Guardian

Five

According to the terms of the peace treaty with the Syndicate Worlds, he couldn’t simply fire on unarmed ships broadcasting merchant identification. Geary didn’t bother saying that. Tanya knew it, and so did everybody else. Including the Syndic leaders who had ordered this operation. If those leaders had expected him to hesitate, to question what to do under these circumstances, they had made a mistake. “Those ships are operating in an aggressive and dangerous manner,” Geary announced for the benefit of the official record. “We have a right to act in self-defense. Broadcast a warning that any ship entering the weapons engagement zone for any of our ships will be fired upon. Repeat the broadcast eight times, on all standard safety and coordination circuits.”

As Desjani’s comm watch-stander scrambled to get that sent, Geary tapped his fleetwide comm control again. “All units in the First Fleet. The twenty-three courier ships accelerating toward an intercept with our formation have been warned to stay clear of us. If they continue on tracks toward us, they are to be regarded as hostile. Any of them that enter your weapons engagement envelopes are to be engaged with all weapons until disabled or destroyed.”

Another call, this time internal. “Emissary Rione and Emissary Charban, tell the Dancers that these ships are dangerous. Say they’re out of control, say they’re hostile, say whatever works to convince the Dancers that those courier ships might collide with them unless the Dancers evade for all they are worth.”

Rione answered, her voice tinged with resignation. “We will try. Even at the best of times, with all the time in the world, the Dancers don’t always listen to us. But we will try.”

“Thank you,” Geary said, putting feeling into the words.

“Lock weapons on those ships and prepare to engage,” Desjani told her crew, then gave Geary a measured look. “Just like old times. Kill the Syndics before they kill us. But. The Syndics know the odds of those ships getting through our defensive fire if they’re not moving fast enough. They’ll accelerate to the maximum velocity they can in the time and distance available in order to screw with our firing solutions.”

He grunted a vague reply as he frowned at his display. The courier ships were simply small crew, storage, and command compartments fastened to the front of outsized main propulsion units and a power core suitable for a ship twice their size. Built to move fast, they were already up to point one light speed and still accelerating.

In jump space, human ships did not actually travel faster than light. They went around that speed limit by going somewhere else, a different dimension or different universe. The experts still didn’t know which of those jump space represented, but they did know that jump space was a place where distances were much smaller than in our own universe. A week in jump space would take a ship the same distance as years of travel in normal space. Oddly enough, it didn’t matter how fast a ship was going when it entered and exited jump space. The length of the journey depended solely on the distance to be covered.

A hypernet avoided light-speed problems by another method, using quantum physics, which literally tossed human craft into a bubble of nothing that was nowhere, created at one gate and eventually reappearing at another linked gate without technically moving.

Both of those things were weird.

But what happened when human spacecraft pushed their velocities higher and higher in normal space was even weirder. Relativity had predicted the strange physical results long before humans could experience them. Objects accelerating toward light speed gained mass while time slowed inside them, all relative to the outside world. To an outside observer, the objects also got shorter as they moved faster. In theory, at the speed of light, the outside universe would see a ship with infinite mass, zero length, and no time passing inside it.

To those inside the ship, length and mass and time all seemed the same as always, but their vision of the outside would alter. The universe outside their ship grew more distorted to them the faster they went. This relativistic distortion became a significant problem at point one light speed, though human-designed sensors and combat systems could compensate accurately for relativistic errors up to point two light speed. Beyond that, the errors grew too large for existing human technology to compensate for, and the already incredibly difficult problem of hitting an object flying past at tens of thousands of kilometers a second became what fleet engineers described using the technical term TDH, which stood for Too Damned Hard.

Based on the projections of the fleet combat systems, those courier ships would have accelerated up past point two light speed by the time they got close enough for the weapons of Geary’s warships to fire at. Since Geary’s own ships were still moving at nearly point one light speed, that would produce a closing rate exceeding point three light speed, drastically impacting the accuracy of weapons fire.

Desjani bit her lip and shook her head. “We could slow down to reduce the relative velocity, but that would make it harder for our ships to evade any attempts at ramming.”

He nodded. “We’d have to go to a dead stop to get the relative speed of engagement down to point two light, and there’s not enough time to slow the fleet that much even if we wanted to do that. If we keep our velocity up, it will make scoring hits a lot harder, but make dodging attacks easier, and the courier ships will have more difficulty hitting their own targets. I’m going to accelerate at the last minute. The extra velocity won’t cause more accuracy problems than we’re already going to face, and might throw off the ramming courses of the courier ships.”

Those small courier ships were still coming, still accelerating, and the projected paths for the Syndic “merchant” craft were now, without doubt, aimed straight into the heart of the Alliance formation, where Invincible made perhaps the largest sitting duck in history. Are they aiming for Invincible? Or for the Dancers who, for their own reasons, have been clustered near Invincible lately? Or for the assault transports and auxiliaries, which are also in that part of the formation? There are enough of those couriers to target almost all of them. “All units in First Fleet, the ships heading for us are assessed to be on suicide runs. Vary vectors at random intervals to confuse their attack runs, and make wider individual vector changes when it’s too late for the attacker to compensate. All units, screen the assault transports, auxiliaries, and Invincible.”

