Geary stared at his display. “Someone officially inserted subroutines into our ship’s software that prevent us from seeing those dark ships.” He didn’t feel triumphant at his guess having been proven right.
“Yes, sir. We have to assume the software on every Alliance warship has the same subroutines.” Desjani bit her lip, thinking. “What the enigmas did must have given someone in the Alliance an idea. They took that idea from the enigmas and ran with it.”
“Not just the fleet,” Geary said. “Did I tell you that at Yokai there were momentary ghost sightings by an aerospace orbital facility being reactivated? We thought it was a software problem, with training-sim data leaking through into active systems before it was scrubbed out. We were right, it was caused by the software, but not because it was creating false targets. The new software updates were actually having trouble making the systems not see real targets.”
“Aerospace forces, too? Maybe all civilian space tracking as well. Those dark ships might be invisible to everyone in Alliance space.” Desjani turned her head to meet his eyes with hers. “Which means they’re ours. Which means the Alliance did just trash Indras, only this task force is going to get blamed for it because we happened to stumble through the star system as it was going on.”
“What did you see of those ships before the image vanished?”
Desjani made an angry gesture with one hand chopping the air. “Not much. It looked like a battle cruiser and a heavy cruiser. Could have been our designs, could have been Syndic.”
“Why did the Syndics call them dark ships?” Geary asked, trying to remember the brief look he had gained at the unknown craft. “They did look a bit odd that way.”
“Yes. Like something, some hull coating maybe, was blurring visual details.”
“Let Tulev and Badaya know what your security people have learned.” Geary considered his options, then tapped his controls. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, accelerate to point one light speed.”
“Are you going to try to catch those ships?” Desjani asked.
“Maybe.”
“What will you do if you do catch them?”
“I don’t know, yet. Whoever ordered the attack here did so either oblivious to the possibility that this task force would be blamed for involvement with it or intentionally seeking to tie me and the rest of the fleet to the action. I will not accept such behavior, no matter who was behind it.”
• • •
LIEUTENANT Iger, summoned to Geary’s stateroom, shook his head in stubborn denial. “Admiral, I don’t know anything about this. If official software is sabotaging our detection, it’s also affecting my intelligence work by blocking images of those ships.”
Geary was standing before him, far enough away not to seem threatening but close enough to make it clear that he was expecting answers. “Did you get a look at them before we lost that one image?”
“Yes, sir, briefly. I was zooming in on it when the image dropped out of my systems like it had never existed.”
“Did you make out any details?”
“Not many, sir.” Lieutenant Iger spoke with the careful stiffness of someone who knew what he was saying would not be well received. “Admiral, all I can tell you is that from what little time I had to see them, the designs of the two ships we saw were definitely human and share an ancestry with Alliance warship designs. But Syndic warships share much of the same design ancestry.”
“Lieutenant, on our way through Indras last time, you told me that this star system was being used as a hub for covert actions against the Alliance.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And now we come through here and find Syndic facilities at Indras being destroyed.”
Iger had been looking straight ahead as protocol required, but now looked directly at Geary. “Admiral, I’m not saying no one in the Alliance might have decided to . . . to . . . to send a message to the Syndics. But I know nothing of it.”
“A lot of civilian targets got hit, too,” Geary said. “A lot of freighters, and some places on planets or in orbital locations.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This wasn’t a surgical strike, Lieutenant. Someone might have thought it would be, but those ships targeted places and things that should not have been targeted unless we’re returning to a policy of indiscriminate bombardment. And in the process, they may have set in motion a resumption of the war with the Syndics. You and I both know how unpopular that outcome would be with the population of the Alliance.”
Iger looked away, obviously uncomfortable now. “Admiral, there are segments that might welcome that. You know that, as do I. Not even near a majority. But this . . . sir, this was clumsy. Unprovoked attacks by the Syndics would be one justification for renewed war that the majority of the Alliance might accept. But not something like this.”
“If those ships go to Atalia,” Geary said, “and on to Alliance space, I will not remain silent about them and what they did at Indras.”
“I understand, sir. I can offer no reason you should do so since neither of us has been read into any program that covers such activity.”
“Let me know if, once we get back, someone tells you to officially read me into such a program. Will you tell me if you’re given such information and told not to share it with me?”
Iger didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir, I will tell you.”
• • •
THE short jump to Kalixa offered more time for the security teams aboard Dauntless to identify the special subroutines woven through many portions of the ship’s software. “Somebody really put a lot of effort into this,” Tanya told Geary.
“Have we got it all now?”
“We think so. We’ll find out at Kalixa. We should be able to spot some of those ships before they jump.” She glowered at the nearest bulkhead as if it were guilty of a heinous crime. “The subroutines didn’t just block the information from being seen by us. They deleted it so thoroughly that my best code monkeys can’t find any trace of it. Is this how the government is keeping secret that new fleet that they’re building?”
