Dreadnaught

Geary squinted at the ill-defined shapes. Definitely not the enigmas, and apparently human despite the lack of clear detail. “They’re on that asteroid?”

“In that asteroid, Admiral,” Iger said. “We’re certain that’s been hollowed out. We checked the rotation, and it’s enough to provide roughly three-quarters of a standard gravity to someone standing on the inside surface of the asteroid.” Symbols glowed on the asteroid’s outer surface. “We’ve been able to spot some anomalies that probably represent enigma communications and sensor antennas. It’s not unusual to find artifacts like that on asteroids in human-occupied star systems, items left behind by miners, but these are well concealed, and the enigmas don’t usually seem to leave anything lying around.”

Inside an asteroid. No way to escape, and no way to see out where the enigmas were. “The perfect prison from the aliens’ perspective.”

“Yes, sir.” Instead of being proud or pleased by the discovery, Lieutenant Iger grimaced. “I . . . don’t know of any way to get them out of there.”

Tartarus. Apparently the name for this star system was a fitting one.

THE hundreds of officers around the table in the fleet conference room listened with growing enthusiasm as Iger laid out his information, but as the intelligence officer stopped, Tulev shook his head slowly. “If we move one kilometer toward that asteroid, they will destroy it. They are willing to kill their own. They will not hesitate to kill those humans, too.”

“How close can we get before they do that?” Badaya asked.

Lieutenant Iger also shook his head. “I have no idea, sir. Based on our experience at Limbo, the aliens will wait until they are certain of our objective before they destroy it. And this particular target is very well hidden. If we hadn’t been keyed by the intercepted transmission, we probably wouldn’t have had any reason to study the asteroid closely and wouldn’t have discovered the equipment concealed on the surface of the asteroid. As long as they don’t believe we know humans are there, they probably won’t destroy the asteroid just because we head in that general direction.”

“Probably,” Armus repeated with a grimace.

“It’s the best we have, sir.”

Bradamont had been eyeing the depiction of the Tartarus Star System floating over the table. “It must be a restricted zone for them. If we had aliens in an asteroid, we wouldn’t allow unauthorized ships to get too close. If we passed inside that restricted area, it could also serve as the trigger for when the aliens decide to destroy the asteroid.”

“That’s plausible,” Armus conceded. “Something triggered automatically by a proximity alert, or by a faster-than-light signal from elsewhere in the star system. There’s no sign of alien presence on the exterior of the asteroid?”

“No, sir,” Iger said. “Just some very nicely camouflaged solar cell fields.”

Duellos nodded. “I can’t imagine they would live inside the asteroid with humans, even if separated by a strong barrier. But if we have no idea how large this restricted zone is, I don’t know how this speculation helps us.”

“They need some basis for a restricted area,” Bradamont said. “Both we and the Syndics measure those in light seconds, because it’s a simple standard, big enough to provide security but small enough not to be triggered by anyone blundering into the wrong area by accident.”

“How many light seconds do the Syndics use?” Tulev asked.

“One.” No one questioned how Bradamont would know that.

“The same as our standard space exclusion zones.”

Duellos frowned in thought. “The enigmas are certain to use some other means of measurement, but our parameters are based on practical considerations, as Commander Bradamont says. The physics are the same for the enigmas. If we stay at least one light second away, and don’t seem to be paying any attention to the asteroid, that may be a safe distance.”

“Make it four hundred thousand kilometers, well over a light second,” Tulev said. “But, still too far. That leaves plenty of reaction time for defenses or self-destruct mechanisms if we turn toward the asteroid. We have to reach it, match velocity and orbit, disable alien equipment on the surface, access the interior, and evacuate the humans living inside. How long to accomplish all of that? Half an hour from the closest point we dare approach?”

“More like an hour,” Desjani suggested, “even if you’re just using battle cruisers.”

Bradamont spoke again, more forcefully. “The auxiliaries can manufacture small stealth craft carrying small landing parties. If we can—” She stopped as she saw Captain Smythe shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, Commander,” Smythe said. “In the time we have, with what we have, I can’t promise being able to build anything large enough to carry a few people yet stealthy enough to have a decent probability of staying undetected.”

“Who would you send on a mission like that?” Badaya asked, the question apparently rhetorical yet also clearly aimed at Bradamont.

She flushed, but her voice stayed steady. “I volunteer to lead that mission.”

Geary broke the silence that followed Bradamont’s statement. “Unless we have a reasonable chance of success, there won’t be any mission. There’s no sense in killing our volunteers and the humans inside that asteroid by attempting a rescue with only a small chance of succeeding.”

“We can’t leave them,” Bradamont insisted.

“I agree,” Badaya said, “but—”

“Excuse me.” General Carabali had been speaking with someone outside the software, and now her voice easily carried across those of the others. “The Marines can do it.”

Badaya raised his eyebrows. “Four hundred thousand kilometers is a long jump, General. I don’t think Marines could manage that even if you told them there was beer on the asteroid.”

“They might if it was free beer, but we won’t have to motivate them in that manner.” A diagram popped up before Carabali. “Because of the nature of this mission to investigate the alien race, our equipment load-out includes a larger than usual amount of maximum-stealth configured armor, enough to equip thirty of my Marine scouts. I had some of my subordinates run the numbers, and we can do this. If the fleet launches those scouts toward the asteroid while passing by at four hundred thousand kilometers out, we should have a high probability of avoiding detection during launch and during the transit to the asteroid. Once on the surface of the asteroid, the scouts can plant scramblers and jammers, as well as disabling charges on any visible alien equipment. By blinding alien systems and jamming incoming and outgoing transmissions, we should be able to give the fleet time to reach the asteroid and launch shuttles to dock and pull people out of there as well as recover the scouts.”

Tulev leaned in. “What velocity will the scouts be traveling?”

“We need it to be slow enough to not stand out too clearly against background space, and slow enough for the suit systems to manage a braked landing on the asteroid that will neither kill the scouts nor have a high chance of their being spotted.” Carabali pointed to the diagram. “Average velocity would be four thousand kilometers per hour, though we’d want to be launched faster than that and be braking gradually during the last portion.”

Commander Neeson gave the general a startled look. “You can brake down from four thousand klicks an hour to a safe landing velocity and remain stealthy?”

“That’s right,” Carabali said. “My scouts say they can do it, and they’d be the ones placing their lives on the line.”

“Averaging four thousand kilometers per hour will still require four days’ travel time,” Geary objected. “Can your scout suits keep someone alive that long, plus the time needed to go over the asteroid and plant those charges and jammers?”

Carabali nodded. “We can hang on some extended-duty life-support packs, and use meds to slow down the metabolism of the scouts during the trip to the asteroid. That will both reduce the demands on their life support and the amount of heat and power usage that the stealth equipment has to conceal.”

“Can the jammers work against anything the aliens have?” Badaya questioned. “We don’t even know how their faster-than-light comms work.”

“The jammers have been upgraded using some ideas gleaned from the Syndic device for preventing gate collapses,” Carabali explained. “Just like our system security can eliminate the quantum probability–based alien worms without knowing how they work, we have a high degree of confidence that the jammers can halt the alien comms.”

A long silence this time, as everyone studied Carabali’s work, finally broken by Duellos as he pointed to part of the depiction of the star system. “There’s an enigma installation on the second largest moon orbiting that planet. If we head toward it at the right time, we’ll have that as an apparent goal, apparently repeating our attempt to examine a single isolated installation as at Limbo, but we can pass part of the fleet within four hundred thousand kilometers of the asteroid’s orbit while seeming to head for that moon.”

“It’s doable,” Badaya declared, and a hundred voices joined him in agreement.

“If you use the battle cruisers,” Desjani added, giving Geary a hard look. “All of the battle cruisers. We’re going to have to move as fast as possible.”

Geary kept his eyes on the display for a moment longer, thinking of the lives riding on this decision. He didn’t want to make this decision. But Carabali had proven her competence, and his fleet officers felt they could do their part, and those humans needed to be rescued if it could possibly be done. Ironically, one of the things making the operation feasible was the lessons learned from the Syndic device he had bargained with Iceni for. “All right. We’ll do it.”

This time, everyone cheered.

IT had the same strange feeling as when walking past a police officer even when you had done nothing. Look calm, look innocent, look non-threatening. That was quite a bit harder to do when you were a fleet carrying enough firepower to devastate entire planets, and you were trespassing in a star system where you were definitely not wanted, and the police officers were in fact aliens with a demonstrated eagerness to kill you and a willingness to suicide in defense of their privacy, and when you were in fact plotting to do something of which the local “police” would not approve at all.

Geary waited until the right moment to swing the fleet onto a course to intercept the moon that was to be their apparent target. There wasn’t anything unusual about shuttles winging between warships, carrying parts, supplies, and skilled personnel, but over the last several hours many of those routine shuttle flights had in fact transferred Marine scouts and their equipment to the battleships making up the Fourth Battleship Division. Warspite, Vengeance, Revenge, and Guardian would be the closest major warships to the asteroid’s orbit when the human fleet went past, and that was when each would spit out seven or eight Marines aimed at where the asteroid would be four days later, the launches further obscured by some repositioning of the cruisers and destroyers near the battleships as well as some shuttle activity.

“This is Admiral Geary. At time one five, all units come port zero four one degrees, up zero six degrees, maintain velocity at point one light speed.” It felt a little strange using the human conventions for maneuvering in a star system when this star system had probably never seen a human spacecraft. But the old conventions had been developed to ensure that every ship understood what other ships were doing and what was meant, no matter how they might be pointed or aligned relative to each other. Port meant turning away from the star, starboard turning toward the star, while up and down were designated as either side of the plane of the star system. It was totally arbitrary, but had worked well enough to remain unchanged for centuries.

He wondered how the aliens handled that problem. Was it a problem to them at all? Why the hell won’t they talk to us? Imagine the things we could learn just from understanding how another intelligent species sees the universe. What a waste.

“Getting moody again, Admiral?” Desjani asked as she signed off on some administrative task. “Have you heard from Jane Geary yet?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“She volunteered her battleship division to launch the Marines, right?”

“Correct again. I told her the decision was based entirely on which battleships could be closest to the asteroid’s orbit with the least maneuvering within the formation. We want to do as little as possible to tip off the aliens.” Geary gave Desjani a curious look. “Have you figured out what’s motivating Jane?”

“No. I don’t think it’s what was bothering Kattnig”—she paused to make a religious gesture invoking mercy—“but it might be related.”

“Proving herself?”

“She is a Geary, Admiral. You know what they’re like.”

“I wish I did.” Geary sat back, watching on the display as his fleet swung smoothly around and settled out on the course toward the alien moon. “The hardest part is going to be waiting for a few days after the launch, then turning this fleet around to go past the asteroid’s orbit again, all the while not knowing if the Marine scouts made it and are accomplishing their mission. They can’t send any status reports, no updates, nothing. They’ll activate the jammers and disabling charges at a set time, and we need to already be charging for that asteroid when that happens. And those thirty-five alien warships will surely charge us at that point.”

