Victorious

ELEVEN

Geary turned on Boyens’s virtual presence. “Explain how the aliens did that.”

The Syndic CEO avoided Geary’s eyes. “It’s happened. Not in my personnel experience, but I reviewed the records of earlier encounters. I told you, sometimes you can’t see the alien ships at all until they reveal themselves. Syndic ships didn’t even see the alien ships, not even those vague blobs, until they suddenly appeared nearby and opened fire.”

“When were you planning on telling us about that alien tactic?” Geary demanded.

Boyens met his gaze. “The records from our destroyed ships were fragmentary and could have been inaccurate. But I wanted you to come here and fight them. If I’d told you they could do that, would you have come?”

“I need to know such things if I’m going to fight them!” Turning his back on the Syndic, Geary looked to Desjani. “Okay. It’s worse.”

She nodded, outwardly unmoved by the multiplication of the threat. “We can hit those subformations, the ones on the top edges, wear the aliens down.”

“We can try.” Left unsaid was that the aliens appeared significantly more maneuverable than human warships, which would immensely complicate that tactic. He called up a simulator window and started working on formations to counter the alien numbers and confuse their reactions to him, settling on five subformations of his own. By maneuvering them against the flanks of the aliens, he might be able to—“Another message from the enigma-race ships.”

More time had obviously passed than he had realized. The human avatars of the aliens seemed smug by then as well as stern. “Warning is final. Leave. Dealings will be only with Syndicate Worlds. Destruction awaits Alliance fleet if it remains. You do not have this star. Leave. Warning is final.”

Senator Sakai threw up his hands. “How can we negotiate if they just keep repeating their demands?”

“They don’t want to negotiate,” Costa snapped. “Admiral Geary, the situation clearly calls for this fleet to … to … reposition. Its destruction defending a Syndic star system would be a betrayal of the Alliance people.”

Geary could sense that everyone else on the bridge had suddenly held their breath, but he felt only a sense of ironic amusement at Costa’s words. “Senator, are you accusing me of treason?”

“I did not say that, but—”

“I have been entrusted by the entire grand council with command of this fleet, and I intend living up to that trust,” Geary continued, his voice hardening. “Now, I have an engagement to plan, and I would appreciate no further interruptions unless they are of a constructive nature.”

Behind Costa, and out of her sight, Rione twisted her mouth in a half smile.

Sakai just kept staring wordlessly at the displays.

Costa reddened but stayed silent, as neither of the other two senators sprang to her defense.

Everyone else started breathing again, and Geary turned to focus back on the approaching armada. They were down to a single light-hour’s distance. “Let’s get our speed up.” He ordered the fleet to accelerate to point one light speed onto a vector aimed at intercepting the alien armada. “About five hours to contact.”

“About that,” Desjani agreed cheerfully. Geary’s put-down of Costa seemed to have put Desjani into particularly high spirits. “There are a lot of them,” she added, as if commenting on the weather.

“Yeah.”

“Why are they bothering warning us off?”

Geary looked at her. “What?”

“Why didn’t they just attack? They outnumber us three to one, if there aren’t more of them hidden, and if the hypernet gates and worms are any indication of their technology, their weapons must be at least as good as ours. They could have kept their numbers hidden until they hit us. But they’re trying to get us to leave instead of fighting.”

Geary frowned at the question. “We’re back to Duellos’s riddle. Feathers or lead? The unsolvable riddle where the answer changes whenever the demon wants it to change. How can we come up with the right answer when we don’t understand the aliens asking the question and don’t even know what the question really means to them?”

She shrugged in reply. “They’re giving us a chance to leave without fighting,” Desjani repeated. “They’re trying to get us to leave without fighting. But they proved they can be totally ruthless when they collapsed the hypernet gate at Kalixa. So why are they being nice now? It looks like their ships can be totally undetectable by us. If I was them, I’d be charging in and making sure the other side learned not to mess with me again. I would have kept my numbers hidden, my arrival hidden, until I was in among the enemy ships, then opened fire without any warning, just like they’ve done in the past to the Syndics.”

He leaned forward, frowning more heavily, letting Desjani’s statements run through his mind. It was odd. Yes, they were dealing with something that didn’t think like humans did, but still seemed to be plenty merciless when it wanted. They didn’t know the aliens’ motivations, but nothing the aliens had done so far seemed outright irrational to humans even though examples like Kalixa showed that the aliens were definitely not merciful when it came to dealing with humans. The aliens seemed pragmatic, in the most cold-blooded sense of the word. Which didn’t make them demonic, it just made them self-interested, and humanity didn’t have a lot of room to criticize any other intelligent race in that regard. But Desjani had put her finger on the big question and focused Geary’s attention there as well instead of just on the looming threat of the alien armada. Why would a pragmatic race of aliens capable of ruthless acts show mercy to a human fleet they might have to face again someday?

If they were human, and offering the Alliance fleet this kind of escape, he would wonder why. What possible reasons could he consider? “If they want us to leave instead of destroying us, why?”