“You’ve done all you can,” Desjani murmured, her gaze riveted on her display.

“It’s not enough.”

“That depends how you define ‘enough.’” Her eyes moved to meet his. “We used to lose half of our ships when we won. We may lose some now. That’s up to the living stars and the skill of each ship’s commanding officer.”

Geary didn’t answer, wanting to deny that reality but unable to muster any arguments. Something nagged at him, though, one more thing that might help but remained stubbornly just out of his mental grasp.

Then he got it, barely in time to do anything about it. Geary’s eyes fixed on the estimated time to intercept with the courier ships, a number that was sweeping downward so fast the digital readout seemed to blur. “All units in First Fleet, execute Modified Formation Foxtrot Three at time four one.”

“Mod Foxtrot Three?” Desjani asked, her own eyes not leaving her display. “Oh. That might help.”

“It can’t hurt.” Geary paused, trying to time his next command, then tapped his comm controls. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute accelerate to point one five light speed.”

They wouldn’t make it. Even the ships capable of the fastest acceleration, Geary’s battle cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers, would barely have begun leaping forward at increasing velocities. But space was very wide, even the largest human ship was very small in that vast emptiness, and at the speeds the Alliance ships and Syndic courier craft were rushing together, even the tiniest difference in a projected track could mean the difference between a near miss and a collision.

Dauntless shuddered slightly as her thrusters fired at time four one, kicking her onto a new vector, while her main propulsion units kept shoving her ahead faster. The entire Alliance formation was splitting into three parts, each group heading outward from the other two, the mass of ships spreading off from their original vectors like water spraying outward in a cone. With vectors for each ship changing by the moment, the oncoming attackers would have to guess where the ship they were aiming for was going, further complicating their deadly task.

The Dancers were staying with Invincible, a threat magnet near a threat magnet, and in the last seconds before intercept, Geary could see the twenty-three courier ships bending their own tracks over and down to head where the Dancers and the lumbering mass of Invincible were moving. Even with four human battleships towing the mass of Invincible, the captured Kick superbattleship seemed to be changing its velocity and course at a snail’s pace.

He had eight battleships there, too, moving along with Invincible, four actually tethered to Invincible and four more escorting her. A fraction of a second before the forces tore into contact, something in Geary’s mind noted something about the movement of one of the battleships that seemed slightly off. Orion’s vector had altered in an unexpected way.

There was no time to ask Commander Shen what he was doing, no time to even understand what about Orion’s movement felt odd.

Even when warships limited their engagement speeds to point two light, the meetings were far too fast for human senses to register. Geary saw the twenty-three courier ships almost upon the portion of the Alliance formation holding Invincible, the assault transports, the auxiliaries, and the Dancer ships, then he saw four courier ships that had missed their targets and been missed by the avalanche of fire which the Alliance warships had pumped out under the control of automated systems able to react much faster than any living creature.

“What the hell happened?” Geary demanded. Something looked very wrong now. Something was missing in the Alliance formation.

The answer appeared on his display.

Orion.

Geary barely noticed as the last four courier ships tried to claw around for another run at the Alliance formation, did not feel any elation as specter missiles pursuing those four ships caught them in their turns and blew them apart.

His display replayed a slow-motion re-creation of the instant of contact. Some courier ships vanishing into irregular blots of dust and energy as lucky shots scored hits, others coming onward, aiming now clearly for the Dancers, who, damn them, seemed to be almost motionless as they hung near Invincible, and the rest targeting the assault transports and auxiliaries, the Dancers darting aside at the last moments to frustrate the attackers trying to hit them, Titan, Typhoon, and Mistral almost lined up relative to the attackers and twisting too slowly to evade the courier ships whose vectors aimed at them, hell-lance and grapeshot fire pouring from every Alliance ship in a last-ditch defensive effort, Orion rolling slightly in her track, coming over just a small amount, just enough that five surviving courier ships heading for Titan and the two assault transports instead struck Orion either glancing blows or direct hits.

Even a battleship couldn’t withstand that number of impacts by that much mass at those kinds of velocities. The energy liberated by the collisions was vast enough to reduce Orion and all five courier ships to gas and dust.

Orion was gone, along with Commander Shen and his entire crew.

“All attackers destroyed,” Lieutenant Castries reported, her tone not jubilant but rather stunned. “Orion has been destroyed. No other damage to fleet ships.”

“Damn them,” Geary whispered. He could understand the hate Desjani still felt for the Syndics, understand why the Alliance fleet had retaliated and retaliated for such acts, losing track of its own honor and morality along the way, understand why the need to do the right thing had been forgotten in the desire for revenge.

“They’re going to claim they didn’t know anything about this,” Desjani said in a low, savage voice. “The Syndics in charge here. They’ll say they had no idea whose ships those were. You know they will.”