Desjani grinned. “Finally, we get to have some fun.”

“WARSPITE reports one crew member injured in an arcing mishap,” the comm watch announced.

“Very well.” Geary glanced at Desjani, who gave him a thumbs-up. With the quantum-probability worms scrubbed from systems on the human warships, the aliens shouldn’t have any means of accessing the fleet data net or comm systems. But “shouldn’t” didn’t mean “couldn’t,” so that message had been agreed upon as a signal that all the launches had gone down without any problems.

A very long two days later, with the alien moon still more than a light hour distant, Geary brought the fleet back around as if heading back to the jump point. A freighter had already left the alien installation, repeating the pattern at Limbo. “When they see this, they should decide that we’re giving up this time rather than waste more effort chasing things that are going to be blown into tiny pieces.”

Desjani nodded absentmindedly, her eyes on her own display. “You know, Admiral, even if the jamming works, and even if all the alien sensors and comm gear on the surface of that asteroid are taken out, we’re still going to have the alien warships coming at that asteroid as soon as they realize we’re heading that way. We have no idea how many people we’ll need to get off that asteroid, or how hard it will be to get inside it without triggering any booby traps. It’s going to be tight.”

“I know,” Geary said. “That’s why you’re going to be calling the maneuvers when the battle cruisers brake to match orbit with the asteroid.” She gave him a startled look that transitioned to a grin as Geary continued. “I’m pretty good at that kind of thing, but you’re better when it comes to maneuvering battle cruisers. You’re better than anyone else in the fleet.”

“Yes,” Desjani agreed. “Yes, I am.”

“As well as being unusually modest for a battle cruiser captain.”

“That, too.” Desjani switched her gaze back to her display, where she was working simulations of the charge to the asteroid. “Oh, this is going to be good.”

THE Marine scouts should have landed over eight hours ago. They had orders to activate the jammers, scramblers, and disabling charges at exactly zero four forty, when the fleet would be passing nearest to the asteroid’s orbit on the fleet’s return toward the jump point.

Aside from the asteroid itself, the nearest alien presence or surveillance devices they had been able to spot were the warships, which had stayed lurking a light hour behind and to the starboard side of the Alliance fleet, matching every human maneuver an hour after it was made. But in the last day, as the human fleet’s path approached the orbit of the asteroid and this time drew closer to the asteroid itself, those alien warships had slowly closed the distance until they were only half a light hour away from the fleet.

Now it was zero four thirty eight. The asteroid was forty-five light seconds away, a mere thirteen million, five hundred thousand kilometers. At point one light speed, the human ships could cover that distance in about seven and a half minutes. But it wouldn’t do much good to reach the asteroid traveling that fast since the human ships would then shoot past, unable to match speed with the asteroid. The “charge” would actually involve slowing down at a rate that would take the least time and yet leave the battle cruisers exactly matching the asteroid’s velocity when they reached it. Only the battle cruisers had enough propulsion capability to brake their velocity that quickly, and they had to start immediately, or even they might overshoot their target, but they also had to avoid braking too fast and taking longer than necessary to reach the asteroid when every second counted.

Which was where Tanya Desjani came in.

Geary took a deep breath, then sent the orders. “Task Force Lima, detach and maneuver per orders from Captain Desjani on Dauntless. All other units, come starboard zero four five degrees, down zero two degrees, and begin braking to point zero two light speed at time four zero.”

Desjani was sending her own commands the moment Geary finished. “All units in Task Force Lima, immediate execute come starboard four six degrees, down zero two degrees, begin braking velocity at maximum.”

Usually, she waited silently while he concentrated on the right feel, the right moments for when to execute changes in vectors, but this time it was Desjani who was issuing those orders for the task force while Geary watched the battle cruisers veer away from the rest of the fleet and decelerate at a rate that pushed him painfully back against his seat and caused the structure of Dauntless to groan in protest. Despite the temptation to watch Desjani’s work, to make sure she was doing it as well as possible, he had to let her do the job he had given her while he kept an eye on the rest of the fleet, slowing much more gradually and curving on a slightly wider course, which would intercept the asteroid farther along its orbit and close to an hour after the battle cruisers reached their objective. Geary also watched the aliens, though it would be half an hour before their warships saw the light from the fleet’s maneuvers and realized what the fleet was doing.

Wincing at the effort of moving under the forces leaking past the inertial dampers, he called General Carabali. “I want to know the moment you hear or see anything from the scouts.”

“Should be coming in any second now, Admiral.” Carabali paused. “Status report. Linking to you, sir.”

A secondary display popped into existence to one side of Geary. On it, the asteroid rotated with cumbersome dignity, its surface now pocked with many more symbols representing not just the positions of the Marine scouts but also all of the alien relays, antennas, sensors, and other devices the Marines had been able to locate. Some of the symbols marking the alien equipment flashed red, indicating that disabling charges planted by the Marines had destroyed them, while other symbols pulsed yellow to indicate the equipment was being jammed.

Also visible was a large and cunningly concealed airlock detected by the scouts, which led inside the asteroid. “Request permission to proceed with entry,” Carabali said.

“Permission granted. Why do I count only twenty-nine Marines?”

“I’ve just been informed that the scout unit leader believes one suit failed to brake velocity enough and overshot the asteroid,” Carabali said tonelessly.

Ancestors preserve us. Geary activated another circuit. “Eleventh Light Cruiser Squadron, Twenty-third and Thirty-second Destroyer Squadrons, detach from fleet formation immediately, proceed to attempt intercept and pickup with one Marine scout who is believed to have overshot the asteroid.”

Carabali let out a breath. “Thank you, Admiral. My scouts will be blowing the airlock any moment now.”

Geary took a moment to take a long, calming breath himself, thinking of that lone Marine plummeting through space, life support slowly being expended. “Whether we can manage an intercept is going to depend on how much that Marine’s velocity was slowed, General. If that scout kept going at four thousand kilometers an hour, we may not be able to get there in time.”

“If the enigma warships go after the ships you sent—”

“I doubt that will happen, General, once the aliens realize that we’re cracking open their human cage.”

Desjani sent another order. “Immediate execute, all units in Task Force Lima reduce braking velocity to point nine maximum.”

The strain on Geary eased a bit, and he could have sworn he heard the structure of Dauntless also sigh with relief. He spared a glance at the display, where the path of the battle cruisers arced toward the asteroid, the time to intercept constantly backing off as the ships slowed their velocity.

“Marines are inside,” Carabali reported. “Possible booby-trap triggers identified. They’ll have to neutralize before proceeding.”

Damn. “We don’t have much room for delay, General.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“Immediate execute, all units in Task Force Lima reduce braking velocity to point eight maximum,” Desjani ordered.

Sixteen minutes after Desjani gave her first order, and after several more adjustments to their braking, the battle cruisers slid to a halt relative to the asteroid, surrounding it. “All shuttles launch,” Desjani commanded.

From every battle cruiser, shuttles rocketed out, heading for the asteroid. Each carried a few Marine engineers loaded with breaching equipment and other gear, some medical personnel, a fleet engineer to identify any alien equipment that could be looted in the time available, and empty seats for the human prisoners who would hopefully be found within the asteroid. “Five minutes to first shuttle docking at that airlock,” Desjani told Geary.

“General Carabali,” Geary began.

“They’re past the traps,” Carabali announced. “Passing empty compartments. Equipment. Another airlock. Traps visible on this side. Estimated time to disarm two minutes.”

Desjani had her eyes on the alien warships. “We slowed down, they didn’t. They’ll see the light from our maneuvers in another ten minutes.”

Geary nodded. “I guess that’s when we find out if there’s still a way for the aliens to blow up this asteroid.” He eyed the main body of the fleet, still braking, the distance between it and the task force growing by the second. He didn’t need to run maneuvering calculations to know that he couldn’t turn those ships around and get them back here in time to make any difference. “It looks like it’ll be sixteen battle cruisers versus thirty-five alien warships.”

“Piece of cake,” Desjani remarked.

The main body’s formation was stretching oddly, though. Geary highlighted that area and saw that Dreadnaught was braking harder than ordered, Dependable and Conqueror matching her attempt to slow down. “Captain Geary, you’re overstressing your main propulsion units. Ease off and remain with the fleet.”

Desjani had noticed and shook her head. “She’s trying to keep those battleships close enough to support us. They can’t brake that fast.”

“And she should know that.”

He took another look at the light cruisers and destroyers still accelerating toward the area where the Marine might be. “General, if you can order that scout to light off a beacon, it would help.”

“Already done, Admiral. The scout should have already received that order, but we’ve seen no response, so he might still be in a slowed metabolism state. We just sent a remote activation command to the beacon.”

“Distress beacon picked up,” Lieutenant Castries reported.

Geary did a quick mental check of the position of the beacon and its movement relative to the cruisers and destroyers. “That Marine did slow a lot before his suit’s braking equipment failed. I think they can manage a recovery.”

“Someone owes a few thanks to their ancestors,” Desjani remarked.

“We’re past the airlock,” Carabali reported. “Another airlock, sealed, no traps. Blowing it now.”

“They’re moving,” Desjani announced.

“Alien warships accelerating onto intercept with our current position,” Lieutenant Yuon cried.

“We can hear you, Lieutenant,” Desjani said sharply. “All units in Task Force Lima, recover returning shuttles nearest to you without regard for home base.” She shrugged. “That should save a few minutes on the recovery,” she said to Geary.

He nodded absently, most of his attention shifting rapidly from the main body of the fleet to the progress of the Marines to the shuttles to the alien warships and back again and again. “We have roughly an hour before those warships get here.”

“Past final barrier,” Carabali reported. “Entering large open area, multiple structures arrayed along sides of the asteroid. It’s a town, all right. Humans sighted. Some are running toward our people, and some are running away.”

“First shuttle docking, dropping off passengers.”

“Initial estimates of human prisoners exceeds one hundred.”

“Power inside asteroid has failed. Cause unknown. Deploying portable lighting.”

“Enigma warships are fifty minutes from intercept.”

“Light cruiser Kusari reports estimated time to recovery of Marine scout is one hour, forty minutes.”

“Liberated prisoners being assembled, report that many of their number are hiding and barricading themselves inside their dwellings.”

Geary resisted the urge to slap his forehead in exasperation. The reaction by these isolated, imprisoned people was understandable even if stupid. “Permission granted to break down barricades, doors, walls, or any other private structure as necessary to recover humans without delay.”

Carabali seemed more annoyed than angry. “Request permission to use incapacitating agents if necessary to disable resisting humans.”

“Granted. We’re running out of time fast, General.”

