The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

The Syndics, their groups broken into individual warships, were fleeing all out on dozens of vectors. “We can’t catch any more,” Geary said.

Desjani, her face red with frustration, nodded. “Not if they keep running.”

“They will. Get your division back into formation.” He called Duellos, Tulev, and Badaya with the same orders, knowing the disappointment they would all feel. But you couldn’t beat the physics of time, distance, and available acceleration.

“Shuttles are docking,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “Estimate twenty minutes to complete recovery.”

Geary checked the status of Guardian’s shuttles, themselves rising out of the maelstrom of dust raised by the Alliance bombardment.

“Admiral?” General Carabali called. “My Marines and Commander Hopper recommend we flatten the trigger site. Commander Hopper says there is no chance the destruction of the site will set off the Syndic weapon, but destroying the site will seriously complicate attempts to rebuild the trigger.”

“Captain Armus,” Geary ordered. “Destroy the trigger site.”

Another barrage of bombardment projectiles dropped, these rocks bigger, falling from orbit onto the trigger-site building, which sat bizarrely almost undamaged amid the sea of wreckage around it.

As Guardian recovered her shuttles, the rocks hit the trigger site, producing a gratifying series of explosions that tossed debris high up toward the battleships and leaving twisted ruins and craters in their wake.

“Admiral, look at this,” Desjani urged.

Geary checked his display. The Syndic light cruiser that was the sole survivor of Group Alpha, which had left the group in time to save itself, had launched several bombardment projectiles.

A bombardment aimed at the larger moon of this planet.

Aimed at the luxury resort where the senior Syndic internal-security leaders in this star system had fled. If those leaders weren’t already in hidden deep shelters, they would have time to flee the resort in the available ships there before the rocks hit, but the bombardment was still a powerful symbolic act.

“I guess they had a mutiny,” Geary commented. “A successful one. I wonder if their ship had that remote power-core-overload device we saw at Midway, and if the Syndic crews are already figuring out how to block it. All units in First Fleet, rejoin formation. General Carabali, please pass on my personal admiration for the skill with which your force-recon team carried out its mission. Emissary Rione, now is the time to let the people of this star system know what fate their Syndic overlords intended for that planet.”

Desjani looked around her bridge, smiling. “Good job, everyone. I think we reminded the Syndics who’s boss. What now, Admiral?”

“We’re heading for Padronis,” Geary said, knowing his next words would be repeated around the fleet. “For the sake of the Syndics, I hope they don’t try to mess with us there.”

—

AS the fleet neared the jump point for Padronis, they watched the mutinous Syndic light cruiser jump through well ahead of them. “Looks like this jump exit is clear,” Desjani commented.

“We’ll go through carefully anyway,” Geary said. He turned at a sound and saw that Rione had come onto the bridge. “Have we heard any more from the Syndics?”

“No,” Rione replied. “Aside from two fragmentary messages using the avatar of CEO Gawzi that complained of unprovoked aggression, there’s been nothing else. They can’t complain about the warships we destroyed since they insisted those weren’t under Syndic control, and I suspect the Syndics in Simur are too busy with internal matters to pursue further complaints about events we were involved in.”

“Internal matters? Internal revolt, you mean.”

“Of course. There’s no telling who will win this one. We don’t know enough about the Syndic security forces here and what the locals might be able to muster. Did you want me to look into getting supplies from anywhere within this star system? Some of the facilities in the outer reaches of the star system might be willing to deal.”

“No,” Geary said immediately. “We don’t need anything they could provide, and there’s no source here we could trust. Even the people fighting the Syndic security police might see us as still just another enemy. In any case, I don’t want to linger here. That would just give the Syndics more time to prepare surprises at Padronis. What have you heard from the Dancers? Emissary Charban says the Dancers have been singularly uncurious about everything that happened here.”

“Yes. Strangely so,” Rione agreed. “Either they understood it all without our having to explain it, or it was so incomprehensible to them that they aren’t trying to understand it.”

Geary gave his display a glance as it beeped for his attention. “The last shuttle run is complete. I thought we’d never find room for all of those prisoners we liberated. Let’s hope we don’t have to go into battle with all of those extra people clogging our ships.”