“We don’t know that they’re Alliance ships. Not yet.”
“The hell we don’t.” Desjani made a fist and hit the offending bulkhead. “But if Admiral Bloch is in charge of that fleet, I’d like to know who is commanding the individual ships. How are they keeping secret the reassignments of personnel to crew those ships? Are they even crewed by military personnel?”
“If we can catch up with them, I intend demanding answers,” Geary said. “Can your people put together a software patch that we can send to every other ship in the task force that will neutralize those stealth subroutines?”
“They’re already working on it, Admiral.”
• • •
KALIXA wasn’t empty.
“There they are,” Desjani said, baring her teeth in a grin. “Do you think that’s all of them?”
“Six battle cruisers,” Geary marveled. “Four heavy cruisers. A dozen destroyers. What can we tell about them?”
“They’re not standard Alliance designs, Admiral,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “They’re also not broadcasting any IDs. They have some sort of surface coating that is blurring visual details, but we can see enough to spot a lot more weapon launchers and projectors than on ships like this one. Each of those battle cruisers is about the same size as Dauntless, but our systems estimate each carries up to twice the armament we do. The heavy cruisers and destroyers look like they follow similar designs.”
“How did they fit all that armament on those ships?” Desjani wondered. “Admiral, are we going to send a message to those guys?”
Geary shook his head. “They’ll jump for Atalia before anything I send would reach them. But that means they won’t know we’re following them. We’ll be able to stay on their tails until they show us exactly which star system the
y came from. Is that software patch ready to distribute?”
“It will be before we leave Kalixa.”
• • •
HE had expected to find a similar scene at Atalia, the dark ships traveling toward a jump point and almost there, heading back to wherever their base was located.
“Ancestors,” Desjani breathed, stunned at what their displays were revealing.
Atalia hadn’t boasted much in the way of defenses or other facilities, just what had survived the war and wave after wave of Alliance attacks. Its cities resembled those of Batara; small, often pummeled, and often repaired. Since the war ended and Atalia had broken away from the Syndicate Worlds, claiming a tenuous independence that survived more as a result of Syndic weakness than Atalia’s ability to defend itself, the star system had been painfully trying to rebuild infrastructure from the rubble of war.
Those efforts had been reduced to rubble once again.
The dark ships weren’t concentrated together, but were ranging through the star system, almost all of them in the inner star system, where they were methodically smashing target after target.
“They’re attacking Atalia?” Geary said, disbelieving. “Why would they attack Atalia? They’re destroying every ship, every small craft. There goes a freighter that was flagged to an Alliance star system!”
“Admiral,” Desjani said, her voice hardening, “look up there. Toward the jump point for Varandal.”
He looked, seeing the Alliance courier ship hanging near the jump point, light-hours distant from where Dauntless was. The crew of that courier ship must be as baffled at seeing the destruction under way in Atalia as Geary’s ships had been while watching the attack on Indras. They were probably debating whether to continue observing in hopes of learning something about the attacks or to head for Varandal and report what little they knew.
Then he spotted the two dark ship destroyers swooping upward toward the courier ship. “Those look like firing runs, not approaches to the jump point.”
“Yes,” Desjani said in tones devoid of all feeling. “And the courier ship can’t see those two coming.”
It was one of the awful moments that had to be endured by those who operated in space. He wanted to send a warning, he wanted to do something, to somehow prevent what he could see about to happen. But there was nothing that could be done because what he was seeing had happened hours ago. It was history, and he was unable to do anything but watch it and futilely wish he could change the past that was about to occur before his eyes.
Geary watched the dark destroyers close on the courier ship, tearing past in a perfect by-the-book firing run that tore apart the unsuspecting courier ship with multiple hits by hell lances and a barrage of grapeshot delivered at point-blank range against the lightly armored and unarmed craft. Geary knew none of the courier’s crew could have survived that attack. “Ancestors preserve us. They just annihilated an Alliance fleet courier ship.” He looked back to where the Alliance-flagged freighter had been destroyed, just in time to see another dark ship riddle the freighter’s single escape pod as it fled for safety, leaving a lifeless ruin in its wake. “Are they insane?”
“Maybe they are. What do we do?” Desjani asked, looking at him. For the first time he could recall, Tanya seemed totally lost for answers or suggestions.
“Lieutenant Iger!” Geary put a lot more force into that call than he usually did.
Whether because of that or because of what he was witnessing happening at Atalia, the intelligence officer had trouble speaking. “Yes, sir,” he finally got out.
“Lieutenant, I want to know if there is any possible justification or rationale for what we’re seeing here. I know what Indras was involved in. I have heard nothing similar about Atalia.”
