The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian Page 5

  “They know where we have to go,” Lagemann pointed out. “They can plant stealth shuttles along the route from a hypernet gate to a jump point and just latch on as we pass.”

  “There wouldn’t be much opportunity for that along the route from here to Varandal,” Geary began, then stopped as a memory came to him. “CEO Boyens strongly implied that obstacles would be established to keep us from getting back easily.”

  “Any idea what or how?”

  “No. What could a boarding party do?”

  Major Dietz answered again. “Standard practice when boarding a ship is to head for the three vital control centers. The bridge, main engineering control, which also controls the power core on the ship, and weapons control.”

  “There isn’t any main engineering control on this ship,” Geary said, reaching for another grip and pulling himself farther along the passageway, “unless you found one and didn’t tell me.”

  He could hear Lagemann’s grin. “Nope. There are eight power cores, and eight control stations. Why? Our engineers say it’s not efficient. Two big cores would have worked better. But that’s what the Kicks did. All of the cores are fully shut down and none of the control stations are operational. At least, not by humans. Who knows what a Kick could do? And all main propulsion systems were blown to hell during the battle at Honor, so even with power, Invincible can’t do any serious movement under her own propulsion.”

  “There are two operational weapons left,” Major Dietz offered. “Particle beam projectors similar to our hell lances. But both lack power. They’re useless even if someone could find the right control station for them.”

  “And the bridge is also useless,” Geary said. “Right?”

  “Right, sir. We still don’t understand that stadium seating in the back of it, but none of the controls are powered and working. It’s all dead.” Dietz made an annoyed sound, as if unhappy that he had used that term while it felt like Kick ghosts were hovering around.

  “Then what’s the threat? I’m not discounting the impact on you if an attack force boards, but how can they take Invincible? All you have to do is hold out until we put reinforcements aboard.”

  Admiral Lagemann waved one hand around them. “The threat is to the most valuable thing in human history. What can you do to keep someone else from using it, from learning from it, from putting aboard new forces to contest your control of it?”

  The ghosts felt like they were crowding closer as the answer came to Geary. “Threaten to destroy it?”

  “Give that man a prize. If they bring nuclear weapons aboard and set them off inside, they could turn this invaluable alien artifact into a giant stubby tube of armor containing radioactive slag. What would we do to keep them from doing that?”

  He hated to think of the compromises that situation might require. Perhaps even surrendering Invincible to keep her interior intact in the hopes that she could be recaptured. “You think this will happen?”

  “We think,” Major Dietz said, “that it’s the only possible way to threaten our control of this ship. But they’d have to eliminate my Marines to prevent us from stopping them from carrying out that kind of threat.”

  Geary shrugged irritably, trying to ward off the ghosts his senses claimed were bunching around him as he moved. “Do you want reinforcements now?”

  “We can’t use them, Admiral,” Dietz explained. “The safe area on Invincible can’t support many more humans. We’re better off with a smaller force that knows the ship fairly well and can hit attackers where they least expect it.”

  “And where would they least expect it?” Geary asked.

  “If they come, they’ll be Syndics. Or people who were trained as Syndics. That means they’ll follow standard procedures in their planning.”

  Geary shook his head. “Surely they realize that the deck plan for this ship doesn’t match anything built by them or the Alliance.”

  “Yes, sir,” Major Dietz said, then continued in very diplomatic tones for a Marine. “These plans will be very important. They’ll be drafted by the Syndic high command. Not by any field forces. By the highest-ranking CEOs in the Syndic military hierarchy.”

  “Which means,” Admiral Lagemann added, “that any relationship between reality and those plans will be purely coincidental.”

  “That’s the way it tends to work,” Geary agreed. “Those high-ranking planners far from the scene of the operations will use standard assumptions, so any attack force will come in and try to locate the three critical areas. I have to admit I have trouble believing that they could manage a boarding operation without our spotting it.”

