Invincible

FIVE

“They’re going to come after us,” Desjani said. Outside of Dauntless, nothing was visible now except the dull gray emptiness of jump space. “Those civilian experts are right.”

“Yeah.” He had the same feeling. Geary watched one of the mysterious lights of jump space flare off to one side of the ship, then vanish. “The star we’re heading for is a white dwarf. The odds of a habitable world are very small. Unless the bear-cows have heavily fortified a distant outpost, we’ll be in a better position to take them out.”

“We hit some of those superbattleships hard as we went past,” Desjani pointed out. “But we didn’t inflict much damage. They’re going to be very hard to kill. And did you notice this?” She sent a record to Geary’s display. “Watch the top layer of ships in our formation as they pass closest to the fortress.”

He watched the replay, spotting what she had seen. During the moments when the human ships had been nearest to the fortress, passing beneath it though still thousands of kilometers distant, something had pushed them down and farther away from the fortress. “The bear-cow planetary defense. Whatever that is. At least those unexpected vector changes messed up some of the bear-cow fire aimed at those ships.”

“And made some of the shots from those ships miss, too,” Desjani said. “I think we’ve got a real good picture of the maximum range of that defense mechanism now.”

“Good call.” Tension was still draining from him. How long had he been up on the bridge, for how many hours had he been engaged in the bullfight with the alien armada? “We’ve got eight days in jump space. A really long leap.”

“Are you finally going to get enough sleep?”

“That’s my intent.” He didn’t have to tell Desjani to order maximum crew rest for the next couple of days. He knew that she would do that. Captains sometimes had to demand intense efforts from their crews for extended periods. All captains understood that. Good captains also knew the need to compensate for that extra effort when opportunity permitted, to let their crews know the additional exertion wasn’t taken for granted. “First, I’m going to go down and give my thanks to my ancestors, though. We’re going to need their help when we meet up with the bear-cows again.”

It hadn’t exactly been a victory, but it hadn’t been a defeat. The fleet was clear of Pandora, and it was heading back toward home, even if that path back would be a somewhat crooked one of necessity as the fleet jumped from star to star. Once they reached Syndicate Worlds’ space, they would be able to use the Syndic hypernet to get back to Alliance space quickly, but that option did not exist out here far beyond human-occupied space.

No one could claim that he personally and this fleet as an arm of the Alliance government had not followed their orders. Geary had done exactly what his orders called for, to learn more about the strength and numbers of the enigma race and to learn how far regions controlled by the enigmas extended beyond human-occupied space. Now it was time to take that information home.

The crew members whom Geary encountered in the passageways seemed cheerful enough in a “we survived that, and we’re on the way home” sort of way.

He made his thanks to those powers who were hopefully watching out for him and the rest of the fleet, then made it to his stateroom, fell into his bunk, and finally let himself relax into blessed sleep.

“I’m going to have that talk with Commander Benan,” Geary said. After three days in jump space, he had managed to catch up considerably on sleep and was not yet affected by the strange sensations of discomfort that grew in humans the longer they stayed in jump space.

Desjani raised beseeching eyes upward. It was odd, Geary thought, that humans still instinctively looked up toward the divinities they believed in. Even though humans had penetrated far into the heavens and among the stars, they still somehow thought of something greater being “up there.”

“Admiral, I repeat that is a horrible idea.”

“Understood. I think it’s a horrible idea, too.” He groped for the right words. “But I just have a gut feeling that I need to do this.”

She eyed him. “A gut feeling?”

“Yes. Something keeps telling me that talking alone with Benan will accomplish something.” Geary spread his hands as if trying to clutch at something insubstantial. “I owe that man. Personally, for what happened between me and his wife. And as a representative of the Alliance, for what happened to him in the line of duty. My brain tells me that there’s nothing more I can accomplish, that I have done all that duty requires, but then something else says maybe honor requires a bit more. Requires me to try something that I have no right to expect will work. Because not trying something that might work would be safe but wrong.”