“I asked first,” Desjani replied. “I think we can assume they don’t have any moral qualms about destroying this fleet.”

“Not after they tricked us into building the hypernet gates, destroyed Kalixa, and tried to destroy the Syndic home star system while we were there, no.”

“And, they didn’t attack when the Syndics had the reserve flotilla here,” Desjani repeated.

True enough. “Meaning that flotilla was probably strong enough to concern them even though an alien fleet of the size we’re looking at could have easily overwhelmed the Syndic reserve flotilla. Which means we’re strong enough to concern them even if it doesn’t look that way to us.”

“Then,” Desjani concluded, “maybe they’re not as strong as they look, maybe they’re more concerned about being able to win than the odds indicate.”

That made sense, but why would the aliens be concerned when they had that many ships? Fear of casualties? But the aliens had fought the Syndics more than once. Maybe it was like the hypernet gate at the Syndic home star system. They were seeing something but not knowing what it meant. Like a Trojan horse of some kind. For some reason Geary didn’t understand, his mind kept fixing on the phrases he and Desjani had been using. It doesn’t look that way … maybe they’re not as strong as they look … “Look.” Why was his mind telling him that word was important?

It shouldn’t be. No one was actually looking directly at the aliens. Every observation came through the fleet’s sensors, and those sensors were very good, able to see much, much farther and much, much more clearly than any human eye could. Syndic sensors differed in small ways but were basically the same, and the Syndics had been trying to find out more about the aliens for decades, with no success to show for it.

Desjani must have been thinking along the same lines. She was frowning heavily at her display as she raised one hand and pointed her finger at it. “It looks like we’re badly outnumbered.”

“That’s what our sensors are telling us.”

“But what our sensors are telling us doesn’t make sense given everything else we know, given how the aliens have acted in the past, given how they’re acting now. If this picture is right, then everything else we know has to be wrong.”

He knew where she was going, toward the same conclusions Geary’s mind had been developing. “The Syndics think they know some things about the aliens, and what they think they know has driven their conclusions about what the aliens can do.” Like Boyens, certain that the aliens couldn’t have been responsible for collapsing the hypernet gate at Kalixa. Like the Syndics at the home star system, who had been unaware that their warships carried alien worms. “But we didn’t start our analysis of the aliens thinking we knew some things about them. Everything we think we know came from new observations, from learning and watching events, and I’d swear on the honor of my ancestors that our conclusions about the aliens and their actions, what we believe we know, isn’t wrong. So if those are all correct …”

“The picture we’re seeing has to be wrong,” Desjani concluded.

A Trojan horse. An unseen threat hidden within. And his attention, along with that of every other officer, was focused externally, on the alien armada. “We’ve scrubbed every one of our warships’ systems of those alien worms, right?”

Desjani nodded. “It’s part of the normal system security routines now.”

“Have we scrubbed our systems since we arrived here?”

She gave him a grim smile, then turned. “Lieutenant Castries, find out the last time the ship’s systems were scrubbed for quantum-probability worms.”

A startled Lieutenant Castries hastily checked. “Two days ago, Captain.”

“Before we first saw the aliens,” Geary commented.

Desjani nodded, her lips drawing back to expose her teeth in what wasn’t really a smile anymore. “Lieutenant, order the ship’s security personnel to run another detection routine, in all ship’s systems.”

“All ship’s systems? Now, Captain?”

“Half an hour ago, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

As the lieutenant raced to notify the systems-security officer and run the system scrub, Desjani gave Geary a sidelong glance. “They activated new worms.”

“I’ll lay you odds.”

“In the sensor systems. And the analysis systems. And the display systems.”

“Yup.”

“Because we have no idea how they create those worms. They could be somehow dormant and undetectable until an alien ship arrives and sends an activation signal. And if their ability to track the fleet was any clue, that activation signal moves faster than light, so those worms would have been activated before we even knew the aliens had arrived. All we would have ever seen was what they wanted us to see.”

Geary nodded. “It’s like you said, why aren’t they attacking when the odds favor them so much?”

“Because the odds aren’t what we think.” She looked into his eyes, grinning, and he felt it, too, the unparalleled feeling when someone else is totally in sync with you, filling in some parts of a puzzle while you fill in the rest, two minds working perfectly together. Her smile turned rueful. “We’re one hell of a team.”

“That we are.” He left it at that, and they both waited until a window popped up between them and a startled systems-security officer reported in.

“Captain, Admiral, we found a bunch of quantum-probability worms in the systems. Combat, sensors, maneuvering, analysis. Just ugly as all hell. I have no idea where they came from or what they’re doing, but we’re getting rid of them.”

Geary’s display flickered, then updated, wavered again, updated once more, each time large numbers of alien ships simply vanishing, the alien fleet dwindling as fast as the worms were wiped from Dauntless’s systems. The alien ships that had recently appeared from nowhere vanished completely, while the great majority of the alien ships in the lower two v’s also disappeared.

Desjani’s fierce grin was now definitely a ferocious snarl. “We can see them.”

