm web.”
“You can read message priorities?”
“No, sir, not exactly, but we can tell which transmissions are being given priority by routers throughout the star system. By tracking those transmissions to their origin, we can identify the general location of whoever has the authority to issue the highest number of high-priority transmissions.”
That sounded good. “How general is a ‘general location’?”
The intelligence officer’s discomfort grew. “Once messages get within a closed transmission system, we can’t track them anymore. That would be, say, an orbital installation. Or a planet.”
“A planet?” Geary stared at Iger. “You could only narrow it down to somewhere on a planet?”
“Possibly, sir,” Iger explained. “Once on a planet, there are all kinds of transmission methods we can’t monitor from out here. Buried cables, for example. Command nodes on planets tend to use remote sites for actual wireless transmissions to help hide their location. But we should definitely be able to tell you which planet the Syndic Executive Council is on.”
It was obviously an explanation, not an excuse, so Geary nodded. “All right. How long will it take you to get me that?”
“It depends on how tight the Syndic net is, sir. A few hours to less than a day on the outside. Admiral, if some Syndic source provides better information, we can localize the Executive Council better. We just can’t count on that happening soon.”
“Understood. Have you identified any POW camps, yet?”
Iger shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing that looks like a POW or labor camp, and no comm traffic obviously associated with such a thing. But we’ll keep looking.”
“Good, but the priority task is finding the Syndic leadership’s location. Let me know when you’ve got that, and get it as soon as you can.” He had enough experience with Iger to know the wording he used would be all that was needed to get the intelligence section working at full speed.
Less than a day, or at least a few hours. That seemed far too long to wait, to allow the Syndics to plan more attacks, before offering to open negotiations. Long experience had taught Geary that it was easier to stop a plan from being formed than it was to stop a plan in the process of being carried out.
He couldn’t yet target his message on one location, so he would have to broadcast it. Geary sat straighter before transmitting this time. “To the members of the Executive Council of the Syndicate Worlds, this is Admiral Geary, commanding officer of the Alliance Fleet. We are here to end this war on terms both sides can accept. We will end it by negotiation if possible, or by force if necessary. Attached to this transmission is a list of proposed points to form the basis for a peace treaty. I urge you to review that list and respond positively as soon as possible. Alliance forces within this star system will continue offensive operations until a treaty is agreed upon.” Rione had suggested that as a way of ensuring that the Syndics wouldn’t try drawing out negotiations as long as possible. “To the honor of our ancestors.”
As he finished, Geary heard a noise at the back of the bridge and turned, annoyed. Besides Rione, the other two senators stood there as well, crowding that particular area. All three politicians seemed to be arguing, and Desjani appeared to be trying to decide whether she could get away with arresting them all. “Excuse me,” Geary said, a little louder than usual. “But we are still facing strong Syndic military forces in this star system and anticipate combat. We’d prefer not to have distractions on the bridge.”
“Even though we’ve had to live with them for some time,” Desjani muttered too low for any of the politicians to hear.
Senator Costa frowned importantly. “Admiral Geary, we’re simply working out a fair rotation for occupying the observer position on the bridge.”
Out of sight of Costa and Sakai, Rione made a defeated gesture to Geary before speaking. “Perhaps this discussion should be held elsewhere,” she suggested to the other two politicians. “Someplace quiet, where we won’t disturb the crew.”
“The brig is nice and quiet,” Desjani grumbled under her breath.
“Tanya,” Geary warned softly before raising his voice again. “That’s a good suggestion, Madam Co-President. Work it out among yourselves, please.” He didn’t want to get involved in this because he was afraid if he did, he would eventually lose patience with the politicians and order them to follow a certain arrangement. Ordering politicians around could very easily become too comfortable a way of handling them. He couldn’t afford to become comfortable with that, not when the fleet and the people of the Alliance would be all too happy to urge him on.