Desjani sighed. “You’re letting guilt drive you to this?”

“No. I don’t think it’s guilt. I did nothing against him on purpose, and I had nothing to do with what the Syndics did to Benan when he was a captive.” Geary paused, thinking. “But he is one of my people, an officer under my command, who is suffering from some kind of injury. Nothing we have tried yet has helped much. One thing we have not tried is a private conversation with me. I need to do that.”

She nodded, one corner of her mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “Duty is a hard horse to ride. All right. I might feel the same obligation. And if something keeps telling you that you need to try this… Our ancestors often speak to us in muted voices. Maybe one of yours is trying to tell you what to do. But”—the half smile disappeared—“you’re not going to have that woman in there with you, are you?”

“No. Having Victoria Rione there would just emphasize one of the things between us.”

“She could also serve to restrain him if he flies off the handle. Admiral, you know as well as I do that if Benan says something to you that is contrary to regulations, you are obligated to act on that even if no one else knows about it.”

“I’m aware of that,” Geary said.

Desjani shook her head. “Fine. Were you planning to have this little chat in your stateroom?”

“That is a private—”

“It’s also where you and that woman spent a lot of time together. Remember?” Her voice roughened, but Desjani managed not to sound too angry at the thought. “Do you think Benan won’t be aware of that?”

Geary grimaced. “We’ll use a private conference room. Security-sealed.”

“And I’ll be outside the hatch. Along with that woman. If you hit the panic button in there, I’ll have the hatch open and be throwing her between you two before you can count to three.”

“All right, Captain.”

Rione hadn’t been any more enthusiastic about the idea than Desjani, but Geary had not relented. “Your instincts have been right often enough in battle,” Rione finally said. “And mine have been just as often wrong. Perhaps you will be right in this as well.”

Geary led Benan into the conference room, knowing that Desjani and Rione were just out of sight around a corner of the passageway and would come to stand by the hatch once it was closed.

Commander Benan stood rigidly by the table dominating the center of the room, his eyes wide like a trapped animal’s. “Sit down,” Geary said, realizing as he did so that the words had come out in the tones of an order.

Benan hesitated, his eyes fixed on the bulkhead before him, then sat rigidly in the nearest chair.

Geary sat down opposite Benan, keeping himself sitting erect, his hands resting on the table before him. There was nothing social about this meeting. It was purely professional. “Commander, you’ve been undergoing treatment since being liberated.”

Benan nodded his head in a jerky motion but said nothing.

“Medical is very concerned at your lack of progress.”

Another nod and continued silence.

“Is there anything I should know that is impacting your personal well-being, Commander? Anything that neither I nor medical staff is aware of?”

The commander’s eyes went to Geary, meeting the admiral’s gaze, something odd hidden inside those eyes. “There is nothing I can say.” It came out haltingly.

“Nothing you can say?” Geary felt a flash of anger. I’m trying to help. Why won’t he let me? “This isn’t a personal issue, no matter what you may think. It is professional. You are an officer under my authority, and I am responsible for your health and well-being.”

“There is nothing I can say,” Benan repeated, his words sounding mechanical now.

“I am the commander of this fleet,” Geary said, “and in that capacity and by that authority I hereby order you to tell me of anything that is complicating your medical treatment and recovery from prisoner-of-war conditions.”

Benan seemed to stop breathing for a moment, then his mouth worked several times before words came. “The fleet commander. As the fleet commander, you order me to speak. Please repeat that.”

“As the commander of this fleet I order you to speak,” Geary said again, wondering what was happening.

Looking around, Benan paused to swallow. “We are alone. There are no recording devices active here.”

“That is correct.”

“Damn!” Benan swallowed again, this time convulsively, shooting to his feet. “I can talk. I can talk.” He wavered where he stood.

“Sit down, Commander,” Geary ordered.

