Another hour, while Geary waited with increasing anxiety and an increasingly bad mood. His comm status was set to rest so no messages would get through unless they came from Desjani, Rione, or Duellos. He didn’t feel like getting advice from Badaya or anyone else at the moment.
Though there was CEO Boyens. Would he be able to help? No. By his own admission, Boyens has been exiled on the far border for more than a decade. Even if we could trust him, and we can’t, he still doesn’t know the big players here.
Finally, Geary went back to the bridge and sat glumly in the fleet commander’s seat while the watch-standers, with well-honed survival instincts, all tried to avoid drawing his notice.
“Admiral.” Lieutenant Iger had a happy expression, which disappeared very quickly as he caught the look in Geary’s eyes. “Sir, there’s a great deal of communication going on between the battleship and the primary world.”
“What’s that mean?” Geary demanded. Realizing from Iger’s reaction how harsh his voice had been, Geary worked to get his tone back to normal. “Do we have any idea what they’re talking about?”
“No, sir. But there is a very interesting clue in the transmissions. The messages from the primary world are being given priority in the Syndic net over the communications from the battleship.”
“What about the flotilla? Who are they talking to?”
Lieutenant Iger shook his head. “We’ve seen some transmissions to the flotilla from the primary world but haven’t been able to spot anything from the flotilla in reply. Our ships and collection satellites aren’t in the right positions to tell if the flotilla and the battleship are talking directly to each other.”
“Thank you.” Geary rubbed his eyes, seriously considering asking the fleet medical personnel for the kind of painkiller only dispensed by doctors. “Captain Desjani, my guts are telling me that if nothing else has changed in half an hour, we should head out and aim to intercept that battleship. The battleship will still be about four light-hours distant then. What do you think?”
“I think,” she commented, “that if we try to wait until we feel safe, we’ll miss any opportunity to resolve this situation in our favor. The Syndic battleship won’t see us move for four hours. We’ll see the battleship’s reaction in another four hours. But the primary inhabited world will see us moving much sooner than that. It’s only about ten light-minutes from us now. When they see us heading for that battleship, anyone trying to supplant the Executive Council may well talk to us. They want us on their side, and as disgusting as the idea of allying with any Syndics is to me, we need someone to shut off the threat of that hypernet gate.”
“Then why not go now?”
“That sounds like an excellent idea, Admiral. I concur.” Geary gave her a sour look and thought about double-checking with Tulev. It wouldn’t hurt to have another perspective on this, especially someone as solid as Tulev. But as he reached for his controls, a thought came to him that paused his movement. “Captain Desjani, have you already discussed this with Captain Tulev?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And would Captain Tulev’s advice be the same as yours?”
“Yes, sir.”
He could stay mad or see the humor in the situation. Staying mad hadn’t helped so far, so he might as well try laughing about it. “Thank you, Captain Desjani.” Geary took a look toward the back of the bridge, where Senator Sakai sat watching, his posture relaxed but eyes intent.
“We’re going to try to get the political games going on right now out into the open, Senator.”
Sakai nodded. “You mean the Syndic political games, I assume, Admiral?”
“Right.” It was nice to know Sakai had a sense of humor. Geary checked the maneuvering system, then called the fleet. “All units in the main formation of the Alliance fleet, this is Admiral Geary. Come starboard zero one three degrees, up zero two degrees, and accelerate to point one light speed at time four one.”
Another circuit. “Captain Duellos, the main body of the Alliance fleet will proceed to an intercept with the Syndic battleship coming from the Mandalon jump point.”
At time five one, Desjani ordered the course and speed changes for Dauntless, then yawned. “At least a day, maybe a day and a half until we meet up with that battleship. I think I’ll get some rest.”
“Good idea.” Now that the decision had been made, the tension level on the bridge had dropped dramatically. It was absurd, considering that he had just ordered the Alliance fleet out of its safe harbor, but Geary felt the same release in stress inside him. “Maybe I can sleep now, too.”
“Make it quick,” Desjani suggested. “We may hear from someone on the primary world in about half an hour.”
“I can live with that.”
As it turned out, something happened within ten minutes. Geary had barely reached his stateroom when an urgent notification arrived from Dauntless’s communications watch-stander. “Admiral, we have an incoming message from the Syndic battleship.”
The image this time wasn’t of a CEO, but of a Syndic military officer, his expression grim but otherwise unrevealing. “To the Alliance fleet, be advised that this warship and its accompanying heavy cruisers are responding to orders from the new Executive Council of the Syndicate Worlds. We are in the process of transporting the members of the old Executive Council back to Prime, the second planet from our star. Those members do not have access to any communications or transmission equipment. We—” The Syndic visibly had to brace himself to continue. “We request that you avoid interfering with our transit.”
That had to have been a hard message to send, but it must have been transmitted before the rebellious Syndic battleship had seen the Syndic flotilla turn to intercept it. Would there be a follow-up message, with the even-harder-to-make request that the Alliance fleet aid the battleship against the Syndic flotilla?
He was still considering that, and how he could phrase such orders, when the communications watch-stander announced another incoming message, this time from the primary inhabited world.
Geary saw a cluster of Syndic CEOs who appeared to be standing in an open area between low buildings, grass beneath their feet and an appealingly blue sky above their heads. They were wearing the usual flawlessly crafted outfits, but for once the polished, practiced, and insincere smiles weren’t present, the CEOs instead looking openly serious. “To Admiral Geary and the representatives of the Alliance grand council,” one of the CEOs announced, “we are the members of the new Executive Council of the Syndicate Worlds. We have reviewed your proposals and are willing seriously to negotiate their adoption as a basis for ending hostilities. We have ordered all Syndicate Worlds’ mobile and fixed forces within this star system to cease offensive action and ask that you suspend offensive action against any people or units of the Syndicate Worlds who have acknowledged our authority.”
The CEO put more earnestness into his words. “The programming for subverting what you call the safe-fail system has been disabled. The hypernet gate cannot now be used to destroy this star system and your fleet. We understand you have cause to doubt declarations from the Syndicate Worlds’ leaders. Our own location is on the surface of our world. We will remain here as living hostages to our word that your fleet is safe while we await your reply.”
That sounded promising. Getting the fleet moving had indeed provoked a response.
An image of Rione appeared on his screen. “I’ve seen the message. We can’t be certain that they’re really on the surface of the planet. They could be in a simulation chamber buried deep under the surface. But an analysis I had run indicated that even a deeply buried location wouldn’t stand a high chance of survival if a hypernet gate collapsed with an enhanced energy discharge. The Syndics may be treacherous, but their engineers are as good as ours. They’ll know that.”