Dreadnaught

Which leaves me very little room to hammer her. I can’t condemn initiative that effective, not without sending some wrong messages of my own. If I make obedience the only virtue that counts, I might be creating a culture that is at least as bad as the undisciplined mess I first found here. Do I want a fleet full of officers like Captain Vente, who apparently requires exactly what he’s supposed to do spelled out for him? I have to find grounds for relieving him from command of Invincible, but I don’t have any yet.

There were a lot fewer people out and about at that hour, and most of those were at duty stations, so when someone else turned a corner ahead of him, Geary instantly noticed her.

Rione.

She hesitated, then came on toward him until both stopped, facing each other.

“How are you?” Geary asked.

“I’ve been worse.”

Guilt stabbed at him. “Is there anything I can say or do?”

“I doubt it. It’s what you did, what we did, that led to this.” She looked away. “The fault is not yours. It wouldn’t have been even if you had dragged me into your bed because I was willing. In fact, I did the seducing, not you. And I have been candid with my husband about that. But it’s not just about your and my shared past.” Rione lowered her gaze, her expression somber. “Something’s changed in him. He’s darker, harder, more angry.”

“A lot of the former prisoners have serious issues to deal with,” Geary said.

“I know. His are worse. Your fleet medical personnel are worried.” She shook her head. “All he talks about is vengeance. Getting even with the Syndics, getting even with people back in the Callas Republic who he imagines once slighted him, and of course now getting even with you. But I am told that thus far his expressions of anger are within acceptable parameters.” She gave the last words an ironic and bitter twist.

“What about you?”

“Me.” Rione shrugged. “I don’t know. For the sake of the man he once was, I will continue trying to reach him. He is now under no illusions that I will tolerate behavior such as you saw today. But he has trouble accepting that I am not the woman that I once was, that I became a Senator and Co-President of the Callas Republic, that I have done many things while we were apart. In his mind, I was always at home, waiting for him, unchanging. How can I be angry with him for clinging to that vision to sustain him in the darkness of that labor camp? But how could he not know that I would not sit alone in a silent home, endlessly waiting, but instead go out to do what I could?”

“It can be very hard,” Geary said slowly, “to learn how much the world you once knew has changed.”

“You would know.” Her expression and her voice were both growing distant, taking on a strange remoteness even though Rione stood beside him. “And things are always changing, even as they always stay the same. Never trust a politician, Admiral Geary.”

“Not even you?”

A long pause before she answered. “Especially not me.”

“What about the senators on the grand council?” The question he had been wanting to ask for some time.

Rione took even longer to answer this time. “A living hero can be a very inconvenient thing.”

“Is that how the government still thinks?” Geary asked, letting his tone be as blunt as his words.

“The government.” Rione breathed a single, soft laugh though her expression didn’t change. “You speak of ‘the government’ as if it were a single, monolithic beast of huge proportions, with countless hands but only a single brain controlling them. Turn that vision around, Admiral. Perhaps you should consider how things would be if the government was in fact a mammoth creature with a single tremendous hand but many brains trying to direct that hand in its powerful but clumsy efforts to do something, anything. You’ve seen the grand council at work. Which image seems more appropriate to you?”

“What’s going on now? Why are you really here?”

“I am an emissary of the government of the Alliance.” Her voice held not a hint of emotion.

“Who made you an emissary? Navarro?”

“Navarro?” She looked right at him again. “Do you think he would betray you?”

“No.”

“You’re right. Not knowingly. But he was tired, worn-out from his duties on the grand council. Look elsewhere, Admiral. Nothing is simple.”

“We didn’t come to Dunai because your husband was here. You didn’t know he was one of the prisoners here. Who did we come for?”

Another long pause. “Are you looking for one person?” With that, Rione began walking down the passageway away from him.

“Would you withhold anything I needed to know to get you and your husband home safe again?” Geary called after her.

Rione didn’t answer, walking steadily away.

HE had managed to deflect some of the numerous requests and demands for personal meetings relayed through Charban until Dauntless and the rest of the fleet jumped into the nothingness of jump space. Out of respect for the rank and service of the liberated prisoners, Geary had found time to meet with a number of them, finding the meetings often difficult since he could offer those officers none of the things they expected and more than one kept insisting on those things anyway.

He had never before appreciated just how pleasant the isolated nothingness of jump space could be.

The work on Dauntless continued to clog passageways, but the slow progression of work areas provided evidence of progress, interspersed by sudden leaps across areas in which earlier battle damage had already resulted in extensive replacement of original system components. “Rebuild work on Dauntless is fifty-one percent complete,” Captain Smythe had proudly declared before jump. “Of course, that last forty-nine percent might be a real bitch. We’ve done the easiest-to-access work first.”

Soon afterward, Desjani had shown up at Geary’s stateroom. She indicated the sailor beside her, a master chief petty officer whose girth must be right on the upper edge of fleet body-fat standards. However, the master chief’s uniform was immaculate, and he wore the ribbons for some impressive combat awards. “Admiral, have you met Master Chief Gioninni?”

Geary nodded, having encountered the stout master chief a number of times. “We’ve talked.”

“In those conversations, did Master Chief Gioninni ever mention that while he has never been convicted of violating a single law or regulation, he is nonetheless widely rumored to be constantly juggling so many schemes and scams that the tactical systems on the average battle cruiser would have trouble keeping track of them all?”

“Captain, there’s no evidence any of those rumors are true,” Gioninni protested.

“If we could find the evidence, you’d be in the brig for about five hundred years, Master Chief.” Desjani made a gesture in the general direction of the auxiliaries. “Master Chief Gioninni is, I believe, the perfect individual to monitor activities on some of the other ships in the fleet for anything contrary to regulations.”

“On account of my professionalism and keen observational skills, that is, of course,” the master chief explained.

“Of course,” Geary agreed. He wondered if Gioninni was the reincarnation of a senior chief that he had known a century ago. “Why would anyone running his own schemes and scams be interested in reporting on similar activities being carried out by others? I’m asking on a purely theoretical basis, of course.”

“Well, sir, speaking purely theoretically, of course,” Gioninni said, “someone who might be doing such improper and unauthorized things wouldn’t want too much competition, and he . . . or she . . . wouldn’t want the competition to maybe try to dig up evidence against him . . . or her. Not that there could be any such evidence, of course.”

“Of course.” Geary kept a straight face with some difficulty. “I do need to know what your first priority is, Master Chief.”

“My first priority, sir?” Gioninni thought for a moment. “Even supposing certain rumors were true, Admiral, I swear by the honor of all my ancestors that I would never allow anything that endangered this ship. Or any other ship. Or anyone on any ship, for that matter.”

Geary looked toward Desjani, who nodded her belief in what Gioninni had said. “All right, then,” Geary agreed. “Keep an eye on things and let us know if there’s anything we should be told about.”

“And if we find out you’ve cut any deals to keep quiet in exchange for a piece of the action, you might find yourself among your ancestors a lot sooner than you expected to be,” Desjani added in her sternest manner.

“Yes, ma’am!” Master Chief Gioninni saluted, then marched off with perfect military bearing.

“You haven’t managed to catch him at anything yet, eh?” Geary asked Desjani.

“Not yet. Maybe it’s just as well. There are times when necessary items for the ship can’t be acquired quickly enough through official channels. At times like that, Master Chief Gioninni can be extremely useful. Not that he’s ever been told to bypass proper procedures, of course.”

“Of course.”

AT point one light speed, it was a day and a half travel time from the jump point they arrived at to Hasadan’s hypernet gate. Geary had to fight down constant urges to ramp up the fleet’s velocity, to get to the gate faster and get to Midway faster and finally take the dive into alien space.

Just before entering the hypernet gate, Captain Tulev asked for a personal conference, an unusual thing for Tulev, who customarily kept his thoughts and feelings to himself. But now he seemed lost for words for a moment. “Admiral, there is something I wish to be certain that you are aware of concerning the prisoners from Dunai. One of them, Colonel Tukonov, is my cousin.”

Geary himself had trouble thinking of what to say. Tulev’s entire extended family had been thought killed in the war and the vicious Syndic bombardment of his home world. “That’s very good news.”

“Yes. Colonel Tukonov was thought dead, lost along with the rest of his unit nineteen years ago. Now, he lives.” Tulev struggled for words once again. “The dead come back to life. You. My cousin. The war ends. Humanity finds that we are not alone. These are extraordinary times.”

“You’re starting to sound like Tanya Desjani.”

A small smile appeared on Tulev’s lips. “There are worse fates, Admiral. She is a formidable woman.”

“ ‘Formidable’ is as good a word as any for her. Thanks for letting me know about your cousin. It’s nice to know one good thing came out of our liberation of that prison camp.”

Tulev pondered Geary’s statement for a moment. “They are very active, but most of it consists of arguing among themselves. Too many of them believe that they should be the leader now.”

“It’s a good thing their high rank and status is also their greatest weakness,” Geary remarked. “We have a few on Dauntless that I’m thinking of sending to join the others on Haboob and Mistral.”

“Including the husband of the Emissary Rione?” Tulev asked. “Do not do that, Admiral.”

“Why not?” Commander Benan hadn’t been any trouble since the confrontation in the passageway, but it had still seemed like a good idea to put him on another ship.

“You have told me that the Emissary Rione has orders to stay on Dauntless with you,” Tulev explained. “You would be sending her husband away, while you and she remain on the same ship.”

“Oh.” Damn. That sounded really, really bad. “Maybe that’s the last thing I should do.”

“I am not wise in such matters, but I think that is so.” Tulev straightened to attention, plainly ready to depart. “You are watching the liberated ones? My cousin will tell me some things, but I cannot be sure that he would be aware of any . . . disruptive actions any of them planned.”

“We’re keeping an eye on them,” Geary assured him, but after Tulev’s image vanished, Geary sat down heavily. Lieutenant Iger has limited assets for monitoring what those former prisoners are up to. I used to be able to count on Rione’s agents in the fleet to learn about brewing trouble. Not that those agents discovered everything. Not by a long shot. For the first time, he wondered if those agents were still active and still reporting to Rione. She hasn’t said one word about them since returning to Dauntless. She’s still avoiding the bridge most of the time, which at least makes Tanya happy.

He went up to the bridge, taking his seat and scanning the display that automatically popped into existence before him. The fleet had remained in Formation November, the five rectangular subformations closing steadily on the huge hypernet gate no longer far distant.

Geary tapped the control to speak to the entire fleet. “This is Admiral Geary. The latest news from Midway is months old. Hopefully, the bloody nose we gave the aliens the last time we were there has kept them away, but there’s a chance the aliens returned and have occupied the system. All ships are to be prepared for combat the moment we exit the gate at Midway. If the aliens are at the gate, they are to be regarded as hostile and engaged immediately.”

That hadn’t been an easy decision to make. It wasn’t impossible that the Syndics at Midway could have reached some agreement with the chastened aliens, allowing the aliens peaceful access to the star system. Coming in with all weapons blazing might destroy a newly arranged peaceful coexistence. But that possibility didn’t seem very likely given what they had learned about the aliens, and requiring his ships to get permission to fire would cost precious seconds and minutes that could literally mean the difference between life and death.

A thought that fortunately reminded him of something else that needed to be said. “The Syndics in Midway Star System are not hostile and are not to be engaged without prior authorization. There may well be a Syndic warship or courier ship waiting by the hypernet gate. That ship is not to be fired upon.

“Assuming that the aliens are not present there, this fleet will transit through Midway to the jump point used by the aliens, then proceed into areas of space occupied by the alien race. The ancestors of everyone in this fleet will surely be proud of their participation in this historic exploration. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

Desjani glanced his way. “You gave the Syndics at Midway the secret of the alien quantum worms. With that, they might have been able to defend themselves using that small flotilla.”

“It’s possible. Make sure your fingers don’t twitch on the firing controls if we see a HuK when we emerge from the gate at Midway.”

She managed to look hurt. “I only fire weapons when I want to.”

“I know.”

THE disorientation on leaving the hypernet wasn’t nearly as bad as that when exiting jump. Within a second after the fleet arrived at Midway, Geary was focusing on his display as the fleet’s sensors rapidly updated information.

Sure enough, a single Syndic ship hovered several light minutes from the gate. At least it was distant enough to ensure that none of the Alliance ships would “accidentally” squeeze off a few shots. It wasn’t a Syndic warship, though, but a civilian ship whose presence hanging around the gate was unusual. The only other ships within a light hour of the gate were a few civilian freighters, heading in-system or toward the gate at the lumbering but fuel-efficient pace that cargo haulers favored.

Midway hadn’t altered much. The same planets and other objects swung in their orbits around the star as they had for years beyond counting, oblivious to the humans who for a very short span of time considered themselves rulers of this star system. The Syndic flotilla guarding the star hadn’t changed a great deal, still comprising six heavy cruisers, but now with five light cruisers instead of four and only twelve HuKs. There were no signs any battles had been fought here since the Alliance fleet had confronted the aliens over three months ago.

Where space around the star had once been full of other ships trying to evacuate human inhabitants before the alien race’s assault force arrived, now only routine cargo and passenger shipping could be sighted.

“Why do you suppose they have fewer HuKs?” Geary asked Desjani. “There aren’t signs of any other battles being fought here since we left.”

She twisted her mouth in thought, then pointed to the area around the hypernet gate. “There isn’t a HuK nearby. Standard Syndic practice is to have a HuK lingering around a jump point or a system’s hypernet gate so it can function as a courier. They’re using a civilian ship, instead.” Desjani looked over at him. “They probably used some of those missing HuKs as couriers to the central government back at the Syndic home system, and I’d bet you the central government didn’t send any of them back.”

“What’s left of the Syndic government needs every warship it can get. But so do the people here. So you think the locals stopped using warships as couriers when they realized that they were running out of HuKs?”

“Even Syndics should have been smart enough to figure that out,” she said. “Eventually, anyway. They’ve picked up another light cruiser from somewhere, maybe one passing through that they convinced to stay. But remember that these Syndics had the flotilla protecting them yanked away by the central government to fight us. They know that flotilla won’t be coming home, and they know the Syndic central government left them with practically nothing to defend themselves against the aliens.”

“They must know they have to depend on themselves,” Geary agreed. “I’ll let them know we’re just passing through and see if they have any new information about the aliens.”

“If they do, they’ll want something for it.”

“Maybe they’ll still have some gratitude for when we saved them.”

Desjani didn’t even bother answering that suggestion.

The primary world here was almost on the other side of its star now, lengthening transmission times a few minutes. Since the total distance between the fleet and that planet was on the order of five light hours, that didn’t make much difference.

The Syndics had waited to hear from the Alliance ships before sending any messages, so their reply didn’t show up until the fleet had been in the Midway Star System for half a day and was well on its way to the jump point for the star humans had named Pele but which had been abandoned to the aliens decades earlier.

CEO Iceni herself was seated at a desk, her eyes wary as she spoke, which was understandable enough. She was communicating, after all, with a large fleet belonging to the Alliance, which the Syndicate Worlds had been fighting bitterly for decade upon decade before the recent peace treaty. “I extend my personal greetings to Admiral Geary. In response to your question, we have not detected any activity by the enigma race since the departure of your fleet. It is the desire of the people here that this situation continue. We have no wish to provoke the enigma race into renewed offensive action.

“Please inform me of the reason for the return of your fleet to this star system after only a few months’ absence.

“The people of Midway do of course remain grateful for your defense of this star system. However, you are a fleet belonging to a foreign power. Ambiguous wording in the peace treaty may allow this movement, but it is not the desire of the people of the Midway Star System that the Alliance consider such incursions into our star system to be routine. We will closely monitor your movements and insist that in the future, any visit to this star system by foreign warships be cleared in advance.”

“You’re welcome,” Desjani muttered.

General Charban and Rione had come to the bridge, expecting to be there when the reply arrived from the Syndics. “She didn’t threaten us,” Charban pointed out, as if that were the height of courtesy.

“That’s understandable,” Geary said. “Unlike that idiot at Dunai, she wants to preserve what little defensive capability she has.”

“I believe,” Rione said, “that Iceni is much brighter than the CEO in the Dunai Star System. She knows a bluff against us would be stupid, so she’s not trying. That’s one thing that she didn’t do.” Rione gave Geary a searching look. “The other thing is that CEO Iceni did not say she would report our transit through this star system to the Syndicate Worlds’ central government.”

“What’s left of the Syndicate Worlds’ central government, you mean.” Geary frowned, his eyes going to his display of their own accord. “We’ve been wondering why there wasn’t a HuK posted near the hypernet gate to serve as a courier. We thought they’d simply decided to stop sending them back to the central government when none returned.”

“That is probably one of the reasons, but I would urge you to consider the possibility that CEO Iceni is also deliberately distancing herself from the Syndicate Worlds’ government with a goal of establishing an independent star system here.”

“There have already been plenty of other star-system CEOs who have done the same. Assuming she succeeds, why does it matter to us?”

Charban looked pained. “Our treaty is with the Syndicate Worlds’ government. Iceni might argue that her regime wasn’t bound by that treaty and might demand that we renegotiate everything.”

As if reading Geary’s mind, Rione shook her head. “We can’t treat this star system as we did Dunai. We want to come back here as often as necessary, and we want a stable star system with a stable government anchoring this part of human space facing the aliens. We could do worse than a government headed by Iceni.”

“She’s a Syndic CEO,” Geary pointed out.

“One who chose to remain on her world with the bulk of its people when it was threatened by the aliens rather than flee on the fastest available ship crammed with all the treasure she could pack into it,” Rione said. “She appears to have not only courage, but also some sense of duty to the people she leads.”

“A Syndic CEO?” Desjani muttered.

“Syndic CEOs,” Rione said to Geary, “like Alliance politicians, and fleet officers, are individuals. Each must be judged on their own merits, or lack thereof.”

“Iceni doesn’t want us to go into alien territory,” Geary said, “but I don’t want to lie to her about our plans, especially when it’s obvious that we’re heading for the jump point for Pele.”

“Then don’t lie,” Rione said tonelessly. “Lying doesn’t become Black Jack Geary under any circumstances.”

Desjani gave her a sharp look, but she couldn’t object to the words.

So Geary told the truth when he responded to Iceni. “We are en route to Pele, and from there intend to penetrate farther into alien space in order to learn more about the enigma race and hopefully establish peaceful relations.”

It was well into the next day before he heard from CEO Iceni again, taking the message this time alone in his stateroom because the message was addressed to his eyes only. Transmission times had shrunk a bit, to only about four hours each way, which was at best a hard means of carrying on a conversation. Iceni had an expression that veiled her feelings, keeping them hidden without being obvious about it. She could teach the Alliance politicians, including Rione, a few tricks in that regard. “I will be blunt, Admiral Geary, because I know from your reputation and our previous conversations that you are not someone who likes to play extended word games. You intend taking your fleet into space controlled by the enigma race. I don’t like that. We have enough problems here without worrying about an aroused and angry enemy in that area. But I am fully aware that I have no means of stopping you, or even hindering the movement of your fleet in any significant way.”

