Jack Campbell - Guardian

“You’re… probably right.”

He was saved from further comment by a call from intelligence. “Admiral,” Lieutenant Iger’s image reported, “the drones we have on the planet are spotting an unusual level of activity at and around the trigger location.”

Trying not to let that news rattle him, Geary looked at the images Iger was forwarding. “Is this some sort of alert? Extra security?” If the Syndics have picked up the Marines coming in…

“No, sir. As far as we can tell, it’s just extra traffic into and out of the trigger location. They’re definitely gearing up for something, but there’s not increased security activity. If anything, the sentries are being distracted by checking the visitors in and out.”

In a normal operation, that information and those images would be forwarded to the Marines. But not in a stealth op. That kind of comm linkage would all too easily betray the presence of the Marines. “Make sure General Carabali sees these images.”

“Yes, sir. The Marines should be on the ground now, so the lack of reaction by the Syndics is a good sign.”

Iger’s image had no sooner vanished than Rione’s image appeared. “I’ve heard from CEO Gawzi again. An explicit warning that if we do not go through with the pickup this time, there are no guarantees for the safety of the prisoners. That confirms how badly the Syndics want us to go through with this. The fact that it wasn’t CEO Gawzi speaking to me, but a digital avatar instead, confirms that the Syndic internal-security forces are calling all the shots now.”

“How certain are you that it was an avatar?” Geary asked.

“Completely certain.”

He didn’t question her assessment any further. Machines could be easily fooled by digital avatars, but people rarely were. No matter how perfect the illusion, people sensed something that couldn’t be detected by equipment. He had read speculation once that this skill had developed after the creation of nearly perfect digital-avatar technology, but no one really knew if that was true or if humans had always been able to feel the difference between the fake and the real.

“Gawzi may well be dead,” Rione continued. “Her level of nervousness in our last few conversations told me that she was very unhappy with the Syndic plan here. Maybe she attempted something to stop the plan. Maybe she was blocked, and the extreme horror of the information she could not divulge caused her to lose her sanity in fairly short order.”

Geary felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for the elderly Syndic CEO. Perhaps she had cared about the people in this star system, cared about them the same way that the manager at the facility near the gas giant cared. But she had been able to do nothing to help them, nothing to prevent tragedy. She had spent her life supporting a system which in the end had repaid her with callously efficient betrayal. Maybe she deserved such a fate for a lifetime of work in support of a system she must have known was capable of such deeds. But perhaps she hadn’t had any choice, and had done all she could to protect those under her. I don’t know. It’s not my place to judge her. If she’s already dead, that judgment is being rendered by those far wiser than I’ll ever be. My job is to make sure the Syndic plans fail. “Thank you for the update. The Marines should be on the surface. Keep your fingers crossed. They are running incredible risks.”

She nodded slowly. “They will have my prayers. As does everyone else in this fleet. Is it not amazing, Admiral Geary, what remarkable efforts some will go to in order to save the lives of their fellow humans, and what remarkable efforts others will go to in order to take the lives of their fellow humans?”

He was still fumbling for some kind of reply when Rione’s image disappeared. “Tanya, I was wondering at one point how to explain what’s going on to the Dancers. Now I’m wondering how to explain it at all.”

Desjani lowered a furious brow at him. “I should never let you talk to that woman.”

“She’s an emissary of the Alliance government!”

“And I’m… the commanding officer of your flagship! The first wave of shuttles is hitting dirt.”

The Marines would not need his personal oversight of what was becoming a routine for them, recovering Alliance prisoners under nonpermissive conditions. He could have tapped into the Marine command and control net, seeing events on the ground in the prison camp, but not this time. General Carabali will notify me if anything goes wrong on the Marine end, and the watch-standers here on Dauntless will tell me if anything happens to the shuttles.

Instead of focusing on that, Geary looked to other parts of his display. The four groups of Syndic warships had not yet moved. They shouldn’t move until it became apparent that the Alliance fleet was not playing the game as the Syndics intended, but those warships remained an unpredictable element. If they started moving before any other signs of problems below, it would be a sign that the Alliance plan was in trouble.

The Marine plan allowed half an hour for the scouts to assemble at the trigger location and infiltrate close to the entrance, and another twenty minutes to actually penetrate the installation and gain control of the trigger just before the fleet approached the region above the prison camp on its second orbital pass. If anything went wrong, Lieutenant Iger’s drones would spot the uproar before the Marines could report in.

“Loading first wave of shuttles. No problems reported with crowd control,” Lieutenant Castries called. “Prisoners report no Syndics in the camp or nearby for the last twenty-four hours.”

The fleet had crossed over the nighttime southern portion of the globe and was now climbing back over the sunward side. The shuttles, when loaded, would lift to meet the fleet as it crested the top of the globe and headed back down, on a path aimed to go straight over the prison camp in low orbit.

The Syndics plotting this attack must be watching the fleet’s movements like gamblers following each turn of a card. Just keep on going. Finish the orbit. Get into position. And then…

“Admiral!” Lieutenant Iger couldn’t suppress his excitement. “Look.”

Geary peered at the image of one of the Syndic sentry posts near the trigger.

The sentry wasn’t there.

“The sentry must have spotted something,” Iger explained, “and the Marines took them out before they could sound an alarm.”

“Why aren’t the sentry alerts sounding? Aren’t those set to go off automatically if anything happens to the sentry?”

“Yes, sir. They can be spoofed—”

The feed from the drone blanked for a moment.

“—but not for long,” Iger continued, as the drone feed came to life again. “The Syndics just lit off jammers, and our drone had to work around them.”

Extra security lights had flared to life near the trigger installation, and nozzles were pumping out a fine mist designed to reveal anyone in a stealth suit. Geary couldn’t hear alarms sounding but knew they must be. Syndic ground forces personnel and security guards were running about, weapons at the ready. “Where are the Marines?”

“We don’t see any being engaged by the Syndics, sir. That’s a good sign. It means they’re inside.”

Inside an installation of unknown design, with unknown security features, and an unknown number of armed defenders.

Geary’s eyes went back to his display. How long until the Syndic warships reacted? The Syndics would be rushing additional ground forces to the trigger site, trying to figure out what had happened, whether there was a real threat, how serious the threat was—

“Shuttles docking,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “The prisoners are being dumped into quarantined loading docks until full medical and security screening can be conducted. Screening on the way up didn’t find any threats in or on the prisoners. Estimated time to shuttles heading back down is two minutes.”