“Yes.” And there was no proof to the contrary. He was certain of that. The courier ships and their one-man crews had been blown to pieces. Dead men and women tell no tales.

He wanted to hurt the Syndics in this star system, hurt all of them, not just those who gave the orders but also those who stood by and let such things happen, whose own actions and passivity supported their leaders.

Don’t. Don’t do anything that will make this worse.

But Orion was gone, victim of an attack that could not possibly have accomplished anything but destruction.

“Admiral.” Rione’s voice broke through his rage. She sounded odd, too, as if emotions were boiling just beneath the rigid mask of her face. “I wanted to ask, Admiral, if the hypernet gate had been damaged during the fight so close to it. It would be a great loss to this star system if their hypernet gate was damaged so badly during this unnecessary and brutal attack that the gate collapsed.”

It took him several seconds to get it, then Geary felt a cold resolve warring with the heat of his anger. He touched a control. “Captain Smythe.”

Tanuki was only a few light-seconds distant, so the reply came quickly. “Yes, Admiral?” Smythe asked in a subdued voice.

“I am worried that the hypernet gate may have sustained damage from stray shots or from debris from some of those courier ships. I want it inspected at close range to make sure it has not sustained the level of damage that would cause it to collapse. Even though the safe collapse mechanism will prevent a devastating pulse of energy from being emitted by the collapse, such an event would still cripple commerce through this star system for the foreseeable future.”

Smythe pursed his lips. “Admiral, the fight wasn’t that close—” He hesitated, a light of understanding dawning in his eyes, then nodded. “But the gate still might have sustained damage. Damage we can’t see, except up close. Catastrophic damage. It would be… so unfortunate for this star system if the gate were to collapse.”

“Yes, Captain Smythe, it would be. Will you see to it?”

“I will, Admiral. Perhaps some of the debris from Orion will prove to have impacted on some of the gate tethers. That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, Captain Smythe. Ironic. I’m going to slow the fleet to give your engineers time to do a thorough job.”

“Oh, we will do a thorough job, Admiral. Have no fear of that.” Smythe’s grin as he saluted bared his teeth but held no humor.

Rione’s image was still visible, showing no reaction to Geary’s orders. “Admiral,” she said when he closed the call to Smythe, “we should contact the Syndic authorities in this star system, both to formally report our presence and to register a formal protest over the attack on us.”

He kept his gaze focused on nothing as he pondered a reply. “I take it accusing them of complicity in murder wouldn’t accomplish anything.”

“No. If you don’t think you can speak to them without spitting blood in their faces, and believe me I would sympathize if that is the case, I can send the message on behalf of the Alliance government.”

Geary looked over at Rione’s image. “I would be grateful if you would. I don’t know what I might say to those… individuals, given the way I feel right now.”

“I understand, Admiral.” Rione closed her eyes briefly before opening them to gaze at him. “Part of being a politician is being able to speak in a civil fashion to people whom you really want to strangle with their own intestines.”

“Thank you, Madam Emissary.”

“And may I also extend my official condolences at the loss the fleet suffered this day.” Rione’s voice almost cracked on the last few words. She hurriedly broke the connection before he could comment on it.

Geary touched his comm controls with a carefully gentle gesture, fearing that if he lost control, he would pound the controls into uselessness. “All units in the First Fleet. Immediate execute, re-form in Formation Delta and reduce velocity to point zero two light.” Smythe’s engineers would need time to do their work.

The bridge of Dauntless was very quiet.

“Commander Shen,” Desjani said in a dull voice, “has a daughter in the fleet. I’ll let her know what happened.”

“I’m… sorry, Tanya. I know Shen was your friend.”

“I’ve lost a lot of friends, Admiral.” Desjani bent her head, breathing deeply. “You saw what he did, right?”

“Yes. That last-moment maneuver. I don’t know how, but he figured out what he needed to do to swing Orion into the path of the suicide attackers aiming at Titan, Typhoon, and Mistral.”

“Instinct, Admiral. He was one hell of a good ship driver.” Desjani took another deep breath. “Better than me. So, the hypernet gate here was damaged?”

“I think there’s a very high probability that it was too badly damaged to save.”

“What a shame.” One more slow breath, then Tanya straightened, her expression smoothing out. “Lieutenant Yuon.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Dauntless took out one of those couriers. Well done. Notify the weapons crews that I will be coming to personally congratulate them.”

“Yes, Captain.”

As Desjani began to rise from her seat, Geary gestured for her attention. “Is there anything I can do?”

“There are lots of things you need to do, Admiral,” she said. “You’ve got a fleet to take care of. And I’ve got a ship to look after.”

“True. I’ll talk to you later, Tanya.”

She sketched a salute, then headed off the bridge.

Geary turned back to his display, watching his ships re-form into one large grouping, while shuttles winged their ways from two of the auxiliaries toward the hypernet gate.

The one thing he wished he could do right now was order ships to search for survivors from Orion. But that would be a meaningless order and a hopeless task. The dead could not be forgotten, but he had to focus his attention on the living.