“Th-there is nothing like that about Atalia, Admiral,” Iger managed to get out. “There are agents here. Their agents, our agents. It’s a . . . a transit point. The reports I have seen say Atalia has been trying to keep us happy, so we’ll protect them. This . . . I have no idea, sir. The . . . the courier ship. Sir . . . if I knew anything . . .”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I just wanted to be sure.”
Desjani spoke again, still not betraying her feelings. “From the way they’re hitting space traffic, the dark ships are doubling down on what they did at Indras. That means they’re going to go after more civilian targets next.”
“And they’ve already destroyed Alliance civilian and military shipping.” Geary felt a grim resolve filling him despite the enormity of the decision he had to make. “There’s no possible justification for this. There’s not even any possible reason for it. I don’t care who those ships answer to. They’re not broadcasting their identities, they are of unknown design, and they are attacking the Alliance as well as Atalia. That makes them pirates. We will stop them.”
He reached for his controls and spoke with perfect clarity. “Unknown warships operating in Atalia star system, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. You have attacked Alliance shipping and killed Alliance military personnel, as well as conducting wanton attacks on the people of the neutral star system of Atalia. You are to immediately cease any use of weaponry of any kind, you are to power down and deactivate all weapons, you are to lower shields, and you are to adopt fixed orbits pending the arrival of my ships in your vicinity. Failure to comply with these commands will result in my using the full force available to me to eliminate you as a threat to anyone in Atalia Star System or elsewhere. This demand will not be repeated. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”
He touched another comm switch. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, come starboard five three degrees, up zero four degrees, accelerate to point two light speed. All unidentified warships is this star system are to be treated as hostile. You are authorized to engage any that pose any threat to you.”
Tanya waited until Dauntless had swung onto the new vector before she activated the privacy field around their seats and leaned toward him. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“If these are Alliance warships—”
“Then they’ve got a very short time in which to start acting like Alliance warships.”
“Yes, sir.” She sat back, smiling crookedly. “We’re either going to come out of this as heroes, or they’re going to hang us.”
Captain Tulev called in with essentially the same question as Desjani’s and seemed equally satisfied with Geary’s reply.
Badaya didn’t question what was happening at all. He probably, Geary thought, was enjoying having his long suspicions of parts of the Alliance government proven true. If that was what was happening.
“At point two light, we’re thirteen hours from intercept with the nearest of the dark ships,” Lieutenant Castries said, “assuming it remains on its current vector.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Geary eyed his display, thinking that it would be another two and a half hours before the dark ships saw Geary’s task force and received his orders to surrender. “All units in Task Force Dancer, stand down from maximum combat readiness. Rest your crews and maximize your equipment readiness over the next twelve hours.”
• • •
SURPRISINGLY, the first dark ships to see Geary’s ships and hear his message didn’t react at all, continuing whatever they were doing while Geary watched the destruction with growing anger and frustration. It was almost six hours after the task force’s arrival at Atalia before the dark ships responded to the appearance of the Alliance warships.
And when they did react, it brought more bad news.
He watched the individual dark ships veer about, altering vectors at an impressive rate as they began gathering together. “Tanya, is it just me, or—”
“It’s not just you. They’re extremely maneuverable,” she said, her expression reflecting cold concentration on her tasks. “Significantly more man
euverable than our ships.”
“They may look like human ships, but the maneuvers remind me of enigmas.”
Lieutenant Castries had already been running an analysis, and now reported the results. “Admiral, they’re not a match for the enigmas, but their maneuvering capabilities are closer to enigmas than our ships are. There’s a roughly thirty percent improvement over what we can do based on the limited observations we have so far.”
“The enigmas don’t have battle cruisers,” Lieutenant Yuon protested. “They don’t have anything that big.”
“Maybe the enigmas copied our ships,” Desjani said. “They’ve seen them. They could have copied the external appearance. Maybe this is all really another attempt to get us and the Syndics at all-out war again.”
“If the enigmas were trying to fool us, why wouldn’t they have made exact copies instead of ones that differed from our ships in external appearance and the number of weapons they carry?” Geary began to say more, paused to think, then looked at Yuon. “We’re seeing their weapons fire now. What can you tell me about the signatures on their weapons?”
“It matches Alliance weaponry, Admiral. The signatures on the hell lances are exactly like ours, and one of the dark ships fired a missile that is either a specter or a perfect copy of a specter.”
Several seconds passed in silence while everyone thought.
“Who or what the hell are they?” Desjani finally demanded. “They maneuver more like enigmas, and our software was covertly modified not to see them, which also matches enigma tactics. They attacked a Syndic-controlled star system, but also a neutral star system and Alliance assets here. And now it looks like they’re getting ready to attack us, all of which would imply either enigmas or some other alien race. Like the Kicks, they won’t respond to attempts to communicate. But they have Alliance designs, and Alliance weapons, and the software modifications that left us blind to them came through official channels rather than being some kind of cyberattack. What are they?”