  “It is possible, sir.” Major Dietz spoke with authority but no hint of boastfulness. “As I said, lurking at full stealth near the path they expect us to use, so they’d only have to use minimal power to bring about an intercept. I’ve done it to their ships. I’m force recon, Admiral.”

  “I see. That makes you a much bigger expert on the matter than I am.” The group had reached another temporary air lock blocking their path. “What is this?” Geary asked.

  “The fake main engineering control,” Admiral Lagemann advised.

  “You’ve made a fake main engineering control?”

  Lagemann opened the air lock and stepped inside.

  Geary blinked at the lack of clean atmosphere on the other side of the air lock. “A fake air lock, too?”

  “Naturally.” Lagemann waved around him. “This was some kind of Kick recreational area, we think. Mostly empty except for what looks like sport equipment sized for Kicks. General Carabali sent over two Persian Donkeys at the request of Major Dietz.” Lagemann pointed to a squat device resting in the center of the space. “Here’s one of them. Have you been briefed on what the Donkeys do, Admiral?”

  “Yes. We used them at Heradao.” Geary came closer to the device, which didn’t look at all like a real donkey. “Marine deception gear. They can send out full-spectrum signals and signatures to mimic just about anything.”

  Major Dietz nodded. “Anything from a headquarters complex to a dispersed armored ground forces unit on the advance,” he said. “Each Donkey isn’t very big, but they each carry scores of little subdecoys that can be sent out and generate all kinds of signatures that someone is there. Communications, bits of spoken conversation, infrared signatures, seismic thumps to match steps or equipment moving, other sounds of weapons and other equipment, you name it. This particular Donkey has been set to generate fake indications that this compartment is full of power-core-control equipment and people operating that equipment.”

  “Nice,” Geary approved. “Where’s the other Donkey?”

  “In the compartment a ways from here that will look like a bridge area to Syndic sensors,” Dietz said a trifle smugly.

  Geary smiled despite the sense of disapproving ghosts hovering nearby. “A fake bridge and a fake main engineering control. These Donkeys will lure anyone sneaking onto the ship toward a place where you aren’t. Can you spot them moving here?”

  “If they’re in full stealth mode?” the Major asked. “Not easily, sir. That’s why we’ve got all of the approaches to these areas laced with sensors to spot anyone coming in. We can’t cover the whole ship with what we’ve got, but we can cover the two areas that are baited.”

  “Sensors can be defeated,” Geary said, recalling some of the things he had seen Marines do during their operations. “Can the Syndics spot your sensors and disable them or spoof them?”

  Major Dietz definitely sounded smug this time. “They can, Admiral. But we have a sergeant who’s a bit of a tech genius in her spare time. She’s always fiddling with stuff. Sergeant Lamarr came up with decoy sensors.”

  “Decoy sensors? Fakes?”

  “No, sir. Much better than fakes. They look just like regular sensors of certain types. Externally, no matter how good you check them, they look like regular sensors, and if they’re active, they send out the same indications. But inside, the guts aren’t designed to do what that
sensor would do. Instead, they’re designed to detect all of the ways that type of sensor could be bypassed, spoofed, or disabled without alerting people.”

  Geary almost laughed. “They are designed to detect nothing but methods of defeating sensors? Methods which can usually be undetectable?”

  “Exactly, sir. Normally, that sort of stuff is piggybacked onto the sensors, which means it has limited capabilities since it’s a secondary function. But on a Lamarr sensor, it’s the primary and only function. A Lamarr sensor can’t spot anything unless someone messes with it.”

  “There’s a risk with using those,” Lagemann added. “If you put one of those Lamarr sensors on a hatch, and someone just opens the hatch, you don’t get any warning. But if someone spots the sensor and tries to defeat it before opening the hatch, you are sure to know. Oh, actually there are two risks. They’re unauthorized and unapproved modifications to existing equipment. We could get slapped on the wrists by fleet headquarters.”

  Geary let out an exasperated sigh. “Sergeant Lamarr’s chain of command hasn’t approved that type of sensor?”

