Valiant

“But, nothing,” Geary broke in. “I know your superiors have already done a positive ID on me and confirmed who I am.” He sat down, trying to look totally confident, and gestured the CEO to sit again. After a moment, the CEO did, his body staying stiff. “It’s past time we stopped playing games, CEO Cafiro. These particular games have cost both the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds terribly in terms of lives lost and resources wasted in a war you can’t hope to win.”

“The Syndicate Worlds will not yield,” the CEO insisted.

“And neither will the Alliance. After almost a century, I assume everybody has figured that one out. So what’s the point? What are you fighting for, CEO Cafiro?”

Cafiro gave Geary a worried look. “For the Syndicate Worlds.”

“Really?” Geary leaned forward slightly. “Then why are you doing what the alien intelligence on the other side of Syndicate Worlds’ space wants you to do?”

The CEO stared at Geary. “There isn’t any such thing.”

Lie, Lieutenant Iger’s voice came to Geary like a whisper in his ear.

He hadn’t really needed that to know it was a lie. “I won’t bother going through all of the evidence we’ve acquired. Some of it the Syndicate Worlds probably aren’t aware of.” Let the Syndic CEO worry about that. “But we know they’re there, and we know the Executive Council of the Syndicate Worlds made a deal with them to attack the Alliance, and we know the aliens double-crossed your Executive Council and instead left you to fight us alone.” That all added up to a lot of educated guesses rather than known facts, but Geary wasn’t going to admit uncertainty at this point.

The Syndic stared back at him, and even Geary could spot the outward signs of his distress without the help of Iger’s equipment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Partial lie, but he also seemed shocked when you mentioned the double cross. He may not have been aware of that.

Geary gave the Syndic CEO a doubtful look and shook his head. “I understand your name is Niko Cafiro. Second Level Executive Grade. That’s fairly high-ranking.” CEO Cafiro watched Geary with obvious wariness but stayed silent. “High-ranking enough to be second in command of the flotilla we destroyed in this star system.” This time the Syndic’s eyes reflected anger and fear. “We’ve pretty much evened the odds, CEO Cafiro,” Geary stated. “The Syndicate Worlds can’t confront us with overwhelming superiority right now. We’ve destroyed too many of your ships in the last few months.”

He’s hiding something, Iger’s voice whispered. When you spoke of how many ships the Syndics had, it triggered a cascade of mental reactions.

Meaning what? That more Syndic ships than expected were actually out there, or that this CEO was just thinking about the battles in which the Syndics had lost so many ships and not wanting to show any reaction that might confirm Geary’s statement? “We’re close to the border with the Alliance,” Geary continued. “A few more jumps, and we’ll be in a Syndicate Worlds’ border system. From there we’ll get home.”

That finally drew an overt reaction. “Your fleet will be destroyed.”

“I’m going to get this fleet home,” Geary repeated evenly.

“Everything the Syndicate Worlds has left will meet you in one of the border star systems and stop you,” Cafiro insisted, though his voice lacked conviction. “This fleet won’t make it back to Alliance space.”

“Maybe they’ll meet me,” Geary agreed. “But the Syndicate Worlds haven’t had a lot of luck with stopping this fleet so far. Besides, you know as well as I do that I don’t need to get the entire fleet home to tip the balance in this war. I only need to get one ship back to Alliance space. The ship carrying the key to the Syndicate Worlds’ hypernet.” CEO Cafiro couldn’t stop a flinch. “You don’t know which ship that is. How are the Syndicate Worlds going to stop that one ship from jumping for Alliance space? And once that one ship gets home,” Geary emphasized, leaning a bit closer, “the Alliance will be able to duplicate that key, and the Syndicate Worlds will have to destroy their gates one by one to keep the Alliance from using them. It grants the Alliance a huge advantage, and you know what can happen when a hypernet gate is destroyed, don’t you?”

It had been a shot in the dark, but Cafiro looked away, visibly upset. “I thought Effroen should have been told.”

“Effroen?”

“The CEO directing the forces left to defend Lakota. She had orders to keep you from using the hypernet gate at all costs, but even though those of us with some inside knowledge of what had happened at Sancere were worried about what would happen if Lakota’s hypernet gate was destroyed, we were overruled.”