The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (15 page)

“They abandoned a nuke?” a captain asked, astonished. “They, um, what the hell? What’s that? What’s there?”

Geary checked the captain’s position, seeing that he was well within
Invincible
’s hull.

“Major, what else is in here with us?” a very worried voice demanded.

“Nothing that can hurt you,” Dietz replied. “Stay in squad-strength formations. General, the new troops aren’t acclimated to the environment inside
Invincible
. That may be a bigger problem than we anticipated.”

“Merge them,” Carabali commanded. “Make your smallest unit of maneuver platoons and keep the Marines in each platoon in physical contact with each other.”

Admiral Lagemann spoke to Geary. “War in a haunted house. I didn’t think war could be any worse, but we found a way. The first nuke, in decoy engineering control, had a force of six Syndics with it. If the other group had that same number, it would have been too small to handle the mental pressure of the Kick ghosts, or whatever the phenomenon is.”

“You think they just bolted?”

“I think it’s likely. Look what’s happening to the new Marines coming aboard, and they were in squad strength everywhere, about twice as large a group as the one the Syndics probably left with that second bomb.”

Alerts popped to life in several places. In some, Marines were battling Syndic infiltrators. In others, the Syndics must have been firing at ghosts and giving away their locations to the Marines hunting for them.

The Marines who had charged aboard
Invincible
from
Typhoon
moved much more cautiously now, pivoting often to check all about them as they pulled themselves through the deserted, dark passageways of the captured alien warship, and occasionally letting off their own bursts of fire at possible enemies who turned out to be nonexistent.

“We got alerts!” someone was calling.

Geary shifted views again, seeing through the helmet of the Marine lieutenant whose platoon was guarding the air lock. One of the lieutenant’s Marines was gesturing frantically. “Three or four of them from the movement! They’re coming so fast the gear can pick them up kicking off the walls.”

“Smoke that passageway,” the lieutenant ordered.

Smoke in this case meant more dust, the grenades going off in a series of bangs that briefly illuminated the dark passageway leading to the air lock before the dust blocked any light from penetrating it. Seconds later, the dust swirled as figures came flying through it.

The Marines opened fire, killing three Syndics, whose bodies were knocked aside to drift lifelessly.

“What the hell?” the platoon sergeant asked the lieutenant. “They didn’t even try to shoot. Just flew at us.”

“Got more coming! Same passageway!”

“They’re retracing their route in,” Major Dietz cautioned.

Shots tore through the dust, a wild volley, followed by several more Syndics, who fired in all directions as they erupted into view. The Marines fired back, hitting all of them and killing all but one. The last Syndic special-forces soldier, wounded but still alive, reached the edge of the air lock and locked armored hands on it, facing outward as if fearing he would be pulled back inside
Invincible
.

A Marine slapped a tap onto the Syndic, allowing comms with him. “Stand down now, man! Deactivate your systems!”

“No!” Geary could hear the Syndic’s answering howl. “They’ll get me! Just let me go! Out there, where it’s safe!”

“There’s nothing out there! We already blew away your shuttles!”

The Syndic continued to grip the air lock edge, ignoring other attempts to get him to surrender.

“Crash his armor’s systems and sedate him,” the platoon sergeant ordered.

“If we hard crash his armor’s systems, we might kill him,” the lieutenant objected. “Our orders are to try to get some prisoners.”

“Sir, if we don’t crash his armor and knock him out, he’ll kill himself. You can see the hits he took. We treat him, or he dies.”

“We’ve got an exploitation team on the way,” General Carabali broke in. “Wait until they get there and can question the Syndic. They’ll have a medical team with them.”

“Who cares whether another Syndic dies?” someone muttered.

Carabali answered, her voice cold. “We care, Private Lud, because we need to know how many Syndics came aboard that ship and how many nukes they brought with them. Understand?”

“Y-yes, General,” the unfortunate Private Lud stammered, doubtless anticipating further pointed conversations with his sergeant and lieutenant once the general had finished.