Benan dropped into the chair again, his face working with emotions that changed too rapidly to read. “Yes, there is something inhibiting my treatment. I don’t know how, but it must be responsible somehow. But I must explain. Do you know what I did, Admiral? Before the Syndics captured me?”

“You were a fleet officer,” Geary answered. “Your record is a good one. Reliable, courageous, smart.”

Benan gasped a short laugh. “That was who I used to be. Perhaps not the smart portion, though. No. A smart man wouldn’t have gotten involved in it.”

“Involved in what, Commander? The war?”

“We all had to get involved in the war.” Benan stared at a corner of the stateroom. “Except Vic. She shouldn’t have. It’s changed her, too. Vic never would have—” His voice choked off, and Benan reddened, trembling, but didn’t move otherwise, avoiding looking at Geary.

Since there was nothing useful that Geary could think of to say, he waited patiently. I’m sorry I slept with your wife. We both thought you were dead. I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel any better. But you already know it put your wife through hell when she found out you might still be alive.

After a long pause, Benan spoke again. “I can tell you. Because if a fleet commander orders me to speak, I have to respond. If we are alone, with no witnesses.”

“Are you saying that some order bound you from saying anything before this?”

“It wasn’t an order, Admiral,” Benan spat. “Have you been told about Brass Prince? Have they told Black Jack about Brass Prince?”

“Brass Prince?” Geary mentally ran through the many classified project and plan names that he had seen since awakening from survival sleep. “I can’t recall hearing of that.”

“You would remember if you had.” Benan’s voice had sunk to a whisper. “A very secret project undertaken by the Alliance government. Do you know what we were working on, Admiral? Biowarfare,” Commander Benan said, his voice barely audible now. “Strategic biological warfare. You might have believed that’s the one rule the Syndics and the Alliance didn’t break during the war. But the Alliance conducted some research.”

“Strategic biological warfare?” Geary repeated, not believing what he was hearing.

“Yes. Things able to wipe out the populations of entire planets. Things that could sit dormant inside human bodies long enough to be transported to other star systems before they became virulent, then wipe out populations so quickly that no countermeasures could be successful.” Benan’s hands shook. “Purely for defensive purposes, of course. That’s what everyone said. If we had that capability, the Syndics wouldn’t dare use a similar capability against us for fear of retaliation in kind. That’s what we told ourselves. Maybe it was true.”

Geary realized that he had stopped breathing and slowly inhaled before speaking. “Does the Europa Rule still exist?”

“Of course it does. But we were told that things had changed. That we needed to take into account new realities. The Syndics would do anything. Strategic biowarfare didn’t seem beyond them.”

“But… the Europa Rule,” Geary said again, bewildered. “In my time, they showed vids of that in high school. To ensure everyone knew what happened. That colony moon in the Sol Star System wasn’t rendered uninhabitable for humans for all time by an attack. The pathogen was accidentally released by a so-called defense research facility on Europa. If it hadn’t been so virulent, caused death so quickly, it might have reached Earth itself before our ancestors realized what had happened.”

“I know that! We all knew that!” Commander Benan glowered at the deck, then spoke in a more controlled fashion. “They still show the videos in school. Images, as clear as the day they were taken by surveillance cameras whose operators were already dead or by uncrewed probes sent down from space. The people on Europa lifeless, bodies strewn everywhere within the habitats. Some lying there peacefully, and others revealing final moments of panic and pain. If you’ve seen them, I’m sure you remember them as clearly as I do.”

“I don’t know how anyone could forget them. And the afterimages?” Geary asked.

“Yes. Centuries later, hallways and rooms still empty of life, filled only with the slowly crumbling remnants of those who had lived there.” Benan shook his head. “We were told that we were working to prevent that by having the capability to do it. Is it odd, Admiral, what humans can convince themselves makes sense?”

“You were part of this?” Geary wondered if the revulsion he felt could be heard in his voice.

Benan bared his teeth in a grimace. “For a while. But one of my ancestors was aboard one of the warships enforcing the quarantine of Europa. His ship intercepted and destroyed a merchant ship packed with refugees.”

