“And afterward blame us,” Desjani finished. “We’d all be dead. Damn. Sir, she’s right. The Syndics have the biggest bomb in the galaxy staring us in the face, and we didn’t even realize it.”
“That’s because we’d stopped thinking of the gates as weapons after the safe-fail devices were installed. If Cresida hadn’t died at Varandal, she would have warned us, I’m certain.” Geary tapped his controls. “Commander Neeson, I need an analysis from you, and I need it five minutes ago.” The commanding officer of Implacable was one of the best hypernet experts remaining in the fleet since Cresida had died. “Can a safe-fail system be reprogrammed to increase rather than decrease the output of a hypernet gate’s collapse? And, if it can, how long would that take?”Implacable was several light-seconds distant, but Neeson’s image stared at Geary longer than that time delay alone could account for. Finally, he nodded. “Yes, Admiral. I don’t have to run any analysis. The equipment could be used that way even though that option had never occurred to me.” Neeson paused, swallowing, before speaking again. “How long? Once the necessary algorithms were calculated, they could be added as an option to the controlling software. Toggling between options would be essentially instantaneous.”
Geary had to pause to ensure his voice remained steady before replying. “Thank you, Commander. Please keep that assessment to yourself for the time being. We’re considering possible enemy options over here, not dealing with certainties.”
“Yes, sir.” Neeson rubbed one hand across the lower half of his face. “Sir, if the Syndics here do that …”
“We know.” Geary broke the connection, facing Desjani and Rione again, Sakai standing back deferentially but listening intently. “It can be done. If the Syndics have worked up the calculations, then they could switch the safe-fail system into a catastrophic-fail system in an instant.”
“There’d still be time delays for the signal to reach the gate,” Desjani said.
Rione had her eyes closed, obviously trying to regain her composure. “Would we have any warning?”
“We’d see the gate starting to collapse, but unless we were very close to a jump point, that wouldn’t help,” Geary admitted. “But if that was the Syndics’ backup plan, why haven’t they done it already?”
Desjani, studying her display again, nodded sharply. “They need those ships.” She looked at Geary. “The Syndic leaders need the warships in that flotilla. That’s their last major force. Without those warships, their ability to keep the Syndicate Worlds together by coercion disappears. They won’t want that flotilla destroyed here with us.”
“That’s why the flotilla didn’t head for the hypernet gate to leave after the ambush failed,” Geary realized. “Cresida told me no one knew for sure what would happen to ships in transit if a gate anchoring one end of a hypernet path is destroyed. One possibility was that they’d be destroyed as well, but she said the most likely probability was that the ships would drop back into normal space somewhere along their route.”
“Light-years away from any star?” Desjani asked. “They’d get somewhere they could use jump drives eventually, but it would be decades, and until they got somewhere, those ships would be of no use to anybody. So the Syndics wouldn’t try to use the gate to get their flotilla clear of this star system. We could have intercepted that flotilla if it headed for the jump point for Tremandir. They could have easily reached the jump point for Corvus before we got to them, but instead they bypassed that jump point. Now they’re positioned where they can safely reach the jump point for Mandalon before we could catch them.”
“But why did the flotilla bypass the jump point for Corvus? What makes Mandalon a better objective than Corvus? Is it just because the Syndic Executive Council is forted up on the battleship there? And why isn’t the flotilla headed straight for the Mandalon jump point instead of cutting closer to our path like they are doing?”
“They want us to chase that flotilla. That would draw us deeper into the star system.” Desjani’s expression grew thoughtful. “Time lags. Look at the geometry. When we arrived in this star system, we were a little more than ten light-hours from the jump point for Mandalon, and about three light-hours from the hypernet gate. The Syndic leaders on that battleship could only see what we were doing as of ten hours before. Any signal they transmitted to the hypernet gate would have taken … about seven hours to reach it. Then the shock wave would have taken three hours to reach our location near the jump point from Zevos. Their information about us would be ten hours old, and it would take ten more hours for their surprise attack to reach us.”
“We could go a long ways in twenty hours,” Geary agreed. “The fleet could turn around and jump out of this star system while the Syndic signal was on its way to the gate. So they’re trying to get the time lag down and get us deeper into the star system, farther from any jump points we could use. That’s why the flotilla and that damned CEO are luring us onward. They want us chasing after the Syndic flotilla with no thought for other possible threats and too far from any jump point to leave the star system between the time the collapse order is given and the shock wave hits.”
Sakai shook his head. “Surely even the Syndic leaders realize the effect it would have on their people once it was learned that those leaders had deliberately wiped out one of their own star systems and murdered every Syndic citizen within it? Fear of retaliation from their own government has helped keep the Syndicate Worlds together, but if the Syndic people know they could be sacrificed en masse anyway, they might indeed finally revolt.”
“The Syndic leaders would blame us,” Rione replied. “They’d tell their people that the Alliance had collapsed another hypernet gate, after practicing at Sancere and Kalixa, but had been caught by our own weapon this time. Enough Syndic people would probably accept that to avoid revolt.”
Desjani’s own response was stiff and formal. “Even the Syndics know that this fleet under the command of Admiral Geary does not commit atrocities.”
“That is true,” Rione conceded. “But it would be a cold comfort to us if the Syndic leaders’ cover story wasn’t accepted after this fleet was destroyed. Can we still get out?” she asked Geary. “Turn about and make it back to the jump point from which we arrived before the Syndics could react?”
“Probably not,” Geary replied, trying to decide how long the Syndics might hesitate before ordering the gate to collapse. “We’re already more than fourteen hours travel time at point one light speed from the jump point we came in on, and that much closer to the Syndics at the Mandalon jump point. If they ordered a gate collapse as soon as they saw us turn, we’d have to be very lucky to avoid getting hit.”
“Go faster! If they know you’re leaving anyway—”
“I can’t turn the fleet on a dime, and I can’t accelerate every ship like I can a destroyer or a battle cruiser. It might work if we tried it right now, but I doubt it.” He paused, wondering if that was, nonetheless, exactly what he needed to do, if that was the only chance the fleet would have.
“But you can’t just turn this fleet around and run for the jump point!” Desjani shook her head, keeping her voice low but intense. “This wouldn’t be like Lakota, where we could say we were heading to attack another part of the Syndic forces. It would be running with no apparent reason, fleeing this star system. Our fleet believes in you, Admiral Geary, but please do not test their faith this way. It would go against everything they believe in besides you.” Her eyes went to Rione. “And because they wouldn’t accept that you would choose to do such a thing, they would instead believe that the retreat had been ordered by the politicians, and that you had either been coerced or had caved in to their demands. Do I need to spell out what might happen then?”