The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

“Planetary defense actions and ground forces support, usually. I was at Taroa for that op, where we helped kick the Syndicate out of that star system, too. General Drakon tapped us for this run because the Midway mobile forces—I mean, the Midway warship flotilla—doesn’t have many shuttles.”

The Alliance officers exchanged glances. “What was that about snakes?” another fleet officer asked. “You said you killed snakes?”

“Snakes. Internal Security Service agents. Syndicate secret police.” The shuttle pilot looked like she wanted to spit but refrained from the action. “They used to run everything. Always watching, looking over your shoulder, hauling people away to labor camps if you did anything wrong, or if they suspected you, or if they just wanted to. We killed them. Wiped them out in this star system.” She straightened, her gaze fierce now. “We’re free of them. We’ll die before we let them back in control here. Nobody owns us. Not any corporation. Not any CEO. Not anymore.”

“You’re not Syndics?” another of the fleet officers asked with obvious skepticism.

“Syndicate? No! Never again. We are free. We’ll die free before we become slaves of the Syndicate again.” She turned to go, then looked back at the Alliance officers, uncertain once more. “You . . . have my thanks.”

“Sorry we couldn’t tell you what happened to your brother.”

“You told me what you knew, and that’s a lot more than I knew.” She paused, then came to attention and saluted in the Syndic fashion, right arm coming across so her fist rapped her left breast. Turning again before the Alliance officers could decide whether or not to return the salute, she walked back toward the other shuttle pilots.

“Hey,” one of the Alliance officers called sharply.

The shuttle pilot jerked as if she had expected a bullet instead of a shout, then turned back to face them.

“Tell me one thing.” The voice of the Alliance officer was openly hostile, angry but also puzzled. “One thing I never understood. Why? Why the hell did you attack the Alliance?”

“Us? Attack? We did not—”

“Not now. A century ago. Why did the Syndicate Worlds start that damned war in the first place?”

This time the shuttle pilot just stared for a long moment, her face working. When her voice finally came out, it was half-strangled by emotion. “They told us you started it. The Syndicate. They taught us that we’d been attacked.”

“We didn’t—” the Alliance officer began hotly.

“No! I believe you! Our government lied to us about everything! Why the hell wouldn’t they have lied about that as well?”

She spun on her heel and stumbled back to the other shuttle pilots.

Geary glanced at Desjani, trying to judge her reaction, but Tanya wasn’t revealing anything this time. “What’s your impression?” he asked.

Desjani shrugged. “If she’s faking her feelings about the Syndicate Worlds, she’s a great actor.”

“I noticed that. When she talked about the, uh, snakes, it sounded like she had personally slit a few of their throats.”

“Why did they fight?” Desjani said in a low, angry voice. “They hated the Syndicate Worlds, they hated those snakes. What the hell were they fighting for? Why the hell did they kill so many people when they hated their own government?”

“I don’t know.” Or did he? “We know they thought they were defending their own people from us.”

“By attacking us?” Desjani asked, her tone now savage.

“They’d been told we were the aggressors. I’m not saying they were right, Tanya. I’m not saying they should have fought. Their own efforts kept alive the Syndicate Worlds that they hated. It was stupid. But they must have thought they were doing the only thing they could.”

“As long as you’re not excusing them,” she muttered.

“I lost a lot, too, Tanya.”

She sat silent for a minute, then nodded. “You did. Well, if I have to choose between former Syndics who now hate the Syndicate Worlds, or others like the Syndicate Worlds, the enigmas, and the Kicks, I guess I can give the ex-Syndics a chance.”

On Haboob’s loading dock, the turnover process must have been completed. The eighteen former prisoners who were leaving walked slowly in their own tight group toward the hatches leading to the shuttles.

And then the other three hundred fifteen former prisoners surged after them en masse, crying out a babble of pleas and shouts. The Marine guards, taken totally by surprise, jolted into motion, trying to stop the sudden mob with yells and threats. The doctors and technicians from both sides, as startled as the Marines, milled about, their own movements and cries adding to the confusion.

“What the hell is going on?” Geary demanded.

FOUR

IT took a couple of long minutes before the Marines, assisted by extra personnel who had been standing by in case they were needed, corralled the agitated former prisoners and shouted them into a tight group, shivering and whimpering but otherwise quiet. With the situation calmed enough, Dr. Nasr spoke to Geary over the bevy of voices in the loading area. “Admiral, we have a situation.”