The second heavy cruiser abandoned its comrade, accelerating all out, as Gryphon swung in from one side and below to hit it in another swift pass. Gryphon rolled out and began a huge, graceful arc aimed this time at the crippled Syndicate heavy cruiser, while Pele settled onto a stern chase of the fleeing cruiser.
Bradamont watched as Gryphon had hit the damaged heavy cruiser again, suffering some hits herself but taking out some of the Syndicate warship’s weapons and inflicting some damage in its main propulsion. Hurt as it was and trapped inside an enemy star system, the Syndicate heavy cruiser was doomed. Bradamont waited to see escape pods begin to launch as the Syndicate crew abandoned ship.
Instead, before Gryphon could finish swinging up and around for another firing run, the heavy cruiser had abruptly dropped its remaining shields and shut down its weapons.
The transmission from that ship resembled the earlier ones from the light cruiser, but did not have any feeling of having been staged. An Executive Fourth Class with blood running unheeded down one arm of his suit spoke in halting words. “We surrender to you. All snakes aboard this unit are dead. We swear it! This isn’t a trick. We won’t fire on you again. We heard that Iceni and Drakon are for the people. We surrender.”
The second heavy cruiser kept fleeing despite the very small lead it had, firing on Pele as the battle cruiser finally overtook it. With a fairly small relative velocity to the heavy cruiser, Pele was able to methodically smash the heavy cruiser from stern to bow as the Syndicate warship made futile attempts to outmaneuver its foe. Only a few escape pods launched before the second heavy cruiser’s power core overloaded because of the damage, and blew the battered warship into fragments.
Bradamont, realizing she had been sitting on Midway’s bridge for a long time watching the battle that had played out hours ago, stretched and smiled. “Kapitan Mercia,” she said loudly. “Black Jack would be proud to have such ships and such men and women fighting alongside his own.”
Mercia’s eyebrows went up. She knew that Bradamont almost always referred to Admiral Geary by his name and rank, not using the Black Jack nickname that Syndicate and former-Syndicate personnel always employed. Then Mercia gave Bradamont a genuine smile, different from her usual stiffness toward the Alliance officer. “One of his own would know.”
Another alert, this one a mild tone. Mercia gestured toward the symbol that had appeared at the jump point from Iwa. “Manticore has returned. Your chance for glory has passed.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to know that.”
Moments later, the first transmission from Manticore arrived. As she watched and listened to Marphissa’s report, Bradamont felt any sense of relief fading rapidly.
* * *
DRAKON studied Kommodor Marphissa’s report, knowing that his expression was falling into grim lines. “Which major problem are we going to discuss first?”
“Oh, why not the enigmas and their secret base,” Iceni said. She looked tired and unhappy, which wasn’t too surprising considering the matters that needed to be addressed.
“Their deep underground secret base,” Drakon said, knowing that Gwen Iceni wouldn’t want him to soft-pedal anything. “Deep, deep underground. Probably designed for defense, with a lot of angles to hide behind, choke points to funnel attackers into, and materials that will block sensors and communications by enemy forces.”
Gwen Iceni had called a meeting when Marphissa’s report came in. They all sat in another conference room at Drakon’s headquarters. With at least one potential assassin running loose on the planet, it made sense to avoid using the same rooms or the same routes or the same routines. Predictability made a killer’s job much, much easier.
“The corridors would very likely be designed as a maze,” Colonel Malin added.
“And,” Drakon continued heavily, “we would be attacking enigmas, who, according to Black Jack’s reports, prefer to blow things up rather than have them captured.” He looked toward Captain Bradamont, who had returned to the planet just in time for this meeting.
Bradamont nodded. “Ships, installations, you name it. It seemed everything we encountered was rigged with self-destruct capability. The enigmas don’t want anything left that could provide any information or clues about them.”
“You’re saying an assault by ground forces would be a suicide mission,” Iceni observed, looking steadily off to one side.
“Effectively, yes,” Drakon said, wishing he knew what Gwen was thinking.
“Do you think that those ground forces workers who were rescued by Manticore will be able to provide any useful intelligence?”
Drakon nodded. “They already have. Manticore is still a ways from reaching this planet, but my ground code monkeys were able to walk the space code monkeys through accessing and downloading the data in the battle armor. Most of the data is a lot of nothing as those soldiers lay low waiting for rescue, but they got some decent data on the enigma attack that killed most of their unit.”
Iceni gave him a look. “That attack employed distance weapons, I understand. What did you learn from it?”
Colonel Malin answered. “Madam President, we were able to confirm from the battle armor status and records that the ground forces unit they were in was not leaking electronic signals when they were targeted by the enigmas. All of their emissions were extremely low power and extremely short-range, to tie their armor into a single tactical net.”
“Which means,” Drakon said, “that the enigmas are very, very good at spotting even tiny indications of comm and active sensor activity by our forces. But when those three soldiers went totally passive, nothing went after them. That might mean the enigmas don’t routinely employ active seekers.”
Iceni raised an eyebrow at Drakon. “Why would it imply that?”