“Admiral,” Captain Smythe said, “my engineers report that scans reveal the alien equipment on the asteroid is riddled with explosive devices. Trying to pull out any of it might well trigger self-destruct mechanisms unless we take the time to deactivate all possible means of activation.”

“How much time?” Geary demanded.

Smythe paused for only a moment. “At least an hour.”

“We don’t have an hour. Have your engineers do the best scans they can of the inside and outside of that equipment, then get them back on the shuttles. They’ve got twenty minutes.”

“First shuttle lifting from asteroid with thirty prisoners aboard,” Castries called.

“They must be packing them in tight,” Desjani muttered.

“Admiral!” It was the chief medical officer. “I’ve been evaluating what we can tell about the prisoners. They need to be medically isolated immediately and held there until they’re scanned for any biological or artificial threat.”

“Notify the ship’s doctors on each battle cruiser,” Geary snapped. “Have them inform their captains and ensure that’s done.”

“Twenty-five minutes until enigma warships achieve intercept of asteroid.”

“Sir, one of the alien warships has peeled off and seems to aiming for the Marine scout awaiting recovery.”

He would have to leave that to the light cruisers and destroyers. They didn’t need to be told that they needed to get that Marine before the alien warship did.

“Ration bar?” Desjani asked.

“No, thanks. Not hungry.”

“We’ve got half the shuttles recovered,” she added. “The other half are waiting on the let’s-hide-from-our-rescuers idiots that the Marines are prying out of their holes.”

“Twenty minutes to alien intercept.”

“Admiral, we’ve got equipment starting to blow inside that asteroid,” Carabali reported. “Cause unknown. Maybe dead-man circuits that activate after a certain period out of communication.”

“How long until you have the last humans out of there?” Geary shot back.

“Unknown. Still searching, Admiral.”

“You’ve got fifteen minutes, General.”

“Yes, sir.”

Desjani was sending orders. “Captain Duellos, your shuttle docks are full. Accelerate your battle cruisers toward the enemy and engage to buy us time and even the odds.”

“On our way,” Duellos responded. On the display, Inspire, Formidable , Brilliant, and Implacable began moving away from the asteroid, angling toward the alien warships.

“Good call,” Geary said. “There’s no sense in those battle cruisers waiting here if they can’t take on any more shuttles. I should have thought of that.”

“You’re busy,” Desjani said, “and you gave me the responsibility for this part. But I would appreciate it if you would goose the Marines, so we can get the rest of those shuttles aboard before the aliens get here.”

“Pulling out,” Carabali reported. “We can’t be certain we got everyone, but the asteroid is coming apart inside, and the interior is depressurizing, so anyone we don’t have is going to be dead before we could find them. There must be dead-man circuits everywhere.”

“Understood,” Geary said. “Get your people out of there. How many prisoners have we recovered?”

“Three hundred thirty-three.”

“What?”

“Three hundred thirty-three,” Carabali repeated. “Yes, sir. It’s weird. Maybe it means something.” She focused elsewhere. “Now! I want every Marine out of there now! If those fleet engineers drag their feet, knock them out and haul them along!”

Small detonations rocked the surface of the asteroid, throwing out fragments that soared into space out of the weak gravitational pull, atmosphere venting in many places into the vacuum of space. Geary checked the main display. Six minutes until the alien warships reached them. “It’s going to be very tight.”

Desjani nodded. “Captain Tulev, get your division under way and engage the enemy.”

“Understood,” Tulev replied. Leviathan, Dragon, Steadfast, and Valiant began accelerating toward the oncoming enemy.

“Captain, our dock is full. Sealing it now.”

“Very well. Invincible, why is a shuttle hanging outside your dock?”

Vente sounded as stiff as usual. “I am following proper procedure for loading sequences—”

“Get that shuttle docked now, or I’ll have you shot! All units, we have three minutes! I do not intend engaging these bastards while we’re engaged in shuttle recovery and at rest relative to this rock!”

Duellos’s battle cruisers had reached the enemy, hurling out specters that the enemy twisted to try to dodge, then the two forces lashed each other as they tore past.

“Everyone is clear,” Carabali reported. “All personnel accounted for. The final shuttle is en route Incredible.”

Geary stared for a moment at the display centered on the asteroid, seeing large portions of its outer surface collapsing inward or bulging outward in response to the spasms inside it.

“All shuttles recovered, Captain. Incredible is sealing her dock.”

“All units in Task Force Lima, maneuver independently and engage the enemy!”

Twenty-nine enigma warships were still coming, but they had to get past Tulev’s battle cruisers first. Though they hadn’t had a long time to accelerate, the battle cruisers were still deadly, and the enigma warships had to go through them if they wanted to reach the asteroid.

Specters volleyed out, followed within moments by hell-lance fire and grapeshot as the two forces clashed.

“They hit Valiant hard,” Geary heard someone saying, then realized he had been the one who spoke. But only sixteen alien warships were still coming, and led by Dauntless, the eight remaining Alliance battle cruisers were accelerating furiously toward them.

Desjani’s hand danced over her firing controls, and Dauntless shuddered slightly as specter missiles launched, then the battle cruiser’s hell lances speared out as well, aimed and fired automatically by combat systems reacting far faster than any human could. Volleys of grapeshot followed in the instant before the far faster moving alien warships slashed through the human ships in the blink of an eye.

Geary kept his eyes on the display as it updated rapidly in response to sensor reports from every ship in the fleet. Only three alien warships were still moving, and they were still heading straight for the asteroid, making no attempt to turn or slow down. “What the hell?”

An instant later, the three surviving enigma warships smashed into the asteroid while moving at sixty thousand kilometers per second.

No one spoke for a long moment as the displays updated to show nothing but a rapidly expanding cloud of dust where the asteroid and three enigma warships had once been. Geary finally tore his eyes from that, only to see that, once again, every other nearby enigma warship, whether badly damaged or completely knocked out, had self-destructed.

It was close to half an hour later when they saw the sole remaining enigma warship in the star system veering off when the Alliance light cruisers and half the destroyers came right for it as the rest of the destroyers braked to pick up the Marine. “Why do they sometimes kill themselves for what seem to be totally unnecessary reasons, and other times they show reasonable discretion in the face of the odds against them?” Geary wondered. His eyes went back to the assessments of the damage to the battle cruisers, focusing on Valiant and her seventeen dead.

“I don’t know,” Desjani replied, “and I don’t care anymore. If any of the aliens come within range of my weapons, I’ll remove any options from their futures.”

The destroyers intercepting the Marine slowed further, until Carbine could snag the suit and haul the scout aboard. “Goal!” The triumphant message arrived from the rescue force several minutes later, the entire group of light cruisers and destroyers by then accelerating back to the main body of the fleet.

“The destroyers are asking for ransom,” Carabali reported to Geary, looking considerably more relaxed than she had during the operation at the asteroid.

“Anything the Marines aren’t prepared to pay?”

“We’ll buy rounds for their crews at any bar wherever the fleet has liberty next, Admiral. Thank you.”

“I wasn’t going to leave that scout, General.”

“You didn’t have to make that decision, Admiral.”

Desjani glanced at Geary as he ended that call. “You should get some rest.”

“So should you.”

“I told you first.”

“Damn good job back there.”

“Why, thank you, Admiral. Can I still shoot Vente?”

“No.” Geary closed his eyes for a moment, a great wave of weariness washing over him now that the days of tension had ended in success. “That threat did seem to motivate him, though. Another couple of minutes, and we’d still have been too close to that asteroid when those alien ships turned it into high-velocity junk.”

Her voice sounded a little distant. “We had to succeed this time because we can’t do it again. Next time we come within a light hour of any place they’re holding humans, they’ll blow it apart.”

He knew she was right. This had been a victory, but it had ensured no similar victories could be won.

GEARY took the time to gather the fleet and organize it back into a single formation despite the appearance of almost twenty more enigma warships at other jump points. The days required for that and the journey to the jump point they planned to use next also provided time to learn something about the humans they had rescued.

“They’ve never seen any of the aliens,” Lieutenant Iger reported to Geary. “Even the ones who were captured as opposed to being born in there.” He activated another window showing a man who looked well past middle age. “This man was a crew member on a Syndic HuK. He doesn’t know how long ago that was because the humans inside the asteroid had no means of telling time, but by comparing his account to the records the Syndics provided, it was probably forty years ago when a HuK transiting through the border star system of Ina disappeared.”

The old man began speaking. “I don’t know what happened. I was at my watch station, and suddenly we started taking hits out of nowhere. I remember that. Everyone yelling ‘where’s it coming from?’ Then we got orders to evacuate, and I made it to an escape pod with two others from the crew, and we punched clear, and that’s the last I remembered until I woke up in that place. An asteroid. I always thought it must be an asteroid. I don’t know what happened to the other two who were in the pod with me. I was the only one from our mobile force unit who showed up there. No. No one saw me arrive. I was just there. The lights would go out sometimes, then we’d all fall asleep, and when we woke up, there might be a new person lying next to the lock, or maybe some crates of food, or somebody who had died would be gone. When someone died, we knew that either a new prisoner would show up eventually, or one of the women would become pregnant and have a child. Always the same number of us. Yes. Three hundred thirty-three. Don’t know why.”

The freed prisoner had stopped speaking, blinking away tears. “I know you’re Alliance, but . . . can I go home, sir? It’s been a long time, and I thought I’d die in that place. I want to go home, sir.”

Geary looked away, trying to control his emotions, trying not to let pity for that man and hate for his captors sway his decisions. How would we have treated aliens that we captured? Maybe not the Alliance. But the Syndics, they could have built something like that asteroid prison. “He can’t tell us anything, Lieutenant Iger?”

“No, sir. None of them can.”

The fleet’s chief medical officer had an only slightly more encouraging report. “We didn’t find any biological agents in them, or evidence that any such had been tested. But they did have nanodevices inside them, which outside the asteroid would have triggered fatal reactions if we hadn’t neutralized them as quickly as we did.”

Another form of dead-man switch. “How’s their health now?”

The doctor shrugged. “Not bad, considering. They had a closed community. Human-origin equipment and devices for survival, medical care and the like. Two of the prisoners had enough medical training to use the equipment and take care of all but the most serious afflictions. They grew crops, and occasionally, quantities of foodstuffs that had clearly been manufactured by humans appeared near the air-lock. From the state of their health, they’ve had adequate nutrition, though of course the diet lacked variety most of the time.”

“What about mentally? How are they?”

The doctor looked down before answering. “Fragile. They had constructed a society inside that asteroid, something stable enough to pass on knowledge and maintain order. There’s a council of sorts that made decisions. But they’ve been so isolated, subject to the whims of totally unseen and unknown captors. Now . . . some of them are excited at the thought of seeing the sky. Others are terrified of the same thing. Their world, their source of stability, has been destroyed, and not just in the literal sense of the asteroid being shattered.”