Iceni leaned forward a bit, her eyes intent. “It is clear that you intend making use of the loophole in the peace treaty to use Midway Star System as a forward base for accessing alien space. Clearly, also, you would benefit from our active cooperation in that. I am willing to discuss such an agreement between this star system and you, on a mutually beneficial basis. I have more to offer than simply our agreement and support for your fleet’s movements through Midway. There is something else I have that you need. In exchange, there is something I need from you. I will discuss a bargain, but only directly with you. Respond on this same channel, no other, if you wish to engage in negotiations with me. For the people, Iceni, out.”

Now what? Ask Rione? She had stopped providing advice except in rare circumstances, and in any case, Iceni only wanted to deal directly with him. Charban might have political authority because of his emissary status, but Geary hadn’t been impressed by Charban’s well-meaning but unpracticed attempts at diplomacy.

What was it that Iceni had that she was certain Geary needed? Was that just bait to get him to respond to her, or something he, or this fleet, really needed?

Finally, he sent a response. “CEO Iceni, I am willing to speak with you on any matter. Be aware that I will not agree to anything contrary to the welfare of the Alliance. If you want to negotiate some kind of basing agreement, I will have to get the emissaries of the Alliance government involved. Please spell out your offer and what you want in return. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

WITH a turnaround time of eight hours, there wasn’t any sense in waiting for a reply. He went back to work, trying to concentrate on administrative matters, until Desjani called. “A shuttle from Tanuki brought us some more parts, and a visitor for you. It’s holding at the dock until you’re done with your meeting.”

“A visitor?” Captain Smythe himself, come to evaluate in person the work being done?

“Lieutenant Shamrock,” Desjani replied dryly.

Lieutenant Jamenson’s green hair seemed somehow subdued as she sat down opposite Geary. “Admiral, there’s a matter on which Captain Smythe said I should brief you.”

“A problem with the repairs to the fleet?”

“No, sir.” Jamenson paused, as if uncertain how to proceed. “I told you that besides confusing things, I can unconfuse things. Captain Smythe . . . likes to keep abreast of everything going on, so he monitors a lot of traffic not specifically addressed to him or his command.”

“I see.” Meaning that while still at Varandal, Captain Smythe had been tapping into Alliance communications not intended for him. Somehow that wasn’t too big a surprise. Technically, it was a violation of security rules and communications procedures, but in practice Smythe wasn’t the only commanding officer who kept his or her eye out for things they might need to know even though they didn’t have a formally established need to know. Besides, it never hurt to make sure that you knew something you needed to know about even if it hadn’t been addressed to you specifically.

“We had a large amount of such messages backlogged from before we left Alliance space,” Jamenson continued. “I’ve been getting to them slowly because there’s a lot of minutiae in them, little details and unknown program codes and funding streams I don’t recognize. But I think . . . I’m certain that I’ve identified a pattern in many of those messages.”

Her attitude wasn’t reassuring in the least. “Something concerning this fleet?”

“I don’t know, Admiral. In a nutshell, there’s still new construction of warships under way within the Alliance.”

“We knew that,” Geary said. “Completing full hulls that were almost finished.”

“No, sir. Much more than that.” Jamenson hesitated again. “I can’t be absolutely sure of how much, but from the number of project codes, contract references, and funding streams, there seem to be at least a dozen battleships and a dozen battle cruisers being built, including some extensive new modification work on partially completed hulls, plus enough heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers to serve as escorts.”

He just looked back at her for a long time, trying to fit Jamenson’s information into what he had already known. What he had thought he already knew. “This is being kept hidden?”

“Yes, Admiral. We weren’t supposed to see any of the messages concerning the construction, and it’s all hidden in a mess of details. There aren’t any single contract identifiers. It was hard to figure out what was really happening.”

Another long pause as Geary tried to think. “Auxiliaries. Are any of those being built?”

“Um.” Jamenson looked startled, then thought. “I haven’t identified any indications of new construction for auxiliaries, Admiral.”

Was that why headquarters had tried to yank the bulk of his auxiliary force? Or were these new ships intended only for defense of the Alliance and not for any offensive operations outside Alliance space, where auxiliaries would be needed?

Why had this construction been kept secret from him? Why had the grand council and everyone else told him that no new ships were being constructed? And what were these extensive modifications? Were the new ships being built for long hull lives? Which would mean that someone had realized what would be happening to the shorthull-life warships in Geary’s fleet.

Jamenson was watching him worriedly, biting her lower lip.

Finally, Geary nodded to her. “Thank you, Lieutenant. This is important information, and your ability to pull it all together means we know about it. Is there anything else?”

“No, sir. That’s all I can say at this point.”

“But you do feel confident in saying that twenty-four major warships are under construction, along with sufficient escorts for those warships.”

“Yes, sir. I can lay out all the details for you, Admiral.”

“Just leave them with me.” Geary paused again. “Please thank Captain Smythe for his foresight in telling me about this. Do we have any indications about how much the bureaucracy back home has figured out what we’re doing to fix up this fleet?”

“No, sir, I’m sorry. Before we left, we saw no signs they had picked up on anything yet, though. I’m really working hard to confuse everything.”

“I never thought that I’d be thanking a lieutenant for working so hard at that.” Geary gave her his best look of approval. “Damn good job, Lieutenant Jamenson. Thank you,” he repeated.

He would probably have to give her a medal when all was said and done because her efforts would make such a huge difference in the readiness of the fleet. But how would he word the citation? Under trying operational conditions and with limited resources, Lieutenant Jamenson successfully and repeatedly confused higher authority, ensuring that superiors in the chain of command were totally unable to figure out what was actually happening. Many junior officers (and more than a few senior officers) had inadvertently done that in the past, but Jamenson might be the first to get a medal for deliberately doing it.

Twelve battleships and twelve battle cruisers. Something to keep quiet from the taxpayers, perhaps, and certainly something that the Syndics should be kept from knowing. But why the effort to keep him and presumably many others unaware of it?

CEO Iceni was smiling slightly, with the look of a partner, or of a coconspirator. “I’ll lay out what I want from you, Admiral Geary, then what I can offer in return, and you can decide if it’s a fair bargain. I assure you, I’m not asking for anything you could not provide.

“What this star system is most in need of is your protection from the enigma race. I believe I am safe in saying that the same provision of the peace treaty that your fleet is using to justify being able to travel freely through Syndicate Worlds’ space to this star system could also be read to be an open-ended commitment by the Alliance to defend this star system from the enigmas.”

That was a turnabout that Geary hadn’t suspected. He had a feeling that this was another one of those “lawyers could argue indefinitely” issues, but if the Syndics could point to what the average person would interpret as an ongoing Alliance commitment to the defense of Midway, it would be hard to just disregard that interpretation. Especially when the Alliance was exploiting the same provision for its own ends.

“Beyond that,” Iceni continued, as if the defense issue were settled, “I would like your passive support and your active forbearance. My knowledge of the Alliance’s remaining strength is far from complete, and the central government of the Syndicate Worlds has refused to provide specific information to us about their own strength right now, but I believe that I am safe in saying that you, and your fleet, are the dominant force in human space at this time. If it is implied or uncertain whether this star system is under your protection, it will give pause to anyone, human or not, who wishes to threaten us.”

Human or not. Iceni shouldn’t expect any threat from the Alliance. The only other dangers she would face aside from the aliens would be nearby star systems led by CEOs who had struck out on their own and started threatening their neighbors, and the remnants of Syndicate Worlds’ central authority.

“Your active forbearance is critical as well.” Iceni gestured to a star display next to her, which was centered on the Syndicate Worlds’ home star system. “The central government has its hands full trying to maintain control of the star systems it still has. Every ship that arrives here brings reports of more star systems that are . . . seeking autonomy. The Syndicate Worlds’ government cannot possibly force them all back under its control, not with the small forces remaining to it in the aftermath of your campaigns, Admiral Geary. But some star systems are more valuable than others. I know how badly the central government will want to retain control of this star system, both because of the hypernet gate here and because of its strategic location.”

Iceni paused, clearly giving him time to think through her words. “Your help would be welcome in supporting the efforts of the people of this star system to find the freedom and independence the Alliance has always championed.”

Is she actually going to ask my help in declaring independence from the Syndicate Worlds? Though I notice she mentioned freedom and independence as matters of importance to the Alliance but didn’t say anything about democracy. I doubt that was an accidental oversight. And I doubt that she means freedom in terms of liberty for the average citizens of this star system.

“I understand,” Iceni continued, “that active support of our endeavors may be impossible without clearly violating the peace treaty. All I ask is that you refuse to assist the central government of the Syndicate Worlds when they come to you saying that it is vital for the defense of human space that this star system remain firmly in their control.”

Rione had been right. Iceni did plan on independence for this star system. Or rather independence for herself as ruler of this star system.

“Now,” Iceni said, looking straight into the camera in what must be a remarkably good imitation of someone with nothing to hide, “there is the matter of what I offer in return.” The display beside her changed, showing the Midway hypernet gate. “All of the gates in the hypernet system constructed by the Syndicate Worlds now have the safe-fail mechanisms on them, but as you are aware, all that does is limit the immediate damage if the gates collapse. Every time a gate collapses, we lose part of our hypernet, and our defense capability is harmed as is our trade and other aspects of our economies. If the enigma race chose to collapse the entire hypernet constructed by the Syndicate Worlds, as we believe they could, the long-term impact would be horrendous. It is our assessment that the enigmas have refrained from this step only because they are trying to find a means of canceling out the effects of the safe-fail mechanisms so that the collapse of gates can once more cause the death of entire human star systems.”

Geary stared at Iceni’s image, grateful that she couldn’t see his reaction. Collapse the entire hypernet? That wouldn’t directly cause damage, but the tactic was so obvious now that Iceni had mentioned it. Once the aliens knew that humanity wasn’t going to annihilate itself using the gates as weapons, there was no reason for them to continue allowing humanity all of the benefits from the hypernet systems.

Iceni made a dismissive gesture. “I realize that the Alliance must have reached the same conclusions and be working on its own defense against the loss of its hypernet system. However, we already have one, a mechanism that actually blocks the collapse command, so that each individual gate as well as the system as a whole is impervious to that form of alien attack. It has been tested. It does work.”

Was the Alliance working on such a system? How could they not be? Was that why he had been ordered to detach those hypernet-knowledgeable personnel? But Commander Neeson had been certain that the fleet’s personnel were not expert enough to make any difference to any Alliance efforts. Not with Captain Cresida dead.

But removing those personnel from the fleet would have gone a long way to ensuring that the fleet had no means of even realizing this particular threat might exist. As well as no means of constructing a device such as Iceni now offered.

Geary’s eyes went to his own star display, imagining a journey back to Alliance space from Midway the hard way, jumping star to star, a distance well more than twice that which the fleet had covered in its withdrawal from the Syndic home star system. Even without the constant threat of attack, it would be a long and arduous trek, cut off from home the entire time. Fuel, food . . . how could he acquire what he needed for such a long journey without taking it under threat of violence?

And what if the fleet had returned to Midway from alien space, low on supplies and possibly battered by combat, to find that instead of a fast journey home, it would require close to a year?

Had the government realized that risk existed and thought the need to learn more about the aliens justified dealing with it? But why hadn’t they told him about it? And why had fleet headquarters tried to yank the majority of his auxiliary support just before departure from Varandal, when that risk made having the maximum possible auxiliary support vital? Was that the reason the auxiliaries had been ordered away from him, and not the issue of supporting the new construction warships? Or was it a matter of both?

Why would the government and headquarters risk stranding the vast majority of its fleet as far from Alliance territory as existed within human space? Stranding the fleet and . . . stranding him.

A living hero can be a very inconvenient thing.

He became aware that Iceni was speaking once again. “I’m sure that you appreciate the value of what I am offering to you. All you need do in exchange for the design of this extremely important system is to remain silent when it is implied that this star system is under your protection against all aggression, and to refuse any request by the Syndicate Worlds’ central government for assistance if they seek to attack the peace-loving people of this star system.”

Her smile took on the completely insincere cast of a standard Syndic CEO expression. “You see that this is a humanitarian issue as well as a matter of self-interest. I am willing to accept your . . . word of . . . honor on this matter. Simply say that is what you will do, and the design will be transmitted to you.

“I await your agreement, Admiral Geary. For the people, Iceni, out.”

He covered his face with his hands, thoughts racing. The government wouldn’t be bound by any commitments of that nature that I made, but it seems Iceni believes, just like Badaya and his followers, that I’m actually running things in the Alliance now. Saying that I take my orders from the Alliance government is true, but she won’t believe that’s the real reason.

The Alliance government that may have tried to strand me and the fleet out here. What would the aliens do when we penetrated their space? That could have triggered the wholesale collapse of the Syndicate Worlds’ hypernet. Didn’t anybody think about that? Is this a case of deliberate malice or just lack of foresight? The fiasco with that courts-martial message was proof enough that there are people in authority who aren’t thinking through the implications of what they do, but when things keep happening, it forms a very disturbing pattern.

How much had Rione known?

Ironically, the Syndics had probably used the information that Geary had given them about the alien worms to develop their mechanism, along with the design of the safe-collapse system first developed by Cresida and leaked to the Syndics to ensure their gates wouldn’t be used as weapons by the enigmas against the Alliance fleet. Or maybe it wasn’t ironic at all. Those gestures had seemed the right thing to do. Humanitarian in the real sense of the word, and a means to ensure that the Syndics in Midway had a meaningful chance to defend themselves, as well as being aimed at aiding and protecting the Alliance. Thanks to those gestures, he had the opportunity to acquire what might be a critically important breakthrough. If the Alliance, absorbed in internal political squabbles, hadn’t figured out that particular threat, or if it simply hadn’t figured out how to build a device like that yet, wasn’t it his responsibility to ensure that he brought back this Syndic countermeasure?

Iceni wasn’t even asking for anything in writing. Well, of course not. She was clearly too smart to commit agreements to paper when her own government would consider those agreements to be treasonous. It had been saddening as well as instructive to see Iceni grope for the term “word of honor,” an expression she plainly wasn’t used to using. For a moment, he wondered what Syndic CEOs used among themselves as a guarantee that agreements would be honored.

I can’t ask for advice on this one. If I reach an agreement with Iceni, it might be regarded as contrary to regulations, exceeding my authority, and unlawfully committing the Alliance to actions regarding the internal affairs of the Syndicate Worlds. Anyone I talk to before I make that decision would be implicated in it.

I have to decide alone, so no one else can take a hit for my decision.

He called up a report prepared by intelligence based on message intercepts in this star system and started reading it again. Iceni was still senior CEO here. No surprise there. The second-most-powerful CEO in the star system was the commander of the ground forces, a man named Drakon. Not much was known about him, but he had been involved in several battles along the border with the Alliance and been rated as highly effective by Alliance intelligence, before being mysteriously transferred to an assignment at the Syndic equivalent of the back end of nowhere.

Geary thought of Jason Boyens, the captured Syndic CEO they had brought back to Midway, who said that he had been assigned here, far from the front with the Alliance, as a form of exile. I wonder who Drakon ticked off and what he did?

Also listed was a CEO named Hardrad, who apparently commanded the internal security forces in the star system and whose status ranked parallel to Iceni and Drakon. From what he had seen, Syndic internal security forces wielded immense power. They always had, but that power had been enhanced during the long war, and in some Syndic star systems that had included nuclear weapons as an ultimate safeguard against mass rebellion by planetary populations. He wondered how Iceni planned to handle Hardrad, or if she had already turned him so he would support her.

In other star systems, he had seen firsthand the results of attempts to declare independence from the Syndicate Worlds, the open warfare between military factions, civilian groups, and internal security forces. He hated to think of Midway suffering the same fate, but that was a matter beyond his control.

The report listed more names of sub-CEOs who had been identified in Syndic message traffic, but offered little other information besides a fragmentary order of battle for ground forces and a complete listing of Syndic warships in the star system.

No answers there. Geary went for a walk, down to the spaces deep inside Dauntless, where worship rooms awaited those seeking privacy. He sat down in a vacant room, lighting the ceremonial candle. Honored ancestors, you know the decision I must make. What is your guidance?

He waited, felt nothing, rephrased the question, felt nothing, and finally snuffed out the candle and left.

Outside, he almost bumped into a sailor hastening into the rooms. With an almost comical expression of alarm, the sailor straightened to attention and saluted. “Excuse me, Admiral!”

“Not a problem,” Geary replied, waving the sailor past. “You’ve obviously got some urgent questions to ask.”

“Nothing that urgent, sir.” The sailor smiled sheepishly. “Just me and . . . uh . . . a friend. Whether . . . you know. Personal things. I know the important stuff already, because you’re in command, and you’ll get us home. That’s what my parents asked, will you get home? And I said Admiral Geary’s in command, and they knew that meant the fleet would be all right.”

“Thank you.” He stood there a moment while the sailor rushed onward. Maybe his ancestors had provided an answer. You’ll get us home. Regardless of what happened to him, what was most likely to get these ships and sailors home again?

Back in his stateroom, Geary tried to project matter-of-fact confidence as he sent an answer to Iceni. “I agree to your proposal. I will not provide any specific commitment to defense of this star system from attack by anyone but the enigma race, but you have my word of honor that I will also avoid outright denying such a commitment. I cannot guarantee that this fleet or other Alliance assets will not be ordered by our government to assist the Syndicate Worlds’ central government in reestablishing control of this star system, but I will argue against allowing this fleet to be used in that way, and I will not command such a force.

“In exchange, in addition to the mechanism you have promised to provide, I want a commitment from you that you will not attempt to claim the support of this fleet for your own actions, or declare any backing by me for your plans. If you publicly claim such backing, I will repudiate it. And if you commit atrocities against your own people or attack other star systems, I will regard this agreement as void.”

One other thing. “I would appreciate being apprised of what happened to CEO Boyens after he was released. I await your agreement to my terms and the receipt of the plans for the collapse-prevention mechanism.”

Less than ten minutes after the transmission, Geary’s hatch alert chimed. He allowed entry, surprised to see Lieutenant Iger there. What could have required the intelligence officer to personally visit Geary’s stateroom?

“Admiral,” Iger said, visibly nervous, “there is a matter concerning a superior officer that I am required to take action on.”

TEN

“EXCUSE me?” Geary asked. Had intelligence been monitoring his own transmissions? Was this the sort of loyalty policing he had heard about but had trouble believing would actually take place in the Alliance fleet?

Iger’s nervousness increased. The man was more uncomfortable than Geary had ever seen him. “A . . . a matter concerning a superior officer, Admiral. I am required to report it to you, sir.”

“Report it to me?” It wasn’t about him, then. “Who are we talking about?”