“Because our own distance strike weapons are at least dual-seeker systems. If they don’t spot anything using the passive seeker that is looking for electronic signals, they automatically switch to active, or infrared, or visual. Visual can be movement triggered or look for shape matches.”
“If they don’t use active seekers,” Bradamont commented, “that’s consistent with the enigmas’ desire to remain hidden. Active paints your position loud and clear for anyone watching.”
“But what about IR?” Colonel Gozen asked. “That’s passive. But if the enigma weapons had automatically shifted to IR targeting they would have nailed those three soldiers.”
“IR might be a blind zone for them,” Drakon agreed. “I wish those three soldiers had gotten even a long-range look at some enigmas operating on the surface so we’d have at least a basic idea of what kind of protective suits or armor they use, and what sort of weapons they carry.” He shook his head ruefully. “I used to be unhappy about Syndicate intelligence reports that couldn’t tell me little details about new Alliance ground threats. I never realized how much basic and very important information I already knew as a matter of course.”
Colonel Malin frowned. “It is possible that the enigmas try to do all of their ground fighting at long range, beyond line of sight, so as to minimize any chance of being seen by a foe.”
“Even other enigmas?” Iceni asked. “Surely they don’t worry about other enigmas seeing them.”
“Such a strong motivation cannot operate in a vacuum,” Malin said. “The enigma desire for privacy, for remaining hidden, must influence their interactions with each other.”
Bradamont called up some images on her data pad, studying them. “When Admiral Geary’s fleet was in enigma-owned star systems we got long-range looks at enigma towns, but those looks were obscured by privacy fields over the towns. The fields appeared to be a routine thing. About all we could tell was that the towns were almost all coastal and were about half in the water and half along the surface of the coast.”
“The enigmas certainly live up to their names,” Gozen commented. “Could Black Jack
’s ships have spotted deep underground installations like the enigmas are building at Iwa?”
“No,” Bradamont said. “Maybe if we had gotten in close we could have spotted traces, but getting in close would, we thought, lead the enigma population on the surface to commit mass suicide. Admiral Geary did not want to commit genocide.”
“Good for him,” Drakon commented. “But is it genocide if the other guys decide to kill themselves?”
“They’re dead either way,” Iceni said. “Even if it is second-degree genocide instead of first-degree. But after seeing those images of Iwa, I’m not sure I would have been as restrained as Black Jack was. Let me summarize. We know very little of enigma ground combat capabilities, except that they have signal detection capabilities markedly superior to our own and highly effective distance weapons. We know that they are building a base of some kind deep underground on that planet at Iwa. And we know, from what they did at Iwa, that the enigmas have not altered their basic approach to humanity.”
“Wiping out all trace of humans might be described as an approach,” Drakon said, wondering why he found the phrasing comical. “Here’s something else we can be sure of. Even if we overcome their defenses against ground attack, which I think we could do, but that has to be a guess since we know so little about the enigmas’ ground combat capabilities or how many enigmas are at this base, then from all we know the enigmas would have dead-men switches built into their gear to ensure their installation, and all of our troops, were blown to hell on the heels of our victory.”
“Dead-enigma switches,” Iceni said.
“What?”
“You said dead-man switches.” Iceni moved her head slowly to look at everyone else. “We’ve gone over the difficulties. Can any of you tell me how we can do this?”
“Why not just drop a big enough rock on the planet to reach however deep the enigmas are?” Drakon asked, unhappy at the idea of sending his soldiers against a foe of essentially unknown capabilities and strength.
“That would be one hell of a rock,” Bradamont said.
“It would take time,” Iceni said. “We would have to round up a local asteroid or minor planet that was big enough and boost it toward the target planet. It would take a while to get there. Besides that, we need to capture some enigma technology. Maybe some records that we can exploit. We still know almost nothing about them.”
“We know they keep attacking us,” Drakon said.
“But we don’t know why!”
“General Charban, who accompanied Admiral Geary’s fleet,” Captain Bradamont explained, “thought that it was pure paranoia in human terms. The enigmas may think that as long as we inquisitive humans are close enough to the enigmas, as long as we exist, we will keep trying to learn about the enigmas, keep trying to penetrate the screen of secrecy they maintain. We tried to use that as basis for establishing a peace agreement, promising that we would never violate their privacy if they did not attack us, but they never responded.”
“Except with more attacks,” Malin pointed out. “Paranoia would cause the enigmas to conclude that we will always violate any agreement and always be a threat to them.”
“I said paranoia in human terms,” Bradamont corrected. “Whatever drives enigma thinking and actions appears to have common elements with what we’d call paranoia, but they’re not human, and their ways of thinking may have major variations on how a human with paranoia would perceive things.”
“Captain,” Malin said, his words precise and cold, “while both General Drakon and President Iceni have expressed distaste at the idea of genocide, we may eventually be forced to engage in a war of elimination with the enigmas. We will have no choice.”
Drakon felt a reflexive tightening in his gut at Malin’s words. “We’ve spent the last century in a war that became more and more a war of elimination, Colonel. I’m personally sick of that kind of thing.”
