Jack Campbell - Guardian

CEO Boyens would be realizing that right about now. Geary found himself smiling at the thought of the Syndic CEO’s becoming very, very unhappy as he spotted, too late, the trap laid for him.

“The Syndic heavy cruisers have launched missiles!” Lieutenant Castries said, as alarms from Dauntless ’s combat systems accentuated her report.

“CEO Boyens must have received your message before those ships fired,” Desjani said, the words going into the official record as she spoke them.

“That’s right,” Geary agreed. “We have to assume that he has deliberately attacked an Alliance ship, and we have to make sure the Syndics don’t get away with such an act of aggression.” He tapped his comm controls again, this time pretending only anger. “CEO Boyens! Your forces have fired on a ship after you were informed that ship was operating under the Alliance flag! This is a hostile act, a clear violation of the peace treaty the Syndicate Worlds pledged to observe. Under the terms of that treaty, I am authorized to take all necessary measures to protect Alliance life and property. I will now do so and eliminate any threats to the Alliance within this star system! Geary, out!”

Just to add to CEO Boyens’s headaches, the apparently crippled main propulsion unit on the lone Midway heavy cruiser suddenly came to life at full power, dramatically boosting the acceleration of the warship. “That,” Desjani observed, “will create some serious problems for the missiles the Syndics launched based on their earlier assumptions of the maximum acceleration that heavy cruiser could achieve.”

“But they’ve still got two dozen missiles coming at them,” Geary said.

“They’ll be all right,” Desjani said, her eyes on her display. “If they listen to Captain Bradamont. She’s aboard that heavy cruiser, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” It had not been easy to arrange Bradamont’s transfer to the Syndic ship without her movement being detected, but routine resupply operations could mask a great deal of nonroutine activity. “Her presence on the heavy cruiser establishes clearly and legally that the ship is temporarily Alliance property. The authorities on Midway,” Geary added, “also assigned a Kapitan-Lieutenant Kontos to ride the cruiser while it was under Alliance charter.”

“Kontos?” she asked. “Do we know him?”

“He’s the one who thought up fastening the battleship to the mobile forces facility so it could tow that facility out of the path of the enigma bombardment,” Geary said.

“Oh.” Desjani smiled knowingly. “And now Captain Bradamont can provide us with detailed observations about this Kapitan-Lieutenant who is such a quick and innovative thinker?”

“That’s right,” Geary agreed.

“Well done, Admiral.” She tapped her weapons controls. “We’ll be within range of Boyens in forty-five minutes if you hold us at point two light speed.”

Geary nodded, gazing at his own display again. What will I do if Boyens doesn’t run? If he stands his ground? I’ll have to engage that battleship and take out the heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and HuKs escorting it. It’ll be a massacre, but they could still inflict damage on some of my ships, and when I get home, it’ll be a lot harder to explain annihilating a Syndic flotilla than it will be to explain chasing one away.

Boyens had a limited period of time in which to act. Battleships excelled at firepower and armor, but not at acceleration. If Boyens wanted to avoid the Alliance attack, he would have to head for the hypernet gate soon enough to overcome the Alliance advantage in coming up to speed first.

“The gate’s his only option,” Desjani commented. “If Boyens heads toward the only jump point he could reach before we could catch him, he’ll run right into that Midway flotilla.”

“Isn’t that a lucky coincidence,” Geary said.

“We need to keep after him,” Desjani added in a low voice. “Boyens isn’t going to enter that gate if he has any doubts that we might veer off. We need to stay on a firing run, maintaining our velocity, until his flotilla leaves. If we bobble at all, if we slow down, if we give him any reason to doubt our intent, he’ll veer away from the gate. Then we’ll have to destroy him.”

“You’re right.” He had been trying to estimate when he could order his attack force to break off, but Desjani was correct. “He’ll cut it as fine as he possibly can, to see if we actually open fire.”

“Count on having to open fire,” she said.

“I hope you’re not right about that.”

But as the minutes went by, Boyens’s flagship remained stubbornly in the same orbit. Geary checked the combat systems readouts, seeing the steady scrolling down to the time when the Syndic battleship would be within range of the weapons on the leading Alliance warships. One number for the specter missiles, another for hell-lance particle beams, a third time for the ball bearings called grapeshot used at close range, and finally a time for the very-close-range null-field generators carried by the Alliance battle cruisers and battleships.

Desjani shook her head as she studied her display. “If he doesn’t start moving in the next five minutes, we’ll catch him before he reaches the gate.”

Rione spoke from where she had come to stand on the other side of Geary. “Why hasn’t CEO Boyens tried to communicate with us?” she wondered. “Accused us of setting him up, tried to apologize, anything at all? Ah, I know.”

“Do you feel like telling me?” Geary asked.

“Certainly, Admiral.” Rione held out her open hand, palm up. “Syndic CEOs hold their positions through fear. Subordinates know they cannot cross their CEOs. But if a CEO is seen to be weak, subordinates will see wounded prey.”

“And an apology, an attempt to deflect our attack, would make Boyens look weak.”

“Extremely weak, as well as foolish.” Rione closed her hand into a fist. “He knows we set him up. To openly admit that he fell into a trap we set might drive the last nail into his coffin.”

“Do you think he’ll stay and fight?”

“That would be suicide.” She made an uncertain gesture. “But the price of failure here for him might be high, and his own anger at being humiliated might drive him to fight a hopeless battle. I don’t know.”

“Two minutes left for him to start running,” Desjani said. “We need to see thrusters firing on those Syndics ships within the next thirty seconds to get them faced on a course for the gate.”

Thirty seconds to wonder if the cunning and twisted plot dreamed up by the rulers of Midway would blow up in everyone’s face. On the main inhabited world light-hours from the hypernet gate, President Iceni and General Drakon would not see what happened until a long time after it took place. Thirty seconds to wonder what they would think as they saw the same limited time rapidly running out. CEO Boyens must be angry, frustrated, knowing he was trapped, knowing that failure would be punished by his superiors in the Syndic hierarchy but knowing also that if he lost that battleship, the punishment would certainly be death. Thirty seconds to wonder if Boyens would choose to risk that rather than fail here.

Ten seconds.

Five.

“Maneuvering thrusters firing on all warships in the Syndic flotilla,” Lieutenant Yuon called out. “Vectors changing toward hypernet gate.”

“There you go,” Desjani said approvingly. “He’ll wait until the last possible second to cut in his main propulsion, too,” she predicted.

“What if Boyens miscalculates?” Geary said.

“Then we punch some holes in the hide of that battleship to remind him that he should allow a little larger margin for error in the future.” She smiled at him. “Right?”