The blurring that had kept even the shapes of the alien spacecraft hidden had vanished, revealing that every alien ship, regardless of size, had roughly the same shape, blunter and more rounded than the human warships. If the human ships were sharklike, the alien craft more closely resembled spiny tortoises. “I’ll be damned. No wonder the alien stealth system always fooled the Syndics so well. It wasn’t anything on the alien ships. It was alien worms altering the picture the Syndics’ own sensors were seeing.”

“Good work, Admiral Geary.”

“I never would have seen it if you hadn’t pointed me in that direction.” He grinned back at her. “One hell of a team, Captain Desjani.”

Boyens had noticed the changes and was staring at the displays, his mouth hanging open. “What did you do?”

“For now, that’s our secret.” He imagined they would have to share with the Syndics how to find and neutralize the alien worms, but at the moment enjoyed leaving the Syndic CEO in the dark. “The bottom line is that far from being badly outnumbered, we actually outnumber them two to one.”

Desjani was speaking again, still smiling, though now in a somewhat bone-chilling way. “The Syndics said they could hardly ever hit an alien ship, and when they did it had no effect. But if their weapons systems and combat systems and sensor systems all had those worms in them, the worms probably misdirected the Syndic shots to avoid hitting real alien ships, and of course when a shot hit a fake ship, nothing happened. The aliens aren’t invincible, and now we can hit them.”

“Do we have to?” Rione asked. She had taken in events, figured out what had happened, and by then stood close to Geary. “We can let the aliens know we’ve discovered their worms, that we can clearly see and shoot at their ships. When they know that, surely the aliens will back off and agree to talk.”

“Will they?” Desjani asked the air. “Or will they spring another trick, one we haven’t figured out how to counter?”

“That’s a real concern,” Geary agreed. “Madam Co-President, these aliens caused the collapse of the hypernet gate at Kalixa. They’ve got a lot of human blood on their hands.”

“I’m not disputing that,” Rione replied. “But I don’t see any virtue in leading them to spill more human blood if we can avoid that. If we spill a lot of their blood, it may trigger a feud between our races, one beyond our ability to put a stop to.”

Desjani stayed silent this time, but the fingers on one of her hands lightly drummed the arm of her seat near her weapons-targeting controls. Her advice didn’t have to be asked.

But Rione had a good point. Would killing a large number of the aliens deter further aggression or encourage it? They simply knew too little about how the enigma race thought. Or did they? “The aliens didn’t seem too worried about how we’d respond to their actions.” Rione gave him a questioning look. “Betraying the Syndic leaders at the start of the war, if our guess is right. Tricking humanity into placing the hypernet gates in our most important star systems. Diverting the Syndic flotilla to Lakota so this fleet was almost destroyed. Deliberately collapsing the hypernet gates at Kalixa and the Syndic home star system.”

“What’s your point?” Rione asked.

“That the aliens haven’t acted as if they feared us retaliating for their actions against us, as if they feared giving us grounds for a blood feud. But anyone examining the history of humanity, or the course of the war we just ended, could have easily seen how humans strike back and retaliate for provocations and attacks.”

Desjani gave him another sidelong glance. “They don’t think in terms of retaliation?”

“They don’t seem to have expected it from us, or maybe they didn’t fear it.”

Rione eyed him, her thoughts hard to read. “You’re trying to determine how they think by how they’ve acted.”

“That’s all we’ve got to go on. What do you think?”

She took several seconds to answer. “I want to find a reason to reject your argument, and I can’t, unless, as you suggested, they simply don’t fear retaliation from us. Even that would imply a level of arrogance that needed to be countered for our own security. But, if you’re right, will the aliens even understand our own actions?”

“Maybe if we phrase it differently.” Geary turned to CEO Boyens again. “The Syndics keep saying this is their star system. That they ‘have’ it. Does the enigma race seem to understand the concept of defending its own territory?”

Boyens laughed harshly. “You might say that. Look what they’re doing now. They’re not saying, ‘Give us this star system because we want it.’ No. They’re saying, ‘This star system is ours so you must leave.’ They’re justifying their actions by saying this star system is theirs, and we’re not allowed on their property.”

“That’s consistent with their past behaviors and statements?” Rione asked.

Boyens paused to think before replying. “As best I can recall, yes. This is ours, you have to leave. This is ours, stay out. That sort of thing.”

“They’re territorial.”

“Yes. Extremely territorial. We, the Syndicate Worlds, that is, have tended to view their actions as focused on security, on keeping us from learning anything, but the same actions could just as easily have been manifestations of an extreme no-trespassing attitude.”

“Thank you.” Rione faced Geary, her expression uncharacteristically openly discontented. “It all matches. I wish it didn’t. The aliens leading this armada don’t seem to be able to grasp why we’re here, in a Syndic star system, and why we haven’t simply left when told to do so. The aliens don’t understand our motivation, because this isn’t our star system. To them, we should have no reason to defend something we don’t own. On the other hand, they believe that they can simply assert ownership and force humans to leave star systems we’ve occupied for some time. In light of your assessment, Admiral, and that of CEO Boyens, it appears the best course of action is to carry out a vigorous defense of this star system, to establish in the minds of the aliens that we consider any human-occupied star system to be our own territory.”