As Geary’s hand moved to send further orders, he paused, looking at his display. Invincible was still struggling to get into position, huge and unwieldy.

Invincible. None of the attacking ships had gone after Invincible.

Had the ships ordered to strike at Invincible been destroyed far enough short of their target that their tracks didn’t point to that target?

Or had the attackers been ordered not to strike Invincible?

Because the Syndics wanted that ship. He knew they did.

Which could mean—

“Tanya! Captain Desjani!”

She heard him just before the bridge hatch closed. It reopened almost instantly, and she was back beside him almost as fast. “What?”

“I think you’d better stay up here.” He hit a comm control. “Admiral Lagemann, do not relax alert status on Invincible.” Another control. “All units in First Fleet, remain at full combat alert.”

Desjani was in her seat, staring at her display. “What do you see?”

“It’s what I didn’t see.”

“You think they have other things planned? Another attack about to go down?”

“I think it’s a certainty. They made us come to this star system so those courier ships could hit us, but even under the most optimistic scenario for the Syndics, those suicide attacks couldn’t have stopped us.”

“But what can they be planning to do when there’s nothing else—?”

“Admiral Geary!” the comm watch yelled at the same moment alarms burst from the combat systems. “Invincible reports she is under attack!”

“The other shoe just dropped,” Geary snapped, as a virtual window appeared next to him.

“We have intruders aboard,” Admiral Lagemann said quickly yet calmly. Lagemann’s face was in shadow. The entire area of Invincible that he was in was darkened, with only stray lights from displays providing light. “They cut what looked like the main comm line out, but that was a decoy.”

“You had a decoy comm line, too?” Geary asked, tapping controls to bring up a display showing the Marines aboard Invincible as well as a direct line to General Carabali.

“Of course.” Despite his light words, Lagemann sounded worried. “The indications of the boarding party are still scattered and weak. They must all be in stealth armor, which means Syndic special forces. We know they’re on board, but not how many and not exactly where. We’re trying to find out more without revealing the real location of the area we occupy inside Invincible.”

“You and Major Dietz certainly called things right. What about your sentries at the air lock? Did you lose them?”

“No,” Lagemann said with a half smile. “They weren’t there. We pulled them back inside with the rest of us when those suicide attackers came at us. Maybe that was part of the Syndic boarding plan, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just as well. We might have lost a squad of Marines before we knew we were facing a boarding party in stealth gear. As it is, the Marines with me are fully alert and armoring up.”

Geary paused in his reply, glancing at Desjani.

Desjani had uttered an obscene term that he hadn’t realized she knew, and now continued speaking with white-hot rage. “A diversion! Those damned suicide ships were a diversion! While we were dealing with them, stealthed shuttles were able to intercept Invincible and put their assault force aboard!”

“Yes, Orion died because of a diversion.” That should have made Geary’s own anger flare hotter, but instead he had gone bitter cold inside. “The shuttles the Syndic boarding party used must still be near Invincible.” There was a maneuver to deal with that, a preplanned operation he only had to order into action. “Search and Destroy Pattern Sigma.” He hit his comm control. “All light cruisers and destroyers in First Fleet, immediate execute Search and Destroy Pattern Sigma. Reference point for search is Invincible. Search targets are Syndic stealth shuttles. Engage and destroy any detected.”

“Search and Destroy Pattern Sigma?” Desjani checked her database. “I’ve never actually done one of those. How old is that pattern?”

“More than a century,” Geary said. “But it’s in the maneuvering systems of every ship in this fleet. All they have to do is punch it in, and the fleet’s automated maneuvering systems will get the right ships moving to the right places based on how many ships the formation has for the mission.”

“That’s a lot,” Desjani said, smiling unpleasantly as she watched her display.

Every destroyer and every light cruiser in the First Fleet, roughly two hundred warships, was swinging into a tight, overlapping search pattern focused on the region of space near Invincible and the track she had taken through space. Stealthed shuttles, especially if they were not maneuvering at all, could be incredibly hard to spot. But with hundreds of ships searching, all of their sensor readings being combined and compared automatically by fleet combat systems, even the best stealth technology would find it hard to avoid revealing the sort of anomalies that combat systems would pounce on.

If only I’d had time to implement that search pattern as a defensive measure before the Syndics got aboard Invincible, Geary thought bitterly. But that was the whole point of the suicide attack, to keep us too busy and too distracted to even think about other threats.

“They’re at the decoy main engineering control,” Admiral Lagemann announced. “Lamarr sensors on the main hatch report they are being spoofed. And… the Persian Donkey there has ceased emitting.”

One decoy dead. Geary fought down an absurd sense of sorrow at the “death” of the faithful and deceitful little Marine Donkey. “What about the decoy bridge?”

Major Dietz’s image had also appeared near Geary. Dietz was in full combat armor. “The Syndic boarding party should have coordinated to hit both targets at the same time, but probably ran into delays because of the unknown deck plans of this ship. There go the Lamarr sensors at the decoy bridge. Decoy bridge has been hit. That Donkey is dead, too.”

