The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

Commander Neeson was staring at Hiyen. “Have the Syndics developed some means of selectively blocking access to gates within their hypernet? Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know,” Hiyen admitted. “I don’t know that anyone has ever looked into it. Why would we?”

“Why would the Syndics have done that? Tried to develop something like that?” Badaya demanded.

“Oh, hell,” Desjani said with disgust. “The answer to that is aboard Dauntless, and has been ever since we got the Syndic hypernet key from that damned supposed Syndic traitor.”

Duellos looked pained. “Of course. As soon as we escaped the trap intended for us at Prime, the Syndics knew the Alliance fleet was loose with a key to their hypernet. We assumed they were trying to counter that by catching and destroying this fleet. But why would they stop at that? Why wouldn’t they also start trying to figure out how to limit the usefulness of the key to keep us from going anywhere we wanted within their hypernet?”

“They’ve been working on it ever since we escaped Prime,” Neeson said angrily. “And it never even occurred to us.”

“We won,” Charban said. “Why should we have looked for new capabilities?”

“We do not know the Syndics have done this,” Tulev cautioned. “It is a reasonable guess, I agree. But it is not confirmed.”

Geary looked toward Rione. She nodded, so he turned to face the whole table again. “We do know the Syndics conducted some new research into the hypernet. They developed a means to block the collapse of hypernet gates by remote signals, the sort of thing that destroyed Kalixa. I don’t know whether or not the Alliance has engaged in similar research.”

“We didn’t have the same incentive, did we?” Duellos asked. “We didn’t have a star system turned into a charnel house like the Syndics did at Kalixa.”

“The enigmas tried to do the same thing to Petit Star System in the Alliance,” Desjani pointed out.

“But they did not succeed thanks to the anticollapse device created by our late and very lamented colleague Jaylen Cresida. A star system without a hypernet gate is a far cry from a star system destroyed by its hypernet gate.”

Geary glanced around, but no one else seemed to have any suggestions. Is this somehow related to fleet headquarters’ attempt to pull anyone with hypernet expertise from this fleet prior to our departure from Varandal? I thought it might be to keep us from learning about the possibility of the entire Syndic hypernet being collapsed by remote signal, but was it about more than that?

Jane Geary looked up with a stunned expression. “Lakota. Didn’t you tell me, Admiral, that Syndic reinforcements showed up at Lakota and were surprised to be there because they had entered a different destination into their controls?”

“Yes,” Geary said.

“How much do the Syndics know about that? The Syndics at Lakota had time to report it, didn’t they, between the time our fleet left Lakota and returned to fight the second battle there? The Syndics would have learned then that there was some means of altering the destination of ships that had already entered the hypernet. What if they’ve been trying to learn how to do that as well?”

“This just keeps getting better,” Badaya said in disgust. “Our trump card, the ability to use the Syndic hypernet while they can’t use ours, is turning into a wild card.”

“Maybe the Alliance government is researching the same things,” Charban suggested. “Perhaps when we return to Varandal, we will find that countermeasures have already been prepared.”

There was a slight pause, then scornful mirth rippled around the vast, virtual table.

“With all due respect to your record as a ground forces officer,” Duellos said, “are you proposing that we should trust that our government has anticipated a problem and worked to correct it before it went nova?”

Charban had the good grace to smile slightly. “That does sound like a reach, doesn’t it? But don’t forget that the Syndic system is plagued by many problems, not the least being its own leaders, and still has apparently managed to produce some results.”