“It’s the only assessment that matches the message traffic, sir,” Iger stated miserably. “We wanted to find something else to explain it. But nothing else matches.”
“Fair enough.” Geary stood up. “Good job on the analysis and good job on telling me the truth as you think it is. But you did miss something.”
Iger looked even more worried. “What was that, sir?”
“You told me that there’s no way to change the destination of ships in a hypernet in midjourney. If the intelligence you collected is right, and I know of no reason to doubt it, then there must be such a way. We just don’t know what it is.”
Iger looked startled, then nodded, then appeared puzzled. “But if the Syndics know a way to do that, why were they so surprised to arrive in a different star system?”
“Maybe the Syndics don’t know how to do it, either, Lieutenant.” Geary paused to give Iger time to absorb the implications of that. “Is there anything you have that I don’t have access to? Any information deemed too sensitive for me to see?”
“No, sir,” Iger stated immediately. “As fleet commander you have access to everything. I can’t speak for files off of this ship, but anything on this ship is available to you, regardless of classification and other restrictions.”
There was a star display floating near one bulkhead. Geary went over to it and gazed into its depths. “Lieutenant, are you aware of any information that indicates or speculates that another intelligent species exists on the far side of Syndic space from the Alliance?”
He turned back to see Iger staring at him. “No, sir,” Lieutenant Iger stated in a surprised voice. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Geary nodded again. “Do me a favor, Lieutenant. Pull up the data that we’ve captured that provides information on the far side of Syndic space. Plot in occupied star systems, abandoned star systems, and hypernet gate placements. Then tell me what you think.”
Iger was staring at the star display now. “Have you already done that, sir?”
“I have. I want to see if you reach the same conclusion I did.”
RIONE was in his stateroom when Geary returned. She stood and gave him a searching look. “It didn’t quite feel the same in here without you slouched in a chair radiating gloom. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“So Captain Desjani was able to give you something I couldn’t.”
“That’s…she helped. You and she both helped.”
“Uh-huh.” Rione sat back down, looking tired. “Good, anyway. Whatever did it. I was about to the point of standing over you and slapping you until you moved.”
“I might have started to like it,” Geary replied.
“A joke? You’ve gone from immobility to jokes?”
“Not really.” He sat down near her and made an uncertain gesture. “I don’t really understand how it worked, but responsibilities can weigh you down, or they can make you move. Sometimes both. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does,” Rione agreed, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. “Where were you?”
“I just came from the intelligence offices.” Geary called up a star display and explained what Lieutenant Iger had told him, Rione listening but giving little clue to her reactions. “How do you think that large formation of Syndic ships arrived in Lakota via hypernet in time to nearly destroy us?” he asked at the end.
Rione sat silently for a few moments, her eyes on the star display. “So it wasn’t exceptionally bad luck. It seems our unknown aliens have chosen to side with the Syndics. I warned you they wouldn’t let you win.”
“I’m not getting any closer to winning! I’m still focused on survival and not sure how long I can manage that.”
“Have you considered all of the implications of this?”
“Of course I have!” He glared at her, then paused to think. “Which implications?”
Rione gestured to the star display. “How did our increasingly less-hypothetical alien intelligences know that this fleet was headed for Lakota so that they could divert that Syndic fleet to there?”
Geary felt his guts tighten. “Either they have some means of detecting the movements of fleets in roughly real time across interstellar distances, or they have a spy in this fleet. Do you think they look human enough to pass?”
“If they aren’t indeed human. Or perhaps they’ve hired agents to spy for them. Or maybe the spy isn’t even living but a worm inserted in fleet systems to report on our activities.”
Geary nodded. “Those are possibilities, and frankly more believable for me than anything that can see across light-years of distance without any time delay. If those…whatever they are can do that, then the human race is very seriously outclassed in technology. Unpleasant though the thought is, I prefer believing that some kind of spy is providing that information.” He paused to think. “Obviously your spies in this fleet have never found signs of alien spies, or I’m sure you would have told me.”
Rione uttered a heavily exasperated sigh. “My spies are aware of many different spies working for many different people. But many informants remain unseen, I’m sure, and the identities of most of the employers of those spies we know of remain uncertain at best. Now, the next implication. How did this spy get the information to the aliens in time for them to act?”
Geary stared at her. “I should have thought of that. The only way they could’ve is if these beings have a means of faster-than-light communications that doesn’t involve using a ship to physically transport the message.”
“We’ve speculated the hypernet gates could allow that somehow.”
“Yeah…but there wasn’t a hypernet gate in Ixion, which is where we decided to go to Lakota. We haven’t been in a star system containing a hypernet gate since Sancere, and that gate was destroyed before we left.”
“True.” Rione made a face. “A faster-than-light transmitter small enough to remain undetected on one of our ships. How much more technologically advanced than we are these alien intelligences?”
Geary was staring at the starscape when another realization hit. “Damn.”
“What?”
“The worst implication of all, maybe. We’ve been hoping to find a Syndic hypernet gate poorly enough defended to allow us to use it to get close to Alliance space.”
She nodded.
“But now we can’t, not even if one is sitting totally undefended.”
Rione got it then, digging her fingernails into her palms. “If we enter the Syndic hypernet system, and these aliens can redirect any ships within that system…”
“We could end up anywhere. Instead of arriving in our planned destination next to the border with Alliance space, we might come out on the opposite side of Syndic space. Or in a system where the entire Syndic fleet is gathered waiting for us again.”
“Or somewhere not even on the Syndic hypernet?” Rione wondered. “That’s not supposed to be possible, but it seems a number of impossible things must already be happening.”
Geary sat down, leaning back in his seat and trying to get his mind around all of the things that it seemed must be true. “I don’t get it. Say they’ve got those capabilities, and they must have some of that. Why would they tip their hands this way? Let us know they have those abilities?”
“Perhaps because the highest levels of the Syndic leadership already know about them and will know who caused their fleet to arrive at Lakota instead of Andvari.” Rione shook her head. “As for us, the aliens don’t expect us to survive or perhaps even guess what really happened. But I’m still surprised they gave away knowledge of such capabilities to us.”
“Maybe because it doesn’t do us any good? We’re still trapped.” Geary felt anger growing. With all the problems he faced already, it wasn’t fair to have aliens jump in and make things worse. That was ridiculous grounds for being mad, but it just wasn’t fair, and it made him mad as hell. “This fleet must get home the hard way or not at all. And it is going to get home.”
Rione gave him a disbelieving look, then smiled. “From despairing to determined. This has been a good day for mood changes as far as you’re concerned.” The smile faded, and she frowned slightly. “There’s a possibility we haven’t considered.”