Geary sighed. “Surely we did the right thing by rescuing them.”

“Of course. A cage is a cage is a cage. But freedom will be hard for them to adjust to. What are you going to do with them?” the doctor asked.

“Take them home.” Geary paused, realizing that wasn’t as simple a thing as it sounded. “They should all have surviving relatives somewhere in Syndic territory.”

“Where central authority no longer governs many star systems,” the doctor pointed out. “For some of these people, reunions won’t be that difficult. They were first-generation prisoners. But others are the offspring of those captured more than a century ago. The only home they have ever known was the interior of an asteroid, the only family they know are the people who also lived there.”

Hesitating, the doctor finally spoke more slowly. “I fear for them, Admiral. They are . . . valuable and unique research subjects. There. I said it. There are plenty of people who would be willing to treat them as lab rats, just as the aliens did, and few who could speak on their behalf, especially in the Syndicate Worlds. They need protecting from those who would exploit them and use them.”

“There are limits to my ability to protect them, Doctor.”

“But you can take them home to the Alliance if they wish,” the doctor insisted. “Where others would stand up for their rights. And if Black Jack Geary publicly expresses a wish that they be treated as humans who have already suffered too much, it will influence their treatment. Perhaps even within Syndicate Worlds’ territory.”

It seemed a small thing to ask of him, but Geary saw the greatest roadblock to doing it. “I can and will make such public statements. But what if they don’t want to go to the Alliance?”

“Admiral, what will Syndic CEOs do with those people? You know the answer. I realize it will be a while before we return to human space, but I’d like you to think about it before then.”

The freed humans had all been gathered on Typhoon, which had required shifting some Marines, but the fleet’s doctors had insisted the freed prisoners should be kept together for their own peace of mind, such as it was. Conference software was modified so that Geary could address the entire group, his image appearing simultaneously in each of their berthing areas while to him the former captives all seemed to be in one large room listening to him.

He had seen prisoners liberated from Syndic labor camps, but this was different. The humans clustered together, almost clutching each other. Some wore new clothing provided from fleet stocks, but others still had on a strange mix of clothing, styles and fashions from different periods and professions, most of the clothes threadbare and heavily patched. “We’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Geary said. “Some of you wish to return to homes in the Syndicate Worlds. I know that you’ve been told that things have changed, that life in the Syndicate Worlds is much more uncertain than you may recall, but if that’s where you wish to go, we will try to ensure that you reach your former homes. All of you are welcome to come with us back to Alliance territory, where I give you my word of honor you will be welcomed and treated well.”

They all exchanged glances, some looking fearful and others hopeful, a few children clinging to mothers. “How long do we have to think about it?”

“A few months. That’s how long it will take us to get back to Syndic space because our mission here hasn’t ended.”

They didn’t want to say much more than that, huddled in among themselves, so after a short while, Geary broke the connection and sat down, his thoughts jumbled. And to think I felt sorry for myself when I came out of survival sleep to find a century gone. I was lucky in more ways than one. Forgive me, but I want to hurt those enigmas. Make them pay. But they have been hurt. A lot of them have died, and we’ve destroyed quite a few of their ships. Is it accomplishing anything? At least we got those people freed.

He called up the latest status reports for the fleet. Almost thirty destroyers had suffered sudden equipment failures requiring Captain Smythe’s auxiliaries to focus on those repairs as well as fixing up the latest battle damage. That had caused the planned replacement work to slide, pushing it closer to the looming rise of the failure curve waiting several months ahead.

His hatch alert chimed. He looked up, hoping for Tanya, and found himself looking at Victoria Rione. “What’s the occasion?” It came out more harshly than he intended.

Her expression hardened slightly. “I wanted to inform you that Commander Benan has received a feeler about propagandizing for your replacement.”

“Am I going somewhere?”

She came inside his stateroom. “Accidents happen.”

“Is that a warning or a philosophical musing?”

Rione just shook her head. “I don’t know of any threats to you from within the fleet.”

His mind seized on part of that. “From within the fleet?”

“I said what I said. Who will assume command of this fleet if something does happen to you?”

Geary played with the idea of refusing to answer, giving back her own hidden agendas, but decided to try playing to his own strength of being honest. “Captain Badaya, who has promised to listen to the advice of Tulev and Duellos. Do you want to sit down?”

She took a seat, eyeing him. “No command role for your captain?”

“It’s a safe assumption that if something happens to me, it will also happen to her. She also lacks the necessary seniority, and diplomacy isn’t Tanya’s greatest strength.”

“Oh, you’ve noticed that? But, in the unfortunate event it happened, wouldn’t she benefit from being the widow of Black Jack?” Rione asked.

“Tanya would never use that.”

“If necessary, she should.” Rione hesitated, looking for a tiny moment as if she had said more than she ought to have. “What about all of the admirals waiting on the transports?”

“They’ve all been officially placed on medical holds, awaiting full evaluation before being certified as capable of enduring the strains of active duty.”

Rione laughed. “The great Black Jack is stooping to political games?”

“The great Black Jack knows how badly post-traumatic stress can impact someone. It’s a miracle that I was able to get the fleet away from the Syndics when I was thrown into command. And none of those liberated admirals understand tactics.” He leaned back. “I’m looking out for the fleet.”

“By putting Badaya in command?”

“Badaya isn’t stupid, and he knows that Tulev has enough seniority to challenge him if he veers off course. Badaya also knows that without me, he couldn’t hope to control the Alliance. Did you come by to talk politics?”

She locked eyes with him. “Are you turning the fleet around now?”

“No. A few more star systems, then we turn.”

A careful nod. “I am required to remind you that you were ordered to find the boundaries of enigma space.”

“And you have so reminded me. Victoria, why did they send you as one of the emissaries?”

For a moment, her carefully shielded emotions showed. “I volunteered, after receiving an offer I could not refuse. I might have refused anyway, but I didn’t know who would be sent in my place.”

“Did you know your husband was at Dunai?”

“No. I knew it was a VIP labor camp, but Paol was only a commander.”

“A commander married to the Co-President of the Callas Republic.”

She shrugged, the defenses falling back into place. “I really should have thought of that. These people we rescued. What will happen to them?”

“We’ll do our best to look out for them, but they’re all free human beings, so in the end the decisions will be theirs.”

“What deal did you make with CEO Iceni to get that Syndic device for preventing gate collapses?”

The question surprised him because he had thought Rione would already have discovered the answer. “Allowing the implication that I will not act against her. She is planning on breaking free from the Syndicate Worlds. It’s lucky the Syndics came up with that device, isn’t it? It would have been a long trip home without the Syndic hypernet,” he continued, deliberately making the dig to see how she would respond.

“Yes. It would have been a very long trip.” Another nod, then she stood up. “A few more star systems, Admiral? It might be tempting to keep going even after that.”

Her entire attitude conveyed that she thought that would be a mistake, though something was keeping her from saying it right out. “I understand. We’ve plotted out a track for seven more star systems, and the seventh is as far as we’re going.”

FOURTEEN

FROM Tartarus, the fleet jumped to Hades, only to find another hypernet gate there. Wondering if they were already nearing the other side of enigma-controlled space, they jumped to Perdition. There was little enigma presence there, but another hypernet gate. A jump from the same jump point almost sideways to the newly named star Gehenna found no gate in what seemed a fairly well-off star system. “Did we loop back deeper into enigma territory somehow?” Desjani wondered. But another jump to Inferno found a similarly long-settled star system, also lacking a gate.

And, at each jump, more and more alien warships could be seen trailing the fleet. As the fleet jumped away from Inferno, the alien armada had grown to more than sixty.

Two more stars, both with hypernet gates. The fleet made another risky dash to the next jump point and found itself at a star once again with a gate.

“Why should we keep going farther?” Armus asked.

Geary gestured to the star display. “We’re close to the turnaround. For every star we’ve been to, we’ve passed by three or four on average. It’s giving us an idea of the strength of the enigmas, but they’re still not talking to us, and we can’t learn anything more about them without triggering probable mass deaths among them.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Captain Vitali grumbled. Just about everybody else nodded in agreement. Anger at deaths in combat had been magnified as word got around about the state of the humans once held captive by the enigma race.

“Our mission isn’t to kill them. Though we’ve taken out plenty of them up to now.” Geary singled out a star. “This is our next objective. It’s a long jump. We’ll see what’s there, then start jumping back, not retracing our steps, but angling along a different route to avoid running into that pack of warships that keeps following us. Maybe once we’ve left enigma space entirely, having demonstrated our ability to operate within their space but without trying to annihilate them or pushing any more to violate their fanatical sense of privacy, they’ll be willing to consider talking to us and accepting a fixed border.”

Dr. Shwartz gasped in frustration. “The border. Why doesn’t our willingness to discuss respecting a single border matter to them? During the conversations you had with the enigmas at Midway, they kept emphasizing that they owned Midway and other stars, and therefore we had no right to be there. Why isn’t that same thinking motivating them to negotiate with us for a mutually agreed-upon border that would guarantee their ownership of the star systems they now control?”

“It is a discrepancy,” Duellos agreed. “But only one of many.”

Charban, though, gazed at Shwartz as if something had just come to him, seemed about to speak, then subsided with the aspect of someone sunk into thought.

“If I could know one more thing about them,” Badaya said, “I’d want to know what sort of rhyme or reason they use to decide where they put hypernet gates. The idea that the gates are last-ditch, supermines aimed at deterring conquest seems like the best explanation for the first gates we encountered, but then why all these gates inside their territory? And why do we usually see them in consecutive star systems, followed by gaps?”

Commander Neeson spoke up. “I have an idea, a possible explanation, that is.” He pointed to the display. “Seen this way, in three dimensions with our path wending through them, Captain Badaya’s statement is accurate. There doesn’t seem to be any consistency to the placement of the gates. But it’s not just the gates. Defenses inside star systems with gates are also much more robust. I tried running an analysis viewing the data in a different way.” The three-dimensional star field blinked out, replaced by a simple two-dimensional graph.

“The bottom axis here is distance inside alien space, the vertical axis is the level of defenses we’ve seen. The initial alien star systems we entered had substantial defenses, as we’d expect. That’s their border with humanity.” Neeson indicated peaks in the graph near its beginning. “Then defenses tapered off, again as we’d expect. The aliens can’t afford to fortify every star system any more than we can, so they place their defenses on the border.”

Pointing farther along on the graph, Neeson centered the display on another peak. “But here we saw two more star systems with substantial defenses, and those star systems were neighbors in jump terms. Then some more stars without gates, before encountering more gates, again in two star systems that were next to each other for anyone using jump drives.”

Tulev was the first to comment. “Layers of defense? But if so, they’re not spaced in any uniform fashion, and I cannot see the sense in putting extra defenses so far from their borders.”