“But if it is our only option—”
“You know I always ask for at least two options,” Drakon interrupted. “There are always at least two options.” He paused, then gave Iceni a sidelong look. “Just like our beloved President asked for more options a minute ago. And one option to beginning a genocidal war is learning enough about the enigmas to figure out what else might work, which takes us back to capturing that base. Colonel, can we come up with a way to take that enigma installation that doesn’t involve suicide for our soldiers and the enigmas alike?”
Malin hesitated, frowning in thought.
“What are they going to expect us to do?” Bradamont said. “That’s one thing Admiral Geary always tried to work out. What does the enemy expect to happen?”
“Because then you can do something the enemy doesn’t expect?” Iceni said, smiling slightly.
“More than that,” Bradamont said. “It also tells you what kind of defenses the enemy will have, what kind of plans. If they are anything like humans in terms of thinking, they are going to configure their plans around what they expect us to do, and their defenses will be focused on countering our expected weapons and tactics.”
Colonel Gozen spoke up for the first time. “Like those long-range weapons that hit the soldiers at Iwa, targeting them using their battle armor net. I’ve been told the enigmas had been secretly watching us fight the Alliance during the whole war? So they know our standard tactics, and they’ve seen our ground force weapons in use.”
“Alliance tactics, too,” Bradamont said. “But Admiral Geary still figured out ways to outthink the enigmas and frustrate their plans.”
“Admiral Geary isn’t here,” Iceni pointed out. “It would be wonderful if Black Jack showed up with his fleet, ready to lead the charge against the enigmas, but all indications on that front are that he is tied up at home.”
“Captain Desjani told me that the Admiral always insisted he was not special, that it was just a matter of learning from mistakes, anticipating enemy moves, and trying new things.”
“Captain Desjani?” Gozen asked.
“The captain of the Admiral’s flagship,” Bradamont explained. “She said Admiral Geary was always listening to others’ ideas, and always asking advice. I’ve been able to watch you in action. Kommodor Marphissa, and Kapitans Mercia and Kontos, Colonel Rogero, and you, General Drakon. You’ve repeatedly succeeded because you’ve outthought the Syndicate Worlds forces and done things they did not expect.”
“Luck played a role, too,” Drakon pointed out. He had felt an unexpected burst of pleasure at hearing Bradamont implying that he and his officers were the equal of Black Jack, but he wasn’t about to let the unanticipated praise go to his head. “How do we know what the enigmas will expect?”
“You said it yourself!” Bradamont pointed to Gozen. “Or, rather, your new colonel did. The enigmas will expect any ground attack from you to match what they have seen Syndicate Worlds ground forces do during the war.”
“A head-on attack with everything we’ve got, heedless of casualties,” Drakon said. “Preattack bombardment, by orbiting warships and any artillery we have landed on the planet, followed by combat engineers breaching outer defenses, then systematic overrunning of the entire complex.”
Malin nodded. “A mix of energy and projectile weapons in the hands of the soldiers, employed along with smoke to screen our attacks, and localized electromagnetic pulses to neutralize enemy systems within limited areas.”
“Stealth armor and special forces,” Gozen added.
“We used those last two in enigma space,” Bradamont said. “To rescue the human prisoners inside that asteroid.”
“Then the enigmas will be doubly on guard against that threat,” Drakon said, leaning back to think. “I bet we can come up with something those guys don’t expect. But how do we neutralize the dead-ma—I mean, the dead-enigma switches that are certain to be in place?”
“Offensive software and hackers are out,” Malin sa
id. “The enigmas know how our systems work because of all of the human ships and ground facilities they have captured over time, but we know nothing about theirs. They probably have defenses against the most sophisticated weapons we could put together, including jammers focused on every aspect of our weapons, communications, and sensors.”
“Too bad we can’t just hit them with rocks,” Gozen said. “Not big ones dropped from orbit. Just one-on-one, look them in the eye, then whap them in the head and anywhere else that hurts. You can’t jam a rock.”
Iceni raised one hand to stop the conversation. “What did you say, Colonel Gozen?”
Gozen looked startled. “You can’t jam a rock, Madam President.”
“You said more than that.”
“Um, yes. Too bad we can’t look them in the eyes and hit them close-up.”
Drakon suddenly understood what Iceni was driving at. “You’re thinking we should fry the whole installation? Knock out every piece of equipment, every circuit, everything that isn’t a manual brute-force-operated widget? Is that possible?” he asked Malin.
Malin shook his head. “The enigmas know we use EMPs tactically. And they are a spacefaring race who has had to deal with radiation in that environment. They will have their equipment well shielded, and their critical equipment very well shielded.”
Bradamont laughed. “Oh. Yeah. And I know what they’ll use.” Everyone looked at her. “Water,” Bradamont explained. “The best natural radiation shield that exists, and still one of the best radiation shields period. The enigmas are semiaquatic from what we saw of their worlds. They would need a lot of water in that underground facility.”
“Where would they get all that water on a rock like that planet?” Gozen wondered.
Iceni checked her data. “The same place the Syndicate colony used to get it. Underground reservoirs. Oh, hell. What do you bet they partially drained one of the big, deep reservoirs to flood their excavations, and fixed up the partially drained void to take advantage of it?”