Valiant

“Yes, sir.” Desjani paused at the door and turned back to face him. “I wish to apologize for not trusting your assessment of Co-President Rione, sir.”

“That’s all right, Captain Desjani. It never hurts to have someone keeping me honest. And at least you’ll say her name.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Nothing. Please let me know when the rescrub of Dauntless’s systems is completed.”

Three hours later, every system in the fleet triple-scanned and certified as malware-free by security officers who knew their lives might well depend on not missing anything, Geary ordered the fleet to jump for Wendig. Despite a tight feeling in his gut as Dauntless entered jump space, nothing went wrong.

NINE

IT wasn’t hard at all to figure out why Wendig hadn’t gotten a Syndic hypernet gate, nor why Syndic records indicated the star system had been abandoned once the Syndic hypernet had been constructed. The only puzzle was why anyone had actually remained in the system. Only three worlds orbited the star, along with a mess of asteroids. Two of the planets were in distant orbit, frozen balls of rock orbiting more than five light-hours from the feeble warmth of the dim red star. The world nine light-minutes from the weak star had too little atmosphere, and what it did have was poisonous to humans, but it had once boasted at least two covered cities. Taking another look at the data, Geary decided that even at their biggest, “town” had been a better description than “city” for both of them.

Absolutely no other trace of humanity remained in the Wendig Star System. Now one of those towns was dark and cold, but the other was still inhabited even though many portions of it seemed inactive. “They, or their parents, might have been abandoned here when the Syndic corporations employing them pulled out of the system,” Desjani remarked.

“Yeah. I can’t see any other reason they might have stayed.”

“Captain?” The communications watch-stander gestured toward his display. “There’s a distress signal being broadcast. It’s from the inhabited world.”

That brought up unpleasant memories of Lakota. Desjani frowned as she and Geary both punched their own displays to bring up the signal.

It was audio only, a voice speaking with labored calm. “Anyone passing through or near Wendig Star System, this is the town of Alpha on the world Wendig One.” The corporate minds of the Syndic leaders hadn’t tended to grant poetic names to worlds or towns, Geary reflected for maybe the hundredth time, unless the names had been created for advertising purposes. “Our remaining life-support systems are at risk of imminent failure,” the message continued. “We’ve cannibalized everything left on this world to keep them working, but all resources are now exhausted. There are over five hundred and sixty remaining inhabitants who require emergency assistance and evacuation. Please respond. ” A pause, then a universal time and date register, then the message began repeating.

Geary checked the date on the message again. “They’ve been sending this for a month.”

“Anyone near Wendig?” Desjani asked. “They must know that no one would be closer than the nearest inhabited star systems, and this message will take years to get to those. Even then, it’s too weak to be heard across interstellar distances. Unless an astronomical researcher scanning that frequency band picks it up, it’ll go unheard, and researchers avoid bands used for human communication systems because they’re so full of noise.”

“Maybe these people have been sending rescue requests for years, then, which have gone unheard. Are they still alive?” Geary wondered.

Another watch-stander answered. “That city isn’t at a comfortable temperature for humans, but it’s still got some heat, and the atmosphere inside reads out as breathable. Their air-generation and recirc systems must be in bad shape, though, from the amount of contaminants we’re seeing on spectral analysis.”

Geary looked over at Desjani, who was grimacing. She noticed his regard and shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s not a nice way to die, sir. Even for Syndics.”

“Five hundred and sixty. Families, surely. Adults and kids.” Geary had the automated billeting assistant on his fleet database run the figures. “We could hold them.”

“Hold them?” Desjani stared at him.

“Yeah. Like you said, it’s an ugly way to die, slowly freezing and feeling the air get worse and worse. We could take them somewhere else.”

“But-” Desjani stopped and spoke slowly. “Sir, it’s the smallest drop in the bucket. Yes, it’s… tragic. Even though they’re Syndics. But that many people die in this war every second. At this very moment there’s a good chance that an Alliance world is being bombarded by Syndic warships, and thousands of our civilians are dying.”

Geary nodded to show he knew the truth of her words. And yet… “What was the Third Truth?”

She looked back at him for a long moment before answering. “Only those who show mercy can expect to receive it. It’s been a very long time since I heard the Truths recited. ”