“That’s a hard memory to carry,” Geary said.

“Harder than you think, Admiral. My ancestor knew that his sister’s family was aboard that ship. They might have already been dead from the plague, but he never knew. And I… now I was working on the same sort of hell project.” Benan slammed his fist down. “But I regained my sanity! I told them I would not work on it anymore. I told them it was criminal and insane, that it must be shut down.”

“Did they?”

“I don’t know. I was transferred out, given a fleet assignment.” Benan bared his teeth in a grimace. “Doubtless in the hope that I would die valiantly in action and take my secrets with me. We were sworn to secrecy, but when I was transferred I was also mentally programmed for it. Not just an order. A block. Did they have blocks in your time?”

“Blocks?” What did personal configuration of communications have to do with— “What kind of blocks do you mean?”

“Mental blocks. Inhibitions implanted in the mind.”

A memory finally flashed to the surface. “Mental blocks? But—Those are— They imposed a mental block on you?” Geary knew he sounded appalled again.

“Yes. I could literally say nothing about it. I knew what was working at me, eating at my head. But I couldn’t say anything!” He yelled the last, then subsided again.

Geary rubbed his mouth with one hand, trying to find words. “But the block allowed you to talk if ordered to.”

“Only if ordered by a fleet commander. Because regulations required that. And only if no one else was present. Small risk there. What were the odds that a fleet commander would talk to me personally, that the commander would order me to talk about something of which they had no knowledge, and no one else would be with us when that question was asked?” Benan stared at Geary. “Did you know?”

“No. I just had an instinct that I needed to talk to you alone. Something told me that was the right thing to do.”

Benan nodded, much of the tension draining out of him, replaced by the slump of mental and emotional exhaustion. “Of course. Black Jack, sent by the living stars. As much as I hate you for what you did, they do seem to talk to you.”

“I never claimed such a thing.” Geary thought about what Desjani had said, that Benan must have been tortured by the Syndics. “When you were a prisoner, did the Syndics find out anything about this?”

“No.” Benan laughed bitterly. “Blocked. I told you it was all blocked. I couldn’t say anything. Not a thing. No matter what. No matter… what… they did.” His voice fell to a whisper again. “I can’t remember what they did.”

Geary nodded to cover up his inability to find words again. “How can we help you now? What can we do?”

“I have no idea.” Benan shrugged. “My fate isn’t important. I had to stop caring about me. Victoria. She’s all I care about.” His gaze on Geary tightened with anger, and Benan looked away again. “Something is driving her. Something she does not want to control her. It’s not you. I suspected that. It’s not.”

“She recently finally told me that someone she wouldn’t or couldn’t name gave her some kind of orders before she joined us for this mission.”

“She’s told me less than that,” Benan grumbled, then laughed. “You’d think I wasn’t judged stable enough to be trusted. What could anyone use to force Victoria Rione to do their bidding? She does not bend easily. What could buy her obedience and silence?”

Geary felt a sudden ugly certainty fill him. “She has told me, and I believe it, that you and the Alliance are everything to her. I’ve been trying to understand what kind of lever someone could use against her. Maybe this is that lever. Maybe someone with knowledge of your involvement in Brass Prince has threatened to make it public unless she does what they say.”

“Yes! I am sure that has to be it! I would be demonized! They would blame me for Brass Prince, say that I had conceived it and pushed it along until they shut it down! She thought me dead, unable to defend myself!” Benan trembled again with barely suppressed rage, but Geary realized with surprise that this time the rage was directed at Benan himself. “Victoria compromised herself, was blackmailed to protect the memory of me, of who Commander Paol Benan once was. And look at me, Admiral! Look at what I have become! For this ruin of a man, the only woman who matters in all the universe has compromised herself!”

