Jack Campbell - Guardian

“The Syndics,” Geary said. “But that comes back to the initial problem. How could slowing us down, or luring us into an ambush, possibly be worth the cost to the Syndic government of destroying almost their entire hypernet?”

“We can’t know the answer to that,” Rione said. “Even the presence of the captured Kick warship and the Dancer emissaries with us could not explain it. I agree that whatever led to this, it appears designed to force us to go to Sobek. We have to assume that something awaits us there.”

“But what?” Geary demanded. “The Syndics couldn’t possibly have enough warships to threaten this fleet.”

“They still have the gate at Sobek,” Desjani pointed out. “They could collapse it and wipe us out, along with the Dancer ships and Invincible .”

“Which would also render the hypernet gate here at Midway useless,” Rione said. “Since it would no longer be connected to any other gates. Yet such a strategy would be like committing suicide to prevent your enemy from killing you. Without the Syndic hypernet, the Syndicate Worlds’ government would have no hope of holding together what is left of their empire.”

“The Syndics have done stupid things before,” Geary said.

“Such as starting the war that only recently ended?” Rione replied. “That is true. But the CEOs ruling the Syndicate Worlds a century ago could have deluded themselves into believing they could win that war. There is no possible scenario in which the Syndicate Worlds today could survive the loss of its entire hypernet.”

He glowered at his display. The commanding officers of his ships were reporting that their crews were restless, agitated over the abrupt halt to their voyage home. Even if that weren’t a consideration, even if morale were excellent, it would leave the same dilemma. The only Syndic gate they could access was at Sobek. If they didn’t use Sobek, they would have to spend several months jumping from star to star to reach Alliance space again, opening themselves up to additional obstacles and dangers at every star. “What is your recommendation, Captain Desjani?”

Tanya made a face. “We have to go to Sobek. But we need to be ready for a fight there.”

“I agree,” Charban said.

“Emissary Rione?” Geary asked.

She took a moment to answer, gazing fixedly outward, then nodded. “I cannot see any alternative that is realistic. I agree we must go to Sobek.”

“We could wait here,” Geary pointed out.

“For how long, Admiral?”

“That’s my concern. If the gates except for Sobek are gone, sitting here won’t buy us anything. It will just delay our getting home. But I wanted to hear someone else say it so I’d know it wasn’t just my impatience talking to me.” He gestured to Tanya. “Captain Desjani, enter Sobek as our destination. I’m going to arrange the fleet in a combat formation.”

“Sobek entered,” she replied. “What do you think might be waiting at Sobek?”

“I have no idea. Maybe nothing is waiting there for us. There’s always a chance the enigmas figured out a way around the Syndic anticollapse gear, and Sobek somehow didn’t get the message.”

“If that were the case, Midway didn’t, either,” Desjani pointed out. “And Midway is the closest to enigma space.”

“Yeah. Sort of weakens that theory, doesn’t it?” How do I arrange the fleet to deal with an indeterminate threat? “Maybe we’d be best off staying in this formation and doing an evasive maneuver as we leave the gate at Sobek.”

“Maybe. Which way do you want to evade? You can be sure the Syndics are trying to spot patterns in which way you go.”

Geary hesitated, then looked at Charban. “Pick a number between one and three hundred fifty-nine.”

Charban raised his eyebrows in question, but after a moment spoke up. “Two hundred six.”

“Down and to the right,” Geary said to Desjani as he input the maneuver. “Is that random enough?”

“Asking a politician who’s a retired grand-forces officer? Yeah, that’s random.”

He got the fleet turned around again, accelerating toward the hypernet gate once more. “We’ll be just under point one light speed when we enter the gate. I guess I should tell Iceni what we’re doing.”

“Or you could let them guess,” Desjani suggested.

“Not this time.” Geary sent off a brief message to Iceni, then sat back to wait.

He felt a growing tension as the fleet approached the gate, wondering if Sobek, too, would suddenly show up as unable to access. That would leave two alternatives, neither of which would be good. Funny. I never wanted to go to Sobek. But now I want to get there very badly. “All units be ready for combat when we exit at Sobek. Any ship facing danger upon exit is authorized to fire immediately.”

Charban sounded worried. “What if the Syndics at Sobek have a picket ship at the gate? A HuK or light cruiser?”

“Then I’ll apologize for my fleet having destroyed that picket ship,” Geary answered with a glare at Charban. “I didn’t create this situation. They did.”

“They may want you to do that, Admiral.”

“I’m sorry, but you were right earlier. This smells like an ambush. I won’t tie the hands of my ships when we’re heading into something that stinks as bad as this does. Have the Dancers been warned?”

Charban shrugged. “As best as we can communicate such a warning, Admiral. Their ships are ready to enter the gate along with ours. I do want to talk to you about the Dancers when you have the time.”

“Here we go,” Desjani announced. She sounded cheerful, as she usually did when Geary decided to go weapons free on anything that looked Syndic. “Request permission to enter the gate, Admiral.”

“Permission granted.”

There was no disorientation like that felt going into jump space. The stars vanished, replaced not with the gray nothingness of jump space but by literally nothing at all.

Geary slumped back, wondering if he would see Midway again. “How long to Sobek?”

“Twenty days,” Desjani said.

They were going an immense distance even by interstellar standards. Long ago, it seemed, when he had assumed command of a trapped fleet in the Syndic home star system, she had told him that with hypernet travel, the farther you went, the less time it could take. It was still jarring to be reminded of that, and disturbing not to see the familiar if uncanny gray of jump space or see the unexplained lights of jump space growing and fading randomly around them. It’s strange how Nothing can be more upsetting to me than the weirdness of jump space.

Charban shook his head. “It’s hard enough for me to grasp the velocities that spacecraft travel within star systems. Tens of thousands of kilometers a second is just too fast for my planetary-surface instincts to visualize. What sort of velocity are we traveling now, to go such a distance in such a span of time?”

“We’re not actually going any speed at all,” Desjani said with a smile. “That’s what an expert told me.” Her smile slipped, and Geary knew why. Cresida had been that expert, and a good friend of Desjani’s. “We’re at one gate, then a bit later we’re at another gate, but, technically, we didn’t travel the distance between them. We just went from being in one place to being at another.”

“Does anyone actually understand things like that?” Charban wondered. “Or are we still children, surrounded by things we don’t really grasp and poking at a few of them to see what happens?”

“I don’t know,” Desjani said, turning back to her display, which now showed nothing but the situation aboard Dauntless . “I just drive a battle cruiser.”