Desjani shot a surprised glance at Rione before recovering and appearing to concentrate on her display again.

The other two senators stepped forward and began arguing with Rione again, but she led them toward the back of the bridge, away from Geary.

“All right, then,” he said to Desjani. “Let’s give those enigmas a bloody nose so they know we can be just as territorial as they can.”

“Do we claim this star system, too?”

“Not in so many words. Sorry.”

“We could use it,” Desjani pointed out. “Nice, convenient access to the border with the aliens. It’s not like the Syndics won’t owe us if we kick alien butt back to Pele.”

“Are you serious or just high on the idea that we’re heading into battle with these creatures?”

She seemed to ponder the question before answering. “Half and half. It’s a nice star system from a military perspective, Admiral. Very nice.”

“Maybe we can work out an agreement with the Syndics here, assuming they’re still Syndics once the Syndicate Worlds finishes falling apart.” He bent back to his display, thinking. “We have to go in carefully, approaching in such a way that it seems we’re still being tricked by the alien worms, then shift at the last moment and hit some of their real ships.”

Desjani nodded. “Lieutenant Yuon, can you superimpose the fleet sensor picture over the picture from Dauntless’s own sensor analysis?”

“Show both at once, Captain?”

“Yes, but keep them isolated from each other.”

“The net isn’t set up to do that, just the opposite in fact in terms of integrating data from all sources, but it can be done, ma’am. It’ll take a little work, though.”

“How long?”

“Five minutes, Captain.”

“Do it.” Desjani smiled at Geary. “The rest of the fleet’s ships have systems clouded by the alien worms. We can use them to get a picture of what the aliens think we’re seeing.”

He nodded. “Yes, but we can’t leave most of our ships with those worms active. The worms will mess up the targeting systems, too. We’ll need to have the majority of the fleet’s ships sanitize their systems and leave just a few to provide the distorted view.”

“The auxiliaries? They don’t have much armament, anyway.”

“That seems like a nasty trick to play on the engineers, but that’s a good idea. None of the alien ships should get close to the auxiliaries, so they’ll be safe even with the worms clouding their sensors. Let’s set it up.”

The tactical problem had changed. Instead of avoiding the mass of alien ships, he had to aim to hit them hard on the first pass, before the aliens realized that their worms were no longer distorting the sensor and combat systems on the Alliance warships.

“We finally got some information from the Syndics,” Desjani informed Geary. “There’s not much there.”

He checked the transmission, finding that Boyens’s use of the word “fragmentary” to describe the surviving records from destroyed Syndic ships was, if anything, optimistic. The aliens had apparently taken pains to pound such ships into scrap. But Geary studied what was there. “Tanya, while I’m working on the engagement plan, I want you to analyze these yourself and run them past the combat-systems people. My impression from the records is that the alien weapons are not as superior to ours as their propulsion systems seem to be. I’d like to know whether you agree.”

“We’re on it, Admiral.”

He focused back on planning, surfacing only long enough to hear Desjani report that she and everyone she’d consulted had the same impression of the alien weapons.

“Maybe more range, maybe more power, maybe not. Basically particle beams, lasers, and kinetic projectiles.”

Alien they might be in thought and form, but the enigma race was bound by the same fundamental rules of how the universe worked. Certain weapons made sense given certain levels of technology. Maybe the aliens also had null-field weapons, but that didn’t seem likely since null fields could have been used to totally destroy all traces of knocked-out Syndic ships.

Finally happy with his plans for the engagement, Geary sat back with a heavy exhale of air. “How far off are they?”

“Seventeen light-minutes,” Desjani answered.

“That close?”

“I would have interrupted you to tell you when they reached fifteen light-minutes.”

“Thanks. I want the aliens to think they know what we’re going to do, so we’re going into our combat formations early. Take a look at my plan before I send it.”

She spent several minutes doing that, then nodded. “You’re pretending to be aiming at the actually nonexistent top formations of alien ships. How do you know the second layer of alien formations will turn up like this?”

“If their weapons aren’t too much superior to ours, they’ll have to. They’ll be assuming we’re going to strike at the fake ships in the top layer, so they’ll want those fake ships to stay within range of our weapons so we waste our shots. But they also want their second-layer ships to be close enough to us to hit us as we pass. That should require them to maneuver like I’m estimating.”

“That’s a lot of assumptions,” Desjani cautioned.

“I know, but I’m basing them on what we know.”

She grinned. “They certainly won’t expect us to maneuver the way you’re planning on. It would be pure suicide if all of those alien ships were real. They’re going to be making a lot of assumptions, too. I think it’s good. It looks like a plausible approach if every alien ship were real. And they don’t have experience with you, so they won’t know how atypical it is for you to set up your combat formation this early.”