It all made sense, the pieces falling into place. He had no proof, only a growing certainty that this explained a number of previously inexplicable things. “You’re her Achilles’ heel, the one thing they could threaten to strike at that would force her do to what they wanted. But being who she is, she’s followed their orders in ways that probably haven’t furthered their aims. Do you think she knows who they are?”

Benan shook his head as he stared at the deck. “If she knew, I think she would have gone after them.” He paused. “Or perhaps not. I am gradually learning that my wife can play the long game very well.”

“When she first saw you, after we liberated you, I wondered if I had seen a flash of horror on her face,” Geary said. “Now I know why. With you alive, if this information was leaked, your reputation would not only be destroyed, but you’d also be brought up on war crimes charges.”

“Yes. Charges I couldn’t deny or refute because I couldn’t say one word about it.” Benan stood up, his body rigid at attention. “There is a way out. You can free my wife, Admiral, and free me. You already have adequate grounds for sentencing me to die by firing squad. Do so. Once I am dead, declared a traitor, there is nothing else they can hold over Victoria.”

Geary came to his feet as well, meeting Benan eye to eye. “I will not. You both deserve better.”

“Have you understood nothing?”

“I understand that handing them this victory would accomplish nothing. Dead, your memory could still be smeared, and you’d be unable to testify in your own defense if we can get that block lifted.”

“But—”

“Dammit, Commander! Think! You want me to execute you for treason? Or mutiny? A dead traitor? When your wife has already risked everything to protect your name and honor? That alone would destroy her. And if those charges are raised publicly, how many people would automatically believe a convicted traitor guilty as rumored? How many might accuse her of aiding and abetting in the crime?”

Benan sat down again like a balloon man who had been suddenly deflated. “There’s no way out.”

“There’s always a way out. We just have to find it.” He would do this. He owed it to this man.

Perhaps Benan understood, his eyes sharpening on Geary. “You think to balance the scales?”

“No. I can’t do that. But even if I had never met Victoria Rione, I would not allow this kind of thing to be done to a good officer. And if this Brass Prince project is still running, I need to do what I can to get it shut down. I need you for that.”

Benan shook his head. “You cannot depend upon me. I am not the man I was. I can see myself do things and not control them.”

“Perhaps there is something that can be done now that we know the problem,” Geary said. “I will pursue this. My orders to you, Commander, are to do everything in your power to remain stable. You can tell me what you need, and if that means telling me to lock you into solitary confinement in the brig, then tell me that.”

“Admiral, I can’t even talk about that aspect of it! I can’t suggest things if those things are related to the block! Believe me, I have tried.”

“I don’t have a block.” Geary stood up. “Since we are both convinced that your wife is aware of the blackmail charge that would be used against you, do you have any objection to my telling her the full truth?”

“She is not cleared for that information,” Benan objected.

“She’ll hear it from me.”

Benan stood up, bracing himself on the table’s surface with rigid arms. “I will always hate you, Admiral.”

“I understand that.”

“Why didn’t you take her? You could have had anyone.”

“She didn’t love me. She never did. There’s only one man Victoria Rione loves, one man she would sacrifice everything for, and that is you.”

Commander Benan didn’t answer, his head bowed, tears falling to splash onto the hard surface of the table.

Geary opened the hatch and stepped out, finding Rione and Desjani standing on opposite sides of the hatch. “I learned some answers.” He leaned very close to Rione, his lips next to her ear, his words barely audible. “Emissary Rione, your husband has a mental block implanted by security.” Her face went pale, then flushed with anger. “I think you know how that was justified, but if not, I will brief you privately.”

He stepped back and looked toward Desjani, seeing her glaring at the hatch. “Is he safe now?” she asked.

“No. But we may have found the key to helping him.”

Rione paused partway into the room, looking back at Geary. “Help may still be extraordinarily difficult. Thank you, Admiral.”

She closed the hatch, leaving Desjani and Geary alone.

“Did he—” Desjani began in formal tones.