Marines were flooding into
Invincible
. Given the ship’s size, and the need to keep the new arrivals into platoon-sized units, they couldn’t cover anything like most of the ship, but they could cordon off and begin sweeping the decks near the air lock and the areas around the decoy engineering control and bridge compartments. “I think we’ve just about got
Invincible
secured,” Geary said to Desjani.

As if the living stars had been waiting for his statement to punish his pride, Admiral Lagemann’s urgent voice came on the heels of Geary’s words.

“Admiral Geary, we just received a communication from a woman claiming to be the commander of the boarding force. She says she has a nuke and demands we halt operations and evacuate
Invincible
, or she’ll detonate the munition.”

“WHAT
did you say?” Desjani asked. “Something about
Invincible
?”

“Never mind.” Geary had to pause to control his voice before he replied to Lagemann. “Where is she? Do we know where this commander and her nuke are?”

Major Dietz answered, sounding grim. “Our best guess is in this area,” he said, indicating a spot aft of amidships and near the centerline of
Invincible
. “You can see the blocking forces we have stopping any movement along these lines, and as our patrols confirm areas are clear, the blocking forces establish new positions. We’re not encountering any more Syndics moving alone or in small groups, so it’s a reasonable guess that their commander figured out that the only way to prevent them from panicking was to pull her force together.”

Dietz highlighted a grouping of compartments. “We think they’re here. That’s about where the transmission originated, and this block of five compartments offers a compact defensive position with limited access from above and below.”

“How long until we
know
?” Geary asked.

“I’ve instructed the patrols to move faster and converge toward the suspected Syndic location. Once we have them localized, I can send in some look-sees to get a better idea of how many and whether there’s actually a nuke in there with them.”

“Ten minutes?” Geary pressed.

“Half an hour,” Major Dietz said, visibly bracing himself as he delivered the information.

Geary took a long, slow breath as he considered his options. “Get Emissary Rione and Emissary Charban on the line with that Syndic commander. Their instructions are to spin out negotiations and discussions as long as possible.” Technically, he didn’t have the right to order around either Rione or Charban since as representatives of the Alliance government, they were outside his command authority, but neither of them had made an issue of that lately. He doubted they would in this situation, either. “Let that Syndic commander think we’re right on the verge of agreeing to her demands while you figure out exactly where she is, get forces into position around her, and try to determine whether she’s bluffing about having a third nuke.”

He mentally pulled back from the situation aboard
Invincible
, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “Tanya? What’s the big picture look like?”

“Nothing new happening that we can tell,” she replied. “Eleven stealth shuttles have been spotted and destroyed. There hasn’t been a new detection for some time, so we might have gotten them all. What happened on
Invincible
?”

“We’ve got two nukes, but there might be a third, and the Syndic commander is threatening to use it.” He shifted back to General Carabali. “Eleven Syndic shuttles have been confirmed and destroyed so far. Does that help estimate how many Syndics came aboard?”

“It gives us an upper limit,” Carabali said. “The shuttles might not have been full. An operation like this usually has some excess lift capability in case some of the shuttles develop problems. Unfortunately, it tells us nothing about how many nukes they might have brought aboard.”

“Do you think they would really detonate a nuke, if they still have one, when they’re also in the blast zone?”

General Carabali frowned. “Admiral, these are Syndic special forces. Not fanatics from the Syndic security service.”

“Major Dietz thought they might be fanatics.”

“It was a reasonable guess, but from what I’ve seen of their equipment and tactics, they’re soldiers. Syndic special forces are highly trained and reliable, but I can’t think of any cases where they conducted deliberate suicide attacks during the war.”

“You don’t think their commander will carry through with her threat?”

“I don’t know, Admiral. It’s not typical of the Syndic special forces, but it’s not impossible. The Syndics seem to be falling back on suicide attacks out of desperation. An additional factor is that the, uh, atmosphere aboard
Invincible
is extremely unsettling. What impact that might have on the Syndics’ decisions even in a larger group I can’t say.”

“Make sure we keep offering to let them surrender.”

Carabali nodded, but she did not look hopeful. “They can’t assume if they do surrender that we’ll treat them as prisoners of war, Admiral.”

