The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

“Compartment delta clear. No nuke.”

“Compartment echo clear. No nuke.”

Geary slumped in relief, taking a deep breath. The Syndic commander had been bluffing.

Somewhere inside those five compartments, that Syndic lay dead along with the rest of those who had followed her into Invincible. Had Rione still been talking to the Syndic commander when Marine firepower had put an end to the commander and the negotiations? The alien warship had picked up more scars and more internal damage, but in every way that counted, Invincible was still intact.

Your attack failed, Geary thought, imagining he was speaking to the Syndic CEOs. How many times do we have to beat you before you stop trying?

—

THERE were still two captured Syndic nuclear munitions to dispose of. Geary looked at his display of Marine icons, choosing Corporal Maksomovic again.

Someone had vacuumed up a lot of the dust in the air created by the bounce grenades. Without that housecleaning, the dust would have drifted indefinitely like a slow-moving sandstorm through the compartments and passageways without working life support and made Invincible’s interior even more inhospitable.

Geary couldn’t see Maksomovic’s face, but he could sense the unhappiness of the corporal as he hung in midair right next to the Syndic nuke. How long had Corporal Maksomovic been babysitting the infernal device?

“Corporal.” Captain Smythe had linked in, too, and was speaking to Maksomovic. “Commander Plant is here. She’ll walk you through disarming the Syndic nuke. Do you recognize the munition, Commander?”

“Oh, yes,” Commander Plant said cheerfully, “I recognize it. A standard Syndic Mark Five Fusion munition. Mod . . . three. Exactly like the other one that we just disarmed while everyone else was busy wiping out the last Syndics. A really nice piece of weaponeering. The Syndics can do some good work.”

“Can we render it safe, Commander?” Admiral Lagemann asked as he joined the conversation.

“Yes. Of course. Mostly safe, anyway.”

“Mostly safe?” Corporal Maksomovic asked hesitantly. The corporal had to be intently aware that not only was he floating beside a nuclear weapon but that an entire bevy of senior officers had come to watch and listen to him.

“Absolutely,” Commander Plant said. “Do you see an access panel with eight fastenings near the top? There? That one.”

“This one?” The Marine corporal’s hand reached toward the indicated access.

“Yes. Don’t touch that one.”

Geary watched the corporal’s hand jerk back as if a cobra’s head had just emerged from the bomb casing.

“Try to find an oval access with five fittings. It should be about midway up the casing. That’s it!”

“Am I supposed to touch this one?” Corporal Maksomovic asked.

“Yes. Pull the fittings. Don’t worry. The Syndics hardly ever booby-trap those.”

The corporal’s armored hand, which seemed to be trembling slightly, pried open the fittings.

“Now,” Commander Plant continued, “pry open the access. Not the top! Bottom first!”

Corporal Maksomovic’s hand jerked back again. He was mumbling something inaudible as he reached for the bottom of the panel and popped it up. A mass of wires was visible inside, reaching from above the access and leading down to separate locations below its rim.

“All right,” Plant said, “reach in, grab as many wires as you can, and pull them out.”

The corporal’s hand froze in midmotion. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

“Reach in, grab as many as you can, and pull them out. One yank.”

“Uh, ma’am, I was sort of expecting some directions that were a little more detailed. You know, like find this one wire labeled this way that’s this color and carefully snip it without damaging anything else.”

“Oh, no, no, no. That would be way too risky,” Commander Plant insisted. “It’s much safer to just yank them all out at once. It won’t explode if you do that. Well, it might explode. But not very much.”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, this conversation is not doing my morale any good at all.”

“Trust me! I’m telling you to do exactly what I would do if I were there. The first one we disarmed didn’t explode, did it?”

Despite the commander’s last statement, the corporal didn’t seem eager to follow the instructions.

“Corporal Maksomovic, do as she says,” Major Dietz instructed.

“Yes, sir,” the corporal replied in the fatalistic tones of a man ordered to jump off a high cliff by someone holding a gun on him.

Geary watched the corporal’s armored fist reach into the access and gather a thick cord of wires in its grasp.

“I just yank ’em out?” Maksomovic asked.

“Yes,” Commander Plant said. “All at once. Give it a good, hard yank and pull as many as you can out of there.”

Geary noticed in the periphery of the corporal’s view that his companions were edging gingerly away, as if an extra meter of distance would offer some sort of critical defense against a fusion bomb going off this close to them.