“No. He did not.” Geary shook his head. “I need to talk with your ship’s medical personnel, but I have a nasty suspicion that they won’t know what to do. Once we get out of jump space, I can talk to the senior fleet doctor. If anyone should be aware of the proper treatment, or able to learn what that is, it should be that doctor. Meanwhile, keep watching him. By his own admission, Commander Benan is not mentally or emotionally reliable or stable.”

“Those damned Syndics,” Desjani muttered.

“The Syndics didn’t do it to him, Tanya. The Alliance did.”

She didn’t answer for a long moment. “Because it was necessary?” Desjani finally asked.

“Yeah. One more thing that was ‘necessary’ to win but somehow didn’t lead to victory.”

A few days later, Geary sat once again in the fleet command seat on the bridge of Dauntless, waiting for the moment when the fleet would exit the jump point at the white dwarf star. If this was another bear-cow-occupied star, they would face a tough fight if more fortresses guarded the jump points. If it was an enigma-controlled star, they might face a fight with the enigma forces that had gathered to pursue the human fleet the length of enigma territory. And coming on behind them would very probably be that bear-cow armada they had outmaneuvered at Pandora. “Maybe there’s no one there,” he said out loud.

“That would be a nice option,” Desjani agreed.

At the back of the bridge, both Rione and Charban waited. Around the bridge, the different watch-standers stood ready. On Geary’s display, which in jump space could only show the status of Dauntless herself, the battle cruiser glowed in combat-ready status, shields at maximum and all weapons ready.

“Ten seconds to exit,” Lieutenant Castries announced. “Five… four… three… two… one.”

The universe lurched, and Geary felt the disorientation that accompanied leaving jump. He struggled to recover, focusing on the display, where the gray nothingness of jump space had been replaced by the star-filled darkness of normal space.

Alerts were sounding from the combat systems as the ships of the fleet went into the automatic evasion maneuver that Geary had ordered programmed in before the fleet jumped for here. Dauntless’s frame protested as the battle cruiser slewed down and to the starboard, evading any possible defenses at the jump point before the humans on the ships could clear their minds.

Desjani recovered before Geary, and he heard her words as his eyes finally focused on his display. “Ah, hell.”

Geary blinked at the display, his mind realizing two things at almost the same moment.

The enigmas weren’t waiting at the new star. Neither were the bear-cows.

Something else was.

“What are they?” Charban asked in a hushed voice.

“What they are,” Desjani replied, “is far enough away that we don’t have to worry about an immediate fight.” She paused as the fleet’s sensors provided more data from the analysis they had begun the moment the fleet entered this star system. “About one light-hour distant from us. They’re not enigmas?”

“No, Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed. “The combat systems are marking them as unknown. The characteristics don’t match the enigma ships we saw. Nor are they like any human ships or anything we saw in the Pandora Star System.”

“Another alien race,” Geary said, past surprise by now.

“Another one?” Desjani echoed, then turned an accusing look on Geary.

He didn’t answer, staring at the depiction of the force awaiting them here. About one light-hour from the jump exit, a grand array of ships hung in a complex formation that looked like multiple formations interwoven into a single grand scheme. It looked less like a formation than a work of art. “Damn,” Lieutenant Castries blurted out admiringly.

“It is beautiful,” Desjani agreed. “Now tell me what kind of ships make up that lovely little arrangement.”

Geary waited as sensors studied the distant ships, combining readings taken from every ship in the fleet to produce composite images, which finally flashed before him on his display. “What?” If the presence of these aliens hadn’t shocked him, the shapes of their ships did.

Desjani had a bewildered expression. “That’s what I thought. What the hell?”

The ships varied in size from something half the mass of an Alliance destroyer to much larger ones about the dimensions of the late and unlamented scout battleships that the Alliance had tried as an unsuccessful experiment. But that was the only aspect of them that seemed familiar.

“Perfectly smooth ovoids,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed. “No protruding sensors, weapons hard points, launchers, shield generators, thrusters… nothing. Just smooth shells.”