“Good.” He hesitated just a moment, knowing how much was riding on his assumptions. There was no way to fight this battle without facing risks, though. “All units in the Alliance fleet, this is Admiral Geary. Maneuvering orders are being sent to you now. Execute Formation Merit at time four zero. Geary out.”

At time four zero the Alliance fleet split, forming into four flattened discs with the thin edges facing the oncoming aliens. Three of the discs were even with each other, side by side in a line facing the enemy, and each of those held about one-third of the Alliance fleet, eight battleships and seven battle cruisers in the subformations to either side of the main body, while the main body contained nine battleships and six battle cruisers. That had required splitting up the three Adroit-class battle cruisers in the Fifth Division, but Geary had decided that it made more sense to pair the Adroits with formations of bigger, more capable battle cruisers rather than keep them in their own division. The heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers were distributed roughly equally among the three subformations, their own positions bolstering the protection of the more badly damaged but combat-capable Alliance warships in the fighting formations.

Above the three fighting formations and hopefully out of direct danger, a much smaller disc held the five auxiliaries, the battle cruiser Agile, and the other warships too badly damaged to be in the front line of battle.

Geary waited until the subformations had settled out, then adjusted the fleet’s course slightly to aim the three fighting subformations directly at the three imaginary alien formations on top of their armada. As Desjani had said, it looked plausible, since each Alliance subformation roughly matched the size of the alien subformation it was aimed at, as if the Alliance fleet were trying to engage only a portion of the aliens at a time to negate the apparent huge alien advantage.

He could tell that Costa was burning to ask what he was doing, but Sakai remained impassive, offering no support for that, and Rione had a look of calm confidence that implied that she knew what was happening.

“The enemy is five light-minutes distant. Estimated time to contact is approximately twenty-five minutes.”

Sakai shook his head. “The Alliance’s first encounter with an intelligent, nonhuman race, and we must refer to them as the enemy.”

“It’s not by our choice,” Rione reminded him. “But if Admiral Geary chooses to offer the aliens one last chance to veer off and avoid battle …”

Desjani flicked a sour look back at the politicians, but Geary shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt to say it again.” He tapped the broadcast control again. “To the armada of nonhuman ships proceeding through this star system. You will not be allowed to pass this fleet without a fight, you will not be allowed to attack humans or human property within this star system, you will not be allowed to seize control of this star system. Veer off now and return to the vicinity of the jump point from which you arrived if you wish to avoid senseless loss of life. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary out.”

“Do we have to keep offering them outs,” Desjani muttered too low for the politicians to hear, “or is it okay to kill them now?”

“It’s okay to kill them now. Damn shame, though. Think what we could learn from each other if they’d just talk.”

“We can talk after they’ve learned not to mess with us.” At a combined velocity of point two light speed, the two groupings of ships bore onward, neither altering course or speed. “Ten minutes remaining to contact.”

Geary nodded, letting his mind feel the right time for the maneuver. He had ordered his ships into their combat formations close to an hour ago, giving the aliens plenty of time to assume they knew what he would do. Now his final maneuver had to be at the last moment, so the aliens wouldn’t see the change in targets in time to alter their own plans. If he had guessed wrong about the alien plan, then the pass might be a fiasco, but that was the worst case unless the aliens did have secret wonder weapons they hadn’t employed yet. “All units in formations Merit One, Merit Two, and Merit Three, at time three five alter course down zero one five degrees. Fire as targets enter engagement envelopes. Geary out.”

On the display to one side of him, the one relayed from the auxiliaries with systems still contaminated by alien worms, the maneuver he had just ordered looked just as Desjani had described, a suicidal dive by the Alliance fighting subformations between the second and third layers of the alien armada, facing two-to-one odds and fire from top and bottom simultaneously. On his clean display, it showed the Alliance attack forces would be heading downward at the last moment toward the alien ships in the second layer, with the firepower advantage at the point of contact four to one in the Alliance’s favor.

He thought about the tragedy that this first alien contact was, as Sakai said, with enemies. But Geary also thought about all of the Syndic ships that had been destroyed by the aliens in the last century, ships whose crews had not known how badly they were handicapped by the alien worms. The aliens had possessed a huge advantage and apparently had not hesitated to use it.

At time three five, the three Alliance subformations tilted downward while the subformation with the auxiliaries maintained course, soaring past safely above the fray. “Turn up, you bastards,” Desjani whispered, then whooped with glee. “Here they come!”

Unable to see the last-moment Alliance course change in time, the entire alien formation had tilted upward, swinging up so that the ships in the second layer could have hit the Alliance warships aiming at the alien craft in the illusory third layer.

But the Alliance ships weren’t aiming there, instead coming down to meet the rising aliens.

The close encounter came and went, and Geary let out the breath he had been holding. No alien superweapons had compensated for the loss of their worm advantage. Dauntless was still intact, though he could hear reports of hits being passed.

The worm-driven picture from the auxiliaries showed no change in the alien armada after the encounter, but the fleet’s uncontaminated sensors were rapidly updating their own assessments. The second layer of the alien armada had been devastated, caught unawares by greatly superior firepower, roughly three-quarters of its ships either destroyed outright or reduced to helpless wrecks.