  “Up to a certain point,” the Major said. “All field commands approved. But when it hit headquarters and the design-and-acquisition bureaucracy, it got shot down.”

  “Surprising, isn’t it?” Admiral Lagemann murmured.

  “Shocking,” Geary agreed dryly, thinking of the problems he had been having with fleet headquarters. As much as he looked forward to getting this fleet home, he also dreaded having to deal with fleet headquarters again. “As fleet commander, I hereby officially authorize a field test of modified equipment required in light of unique circumstances. I can do that, can’t I?”

  “I think so, but you don’t have to attract their wrath,” Lagemann protested. “I’m retiring the day we get home, so I have no problem having my name attached to the sensors.”

  “I think Sergeant Lamarr has her name attached to the sensors.”

  “That’s true. Rightly so. In any event, the good ship Invincible,” Lagemann said, patting the nearest bulkhead affectionately, “is ready for any attempt to prevent her from reaching Alliance territory. You’ll keep warships away, and if the Syndics do the only thing that might work and come aboard by stealth, we’ll handle them.”

  “Good job. Very good job.” He hadn’t considered the possibility of Invincible being boarded, hadn’t had time or the leisure to think about such a threat, but that was why a commander needed good subordinates. And the effort of putting together these fake command nodes on top of the routine patrolling had kept Major Dietz’s Marines occupied instead of bored. There are two things that worry me the most, one of Geary’s former commanding officers had once said. The first of those things is the great minds at fleet headquarters and whatever they might decide is a good idea. The second thing is bored Marines and what they might decide is a good idea.

  The zero-g swim/pull back to the human-occupied portion of Invincible seemed much longer than the trip to the fake main engineering control. Without Admiral Lagemann and Major Dietz explaining their concerns and plans, Geary had nothing to distract him from the strange feeling of invisible others gathering around. He had to repeatedly fight down an urge to spin and look behind him as the skin between his shoulders crawled. A sense of being unwelcome, an intruder, seemed to fill the toxic air about him. If this was some normal Kick equipment, they could endure things humans could not. If it was a countermeasure to keep enemies from enjoying their conquests, it was fiendishly effective.

  Invincible was not a happy ship. Usually that referred to the morale of the crew, but in this case the sailors and Marines were doing well enough. It was the ship herself that felt surly and ill-tempered.

  Shuttle pilots usually left their hatches open into the ship while waiting for passengers to return, often coming out to stretch their legs and chat with any personnel at the air lock, but this time the pilot had stayed inside the shuttle and sealed the inner and outer hatches. Geary had to wait a few moments for the hatches to reopen and spent that time talking with the squad of Marines on sentry duty here. Normally an air lock like this might have one or at most two Marines guarding it, but after moving through the passageways of Invincible, Geary didn’t feel like questioning the number of sentries.

  “Something about the air in the ship’s lock didn’t feel right,” the pilot apologized by intercom to Geary as he took a seat in the passenger deck.

  “Did your sensors spot contaminants?” Geary asked the pilot, already guessing the answer would be negative.

  “No, sir. Readouts said everything was fine. But it didn’t feel right,” the pilot repeated. “I thought it was better to keep the hatches closed until you got back.”

  “You didn’t feel like looking around an alien warship?” Geary pressed.

  “No, sir. That is, yes, sir. I was thinking about that, and the Marines there urged me to go ahead and wander around a bit, but when I went close to the air lock leading into the ship I . . . uh . . . it didn’t feel right. Especially since those Marines seemed real eager for me to go in on my own.”

  Bored Marines. Definitely something to worry about.

  —

  THE number of people in the fleet who knew the precise reason why the fleet would remain at Midway for the next couple of weeks was limited to four—Geary, Desjani, Rione, and Charban. Continued repair work provided justification for the delay, but feedback to Geary from his commanding officers and the senior enlisted told him that his crews were getting increasingly restless.

  That information had been chillingly confirmed by an incident on one of the assault transports.

