Several seconds later, Cresida’s image appeared and nodded. “Just a moment, sir.” She looked to one side, her eyes examining something, then back at Geary. “Assuming they continue firing and destroying gate tethers at their current observed rate, my calculations indicate that it would take between twenty and thirty minutes more for the gate to begin uncontrollable collapse. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise, but it’s mostly theory since we just don’t have enough actual gate-collapse data to reference.”
Twenty or thirty minutes. And the gate was two and a half light-hours away. “So it probably collapsed a little over two hours ago.”
A few more seconds, then Cresida nodded again. “Yes, sir.”
“Is there any way to estimate the level of the energy discharge before it gets to us?”
“The energy pulse is going to propagate outward at the speed of light, Captain Geary.” Cresida shook her head. “We’ll find out when it hits us. Which could happen in about twenty minutes.”
There was very little time left to react. Geary spun to Desjani. “Get me a course directly away from the hypernet gate’s location.” While she was coming up with that, he studied his display, looking at the disposition of his ships and realizing he had no time to rearrange them.
“Port one four zero degrees, down one two degrees,” Desjani announced.
Geary slapped the fleetwide command circuit. “All units in the Alliance fleet. Immediate course change. All ships come port one four zero degrees, down one two degrees, and accelerate to point one light. I say again, immediate execute turn port one four zero degrees, down one two degrees, and accelerate to point one light. The Syndic guard force has caused the hypernet gate in this system to collapse, generating an energy discharge of unknown scale. The energy discharge is theoretically capable of a nova-scale level. In one five minutes all ships are to cease acceleration, pivot to place themselves bow-on to the Syndic hypernet gate’s location, reinforce bow shields to the maximum strength possible, and set maximum preparation levels for damage control and repair.”
He slumped backward as Desjani rapped out orders and
“I seriously doubt it.” Desjani frowned, then glanced around the bridge, focusing on one watch-stander. “Assessment? ” she demanded.
The watch-stander tapped a data pad frantically, then shook his head. “No, ma’am. As the burst expands away from the source, its single-point intensity is going to be dropping rapidly, but not nearly fast enough. A battle cruiser’s shields and armor, even at full strength, couldn’t withstand it even with maximum preparations. Destroyers, cruisers, they’d be totally overwhelmed. Battleships might have a chance at this distance. Not a big one, but some might make it through, though they’d be completely crippled.” He paused and tapped a couple of more times. “The battleships’ crews would all be killed by the radiation, though, after it collapsed their shields, so I guess it wouldn’t matter.”
Desjani blew out a long breath, then looked to Geary. “We’d better hope it’s not nova-scale.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” he agreed.
Desjani seemed to hesitate, then turned back to the same watch-stander. “What about the inhabited world in this star system?”
Geary stared at her. In his concern for the fleet, he hadn’t yet considered what would happen to that world. Yet Desjani had, or at least had realized that he would care.
The watch-stander rubbed his brow with one hand and tapped his data pad again. “There’s a lot of uncertainties. If the energy wave is nova-scale or anywhere near that, the planet will be turned into a cinder. If it’s something a great deal lower than that, the side facing the hypernet gate’s former location when the shock wave hits will be fried, but the sheltered side might be able to ride it out though they’ll face horrific storms. Whether the planet will be habitable after that is hard to say.”
“What about the star itself?” Geary asked. “What’ll be the effect on Lakota?”
“That’s impossible to determine without knowing how much energy will hit it, sir.” The watch-stander shook his head. “If it’s nova-scale, the star will be really messed up, but then no one will be left around here to care. Anything less than that, it’s just too hard to estimate. Stars have incredibly complex internal reactions going on constantly. They’re remarkably self-regulating, but even the most stable star has some variability in output. If I had to guess, I’d say that if this energy burst we’re expecting is at all significant, it will cause enough problems inside the star Lakota’s photosphere to make it experience more variability at shorter intervals.”
“So even if the habitable world remains able to support life, the star Lakota may render it uninhabitable in the near future.”
“Yes, sir. I can’t say that will happen, but I’d regard it as a probable outcome.”
Desjani frowned and checked her display. “That world is almost five light-hours from the hypernet gate and two and a quarter light-hours from this fleet. If we sent a warning message, they would get it in time to at least order people into shelter, though that’s unlikely to matter to those on the side of the planet that gets hit.”
The woman warrior who had once expressed regret that null-field weapons couldn’t be used against enemy planets was now willing to warn enemy civilians. “Thank you for thinking of that,” Geary told her.
“We need survivors, sir. People who can tell other Syndics that the Alliance fleet didn’t do this.”
Desjani was just being pragmatic, then. Or justifying her actions on pragmatic grounds. He wondered which it was. Geary’s eyes strayed back to the display of Lakota Star System. He looked at the data for the main inhabited world, at the representations of colonies on other worlds or moons, at the orbital facilities and the civilian space traffic that hadn’t yet reached a place where the crews could take refuge if the Alliance fleet sent warships after them. And at the clusters of small symbols that marked escape pods from Syndic warships and repair ships fleeing for safety. Hundreds, probably thousands of Syndic personnel in those escape pods, but Geary didn’t want an estimate of their numbers. They wouldn’t stand a chance if the energy discharge from the collapsing gate had any power at all, and there was nothing he could do about it. “I need a broadcast to the entire star system.”
How do you tell so many people that death may already be on its way? Geary tried to speak calmly, but knew his voice sounded bleak. “People of Lakota Star System, the Syndicate Worlds’ warships at your hypernet gate have opened fire on it to prevent its use by the Alliance fleet. By the time you receive this message, the hypernet gate will certainly have collapsed. When it does so, a burst of energy will be released, a burst which could be powerful enough to wipe out all life in this star system. If we’re fortunate, the energy burst will be much weaker than that, but it could easily be extremely dangerous to all human lives, ships, and installations in this star system. I urge you to take all possible measures in the very short time available to protect yourselves.”
Geary paused, then spoke slowly. “I don’t know how many of the humans in this star system will survive this. May the living stars watch over all here, and may their ancestors welcome all who die this day. To the honor of our ancestors, this is Captain John Geary, commander of the Alliance fleet.”
The silence afterward was broken by Victoria Rione. “They were already anticipating bombardment by us and taking shelter. Maybe that will help.”
“Maybe. It’s not going to help all of those Syndics in escape pods.” It only took the briefest look at the display to confirm that the Syndic escape pods were all too far distant for any Alliance ships to reach in time. “Unless the energy discharge is almost nothing, they won’t stand a chance.”
“Thank the living stars we already got all of ours recovered, ” Desjani murmured.
“Two minutes to turn, Captain,” the maneuvering watch advised.
The initial moves to speed away from the Syndic hypernet gate’s location had taken place ship by ship as Geary’s order reached them, the farthest ships turning last. But the next maneuver was based on the time Geary had sent the first order, and so exactly fifteen minutes after Geary’s message, the Alliance fleet turned as one, ship after ship swinging its bows to face the place where the Syndic hypernet gate still appeared intact but wavering as its tethers were blown away by the Syndic guard force. But the light showing that was over two and a half hours old, an image from the past. For well over two hours that gate had been gone, replaced by a discharge of energy of unknown intensity. The Alliance ships were facing the source of the energy burst with their heaviest shields and armor, and still heading away from it stern-first at close to point one light speed, which would reduce