“One of the captains, Admiral. One of the battle cruiser commanders.”

Geary went rigid, staring at Iger. “What is this? Nothing like Captain Kila, is it?”

“No, sir!” Iger shook his head rapidly. “I’m sorry, sir. No. Nothing like that, but it is something I must report to you,” he said for the third time.

It couldn’t be easy making what must be a negative report about a superior officer. Forcing himself to calm down, Geary nodded. “Let that be a lesson to you on how not to break news to me, Lieutenant. Which officer is this?”

“Commander Bradamont, sir. Commanding officer of Dragon.”

Bradamont? Someone whom Desjani herself now trusted? “What has Commander Bradamont done?”

“Sir, Commander Bradamont has accessed the intelligence analysis we did regarding the Syndic military capabilities in this star system.”

The same one that Geary had looked at a little while ago. “She . . . wanted to know about the military capabilities of a potential opponent? One of my battle cruiser commanders wanted to know about Syndic military forces in this star system?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Exactly why is that a problem, Lieutenant Iger?”

Iger, who had been relaxing slightly in response to Geary’s attitude, now grew more uncomfortable again. “Even though her position authorizes Commander Bradamont to access the report, and she has an obvious need to know the information, there’s a security flag on Commander Bradamont’s record, Admiral. I don’t know if you’re aware—”

“You mean when she was a prisoner of the Syndics?” He had accepted what Desjani had told him of the matter rather than dig into Bradamont’s record personally, but it wasn’t surprising to hear that security had kept a special watch on her. “I thought that was resolved.”

“It was, sir, but we’re still required to report under certain circumstances, and . . . sir, have you had the opportunity to review the analysis we did of Syndic military forces in this star system?”

He almost smiled at the extremely careful way in which Iger had asked if Geary had actually read the report yet. “Yes. I just reviewed it again a few minutes ago. What about it generates concern in the case of Commander Bradamont?”

“One of the Syndic military officers in this star system, Admiral,” Iger explained. “A sub-CEO fourth grade. His name is Donal Rogero. We believe that’s the same Syndicate Worlds’ officer with whom Commander Bradamont . . . uh . . . became . . . uh . . . involved while in captivity.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I’m required to report the matter to you,” Lieutenant Iger continued apologetically. “Even though it involves a superior officer.”

“I understand.” He did as far as Iger’s actions went. But what was Bradamont up to? “Is there any reason I can’t ask Commander Bradamont about this directly?”

“No, sir. I’m not authorized to pursue the matter without approval, but there’s no restriction on your actions aside from the normal rules and regulations. Nothing classified is involved of which Commander Bradamont isn’t already aware.”

“All right. Thank you. I appreciate your informing me of the matter, and doing so in an appropriate manner. I don’t see any need for you to pursue it further.” He had to say it that way to let Iger know that reporting adversely on a senior officer was indeed an unpleasant duty but that Iger had handled it properly.

The relieved lieutenant left for the sanctuary of the intelligence compartments, and as the hatch sealed again, Geary made another call, to Dragon. “I require a private meeting with Commander Bradamont. Have her call me as soon as she’s ready.”

Barely five minutes later, Bradamont’s image appeared in Geary’s stateroom. She saluted, giving no indication of anything but curiosity. “Yes, Admiral? A private meeting? Is it concerning Dragon?”

“No, Commander.” Geary stayed standing, and so did she. Until he knew more, anything less formal didn’t feel right. “It concerns a personal matter that also bears on your professional duties.”

She didn’t blink an eye though the curiosity faded. “Rogero.”

“That’s right. Are you trying to determine whether the Sub-CEO Rogero in this star system is the same man you had a relationship with while a prisoner of the Syndics?”

“I am fairly certain that he is that man, Admiral. The last I heard, he was under a CEO named Drakon, who was transferred to this side of Syndic space as punishment for getting on the wrong side of some very powerful Syndic CEOs.”

Geary paused. Bradamont knew more about Drakon’s status than the intelligence report that he had just read? What did that mean? “Commander, are you just curious? Or do you intend doing something about it if this is the same Rogero?”

Bradamont paused before replying. “I don’t know, sir.”

“Are you still in love with him?”

Another pause. “Yes, sir.” She eyed him defiantly. “We’re not at war with them anymore.”

“No,” Geary agreed. “But we’re not exactly one big, happy family.”

“Admiral, I’ll swear by anything you want that I will not do anything contrary to my duties as an officer of the fleet, and that I will never fail in any aspect of my responsibilities as commanding officer of an Alliance warship. I will be happy to repeat that oath inside an interrogation compartment so there can be no doubt of my sincerity.”

She certainly looked sincere, and if there had been any doubt on either of those counts, Bradamont never would have been passed by security to return to the fleet. “I don’t think use of an interrogation compartment will be necessary, Commander. Can I ask you a personal question? Another one, I mean. We’ve fought the Syndics with you on Dragon. Did it ever worry you that Rogero might be on one of the Syndic warships we were engaging?”

“I could not afford to think about that, sir.” Bradamont met his eyes. “I had my duty to do, and I knew he would understand that.”

“Understand being killed by you in combat? Not every man would be that understanding, Commander Bradamont.”

“He understands duty, Admiral. That’s one of the reasons why—” She gave him a straight look. “You want to ask another personal question, I know, how I came to fall in love with a Syndic officer.”

“That’s not my business,” Geary said, though in truth he was curious.

“I’ll tell you because I think you’re more willing to accept what I say than others are.” She looked to one side, not just as if gathering memories but also as if she was looking into the past. “A number of newly captured prisoners, myself among them, were being transported to the world holding the Syndic labor camp where we’d be held. The Syndic ship suffered a serious accident. We all very likely would have died. Rogero was in command of the Syndic ground forces also being transported on that ship. He ordered us freed from confinement to save us, then allowed us to work alongside the ship’s crew to save the ship and ourselves.” Bradamont gazed at Geary once more. “For this, he was punished with removal from command.”

“He broke the rules.”

“Yes. His superiors said he should have let us die. I know this because several of us were required to testify to events that day. Against our will, but in individual interrogation units we could hardly concoct consistent lies. For his punishment, Rogero not only lost his command of a ground forces unit but was also assigned to the labor camp as one of the Syndic officials there. That was a Syndic idea of a joke, Admiral. Since Rogero had cared enough about us to save us, he would be forced to be one of our jailers.”

It made sense. “He was one of the senior Syndic officers at the camp, and you were one of the senior Alliance officers, so you had contact again on a regular basis.”

“Yes, sir, and I knew something of his character from the actions that had resulted in his being there.” Bradamont paused. “You and . . . Captain Desjani . . . are probably best suited to understand how I felt when I realized my feelings. It was not . . . something that I sought or welcomed. When I discovered he felt the same about me . . . impossible. He is a decent, honorable man, Admiral, even though he was trained to act differently. But . . . we both remained true to our duty. I never betrayed my oath to the Alliance, I never dishonored my ancestors, no matter what some—” She broke off.

“I see. The Syndics obviously took it poorly, too. You were sent to another prison camp, and he was exiled out here.”

“Not initially. CEO Drakon had some pull back then and was eventually able to get Rogero back under his command, after I had left that labor camp. Admiral . . .” She hesitated longer this time. “There is a highly classified matter, involving Alliance intelligence and myself. I doubt that anyone in this fleet is aware of it, or was ever read into it. But I can’t in good conscience leave you as my fleet commander unaware of it. The Syndics were allowed to believe that my feelings for Rogero had turned my loyalties. I have been feeding them occasional reports for years, through Alliance intelligence, which always provided me with the supposed secrets and misleading information that I was purportedly leaking to Rogero.”

Another surprise. “What did the Alliance get from this? Just a channel to send bogus secrets to the Syndics?”

“And messages that occasionally came back from Rogero, supposedly providing intelligence on Syndic activities.” She shook her head. “I have long suspected the messages from Rogero weren’t really from him, and that if they were, they also contained no real secrets, just disinformation, both sides playing the same game so both could imagine success while neither actually benefited.”

“Do you have any proof of what you’re telling me?”

Bradamont shook her head again. “No, sir. Just the contact information for my Alliance intelligence handlers, back in Alliance space.”

“That’s a dangerous game to play.” Geary finally sat down, eyeing her. “Is it possible that Lieutenant Iger has anything based on what Rogero reported? Do you know what Alliance intelligence reports called him?”

“Red Wizard, Admiral.”

“Do you have a cover name that was used in those reports?”

“White Witch, sir.”

Geary reached for his controls. “Lieutenant Iger. Do you have any intelligence reporting on file that was sourced to a Syndic source code-named Red Wizard?”

Iger couldn’t prevent a baffled frown, but turned slightly to consult his database before turning a now-surprised look on Geary. “Yes, sir, but I have no record that you’ve ever been read into that program, sir. You would have been provided any information derived from it, but that source and code name is tightly restricted.”

“Do you know the real name of that source?”

“No, sir. That wouldn’t be in the files on any ship, to prevent it from being compromised in the unlikely event any of our files survived the ship being destroyed or captured.”

“Has Commander Bradamont ever been read into that program?” Geary asked.

“No, sir! With her . . . background that would be . . . very unusual. With a security flag on her record, it wouldn’t happen.”

“Do you have anything on a source named White Witch?”

Iger checked, looking uncomfortable again. “Admiral, I have to ask where you’re hearing these code names. These are highly restricted compartments.”

“Is White Witch related in any way to Red Wizard?”

“Yes . . . sir, though the identity of that source is also not available to me. Admiral, I really have to insist that I can’t talk about this any more unless you’re formally read into these programs and sign the necessary security agreements.”

“That’s all right. Thank you.” Geary ended the call and waved Bradamont to a seat. “What you told me checks out. Now what, Commander? If Rogero was sending you information, contacting him directly now might create problems for him.”

“I agree, sir.”

But I need to know what’s happening in this star system. “I’ll be candid with you, Commander. If Rogero was willing to tell us about the situation in this star system, it would be worth a great deal. The senior CEO is up to something, and we have no idea what the positions of the other Syndic CEOs are.”

Bradamont sat silent for a moment. “I don’t wish to use him, sir, but I suspect both he and I understand how we’ve already been used by our governments. If I send him a personal message, he can choose how to respond. If we end up in contact, perhaps a means of passing information can be established, if he so chooses and does not believe that would conflict with his own honor.”

“His honor?” Geary questioned without thinking, then gritted his teeth.

But Bradamont just smiled slightly. “I know the idea of a Syndic with a sense of honor is a difficult concept to grasp, sir. But he is just a sub-CEO, not a full-ranked CEO.”

“My apologies, anyway. I feel obligated to point out that news of your message to Rogero might somehow get around the fleet.”

Her smile grew wry. “What are they going to say about me that they haven’t already said?”

He glanced to one side, where Bradamont’s record hung in a window next to him. She had served well in the past. Tulev’s evaluations of her were glowing, and when Geary had reviewed the battles in which Dragon had fought under Bradamont’s command, he had found nothing to fault and much to admire. “Very well. Have your message sent to Dauntless. We’ll forward it to the Syndics, so there’s no question about your superiors being aware of it, with instructions to the Syndics to send the reply through us.”

“I have no objections to that, Admiral. White Witch is a part of me that I would have happily seen retired long ago.”

“Commander, if you hope to bring Rogero home with us when this fleet returns—”

“I don’t think that’s realistic, sir.” Bradamont’s voice grew wistful for a moment before taking on a professional lack of feeling again. “But if the messages I received from Rogero are true, then this CEO Drakon is as good a commander as Rogero might find. He’s supposedly loyal to those under his command. That somehow led to his disgrace and transfer here.”

“Do you know anything about Drakon’s relationship with Iceni?”

“No, sir. I’ll see what I can find out.”

DR. Setin had a querulous expression. “Admiral, how much longer until we encounter the enigma race?”

“We’re heading for the jump point to a star controlled by them, Doctor,” Geary assured him.

“Many of my colleagues are concerned about the violent nature of much of the human interaction with the enigma race to date.”

“Believe me, Doctor, I’m concerned about it, too.”

ICENI was smiling again. “I have no hesitation in promising to abide by your conditions, Admiral Geary.”

No further bargaining, just an immediate promise. He was really starting to distrust politicians who quickly agreed to something. But he could always repudiate any claims beyond the terms of what he had agreed to, and Iceni’s words would not bind him if they weren’t true. Who would take the word of a Syndic CEO over his?

“The information you requested is being transmitted separately,” Iceni continued. “That transmission identifies the gift of the design as a thanks for the services your forces have rendered to the defense of this star system. If your experts have any questions about the design or its operation, contact me using this same connection.

“As for CEO Boyens, he’s not here. Not in this star system, I mean. He rode one of the courier ships back to the home star system, where he thought his information and experiences might prove to his advantage with the new government.” Her smile twisted a little. “CEO Boyens is an ambitious man. I’m afraid that I can’t tell you anything else. We have not heard from him since his departure. Our communications with the central government and the home star system have been sporadic over the last few months.”

Her smile faded, replaced by what seemed to be real concern. “I will not attempt to minimize my worries about what might happen to your fleet inside enigma space, Admiral Geary. The Syndicate Worlds has lost many ships there, vanished without a trace. But that was before the discovery of the quantum worms. This time may be different. I cannot dictate your actions, but I ask you to keep in mind the welfare of my people when deciding on what to do, and if you have the opportunity to reach any agreements with the enigmas. I am providing you in another separate transmission with the latest information we have on file for the star systems now within enigma space, not because I must, but because we are allies in this matter, strange as that may seem, whether we will it or not. If you reference on any other communication channel our agreement, anything we have discussed here, or anything I have provided through this channel, I will deny any knowledge of it. For the people, Iceni, out.”

THE Syndic flotilla, as hugely outnumbered as it was, had shadowed the Alliance fleet at a distance of two light hours all the way to the jump point. Before ordering the jump, Geary checked again to see if any reply had come from Rogero. But there had been nothing. The fleet’s sensors hadn’t picked up any unusual activity among the Syndics, so whatever Iceni was planning apparently wouldn’t happen while the Alliance fleet was in this star system.

He called Commander Neeson on Implacable. “Have you finished analyzing that Syndic collapse-prevention system?”

“Yes, sir. It should work.” Neeson pursed his lips. “I’m surprised that we didn’t hear about anything similar being developed by the Alliance before we left, sir.”

“Me, too, Commander. It could be they’ve already fielded a similar design back home.”

“You’re not sending a ship back immediately with this design, sir? Just in case the Alliance hasn’t developed their own?”

Geary shook his head. “It’s the same problem as the one with our high-ranking liberated prisoners. I’d need to send substantial forces back as escorts, and I don’t want to weaken the fleet that much before we find out what kind of problems we’re going to face inside alien space. Besides, that ship couldn’t get home for weeks, and if the aliens intend collapsing the Alliance hypernet in retaliation, they would do it long before that when we enter their space.”

“Perhaps we should delay entering enigma space until we know the Alliance has the devices installed, Admiral.”

“No,” Geary said. “I considered that, but the travel time alone for voyages back to Alliance space, then returning here would add up to a couple of more months, even if the force we sent was not delayed or blocked. I don’t know that the Syndic central government might not attempt to cut off and destroy a smaller, isolated force whose fate the Syndics could then claim to have no knowledge of. If the design made it home, it would take more time for the Alliance to actually test, manufacture, and install the equipment and receive verification of that from every star system on the hypernet. We can’t afford to wait for how long all of that might require, not even knowing if a reply and confirmation will reach us out here.”

One last transmission. “All units be prepared for combat the instant we leave jump at Pele. All ships jump at time three two.”

THE fleet exited at Pele with every weapon ready, every man and woman in the fleet ready for a desperate fight. Instead, they found . . .

“Nothing.”

Desjani glared at her combat systems watch-stander. “Are our systems being scrubbed for the alien worms?”

“Scrubs are under way and continuous, Captain. There’s nothing here.”

Geary kept checking his display, unable to believe that there was no sign of any alien presence at Pele. Tanya’s suspicion about the alien worms had also been the first thing to occur to him. Those worms, using principles unknown to humanity, had been discovered only thanks to an intuition on the part of Jaylen Cresida before her death. Hidden inside the sensor and targeting systems on human ships, the worms had let the aliens control what humans saw of the outside universe, All too often, that had meant that the alien ships had been effectively invisible.

But there didn’t appear to be any alien worms deceiving their sensors this time, and what the sensors could see wasn’t impressive. Two inner worlds of modest size whirled about the star, but this star system lacked the usual array of gas giants farther out. Instead, a single massive planet orbited, so large it had become a brown dwarf, radiating heat but not strongly enough to classify it as a star in its own right. Between the star Pele and the brown dwarf, the two inner planets received an uncomfortable amount of heat, rendering all of them too warm for human habitation even though one of the worlds had some primitive extreme life-forms living on it.

On one of the inner worlds, a new massive crater could be seen, one that didn’t exist on the Syndic records they had been provided. That same planet had once had a large Syndic facility in orbit. “The aliens deorbited it intact, and it made a big bang when it hit,” Desjani commented. “Run the finest-grain analysis of this star system we can,” she ordered her bridge team. “If there’s an alien molecule here, I want to know where it is.”

“Why wouldn’t they at least have some kind of surveillance satellite?” Geary wondered. “Something to monitor the system and know if anyone else came here? Why don’t they have a picket ship watching to give warning that someone was heading into their territory?”

“Over-confidence?” Desjani suggested. “Maybe they only wanted this star system as a springboard to attack Midway, not as part of their own security buffer.”

“Maybe. As soon as the fleet’s systems confirm the location of the jump point for Hina, we’ll head for it.”

“Hina? Not Hua?”

“Hua is a more direct line toward what we think is alien territory,” Geary agreed. “But the Syndics had placed a colony at Hina. It looks like they intended to use Hina as a source to seed other colonies and base their forces out here. I want to see what’s at Hina.”

Another window popped up. “Admiral,” Dr. Setin said, “there are no aliens in this star system.”

“We’ve noticed that, Doctor. We’ll be proceeding directly to another star system deeper in alien space.”

“Will there be aliens there?”

“I hope so. How are you and the Marines getting along?” Geary asked to change the subject.

“Very well! These Marines have a unique and fascinating way of processing, evaluating, and understanding information. Their intellectual mechanisms are distinct from those I have encountered in the past. In some ways it’s almost as if they were a separate variant of the human race.”

“I’ve heard other people say much the same thing, Doctor. Please give my regards to General Carabali.”

They had only been at Pele for an hour when Geary’s display flickered, then a few moments later flickered again. Desjani’s must have done the same, because the instant after the second flicker, she was spinning in her seat to snap a question at her watch team. “What happened?”

The communications watch answered. “Our systems carried out automatic resets in response to attempts to override controls. Someone put a worm into our systems, but it’s an old design, so the security protocols were able to block it immediately.”