“Far from their borders with us,” Neeson said. “We’ve been looking at this as the enigma race. One entity. But if this were human space, and we saw these kind of defenses set up internally, facing each other, how would we interpret that? How would the border between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds look to an alien scouting force?”

Geary wanted to slap his forehead. “They’re not unified.”

“Internal borders,” Tulev agreed. “Internal defenses against other members of their own species. The aliens are not unified any more than humanity is. If we judge from the frequency of the defensive lines, they are more divided than we are.”

“Why did we assume they were unified?” General Carabali asked. “Because I realize that I did, too.”

“Probably because we knew so little,” Neeson said. “We had to fill in blanks, and they were very big blanks. That meant a lot of assumptions. Assuming the enigmas were unified simplified everything else mentally, so maybe that’s what drove that idea.”

General Charban nodded. “It simplified it emotionally, too, didn’t it? The enemy. The alien race. I believe your officer has hit upon a very important discovery, Admiral, one that wasn’t apparent on a three-dimensional display but seems obvious when viewed properly. Perhaps we can use these internal divisions among the aliens.”

Duellos sighed. “General, I would be happy if that were so, but we have seen the alien forces in pursuit of us grow with each star system we pass. We did not find it remarkable that they picked up reinforcements in each star system along the way, which would have been consistent with a unified race, but a divided race should have resulted in contingents falling away as we left their particular part of enigma space. That hasn’t happened. Those warships keep growing in numbers each time we see them. That argues that, whatever their internal divisions, they are more than willing to unite against us.”

“Which also shouldn’t be a surprise,” Bradamont commented. “The Alliance fleet defended a Syndicate Worlds’ star system against the aliens. We stood together with other humans, even humans we would not otherwise cooperate with. The aliens may dislike each other, may war with each other, but they dislike us a great deal more.”

His frown growing as Duellos and Bradamont spoke, Charban shook his head. “But when you encountered the aliens at Midway, they seemed unable to understand why you would defend a Syndic star system. They don’t seem to grasp the idea of former enemies cooperating.”

“And yet they seem to be cooperating against us,” Geary pointed out. “It can’t be that . . . alien a concept to them.”

“They also thought we and the Syndics would use the hypernet gates to wipe each other out because we were enemies,” Carabali said. “But we’ve found no star systems in enigma space where gates were used as weapons against other members of their species.”

“They expected the worst of humanity,” Commander Shen said in a thoughtful tone not matching his usual dissatisfied expression. “Is that some bias, the result of considering us less than them? Or was the aliens’ assessment based on their interactions with the Syndicate Worlds’ leaders?”

Neeson brought back the star display. “Maybe they just assume we’re fundamentally different than them in every way. We all assumed the aliens were one united entity. Why? Because we thought aliens would have some fundamental differences from us, and since humans have trouble getting along with each other—”

“The aliens would be one big, paranoid-but-happy family,” Duellos finished. “Yes. It’s dangerous to assume anything about them, but it’s probably safe to assume that they have made assumptions about us. Observing the conduct of the war between us and the Syndics, the lack of limits on what was done and the massive losses of life, and the apparently unending nature of the conflict, could have easily led the aliens to conclude that no cooperation could ever be possible between human political factions. Unlike among their own numbers, which they might well regard as infinitely more right and proper in their thinking than those strange human creatures.”

Geary had his eyes on the star display. “Maybe we did exactly the wrong thing. By entering alien space, we united them against our ‘invasion.’ The alien force that attacked Midway was much bigger than what we’ve encountered so far on this mission. That argues it may have been a coalition or alliance of enigma factions. The failure of their attack at Midway could easily have shattered that coalition. But now it may be re-forming.”

“If they have cooperated against us before this,” Duellos said, “then sooner or later they would have again, regardless of whether or not we sent this fleet into their territory.”

Badaya laughed harshly. “How can we exploit differences among them when none of them will talk to us? There’s a way they’re different from humans! If an alien fleet was charging through human space, there’d be people calling them to talk. Individuals and groups. All those politicians out to protect themselves or get some short-term gain. We surrender, don’t hurt us! Can we make a deal? Do you need any supplies, and do you have any money? I hate these other people, so can we ally against them? The aliens wouldn’t know how to handle all the conversations they’d be getting!”

Captain Shen rarely said much in these conferences, but now he spoke again as he nodded toward the star display. “They’ve probably devoted a lot of effort to trying to understand humans, and their problem in that respect is the opposite of ours. We have too little information about them. But, as they scouted invisibly through human space, they must have collected huge amounts of information. How do they sort it out, filter it, and make sense of it?”

“One of our first clues to their existence,” Geary commented, “was finding a safe that had been broken into at a star system abandoned by the Syndics. That must have been part of the enigma collection efforts. Maybe, because of the way they think, they thought the truth behind who we are would be kept hidden in safes rather than openly displayed.”

“If they do find the truth of who we are,” Shen continued, “I hope they share those conclusions with us since I’ve met few humans who seem to have any agreement on that topic. I endorse the suggestion that we return to Alliance space because I see no sense in continuing to go deeper in alien territory. However, I wish to point out an implication of Commander Neeson’s suggestion. If hypernet gates represent defenses, we have encountered three star systems in a row holding those defenses.”

“This could be another border,” Neeson said.

“Yes. One the enigma race believes requires particularly strong defenses.”

An alert sounded, the display over the table changing to show this star system. “Fifty more enigma warships have arrived,” Desjani noted. “With more than a hundred on hand, they may think that’s enough to offer battle.”

Geary nodded, taking time to form his words carefully. He couldn’t announce that the Alliance forces sought to avoid battle or wanted to retreat from this star system since both ideas were still too difficult for the current culture of the fleet to accept. “If they come at us, we’ll take care of them. But I’m not going to wait around here for them to do that. If this star system does represent a border, it may be a border with another intelligent species, and if they don’t get along with the enigmas, they may be natural allies with us. We’ll proceed on our planned course of action, and if they want to keep tagging along behind, they’re free to do so.”

Desjani leaned back, eyeing him, then shifted her gaze to Duellos and, as he returned her look, swung one hand to the side in a subtle gesture that wouldn’t be noticed by anyone not focused on her.

Duellos frowned back at Desjani, then nodded in understanding. “Admiral, if I may suggest, perhaps the fleet should execute a preplanned evasive maneuver as we exit jump. We do have reason to think there may be something new at that star.”

“Good point. We’ll do that.”

Admiral Lagemann had attended the conference as well, as a representative of the officers liberated from Dunai and in a goodwill gesture by Geary to those who weren’t making sporadic efforts to complicate his command of the fleet. After almost everyone else had left, Lagemann lingered for a moment. “I won’t deny that I’ll be happy to turn toward home. A lot of us from Dunai can’t wait for that.”

Duellos hadn’t yet left and turned a questioning look on him. “Why just a lot of you, Admiral Lagemann? Why not all of you?”

“Because we’ve learned enough about things at home to expect that, with the war over and the military shrinking, we’ll all be retired as soon as we get there.” Lagemann smiled ruefully. “That’s not quite the imagined future we hung on to in that Syndic labor camp. We’d somehow get home or escape, then lead the fleet or the ground forces in great victories, like Black Jack returning from the dead.” He grinned at Geary. “Sorry. Old saying.”

“I keep running into them,” Geary replied.

“But,” Lagemann continued, “I think the majority of us will be content with how things have changed. There are plenty who will not be happy, who will want to challenge the state of affairs and how the government is doing things. I have to admit, I don’t understand why the government made it a priority to liberate us. We’re going to create a lot of problems when we get home, but at least by taking us along on this mission, you delayed that happening by several months.”

Something struck Geary then, a realization that he hoped didn’t show. Why did we have to pick them up before we went on to alien territory? Why did the government want them with us on a mission facing unknown hazards and the real possibility of lost ships? If something went wrong, if we were delayed getting home, if ships were lost, if disaster happened, I wouldn’t be the only inconveniently alive hero the government would no longer have to worry about.

Navarro wouldn’t have set that up. I don’t think Sakai would have. Who hoped for it, though? Who in the government and who in fleet headquarters, who surely don’t want to deal with lots of resurrected senior officers any more than the government does?

Rione knew that was part of it. That’s why she looked that way when she realized her own husband had been caught in it. But as far as I know, she’s done nothing to further it happening. She isn’t helping much, but she’s not sabotaging us either.

The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to form partial pictures, and he didn’t like the image at all.

THIS jump required tweaking the jump drives a bit to get some extra range out of them. The fleet jumped while the two groups of enigma warships were still joining up a light hour distant.

“May I speak with you, Admiral?” General Charban sat down in the offered seat in Geary’s stateroom, looking around with a wry smile before speaking. “Not much, but it’s home, eh? Strange how we can attach ourselves to even a utilitarian stateroom or headquarters complex, isn’t it? Humans find home wherever they are. I have an idea, Admiral Geary,” he added, switching the subject abruptly. “A possible means for finally getting some agreement with the enigma race on the basis of mutual self-interest.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Geary replied.

“I was considering a few things, including what Dr. Shwartz said at our last fleet conference about the inconsistency between what the enigmas said at Midway and their actions since then. It may be that we made a fundamental mistake in assuming those words represented the actual motivations of the enigmas.”

Geary rested his chin on one hand, regarding Charban. “Why would they have lied to us about what they wanted, about what was motivating them?”

Charban smiled slightly. “When you speak to men and women serving in the fleet, do you talk about cost-benefit ratios and the need to enhance stockholder benefits and reduce costs to the government? Or do you talk about what you believe matters to them?”

He followed where that question led. “You think the enigmas at Midway were giving us an explanation for their actions they thought we would understand or accept.”

“Yes. Any exterior agent watching the war would have focused on our struggles for control of star systems. For control of territory. And property does matter to us even though it is not the most important thing for most humans. What I think the enigmas were doing at Midway, and have done since, was giving us the justifications they thought we would find plausible. Instead of giving their real reasons, they gave us reasons they expected us to expect.”

Charban hunched forward, speaking more intensely. “Consider how private they are, how they give away nothing about themselves. Why would they offer their true reasons at Midway? Why would they tell us what they really wanted?”

“Good question.”

“I was led to this while thinking about the humans held prisoner by the enigma race,” Charban continued. “From a human perspective, there wasn’t anything surprising about the aliens wishing to know more about us. But was that really the alien motivation? Were they researching how humans acted because they were curious, or simply because they saw us as a threat?”

Geary nodded as he thought about that. “For humans, it would be both. Even if they weren’t a threat, we’d want to know more about another intelligent species.”