The aliens seemed to have concentrated their own fire on Alliance battle cruisers, ignoring the escorts and battleships, but their barrage had been weakened as their own ships were destroyed. Invincible’s curse remained intact, that ship having been hit hardest and left barely maneuverable. Illustrious had also been hurt, as had Ascendant, Auspice, Formidable, Brilliant, Daring, Dragon, and Valiant. The other battle cruisers, like Dauntless, had taken hits but not serious damage.

“This is Admiral Geary, formations Merit One and Merit Four come up one nine zero degrees at time four two, formation Merit Two come port one nine zero degrees at time four two, and formation Merit Three come starboard one nine zero degrees at time four two.” The four subformations began wide turns, the formation centered on Dauntless coming up and over to pursue the aliens, while those formations to either side turned outward and around to face the enemy again as well.

It apparently took the aliens a few minutes to realize just how badly things had gone and see the Alliance maneuvers, but then the surviving alien ships bent down at a jaw-dropping rate, twisting onto a vector that would take them below and past the three Alliance subformations trying to trap them into another firing run.

“We can’t catch them, Captain,” the maneuvering watch-stander reported with dismay. “They turned too fast. They’ll pass under us while we’re still coming over.”

“We can still chase them out of this star system,” Desjani suggested.

Geary considered that, then shook his head. “No. That might just reinforce for them how superior their maneuvering capability is compared to ours. Let’s allow them to leave with the fact that we beat them uppermost in their minds. Besides, we’ve got some hurt alien ships to exploit.” The helplessly drifting wrecks of many alien ships would offer a treasure trove of information. Alien bodies certainly, and hopefully living aliens with whom they could conduct real dialogues, and alien equipment that could be copied and learned from. “Have we seen any escape pods from the alien craft?”

“No, sir,” the maneuvering watch-stander reported. “Nothing has come off those alien ships.”

“They must have some life-raft capability,” Desjani objected.

“If they do, they’re not using it. Let’s get some ships over to those wrecks—” Geary began. His words cut off as alerts flared on his display. “Ancestors save us. They’re all blowing up.”

Every alien wreck had exploded at the same time, bright lights blossoming to mark the total destruction of the ships and whatever, as well as whoever, had been aboard.

The engineering watch-stander studied his own display closely. “Sir, the characteristics of the detonations roughly match a core overload on our ships, but are significantly more powerful, especially for ships that size.”

“That stands to reason,” Desjani remarked, her voice and face hard. “For them to maneuver like that, they’d need more powerful energy cores. I guess mass suicide is acceptable to them.”

“Captain,” the engineer continued, “I don’t think it was suicide. The core overloads weren’t quite simultaneous. The times of the explosions were staggered milliseconds apart in an expanding wave pattern. Someone sent a signal to cause those detonations, and the wave looks like it propagated from the surviving alien ships.”

Desjani’s expression shifted into anger. “Those cold-blooded snakes. They blew up their own. Whoever was in charge of the aliens blew them all to hell to make sure we didn’t learn anything. Those merciless scum!” The watch-standers on the bridge clearly agreed with their captain’s sentiments.

“You’re judging them by our standards,” Rione said, though the reluctance in her tone made it clear that she, too, agreed with Desjani.

“And I intend continuing to do so,” Desjani replied shortly.

Geary looked back toward the engineering watch-stander. “Will there be anything left of those wrecks that we can learn from?”

“Doubtful, sir. All we’re seeing is debris so small it registers as dust. Maybe analysis can yield some good ideas about what alloys and other materials they use, though.”

“Ruthless and efficient,” Geary said to Desjani. “A bad combination.”

“What about,” Sakai asked, “what they’re made of? It would be useful to at least know if they were carbon-based life-forms.”

The engineer scrunched up his face in thought. “I don’t think so, sir. If you blew this ship to dust, there would be a lot of sources of possible organic material. Our food supplies alone would really contaminate the samples; then there’s clothing, parts of furniture, and a lot of other things.”

Geary stared at his display, wondering what kind of mind-set would go to such extremes to keep anyone else from learning anything about them. “Madam Co-President, should I send some parting words to our hastily departing alien acquaintances, or should that be a function of the political representatives aboard?”

“I would recommend you do it, Admiral.” Rione looked angry, too. “Whatever they are, the extremes they are willing to go to in order to keep us from learning anything more about them means finding out more is not going to be easy. They may be extremely xenophobic, or paranoid. That may feed their territoriality, or spring from it. I fear a strong defense will be necessary while we try to establish the right means for further contact with these aliens.”

Geary heard Desjani mumbling something about “more hell lances and grapeshot” under her breath. He had to admit that he shared something of those sentiments after watching the wholesale destruction of any possible alien survivors. How could they ever deal with, ever trust, someone willing to do something like that?