“How did the worm get into Dauntless?” Desjani demanded.

The lieutenant on communications watch shook his head. “It couldn’t have come in remotely, Captain. Our systems would have blocked it there. Someone aboard Dauntless manually inserted it.”

Desjani turned a narrow-eyed look on Geary. “Someone on Dauntless, using an old design. Who do you suppose could have been involved?”

He nodded back to her. “Some of our liberated prisoners. What was that worm trying to make the comm systems do?”

“Broadcast a message to the fleet, Admiral. The worm tried to self-destruct the message when it was blocked, but our systems recovered it.” The lieutenant paused. “Sir, Haboob is reporting a similar attempt to commandeer her comm systems a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, yeah,” Desjani said sarcastically, “it’s going to be very hard to figure out who was behind this.”

“Can you route to me the message the worm tried to broadcast?” Geary asked the lieutenant.

“Yes, sir. The worm has been deactivated, and the message scrubbed for any other worms hidden inside it. It’s clean.”

“Let me see it, then.” He noticed Desjani giving him another look. “And route it to Captain Desjani as well.”

A window popped open before Geary. Several of the former prisoners, all now wearing new uniforms glistening with their rank insignia, decorations, and awards, stood as if addressing their own command. One of them, Admiral Chelak, launched into a speech about honor, fleet traditions, respect for seniority, and the opinions of other officers, the need to resolve command issues—

He cut it off.

“What took you so long?” Desjani asked.

“I wanted to see if they’d say anything that showed they’d been thinking.” He glowered at his display. “But this appeal to the fleet’s officers means the ones behind this still think they can work against my command even after talking to people in the fleet.”

“Sabotage in a war zone—” Desjani began.

“I can’t just start shooting them, Tanya. Especially since the worm wasn’t designed to actually cause damage.”

“It was designed to incite mutiny.”

“That’s true.” He thumped a control. “Madam Emissary Rione, someone aboard Dauntless placed a worm in her systems. I will give you the opportunity to speak with Commander Benan about that before he is formally interviewed. If he was aware of or involved in the matter, an admission and cooperation at this point will be taken into account. While speaking with Commander Benan, you might also ensure that he is fully aware of recent history with worms in this fleet, both alien in origin and those created by internal enemies.”

Rione gazed back at him, her expression as stiff as if molded of metal. “Thank you. I’ll speak with him.”

Desjani waited until Geary was done. “As commanding officer of Dauntless, I have an obligation to launch an investigation.”

“Do so, Captain Desjani. Please take into account the status of those being questioned. We don’t want to give anyone grounds for claiming they’re being dishonored or disrespected.”

“Yes, sir.”

He gave her a sharp look. “I mean it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Before the day was out, Rione had asked for a private meeting with Geary, bringing along Commander Benan, who stood rigidly at attention as his wife spoke. “He says he placed the worm into Dauntless’s systems, Admiral.”

“It was an exercise of our rights to be heard,” Commander Benan said. “I was assured the worm would cause no damage to any ship or system.”

“Nonetheless, Commander,” Geary said, “placing unauthorized software into official systems is contrary to regulations, especially if such software is designed to override normal control functions. Are you aware of what happened to the heavy cruiser Lorica?”

Benan, already rigid, somehow stiffened even more. “I would never—Nothing would excuse such an action.”

“An action that was justified by those who committed it on the grounds that they didn’t believe I should be in command,” Geary said.

“So I have been informed. I repeat, I would never commit such an act.”

“I believe you, Commander. Would you inform me or someone else in authority if you are again approached to assist in actions contrary to regulations?”

Benan didn’t answer at first, looking over at Rione, who looked steadily back at him. “Yes. My wife’s honor has suffered enough.”

That could have been a barb aimed at Geary, but he let it pass. “You are a man of honor, so your word will not be questioned. Emissary Rione has asked that you remain on this ship with her, and in light of her long and distinguished service to the Alliance, I have no trouble granting that request. You’ve both been separated for too long as it is.” He looked at Rione, wondering what impact his words about her service to the Alliance had on her in light of the secrets she seemed to be keeping.

He had long since recalled the advice given him after other prisoners were liberated during earlier voyages, to give them something meaningful to do, and had regretted not being able to find tasks for so many high-ranking individuals. But perhaps it was time to offer something, anything. “Commander Benan, I regret that there are no positions on Dauntless appropriate to your rank and experience. However, the engineering department is in need of officers to inspect and test newly installed and upgraded equipment. If you are willing to undertake that assignment, Captain Desjani will assign you to that task.” It hadn’t been too easy to get Tanya to agree to that, but he had managed to convince her that useful employment and a sign of trust would both be a good idea.

Benan finally looked directly at Geary. “You’re offering to let me work directly on ship’s systems?”

“I either accept your word that you will not violate regulations again, or I don’t, Commander. And I have accepted it.”

A long pause, then Benan nodded. “I would be happy to contribute in any way I can to the readiness of an Alliance warship.”

“I’ll notify Captain Desjani. Thank you, Commander. Thank you, Madam Emissary.”

They left without saying anything more though Rione gave him a glance whose meaning was unclear.

IT took a total of six days to reach the jump point for Hina. Six days of futile searching for any sign of human or alien constructs. If wreckage from Syndic ships floated among the asteroids and smaller rocks of the star system, it was so old and slight that it had dispersed beyond long-range identification.

“If they wanted planets that were also suitable for human habitation, they’ll be at Hina,” Geary advised his fleet. “If there are still humans held captive by the aliens, they might well be at Hina, too. Be ready for action upon exiting jump.”

STARS once more filled a living universe as the fleet arrived at Hina.

“Yes!” Desjani cried as the displays updated.

An alien ship, matching the turtle-like outlines of the ships seen at Midway, was right on top of the jump exit and immediately opened fire on the Alliance ships, particle beams and solid projectiles lashing at Relentless. That battleship and every other warship within range of the alien returned fire within less than a second, reducing the alien craft to a ruin. Before Geary could open his mouth to order probes sent over to the wreck, it exploded into tiny fragments.

“Core overload,” one of the watch-standers reported. “Very powerful for a ship that size. Impossible to determine if it was accidental or deliberate.”

An urgent tone drew Geary’s attention to information popping up on one side of the display. Relentless hadn’t taken any damage in the brief engagement, but the core overload of the alien ship had occurred while it was surrounded by Alliance warships. A light cruiser and a destroyer had suffered minor damage, and another destroyer had been badly damaged. “Captain Smythe, get repair assistance to Sabar. I want that destroyer patched up as fast as you can do it.”

“That alien ship was very close to the jump point,” Desjani said. “As if it was preparing to jump out, and this jump point only leads to Pele.”

Geary considered that. “A picket ship that was supposed to be on station but was delayed?”

“Or else the aliens did have a surveillance satellite at Pele, one so low-power and carefully disguised as a natural asteroid that we couldn’t spot it. One of their faster-than-light alerts to here, and that ship could have been on its way to finding out what humans were doing at Pele.”

“I think you’re right. There’s not much else here, is there?” His display was changing, reflecting what was in this star system now instead of what the Syndics had once had here. “Three ships that seem to be freighters or some other kind of merchant ship, one other warship, and what’s on the planets and moons.”

“And that,” Desjani added, pointing to the hypernet gate suspended on the opposite side of the star system, a good eleven light hours distant. “That’s not a Syndic gate.”

“It doesn’t have a safe-fail system on it that we can recognize,” one of her officers reported. “But there are other modifications to it that don’t match the gates we or the Syndics have built.”

“Nothing like arriving in a new star system and finding a great big bomb pointed at you,” Desjani said.

“Yeah,” Geary agreed. The alien species had been willing to kill all of the wounded on its wrecked ships at Midway rather than let humans learn anything about them. They might not hesitate at all to destroy this star system if it meant also wiping out a human fleet. “We’ll have to stay close to the jump exit while we look over this star system.”

Rione and Charban had both come to the bridge, and Charban shook his head. “A pity our first contact with these beings had to involve our destruction of their ship.”

“Our first contact happened some time ago,” Geary pointed out. “When they attacked the Midway Star System. I assume you two will now attempt to speak with the aliens?”

“If they will speak with us,” Rione replied.

A window holding Dr. Setin appeared. “This is astounding, Admiral. Have you looked at the primary planet in this star system?”

“We were just getting to that, Doctor.”

“The towns the Syndics placed on the second planet are completely gone. There’s no trace that the places they occupied ever had anything built there. The enigma race must have gone to great effort to erase any trace of previous human presence.”

That was interesting as well as disturbing. Maybe having these experts along would turn out to be a useful thing.

“Have you examined the images of the alien towns on the visible portions of the planet?” Setin asked. “The images are very blurry, but the towns are not very large given how many years the enigma race has controlled this star system.”

“Why are the images so blurry?” Geary asked the bridge watch-standers.

“It doesn’t seem to be normal atmospherics,” the sensor watch answered. “We’re trying to get clearer images, but it’s as if there’s something fogging the imagery.”

“We’re sure the systems are clear of worms?” Desjani asked.

“Yes, Captain. This looks like something on the planet itself, maybe something positioned over those towns that lets through light but blocks details for anyone looking down at them.”

Geary passed that on to Dr. Setin, who excitedly broke the contact to confer with his colleagues, then Geary called Intelligence. “Lieutenant Iger, what do the comms in this star system look like? Any good video transmissions we can exploit?”

Iger appeared baffled. “There’s no video at all, Admiral. It’s all text, and that’s encoded.”

Desjani blew out an exasperated breath. “No wonder the Syndics called these things the enigma race. They give paranoia a bad name.”

“We can’t judge them by our standards,” Charban cautioned.

“I’m aware of that,” Geary said. “But Captain Desjani has a point. These aren’t countermeasures put into place after our arrival. The light from that planet is five hours old. The messages we’re picking up are at least that old as well. These seem to be normal, routine behaviors for this species. Lieutenant Iger, I want you to look for anything that might indicate humans are still somewhere in this star system.”

“We haven’t seen anything that indicates that yet, Admiral.”

Dr. Setin was back. “Very focused on privacy. Remarkable. Have you observed what can be seen of the towns? They are right on the coastline. As hard as it is to make out details, they seem to build right to the water’s edge. What’s that?” Setin seemed to be listening to someone. “Yes. Admiral, it looks like they may build into the water. What we’re seeing continuing into the water might be piers, but it almost looks like the same construction simply continues from dry land right into the water, and those images going into water become even harder to make out before becoming impossible to interpret, which would be consistent with them continuing into deeper water.”

“What would that mean, Doctor?”

“Well, one obvious possibility is that the enigma race is amphibious. Clearly, they value being close to water and may need that proximity to water. We heard an alien ship was encountered at the jump exit, Admiral. Will we be able to examine it and meet with its crew?”

Geary shook his head. “I’m afraid that ship self-destructed.”

“Oh. Did it evidence antagonistic or disputatious behaviors?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did it . . . attack . . . us?”

“Yes, Doctor. It opened fire the moment it saw us.”

The system techs played with the sensors, trying to get clearer images but having no success. Geary waited with a growing sense of impatience, watching the alien spacecraft reacting to the arrival of the fleet but unable to move his own ships away from the jump point without risking total destruction from the hypernet gate. “Captain?” the combat systems watch said after four futile hours, her voice thoughtful. “I’ve noticed something in the actions of the aliens. I may be wrong, but—”

“If you’ve noticed anything, I’d like to hear it,” Desjani said.

“Yes, ma’am. The thing is, if you look at the reactions of the alien ships, the probable freighters are reacting as the light of our arrival reaches them; but then this alien warship one and a half light hours distant also didn’t react until they could see us. And a few minutes ago, we got light back from this second alien warship, about forty-five light minutes from the first warship, which showed it reacting only a few minutes after the first alien warship would have seen light from our arrival.”

Desjani nodded, studying her own display. “That’s consistent with our belief that they have a faster-than-light communications capability, but it looks like they don’t have any faster-than-light sensors, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, Captain. That first warship needed to see our light get to him before he knew we were here. But it tells us something else,” the lieutenant added, “that their merchant ships don’t have the FTL comms. It wasn’t until one warship saw us that the other warship reacted.”

“That’s important to know. Excellent job, Lieutenant Castries.”

Rione and Charban sent out messages, drafted much earlier, regretting past warfare, expressing interest in real dialogue, and offering to negotiate terms for peaceful coexistence.

Five hours after the fleet’s arrival, a message arrived from the aliens, one definitely sent before the aliens heard the communications from the fleet. Geary saw the same sort of human avatars the aliens had used at Midway, false fronts that concealed the true appearance of the enigmas.

A “human” sat in the command seat of a virtual ship’s bridge cobbled together digitally from Syndic transmissions. He frowned and made a gesture that was probably meant to be threatening but was subtly wrong to the real humans watching the message. “Go. Go now. Stay, and you will die. This star is ours. Not yours. Go or you will die. This star is ours. Go or die.”

“Not much room for negotiation,” Desjani commented.

“No,” Geary agreed. “Route that message to the civilian experts for their input and make sure our emissaries see it.” His eyes came to rest on the depiction of alien warships on his display. All of the enigma warships in this star system were headed toward the Alliance fleet, but the closest ones had veered off to hold positions a light hour distant. They either weren’t planning a hopelessly outnumbered attack on the Alliance fleet or were waiting for every one of their own warships in this star system to join up before launching a still-futile attack.

“Admiral?”

He blinked, focusing on Desjani and realizing that he’d been lost in thought. “Sorry.”

“You’re all right?” Desjani asked. “You were out of comms for quite a while.”

“I was just thinking,” Geary assured her.

“Again?”

“Yes, Captain Desjani.” He nodded toward his display. “I was thinking about the fact that the aliens have superior maneuvering capability; but their weapons, the weapons we’ve seen in use, that is, are no better than ours and may be a little inferior. It’s an odd discrepancy.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Desjani said. “Imagine that you’re armed with a knife. Not a great knife, but it does the job. And you’re invisible, so even though your knife isn’t all that great, you have no trouble at all walking up to people and stabbing them before they even know you’re there.” She spread her hands with a questioning look. “Why worry about getting a new knife?”

“Because their real weapons were the worms, which allowed the aliens to be invisible on human sensors.”

“Those and that damned hypernet gate. How do we deal with that?”

“I’m still thinking.” Geary looked at his display once more. “Have we confirmed the Syndic information as to where the jump points are in this star system?”

“Just about.” She pointed. “One of the other ones is pretty close.”

Pretty close. But was it close enough?

THE fleet had continued to loiter near the jump point, close enough to it to jump out of this star system if they saw the hypernet gate beginning to collapse. But they couldn’t do that indefinitely, especially when it gave them no means of learning more about the aliens.

The fleet conference room had an air of uncertainty filling it. Fighting the Syndics, even with a peace treaty in force, was a fairly straightforward thing. Dealing with the enigma race seemed to produce an unending supply of questions and dilemmas.

“Uncrewed probes sent toward the planets to find out more and get better imagery would be easily intercepted and destroyed by the alien warships,” Badaya grumbled. The images of the other fleet commanders at the conference table nodded in agreement.

“There doesn’t seem to be any way to learn more here without being incredibly reckless and foolish,” Duellos said. “That hypernet gate pins us near this jump point.”

“Do we just leave?” Armus asked. “Why waste time just drifting here? Go back to Pele, find another way into alien space.”

“That would be a long way around,” Geary said. “And might just end up with us stuck the same way at Hua. There’s another option,” he continued, pointing to the display above the table, which currently showed the Hina Star System. “We’ve had time to confirm the Syndic data that there are four jump points in this star system. The one we’re already at, and these two way over on the other side of the star system, and this one.” He highlighted it.

“Close,” Tulev said. “Close enough to reach?”

“The alien hypernet gate is eleven light hours from us. The closest alien warships are one light hour away. Even if the aliens can instantaneously send messages and react, that gives us twelve hours.”

“That jump point is two point four light hours distant,” Badaya observed. “We’ll have to accelerate, but if we sprint up past point two light speed to the best velocity the auxiliaries could manage in that time, we could make it in almost twelve hours. There’d still be, hmm . . .” He ran some numbers. “Even if all ships attain optimal acceleration, there’d be a twenty-minute window in which we could be caught by the explosion of the hypernet gate.”

“Twenty minutes?” Captain Parr asked. “If we got caught in that blast, we’d be destroyed for certain. It’s a hell of a gamble. What are we waiting for?”

Geary smiled as the other officers signaled agreement with Parr’s sentiments. The thought of what would happen if the fleet was caught by the explosion of the hypernet gate chilled him, but he hadn’t expected to have much trouble getting them to agree to even a venture as dangerous as this would be. Rione, sitting silently, gave him a knowing look. She knew as well as he how this fleet thought. “Before we go,” Geary added, “our group of experts on nonhuman intelligent species”—he hoped he hadn’t sounded sarcastic—“has been analyzing what we’ve seen here so far and adding it to what was known before about the enigma race. They’d like to present a theory to us.”

A sort of sigh ran around the table, as if a group of college students had just been told they would have to listen to a boring lecture. “Let’s get it over with,” someone mumbled.

Geary keyed in the commands that brought several of the civilian experts suddenly to the table, all of them appearing in a small group. Dr. Setin stood up, his expression eager. “We can’t thank you all enough for this opportunity. It’s very dangerous to speculate too much on too little information, but my colleague Dr. Shwartz has come up with an interesting perspective that we think you’ll find very intriguing.”

Shwartz stood up as Setin sat down. She peered around the table, brushing a wisp of her short, dark hair aside, then she unexpectedly smiled. “Forgive me. Like my coworkers in this field, I’m not used to anyone paying much attention to our theories. This is a very unusual experience.”

She pointed to the representation of the star Hina, which floated over the table. “I believe that the enigma race differs from humanity in a very significant way. I don’t have to explain to military officers such as yourselves that humans base much of our interactions on open displays of power and aggression. This is built into us, from the way our species evolved and the experiences of our earliest ancestors. When confronting a foe, we try to bulk up our own appearance of threat, standing taller, spreading our shoulders and arms, much like a feline arching its back and erecting its fur to create a larger silhouette. What we build also reflects this way of thinking. Our battleships look deadly. They are designed not just to be mighty machines of war but also to project an image of threat and power.”

Shwartz paused. “But the enigma race seems to follow a completely opposite manner of dealing with threats. It’s a method not unknown to humans but also not instinctual for us. I propose that the enigmas instinctively project menace to their foes not by blatant, open displays of size and strength but by hiding their presence and their power.”

“How can someone be impressed, or deterred, or otherwise influenced,” Badaya asked, “by something hidden from them?”

“Imagine yourself in a dark room,” Dr. Shwartz replied. “Totally dark. Is there something in there with you? What is it? Is it dangerous? Is it dangerous enough to kill you? Do you want to fight it? Or flee? And if you wish to fight, how do you fight the unknown?”