  Dr. Nasr looked worn-out, but then, he often did these days. “We have had an incident with one of the Marines that I wanted to be sure you were aware of.”

  “Corporal Ulanov,” Geary said. “General Carabali already told me about it. Ulanov took a weapon and tried to shoot up his troop compartment but failed because his platoon leader had deactivated the weapons available to him.”

  “Yes. Corporal Ulanov.” Nasr stared at nothing for a moment before refocusing on Geary. “I thought you would want to hear the results of the medical exams.”

  Geary sighed, making a helpless gesture. “He’s faced too much combat, and he wants to get home.”

  “Yes. And no.” Nasr smiled thinly. “He does want to get home. But the actual reason for the attempted rampage was that Corporal Ulanov is also afraid of getting home.”

  “Afraid?” When a piece of information was so different from what you expected, it took a while to absorb it. Geary found himself repeating the word. “Afraid? Of getting home?”

  “We’re seeing more cases like that, though Ulanov is the worst,” Nasr observed. “Admiral, what will happen when we get home? What will happen to these ships and these Marines?”

  “As far as I know, they’ll remain under my command.”

  “But perhaps not.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That is the problem,” Nasr said. “You don’t know, I don’t know, no one knows. Corporal Ulanov kept telling his medical interviewer that he was afraid. It took a while to realize that what Ulanov feared was uncertainty. He is comfortable being a Marine. He knows he can face combat, though the physical and mental stresses from the combat he has experienced have done damage that Corporal Ulanov does not acknowledge. But he fears being cast aside like a machine designed for a purpose that is no longer needed. He wants to get home, but he fears what might happen when he gets there. That internal conflict is what made him snap.”

  Geary slumped as he thought about Ulanov and the many others in this fleet who shared the same worries for their future. “I can get them home. We won’t wait here much longer before leaving. But there’s not much I can do about worries over the future. I don’t have the answers to those.”

  “There is something you can do, Admiral. Tell them you will look after their welfare to the best of your ability. That may not seem like much to you, but to them it w
ill mean a great deal.” One corner of Dr. Nasr’s mouth tilted in a small, sad smile. “As a doctor, it is all too easy to see people as a collection of parts that either work right or need to be replaced or repaired. You can forget the human those parts make up if you focus too much on the parts. I have seen those in command positions look upon people the same way, as parts in the organism they rule over. Parts that exist only to serve the organism. If a private fails or dies, the private is replaced by another. That’s all. We all fear being seen as parts, expendable and replaceable, don’t we?”

  “We do, Doctor, because we’ve all seen it happen to others and sometimes felt it happen to us. All right. I’ll find a way to let everyone know they won’t just be cast aside.”

  He was reaching to end the call when the doctor spoke again. “Have you seen the reports from the ships of the Callas Republic and the Alliance?”

  Geary nodded. “I’ve looked them over. There don’t seem to be any problems on those ships. I know they want to be detached from this fleet when we get home, and I’ll do all I can to make that happen.”

  “There don’t seem to be problems,” Nasr repeated. “But there are. Those men and women expected to go home when the war ended, to have their warships recalled to their republic and their federation. That didn’t happen. At the moment, they are all outwardly doing fine. But do you know how a person can be just walking along, or working as usual, no signs of trouble, then suddenly they snap because of hidden stresses? That describes those ships. Be careful of them, Admiral.”

  “I will be, Doctor.” He sat for a while after ending the call with Nasr. There’s nothing else I can do about the Callas Republic and Rift Federation ships, and I’ve already told all supervisors to watch their people carefully and refer for evaluation any who seemed marginal. I need to make the supervisors’ job easier, though. Geary straightened in his seat and tapped the record command on his comm software. “This is Admiral Geary. I want to give everyone a situation update. We will be departing Midway soon, returning home. We’ll stay at home for an extended period because even though you have all put in amazing efforts to keep our ships going and repair the damage they’ve sustained, this fleet will still require a lot of work at the maintenance facilities at Varandal.”