It wouldn’t be easy. He wondered to what degree losses in combat would dissuade a race willing to annihilate its own rather than have them either captured or examined. Maybe the aliens didn’t care about individuals the way humans did. Right. We care about individuals. Except when we drop rocks on them from orbit or send them off to die. And yet we do care. I suppose aliens would have a hard time figuring us out, too.

He thought through his words, then transmitted a final message to the fleeing aliens. “This is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We have this star. We have all stars occupied by humanity. We do not have stars occupied by you. We do not seek war with you, we will not try to take from you, but we will defend what we have. We seek peace. Come in peace, to talk, and we will talk. This is what we want. But if you come for war, to fight, then we will fight. Any further attacks on humanity will be met with equal force. Aggression in any form and any place will not go unanswered by us. If you attempt to destroy any more of our star systems by collapsing hypernet gates, we will exact a high price from you. To the honor of our ancestors.”

Rione sighed heavily. “That was well said. The sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other. Hopefully, they will choose the offer of peace.”BOYENS entered the shuttle dock, his Marine guards halting at the hatch. The Syndic CEO walked steadily toward the shuttle, then stopped to face Geary. “I owe you thanks, Admiral Geary. Thanks from me and thanks from every human being in this region of space.”

“Your thanks should go to everyone in the Alliance fleet, and we didn’t do it for you personally.”

“I know. But you didn’t have to do it at all.” Boyens nodded to Rione, Sakai, and Costa. “There’s a lot of very ugly history between our peoples right now, but this is an important start to something different.”

“You can save the speeches for later,” Costa said.

“I mean it.” Boyens gestured around. “The star systems on the border with the aliens need you. We know that. The central authorities now trying to run what’s left of the Syndicate Worlds will have their hands full trying to defend and maintain what they still control. We can’t expect meaningful help from them for a long time. But there are good shipyards at Taroa. That’s one of the star systems we’d have had to abandon if Midway had fallen. Even those shipyards will take time to turn out a decent number of warships, though, especially with supply lines disrupted by the ongoing collapse of the Syndicate Worlds’ central authority. We’re going to be on our own, and not able to muster a strong defense for quite a while.”

Sakai gestured in turn. “Do you speak of your star systems being something still part of the Syndicate Worlds, or of something else?”

“I don’t know.” Boyens flashed a grin. “I have to watch those candid statements. It’s going to depend on what people here want. I can guarantee you that folks in this region are very unhappy at being left high and dry by the Syndicate Worlds while their defensive forces were stripped from them and sent to fight the Alliance. But there’s new leadership at Prime, now. So maybe people will be willing to stick with the Syndicate Worlds, but that might mean demanding more autonomy, forming a regional confederation here that isn’t tightly tied to whatever remains of the Syndicate Worlds. More like what the Alliance does. I promise to keep you informed.”

Boyens looked at each of them, then twisted his lips ruefully as if he had clearly read their reactions to his last statement. “The promise of a Syndic CEO. I know what that’s worth. But it’s my personal promise. I’m not stupid. We need you. And we owe you for saving us this time. I won’t forget that.”

“You apparently dealt with us honestly,” Rione answered, “though not always as candidly as you should have. That will be remembered.”

“What will happen to you now?” Geary asked.

Boyens gave him a bemused look, and Geary realized that the Syndic hadn’t expected any of the Alliance officials to care what happened to him. “I don’t know for certain. Standard procedure calls for putting me in an interrogation facility to see if I gave out any information while a prisoner, followed by questions about how I got away or why I was released, usually followed by a public trial for treason, concluded by an execution or maybe a very painful prison exile. But the situation is a little different than usual. Gwen Iceni is a decent person for a CEO, and she’s smart enough to see that we need to break with some past practices given what’s happening all over Syndic space and given what you did here. So, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll end up in a cell, maybe I’ll be appointed an ambassador to you, maybe I’ll be given command of some of our new mobile defensive forces as they get built, maybe I’ll be shot. You’ll hear sooner or later.”

“We could use access to this star system,” Geary said.

“I’m not sure anybody can stop you from coming if you really want to,” Boyens replied with a wry look.

Rione had her best poker face on, and her voice stayed carefully neutral. “Nonetheless, an agreement granting such access would be of great advantage to the people here as well as to the Alliance. Tell your people that the Alliance would be interested in pursuing such an agreement on the basis of mutual self-interest.”

Boyens eyed her with a similarly unrevealing expression. “Even if the people here decide to go their own way from the Syndicate Worlds, I doubt that they’d be interested in becoming part of the Alliance.”

“The Alliance doesn’t force or demand association,” Sakai answered this time. “There are many levels of cooperation short of that.”

“All right. I’ll pass that on.”

Rione and Sakai nodded to Geary, while Costa scowled but said nothing. Geary held out a data disc to the Syndic. “This contains descriptions of the alien worms. How to find them, how to deactivate them. You’ll probably find just about every system on your ships and planets infested with the worms. That’s how they stayed invisible to you and how they avoided being hit in battle.”

Boyens stared at the disc, then reached slowly to take it as if expecting it to be yanked away at the last moment. “Why are you giving us this?”