The fleet officers were listening intently by then, and Desjani nodded. “Your theory matches everything we know about the aliens. They place a premium on hiding. The worms the aliens hid in human operating systems helped keep the aliens hidden from our sensors and let the aliens know where we were; but the worms in the hypernet gates also made them usable as surprise weapons.”

“Yes,” Shwartz said. “This method of attack is not unknown to us. Humans use ambushes, striking without warning while our foe’s back is turned, but we regard them as unfair and improper. Fighting, our instincts tell us, should involve two combatants standing up to each other, in the open, a ‘fair fight’ as we call it.”

“Snakes,” Captain Vitali remarked. “Are you saying the enigmas are like snakes?”

“In some ways, perhaps.”

“But do snakes fight other snakes by hiding and striking?” Badaya asked. “Do snakes fight other snakes at all? Here’s my main concern with your idea, Doctor. Using the unknown to impress and disconcert a foe requires a foe who is capable of grasping that an unknown threat could exist. It wouldn’t work against something that’s oblivious. It requires an opponent who’s aware.”

“Why is that a problem?” Duellos asked.

“Because the suggestion is that these aliens evolved to fight that way. Who was the enemy that led them to that strategy? What kind of opponents did they face who could be successfully unnerved and countered by a phantom enemy?”

Dr. Shwartz frowned, but slowly nodded. “That is a valid question. Many predators can be spooked by the right kinds of threats. Perhaps the enemy was themselves, with vicious fighting among separate groups from the beginning.”

“But there don’t appear to be very many of them,” another of the experts said. “After so much time in this star system, their settlements are still fairly small by human standards. That argues for a lower birthrate, a population that expands slower than a comparable human one would. And lower birthrates, smaller populations, should mean less conflict over resources, land, and everything else.”

Jane Geary had been studying something, and looked up, saying a single word. “Neanderthals.”

“What?” Badaya asked.

“Neanderthals. An evolutionary dead end, one of the prehuman species on Old Earth. They became extinct long before recorded human history began.”

“I’m familiar with what’s known of the Neanderthals,” Dr. Setin said. “How do they factor into this discussion?”

“We know that as early humans moved into the same areas, the Neanderthals dwindled and eventually disappeared. Extinct,” Jane Geary explained. “What if the Neanderthals had survived into recorded human history? What if they’d been more numerous, more powerful, able to keep fighting with our earliest ancestors longer?”

Dr. Setin took a quick intake of breath. “We don’t know that early humans wiped out the Neanderthals. There was some interbreeding, but because all prehuman species died out long before recorded history, leaving only scattered remains, we don’t know why they died out.”

Tulev answered. “Humans have a stark enough history of struggles based on things such as specific religious beliefs, cultural differences, and ethnic variations. It is not hard to imagine the conflict that would have resulted from coexisting with a slightly different variant of ourselves. And as you say, all of those variants died out. Perhaps that was a coincidence.”

Dr. Shwartz was nodding. “We have no way of knowing how the competition with variants of the human race impacted our own development as a species, but surely it had some impact. That could have been the same type of intelligent competition that the enigmas faced to develop this way of fighting.”

“All of this is plausible,” Dr. Setin said, “but we lack proof, or even sufficient substantiating detail. We need more information, Admiral Geary.”

“If these aliens are so opposed to us,” Captain Armus asked, “if there’s no chance of getting along with them, then why not return to Alliance space now and prepare for an actual military campaign? We retake this star system, then start working our way inward until we break these bastards.”

The civilians were staring at Armus, not so much shocked at his proposal as seeming to be unable to comprehend such a thing.

Badaya shook his head. “We need to know more about their strength before we plan such a campaign. Whether or not these enigmas agree to speak with us, we need to conduct more reconnaissance of their territory. Capturing some ships intact, or launching some raids, might net us some of their technology.”

“We’ll penetrate far enough to learn as much as we can, without getting so deep into their space that we might face problems getting back out,” Geary said. “Once we get to the next star, one the Syndics named Alihi, we’ll aim for long jumps, getting as far into alien space as we can as fast as we can before heading out again.”

“They don’t seem inclined to let us wander through their territory,” Commander Neeson remarked.

“If we have to fight, we will. But our purpose is reconnaissance, not battle. Victory for us in this case consists of learning as much as we can and bringing it back to human space with us.”

No one disputed that. The fleet’s ardor for battle had ebbed a bit, it seemed, now that the war with the Syndics was over. He could see the weariness on everyone’s face, feel the unseen presence of countless dead friends and companions. Yet this was also the only life these men and women knew, the only life they had ever known. As tired as they were of war, like the ground forces soldiers at Ambaru station, they knew nothing else. Change, uncertainty, was in some ways harder to face than the familiar prospect of death. They would run the risk of destruction racing against time to reach that next jump point, but if he had suggested immediately following the first proposal, to fall back and look for another way into alien space, there would have been grumbling because that wasn’t the sort of thing the fleet did when it faced a challenge. “Thank you. I’ll swing the fleet gradually around so that the slower ships, especially the auxiliaries, are closest to the jump point we’re aiming for when we start our sprint. As the fleet accelerates, the faster ships will pass through the slower ones, inverting the formation. I’ll pass the exact maneuvering orders within the next hour.”

After the fleet officers had left, Dr. Setin turned to Geary. “Admiral, I brought Dr. Shwartz to this meeting because I thought her proposals were truly based on observations and not preconceptions. However, there are two other . . . factions . . . within our group of experts. One of those, I am convinced, came along on this voyage already certain the aliens are morally superior to us and have only reacted with violence when humans have attacked.”

Desjani laughed.

“I assure you that hasn’t been the case with our encounters with the aliens thus far,” Geary said. “You mentioned two factions, though.”

“Yes. The other faction believes that the aliens must be hostile, that we will inevitably face a fight to the death with them.”

“Did these two factions ever talk to each other before this?” Desjani asked.

“No,” Dr. Setin said. “At least not when they could help it, which was most of the time. However, both factions have prepared their interpretations of what we have seen so far, and I feel obligated to ask that you review those.”

“That’s all right,” Geary replied. “One of the mistakes the Syndics made was not considering alternatives from what they believed was true of the enigma race. I can at least skim these reports to see if there’s anything in them that makes me think twice.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Dr. Setin peered at Geary. “You’re open-minded for a military person.”

“He can afford to be,” Desjani said. “I’m close-minded enough for both of us.”

Setin eyed her, clearly unable to tell if Desjani was joking, then smiled politely before his image vanished.

“I’ll leave you to your diplomatic discussions,” Desjani said as she stood up, with a dismissive glance toward Charban and Rione.

After she had left, Rione looked at Geary. “Your orders call for this fleet to discover the boundaries of space controlled by the enigma race.”

“Yes, they do. But as fleet commander, I have the discretion of responding to the situation if it requires modifying my instructions.” Geary, feeling increasingly aggravated with Rione since she hadn’t bent at all despite his forbearance with Paol Benan’s actions, kept his speech formal. “I won’t keep charging toward the galactic core as long as the enigma race and my fuel supplies hold out. We’ll reach a point where our fuel cell supply, even as augmented by new cells built by the auxiliaries, will begin declining past ninety percent. At that point, we’re heading back. I hope,” he added to see what reaction it produced, “that the grand council wouldn’t expect me to hazard this fleet by complying blindly with orders given many light years from here.”

“Senator Navarro certainly wouldn’t,” she said, neither her tone nor her expression providing any clue to anything but the literal meaning of the statement.

“I know we’ve had some sharp words,” Geary said, looking at General Charban as well now, “but I want to be certain you both understand that I consider us to be on the same side.”

“Of course we are,” Charban agreed.

Rione simply looked back at him.

THREE hours later, Geary gave the order for the fleet’s ships to pivot around and accelerate all out toward the jump point for Alihi.

ELEVEN

ELEVEN hours to the jump for Alihi. An hour after the fleet had leaped toward that jump point, the nearest alien warships suddenly swung about and raced to match the movement of the Alliance fleet.

“Captain Smythe, you need to coax more acceleration out of your auxiliaries,” Geary ordered.

“Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Three bags full!” As Smythe ended his words, he saluted in a grand manner. “Request permission to jettison twenty metric tons of raw material from Tanuki, Kupua, Titan, and Domovoi.”

“Twenty metric tons?” By any measure, that was a lot.

“From each ship. Eighty tons total. It’s the sort of thing we can most easily find along the way, like raw iron. We can just rope an asteroid or two in another star system if you want us to break it down into usable form without slowing. But I can’t get any more acceleration out of my heaviest ships without lightening their mass.”

It didn’t leave him much choice. The acceleration rates for the four big auxiliaries weren’t fast enough, and if they were destroyed here, then those tons of raw materials wouldn’t do anyone any good. “Permission granted.”

“Do you want us to throw it at anything or anyone when we jettison it?” Smythe asked. “It could make quite a splash whenever it landed.”

“No. Just drop it in a safe orbit. We’re supposed to be trying to establish peaceful relations with the enigmas, and dropping eighty tons of raw metal on them probably wouldn’t further that goal.”

As Smythe’s image vanished, Desjani spoke in a low voice as if commenting on the weather. “You need to get some rest, Admiral.”

“While we’re facing the prospect of getting annihilated by that hypernet gate?”

“Yes. There’s nothing else we can do for a while, and you can monitor the fleet’s progress from your stateroom just as well as you can from here.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “You look nervous.”

He was nervous, but he got the point. Everyone else on Dauntless would be watching him to see if he was calm or worried.

Geary stood up, moving casually. “I’m going down to my stateroom to eat something,” he told Desjani in a louder voice that carried easily across the bridge.

“What a good idea, Admiral,” she said. “I wish I’d thought of that.”

But he had barely made it down to his stateroom and checked the progress of Smythe’s auxiliaries when a call came in.

General Carabali made an apologetic grimace. “Sorry to bother you, Admiral, but I feel I should inform you that Admiral Chelak has been confined to his quarters aboard Haboob.”

“What did Chelak do?”

“He tried to pull rank on me and assume command of the Marine detachment aboard Haboob. Not too smart, really, since that’s two hundred Marines he would have had to convince to disregard my authority.”

Geary sighed. “Thank you for informing me.”

“It’s going to get worse, Admiral. They’re sitting on Haboob and Mistral with very little to do, and they’re the kind of people who are used to doing things and giving orders. I believe the only reason we haven’t had more trouble before now is that all of the former prisoners are still under the influence of long incarcerations in the Syndic labor camp, and some of them are also under the influence of truly impressive doses of medications prescribed by the fleet physicians.”

“Thank you, General. I’ll try to think of something to occupy their time.” After Carabali ended the call, Geary sat looking at nothing as he tried to come up with alternatives. I can’t assign them all to check out systems on Haboob and Mistral. Even if they’d accept that job, there are a bunch of them I can’t trust with that kind of access to critical systems.

Too bad they can’t help us with the aliens.

That thought didn’t fade, instead repeating itself. Why can’t they?

He spent a moment checking on how the auxiliaries and the rest of the fleet were doing, watching the tons of raw material jettisoned by Smythe’s ships floating away from the fleet like oddly angular asteroids.

Reassured that things were going as well as they could, Geary finally made a call to Mistral. During the brief and unpleasant meeting with the liberated prisoners, one of the freed admirals had quickly backed Geary and shown no support for Chelak. A check of that admiral’s record had shown solid service and ability, with enough ambition to drive him to high rank but no indications of political ambitions. He was someone with whom Geary realized he should have already spoken and given some responsibilities. Better late than never. “Admiral Lagemann.”

Lagemann gazed back at Geary. “What’s the occasion?”

“I was hoping that you and your fellow former prisoners would help with a very important task.”

Lagemann looked very skeptical. “I personally haven’t taken it badly that you haven’t been able to devote your time to holding our hands, but I also know there’s a pretty strict limit on the number of admirals and generals you need in command positions. I’d be glad of something important to do. We’ve been counting dust bunnies in the corners of the passageways for a while now, if you need a head count on them.”

“I don’t think dust bunnies are an endangered species, Admiral. You know that we’re inside space controlled by an intelligent, nonhuman species, one which so far has acted in a hostile manner. We have little data and little experience with them, but further armed encounters are a possibility at any time. You and your comrades may not have recent combat experience, but you have a lot of knowledge and practice in operating against the enemy. You also have new eyes to look at this problem, without any preconceptions the rest of us have already developed. What I would like is for you to examine what records we have, the materials we’ve received from the Syndics and our fleet’s records, and try to analyze how the aliens think and fight. What are they likely to do in a battle? Was the situation at Midway an anomaly or the way the aliens are likely to fight in the future? What other tactics might we expect from them?”

Admiral Lagemann was thinking, and nodded. “Not make-work after all? I can’t promise anything, but that’s not the point, is it? If we do come up with something useful, it could make a big difference in fighting these creatures. If we don’t, you’ve lost nothing.”

“Exactly. Are you willing to assist in this, Admiral?”

“Yes. And I know many of my comrades will as well.” Lagemann looked to the side, breathing deeply. “This has not been an easy role for us. It will mean a great deal to have the opportunity to make a difference again. May I ask one favor in return?”

“I can’t do much about the food on Mistral.”

Lagemann grinned. “After seventeen years of Syndic rations, even fleet food tastes good. No, what I want to ask for is the opportunity to talk with you some more, specifically about tactics. I and some of the others really want the chance to learn from you more about how you fought those engagements that broke the back of the Syndics. The ways our ancestors fought.”

“Of course, Admiral.” Geary felt a pang of guilt that he had been forced to warehouse so many capable senior officers on the assault transports along with the troublemakers. “I’ll arrange for all of the records I spoke of to be forwarded to Mistral for you. If anyone on Haboob wishes to assist as well, you’re authorized to share the records with them. Would you be willing to have a talk this evening?”

“That would be welcome.” Lagemann looked down at his hand, then awkwardly brought it up in a salute. “I understand this is the latest fashion in the fleet. We’ll see you this evening, Admiral.”

Geary returned the salute, smiling. Maybe someone did try to create problems by saddling me with all those senior officers. But that doesn’t mean I can’t find some ways to turn them into assets.

HE was back on the bridge an hour before the fleet would reach the jump point for Alihi and roughly thirty-five minutes before the fleet would face the possibility of being overtaken by a nova-scale burst of energy from a collapsing hypernet gate. Because of lower-than-optimum acceleration by not only the largest auxiliaries but also some of the battleships, the fleet had lagged behind projections, and so would have a slightly longer period of exposure to that threat.

“Orion didn’t keep up,” Geary grumbled to himself.

“Neither did Revenge and Indomitable,” Desjani commented as if to herself. “You can test and tweak all you want, but sometimes equipment problems don’t show up until you actually push your gear.”

“I know that.”

“I know you know that.”

He decided not to continue that conversation.

Ten minutes until the vulnerability period began. Geary found himself staring at the depiction of the alien hypernet gate, even though there was no possible way for it to have begun collapsing unless the aliens had ordered that before the fleet even left the first jump point.

Two more alien warships had joined the first two chasing one light hour behind the Alliance fleet, moving with that unbelievable maneuverability the aliens had demonstrated at Midway.

Five minutes. The watch-standers on the bridge were all trying to act as if they were carrying out routine work, but Geary noticed their gazes repeatedly fastening on one point before each of them, the place where their own displays would be showing the alien hypernet gate.

Another necessary action had to be taken now, one contrary to every instinct to keep heading for that jump point at maximum speed. But a ship going too fast couldn’t enter jump. “All ships pivot one eight zero degrees at time five zero and brake to point one light speed.” They would be slowing down now, lengthening the period of time when danger was the greatest, but nothing could be done about that.

One minute.

Desjani yawned. “It’ll be nice to get somewhere we have the possibility of action, right, Lieutenant Yuon?”

Yuon took a moment to swallow before he answered in a fairly steady voice. “Yes, Captain.”

“How was your family on Kosatka?” Desjani continued.

“Fine, ma’am. They mainly wanted to talk about . . . you know.”

Geary glanced back at Yuon, trying to match Desjani’s own casual words. “I hope you painted me in a good light, Lieutenant.”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“Entering vulnerability period,” the maneuvering watch announced.

Desjani pulled out a ration bar. “Hungry?” she asked Geary.

“I had something earlier. Is that a Yanika Babiya?”

“No. It’s . . .” She squinted at the label. “Spicy chicken curry.”

“A chicken curry ration bar? How are they?”

Taking a small bite, Desjani chewed slowly, pretending not to be aware that everyone on the bridge was watching her instead of staring at the representation of the alien hypernet gate. “It’s definitely got curry in it. Spicy, not so much. Some of the other stuff tastes like chicken.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down too much, does it?” Geary said.

“Every kind of meat in a ration bar tastes like chicken, Captain,” Lieutenant Castries suggested. “Except the chicken.”

“You’re right, Lieutenant,” Desjani said. “Real chicken in ration bars tastes like, what, mutton?”

“Ham,” Yuon tossed in. “Bad ham.”

“So this can’t be chicken because it tastes like chicken,” Desjani concluded.

“Fifteen minutes to jump,” the maneuvering watch reported.

Geary checked the deceleration of his ships, seeing that all were braking at the proper rate to be down to point one light speed when they reached the jump point.

“What do you suppose the aliens taste like?” Desjani wondered.

“We can’t eat them,” Geary said. “They’re sentient.”

“Humans sometimes eat other humans in emergencies,” she pointed out. “Like after a shipwreck. It’s almost a naval tradition.”

“I’ve heard that,” Geary said. “Aren’t you supposed to eat the most junior personnel first?”

“That’s what I’ve heard.” Desjani looked toward her watch-standers. “Just so we have things planned out in advance, which one of you has the latest date of rank?”

The lieutenants exchanged looks and grins. “Actually, Captain,” Castries said, “Yuon and I were promoted on the same day.”

“Well, we can’t eat both of you right off the bat. I assume you’d object to using alphabetical order to decide the problem, Lieutenant Castries?”

“Not if we used first names, Captain,” Castries replied. “Mine is Xenia.”

“That would be hard to beat,” Desjani said. “Wouldn’t it, Lieutenant Bhasan Yuon?”

Yuon shook his head. “I really think Lieutenant Castries would make a better meal, Captain. I’d be tough and lean.”

“Five minutes to jump,” the maneuvering watch said.

“Maybe you two could flip a coin.” Desjani raised one finger, looking inspired. “No. I’ll just get an ensign assigned to this watch team.”

“Ensign slash emergency food supply?” Geary asked.

“We don’t have to put that in the position’s job description. It might discourage volunteers.”

“Master Chief Gioninni?” Yuon suggested.

“Lieutenant Yuon,” Desjani replied, “if Master Chief Gioninni were in the escape pod with us, he’d somehow trick the rest of us into getting eaten until he and any remaining survivors sailed grandly into some safe harbor, perhaps a world where Gioninni would convince the inhabitants to make him their ruler for life.”