“What about propulsion?” Desjani demanded. “They’ve got to have visible propulsion systems.”

“None we can spot from this angle, Captain. If those ships are all bow on toward this jump point, their main propulsion systems might all be facing away from us.”

Desjani spread her hands in bafflement. “What’s the point of having a ship that can’t do anything?”

“They must have something we haven’t spotted yet,” Geary replied, grateful that these ships were a light-hour away. It would take an hour for that force to see the light from the arrival of the human fleet, and longer to react. That gave him a crucial margin of time in which to try to learn more about whatever crewed those ships. “What kind of creatures created such beautiful ships?”

Desjani shook her head. “They’re not bear-cows, that’s for sure. Admiral, would you please stop finding new, intelligent alien species?”

“I’m not trying to find new ones, Captain Desjani.”

Her reply was interrupted by an incoming message. Captain Smythe had a look of bliss as his image appeared. “By my ancestors, Admiral, these creatures are engineers!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at what they did! Have you spotted the systems on the exteriors of the hulls yet?”

As Smythe spoke, the fleet combat systems began updating the images of the alien spacecraft, highlighting subtle features that were tentatively identified as the weaponry, sensors, shields, generators, and thrusters, which had been unseen earlier. “Look at them!” Smythe said. “They’ve faired everything into the hulls. It’s all smooth, as unbroken as possible. The engineering required to do that and retain functionality for those features is… it’s awesome, Admiral.”

Geary tried to see it from Smythe’s point of view. “You think the creatures here are excellent engineers?”

“Excellent and perhaps intuitive,” Smythe agreed. “This work—the design, the construction—is simply elegant. There’s no other word for it.”

Geary turned to Desjani. “Captain Smythe thinks the creatures here are all born engineers.”

“Oh, great,” Desjani said. “Just what we need. Another species lacking in social skills.”

“What do you think of their formation?”

She spread her hands. “It’s gorgeous. The individual subformations and the interlinking patterns of those into the overall formation. But in terms of function? Assuming their weapons are roughly equivalent to our own, that formation will certainly work. Is it better than our cruder arrangements? I wouldn’t say that. We achieve interlocking fire zones and concentration of fire without the same…”

“Elegance?” Geary asked.

“Yeah. That’s a good word for it.” Desjani pondered the images for a moment, then shook her head. “I’d be willing to bet that maintaining that beautiful arrangement would complicate maneuvering so much that it would create significant difficulty for them. We could do that. We could tell the maneuvering systems to generate formations based on fractals like a Mandelbrot set or by replicating Fourier series and stuff like that, but it would involve a lot of extra work when we maneuvered. I can’t see any benefit from that to compensate for the complications.”

“So they’re doing it that way because they want to, not because it’s superior in any absolute or physical way.”

“That’s my assessment,” Desjani agreed.

“Captain Smythe, from an engineer’s perspective, do you think the design of those ships produces better results?”

Smythe tilted his head slightly as he thought. “How do you define better results? In terms of pure functionality, they may perform less well. They probably perform less well. I mean, clearly, a hull as smooth as possible offers no angles or weak points where any force striking them can concentrate. Any force or object the ship encounters will more likely be deflected. But our own hulls are curved over the great majority of their surfaces to get the same results. Making everything else as flush with the hull as possible would create some major challenges in terms of effectiveness. I would think, and this is only from what I know as an engineer and not taking into account whatever the creatures who built those ships can do, I would say they’ve probably lost some functionality and added some complexity by fairing in everything so smoothly.”

It added up to a consistent picture. Whatever these creatures were, engineering and perhaps mathematical aesthetics mattered a great deal to them. “They like beautiful things, the same sort of beauty we can appreciate.”

“In terms of their ships, yes, Admiral.”

“Thank you, Captain Smythe.”

Geary looked over at Desjani. “Maybe that’s a good sign, that they produce things we also find beautiful.”