“We’ve got everything running on minimum power in this area,” Lagemann said. “We’re all in our suits, so we shut down life support and everything not necessary to communicate and keep track of the action. The boarders will have a hard time finding us, and if they do, they’ll find Marines here ready for them.”

“Admiral Lagemann,” Geary said, “those Syndic soldiers can’t be given the run of Invincible.”

“They won’t be,” Major Dietz said. “I’m leaving one company to guard this area, reinforced by the sailors.” He managed not to sound sarcastic at the idea of armed sailors being effective reinforcement for Marines. “I’m taking the other company out in squads to go after the decoy compartments the Syndics captured. If they brought nukes on board, it’s a near certainty they would have left those nukes under guard in the two decoy compartments. We can’t hunt people in stealth suits, not with this amount of space to cover and so few Marines, but we can make life difficult for whatever guard force they left in those compartments and hopefully gain possession of the nukes.”

“Have you confirmed the presence of Syndic nukes?” Geary asked.

“No, Admiral. That remains an estimate of what the enemy probably intends. I strongly recommend that we operate upon the assumption that the Syndic boarding party does have at least one nuke with them.”

“Your estimates have proven to be extremely good, Major Dietz. I approve your recommendation. Admiral Lagemann, General Carabali, we will operate on the basis of the Syndics’ having nukes inside Invincible.”

General Carabali’s circuit had come to life and now she nodded in response to Geary’s words. “We’ll operate on that basis, Admiral. Request permission to land reinforcements aboard Invincible.”

“How many are you planning on and how quickly?” Geary asked.

“Everybody on Tsunami,” she replied. “Almost eight hundred Marines. As soon as Tsunami can come close alongside Invincible. I want to bring Typhoon close to Invincible in case the Marines aboard her are needed, too.”

“Permission granted. Get those Marines onto Invincible fast.”

“Understood, Admiral. We’re going in.”

Geary turned back to Major Dietz. “Did you copy that? You have a lot of friends on the way.”

“Yes, sir.” Dietz studied some of the dim displays near him. “Another Lamarr sensor in one of the passageways just went off. They’re looking for us. I’ll take my grunts out and make the finding a little easier for them. Two squads will head for the decoy engineering control and two more for the decoy bridge compartment. As our counterattack goes in, it will also distract the Syndics from realizing we have a lot more Marines boarding this ship.” He began to move away, then halted with a puzzled expression. “Firing? Admiral, we’ve got sensors reporting weapons being fired in an area where there’s nothing of ours.”

“Shooting at shadows?” Admiral Lagemann suggested.

“Shadows? These have to be Syndic special forces. Maybe even those security-force fanatics I fought once. Vipers. They’re very tough and very well trained. They wouldn’t shoot at shadows…” Dietz’s expression changed. “Standard tactics in stealth suits is to operate singly, or in groups of two or three at the most. Even if they’ve got a battalion aboard us, they would only converge into larger groups at an objective. More likely they’re at company strength at the most.”

“So?”

“The ghosts, Admiral! Those Syndics are wandering around in the dark alone or in pairs in areas of this ship we only go into at squad strength! One of them just snapped and started shooting at nothing!”

“Isn’t them panicking a good thing?” Geary asked.

“It would be, Admiral,” Major Dietz said with an obvious attempt at patiently explaining something his superiors should already have realized. “It would be if they didn’t have nuclear weapons.”

Geary drew in a sudden breath. Isolated soldiers with nuclear weapons, assailed by mobs of unseen, ghostly presences. “Stop them before they go crazy and blow the ship apart from the inside!” he ordered both Major Dietz and General Carabali.

“That’s the idea, Admiral,” Carabali said. “Move out the instant you’re ready,” she ordered Major Dietz.

“Got one!” Desjani and Lieutenant Castries both cried out, surprising Geary.

Refocusing on his display, Geary saw a Syndic shuttle symbol sputtering into and out of existence as the fleet’s sensors localized the tiny indications of its presence. One of the nearest light cruisers got a fire control solution, and a single hell lance shot speared down and into the shuttle.

The hell lance scored a hit, and a moment later the shuttle blinked fully into view as its power and active stealth systems failed. A half dozen more hell lances tore into it, tearing the shuttle apart.

“There’s another,” Desjani said, as indications of a second shuttle flickered on the display. “We’ve got them boxed in with that search formation. If they don’t move, it’s only a matter of time until we locate them. If they do move, we’ll find them a lot faster.”

It took a real effort of will for Geary to pull his attention back from the shuttle search, not to turn immediately to the situation on Invincible, and instead to concentrate on the entire situation, the entire region near the fleet. “The suicide attacks were at least partly a diversion,” he told Desjani. “Maybe the boarding operation is, too.”

She bit back an angry reply, thinking. “Maybe. I don’t see anything, though, and nobody can stealth a ship bigger than a shuttle effectively enough to keep it undetected by the sensors we’ve got. Nobody human, anyway, and I doubt the Dancers have shared their stealth tech with the Syndics.”

