Jack Campbell - Invincible

Instead, the enigmas were sitting only thirty light-minutes from the jump point where Geary’s fleet had arrived.

“They’re waiting for us,” Desjani said. “They knew we were coming, and they’re waiting to hit us. Why didn’t they try one of those ambushes like they did at Alihi?”

The answer came to him immediately. “Because they knew we were coming but didn’t have a precise enough knowledge of when we’d arrive. The enigmas at Hua did send out an alert, a faster-than-light message that we were on our way back toward Midway. That told these enigmas roughly when we would get here but not precisely enough to stage one of those ambushes at the jump point.”

That left another question, though, and Desjani zeroed in on it. “So if they knew they had some time, why haven’t they run amuck here, destroying stuff or getting close enough to destroy something knowing that we couldn’t get there in time to stop them?”

He looked from hypernet gate to inhabited world, from the inhabited world to the space-dock facility orbiting a gas giant one light-hour out from the star, from that facility to the Syndic flotillas elsewhere in the star system… Where do I go? I have to try to save— “Hell.”

“Does that mean you figured out the answer to that question?” Desjani asked.

“Yes.” He stabbed a finger at the display. “They want us , too. If they destroyed the hypernet gate, if they wiped out the human presence on the inhabited world and the orbital space dock, what reason would we have to stay and fight?”

“And they want us to stay and fight.” She nodded, grim now. “So they left everything intact that we want to try to save. That means they won’t just run, either. They mean to make sure not only that the front door is closed but also that we’re disposed of so we can’t go charging back into their territory. But the odds don’t favor them that much. They must intend doing something to ensure we get wiped out. And then…” She frowned at her display. “Three Syndic flotillas. Do we have to worry about those Syndics? Are they going to help us? Are any of them going to fight us? Or will they just sit back and watch us and the enigmas fight, laughing as their enemies kill each other?”

“The one thing I don’t think we need to worry about is the Syndics fighting us.” The need for haste weighed on him now, but he also knew that it would take his fleet five hours to reach the enigma force at its current velocity. Far wiser to figure out the situation in this star system, then act.

Desjani shook her head. “That CEO in charge of their ships when we came through here last. What was her name? Kolani. She was tough and mean. She’d love to fight us, even if that only meant finishing off our wounded after the enigmas had crippled us.”

Three Syndic flotillas—though all three were tiny compared to the Alliance and enigma forces. One battleship and two heavy cruisers at the orbital dock near the gas giant; another battleship along with six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and ten Hunter-Killers hovering near the hypernet gate; and two heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, and twelve HuKs on their way toward the gas giant on a vector that indicated they had come from near the inhabited planet.

“If the Syndics can gather all of their forces together, combine those three little flotillas—” Geary began.

“They’d have one little flotilla,” Desjani said. “If you add up the forces coming from the planet and the ones at the gas giant, not counting that battleship, you’d have about what the Syndics had here last time we came through. It looks like it’s been quiet here. Those guys near the hypernet gate must be reinforcements from the Syndic central government at Prime.”

“It’s not much,” Geary conceded, “but two battleships can’t be discounted.” He had barely finished speaking when one of the threat markers on his display altered, changing its message. “Assessed nonoperational? The battleship at the gas giant isn’t in fighting condition?”

“That’s what the fleet sensors say, Admiral,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed. “From analysis of the outer hull, it looks to be brand-new, but from everything the sensors can pick up in terms of activity and equipment, it’s estimated to still be under construction.”

“That would explain why it’s at Midway’s orbiting shipyard dock,” Desjani said. “The two heavy cruisers must be with it as protection, then.”

Lieutenant Iger’s face appeared near Geary. “Admiral, we’ve intercepted a message that was sent to the orbital dock near the gas giant from the Syndicate Worlds’ flotilla near the hypernet gate. We were close enough to the path of the transmission to grab it. The message identifies the commander of the flotilla near the gate as CEO Boyens.”

“I guess they didn’t shoot him,” Desjani said, sounding slightly disappointed.

“More importantly,” Iger continued, “is what the message said. We couldn’t break it completely, but we can say with confidence that it was a demand to surrender.”

It took Geary a moment to answer that. “Surrender? Was it aimed at the cruisers and battleship or the dock facility?”

“All of them, Admiral. We’re certain of that.”

“Who would be crazy enough to rebel with a battleship that wasn’t operational?” Desjani wondered. “So that force heading toward them from the planet is on their way to deal with the rebels there, too.”

“Perhaps not.” Lieutenant Iger spoke quickly. “Fleet sensors have spotted some indications of damage in several of the cities on the primary world. There’s repair work under way already, but the damage was extensive enough to still be apparent.”

“Bombardment by the enigmas?” Geary asked. “No. There hasn’t been enough time for a bombardment by that force to reach the inhabited world, hit, and repair work to begin.”

“That’s correct, sir. And there are no bombardment craters visible. It looks like the sort of damage that would be caused by serious ground fighting.”

Ground fighting. Who had been fighting whom? “Is there a civil war under way here?”

“No, sir. We’d have seen signs of that kind of fighting right away. Whatever happened is past.”

“Somebody won and somebody lost,” Desjani observed. “If the ships at the gas giant and the orbital dock are rebels, maybe they won there and lost on the planet.”

Iger was listening to someone with him and reading rapidly. “Admiral, there’s a lot of very unusual signal traffic in this star system, messages that predate our arrival and the arrival of the enigmas. That message from the flotilla led by CEO Boyens is in regular Syndic format, but the locals haven’t been using standard Syndic codes recently, though they still seem to be sticking to Syndic protocols. The news-media transmissions we’re picking up talk about ‘President’ Iceni and ‘General’ Drakon as if those two are in charge here. From the videos, those are the same people we knew as CEO Iceni and CEO Drakon.”

“Now we know who won,” Geary told Desjani.

“‘President’ Iceni”? Desjani asked. “Like someone elected her? Who are they kidding?”

“Wasn’t there another CEO on the planet?” Geary asked.

Lieutenant Iger answered. “Yes, sir. CEO Hardrad. I can’t find any mention of him in any of the current message traffic. Iceni was in overall charge of the star system, Drakon was the military ground forces commander, and Hardrad was in charge of Syndic internal security in this star system.”

Internal security. On a Syndicate Worlds’ planet, that meant a lot more than simply police. It meant someone who kept the population under control. But if Hardrad was gone…

“Hold on,” Geary said. “If the people running things here, Iceni and Drakon, revolted against the Syndics and got rid of Hardrad, then that flotilla with the working battleship in it, the one under Boyens’s command, might not have been reinforcements at all.”