“I have never authorized—”

“That’s true, Admiral. But those were prisoners who were unquestionably Syndic military personnel. They had uniforms, they were part of units, they carried all the necessary official identifiers. In this case, the woman we’re talking to who claims to be the commander of this group isn’t giving a rank for herself. The Syndics we’ve killed, and in a couple of cases captured, have no military insignia or identification on them. They’re equipped with Syndic special-forces gear, but the equipment has had all identifying information scrubbed out and filed off. Even the implanted chips that contain medical and other information have been removed from their bodies. There’s nothing tying them to being part of the Syndic military and nothing giving them any official status at all.”

Geary stared at Carabali. “Are they trying to claim they’re pirates or something?”

“Private individuals,” Carabali said in a flat voice, “on a private venture. That’s all we’ve gotten out of the one prisoner who is able to talk.”

“Do you think they’ll stick with that even if it means they face death for terrorist actions?” Geary demanded.

“It’s hard to tell, Admiral. We’re in unexplored territory when it comes to that. Before, they’d be Syndics, and we were at war, so we’d treat them all as combatants. For better or worse. Now that we’re officially at peace, technically the official Syndics have protections as prisoners that freelancers do not. However, they don’t seem to have anything on them that would prove any claim they made to official status, if they tried to make one, and I think it’s a reasonable assumption that the Syndic CEOs here will deny any knowledge of them and their actions, which means that no matter what they said, we could legally, officially, and with honor execute them all.”

And these Syndics surely knew that. Had they known it going into this operation? Or had they only realized it when trapped aboard
Invincible
, their initial attacks foiled and their numbers rapidly dwindling, while the Kick ghosts gnawed at their minds?

“Offer them a chance to live,” Geary said slowly. “Tell them I will give my word of honor, officially and on the record, that any of them who surrender and cooperate will not be harmed.”

“I’ll make sure that offer gets to them,” Carabali said. Her expression hadn’t wavered, but her tone of voice was that of someone agreeing to a course of action she had no expectation of working. She paused, frowning to one side as she listened to a report. “Admiral, the prisoner who is being interrogated shows signs of having been subjected to mental conditioning.”

Why did news like this continue to surprise him? “What kind of mental conditioning?”

“It’s not clear yet. Any discussion of a military background generates responses consistent with mental conditioning. They may be incapable of admitting they are, or were, special-forces personnel.” Carabali grimaced. “They may also be incapable of surrendering. If they won’t, or can’t, surrender, we’ll have to take whatever actions are necessary.”

“I understand.” Having seen the impact of such conditioning on Commander Benan, it was easy to understand that the Syndics subjected to it could not override the blocks implanted within their minds. He also understood why the Marine had raised that issue with him. He was in command, and he had the responsibility to either clearly rule out all necessary actions or to clearly order that they be taken. “Your orders are to take the necessary actions to eliminate the threat those Syndics pose to
Invincible
and our personnel aboard the ship.”

“Yes, sir. Preparations are under way. We’ll notify you before we go in.”

Once he had finished speaking with General Carabali, Geary sat back, trying to ease tense muscles. There wasn’t any need for him to lean forward while viewing the Marine action, no need for his body to be ready to leap into action, but instincts were not easily overridden. Besides, it would feel somehow
wrong
to be leaning back in a relaxed posture while watching men and women risk death not in a video production but for real.

“When are the Marines going in?” Desjani asked.

“How did you hear they were going in?”

“It’s all over the fleet’s back channels. This is ironic, isn’t it?”

Geary glanced at her. “How so?”

“The Syndic plans are getting messed up because the Kick ghosts freaked out their boarding party. The Kicks are helping us defend that ship.”

“Too bad the Kick ghosts can’t disarm nukes. Were there any survivors off the Syndic shuttles?”

Desjani shook her head. “Nah. Not surprising. When a shuttle takes hits from warships, there’s usually not a lot left. I told some of the destroyers to recover debris, though. It might help as evidence that the Syndics did this.”

“Can’t hurt. Thanks. Don’t be surprised if there’s nothing, though. All of the equipment belonging to the Syndic soldiers on
Invincible
had been completely sanitized.”

“Word is we got at least one prisoner.”