The nearest visible ships were all Syndic freighters, and none of them were within half a light-hour of the Alliance warships. Geary took his time examining his display but saw nothing. “Captain Desjani, I want to watch what’s happening on Invincible.”

“Sure you do. Lieutenant Castries,” Desjani called. “Keep track of how many hidden shuttles get blown away. I’m going to be watching everything else while the Admiral keeps an eye on that Syndic attack on Invincible.” She lowered her voice. “Go ahead. We’ve got it covered.”

“Get my attention if you think you see anything—”

“I’ve been fighting Syndics for more years than you have, Black Jack! I know my job!”

“Yes, Captain,” Geary said. “I’m still learning mine.” He focused back on the situation aboard Invincible as Lieutenant Castries announced the detection and destruction of two more stealth shuttles.

Invincible was by far the most important issue at the moment. Only there could another devastating blow be inflicted on this fleet if the Syndic boarding party could establish secure positions and threaten to destroy the ship from within.

With only two companies aboard Invincible, the number of images of Marines he could monitor was relatively small. Half of those images were unmoving, as the units to which they belonged stayed hunkered down in defensive positions.

But the others were moving. Geary picked one, tapping the image to get a view through the helmet of the Marine squad leader he had chosen.

The window that popped open before him offered the same vision as the Marine had, complete with the symbology on the Marine’s heads-up display overlaid on the view of the dark, empty passageways on the Invincible. Geary felt an involuntary shudder as the memory of the Kick ghosts crowding those passageways came back to him.

The Marine he was monitoring was nervous, too, her vision shifting rapidly around as she sought to see the invisible presences. But her voice stayed steady as she led her squad through the maze of Invincible’s passageways, the Marines pulling themselves along in the zero gravity aboard the ship. “Not too fast. They’re in full stealth. Watch for the indications. ’Ski, wake up and watch our six, dammit.”

“I’m watching it, Sarge!”

“Like hell.”

The Marines pulled, kicked, and glided down one dark passageway to a junction, turned left there, floated up a ladder sized for feet and legs much smaller than humans’, then down another passageway. Familiar with the layout of the alien ship from their constant patrolling, the Marines could move with only occasional glances at the deck plans displayed on their helmet shields. “Watch it,” the squad leader warned. “The major says they’re in this area.”

“Sarge! There’s something coming!”

“I don’t have movement, Tecla.”

“There. Look. Like somebody in stealth moving a lot faster than they should, bouncing off stuff.”

“Got it. They’re coming our way. Watch for when they come around the corner.”

But the unseen Syndic special-forces soldier didn’t come around the corner. Instead, the soldier must have been staring backwards while moving fast, because the corridor resounded with the sound of the Syndic impacting on the bulkhead when he or she failed to make the turn.

“Got ’em!” one of the Marines yelled, firing.

Shots glanced off something unseen, then the image of a human in battle armor appeared, and moments later a dozen shots riddled it before the Syndic could react.

Geary rubbed his eyes, imagining what the Syndic had been running from. Kicks crowding around on all sides. Real ghosts or something generated by a last-ditch Kick defensive system or the structure of the ship as Captain Smythe had speculated? Whatever it was, it felt real enough to rattle anyone.

He switched to another Marine squad leader who was approaching the decoy main engineering control compartment. The Marines were moving in rushes, several covering their companions as they pulled themselves forward, then those Marines in turn kicking off to fly ahead while the others covered them. It wasn’t the fastest form of movement, but when faced with invisible enemies, Geary could understand the need for it despite the urgency of the Marines’ reaching that compartment.

The squad halted around the corner from the passageway holding the main air lock into the decoy compartment. The squad leader stuck the tip of one finger around the edge of the turn, the tiny camera in that finger providing a clear image of what was around the corner.

Nothing, apparently. The air lock stood open. No one was visible.

“Why’d they leave the hatch open, Sarge?” one of the Marines asked.

“So we’d go in that way,” the sergeant answered. “Old trick. Leave an easy access to where someone wants to go and hope they’ll use it without wondering why it was left open. You’d be surprised how often people fall for it.”

“What do we do, Sarge?”

“Major?”

Major Dietz answered the sergeant. “We need to get in there as quickly as possible, Sergeant Cortez. If the Syndics have nukes with them, one of those nukes is probably in there. They need to get overwhelmed fast.”

“Got it, sir. Squad, we’ll use bounce grenades to flush them out and neutralize their stealth. Fire teams one and two, ready grenades. Set them on dust.”

“Dust, Sarge? Not shrapnel?”

“You heard me. You guys need another look?”

“Yeah, Sarge.”

The sergeant poked out his finger again, letting the image linger on the helmet displays of his squad.

What’s a bounce grenade? Geary looked to one side of the Marine display and spotted a list of weaponry. He highlighted the bounce-grenade icon and got a description and an image. A grenade inside some sort of extremely bouncy coating, thick enough to let the explosive act like a superball toy.

“Got it?” the Sergeant said as he pulled back his finger camera.

