The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

“We’ll find out some of the answers when we go through other Syndic star systems,” Geary said, “and when we get back to Varandal. Whatever state the Syndic hypernet is in, whatever the Syndics can do with it, doesn’t matter for us now that we’re this close to Alliance space. We’ll be using jump the rest of the way home, and it’s not that far. We don’t know what else the Syndics might try along the way, but they lost a lot of courier ships in the suicide attack, and a lot of elite special forces and stealth equipment in the attack on Invincible. They won’t be able to replace those easily, and they won’t be able to use them against us again or against their own people.”

“That’s not enough,” Captain Vitali of Dragon said. “We lost a battleship and her entire crew. To an unprovoked attack conducted without warning. We can’t lose sight of that just because of our speculations about the Syndic hypernet.”

The murmur around the table this time was more of a growl as the reminder of the circumstances of Orion’s loss generated renewed rage.

How do I respond to that? Geary looked over toward where Tanya Desjani sat. She was looking back at him with an aggravated expression, as if the reply was obvious, and he was taking far too long to come up with it.

Oh.

“It’s not the first time I have dealt with an unprovoked attack, conducted without warning,” Geary said. The reminder that he had faced the first attack of the war, a surprise assault that he had led a last-ditch defense against at Grendel a century ago, brought everyone up short. “The question is, do we do what they want us to do or what we want to do? Do we let them win, even though we beat them both times they attacked us here?”

The argument was logical but was warring against emotions. He could tell that his commanders, for the most part, wanted to buy into it but were reluctant to.

While he was trying to come up with points to reinforce his position, Captain Jane Geary spoke up. She had been quieter since the desperate fight at Honor, usually watching and listening instead of commenting, but now she spoke with an intensity that held everyone. “As long as the peace agreement stands, the Syndics are required to return all prisoners of war to us. They are required to allow us to enter their space in order to recover prisoners of war. Consider the cost to those men and women still trapped in Syndic labor camps if we play the Syndics’ game now.”

It was the emotional counterpoint he had sought, and Geary could tell it had hit home.

Badaya nodded firmly. “Captain Geary is right. We could kill every Syndic in this star system, and it wouldn’t free a single Alliance prisoner held elsewhere. Hell, we tried killing every single Syndic, and all we got for it was a hundred years of war. Let’s honor the sacrifice of Orion’s crew by vowing to recover every Alliance prisoner no matter how the Syndics try to provoke us. We’ll kill anyone they send against us and get our people back!”

This time, those around the table shouted approval, while Desjani stared at Badaya with the same expression of shock she would have worn if a rock had begun debating philosophy with her.

Geary himself barely managed to hide his own amazement at Badaya’s speech. “I could not have said it better. That will be our policy. We’ll get this fleet home, we’ll get Invincible home, we’ll get the Dancers to our home, and we won’t stop until we get all of those Alliance men and women held by the Syndics home as well.”

Tumultuous approval reigned on all sides. He let it go for several seconds, then called for silence. “The Syndics may try something else while we’re still here. Everyone stay alert. We’re expecting trouble at the jump point for Simur, but that doesn’t mean something else might not be out there. As you’ve seen, our path to the jump point is taking a wide detour from the direct route in order to avoid anything else lying in wait along the shortest-distance course. Thank you.”

His officers jumped to their fleet, some at the far reaches of the virtual table leading a cheer, then, with salutes and determined expressions, the images of the commanding officers began vanishing and the apparent size of the room shrinking in size.

He forestalled Badaya and Jane Geary from leaving, though, waiting until they were alone except for the real presence of Desjani. “I wanted to thank you both for having my back during that meeting. You spoke well, and you made some excellent arguments.”

“I owed you a few, Admiral,” Jane Geary said. “And my brother Michael is out there somewhere. We need to find him.” She saluted and vanished.

Badaya made a diffident gesture. “It just made sense, that’s all. The simple answers are appealing because they’re simple, but that means you have to look a lot closer at them, doesn’t it?”

“That’s been my experience,” Geary agreed.