“Because we’re curious!” Charban leaned forward a little further. “There was discussion some time ago about the human obsession with sex, and that is indeed a major aspect of us. And, of course, we fight wars over property as well as other causes. But there’s another characteristic that defines us, perhaps even more so. We are curious. We want to know things. What’s at the next star? How does this thing work? Why does the universe act the way it does? No matter what we learn, there’s always more we want to know. We confront anything from the perspective of wanting to know more about it. Now, what is the primary characteristic of the enigma race as far as we have been able to determine?”

“An obsession with staying private, hidden.” Geary took a sudden deep breath. “We want to know more, and they don’t want anyone knowing anything. Matter and antimatter. We’re the neighbors from hell as far as they’re concerned. Is that why they attacked us?”

“It may be. I’ve reviewed the records the Syndics provided us,” Charban continued. “As far as I can tell, the Syndics never approached the enigma race on the basis of ‘we’ll leave you alone.’ They did the natural thing for humans, sending out exploration missions into enigma space, though the Syndics didn’t then know it was enigma territory. And they planted bases and colonies, pushing farther into enigma space. Once the Syndics discovered the aliens, they tried to learn more about them, talk to them, and probably tested their defenses. And we’ve done pretty much the same kind of thing. We tell them we want to talk, to get to know each other, and that is exactly what they most fear and dislike about us. Look what we’ve done here. A mission of exploration, to learn things about them. That’s a normal desire for us, but to the enigma race it must look like the ultimate act of aggression.”

“We promise to leave them alone?” Geary asked. “Ignore them completely, never try to penetrate their territory again, never try to learn any more, never try any contact?”

“It’s worth a try. But there are two other things. First, we need to imply that our curiosity will never be satisfied if we think they are still holding any human prisoners. We will keep looking. If they want us to start pretending that the universe ends where their territory begins, the enigmas will have to cough up any other humans they still hold.”

“Excellent idea,” Geary approved.

“Thank you, though my fellow emissary helped me come up with that.” Charban paused, looking as if he were tasting something unpleasant. “The other thing. The enigmas have chosen to use military options against us. I think it possible that they will continue to attempt military solutions until we’ve demonstrated they can’t win that way.”

“That doesn’t always work with humans. Beat them up, and they just come back for more.”

“Yes. That’s one of our particularly irrational forms of dealing with reality. But these are the enigmas. Their overriding goal doesn’t seem to be survival or victory. It’s keeping their secrets. Demonstrate that military force cannot succeed in that, and it may make a difference.”

Geary looked at the display over the table in his stateroom, bringing up an image of the previous star system as they had last seen it, with one hundred and ten enigma warships pursuing the Alliance force. “We may have to fight again and destroy as many of those enigma warships as possible.”

“Yes.” Charban nodded to Geary. “You see that as a sad necessity, as do I. Victoria said you would.”

“Has Victoria Rione said anything else?”

Charban frowned. “No. She just told me to talk to you. Admiral, I’m fully aware that I am far from the most qualified person to have been given this assignment. I have sometimes wondered why I was given it, whether—”

“We were being set up to fail?”

“I haven’t gone that far in my suspicions, Admiral. Some of the people I have worked with would not have done such a thing.”

“But others might?” He thought of Rione’s vague warning. Many minds trying to direct a single, clumsy hand.

“Do you trust my fellow emissary, Admiral?” Charban asked.

“Yes.” But I’ve made mistakes before. Hopefully not this time. “I’m glad that you told me about this idea, General. We can’t consult with the civilian experts until we leave jump, but please talk with them once we arrive at the next star system and work up a way of presenting that proposal to the enigmas.”

Maybe there was yet hope.

THE last thing that anyone wanted to hear when a ship exited from jump space was the frantic blare of alarms as combat and maneuvering systems screamed warnings before humans could focus their senses. Geary braced himself as Dauntless rolled upward and to the side in the preplanned evasive movement, trying to overcome the stresses of the motion and the confusion that came with the exit from the jump space.

“Son of a bitch!” Desjani gasped, having centered her attention a fraction of a second earlier than Geary had managed.

He still took another moment to grasp what he was seeing. “What the hell is that?”

Across the path the fleet would have taken straight out the jump point and only one light minute distant, a massive object orbited. The fleet’s combat systems had already covered what seemed like every square meter of the object’s surface with threat symbols, which continued to multiply as new threats were identified. Geary blinked, rereading the assessment of shield strength on the orbiting leviathan in disbelief.

One of the watch-standers answered Geary’s question, her own voice filled with incredulity. “It’s the size and mass of a minor planet, Admiral, and its orbit is slaved to the jump point. Either they completely turned a minor planet into a fortress and moved it here, or they built something that huge.”

Desjani shook her head. “If we hadn’t executed that preplanned evasion the fleet would have gotten far too close to that thing before we could turn it. Good thing—”

She stopped speaking as more alarms shrieked from the combat systems.

Geary stared as part of the surface of the planet-fort seemed to leap into space, then saw that it was actually a dense swarm of small ships so numerous they momentarily blocked a clean view of the fortress. “How many of those things are there?”

No answer came, and Desjani spun in her seat to glare at her combat systems watch-stander. Lieutenant Castries shook her head helplessly. “System is still evaluating. Estimate greater than two hundred. Greater than four hundred. Greater than eight hundred.” Castries took a sudden breath. “Working estimate stabilizing at nine hundred, plus or minus ten percent.”

Desjani also inhaled slowly, then looked at Geary. “Nine hundred,” she repeated in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Plus or minus ten percent,” he added, wondering that he could make a joke of such a thing. “Any idea what they are?”

“If they’re missiles, they’re very big missiles.” Desjani tapped her display. “They have very good acceleration. I wonder if they’re crewed or automated.”

“They’re about twice as large in mass and dimensions than standard human fast attack craft,” the combat systems watch reported. “That’s plenty big enough for crews”

“Or really big warheads.” Desjani pointed at her display again. “They could be mostly warhead and propulsion. If they maintain that acceleration—”

“We won’t be able to outrun them,” Geary agreed, running another estimate on the maneuvering systems. The same answer came up, though. “Not when they’re this close and coming on that fast.”

The rest of the fleet had cleared the jump point by then, and all of the ships were bending onto the new course upward and to the side. “All units, this is Admiral Geary. At time four one, come port zero eight zero degrees and accelerate at maximum.” That would at least line up the fleet’s subformations in a column leading away from the alien force and give him as much time as possible to think of a solution to this mess that didn’t involve massive losses to his fleet. His eyes came to rest on a detailed image of one of the alien craft that the fleet’s sensors had compiled and his display had helpfully parked to one side. Unlike the tortoise-shaped ships they had encountered so far, these alien craft were simply cylinders with rounded bows, some kind of propulsion unit making up the entire back end, and a few low, small spines that must hold sensors sticking out from the sides. And that orbiting fort . . . “This is ugly,” he said to Desjani. “But none of this looks anything like the enigmas.”

“No, it doesn’t. At least there’s no hypernet gate here.”

“One small blessing.” They could race away from the jump exit without worrying about the threat of a gate. But if these weren’t the enigmas . . . “Could we have found a star system colonized by humans ? Some group who found themselves in enigma space and had to keep running until they found a star system on the other side of the enigmas?”

Desjani glanced back to her engineering watch. “What do you think, Master Chief?”

Gioninni shook his head. “No, Captain. None of the stuff we’ve seen resembles human designs. And the industrial base needed to build and maintain something like that fortress would be huge. Not something that could be thrown up overnight or in a few decades. They would have had to have been isolated out here for several centuries at least. How could they have gotten this far out that long ago? Maybe these aren’t those enigmas, but I’m not seeing anything that makes me think human.”

“Have we heard anything from these aliens or humans or whatever?” Geary asked. “There’s been time for at least a challenge to reach us from that fortress.”

The comm watch answered him. “No, Admiral. Not a word that we can tell was directed at us. And nothing that gives any clue to who they are. We’re picking up lots of their comms, but it’s all heavily encrypted.”

“Everything?” Desjani demanded.

“Yes, Captain. There’s no civilian comm traffic that we can find. It’s all military-grade encryption. At least, that’s what we’d call it if they were human.”

“Humans with that kind of discipline? No one taking shortcuts or ignoring comm requirements?”

“That doesn’t seem too likely, does it?” Geary agreed. “We don’t have time to consult the experts, and as long as whoever is directing those small craft keeps charging at us, we also don’t have any option but to defend ourselves.” He turned to look back and saw Rione in the observer’s seat, sitting silently, her eyes watching her own display. “Try to establish communications with them. Tell them we’ll be happy to leave and didn’t intend staying anyway and have no hostile intent. We don’t have much time to get those messages across,” he added, not sure if Rione understood just how bad the situation was.

Rione sounded resigned as she replied. “They have made no attempts to communicate, not even demands that we leave or surrender. I don’t think they wish to talk, Admiral Geary. They appear to have enough hostile intent for both of us, and they don’t seem to care about our own intentions.”

“Do your best, Madam Emissary.” He eyed his display again. “If we can’t get them to break off their attack,” Geary commented to Desjani, “we’re going to have one hell of a fight on our hands.”

“Target-rich environment,” Desjani remarked in a cheerful voice that carried across the bridge. Her watch-standers, tense gazes alternating between their superiors and the huge number of attackers, relaxed slightly at that display of their captain’s confidence.

Geary had trouble showing the same enthusiasm for the situation, though. “That’s one way of looking at it. There are so damn many of them.” He ran yet another maneuvering check despite knowing that he would get the same awful answer. After an awesome surge of acceleration at launch, the alien craft seemed to have steadied out at a still-impressive rate of increasing velocity. His own warships had come around to point almost directly away from the oncoming aliens and were all pushing their propulsion systems to the limit, but the maneuvering systems confirmed that the best that most of Geary’s combatants could manage wouldn’t be good enough to avoid interception, though the battle cruisers should be able to just pull out of contact. The cruisers and destroyers could almost match the battle cruisers, but that “almost” meant the aliens would almost certainly manage to catch many of the escorts. The four assault transports would be doomed, along with the Marines and liberated prisoners on them, and the battleships and auxiliaries also had no chance at all. Even dumping all of the mass the auxiliaries held in their raw materials bunkers wouldn’t allow the auxiliaries to accelerate fast enough to give them any chance, and while the battleships could gather speed more quickly than the auxiliaries, with this little time to accelerate, the massive warships weren’t all that much more agile.

Geary focused intently, trying to close out normal fear, trying to find some room to maneuver against these opponents. But there didn’t seem to be any, not when the opponent had nine hundred ships too close and coming on too fast, and he usually had a lot more time to think things through, to evaluate the situation before making plans. In this situation, he knew too little and had too little time. “Advantages,” he muttered.

