The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

He checked the orbital data. If the fleet held its current path, it would swing over the prison camp region again in . . . “One and a half hours. Tell her one and a half hours, then we’ll conduct the recovery. Make sure she feels confident we’ll go through with it.”

Victoria Rione also knew when not to ask questions but just do as he asked. “Yes, Admiral.”

What else could he do? “We have to look like everything is routine except for aborting the landing operation,” Geary said out loud. “Until we get the shuttles on board. Are there any orbital changes I can make that won’t mess up the shuttle recovery but will alter our track over the planet?”

“What are we trying to avoid?” Desjani asked.

“A region about seventy kilometers across centered on the prison camp.”

“Seriously? Swing our orbit a couple of degrees toward the planetary equator. That will actually assist recovery of the shuttles and allow us to skim the edge of that region you’re worried about.”

Geary gave the order, then sat staring at his display, watching the shuttles approach, the closest wave nearly back among the fleet.

“Admiral?” Desjani prompted.

“Admiral!” Rione said, as her image reappeared. “That Syndic CEO is more nervous than she’s been before. Very nervous. But she said they would expect us to conduct the recovery in one and a half standard hours. If I know why I’m lying, I can do a better job for you,” she added pointedly.

It would take half an hour, a very long half an hour, to get the shuttles recovered. Geary keyed in Carabali and Rione, then spoke so Desjani could also hear as he described what Lieutenant Jamenson had found.

“The entire landing force would be wiped out,” Carabali said grimly, “and every prisoner down there would be blown to atoms as well.”

“We’d take a lot of damage,” Desjani said. “It’s hard to say how many hits they’d score, but with our ships in this tight a formation encountering a dense field of powerful particle beams, we’d very likely lose dozens. Not to mention damage to ships that weren’t a total loss.”

“And they would blame us,” Rione said. “Count on it. The Syndic rulers on Prime would announce that we had bombarded that planet, causing all of that damage. No wonder CEO Gawzi looks so nervous. Her planet is about to be shaked and baked, and most of the remaining population killed.”

“An expendable planet in an expendable star system,” General Carabali agreed. “It’s logical enough if you’re cold-blooded enough. When will we be clear of this threat?”

“When we get the shuttles aboard and take a course away from the planet,” Geary said.

“What about the prisoners in the camp?” Rione asked.

“If Lieutenant Jamenson is right, the only way to keep those prisoners alive is to stay away from the trap. We either get the Syndics to lift them out to us, or we leave them.” The words had no sooner left his mouth than Geary felt bitterness fill him. Leave them. Leave Alliance military personnel taken as prisoners, who might have been held by the Syndics for several decades, who knew Alliance ships were here because of the Marine surveillance drones, who might have seen some of the Alliance shuttles high above them turn about and head back for space. “We’ll do everything we can to get them out of there.”

It sounded weak. It sounded bureaucratic.

I’m getting too good at saying bureaucratic things.

“Ten minutes to complete recovery of all shuttles,” Lieutenant Yuon reported.

“Admiral,” Rione said, “CEO Gawzi is on the planet. Do we know where other senior Syndic personnel are?”

“We know the senior internal-security officials have gone off planet.”

“Do you remember Lakota? Where a Syndic flotilla was ordered to destroy a hypernet gate at close range?”

“And not warned about what would happen,” Geary said. “Yes. I saw a former Syndic officer at Midway saying no one was warned by the Syndic leaders.”

Rione nodded, smiling unpleasantly. “You can be certain that the junior Syndic internal-security personnel holding guns on the CEO and other important officials on the planet, and the people who will trigger the weapon because that is too important to risk a malfunction in an automated system, have not been told what use of that weapon will do to the planet they are on. Perhaps we should tell them.”

“But the CEO knows?” Carabali asked. “Why wouldn’t she tell them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she knows it will be bad but doesn’t know how very bad it will be. Maybe she has had a mental block implanted to keep her from talking.”

“Barbarians,” Carabali spat.

Rione slid her eyes toward Geary, but instead of pursuing that dangerous subject, her next words referred back to her earlier statement. “Shall I work on an announcement to the people of the Simur Star System?”

“Yes,” Geary said. “But don’t send anything until I clear it.”

“What about the expanded formation?” Desjani asked.