The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

“I wasn’t counting on it. More like it can’t hurt to try,” Geary admitted. “You don’t see any hope for ending this with words instead of actions?”

Rione shook her head. “It might be the environment in there, or it might be the result of finding themselves cut off in a hopeless situation, but the woman I’m talking to isn’t giving any ground even though she seems rattled. It’s like talking to people with their backs to the wall. They know they can’t run, but they won’t give up. I was informed that you were willing to promise that we would treat them as military prisoners if they give up. I’m not so sure that you could make that promise stick once we returned to Alliance space, but that doesn’t matter because the offer did not make any difference. They don’t seem inclined to believe promises from senior officials.”

“Of course not. They’re Syndics. Did General Carabali tell you that there are indications they may been mentally conditioned?”

“Yes. I can’t say from my conversations whether that is true or not. It’s not really possible in cases like this to tell the difference between someone who had a mental block implanted and someone who is so certain she is right that she has blocked her own mind,” Rione added.

Geary ran one hand through his hair, considering his options. “Do you think they’ve really got a nuke, and if they do have one, do you think they’ll actually detonate it?”

“Those are good questions,” Rione said. “I don’t have good answers for them.”

What else? “Did you get the impression that they still expect some form of rescue? Do they know we’ve destroyed all of their shuttles?”

“They know what we’ve told them, Admiral. I doubt that they believe us.”

Geary nodded, feeling exhausted. “Keep talking to them. Please.”

“Since you ask so nicely, I will.” Rione’s mouth moved with distaste. “I will keep talking to them until the Marines kill them. Perhaps it will distract them and make the task of the Marines a little easier. Have you ever been speaking with someone at the moment they died?”

“No,” Geary said.

“Neither have I. Until today. I suspect I will soon know how it feels.”

He closed his eyes tightly, grimacing, after Rione ended her call. After a long moment, he straightened and refocused on the Marine situation map.

Aboard Invincible, the Marines had closed and tightened their spherical cordon around the area where Major Dietz had estimated the Syndics would be holed up, sealing off passageways and compartments on all sides and above and below the enemy-held compartments. On Geary’s image of Invincible’s deck plan, those five compartments were now marked as enemy-occupied. “We know that’s where they are?” Geary asked Major Dietz.

“Yes, sir,” Dietz reported. “We managed some recon, but with the Syndics still in stealth mode, it’s hard to get a good count. Our best guess is about twenty of them are in there, Admiral.”

“Good call on where they would hole up, Major. Do we know if they’ve really got a third nuke?”

Major Dietz flushed slightly at the praise from Geary, then hesitated. “Admiral, we’ve sent in gnat sensors, which were all we could get in through the bug-netting countermeasures the Syndics have hung across the accesses into there. The gnats aren’t picking up any extra radiation that would indicate the presence of a nuke. But gnat sensors are limited because of size and power issues, and if the Syndics have the nuke under extra shielding, it would be very hard to spot even with better gear.”

“What would it take to be sure?”

“To be absolutely sure? Fight our way in there and look, Admiral.”

Admiral Lagemann was studying the deck plan for the Invincible. “I was thinking about something,” he said. “We’ve got a good picture of how Invincible looks inside because it’s based on our patrolling of the ship and automated mapping drones. We’ve got a solid picture of the deck plan. Watch this.”

On the deck plan, dots began appearing. “Each of these,” Lagemann said, “is an indication of Syndic presence. If you look at how the detections develop, they show us where the Syndics went initially.”

“What are these detections based on?” Geary asked.

“Lamarr sensor spoofing and fragmentary indications picked up by other sensors,” Admiral Lagemann explained. “Not a perfect picture, but the best we can expect when dealing with stealthy opponents in an environment like Invincible. Watch the paths the Syndics followed. They converged on the decoy main engineering control and the decoy bridge simultaneously, using a variety of routes that in some cases must indicate backtracking because the Syndics knew nothing about Invincible’s layout. But, as spread out as they were, everything we spotted was headed for those two compartments. After they occupied the two decoy spaces, they spread out again and moved along this axis.”