Sakai’s feelings were hard to determine, but he nodded. “All right, Admiral. We trust that we will be notified as soon as the enemy combat forces are eliminated?”
The senator made the elimination of the Syndic flotilla sound like a mere formality, Geary thought. Outwardly, all he did was nod. “Certainly.”
“I am very proud,” Sakai added, “to see so many brave citizens of Kosatka here, playing such a critical role in this fleet. We could not be here without their courageous sacrifices.”
Unseen by Sakai, Desjani rolled her eyes, but her voice sounded respectful. “Thank you, Senator.” The watch-standers on the bridge from Kosatka all uttered brief but polite responses as well before the three senators left the bridge.
Geary wasn’t surprised when Senator Costa showed up a short time later to somewhat smugly take a seat in the observer’s chair. He had expected Rione to agree to let another senator sit there for a while, since Rione already knew from her own experience that nothing would be happening for hours. It would still be over two hours before the Syndic flotilla guarding the hypernet gate even saw the Alliance fleet, and close to three hours after that before the Syndic reaction would be seen.
After the first hour had gone by, with the Alliance fleet steadily heading toward the Syndics but little else occurring except for kinetic bombardment rounds hitting a couple of the closest Syndic defensive installations, Costa had grown a little fidgety. Another hour, and not much else had changed. Point one light speed sounded fast, and it was. At that velocity, the Alliance warships were covering about thirty thousand kilometers per second. But given the immense distances in space, even that could feel like a crawl. With ten hours required to cover a single light-hour of distance, and the enemy close to three light-hours away, it would be well over a day before any prospect of battle arose.
“They should have seen us by now,” Desjani finally commented to Geary loud enough for Costa to hear. “Only three more hours until we see them react.”
Costa, already looking bored, twisted her mouth.
Geary stood up. “I need to walk around and think. Let me know if anything happens before three hours is out.”
“I’ll do that, sir.”
Two hours later he was back on the bridge. Rione sat in the observer’s seat again, but she didn’t seem self-satisfied at having tricked the other senators into a rotation that favored her. Instead, Geary thought he saw worry in Rione. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know.”
She said nothing more, so Geary sat down, nodding to Desjani, who also appeared bothered. “How’s everything look?” he asked.
“Good.” But Desjani didn’t seem entirely happy about that.
“What’s bothering you?” Geary asked.
“I can’t tell, Admiral. What’s bothering you?”
“I can’t tell, either.”
The minutes crawled by, but eventually alerts appeared on the maneuvering display as movement by the Syndic flotilla was finally seen.
“They’re avoiding combat,” Desjani noted with a scowl.
The Syndic warships had pivoted and were accelerating away from their positions near the hypernet gate, but not on any vector that would bring them to the oncoming Alliance forces. “I wonder where they’re going,” Geary said. If the enemy flotilla chose to hang around just out of reach of the Alliance forces, it would be an annoying and constant threat. Humans could play games with physics in normal space with such things as the inertial dampers, which made it possible to accelerate and decelerate at rates that would normally have torn apart ships and humans, but no one had figured out how to triumph completely over the simple factors of distance and time. The Syndics were too far distant for the Alliance fleet to have any chance of catching them. The Syndics would have to come a lot closer for combat to happen, but they didn’t seem interested in doing that at the moment.
“Wherever they’re going, it’s nowhere near us,” Desjani muttered, as the projected vectors for the Syndic ships shrank from cones to thinner and thinner lines as the Syndics reached their intended course and speed, and the fleet’s sensors analyzed the resulting track. “Looks like they’re cutting through one segment of the star system, not directly away from us but not coming all that close, either.”
Had the Syndics chosen to negotiate without fighting a hopeless battle? But Geary had yet to receive a reply to the demands he had broadcast. “They’ll remain a threat in being. Fine. We’ll disregard them and head for the primary inhabited world. That will give that flotilla a little over two days to decide whether it will just stand by while we put guns to the heads of their leaders. Either they fight, or we win.” It didn’t feel very satisfying, but it seemed the best option.
“We can’t catch them, so we have to make them come to us,” Desjani agreed with evident frustration.
The fleet swung around again, heading toward the star and the planet orbiting only eight light-minutes distant from that star.
Ten more hours crawled by, the Syndic defenses in fixed orbits vanishing in an expanding arc of destruction as the Alliance bombardment reached them. A barrage of kinetic projectiles was fired at the fleet at extremely long range by some of the Syndic fixed defenses, which were so distant that the Alliance bombardment hadn’t gotten to them yet, but with literally hours and days to dodge slightly to avoid the oncoming projectiles, the Alliance warships didn’t spend any time worrying about them.
When a message finally arrived at the Alliance fleet from the Syndics, it wasn’t from any of the planets. “We have a transmission from the flagship of the Syndic flotilla,” the communications watch reported.
Geary felt a sense of déjà vu as the image appeared before him. He had sat in this chair before, in this star system, and seen this same Syndic CEO. “Him?”
“The one who commanded the Syndic forces here before and ordered the murders of Admiral Bloch and the other senior officers in the fleet,” Desjani confirmed, each word coming out harder than the one before. She hadn’t had any personal admiration for Admiral Bloch, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t mad as hell about his being killed under the guise of negotiations.
“Yeah. That guy.” Geary’s memories flashed back to when that same CEO had arrogantly demanded the unconditional surrender of the Alliance fleet warships that had survived the initial ambush. He could, if he wanted to, call up the record of the transmission sent to the fleet of Bloch and the others being shot inside the shuttle dock of the Syndic flagship. A surge of old anger filled Geary as he looked at that face again.
The Syndic CEO on the screen smiled as if he knew he would be recognized and wanted to let them know he would enjoy their reactions. “The Syndicate Worlds send their greetings to Admiral Geary. I am CEO First Rank Shalin.”
“He’s wearing more medals than before,” Desjani breathed with barely controlled fury. “Awards for what he did here last time.”
CEO Shalin continued speaking. “We’re prepared to offer a cease-fire within this star system, in the interests of humanity. We are willing to engage in negotiations with your fleet.”
Geary stared at the image, wondering if his mouth was literally hanging open. To have this man speak of negotiating after the atrocity committed during the last “negotiations” with him labeled him as either unbelievably tone-deaf or viciously insulting.
“We have a number of Alliance prisoners of war within this star system” the CEO went on in an almost negligent tone of voice. “They were acquired during your fleet’s last visit here. Those prisoners are dispersed in a wide number of locations. It would be a pity if any were harmed by bombardments. I await your reply and trust that you will exercise discretion in your actions to avoid escalating tensions and casualties.”