has simply given the Syndicate Worlds the means to build nova-scale bombs in every system facing this unknown- to-us threat. It looks like a wall of defenses. It’s actually a minefield on an unimaginable scale, aimed at the people who think it’s defending them.”
“It’s more than that,” Geary replied. “I talked to Commander-blast it, Captain Cresida about what happens to ships headed for a hypernet gate that ceases to exist. Those ships might be lost, or they might be dumped into interstellar space a decade of travel time at least from any star. If the Syndics tried to rush reinforcements to that area, anything actually there would be destroyed by the energy discharge from the gates, and anything on the way would either be destroyed or eliminated as a threat for years.”
“Thereby eliminating a very large proportion of the Syndicate Worlds’ military capability? A retaliatory strike would be rendered impossible.”
“Yeah.” Geary tried to get his mind around the potential scale of destruction those hypernet gates represented and couldn’t manage it. “How are they keeping this quiet, Victoria? How can even the Syndics keep knowledge of this from spreading?”
“It’s a society that tightly controls information anyway,” she pointed out. “Add in the war to justify telling people to keep their mouths shut. On top of that, add the sheer volume of information available. It’s easy to bury important facts in a mountain of trivia. We picked up a tremendous amount of material at abandoned installations at Sancere. I’ve only skimmed small parts of it. I’ll keep looking, but I don’t honestly expect to find some information that proves all of this. The records we seized are all at or near the lowest level of classification. Anything regarding a nonhuman intelligence, especially a threat from such, would be very highly classified.”
“Meaning we probably vaporized any copies of those records when we bombarded the Syndic headquarters sites at Sancere. I almost wish we could go to this far frontier ourselves to find out for sure, go beyond that border to see what lies on the other side.” Geary realized he had been mentally tracing possible paths to the far side of Syndicate Worlds space without realizing it.
“That would be suicide,” Rione stated crisply. “Even if the fleet would follow you.”
“Yeah. I know. They wouldn’t follow me. At least, I hope not.” Geary leaned back, closing his eyes. “What can we tell anyone else about this?”
“Nothing, John Geary. Because, really, we have nothing but speculation.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I fear it.”
“Me, too.” Geary opened his eyes again, gazing upon the unfamiliar star systems of the far side of Syndicate Worlds space. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, already. I was told there isn’t recent intelligence about the progress of the war in the captured files. Have you found any?”
“No. It’s all old.”
Geary nodded, wondering again what had been happening on the border between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds. It occurred to him, looking at the picture from deep within Syndic space, that from the perspective of the Syndicate Worlds they might see themselves as being pinned between two other powers. Did that viewpoint cause the Syndicate Worlds’ leaders to feel menaced on two sides? “The Syndics told their own people that they’d destroyed this fleet in their home system. They surely announced the same thing to the Alliance, and the Alliance doesn’t have any way of knowing that’s a lie. Do you think they’d sue for peace?”
“No.” Rione let pain show momentarily. “Many in the Alliance warm themselves against the cold of endless war with hatred of the Syndics. They wouldn’t trust any peace terms offered.”
“We’ve seen they have grounds for that distrust. The Syndics have broken every agreement we reached with them and laid traps everywhere they could.”
“Which has worked against them in the long run despite any temporary advantage they gained, because now they can’t even get an agreement favorable to them because they aren’t trusted to abide by it.”
Geary nodded, his eyes on the star display. “Since we’re keeping a lot of Syndic warships tied up trying to catch us, the Syndics hopefully haven’t been able to exploit the current military situation.”
“You’ve destroyed more than a few Syndic warships as well,” Rione noted.
“This fleet has,” Geary corrected, “but still…I wonder what kind of battles are being fought near the border with the Alliance right now? Those Syndic sailors we captured who had fought at Scylla couldn’t tell us anything.” Were there elements of the Alliance fleet that had been left behind fighting desperate battles against long odds while the Alliance frantically tried to construct replacement warships and train replacement crews? How many of the warships guarding the border would be lost while the fleet under Geary fought its way home? “I’ve got a grandniece on the Dreadnought.”
Rione raised her eyebrows in surprise. “How do you know that?”
“Michael Geary told me just before Repulse was destroyed.” Just before his grandnephew sacrificed himself and his ship to help the rest of the fleet escape from the trap in the Syndic home system. “He gave me a message for her.” “Tell her I didn’t hate you anymore.” Not that I could blame him for hating Black Jack Geary, the impossible-to-match hero whose shadow had dogged him his entire life. Thank the living stars we had a few brief moments for him to learn I wasn’t really the Black Jack he had grown to resent. Does my grandniece hate me, too? What could she tell me of the family I lost to time?
“I hope you find her,” Rione stated quietly.
“You’ve never told me whether you have any family back home,” Geary noted.
“I have a brother and a sister. They have children. My parents still live. I have everything that was taken from you by chance. I hope you understand why I don’t speak of them much to you. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of forcing you to recall your own losses.”
He nodded. “I appreciate that. But feel free to discuss it if you want. Denying what you and other people have won’t bring back what I’ve lost.”
“You’re not very good at denial?” Rione asked with a small smile.
Geary snorted in self-derision. “I imagine I’m as good at it as anyone can be.”
“I disagree.” She indicated the star display. “You’ve found something the rest of us have missed. Or found reasons to avoid seeing.”
This time Geary shook his head. “We haven’t found anything. As you pointed out, there’s no proof here. Do you think people in authority in Alliance space will believe it?”
“That worries me less than the fact that we might have to tell them about the potential to use hypernet gates as weapons in order to explain it.”
He stayed silent for a moment. “You still think they’d use those weapons?”
“I’m not certain, but if the Alliance governing council knew, I couldn’t swear a majority wouldn’t agree to use the Syndic hypernet gates as weapons. My instincts tell me they would decide to use them.” Rione gazed at the star display, her face bleak. “And the Alliance senate would very likely muster a majority in favor if given the opportunity for a vote. Think of it, John Geary. We could send task forces to every Syndic star system within range of our frontier and blow the gates in them, then proceed on deeper and deeper into Syndic space, leaving a trail of utter devastation behind.”
“That wouldn’t work,” Geary corrected. “You saw what the collapsing gate was like at Sancere. The energy burst released would destroy the ships that destroyed the gate. It would be a one-way mission.”
She nodded, her eyes distant. “So we would construct robotic warships, crewed and controlled by artificial intelligences, and send them to destroy star systems. And because space is vast, the Syndics would have time to realize what we were doing, time for their spies to report, and they would retaliate in kind. Fleets of artificial minds shattering star systems and wiping mankind from the galaxy. What a nightmare we could unleash.”
He felt a tight, sick feeling in his gut and knew Rione was right. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump this kind of thing on you.”
“You didn’t have much choice, and your intentions were good.” She sighed. “I can’t ask one man to carry every burden in this fleet.”
“I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to share those burdens.”
“Ah, well, you’re a man, aren’t you?” Rione shrugged. “It’s worked out all right.”
“Has it?”
Rione tilted her head slightly and regarded Geary. “What’s bothering you now? Unless I miss my guess, that last wasn’t about Syndics or aliens or robotic slayers of mankind.”
He returned her look. “It’s about you and me. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on between us.”