Geary was watching his fleet now, sparing only quick glances for the alien hypernet gate, which still showed no signs of beginning to collapse. None of the ships were lagging anymore, every one matching pace with the others. Two minutes remaining. The fleet would jump automatically when the maneuvering systems detected that it was in position, so he didn’t even have to order the jump this time, which might have cost a few extra, critical seconds.

“One minute to jump,” the maneuvering watch said.

“It takes the gates more than a minute to collapse,” Desjani said, “and we haven’t seen it start. We’re clear.”

“Yes,” Geary agreed. “We are.” He tapped his controls. “All units, the aliens may be using their faster-than-light comm capability to muster forces at Alihi. Be ready for a fight when we exit jump.”

Forty seconds later, the fleet jumped for Alihi.

Desjani sighed and stood up as the gray of jump space replaced the alien threat at Hina. “I’m tired, and for some reason I’m hungry. I’m going to get something to eat.” She leaned closer to Geary. “Next time you come up with something to distract everyone.”

“I won’t be able to equal you.”

“No, but you can do your best, Admiral.” With that parting shot, Desjani left the bridge.

JUMP space always tended to make humans uncomfortable. Humans didn’t belong in jump space. Maybe nothing really belonged there. Maybe the strange lights that came and went were reflections of something happening somewhere else. At some level beneath conscious thought, humans could never be at home in jump space, growing more irritable with every consecutive day spent there.

But whatever was bothering Geary during this jump to Alihi felt different from the usual jump jitters. Something that Desjani had said kept coming back, like a shadow half-glimpsed repeatedly. If you’ve got a knife . . . Why did the idea of the aliens wielding knives trouble him so?

Normal communications were impossible in jump, but between the time he had fought his battle at Grendel a century ago and when he had been found still alive in survival sleep, humanity had figured out how to send brief, simple messages between ships. On the fourth day of the jump, barely eight hours from exit at Alihi, a message came from Mistral for Geary.

Geary read it over again slowly, despite its necessary brevity. Regarding aliens—Watch your back. Lagemann.

He had asked Desjani to come down to his stateroom to look at it and talk about it, and now she frowned in puzzlement. “We know the aliens can’t be trusted. Is that all he’s saying?”

“I don’t think so. He and his fellows are supposed to be trying to guess how the aliens will fight.”

“This sounds more like a warning against a stab in the back.”

“What?” Geary whirled to stare at her.

She switched the puzzlement to his reaction. “I said it sounds more like a warning against them trying to stab us in the back.”

“A knife. In the back.”

“I wasn’t speaking literally.”

Geary made a fist and rapped it against the side of his head. “Damn! That’s what it means! That’s what’s been bothering me!” He called up a display showing the Alihi star system, or at least what that star system had looked like when the Syndics had outposts there. “They strike from hiding. From ambush. If your worms aren’t working anymore to conceal you from enemy sensors, where can you hide in a star system?”

Desjani shrugged. “Behind the star. Behind a planet or moon.”

“Behind a jump exit?”

“No!” She stabbed a finger at the display. “You’re talking about an ambush force positioned behind a jump exit to catch an arriving force in the rear? It doesn’t work. It can’t work. The physics are against you.”

“Why?” Geary asked.

“Because, one, you don’t know if or when someone is arriving at a jump exit. It’s hard to maintain a position close to one and even harder right behind one. You’re going to do that for days, weeks, months? Two, whoever shows up is heading out of the exit, away from you, at up to point one light speed. You’re starting from a dead stop relative to them, so you need to accelerate into a stern chase. Maybe you can catch them, but it’ll take a while. While they watch you coming. That’s not exactly a surprise.”

Geary nodded. “Those are the same reasons why we never planned for ambushes like that a century ago. But what if you have faster-than-light communications?”

She paused. “Someone at the star you left could tell someone at the star you were going to that you were coming.”

“And they’d know pretty accurately when you’d appear because jump physics are consistent. If you enter jump at x time here en route there, the journey will take y time.”

Desjani shook her head. “But even then they wouldn’t know exactly where you’d be. They’d still have to be able to maneuver and accelerate much better than—Son of a bitch.” She gave him a stricken look. “They could do it.”

“Yeah.” Geary slumped back, staring ahead of him. “The possibility didn’t occur to us because we can’t do it. But they have two big advantages that make it feasible. And because of the FTL communications, they might even know what our formation is like. We have to leave jump in the same formation we entered. There’s no way to maneuver in jump space.”

“They’ll hit the auxiliaries, and maybe the assault transports. They’re all in the rear of our main subformation, with no escorts behind them.” Desjani pressed her palms against her eyes. “Can we get enough of our force reversed and able to cover those ships in time?”

“It takes time to recover from jump,” Geary said bitterly. “And time to pivot ships and brake velocity so we can let the auxiliaries pass us. Even if we tell our comm systems to transmit prepared orders the instant we exit, it will still take precious moments for the other ships’ crews to recover enough to respond, and I have a nasty suspicion that every second will count.”

Desjani pointed to the message from Mistral. “Keep it simple, and we can send the messages in jump.”

Simple. Something simple that could counter what he hadn’t planned for at all.

“You’ve still got almost seven hours before we leave jump to think of something,” Desjani added.

“Oh, that helps take the pressure off.”

“Sorry.”

THE aliens were waiting at Alihi.

Geary’s brain hadn’t begun to focus when he felt Dauntless swinging her bow up and around, the battle cruiser pivoting in response to maneuvering orders entered while the ship was still in jump. Dauntless was lighting off her main propulsion units, braking the velocity of the ship at the maximum rate her crew and structure could survive, when alarms began blaring from the combat systems. As Geary’s vision began to finally clear, he felt Dauntless shudder slightly as specter missiles launched on orders from combat systems given freedom to immediately engage targets assessed hostile.

His message had gone to the other major warships in the main formation. Battle cruisers Dauntless, Daring, Victorious, and Intemperate, battleships Warspite, Vengeance, Revenge, Guardian, Fearless, Resolution , and Redoubtable. It had been as short and simple as required by the nature of jump space communications. Immediate Execute on exit, pivot one eight zero, brake point zero five, engage enemy. That was the fastest response he could create if the aliens were waiting to hit the back of his force.

There might be enigma warships waiting in front of the jump exit, but if so, hopefully the heavy and light cruisers and the destroyers remaining in the main formation would be able to handle them.

He finally managed to get a good look at his display as Dauntless’s hell lances started firing. Enigma warships were clawing their way toward the rear of the Alliance formation, the squat turtle shapes varying in size from rough equivalents to human destroyers to some massing a little more than heavy cruisers. Thirty . . . no forty. Forty-one. The courses of the enigma warships altered slightly as Dauntless, Daring, Victorious, and Intemperate slowed enough for the auxiliaries to lumber past, the battle cruisers pivoting and decelerating faster than the battleships could.

Dauntless shuddered repeatedly as the aliens concentrated their fire on the four battle cruisers. Even though the battle cruisers were bow on to the enemy, their weaker shields were failing, and shots were penetrating to strike their lightly armored hulls. Geary had only a second to decide what to do, his hand hitting his comm controls as Daring staggered under a particularly bad barrage. “Dauntless, Daring, Victorious, and Intemperate, continue to brake velocity at maximum sustainable rate!”

As the battered battle cruisers continued to slow, the aliens accelerated past them, aiming once again for the eight auxiliaries. Grapeshot from the battle cruisers hit the enigmas as they tore past, and Victorious caught one with its null field, carving out a large chunk of the alien ship.

His display showed no other aliens around the jump exit, so Geary hastily sent another command. “All ships maneuver freely to engage the enemy. Captain Smythe, get your ships clear!”

The remaining alien warships, only twenty-five still in the fight, had begun firing on the auxiliaries when the Alliance battleships finally trudged even with the lightly armed support ships. The cruisers and destroyers to either side and in front of the auxiliaries were now pivoting as well, the heavy cruisers unleashing some of their own specters.

It was the battleships that made the difference, though, wiping out the nearest enigma ships, then decimating the second rank.

Only six alien warships managed to break away, twisting around in maneuvers no human warship could match, to tear away at an astounding rate.

Even though the battle was over, explosions still rippled through space as the wrecked alien warships near the Alliance forces self-destructed.

“All units, resume formation, brake velocity to point zero two light speed.” He needed to see how badly his fleet had been hurt before proceeding farther into this star system.

“There’s another hypernet gate here,” Desjani snapped as she fielded damage reports. “Bastards.”

He checked the damage reports flowing into the fleet net from Dauntless and the other three battle cruisers, wincing at the results. Daring had been hit the worst, her bow badly shot up, numerous systems out, and close to a hundred crew members dead or wounded. Victorious had sixty casualties, and had lost half her hell lances. Fiftythree of Intemperate’s crew were dead or injured, and she had taken bad damage to her bow’s port quarter.

And Dauntless. “Twenty-eight dead,” Desjani said, her voice betraying no feeling, no emotion, at all. “Forty-one wounded, six critically. I have four working hell-lance batteries.” She took another report. “Correction. Three and a half working hell-lance batteries.”

Geary felt a numbness inside himself as he hit his comm controls again. Such a short period of time, better numbered in seconds than in minutes, and so many lives lost. “Captain Smythe, I want auxiliary repair support mated to Dauntless, Daring, Victorious, and Intemperate as fast as you can get them there. Daring, Victorious, and Intemperate , advise as soon as possible if you need medical assistance. General Carabali, ensure the medical teams on Mistral, Haboob, Tsunami, and Typhoon are prepared for immediate response to requests for support.”

He turned to look at Desjani, whose stony expression matched the flatness of her voice. “Does Dauntless require medical assistance?”

She made another call to sick bay, then nodded. “We can use support, Admiral, especially for the critical injuries.”

“Typhoon, close on Dauntless to provide medical support as soon as possible.” Geary noticed that Desjani was still waiting for him. “Attend to your ship, Captain. I’ll look to the rest of the fleet.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

THANKS more than anything to the limited numbers of alien attackers, the damage to the battle cruisers was by far the worst the Alliance fleet had sustained. A few minor hits on the auxiliaries could be repaired without difficulty, and the battleships had taken only superficial damage.

They had already seen several more alien warships pop in via the hypernet gate at Alihi as the Alliance fleet hastily repaired damage and its sensors studied the planets there. The star system had two planets deemed marginally habitable by the Syndics, one just over six light minutes from its star and the other about ten light minutes distant. Neither would be comfortable for humans, but they weren’t hell-holes either. Farther out, a dense asteroid belt orbited at twenty light minutes from the star, and beyond that, four gas giants.

The enigmas had settled the planet six light minutes out, and from the sensor readings may have been undertaking the enormously difficult task of modifying its environment to be more hospitable. “Humans don’t do that,” one of the engineers explained. “It’s not that we couldn’t. We worked out the basic techniques a long time ago on that planet near Old Earth. What’s it called? Mars. But we did that before jump technology made interstellar travel pretty easy. Since then, it’s just far easier and cheaper to find a nicer planet in another star system than it is to go to the work of fixing up a marginal or hostile one.”

“Any idea why the aliens would be doing it here, then?”

The engineer pondered that. “I can think of two reasons. One would be that the planetary modifications are much simpler and less expensive for them. The other is maybe they can’t find enough better planets, like what happened when the Syndics ran into them and that region got blocked to further expansion by both sides.”

“No signs of human presence,” Lieutenant Iger reported, “but just like at Hina, our ability to analyze the inhabited world is severely constrained by their countermeasures.”

Dr. Setin didn’t try to hide his frustration. “We can only guess at the population here, but based purely on the number of towns, we think it is higher than at Hina. Can’t we get closer to that planet? We’ve finally found another intelligent species, and we can’t learn anything about them!”

There didn’t seem to be much reason to stay at Alihi.

“THE hypernet gate here is only two light hours from this jump point,” Geary said, his voice heavy. The images of the fleet’s commanding officers focused on the star display over the conference table. “There’s no way to reach another jump point without risking certain destruction. But, this jump point accesses both Hina and another star, angling deeper into enigma territory. The Syndics named it Laka, but two survey missions they sent there over a century ago both vanished without a trace. We can assume Laka is also occupied by the enigmas. As soon as our four damaged battle cruisers are ready, we’ll jump for Laka.”

“I take it our formation will be modified next time,” Armus said.

“Yes. We’ll be ready for anything coming from any angle when we exit jump.”

“Why not stay here,” Captain Vitali of Daring suggested in a hard voice, “and bombard the hell out of everything until there’s nothing but ruins, then go out and explore what’s left?”

General Charban, looking uncomfortable, responded. “Our mission is to try to establish peaceful relations—”

“Those things have attacked us every time we’ve encountered them! They don’t talk to us, they won’t talk to us. They just want to kill us. Fine! Let’s give it back to them!”

A low murmur of approval sounded around the table.

Duellos sighed loudly enough to be heard by everyone. “The problem we face is that damnable hypernet gate. Even if we destroyed everything, that wouldn’t guarantee that there wasn’t some dead-man mechanism on the gate designed to collapse it and catch this fleet in the resulting blast.”

“Why not hit the gate, too?” Vitali demanded.

Commander Neeson shook his head. “If we start taking out gate tethers, we lose control over the collapse process. Once it started going, the aliens could easily have it set to go into a catastrophic collapse sequence.”

“Enough rocks fired at the right tethers—” Vitali continued stubbornly.

“There are defenses around the gate. All they have to do is divert one rock slightly to throw off any collapse sequence we planned on.”

“Perhaps,” Charban suggested, “if we launched a limited bombardment at a few places, a demonstration of what we could do—”

“That didn’t work with the Syndics,” Badaya interrupted. “I never thought I’d be saying this, but the Syndics seem to be downright reasonable compared to these enigmas. Anything that didn’t convince the Syndics won’t convince the aliens.”

“I have to agree,” Duellos said.

“That doesn’t prevent us from striking back,” Desjani said. “Bombard some of those towns. They’ve given us more than adequate grounds to retaliate. We can show them that when they attack us, they can’t just run away and avoid any more hurt.”

Charban hesitated. “They’d see a bombardment launched from here early enough to easily allow evacuation of their populace. It will demonstrate our capabilities in a way impossible for them to ignore but shouldn’t create any motives for vengeance based on civilian deaths.”

Dr. Shwartz and Dr. Setin had been invited to listen in, and now Shwartz spoke reluctantly. “We don’t even know whether they understand the distinction between military and civilian. The enigmas may be as blind to such a concept as the average human male is to the difference between taupe and beige.”

“According to the Syndic records,” Duellos said, “they lost quite a few ships in this region before even realizing that the enigmas existed. Many of those ships were lightly armed or unarmed. If the aliens do recognize the distinction between military and civilian, they seem more than capable of disregarding it.”

Everyone looked at Geary, who bent his head in thought for a moment before nodding. “Yes. We’ll send them another message saying that we want peaceful coexistence, but that if they persist in seeking war, they’ll have to deal with war. I don’t see any other option.”

The moment of silence that followed was broken by the captain of Victorious. “Do we bury our dead here? Send them toward this star?”

“No,” Vitali insisted immediately.

Geary nodded once more. “I agree with Captain Vitali. There’s too great a chance that the journey of our honored dead to the star would be halted by the aliens. There are compartments on the assault transports for storage of casualties. We’ll transfer our dead there and hold them until we reach a star system where their burials can be conducted safely. Captain Smythe, how long until all four damaged battle cruisers are back in battle-ready condition?”

Smythe scratched his neck meditatively. “None of them will be in mint condition, but give me three more days, and all of their weapons will be working again, holes in their hulls patched, and shields back up to strength.”

Desjani was running some calculations. “A bombardment launched from here will take sixty-one hours to reach the planet where the enigma towns are.”

“All right,” Geary said. “We’ll launch the bombardment within the hour, along with our message that this is just a taste of what pissed-off humanity can do. That will give the aliens plenty of time to respond with something other than more attacks, if they so choose, and give us time to see the bombardment hit and evaluate the results before repairs are far enough along, and we jump for Laka.”

Most of the officers left quickly when the conference ended, but Smythe lingered long enough to shake his head at Desjani. “I go to all that trouble to get your ship’s systems upgraded, and you go and get a good lot of the equipment blown apart before the work’s completely done.”

“I’m just trying to keep your engineers gainfully employed,” Desjani replied, managing the first trace of a smile she had shown since losing her crew members.

“I appreciate your efforts, but I wanted the admiral to know that one of the hell-lance batteries on Victorious wasn’t knocked out by enemy action. Not directly, anyway. One of the power junctions feeding it failed.”

“Age?” Geary asked.

“Age and stress,” Smythe confirmed. “I can’t teach our equipment meditation, so I’ll keep working at making it younger.”

Charban sat staring down at the table after Smythe had vanished. “If they’d only talk to us. This is senseless. War always seems senseless, but we don’t even know why they’re hostile. Don’t think I don’t appreciate exactly how your Captain Vitali feels. I lost a lot of troops in my time.”

He stood up and walked out, something in his movements and his bearing making Charban seem older.

Desjani glanced at Rione, who was still seated, and stood up herself. “I’ll get a bombardment plan set up. Admiral.”

“Thanks. Target about half the towns on the planet.”

“Half?” She smiled again, this time in a feral way. “I thought you’d limit me to a quarter.”

After Desjani left, Geary sat waiting for Rione to say something. Finally, she looked directly at him. “I realize that the words ‘it could have been worse’ are cold comfort at such times,” Rione said. “But they are also true. You could have been mourning the loss of several ships, and thousands of dead.”

“I know.” Geary leaned back, trying to dull the pain inside as he thought of their losses. “If we hadn’t reacted as quickly as we did, we could easily have had most of the auxiliaries crippled or destroyed, which could have left this fleet in a very bad position. Was that the idea, Madam Emissary?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. I wish I had some idea of why you would have agreed to play a role in it.”

“You know that I have always been willing to sacrifice myself for the right reasons.” On that, she also stood and left.

FOUR hours later, Geary stood at attention in his best uniform. Beside him stood Captain Desjani, similarly attired, also at attention. Next to them were two ranks of sailors and Marines from Dauntless’s crew, forming two lines just outside a hatch. From the hatch, giving access to the exterior, a pressurized accommodation tube led to Typhoon. Everyone wore armbands showing a wide bar of gold, another of black, then a final gold bar, symbolizing the night that was only an interval between the light.

Geary brought his arm up in a salute that he held as the first of twenty-nine sealed body tubes was carried past by more crew members, moving at a somber pace, each step coming with slow deliberation. More followed, carrying the rest of the tubes. Moving down the corridor formed by the two ranks of sailors and Marines, the crew members carried the remains of their comrades through the hatch and toward Typhoon, where they would be kept in compartments designed for that sad burden.