“We’ve got a lot more firepower,” Desjani pointed out. “And with our ships moving away at maximum acceleration, and the aliens caught in a stern chase, that reduces the closing rate. That means we’ll be within firing range of those things for minutes instead of milliseconds, giving us a lot more time to pound them. On the other hand, one shot from a hell lance probably isn’t going to take out one of those. We’ll likely need multiple hits, and there are so many of those things that we’d have to fire repeatedly as fast as possible. The weapon systems aren’t designed for that.”

“I know all that!” Why was she telling him things he already knew when what he needed was answers? All right, maybe he hadn’t thought all of that through yet, but he would have. His reply came out sharp and abrupt, fed by an awful sense of futility, and he saw her answering frown.

Glowering at her display, Desjani sat back, pointedly ignoring him as she prepared her ship for action.

Damn. I don’t need this kind of personal distraction. Why the hell does she have to be so sensitive now, of all of times? She’s the best damned ship driver I’ve got, and if anyone could maneuver us through this, it would be her, though she’d probably prefer just charging at those—

Geary’s mind froze, trying to retrack and find the idea that had almost been lost as it had raced past at the speed of thought multiplied by irritation and dismay. Charging. “Tanya.”

“What? Sir.”

“We don’t know how maneuverable they are. But we can judge how fast they can move since they must be coming at us at their maximum sustained capability. We have a very narrow chance to control when we come into contact with these attackers, but we’ll have to time our own maneuvers just right.”

Her glower didn’t subside, but Desjani’s expression took on a calculating measure. “They could be holding their velocity down to ensure their own targeting systems are effective and preserve their fuel reserves for what might be a long chase, but more likely we’re seeing the best they can do.” Desjani’s eyes were narrowed as she looked at her display, as if she were aiming a weapon. Raising her voice, she addressed her watch-standers without taking her eyes from the display. “I want human eyes on the fleet sensor readings. The sensors are telling me they haven’t identified any weapons on the alien craft yet. Tell me what you see.”

There was a pause as the officers and senior enlisted personnel called up and focused intently on the depictions of the alien craft created by the sensors, then a lieutenant spoke slowly. “Captain, maybe they do things really differently from us, but I can’t see anything that looks like firing ports or hard points. No external weapons are visible, and there’s nothing that could blow out or open to allow internal missiles to fire. They’re just tubes.”

“Bullets,” Lieutenant Castries said. “Really big bullets.”

Desjani swung her head to look at the others, and all of them nodded; then she finally looked at Geary again. “We have to assume that those things don’t carry weapons, they are weapons. Since those craft don’t have stand-off weapons, we do have some chance to decide when we engage. That’s the bright side of it. I’m not still boring you with things you already know, am I?”

“I’m sorry. I’m under a bit of pressure right now—”

“If Dauntless is destroyed, Admiral, then you and I both die. What’s your idea?”

Geary kept his reply short. “Concentrate the fleet by reducing acceleration sequentially by unit type.”

“Produce an easier target for the aliens that they’ll catch sooner? That’s counterintuitive, at least. Concentrating the force . . . sequentially?” She paused, thinking, then Desjani’s hands were moving, tracing maneuvers on her display. “I see what you’re thinking. It won’t be pretty, but it might work, and it beats any option I’ve come up with.”

“Link me to your display so we can do this fast.” The next few minutes passed in a blur as Geary worked on his maneuvering display, planning out hundreds of ship movements in conjunction with Desjani as the maneuvering systems automatically generated orders for the necessary turns, accelerations, and decelerations for each individual ship while also figuring out how to avoid collisions as all of those ships darted through the same region of space. It was the sort of problem that would have taken humans weeks to work out, but the fleet systems produced answers instantly in response to the commands that Geary and Desjani were entering.

Of course, every system, no matter how good, still generated a few flaws, a few errors. Ideally, people would have time to discover those using the intuitive ability of the human mind to scan over a big picture and spot tiny inconsistencies. But there was no time for that now. He could only hope that those inevitable errors wouldn’t be critical ones. Two ships crossing the same point at the same moment in time would produce one cloud of debris and zero survivors.

“You’ll need to let individual ships maneuver independently when the attackers get close enough,” Desjani cautioned. “That will seriously stress the ability of the maneuvering systems to predict movements of other warships and avoid collisions.”

“I don’t have any alternative, do I?”

“Nope. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” she added.

Even with nine hundred alien attackers closing on the fleet, Geary couldn’t help wincing at Desjani’s jab. “Yes. But please keep telling me things I already know.”

“I’ll consider it. This plan looks as good as we can possibly manage in the time available.”

He nonetheless paused to look over it, dismayed by the hundreds of separate projected tracks for individual ships weaving in and out of each other in a pattern so dense it almost resembled an impossibly huge tangle of string. The time counter in one corner was scrolling down, indicating that he had only two minutes left to order these maneuvers, or else there would be too little time for the individual ships to execute them, and a whole new plan would have to be crafted. Murmuring a prayer to his ancestors to ask the living stars to keep his ships safe, Geary hit the approve command, and the plan flashed out to every warship, transport, and auxiliary in the fleet.

“This is Admiral Geary to all units. Individual ship movement orders are en route to you. Our attempts to communicate with the inhabitants of this star system have yielded no results, and the force closing on us appears intent on a fight. We will engage these alien craft and destroy every one that threatens our ships. After doing as much damage to the attackers as we can using the orders being transmitted, be prepared for follow-on orders for every warship to maneuver independently as required by the actions of the enemy.” He had a momentary impulse to add something stupid like try not to collide with other ships, but managed to block the words before actually saying them. “We will re-form following the engagement.” Assuming there are enough of us left to re-form. But I do need to say something else. We’re going into a tough fight. I have to tell everyone that I expect victory despite how bad things look. “Let’s show whoever lives in this star system that they made a serious mistake when they chose to attack the Alliance fleet. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

Desjani glanced at him. “You didn’t tell them not to hit each other—”

“I managed to stop myself.”

“—but they already know that, don’t they?”

Geary paused before saying anything else, facing the reality that after very tense minutes of working and thinking as fast as possible, he would now be forced to watch events unfold, unable to intervene for a while without throwing the plan into confusion and ruining what seemed to be the fleet’s best chance to defeat this threat. “How long am I going to have to pay for that remark?” he finally asked.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Desjani replied. “It’s a good plan, Admiral, better than anything I could have come up with in the time we had. Let it run and watch the big picture so you know when to call out orders again.” She raised her voice to speak to everyone on the bridge, keying a command that also broadcast her words through the entire ship. “We are heading into battle now, and Dauntless will be leading the way. I want maximum combat readiness for all crew members and systems. Let’s show the rest of the fleet how it’s done.”

Dauntless began pivoting in response to her maneuvering orders, her bow where armament and shields were clustered most heavily coming up and around to face the oncoming horde of alien small craft. Geary sat back, watching silently as the other battle cruisers did the same.

Viewed rationally, none of it made sense. The battle cruisers were going to charge the enemy, despite the overwhelming numbers of attackers, and even though the charge was just a matter of the battle cruisers ceasing their own acceleration so that they continued moving rapidly stern first in the same direction as the fleet but also slid toward the rear of the fleet as the battleships, cruisers, destroyers, transports, and auxiliaries continued to accelerate past them as quickly as possible. Moreover, the atmosphere on Dauntless’s bridge could only be described as jubilant even though slightly more than nine hundred alien ships were closing rapidly and would soon enter hell-lance range. This was what the crew believed that battle cruisers were supposed to do, leading the fleet against the enemy, and between the upbeat attitude of their commanding officer and their own confidence in Geary to get them out of any mess, they were ready to fight even the odds they now faced. “All units, engage targets as they enter weapons envelopes,” Geary ordered. Mines might not be of much use in these circumstances, but this was no time to try conserving missiles.

Dauntless trembled slightly as specter missiles leaped out, racing toward their targets. The other battle cruisers fired missiles as well in a staggered barrage caused by their differing distances to the enemy. “Here’s where we see what kind of point defenses they have,” Desjani commented.

Whatever those defenses were, they couldn’t stop specters. Many of the alien small craft managed slight last-instant jogs in their vectors that caused the specters to detonate too far from their targets, but other alien vessels vanished under the blows of the Alliance missiles, blown into tiny pieces by the warheads, the force of the collisions as the missiles hit home, and the explosion of their own payloads. “Look at the size of those detonations,” Desjani marveled. “Those things have some humongous warheads on them.”

“Combat systems estimate from the destruction patterns that the alien craft have substantial armor of some kind in their bows,” the combat systems watch reported.

“That’s going to make it harder for the hell lances to achieve kills,” Desjani complained. “They’re not making this easy at all.”

Geary, inwardly marveling at Tanya’s ability to find humor at times like this, just nodded in reply and waited, wondering what hidden weapons the alien ships might be armed with. But no weapons fire stabbed out from the aliens as they got closer to the Alliance battle cruisers, which now formed a rough barrier between the aliens and the rest of the fleet. “Entering hell-lance range in five seconds,” the combat systems watch reported.

One by one, the battle cruisers opened fire again, their hell lances hurling out spears of high-energy particles, the shots invisible to human eyes. The leading alien craft trembled as hits went home, knocking down shields and tearing holes in their bows, but they kept coming.

“Tough bastards,” Desjani said.

“Yeah.” He had one eye on the advancing aliens and another on status reports from the battle cruisers. As Desjani had noted earlier, combat systems were designed for very quick engagements, slashing firing runs in which a single volley or at most two could be unleashed. Hell lances could be fired repeatedly for only so long before they began overheating, and now he watched the warning signs begin popping up on battle cruiser after battle cruiser.

“Hell-lance batteries 1A and 2B are experiencing serious overheating,” Dauntless’s own combat systems watch-stander reported. “Estimated time to temporary shutdown ten seconds maximum.”

“Very well,” Desjani replied. “How long will the others keep firing?”

“One minute maximum estimated, Captain, but combat systems predict in thirty seconds we’ll be down to only twenty percent of hell lances still firing. Five seconds to specter reload completion.”

“Fire specters as soon as they’re ready.”

The missiles tore away from Dauntless again as the fire of the hell lances faltered. Geary studied the readouts for the other battle cruisers. Leviathan and Dragon had already temporarily lost several batteries to overheating, and the fire from the other battle cruisers was weakening fast. Increasing numbers of alien ships were coming apart under the battle cruisers’ barrage, but so far the losses had barely dented their numbers, and the aliens were closing quickly.

Even though he knew it would happen, Geary was momentarily startled when Dauntless and the other battle cruisers pivoted again, putting their sterns to the enemy as their main propulsion units lit off once more. The fleet’s combat systems had been able to approximate beforehand how long the hell-lance batteries could fire before overheating, so the maneuvering orders had been based on those calculations. Now the closing rate of the enemy ships slowed dramatically, but the battle cruisers also could no longer engage the enemy nearly as effectively with their bows pointed away.

Desjani had one hand supporting her chin as she watched the fight. “And here comes the second team.”

