The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

“Here goes nothing,” Corporal Maksomovic said, then tensed for his pull. The augmented strength of the Marine combat armor allowed the corporal to give a very powerful yank. A rat’s nest of wires came completely free in his armored fist, leaving broken ends and connectors inside the bomb.

A single spark flared among the torn components visible inside the access. Geary realized his breathing had stopped the moment that spark snapped. But when nothing else followed, he managed to draw a deep breath.

The Marine corporal sounded as if he hadn’t been breathing, either. “Now what, ma’am?”

“Recycle the wires,” Plant replied, as if she had been directing the repair of nothing more hazardous than a balky bicycle. “I’d recommend putting the munition on a lifter and tossing it out the nearest air lock. You might still get a little explosion out of it, and there’s no sense risking that.”

“A little explosion?” Admiral Lagemann asked, clearly wondering what level of violence the munitions engineer would classify as “little.” But if he meant to ask, he changed his mind. “Do you need it for any kind of study or exploitation?”

“No, thank you, Admiral. We’ve captured a few of these. I doubt there’s anything we could learn from this one.”

“There aren’t any technical issues we could glean from it,” Captain Smythe corrected, “but we should still examine both nuclear munitions for any serial numbers or other data that might link them to a particular Syndic source. If you don’t object, Admiral Geary, I’ll have a shuttle sent over from Tanuki to collect both disarmed munitions.”

“Admiral Lagemann?” Geary asked.

“I think I speak for everyone aboard Invincible when I say we can’t get rid of those nukes any too soon,” Lagemann replied. “Captain Smythe is welcome to them.”

“Good work, Corporal,” Major Dietz said to Maksomovic.

“Thank you, sir. I’ve gotta confess, I would have been pretty nervous if the timer had been counting down while I was working on that thing,” Maksomovic admitted, as if he hadn’t actually been nervous as it was.

“The timer?” Commander Plant asked, surprised. “Oh, you wouldn’t have to worry about that. The timers on these Syndic munitions are fakes. As soon as you arm the weapon and activate the timer, the weapon goes off immediately.”

A long pause followed her words.

“Really?” Admiral Lagemann finally asked. “I’d heard rumors about that, but . . .”

“The rumors are true. Think about it, Admiral. You’ve got a target important enough to smuggle a nuke into it. Are you really going to risk having someone come along and deactivate the weapon while its timer is running?”

“What happens to whoever set the weapon and activated the timer?”

Commander Plant sounded puzzled by the question. “They’re standing next to a fusion event, Admiral. They don’t even have time to know what hit them before they’re gone. And I do mean gone. There’s nothing left. Plasma, maybe. Some charged particles. That’s it.”

“But . . .” Corporal Maksomovic said slowly, “we’ve got munitions like this.”

This time the pause was even longer and more awkward.

“We’re not the Syndics!” Captain Smythe declared with what seemed an excessive amount of jovial nonchalance. “Let’s stop all this chatter and get that disarmed weapon out of there, shall we?”

Recalling the old saying about not asking questions that you don’t really want to know the answers to, Geary exited the link and looked at Desjani. “All right. The situation is completely secure aboard Invincible. Let’s get back into a regular formation and head for the jump point for Simur. What kind of route to the jump point did you work up?”

She grinned as she sent his display the planned maneuver.

Geary looked at it, looked again, then nodded appreciatively. “Instead of cutting across the edge of the star system, you want to dive toward the star, then loop back up to the jump exit?”

“It adds about a light-hour to the trip, but there’s no way they’ll have any surprises along that path,” Desjani predicted.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have gone that far off the optimal trajectory, which might have given the Syndics here a chance to adjust another attack. We’ll go with this. There’s one more thing I have to check before we head out, though.”

He called Captain Smythe again. “We’re getting ready to leave this area. Have your engineers completed their inspection of the hypernet gate?”

Smythe sighed heavily. “Yes, Admiral, and I regret to say that the gate was damaged extensively. Oddly enough, the damage could only be detected by a very close examination, but it is serious enough and extensive enough that the hypernet gate will begin to collapse . . . thirty-seven minutes and twenty seconds from now.”

“That’s a remarkably precise estimate,” Geary said.