“And initial results indicate the Syndic soldiers themselves were sanitized. Mental blocks.”

She stared at him. “Ancestors preserve us. Why the hell haven’t the people living in the Syndicate Worlds risen up and torn their damned CEOs into tiny pieces?”

“Damned if I know.” He thought about some of the star systems they had seen. “I guess some of them are, in some places. Maybe that’s why the Syndic CEOs are doing anything and everything against us. They have to be terrified of what will happen to each of them if they show the slightest sign of weakness.”

“Trying to save their hides by making their own citizens even madder at them? Yeah, that’ll work.”

He shared her opinion of the spreading revolts that the Syndic government’s tactics would eventually lead to, but in the short term, that still left him, and this fleet, facing the problem of dealing with the increasingly desperate and increasingly vicious tactics the CEOs were adopting to try to save themselves.

Geary scanned his display. The fleet was moving away from the hypernet gate, the destroyers and light cruisers still arrayed around
Invincible
and down along
Invincible
’s track. Nothing lay before the fleet . . . no, nothing could be seen before them, Geary corrected himself, except some Syndic merchant traffic, the nearest of which was still nearly two dozen light-minutes distant. “Tanya, work up a course to the jump exit for Simur. I want to go wide, using a longer path than required, just in case something else is waiting along our path.”

“No problem, Admiral. Do you want that implemented right away?”

“No. Hold off on it. I want to avoid moving
Invincible
around until the Marines have finished their job.”

His gaze went back to the display. Sobek only had the one jump point, so anyone arriving through the hypernet gate who didn’t also leave that way en route another destination could only go to Simur. From Simur, the fleet could jump to Padronis, and from there to Atalia. The Varandal Star System, in Alliance space, could be reached from Atalia. Not that long a path, but one all too predictable if the Syndics had laid other traps.
It’s not just Sobek, it’s that our options from Sobek are so limited. Sobek to Simur to Padronis, if we want to get home. Atalia wasn’t cooperating with the Syndic government anymore when we last went through there, but every star system until Atalia is going to be a gauntlet to run.

Another call brought him out of his worried thoughts about their route home. Rione was wearing the icy look that meant she was extremely frustrated, but fortunately the frustration wasn’t aimed at him.

“If you were counting on diplomacy or negotiations resolving the matter inside
Invincible
, you might want to consider other options,” she said.

“I wasn’t counting on it. More like it can’t hurt to try,” Geary admitted. “You don’t see any hope for ending this with words instead of actions?”

Rione shook her head. “It might be the environment in there, or it might be the result of finding themselves cut off in a hopeless situation, but the woman I’m talking to isn’t giving any ground even though she seems rattled. It’s like talking to people with their backs to the wall. They know they can’t run, but they won’t give up. I was informed that you were willing to promise that we would treat them as military prisoners if they give up. I’m not so sure that you could make that promise stick once we returned to Alliance space, but that doesn’t matter because the offer did not make any difference. They don’t seem inclined to believe promises from senior officials.”

“Of course not. They’re Syndics. Did General Carabali tell you that there are indications they may been mentally conditioned?”

“Yes. I can’t say from my conversations whether that is true or not. It’s not really possible in cases like this to tell the difference between someone who had a mental block implanted and someone who is so certain she is right that she has blocked her own mind,” Rione added.

Geary ran one hand through his hair, considering his options. “Do you think they’ve really got a nuke, and if they do have one, do you think they’ll actually detonate it?”

“Those are good questions,” Rione said. “I don’t have good answers for them.”

What else? “Did you get the impression that they still expect some form of rescue? Do they know we’ve destroyed all of their shuttles?”

“They know what we’ve told them, Admiral. I doubt that they believe us.”

Geary nodded, feeling exhausted. “Keep talking to them. Please.”

“Since you ask so nicely, I will.” Rione’s mouth moved with distaste. “I will keep talking to them until the Marines kill them. Perhaps it will distract them and make the task of the Marines a little easier. Have you ever been speaking with someone at the moment they died?”

“No,” Geary said.

“Neither have I. Until today. I suspect I will soon know how it feels.”