“Yeah, Sarge. Looks easy. I done harder bounces in my sleep.”

“Don’t screw it up. When I give the word, fire in sequence in the following order. Denny, Lesperance, Gurganus, Taitano, Caya, Kilcullen. Got it?”

Six Marines answered up.

“The rest of you apes get ready to go. Stand by,” Sergeant Cortez said. “Ready. Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire.”

Each designated Marine fired a grenade as the command reached their place in the firing sequence. Geary watched as the grenades bounced off the opposite bulkhead at a high angle, bounced again against the bulkhead opposite that as they went down the other passageway, then rebounded yet again through the open hatch to the decoy main engineering control compartment. He realized now why the shots had been slightly spaced, to prevent two or more grenades from glancing off each other and spoiling their bounces. As it was, there were six perfect double–bank shots, each grenade detonating after it entered the compartment.

“Go!” Sergeant Cortez yelled to his squad.

Geary watched the Marines hurling themselves around the corner and toward the open hatch, from which clouds of dust were now billowing.

Vague outlines appeared in the dust gushing from the compartment, the wavering shapes of humans in combat armor, the dust revealing the figures despite the stealth features in the armor. Realizing they were partially visible, the sentries opened fire, hitting one Marine, before a dozen answering shots tore into them.

The Marines kicked off hard on every possible projection, changing direction and bursting into the compartment, which was unrecognizable to Geary despite his previous visit because of the dust filling it. He realized why the grenades had been set to turn their coating into fine powder: that nullified the advantages of the Syndic stealth gear. Figures appeared in the swirling clouds as shots tore through it. The image from the Sergeant’s armor jerked wildly as the Marine took a hit, ending up tilted and drifting along one side of the compartment.

Geary hastily switched Marines, picking up the corporal who was now the squad leader. Two more shots resounded in the compartment, then it was silent as the Marines combed it for any remaining foes.

“Sarge is down! Looks bad.”

“See what you can do,” Corporal Maksomovic ordered. “What about Tsing?”

“Dead.”

“Damn. Any Syndics left alive?”

“If they are, not for much longer—”

“Dammit, Caya, if you and the others find a Syndic still breathing, you keep them breathing! We got orders to get prisoners for interrogation, and you will damn well obey those orders!”

“All right, all right, Mack. Hey, this one’s still— Never mind.”

Geary could see Corporal Maksomovic floating beside a figure in Syndic armor on which all stealth features had failed. “Can we do a revive and recover?”

“Not with a hole that big in her. I don’t know how she lasted as long as she did.”

“Hey, Mack, I found that nuke we was looking for!”

“Don’t touch it, Uulina!” The image moved hastily, focusing on a squat cylinder anchored in one corner of the compartment. On the corporal’s helmet display, his combat system automatically identified the enemy weapon and popped up critical information. “Major, we got a confirmed nuke munition. Fusion pack.”

Major Dietz sounded both relieved and worried. “Is it armed?”

“Uh. Arming switch.” Corporal Maksomovic’s helmet display highlighted part of the weapon he was gazing at, providing a schematic with on and off positions for the arming switch helpfully shown. “No, sir. Arming switch has not been thrown.”

“What about the timer?”

“No, sir. Timer is not running.”

“Good job. Guard that thing yourself while we get a weapons engineer on the line to tell you how to deactivate it. And watch out for any Syndics trying to regain possession.”

“Yes, sir. Major, we got a casualty—”

“We saw. There’s another squad on the way with two fleet medics. Don’t let the Syndics regain possession of that nuke.”

“Thank you, sir. Understand; we guard the nuke at all costs. All right, you apes,” the corporal said. “Even-numbered fire teams guard the open hatch, odd-numbered fire teams guard the closed one. Don’t bunch up and make killing you all easy for them! Spread out! Kilcullen, see what you can do for the sergeant until those medics get here.”

“Where you going, Mack?”

“I gotta stay next to madam-nuke-your-butt. You watch for more Syndics, and I’ll watch it.”

Another voice came on, Geary realizing that he was hearing the Marine senior-command circuit. “How’s it going, Vili?” General Carabali asked.

“I’ve got it in hand,” Major Dietz replied. “Command area secure and counterattack under way. We have decoy main engineering control and are preparing to retake the decoy bridge.”

“I saw. All right, everybody. Major Dietz remains the on-scene commander. Take your orders from him as you board Invincible.”

A chorus of replies came from the captains and lieutenants commanding the companies and platoons being fed into Invincible from Typhoon. Major Dietz began calling out orders, sending units to different decks and passageways to form a cordon that would sweep through Invincible. “Unit of maneuver is squads,” Dietz said. “Nothing smaller is to operate independently.”

“Squads?” a captain questioned in a startled voice.

“You’ll understand why as you get deeper into the ship,” Major Dietz said. “Maintain a full platoon at the air lock the Syndics used to enter the ship and be ready for some of them to come out.”

“Come out? To what? There were some shuttles hanging around, but the space squids are blowing them away.”

