The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (18 page)

Rione smiled. “I can help with that. As I did with the unfortunate loss of the hypernet gate here.”

“I see.” Geary cocked a questioning eye at her. “What exactly have the Syndics said about the gate?”

“You just want to hear how upset they are, so you’ll be pleased to hear that they’re screaming bloody murder about it. Demanding data that explain the collapse of the gate and prove that our engineers didn’t themselves inflict the damage on purpose. Demanding compensation. Expressing great distress at such an act of aggression. Don’t look so murderous, Admiral. If you answered them looking like that, you’d be proving their, um,
outrageous
claims.”

“I have to admit, the sheer nerve of some of these Syndics is starting to get to me,” Geary said when he thought he had his voice under control.

Rione smiled again. “I’m a bit more used to it. I am expressing surprise, shock, and dismay at their charges. I am asking for evidence. I am invoking the arbitration clause of the peace treaty. I am promising to look into the matter. They know I am playing with them, that nothing will be done, that their hypernet gate is gone, and they will never be able to prove we had anything to do with its loss, and all of that, I assure you, is driving them completely up the wall.”

He smiled back at her. “You’re good at driving people up the wall, aren’t you?”

“It’s a gift.”

“Why are you being so helpful again? Did finding the Kicks and the Dancers really change things that much?”

She looked away, then back at him. “What changed things a lot was your discovering what was wrong with my husband. The thing done to Commander Benan, and the reason why it was done, are so far beyond what the public of the Alliance would accept that I now have a weapon that gives me an immense amount of leverage. Those who tried to use me, who blackmailed me, will know that.”

“But if you go public with that, it might literally kill your husband.”

Rione nodded calmly. “In my place, they would do such a thing anyway, and so they will believe that I would as well. Beware of people who are certain they are right, Admiral. That certainty allows them to justify almost any act in pursuit of their goals.”

“Like the Syndic CEOs in this star system?” Geary asked, hearing the bitterness in his voice.
If only there had been some way to make them personally pay for what happened to
Orion
 . . .

She shook her head. “I’d be very surprised if there’s any idealism there, Admiral, any sense of right and wrong. Those CEOs were doing what they thought would benefit them personally. There might have been private motives of revenge if they had lost someone to the war, but my conversations with former-CEO Iceni at Midway gave me some more insight into the CEO way of thinking. Their internal-security service produced true believers, but everyone else was motivated by self-interest or fear.”

“How does a system like that survive?” Geary asked.

“Self-interest and fear.”

“I was asking a serious question.”

Rione gave him that superior look. “And I was giving you a serious answer. Self-interest and fear work, for a while. Until self-interest, unconstrained by any higher loyalty, becomes more destructive than the system can endure, and until the people’s fear of acting against their system becomes less than their fear of continuing to live with it. Eventually, those things always happen. In the case of the Syndicate Worlds, the war meant that their leaders were able to use fear of us to reinforce fear of going against their system. The Syndicate Worlds is coming apart not just because of the stresses from the war and not just because it lost that war and a great deal of its military in the process, but also because fear of the Alliance can no longer be stoked to bind individuals, and individual star systems, to the Syndicate government.”

“I see.” Geary sat, thinking. “The Alliance is facing some of the same strains because fear of the Syndics helped hold us together.”

“An external enemy is a wonderful thing for politicians to have,” Rione said dryly. “They can excuse and justify a great many things by pointing to that enemy. But that doesn’t mean external enemies are never real. What is that old saying? Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t really out to get you.”

“And the Syndics are still doing what they can to get us.” Geary nodded as a thought came to him. “I’ve been wondering what the Syndic goal is. Why are they attacking us in these ways? They must know they can’t win. But I think you just led me to the answer.”

“I’m wonderful that way, aren’t I?” Rione said. “If you are not in further need of my wise counsel, I will now compose my reply to the latest Syndic demands.”