“Because you can’t conduct an effective defense of the border without it,” Geary explained. “And as a sign of goodwill to the people here.” He didn’t mention that he, Sakai, and Rione had concluded that with what Boyens could tell them, the Syndics here were eventually likely to figure out on their own that the worms existed. This way the Syndics would hopefully feel a debt of gratitude to the Alliance. But he also hadn’t wanted to leave Alliance warships behind, isolated far from home and dependent on the goodwill of Syndics, to ensure that the aliens didn’t run roughshod over the Syndics in the near future. Far better that the Syndics be given a tool to allow them successfully to face the aliens. “That disc doesn’t explain how the worms work, because we don’t know. If you figure it out, we’d appreciate your returning the favor and telling us.”

“I’ll certainly encourage my people to do that.” Boyens stared glumly at the data disc. “We’ve been in contact with them for a century, and we never figured this out. How did you do it?”

“We were looking at the problem from a fresh perspective. Maybe that helped. We didn’t have a century of experience and assumptions that pointed us in the wrong direction. It was perfectly plausible that the aliens possessed something on their ships that blocked your ability to see them, and a hundred years ago the means to identify the quantum-probability worms might not have been available. You reached conclusions that drove all of your research from that point onward.”

Boyens nodded, his expression rueful. “Like that ancient saying goes, sometimes it’s not what you don’t know that’s dangerous, it’s the things you think you know that aren’t really true.”

“Exactly. But the worms were also found because a brilliant officer in the Alliance fleet looked for something she suspected might be there without limiting herself to where she expected to find it.”

“A single brilliant individual can make a big difference,” Boyens agreed. “I’d like to thank her, too, sometime.”

Geary kept his expression rigid. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. She died during the battle with your flotilla at Varandal.”

The Syndic CEO met Geary’s eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I lost friends in that battle, too. I wish all of them, yours and mine, were still with us.”

“Then,” Rione said in a firm voice, “do what you can to ensure that our peoples work together in the future rather than meet in battle. We can’t bring back those who have died, but we can prevent more deaths.”

Boyens closed his hand around the data disc. “Yes. I can’t speak for all of Syndicate Worlds’ space, just for this region near the border with the aliens, but I will try.” His gaze lingered on Geary. “Are you going to remain in command of the Alliance military? People are going to want to know.”

Geary phrased his answer carefully. “I serve at the pleasure of the Alliance Senate. I currently command only this fleet, not the entire Alliance military. I don’t know what will be asked of me after this.”

“Fair enough. I’ll be blunt. People here will trust you. I hope the Alliance government keeps that in mind.” Boyens nodded to Geary and the three senators, then turned and walked onto the shuttle.

They watched the inner dock seal, then the shuttle depart, and Geary felt some of the tension leave him. Somehow, returning the Syndic CEO here, to where the reserve flotilla had come from, completed a necessary circle.

“It is a shame no Alliance POW camps exist this far from the Alliance,” Sakai remarked. “We could have asked for all of those captured personnel now while these Syndics are still grateful.”

“They’ll be grateful just as long as we’ve got our guns trained on them,” Costa grumbled. “I still think we were foolish to tell them about the worms. We could have studied them, learned how to use them, then employed the worms against the Syndics if necessary.”

“We have another enemy now,” Rione replied. “A mutual enemy, it seems, whether we desire it or not. And these particular Syndics would be very useful allies.”

Costa’s glower deepened. “I can’t think in terms of Syndics being allies.”

“They may not be Syndics much longer, if that makes it any easier.”

“A wolf can call itself a dog, but it’s still a wolf.” Costa gave Geary a sour look. “I hope you’re not planning on retiring soon, Admiral. I can guarantee that won’t be approved.”

Geary kept his own expression unrevealing. “I expected as much. But I do have certain agreements with the council.”

Costa didn’t quite conceal a flash of sardonic amusement at Geary’s words. “Of course,” she said, while Sakai avoided showing any reaction. Rione, for her part, managed to flick a warning glance at Geary without either of her fellow senators noticing.

Any lingering doubts he had felt that the grand council was going to play games with their promises to him vanished.

But he could play games, too. He had managed to defeat the tricks played on him by the Syndics and the aliens, and he would do the same with the grand council.

As he left the shuttle dock, Geary couldn’t help noticing the irony that just like Badaya, he was now seeing the Alliance government as one more obstacle to overcome. Unlike Badaya, though, his goals were purely personal. The government could make policy, but Geary wanted at least a little control over his own life.

He figured that he had earned that much.

Geary rejoined Desjani on the bridge, watching as the Alliance shuttle mated with the Syndic heavy cruiser, Desjani seeming ready to launch specters in an instant if the heavy cruiser opened fire on the shuttle. But after several minutes the shuttle reported a successful transfer and broke away from the Syndic warship, heading back to Dauntless.

As the shuttle reentered the dock on Dauntless, Desjani herself finally seemed to relax. “Are we going home now?”

“Yes.” He leaned back, gazing at the images of the fleet on the display. “We’re going home.”