The maneuvering commands sent earlier had kicked in for the mass of escorts in the Alliance fleet. Scores of destroyers and light cruisers and dozens of heavy cruisers swung around bows on to the aliens, and the Alliance battle cruisers began overtaking the smaller warships. As the alien craft continued to close, the destroyers and cruisers joined their fire to that of the rear batteries on the battle cruisers.

Alien missile craft staggered, some disappearing in tremendous explosions while others were torn to pieces. But for every alien ship destroyed, more came on from behind. Geary watched the hell-lance readouts on his escorts rapidly climbing to overheating while a third volley of specters were launched from the battle cruisers. By now the aliens were so close that the missiles were having trouble achieving lock-on before the battle raced past them, and most were clean misses. “All units, cease firing missiles unless you get a solid firing solution on some alien craft.” Their hell lances falling silent from overheating, the cruisers and destroyers pivoted again, sterns to the enemy, accelerating once again at maximum, joining the battle cruisers in trying to keep ahead of the alien attackers as long as possible.

He turned to look at Desjani. “We’re not whittling them down fast enough.”

“Not yet. But now it’s time for the big boys and girls to earn their keep,” Desjani remarked, sounding jaunty again.

The fleet, once spread out in subformations, had slowly compressed down with a dense layer comprising the battle cruisers and escorts closest to the enemy and the battleships, transports and auxiliaries strung out slightly ahead of the rest. Now the battleships ponderously swung around to face the enemy bow on, their acceleration halting so that the massive warships were quickly overtaken by the rest of the Alliance warships. Only the transports and auxiliaries remained slightly ahead of the rest of the fleet, with all of the other warships and the alien craft rapidly overtaking them.

The battleships glided into place among the battle cruisers and escorts, then opened up with their immense armament. Geary felt his lips stretch into an involuntary grimace as space filled with so much energy that it began to glow slightly even to human eyes, the leading waves of the surviving alien small craft evaporating under the torrent of fire from the battleships.

“It’s still going to be tight,” Desjani commented as if discussing plans for dinner. “There are too damn many of them, and they keep closing on us. Our forward batteries have cooled down enough to get off several more volleys, but when we pivot again, those aliens will be right on top of us.”

“Understood.” This was as far as the preplanned maneuvers took them. It would be up to him to judge when to move to the final, chaotic stage of the fight. He sat, watching the aliens come ever closer, the fire of the battleships also beginning to slacken. So close now. But I need what’s left of that alien force a little closer so they have less time to react to our next move. How far to the farthest units in my formation? Factor in how long it will take those units to hear the order. Fortunately, the attackers keep aiming for the center of mass of our formation, so a slightly delayed response on our flanks won’t hurt those warships. Almost time now.

“Admiral?” Desjani asked. Her tone held only mild interest, but the fact that she asked the question was a rare betrayal of the tension she was otherwise so effectively masking.

“Not yet.” He held up one hand, moving it slowly several times as if counting beats, then slapped his controls. “All units, effective immediately maneuver independently at maximum capability to avoid alien ships while continuing to engage the enemy with all short-range weapons.”

He felt pressures jerk at his body despite the inertial nullifiers as Desjani yanked Dauntless into as tight a turn as the battle cruiser’s velocity could manage, forming a huge arc through space as the warship also pivoted to immediately engage the enemy. “Fire grapeshot as the launchers bear on targets!” she ordered. “All hell lances fire and keep firing until the last attacker is gone!”

Collision alarms screamed warnings as hundreds of warships pivoted onto new vectors, Geary’s display turning red as impact warning alerts covered it. Fortunately, the initial movements, when the Alliance ships were closest together, were somewhat predictable to the fleet’s maneuvering systems as almost every ship turned to engage the nearest enemy craft. That, or perhaps the divine aid that Geary had prayed for, prevented any immediate disasters.

The alien craft were here, right on top of the Alliance warships, when metal grapeshot fired from well over two hundred warships slammed into the aliens at relative speeds of thousands of kilometers per second. Hundreds of surviving alien ships vanished in a wave of annihilation, then hell lances were lashing out with renewed fury as the bow armaments found targets again.

Geary couldn’t be certain how many alien ships were left amid the bedlam as clouds of debris and energy discharges filled space, and the Alliance warships scattered as if their own formation had exploded into hundreds of individual pieces. Even the auxiliaries and transports were firing now, their meager defenses trying to fend off the remaining attackers, many of whom seemed momentarily confused by the fleet’s dispersal. But other alien craft, probably sticking to targets they had already chosen, bored through the main body aiming for the auxiliaries that were the fleet’s Achilles’ heel and the transports, which were clearly vulnerable targets.

Dauntless, rolling as her course curved slightly downward, rocked as an alien ship twisting on an intercept with the battle cruiser caught several hell-lance hits from multiple angles and exploded nearby. Two Alliance destroyers and a light cruiser tore past heading straight up as Dauntless dove beneath them, then a battleship spun by overhead so close that even Desjani looked stunned for an instant. Recovering just as quickly, Desjani cursed and prioritized two more targets, punching the firing commands to take out one alien craft homing past toward Titan and another near enough to Dauntless that the force of its explosion rattled the warship.

But Dauntless was committed by momentum to her current track, unable to reverse course fast enough to engage alien attackers that had made it past her. Geary could only watch with a sick feeling as more alien craft swung onto final runs aimed at Titan and Tanuki, but then, astoundingly, Orion was there, the battleship climbing from below, knocking out one alien ship short of Titan, then blowing apart the second at point-blank range astern of Tanuki. The resulting explosion knocked even the mass of the battleship a bit to one side.

Another alien was homing in on the transport Mistral, but the heavy cruisers Diamond, Gauntlet, and Buckler had managed to claw close enough to fire a volley of hell lances into the rear of the missile craft and shatter it short of its target.

No other alien craft had survived long enough to get close to the transports and auxiliaries. Bringing his eyes back to the wider battle, Geary tried to sort out alien ship markers from the mass of debris and the confused swirl of Alliance warships not only seeking targets but also trying to dodge each other and the bigger pieces of debris.

Nothing. The only red showing on the display were the scores of collision warnings still proliferating, then vanishing just as quickly as fleet maneuvering systems shook hands among ships and made the millisecond-fast decisions and coordinated vector changes needed to avoid crashes. The last of the alien craft had been destroyed, and now he had to figure out how much damage they had done. All he could tell at the moment was that the damage hadn’t been the massacre it might have been. “All units, resume Formation Delta when safe to maneuver to station. Formation speed is point zero five light speed.” Get everyone slowed down, while continuing to open the distance to that orbiting fortress, and into a simple box, as simple as any formation could be, while he tried to sort out things.

“Wow,” Desjani commented, smiling, her face a little flushed. “It worked. Cool plan, Admiral.”

“You’re crazy,” he replied, his heart still pounding.

“I thought you liked that in a woman. Did you see what Orion did?”

“Yeah,” Geary agreed, slightly giddy with relief even while dreading what damage might have been done to the fleet. “You were right about Captain Shen.”

“I’m always right, Admiral. Lieutenant Yuon, who was that battleship that got way too far inside our personal space?”

“The systems identify her as Dreadnaught, Captain. Closest point of approach was—” Yuon’s voice choked to a halt, then came out at a higher pitch. “That can’t be right.”

Desjani checked the distance herself, then fell silent for a few seconds. “Admiral, you need to have another talk with Dreadnaught’s commanding officer. Captain Jane Geary owes me a drink,” she added. “And I owe my ancestors some thanks.”

“We all do.” Both Jane Geary and his ancestors would have to wait for the moment, though. Geary pulled out the scale on his display again, finally having the luxury of viewing the entire star system in search of more distant threats. The huge orbiting fortress at the jump point wasn’t launching any more ships or missiles or whatever those alien craft had been, but it wasn’t the only such monster fortification here. “I have a nasty suspicion that it’s not going to be hard to figure out where the other jump points are in this star system.”

Desjani raised an eyebrow, then checked her own display. “Ancestors preserve us. They’ve got the same kinds of fortresses in two other orbits, both far enough from the star to be guarding jump points as well.”

Fortresses that doubtless also carried hundreds of long-range missiles. Elsewhere in the star system, still light hours distant, numerous warships were still being identified by the fleet sensors. Geary let out a low whistle as he viewed some of that data. “Several of the alien warships are assessed by our sensors as massing three times larger than a Guardian-class battleship.”

“They build big, don’t they?” Desjani asked. “Fortunately, the nearest of those things are three light hours distant, and with that much mass, they can’t be very nimble. Even I’d rather not tangle with them, though.”

“We still have received no communications to us from the inhabitants of this star system,” Rione reported tonelessly. “They have not yet responded to any of our messages.”

Geary slumped back in his seat. “If they were human, they should have answered us by now.” There weren’t any imminent threats left, nothing that wouldn’t take hours or days to get close enough to worry about, but that left plenty to do right away. Evaluate damage and losses to the fleet. Get repairs going. Make sure survivors from any destroyed or badly damaged ships are recovered. Try to talk to whatever this alien species is or at least learn something more about them. Get the fleet on a course to avoid any attempts by them to intercept us again with all of the other warships they’ve got available. His eyes went to the massive fortresses guarding this star system’s jump points. The one they had passed at the nearest jump point might have exhausted its supply of missiles, but something that huge could have many hundreds of reloads ready to fire if the fleet approached again, not to mention other weapons. Getting to a jump point would require passing close to those forts and would be a lot more dangerous than tearing past one during an exit had been.

“Congratulations on discovering another intelligent alien species, Admiral,” Rione said.

“Thanks. I’m glad the government is pleased.” He didn’t bother trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Not everyone in the government is pleased,” Rione murmured almost too low to hear, her eyes fixed on her display with the look of someone who had finally encountered a long-anticipated fate.

Desjani leaned closer to him. “How are we getting out of this star system, Admiral?”

“Beats the hell out of me.” Actually, knowing how to get out wasn’t too hard with those fortresses pointing the way to jump points. Getting out without having the fleet cut to ribbons was the problem.

But now he had time to think, and he had Tanya beside him, and a lot of good people who were depending upon him but also working with him, and while stung, the fleet was mostly intact. Perhaps even Rione would now offer real assistance again instead of that odd passivity.

Geary settled back in his seat, relaxing tense muscles by force of will so that he seemed imperturbable. “We’ll think of something,” he assured Desjani in a calm voice loud enough to be heard clearly throughout the bridge.

Ace Books by Jack Campbell

THE LOST FLEET: DAUNTLESS

THE LOST FLEET: FEARLESS

THE LOST FLEET: COURAGEOUS

THE LOST FLEET: VALIANT

THE LOST FLEET: RELENTLESS

THE LOST FLEET: VICTORIOUS

THE LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER: DREADNAUGHT