“You’ll understand when you get inside the ship,” Major Dietz repeated. “The Syndics are going to be wanting to get out. Be prepared for them to hit you and be prepared for them to attack all out as they try to reach the air lock.”

“Major, we got the decoy bridge!” a lieutenant reported in. “There’s another nuke here, but no Syndics.”

“Say again? No Syndics?”

“No, sir. I formed my people into a deck-to-overhead wall and moved them from one side of the compartment to the other. There are no Syndics hiding here.”

“They abandoned a nuke?” a captain asked, astonished. “They, um, what the hell? What’s that? What’s there?”

Geary checked the captain’s position, seeing that he was well within Invincible’s hull.

“Major, what else is in here with us?” a very worried voice demanded.

“Nothing that can hurt you,” Dietz replied. “Stay in squad-strength formations. General, the new troops aren’t acclimated to the environment inside Invincible. That may be a bigger problem than we anticipated.”

“Merge them,” Carabali commanded. “Make your smallest unit of maneuver platoons and keep the Marines in each platoon in physical contact with each other.”

Admiral Lagemann spoke to Geary. “War in a haunted house. I didn’t think war could be any worse, but we found a way. The first nuke, in decoy engineering control, had a force of six Syndics with it. If the other group had that same number, it would have been too small to handle the mental pressure of the Kick ghosts, or whatever the phenomenon is.”

“You think they just bolted?”

“I think it’s likely. Look what’s happening to the new Marines coming aboard, and they were in squad strength everywhere, about twice as large a group as the one the Syndics probably left with that second bomb.”

Alerts popped to life in several places. In some, Marines were battling Syndic infiltrators. In others, the Syndics must have been firing at ghosts and giving away their locations to the Marines hunting for them.

The Marines who had charged aboard Invincible from Typhoon moved much more cautiously now, pivoting often to check all about them as they pulled themselves through the deserted, dark passageways of the captured alien warship, and occasionally letting off their own bursts of fire at possible enemies who turned out to be nonexistent.

“We got alerts!” someone was calling.

Geary shifted views again, seeing through the helmet of the Marine lieutenant whose platoon was guarding the air lock. One of the lieutenant’s Marines was gesturing frantically. “Three or four of them from the movement! They’re coming so fast the gear can pick them up kicking off the walls.”

“Smoke that passageway,” the lieutenant ordered.

Smoke in this case meant more dust, the grenades going off in a series of bangs that briefly illuminated the dark passageway leading to the air lock before the dust blocked any light from penetrating it. Seconds later, the dust swirled as figures came flying through it.

The Marines opened fire, killing three Syndics, whose bodies were knocked aside to drift lifelessly.

“What the hell?” the platoon sergeant asked the lieutenant. “They didn’t even try to shoot. Just flew at us.”

“Got more coming! Same passageway!”

“They’re retracing their route in,” Major Dietz cautioned.

Shots tore through the dust, a wild volley, followed by several more Syndics, who fired in all directions as they erupted into view. The Marines fired back, hitting all of them and killing all but one. The last Syndic special-forces soldier, wounded but still alive, reached the edge of the air lock and locked armored hands on it, facing outward as if fearing he would be pulled back inside Invincible.

A Marine slapped a tap onto the Syndic, allowing comms with him. “Stand down now, man! Deactivate your systems!”

“No!” Geary could hear the Syndic’s answering howl. “They’ll get me! Just let me go! Out there, where it’s safe!”

“There’s nothing out there! We already blew away your shuttles!”

The Syndic continued to grip the air lock edge, ignoring other attempts to get him to surrender.

“Crash his armor’s systems and sedate him,” the platoon sergeant ordered.

“If we hard crash his armor’s systems, we might kill him,” the lieutenant objected. “Our orders are to try to get some prisoners.”

“Sir, if we don’t crash his armor and knock him out, he’ll kill himself. You can see the hits he took. We treat him, or he dies.”

“We’ve got an exploitation team on the way,” General Carabali broke in. “Wait until they get there and can question the Syndic. They’ll have a medical team with them.”

“Who cares whether another Syndic dies?” someone muttered.

Carabali answered, her voice cold. “We care, Private Lud, because we need to know how many Syndics came aboard that ship and how many nukes they brought with them. Understand?”

“Y-yes, General,” the unfortunate Private Lud stammered, doubtless anticipating further pointed conversations with his sergeant and lieutenant once the general had finished.

Marines were flooding into Invincible. Given the ship’s size, and the need to keep the new arrivals into platoon-sized units, they couldn’t cover anything like most of the ship, but they could cordon off and begin sweeping the decks near the air lock and the areas around the decoy engineering control and bridge compartments. “I think we’ve just about got Invincible secured,” Geary said to Desjani.

As if the living stars had been waiting for his statement to punish his pride, Admiral Lagemann’s urgent voice came on the heels of Geary’s words.

“Admiral Geary, we just received a communication from a woman claiming to be the commander of the boarding force. She says she has a nuke and demands we halt operations and evacuate Invincible, or she’ll detonate the munition.”