The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

But sometimes even he had to hold meetings like this, and at those times the software was a very nice thing to have.

“You’re all familiar with the situation,” Geary said. “The loss of Orion was a terrible blow, but her crew died with honor, doing their duty, and will surely be welcomed by the living stars.”

“A terrible loss,” Captain Duellos of the battle cruiser Inspire commented with unusual harshness. “We have lost too many comrades in battle. I wish Orion had been able to take more of the enemy with her and that we had more means of making pay those who ordered that attack. What a shame that the hypernet gate here was so badly damaged as well in that action.”

“Yes,” Captain Badaya of Illustrious agreed, his face reddened with anger. “But not enough of a shame. It’s too bad a few stray bombardment projectiles didn’t put craters into a lot of important Syndic facilities here.”

A low rumble of concurrence sounded around the huge, virtual table.

“Why not?” Commander Neeson of Implacable asked. “Why not make them pay a higher price? They attacked us. They destroyed Orion. Why not retaliate?”

Geary waited for another burst of agreement to subside instead of quelling it using the meeting software. Let them blow off a little steam. We all need to. “I haven’t ordered that kind of retaliation because that’s exactly what the leaders of the Syndics want us to do. They want us to break the peace agreement in such a way that they can claim we attacked them first.”

That statement brought silence, finally broken by Captain Tulev of Leviathan. “Why would the Syndics seek war with the Alliance again when the Syndics do not even have the military means left to force all of their own star systems to remain loyal to them?” Tulev sounded questioning, not challenging.

“Because they want an external enemy again,” Geary said. “The Syndic leaders know they can’t hold what’s left of the Syndicate Worlds together by using the force available to them, but they also know that fear of the Alliance provided a powerful reason for star systems not to revolt during the war. They think if we attack them, if the Alliance can be painted as an aggressive enemy that everyone must fear, it will again give the Syndic leaders a strong tool for keeping star systems loyal to them.”

Badaya shook his head. “That genie is out of the bottle. Even if we came rampaging through Syndic space bombarding right and left, the Syndic empire isn’t going to reconstitute itself.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” General Carabali said, her words coming slowly and carefully. “As weak as they are in the wake of the war, the Syndicate Worlds can still offer a greater degree of security to individual star systems than those star systems can muster on their own. That greater security against external threats and the promise of internal stability are the only things the Syndics can offer those star systems now.”

“It creates a choice of enemies again,” Duellos said. “At this time, with the Alliance at peace, the only enemies those star systems see are the rulers of the Syndicate Worlds. Their own rulers. Start the war again, and there are other enemies to worry about. It might work.”

“It might,” Tulev agreed. “If only a little. But from small advantages, large changes can grow over time. I see your logic, Admiral.”

Badaya was still angry, but he was thinking. “They are goading us to attack. Why would they do that unless they want us to attack? I see your point as well, Admiral. But it is still a very bitter thing to leave this star system with only the loss of their hypernet gate to avenge the loss of Orion.”

“I agree,” said Geary. “It feels like far too little. Yet the loss of the hypernet gate here will have a serious impact on the local economy, as well as on the ability of the Syndics to move military forces quickly.”

“As far as we know, this was their last functioning hypernet gate, except for Midway’s, which they no longer control,” Neeson pointed out.

“Yes, that’s why the Syndics here are so upset about—” Geary stopped speaking as he realized that something major didn’t fit.

Captain Hiyen grasped just what that was before anyone else. “Why are the Syndics here so upset about losing their hypernet gate if the only other gate they could access was Midway’s? The gate was already effectively almost useless.”

Emissary Charban had his eyes on the star display positioned above the conference table. “If they are that upset, it argues that the gate was still useful to them, that there were other places they could access through it.”

“We ran the checks,” Desjani insisted. “The only gate accessible was Sobek.”

Hiyen shook his head. “The only gate accessible from Midway when we tried to access the Syndic hypernet was Sobek,” he said, carefully emphasizing certain words. “We know that is true.”