Geary returned to the bridge and settled back in his fleet command seat, trying for at least the hundredth time not to notice the absence of
Orion
in the fleet’s formation. After spending months watching
Orion
because the battleship had been a poorly commanded albatross hanging about the neck of the fleet, and lately watching
Orion
because Commander Shen had done such a miraculous job of turning around the ship, making her a real asset to the fleet, Geary kept finding himself looking for
Orion
and not finding her.

He gave Desjani a sidelong glance. She was working stoically, not displaying grief, but he knew Shen had been a good friend of hers. Another shipmate whose name would adorn the plaque she kept in her stateroom to list those who had died and whom Desjani was determined never to forget.

“Yes, Admiral?” Desjani suddenly asked. She hadn’t looked his way, hadn’t shown any sign of noticing his glance, but had somehow known of it.

“I was just . . . thinking,” Geary said.

She met his eyes, and he saw there that she knew what he had been thinking of. It was scary sometimes how well Tanya could read him. “We have to remember, but we can’t spend too much time thinking about things that distract us from what we
have
to be thinking about.”

“Believe me, I’ve done almost nothing but think about what else the Syndics might be planning to do. I’ve been holding off on a fleet conference because I wanted to have some ideas to talk about to distract everyone from . . . our losses.”

She watched silently for a few seconds. “I doubt anyone can be distracted, Admiral. Not from that. But if we can’t think of ideas, we ought to call in more thinkers. Have you talked to Roberto Duellos? Or Jane Geary? Anyone besides me and that woman?”

“Yes, I’ve talked to other people.
That woman
just gave me a good idea of what the big-picture plan might be for the Syndic government.” He made an angry gesture. “But as far as the local threat, I have to face the fact that we don’t have anyone like . . . well, like those two colonels that worked for General Drakon. Someone who thinks like a Syndic, someone who could guess what their next devious plot is going to be.”

“You just want to see Colonel Morgan again,” Desjani said. “Oh, don’t get all defensive. It was a joke. One of my coping mechanisms. You should be used to it by now. All right, we don’t have any Syndics in this fleet, except the prisoners captured aboard
Invincible
who aren’t even admitting that they are Syndics, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have any conniving thinkers available.” Desjani tapped a control. “Master Chief Gioninni, I am in need of someone with a devious mind.”

Within a couple of minutes, the master chief’s image appeared in a virtual window near her. “Someone with a devious mind? Do you want me to locate someone like that for you, Captain?” Gioninni asked with a remarkably sincere tone of voice.

“I’ll settle for you, Master Chief. You’ve been keeping up on events in this star system so far, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Captain. At least, I’ve been keeping up on everything appropriate to my position within the fleet—”

“Spare me the false piety, Master Chief,” Desjani said. “I want you to consider the following question very carefully. If you were going to try to inflict more damage on this fleet while it was in this star system, what would you do?”

“You mean if I were a Syndic, Captain?”

“If it makes you more comfortable, imagine that this is a Syndic fleet, and you’re trying to figure out how to mess with it again before it leaves this star system.”

Gioninni’s answer came without hesitation. “Mines at the jump exit. We can take all kinds of paths through the star system to get there, but we’ve got to use that exit, Captain. They know that.”

“How would you keep us from spotting those mines in time to avoid them?” Desjani asked. “They know that we’d be alert after the earlier attacks and watching for anything else. Syndic stealth tech on their mines is good, but not good enough to keep them undetectable if we’re looking for them in a specific spot, and we’re fairly close to it.”

“A diversion, Captain,” Gioninni replied. “Something to distract us again. Something to help hide those mines a little better from our sensors. It’s like sleight of hand. It works not because what you’re doing couldn’t be seen but because you’re doing something else as well that draws the attention of the people watching you.”

“Any ideas what form that diversion would take?” Desjani asked.

This time Gioninni did pause before answering. “I’d have to think about that, Captain. It would have to complicate the picture for the fleet sensor automated hazard detection as well as divert the attention of the human operators.”

“Please do think about it, Master Chief. Thank you for your valuable input. Are there any other matters to report?”

“Ah, one thing, Captain. It’s sort of private.”

Desjani tapped her controls. “I’ve got the privacy field activated around me.”