Normally, cargo was simply floated through the open space between ships. But the fleet didn’t treat its dead that way.

After the last tube passed by on its way to Typhoon and had vanished from view, Geary finally lowered his arm. Desjani did the same, turning to the honor guard. “Thank you. Dismissed.”

Everyone left to change back into a regular uniform, to return to the work whose demands never ceased, but sometimes paused when tradition demanded it.

DAYS of repairing battle damage passed quickly enough. Geary noticed that now when members of the crew spoke of the aliens, they were angry, and that watch-standers viewing alien activity had the aspect of someone aiming weapons at a target they wished killed. Did the enigmas understand how their actions were impacting human feelings about them? Kalixa had been horrible, but the deaths here had been personal ones, men and women who had been friends and comrades, and increasingly the human crews appeared ready to reply to enigma intransigence with firepower rather than futile attempts to communicate.

“We received another message from the enigma race,” Rione told him. “Do you wish to view it?”

“Anything new in it?” Geary asked.

“No. Same avatar, same false bridge, and same dialogue. If we took the words ‘die’ and ‘go’ away from the enigmas, most of their ability to converse would vanish.”

Charban grimaced. “They’re not acknowledging what we said, and they’re not acknowledging events here. It’s like talking to a wall.”

Unable to help a grim smile, Geary pointed to his display, where the tracks from the bombardment projectiles fired days ago were finally curving down into the planet’s atmosphere. “We’re about to knock on that wall. I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but I think it’ll make us all feel better. Maybe, maybe, the enigmas will realize how much damage their actions are doing to them.”

“If they are anything like humans, that may be a vain hope. Do you think they evacuated the targeted sites?” Rione asked.

“We have no idea. That blurring is blocking too much detail.”

“Are you certain this isn’t due to more enigma worms?” Charban asked.

Desjani shook her head. “If it is, the worms are using a totally different principle. We have people examining every possibility, especially the ones that seem impossible, but our code monkeys haven’t found anything. Our technicians all believe that this is some form of real interference near the things we’re trying to observe.”

Charban nodded, his eyes downcast. “I’d be surprised if it was worms this time, since the enigmas couldn’t hide their own ships when they attacked us here.” He stood to go.

“Don’t you want to watch the bombardment hit?” Desjani asked.

General Charban shook his head, not looking at her. “I’ve already seen too many towns die, Captain Desjani.”

She closed her eyes as Charban left, then opened them and shook her head at Geary. “We’re back to bombarding towns.”

“They had plenty of time to evacuate,” Geary said.

“I know. This time they had plenty of time. What about next time?”

“I won’t let them drive us to that.”

“May our ancestors forgive us all if we sink to that level again, no matter what these things do to provoke us,” Desjani replied in a low voice.

The mood on the bridge was somber rather than celebratory as they watched the time-late images. When the bombardment arrived there, the alien-controlled planet had been five and half light hours from where the Alliance fleet hovered near the jump point. The light from that event had taken five and half hours to arrive, and they were finally seeing what had happened as the kinetic projectiles dove into atmosphere, plummeting from the heavens to tear apart the . . . what? Homes? Businesses? Factories? Did the enigmas have such things as humans understood them?

Lieutenant Iger reported in, his own tones subdued. “Whatever they use to blur sight of their towns survived the bombardment. We can tell we tore up the targets, but that’s about all.”

“Fine.” Geary made a final check of the status of repairs. Even badly damaged Daring had patched up the last systems and was ready to go. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

TWELVE

LAKA Star System was empty, almost literally so. White dwarf stars didn’t tend to have much in the way of planets, and Laka had only a tiny, tormented rock in a looping, close-in orbit that made it likely the minor planet had sailed in from space and been captured by the star sometime within the last million years or so. No alien presence could be detected, but after Pele, no one was sure if that meant there was actually nothing here. “Not a lot to hide among,” Desjani commented.

Geary took the fleet quickly across the star system to a jump point offering a long jump deeper into alien space. The star they were aiming for this time hadn’t ever officially been given a name by the Syndics, a fact that marked this as the true limits of human expansion in this part of the galaxy. “This is likely to be one of the enigmas’ long-settled star systems,” Geary cautioned the fleet. “They may expect us there. All ships should set weapons to fire upon any threats automatically upon our arrival.” It was a dangerous policy, because even ships’ combat systems could sometimes be rattled by jump exit and mistakenly identify a friendly ship as an enemy, but hopefully the radically different designs of the alien craft would minimize any chances of that.

He sat in his stateroom after the fleet had entered jump space again, feeling moody at how poorly things had gone. Despite everything that had happened with the aliens, despite everything the aliens had done, Geary realized he had still had a hope that the enigmas would come around and be willing to at least coexist with humans even if they couldn’t bring themselves to be friendly.

His hatch alert chimed, then Desjani entered. “How do you feel, Admiral?”

“Lousy. How do you feel, Captain Desjani?”

“Mad.” She sat down, looking at him. “Not depressed. Just mad. Unlike some others, I never expected the aliens to be reasonable. Maybe that’s because of my experience with humans. What are you going to name the star?”

The sudden question threw him off. “What?”

“The star we’re heading for needs a name. We can’t just use its astronomical designation. Normally, there’s probably a whole bureaucracy that decides the name of a star, but if you name one out here, that name will probably stick. So what are you going to name it?”

Geary shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“You could name it after someone.”

“Tanya.”

“What?”

“I can name it Tanya.”

“No,” she said, “you can’t. I don’t want everyone looking at a star named Tanya and saying ‘Oh, isn’t it sweet how much he loves her.’ Gag. Name it after someone who deserves to be memorialized that way.”

“All right,” Geary said. “I’ll name it Cresida.”

“A star system controlled by aliens who are hostile to humanity? You want to name that after Jaylen?”

“Fine. I’ll call it Falco.”

“That man does not deserve to have a star named after him!”

“Tanya,” Geary said, “why don’t you pick a name?”

“Because you have the right to choose the name you want,” she replied.

“So, what name is it that I want?”

“Something appropriate! Maybe not a person. Something unknown and dangerous.” Desjani snapped her fingers. “Limbo. Call it Limbo.”

“There’s no star already named Limbo?” Geary asked.

“Let me make sure.” Desjani’s hand flew over her data unit. “No. There have been some planets, but those were all fictional, in old books. Really old books. Did you know people were writing about interstellar travel long before there was any?”

“It must have seemed like a pretty amazing thing to look forward to. All right. I think I’ll call the star Limbo.”

“I think that’s a good choice,” Desjani said. “Why are you smiling if you feel lousy?”

“Something struck me as funny.” He leaned his head slightly to one side to look at her. “What would become of me without you?”

“You’d get by.” Desjani stood up. “Four days in jump space before we reach Limbo. If we’re meant to succeed in this, we will. You know that.”

“Thanks, Tanya.”

THIS time, when Dauntless dropped out of jump, no weapons fired. Geary’s head cleared enough for him to assure himself that no enemies were nearby, then his eyes went to the display showing the entire star system, where fleet sensors were rapidly evaluating and adding data.

“Jackpot,” Desjani breathed.

Limbo held two planets with substantial alien populations, based on the number of towns and cities visible beneath the blurring effects. Many installations orbited those worlds, and scores of freighters crossed between planets. Only a dozen enigma warships orbited the star. If this were a human-occupied star system, they would evaluate it as well-populated and fairly wealthy.

And there was no hypernet gate.

Geary kept staring at his display, wondering why that felt so wrong. There were plenty of human star systems without hypernet gates.

Captain Duellos called in, his expression bemused. “This doesn’t make any sense, Admiral. It’s a good thing, from our perspective, but why would the aliens have hypernet gates in such marginal star systems as Hina and Alihi, but not have one here?”

“That’s a very good question,” Desjani agreed. “Does it mean there’s another sort of trap lurking somewhere in this star system?”

Geary braked the fleet’s velocity, holding it near the jump exit, while the fleet’s sensors scoured the star system repeatedly, fixing the locations of other jump points and trying to spot anything that could pose a potential danger. “Nothing, Lieutenant Iger?”

“No, sir. Just those warships that we can see. If there had been a gate here, and it had collapsed, we should be able to detect the remnants of the tethers. It doesn’t look like there has ever been a gate here.”

He called his senior fleet officers, asking them for opinions on what the lack of a gate here meant. None of them had good explanations.

Rione and Charban had no idea, either.

Admiral Lagemann and his fellow former prisoners couldn’t offer any good suggestions except for reiterating that the aliens liked to spring traps, which did nothing for Geary’s peace of mind.

Finally, in desperation, he called the civilian experts.

“Maybe the answer eludes us,” Dr. Shwartz suggested, “because we’re looking at the situation from a human perspective.”

“What do you mean?” Geary asked.

“We’re making assumptions. Examine what you’re taking for granted. What are hypernet gates for?”

“Very-high-speed interstellar transportation.” That was what he had first been told, and that was how humanity used them.

“What else can they be used for? Think of other potential uses that the aliens might consider primary uses.”

“I can’t think of anything else the gates are designed to do. As far as other capabilities, we know if they’re collapsed they—” He looked over at Desjani. “They’re weapons. The gates are weapons. Doomsday defenses for any star system.”

“Defenses?” Desjani asked, incredulous. “Like, a minefield?”

“The biggest damn minefield imaginable.” Geary pulled up a star display. “The enigmas were the ones who discovered how to build hypernets. They knew before they built any how dangerous hypernet gates could be. They never built them in their most valuable star systems. They built them on their borders.”

Charban shook his head. “A willingness to deliberately employ such things as defensive weapons? A great wall of hypernet gates? It’s a scorched-earth defense magnified beyond comprehension.”

“They’ve proven willing to destroy their damaged ships,” Rione pointed out, “and the crews of those ships. To us, it seems unimaginably ruthless. But to them, it seems such a defense is conceivable.”

“We got past it,” Geary said. “Maybe because we never intended to attack those star systems. We just wanted to get through them. Maybe that surprised the enigmas.”

Dr. Shwartz had been listening. “There’s also the possibility that the enigmas themselves shrank from employing such weapons. As different as they may be from us, self-preservation must play a role in their thinking even if it is species based rather than individually focused. There have been cases in human history where weapons were constructed and prepared, but not employed because their destructive power frightened those who had created them. The gates may be intended to deter attacks since their presence would make an assault on that star system impossible. The point may be not to use them.”

“They wouldn’t work as a deterrent unless potential attackers believed that the enigmas were willing to use them to wipe out their own star systems as well as the attackers,” Charban insisted.

“I believe it,” Desjani said.

Geary had his eyes locked on the display. Maybe there was still some hidden trap out there. The decision on whether to leave the area of the jump point and head into the inner star system was up to him. The uncertainties still surrounding what enigma technologies could do, and the enigma fondness for striking by surprise, made the decision far from easy. But in order to learn more about this race, he would have to send ships closer to some of those planets.

Split the force? Send out a strong formation, able to handle those dozen enigma warships and anything that might be expected to pop up while the rest of the fleet stayed near the jump point? “How much would be enough?” Geary wondered out loud.

Desjani frowned, then understood. “That would depend upon the threat.”

“And we don’t know the threat, which is why I’m considering splitting the force. Is the right response to an unknown danger to divide my own forces?”

“Not if you put it that way.” She waved toward her display. “If there were a gate here, sending everyone in-system would just ensure the destruction of the entire fleet. But there isn’t a gate.”

He could spend a long time wondering about what to do, hoping some new information would come in. But the enigmas were pursuing this fleet, and they had faster-than-light communications. The longer he waited, the more alien warships were likely to show up. “We’ll go as a fleet. My gut feeling is that any threat that appears in the next few days would be a serious challenge to part of this fleet, but together we should be able to handle whatever shows up.”

She grinned. “Where to, Admiral? The closest inhabited planet?”

“No.” He highlighted a decent-size installation on a large moon of a gas giant orbiting two light hours from the star. “We head for that. Isolated and not very large, so it won’t have the kind of defenses we might run into on one of the planets. If the enigmas’ anti-surveillance methods can even block our search efforts when we’re close, then we can send uncrewed probes in.”

“They might be able to destroy the probes.”

“Then we’ll hammer their defenses before we send the Marines to knock down doors and get some information the hard way.”

Desjani approved, of course, and when Geary looked back to check on his observers, he saw Rione as impassive as usual these days, while Charban simply appeared resigned to the necessity of using force.

He put the fleet onto a vector aimed at intercepting the gas giant in its orbit around the star newly christened Limbo but kept the fleet’s velocity at point one light speed.

The moon they were aiming for had been six light hours distant, making the transit there about two and a half days long. For the first day, nothing happened except that the alien warships came tearing up to a position a light hour away from the Alliance fleet, then maintained their distance, too few to threaten the fleet but a constant source of aggravation. But with the fleet only a day and half out from the alien installation, the aliens finally reacted directly to the human movements.

“A ship has left the installation,” the maneuvering watch reported. “Not one of their warships, but one of the blocky ones we think are freighters.”

“Evacuating personnel,” Desjani said.

Geary looked at the data. “He’s accelerating slowly. Their freighters seem to reflect the same economic realities that human ones do.”

“Yeah. You can’t make a profit if you spend too much on propulsion and fuel cells.” Her fingers danced over her display. “Lieutenant Casque, run some intercepts on that alien freighter to double-check my work.”

Casque worked almost as rapidly as Desjani, then nodded. “I come up with the same results, Captain. We can catch it.”

“Send the results to the Admiral’s display.”

Geary watched the long curves of the projected intercepts appear. The Alliance fleet was curving into the star system at an angle. The alien freighter was heading toward the star, aiming for one of the populated worlds. Behind the Alliance fleet, the dozen alien warships trailed like a patient pack of wolves. “Our force would have to move fast to get to that freighter before those alien warships. If every enigma left that installation, we’ll be left without any aliens to talk to unless we run down that ship. I’ll split off a fast-moving task force to do the job and keep the rest of the fleet on course so we can still examine the installation.”

“Dauntless is ready—”

“Tanya, she’s the flagship. She has to stay with the fleet this time.” He scanned the fleet’s formation quickly, then paused as he was about to send a transmission. Damn. I want Tulev running this, but I need to send the other three battle cruiser divisions, which means Badaya on Illustrious . And Badaya is senior to Tulev.

All right. Badaya should be able to do it. If he might end up commanding this fleet if something happens to me, I need to see more of how he handles an independent force. “Captain Badaya, you are to assume command of Task Force Alpha and proceed to intercept and capture the alien craft that just left their installation. We want that ship intact and those on it alive.” Now to call the ships that would make up that task force. It would have to be large enough to handle those dozen enigma warships if necessary, and any more that showed up suddenly, and should use ships already positioned not far from each other. “First Battle Cruiser Division. Second Battle Cruiser Division, Sixth Battle Cruiser Division, Second, Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth Light Cruiser Squadrons, and Third, Fourth, Seventh, Tenth, and Fourteenth Destroyer Squadrons, detach from main formation and form Task Force Alpha under command of Captain Badaya effective immediately.”

Desjani had slumped slightly, glaring at her display. “Every other battle cruiser division gets to go.”

“The task force needs to be strong enough to handle those alien warships if they fight for the freighter. I’m keeping Adroit with us.”

“Ha-ha. You owe me one, Admiral.”

“I’ll add it to the list.”

Badaya didn’t waste any time. Inspire, Formidable, Brilliant, Implacable , Leviathan, Dragon, Steadfast, Valiant, Illustrious, Incredible, and Invincible tore out of the formation, with the light cruisers and destroyers leaping to surround them.

In a very rare move these days, Rione came to lean close to Geary. “Badaya?” she murmured skeptically.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Geary murmured back. “And he has Tulev and Duellos along with him.”

“You’re the admiral. I’d recommend that someone else do any communicating with the aliens, though.” Rione returned to the back of the bridge.

He turned to look at her and Charban. “Excellent idea. The enigmas shouldn’t have any trouble figuring out that our task force is aiming to intercept that freighter, and they already know that we’re heading for the installation. I’d appreciate it if you two broadcast a message to the enigmas telling them that despite their own hostile actions and provocations, we do not intend to harm anyone on the freighter unless we are forced to defend ourselves.”

“Defend ourselves again,” Desjani muttered, then frowned at her display. “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?” Geary asked.

“The acceleration on that alien freighter. Something didn’t seem right, and now I know what. We know their warships seem to have power core efficiencies an order of magnitude higher than our own. And there’s no reason to think a freighter would have military-grade propulsion. But that freighter’s acceleration rate pretty closely matches that of one of our freighters. If they can build military propulsion an order of magnitude better than on our warships, why can’t they build freighter propulsion an order of magnitude better than on our freighters?”

He fixed his own gaze on the projected vector of the alien freighter. “That’s a good question. It’s not even significantly better. Maybe we’ll get an answer when we capture it.”

She snorted derisively. “Don’t count your freighters before you’ve captured them.”

Charban had finished helping Rione broadcast the message to the aliens and came to stand beside Geary’s seat for a moment. “I’m wondering something, Admiral.”

“You, too?”

“The alien warships could have launched a bombardment aimed at that installation once they knew we were headed that way. They haven’t. Why not? They’re obsessed with privacy, but they’re apparently going to let us examine a large installation without hindrance.”

Desjani gave Charban the first look of respect she had offered the emissary. “There’s a trap?”

“I would be very, very cautious about sending in a landing force, Admiral,” Charban said, then nodded to Desjani before he left.

There wasn’t much to do after that but watch the task force sweeping down on the freighter and wait to see how the dozen alien warships reacted. Several hours passed, with the fleet swinging in toward the installation on the gas giant’s moon, the freighter moving slowly but steadily toward the inner star system, the battle cruiser task force diverging quickly from the rest of the fleet as it kept accelerating toward the freighter, and the alien warships hanging a light hour behind the human fleet. “They’re not doing anything?” Geary finally demanded. He couldn’t help but make a question of it, because it seemed so contrary to alien actions to date.

“It must be obvious to them that the task force is heading for the freighter,” Desjani confirmed. “And we’d have seen their reaction to that long before now. But they’re just holding the same position relative to us.”

“Waiting for orders?”

“Damned if I know. Sir. But with faster-than-light comms, they should have already received orders by now even if their command authority is on one of those inner planets.”

The task force would intercept the alien freighter in another twenty hours. It would be five hours after that before the fleet reached the alien installation. Geary punched his comm controls. “All ships ensure that your crews get chances to rest and to eat.” It could be enormously hard to stand down at times like this, even though any action wouldn’t occur for close to a full day, and even if the alien warships accelerated to attack, it would take them hours to reach attack range. One of the biggest and easiest mistakes to make was sitting, tense and ready, getting worn-out and hungry as you watched ships slowly move closer to each other, even while the vast distances in space ensured that nothing could happen.

“I’m going to get something to eat and get some rest,” he told Desjani.

