Jack Campbell - Victorious

Geary sat down and leaned back slightly, eyeing Boyens. “And now you want the Alliance fleet to help you get revenge against those people?”

The CEO shook his head. “No. That’s not what this is about. Those people are part of a ruling group that has driven the Syndicate Worlds into this war and fumbled its execution time and again. I don’t expect you to believe me when I say this, but I’m also motivated by a desire to protect my own home from the corruption and idiocy of the people who’ve been leading the Syndicate Worlds.”

“Do you consider yourself a patriot, then?” Geary asked.

Boyens flinched. “I don’t know. I do know that thanks to the decisions of the Syndicate Worlds’ leaders, and thanks to the victories you’ve won, we’re wide open to attack by not only the Alliance but also the aliens. I know how they act as well as any human does. That’s not very well, and no one really understands how they think, but I’m very worried.”

“Which ‘they’ do you mean?” Geary asked. “The aliens or the leaders of the Syndicate Worlds?”

The CEO flashed an anxious smile. “Both. I’d bet my life that right now the CEOs on the Executive Council are gathering in the home star system every remaining warship in the Syndicate Worlds’ mobile forces.”

Geary snorted. “You are betting your life.”

“That’s what I figured.”

As CEOs went, this one seemed both candid and shrewd. As Geary paused to think, rubbing his chin, Rione’s voice whispered to him again. He’s reading out as honest in his statements. He’s also worried, but that could be because of fears for personal safety rather than fears for the people of the Syndicate Worlds.

Give us more readings, sir, Iger urged. Ask him about the aliens.

“I need to know more about what you’re offering,” Geary stated. “Tell me something about these aliens.”

Boyens hesitated. “The things I know are my bargaining chips. If I tell you enough, you might not need to make a deal.”

“CEO Boyens,” Geary said coldly, “I won’t make a trade no matter what information you have unless I know that what you’re proposing is in the best interests of the Alliance and humanity as a whole. So I suggest you start trying to convince me.”

The CEO watched Geary for several seconds, then nodded. “That matches what we’ve seen of your behavior. What do you want to know?”

“What do the aliens look like?” That maybe wasn’t the most important thing, but it was a question he had been wondering about for some time.

“I don’t know. As far as I can tell, no one does.” Boyens smiled crookedly at Geary’s reaction. “It’s true. If any human has ever personally encountered the aliens, they haven’t reported back on it. We have had ships vanish in the border regions, and long ago on exploration trips beyond the border. Maybe their crews are prisoners, maybe they’re dead. But none of them have come back.”

“Haven’t the Syndics talked to the aliens?”

“Comm links. Negotiations are pretty rare, but I’ve observed two of them.” Boyens spread his hands in a frustrated gesture. “I’m not talking virtual meetings, just viewing the other side on a screen. But what they show us are obviously human avatars, fake images of humans against fake backgrounds.” How does he know they’re fake? Iger asked. Digital signals wouldn’t carry any means of knowing whether the content was real or altered.

“Fake?” Geary asked in turn. “What makes you certain that they’re fake?”

“They’re realistic enough to fool someone at first, but after a little while you start picking up on tiny inconsistencies and behaviors that feel wrong . It’s like … suppose you were pretending to be a cat. You could probably get good enough at it to fool other humans. But real cats would still know the difference.” He believes that’s the truth, Iger assured Geary.

For his part, Geary locked his eyes on Boyens’. “Humans vary a great deal. How do you know they’re not really human?”

This time Boyens startled Geary by laughing, but the laughter held a sharp edge instead of humor. “If you ever see them, you’ll know. I’ve talked to people from different cultures. I know how points of view can vary. But there’s something about the aliens that goes beyond that, no matter how hard they try to hide it. Tru—” He laughed again, through clenched teeth. “I was about to say ‘trust me.’ But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“No. Tell me what these aliens want. You must have some idea.”

The CEO frowned. “Only in general terms. From the records I’ve been able to access, and that’s too damned few since anything regarding the aliens is classified and compartmentalized as much as possible, after first contact it seemed that all the aliens wanted was for us not to push into their territory. In the next couple of decades they seemed to want to push into our territory, but very cautiously. About seventy years ago they stopped that, and aside from occasional tests of our defenses, they’ve been quiet. No one knows why, because whoever has talked to them gets the clear impression they want some of the star systems occupied by the Syndicate Worlds. But there hadn’t even been a feint within the last five or six months before we were ordered to leave that border and attack the Alliance.”

That didn’t tell Geary any more than he had already guessed. “What do their ships look like?”

“We don’t know. They’ve got some kind of stealth gear that’s a million light-years better than ours. You see nothing on sensors but a big blur on which our best gear can’t make out any details.” Boyens glared at Geary, plainly expecting this statement to be challenged. “We’ve tried everything we can think of to get a decent look at one of their ships. Decades ago, some volunteers in stealth suits were vectored toward some alien ships that had entered a Syndicate Worlds’ star system for negotiations. We hoped they would get close enough to get inside the alien stealth bubble, if that’s what it is, and get a real look at things, but they all died before they saw anything.”

“The Syndics have never destroyed an alien ship and had wreckage to examine?” Geary demanded.

“No.” The Syndic CEO stared at the deck.

He’s holding something back, Lieutenant Iger reported.

“Have you ever fought them?” Geary asked Boyens.

“No.”

That answer surprised Geary, so he waited for Iger to report that it was a lie, but no such statement came. He was still thinking about his next question when Rione spoke. Ask him if the Syndics have ever fought the aliens. Not him personally. The Syndics.

The deception was obvious once Rione pointed it out. Geary set his jaw angrily as he eyed the Syndic. “Have the Syndics ever fought the aliens?”

Boyens’s own jaw clenched for a moment, then he nodded. “Decades ago.”

“What happened?”

“I wasn’t there.” Evasion, Iger announced.

“Do you know what happened?” The Syndic stood silently, and Geary got up. “You want us to trust you when you’re obviously withholding critical information? Why shouldn’t I leave the Syndic border area to its own devices?”

The Syndic flushed with what seemed to be a mix of anger and embarrassment. “They always seem one step ahead of us. I was briefed on one program that should have worked. We jumped ships into star systems only a light-year or so from alien-occupied star systems, then launched asteroids hollowed out to hold sensors at the alien star systems. Even at the speeds we launched them, they would have taken decades to reach their targets, but they should’ve looked like nothing but high-velocity rocks since all of their sensors were passive and their power systems were so heavily shielded. It didn’t work. Sensors tracking the trajectories of the rocks spotted their destruction short of the alien star systems.” Interesting, Rione’s voice noted unemotionally, but also a diversion. He’s still avoiding talking about what happened when the Syndics fought these aliens.