And around him, Geary realized, since he had heard her words clearly, but he didn’t comment on that and thereby draw Gioninni’s attention to it.

“Yes, Captain. All right, you asked me to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary in a certain portion of the fleet?”

“The auxiliaries. Right. What is it?”

“Well, Captain, I have it on pretty solid authority that a lot of premium booze got delivered to one of the auxiliaries—”

“
Tanuki
?”

“That’s what I heard, Captain. This is embargoed stuff from Syndic planets, the sorts of things that would be in high demand back home.”

“I see. And just how did you become aware of this, Master Chief?”

“I got offered a deal by the same supplier, Captain. Naturally, I didn’t agree to anything.”

“The supplier wanted too much for the product?” Desjani asked. “And even you couldn’t haggle the price down?”

“Now, Captain, paying extortionate prices is no way to make a profit. Not that I would ever engage in such a transaction, which, as you know, would be contrary to fleet regulations. But I did feel required to learn all I could about the deal just in case it constituted some sort of threat to the fleet or its personnel,” Gioninni added piously.

“Your dedication to duty is a shining example to us all,” Desjani said. “Do you have any idea what
Tanuki
paid for the black-market booze?”

“No, Captain. I couldn’t find that out.”

“Thank you, Master Chief. Do you have anything else?”

“Just one very minor thing, Captain,” Gioninni said, smiling winningly. “A question. Will there be any other major course alterations before we reach the jump point?”

“That’s hard to say, Master Chief, and it will be up to Admiral Geary in any event.”

“I understand that, Captain, but you see when we went on this roundabout track to the jump point, I had to cancel all the bets in the jump pool and restart the whole thing.”

“That must have been a lot of work, Master Chief,” Desjani said with false sympathy.

Unseen by Gioninni, Geary grinned. Jump pools had been around as long as jump drives. Crew members would place minor wagers on the exact moment when the ship would enter jump, and whoever came closest to the actual time won the whole pot. For some inexplicable reason, the fleet had never cracked down on the practice, instead recognizing its importance for morale and as a relief valve for gambling cravings that might otherwise show up in worse forms. To Geary’s knowledge, the only times the official hammer had come down on jump pools were when the sizes of the individual wagers grew too large.

“Master Chief, I will ensure that the Admiral takes into account the impact on your workload if he orders another significant change in the arrival time at the jump point,” Desjani continued.

“Now, Captain,” Gioninni protested, “you know I’m the hardest-working sailor on this ship. Excepting for you and the Admiral, of course.”

“That depends upon how we define ‘work,’ Master Chief. Thank you again for your information and your suggestion.”

Desjani ended the call and looked pointedly at Geary. “What do you think, Admiral?”

“About the jump pool, the booze, or the Syndic plans?”

“I
told
you that you had to keep an eye on Smythe.”

“Which you are doing a good job of,” Geary pointed out. “Did you know that the auxiliaries also acquired some important rare-earth materials while we were at Midway? They didn’t get those from any asteroid mining, but we needed them, so I didn’t ask inconvenient questions. Smythe has probably broken half of the rules in the book, but a lot of the time he’s breaking the rules to get the job done.”

“And you’re willing to look the other way at the other times because of that?”

“Yes. As long as he’s not hurting the fleet. I will ask some leading questions about Syndic booze to let him know he’s being watched and had better not play any criminal games with it.” He could see she was getting ready to argue the point. “It’s just like your not asking certain questions of Master Chief Gioninni because his particular skills can be very useful to you and to
Dauntless
.”

She paused in the midst of starting to say something, then nodded ruefully. “You’ve got me there. What about the master chief’s guess about what the Syndics will do?”

“I think he’s very likely right,” Geary said. “You and I should have seen that, but we were too focused on threats along the path to that jump point to realize that the final approach to that jump exit is the only place left in this star system that we have to go.” He ran a quick query on his display. “There have been a couple of merchant ships seen leaving via that jump point since we arrived, but those ships could have been sent through on purpose on paths to avoid any mines so we would think there’s no threat there.”