She nodded. “I’m rotating my crews through normal watch sections. I’ll take a break in a little while, too.”

Despite his words, Geary once again roamed the passageways for a while to tire himself out a little more, taking the time to talk to crew members he encountered. They seemed happier now that there was a prospect of closing with the enemy, though all of them were disappointed that Dauntless wasn’t leading the task force to intercept the freighter.

He ate a meal in one of the mess compartments, talking to more of the crew about their homes. Most were from Kosatka, reflecting common fleet policy these days of crewing ships with a majority of men and women from one planet, and Geary found that they now spoke of home as if he shared that world with them. He found himself oddly grateful for that. He had grown up on Glenlyon, but the thought of the hero worship that would surround him there more than anywhere else made that world now feel almost as alien as Limbo to him.

He also took time for a visit to the worship spaces, praying that somehow they could avoid more senseless loss of life. After that, to his own surprise he got a decent amount of sleep and quite a bit of work done before returning to the bridge.

Desjani was just settling into her own seat. “Checking on repair work,” she told him. “We’ve almost fixed all of the things that were already fixed before the damned enigmas broke them.”

“Half an hour to intercept of the freighter by the task force, Captain,” Lieutenant Casque said.

“Very w—” Desjani broke off, staring at her display.

Geary did the same, barely suppressing a curse.

“They blew it up,” Casque reported as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.

On Geary’s display, the neat symbol representing the enigma freighter had been replaced by a spreading cloud of dustlike debris. It had happened two hours ago, but the force of the event still felt immediate. “How the hell did a freighter blow up with that intensity?”

“Run an analysis,” Desjani ordered her bridge team. “Ancestors preserve us,” she added to Geary. “They self-destructed their ship full of their own people fleeing that installation. Is there anything they won’t do to keep us from learning anything about them?”

“I’m starting to wonder.” Somehow, he wasn’t surprised when new alerts sounded on the display. Fixed defenses closest to the installation had launched kinetic projectiles, whose trajectories were clearly aimed not at any Alliance ships but at the installation itself, itself still more than thirty light minutes distant or six hours’ travel time at point one light speed. That volley had barely been detected when the image of the installation itself smeared and burst outward. “They self-destructed the installation, and they launched a bombardment to pulverize whatever is left from that.”

“Charban was right, though it looks like the aliens didn’t want to risk waiting to blow the place until we had people down there and might have already learned something. What do we do now?” Desjani asked. “Head for one of the inhabited planets?”

“Please do not,” Rione suddenly said. She and Charban had come back onto the bridge unnoticed until then. “I am very much afraid of what they would do if we tried to approach one of those worlds.”

“They wouldn’t—” Desjani began, then closed her eyes. “Maybe they would.”

“What do you think, General Charban?” Geary asked.

“I agree with my fellow emissary, Admiral.”

“It’s technically not our fault if they kill themselves,” Desjani grumbled. “And, no, I’m not prepared to argue that point with the living stars when I face them. But what else do we do? They have us checkmated. Either they’ll blow us and themselves to hell with hypernet gates, or they’ll blow themselves to hell if they can’t stop us from learning anything. I prefer the second option if we have a choice, but either way, we learn nothing.”

Geary exhaled slowly, thinking. “All right. We stay on course for the installation. Maybe something survived the self-destruct and will survive the impact of that bombardment.”

Some time later, a short message came in from the task force, Captain Badaya looking dissatisfied. “We’ll continue on course to examine the debris field in case there’s anything worthwhile left, then move to rejoin the fleet, Admiral.”

THE remnants of the installation were too badly torn up to reveal anything beyond the basic composition of what it had been constructed of. Carabali had advised against sending personnel down to the surface of the moon, arguing that more traps might be undetonated and waiting for human presence to further destroy the already-mangled ruins. But uncrewed probes found nothing, even the size and shapes of rooms in the installation hard to determine because of the level of destruction.

Captain Smythe called in with an engineer’s perspective. “They must build things with an eye to being able to totally self-destruct. You can’t just annihilate a structure this badly by setting off a few charges. You need to have a lot of explosives or other destructive materials, and they need to be placed right. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the structures contain built-in charges.”

“Isn’t that extremely hazardous?” Geary asked.

“Says the man who’s riding a ship loaded with weaponry, dangerous circuitry, unstable fuel cells, and a power core that can blow it into tiny pieces? And who’s doing this through space, an environment totally hostile to human life? It’s what we’re used to, Admiral. They may be used to living inside walls packed with explosives.” Smythe brightened. “They might have some extremely stable compounds that require just the right means of detonation. I’d love to have a look at that sort of thing.”

“If we find any, I’ll let you know. Do you think their cities might be built like that?”

“It’s possible. Though placing enough nukes at the proper intervals would accomplish the same purpose.”

The task force had reached the expanding cloud of debris that had been an alien freighter and slowed down to conduct a careful examination of it. When his message finally reached Geary, Badaya seemed to be in inexplicably high spirits considering the failure of the task force’s mission to capture the freighter, but his first words explained his happiness. “Admiral, for once the aliens failed to totally destroy everything. Dragon found a partial body. At least we finally know what they look like. I have to give Commander Bradamont full credit for realizing that the aliens might well garb themselves in clothing that we’d consider stealth material. She took Dragon around the edges of the debris field from the freighter, looking for cool patches among the debris, and found what seems to be about a one-half-intact body that was somehow partially shielded from the blast that destroyed the freighter.”

An image appeared next to Badaya. Geary flinched, not in revulsion at the alien itself but at the state of the body. Explosive decompression on top of the damage done by the destruction of the freighter had left gory remnants. Still, he could make out what seemed to be a tough skin, with patches of thin scales in a few places. The crushed skull still had a small snout visible. In life, the enigma must have been lean and long, so skinny that it looked to human eyes as if it had been stretched out by someone pulling on both ends. “Make sure medical staff and our civilian experts see this,” he told the communications watch, then called the fleet’s chief medical officer.

“I assume you want to look at this in person,” Geary began. “Where should I have Dragon’s shuttle deliver it?”

“Tsunami, please, Admiral. They have a particularly good surgeon on there who has some autopsy experience. That’s also the ship carrying the, um, experts on intelligent nonhumans. How long until we see it?”

“They’re forwarding scans to us, but it will take close to a day for the task force to rejoin us so you can physically examine the remains, Doctor.” Another call, this to the much more distant Illustrious. “Captain Badaya, my compliments to you and Commander Bradamont on a job well done. As soon as your task force rejoins the formation I want Dragon to shuttle those remains to Tsunami.”

Finally, they had found something. Perhaps his prayers had been at least partially answered.

GEARY was in his stateroom when Badaya called again as his task force rejoined the rest of the fleet, the ships returning to their places in the larger formation. “Sorry I couldn’t get that freighter for you, Admiral, but at least we got that partial body. Ugly, aren’t they?”

“It’s hard to tell with all the damage to it,” Geary said.

“That’s a point. No major problems to report, but I’d appreciate it if you’d have a stern talk with Invincible’s commanding officer.”

“Now what?”

“Captain Vente isn’t taking it well that this is my division. He keeps making digs about me being junior to him, so he should be in charge. During this operation, he kept balking at orders to show his unhappiness that I was in command of the task force instead of him.”

That wasn’t a surprise to hear. “He hasn’t done anything justifying a formal reprimand?” Which might also justify relieving him of command if it was a serious enough infraction.

“Unfortunately, no,” Badaya said, twisting his mouth in disgust. “Vente’s got admiral’s insignia in his eyes, and he’s politically smart enough to avoid going over the line while he’s getting his major command ticket punched before he returns to headquarters and his hoped-for promotion.”

“Somebody should have told him that promotions have hit a brick wall.”

“Ha! At least as far as he’s concerned, right, Admiral? But I’ve dealt with plenty of Vente’s type in my time. They always think their connections will help them get what others can’t.”

Bracing himself for an unpleasant but necessary task, Geary called Vente. Nearly twenty minutes later, long enough to annoy Geary but not long enough to justify chewing him out for that as well, Vente’s image and frown appeared standing in Geary’s stateroom. “Captain Vente, I need to emphasize for you that I do not disrupt command relationships or positions based purely on seniority. Captain Badaya has successfully and competently led his division for some time, and he will continue doing so.”

Vente’s expression soured even more. “That is contrary to regulations.”

“No, it is not, or you’d be citing the relevant regulations to me right now. Let me be clear that I respect the service and honor of all my officers, and I will not allow any of my officers to be treated in any manner that reflects disrespect for them.”

“Admiral Chelak—”

“Is not in command of this fleet. Have I made my expectations clear, Captain Vente?”

“Yes . . . Admiral.”

After Vente left, Geary ordered the fleet’s support systems to provide him with more frequent and detailed updates on Invincible’s status. Give me a reason to relieve this man of command. Anything that I can justify. And let’s hope it happens soon.

THE medical representatives were looking around the fleet conference room with ill-concealed curiosity. Attendance at the conferences had been increasingly restricted in recent decades, as the conferences degenerated into freewheeling political contests to decide fleet commanders and vote on courses of action. By the time Geary was awakened from survival sleep, it was rare for anyone but the commanding officers of the fleet’s ships to attend such meetings. But Geary had imposed much more discipline, and the conferences no longer featured the same fireworks, which probably explained the disappointment the doctors were showing.

The surgeon who had been in charge of the alien autopsy was giving a presentation, accompanied by virtual images that would have been stomach-turning for nonphysicians even if the images hadn’t been three-dimensional and as real-looking as if actual body parts were floating over the conference table. “We can’t be certain why this specimen survived as well as it did, but an analysis run using injury re-creation software rates as a high probability that the individual represented here was not physically aboard the freighter when it was destroyed. A reanalysis of records from the last moments of the freighter’s existence identified a stealthy object being ejected from the freighter several seconds before it exploded.”

“An escape pod?” Duellos asked in surprise.

“Very likely. The distance and the structure of the pod itself would have shielded the occupant a bit.” The surgeon indicated various organs. “Enough of the neck survived to identify a dual breathing system. We believe this skin flap would close, diverting breathing intake from this multichambered lung to these organs. They were very delicate, and not much has survived, but we think it likely that they worked the same way gills do.”

“Amphibious in every sense of the word!” Dr. Setin exclaimed, pleased that his experts had called that one.

“Most likely,” the surgeon responded. “There’s not enough left of the eyes to be certain what wavelengths they were optimized for. It may have had six appendages, though how many of those are arms and how many legs is impossible to say from the state of this sample. We can identify the probable functions of most of the organs we found, but there’s not much of those. It’s clearly a carbon-based life-form, similar to our own basic makeup, and oxygen-breathing. The brain was very badly damaged. We can approximate the size, but identifying functional areas will be extremely difficult. One thing that does seem apparent is that the brain lacks bilateral symmetry. In more primitive alien life-forms that we’ve seen on human-colonized worlds, this translates into a lack of right- or left-handedness.”

“Can you tell what it eats?” someone asked.

“No. The digestive system is completely gone except for a few scraps. It could be a carnivore, a vegetarian, or an omnivore.”

“Did enough of the fingers remain to see if it had fingernails or claws?” Dr. Shwartz asked.

“One of the fingers was intact enough to see a hard structure on the end, sort of like a conical fingernail covering the tip.”

“That could be used to kill prey, or to dig up vegetables,” Shwartz commented.

Commander Lomand, Titan’s commanding officer, had been listening intently and gestured for attention. “Sir, you spoke of gills. You’re certain that this creature had water-breathing capability?”

The surgeon nodded. “Yes.”

“We’ve seen some of where they live,” Dr. Setin interjected. “Towns and cities that straddle the coastline rather than sitting on one side or the other. Water is an amazing substance, you know. Incredibly useful. Oxygen is a powerful source of fuel, so there’s no surprise in seeing another highly evolved species using it. And carbon is immensely flexible. They’re all tailor-made for supporting complex life. Most of the advanced life-forms we’ve found are carbon-based and oxygen-breathing.”

Commander Lomand’s fingers had been tapping out some rapid calculations, and he gave a cry of satisfaction. “I’ve run some initial calculations, Admiral, and checked them with some engineers on Titan who have some ship design expertise. We’ve observed the ability of the alien warships to accelerate and maneuver faster than our own ships can. If the alien warships are filled with water, instead of atmosphere, it would cushion the crew against the forces of acceleration, adding considerably to the effectiveness of inertial dampers.”

“Enough to explain the ability to maneuver that we’ve seen?” Commander Neeson demanded.

“If the warships also had significantly larger power cores for their size than comparable human warships.”

“We haven’t picked up indications of that,” Badaya said.

“Yes, we have,” Lomand said. “The force of the power core overloads that have destroyed the alien warships that we’ve encountered. Those could be explained by higher efficiency levels, or by larger cores using the same basic principles as ours.”

Smythe spoke carefully, trying not to publicly embarrass one of his officers. “We haven’t seen emission levels from the alien warships consistent with larger power cores, have we?”

“No, sir. But if the hulls are filled with water, that would act as an additional insulator against anything emitted by the power cores. The water would not only help protect the crews from the emissions but also prevent us from remotely detecting how large the power cores were.”

Captain Smythe had been talking to someone on Tanuki, and nodded. “I can confirm Commander Lomand’s calculations. The force of the core overloads we’ve seen could be explained by cores of a size larger than those we use but still within parameters able to fit within the alien hulls.”

“Water masses much more than atmosphere,” Tulev objected. “Would this not have a negative effect on their maneuverability?”

“If the hulls were big enough. The amount of water increases dramatically as the internal volume of the hull balloons in response to larger external dimensions.”

“No battleships,” Desjani commented. “That’s why they don’t have anything much bigger than a cruiser.”

Neeson was frowning as he studied something. “Even with the water insulation, having power cores that size in hulls that small wouldn’t be good for the crews over the long run.”

“Maybe they’re not as vulnerable to the emissions,” Smythe suggested, looking to the surgeon, who just shook his head to indicate an inability to answer that.

“More likely, they don’t care that much about the welfare of their crews,” Captain Vitali said.

Dr. Setin spoke with exaggerated diplomacy. “Clearly, the enigma race has a high level of willingness to sacrifice individuals for the good of the race as a whole. Admiral Geary asked my group to assess what we believe would happen if this fleet attempted to get close to some other installation, or a planet, to learn more about the enigma race. We have concluded that there is a high probability of mass destruction initiated by the enigma race to avoid leaving anything that will allow us to learn more.”

“What if they knew we already had this body?” Duellos asked. “Would that make them conclude there was no sense in committing mass suicide to prevent us learning more?”

“I don’t know. It depends on the nature of what drives their obsession with remaining hidden. If it is deeply engraven in their very nature, then knowing that we have learned what we have might cause them to react with even higher levels of violence. I’m basing that on what we know of human and animal psychology, but that’s all we have to go with.”

“They’re crazy,” Badaya said, drawing nods of agreement.

“They’re different,” Dr. Shwartz replied. “This obsession with remaining hidden could be very deeply ingrained in them, something they don’t question and can’t deviate from because it was written in their distant ancestry as they evolved. Try to imagine how humans would look to aliens, with our constant, overriding obsession with sex.”

General Carabali snorted derisively. “Humans are occasionally capable of going a short time without thinking about sex or letting it drive their actions. I’m speaking for the female of the species, of course.”

“I once went several seconds without thinking about sex,” Duellos retorted. “Though it did cause me to question my own masculinity. The fact is, though, that whatever drives the enigmas’ obsession with privacy, it’s something so powerful they are quite literally willing to die for it. And to kill to preserve it. No matter how much we may speculate on other aspects of the enigmas, there is now no doubt that much is true of them.”

“Speaking of motivations,” Jane Geary said, “does anyone have any idea why that particular alien tried to escape from the freighter?”

A long pause ensued, then Shwartz nodded toward Setin. “Perhaps this particular alien was crazy, by the standards of the enigma race, that is. He, she, it . . . didn’t want to die for the purpose of keeping us in the dark about their race.”

“A coward?” Badaya laughed. “Mind you, I’d say that particular alien had more common sense than the others, not wanting to die for that reason, but they’d call it a coward, wouldn’t they?”

“Doubtless,” Setin agreed.

Geary looked down the length of the table, seeing everyone looking back at him for his decision. “I see no purpose to be served in trying to examine more closely the remaining enigma presence in this star system. They might have trouble totally wiping out their own towns and cities, but they might also have the means to do just as much damage as they did to their installation. We’re here to learn what we can, and it seems we aren’t likely to learn much more detail. If what we’re speculating about their technology is true, the main thing we’d still want to get our hands on is their faster-than-light communications system, but the odds of getting that seem too small to measure even on a quantum scale. Therefore, I’m going to order the fleet on a series of jumps, seeing how many more enigma-controlled star systems we can look over before heading back for Alliance space. Our single goal now is to gain more understanding of the strength and size of the enigma-controlled region though our emissaries will continue to broadcast what I suspect are futile offers to establish meaningful contact.”

He waited for comments or questions, but none came. “Thank you. I’ll issue maneuvering orders soon.”

After most of the officers had vanished, Dr. Setin lingered while Dr. Shwartz whispered furiously at him. “Admiral, there is something I wish to discuss,” Setin said. “Perhaps, a single human, left behind when the fleet leaves, could learn more about—”

“No.”

“I would be volunteering. The opportunity—”

“I can’t allow that, Doctor. I’m sorry. From what the Syndics told us, the enigmas have already captured any number of humans. They would have no reason at all to keep you alive.”

Setin still stood there, irresolute, until Dr. Shwartz said something else to him. “Yes, that’s so,” Setin conceded. “Perhaps we’ll find another intelligent species on one of these jumps you’re planning.”

“That would be nice, Doctor.” Especially if it was an alien race that wasn’t insane by human standards.

THE fleet took a long jump toward a star newly christened as Tartarus, Captain Desjani having been disappointed to discover that there was already a star in Syndic space named Purgatory. Although, as she pointed out, Syndic space was exactly where anyone would expect to find a star with the name Purgatory.

Tartarus resembled Limbo in its population of enigmas though Geary was bothered that the number of warships following the Alliance fleet was steadily growing and now numbered thirty-five. But there was no hypernet gate there, and after Dr. Setin begged, Geary agreed to linger in the star system long enough to send out surveillance probes and try one last time to establish meaningful communications with the aliens.

Neither method having discovered anything over the course of several days, he was preparing to order the fleet to depart when an urgent call came for him.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Iger seemed to be breathless for a moment. “Admiral, we’ve found some humans.”

THIRTEEN

A single image appeared beside Iger, showing some blurred figures. “We only discovered it by chance,” Iger explained. “One of the surveillance probes we launched cut across a data feed coming from this asteroid.” Another image popped up, showing an asteroid about forty kilometers across, which was rotating at a decent rate of speed. “The intercept only lasted a fraction of a second, but we caught an encrypted video stream and were able to break out enough detail to see this.”