She raised one eyebrow at him. “May I remind the Admiral that we got chased to this star system by a horde of cute little teddy bear-cows who exterminate just about everything else they encounter?”

Geary pulled out the scale a little more on his display, studying the star system at which they had arrived. A white dwarf star, bright but unwelcoming to life. Only two planets, one a bare ball of rock orbiting rapidly less than two light-minutes from the star, the other a bloated gas giant, large enough to qualify as a brown dwarf. Based on the few minutes of tracking they had, the fleet sensors were estimating that the brown dwarf had a highly eccentric orbit. Right now it was ten light-minutes from the star, but according to system estimates, it would swing out perhaps as far as two light-hours before looping in again. “Unless they’re a very exotic life-form, this isn’t their home star system.”

“They didn’t evolve on that rock,” Desjani agreed. “And that brown dwarf looks like a capture. If that orbit estimate is right, it got caught in the star’s gravity field not too long ago. A couple of million years, maybe.”

In terms of the life of stars, that was a very short time. Geary considered the implications. “They’re out here, in a star system with no visible merits aside from providing jump points, facing a jump point that goes to the bear-cow star.”

“The jump point might also be accessible from enigma space,” Desjani pointed out. “I’m curious as to why they’re positioned where they are inside this star system, though. Aha. So that’s why.”

The fleet’s systems had finally identified the other jump points in this star system. There were three, one off to the left and ahead of the human fleet, a second to the right and above, and a third nearly on the opposite side of the star from humans. Desjani ran some maneuvers, smiling with satisfaction. “Yes, indeed. See? From where they are, they can intercept anyone coming in here no matter which of those other three jump points they head for.”

“And they’d have time to see what the other force was doing instead of having to react on the fly,” Geary said. “All right. They’re good at engineering, and they’re smart tactically. Let’s hope they’re not hostile.”

“We don’t have a great track record in that respect,” Desjani noted.

“Third time’s the charm.” Geary issued new orders to the fleet, bringing it around at a steady point one light speed to head for the jump point that should lead to another star on the way back to human space. As he did so, his eyes went from the human formation, a crude box disrupted by the final maneuvers and the fight at Pandora, to the gorgeous loops and spirals of the alien formation. “Let’s try not to look too much like barbarians.”

He searched among available formation choices in the maneuvering database before settling on one intended for a pass in review ceremony in which the individual divisions and squadrons formed into diamonds, those diamonds in turn congregating into larger diamonds to produce what he had once considered an impressive display. Against the alien formation here it would still look awkward, but at least it wouldn’t be grossly primitive.

“All units, immediate execute, assume Formation Diamond Diamond Ceremonial.”

Rione was standing beside his chair, her attitude tense. “Communicate with them, Admiral. Something short to assure them we come in peace.”

“We come in peace,” Desjani murmured sarcastically, “with a fleet of warships.”

“Who are they guarding this star system against?” Rione demanded, ignoring Desjani. “They are facing this jump point, from which the bear-cows would come. Tell them we are not here to fight.”

Maybe, for once, such a plea would have some success. As he thought about the bear-cows who would be arriving in this star system soon in pursuit of his fleet, Geary hoped that he had found allies, not more enemies. “Am I set up to send a broad-spectrum message?” he asked Desjani.

Desjani glanced at her comm watch, who nodded back immediately. “Whenever you want, Admiral.”

Sitting straight and speaking slowly and calmly, Geary tried to convey strength and nonthreat at the same time. “Greetings to the people in the ships here. We are representatives of humanity on a peaceful mission of exploration.” Hopefully, the weaponry and combat damage visible on the exteriors of many of the human ships wouldn’t call that “peaceful mission” assertion into question. “We wish to establish friendly contact with you and pass through this star system on our way back to the regions of space controlled by our species. This is Admiral John Geary, to the honor of our ancestors, out.”

He sat back as the transmission ended, unable to resist a laugh. “How could they possibly understand a word of that?”

“Hopefully, they will read attitudes,” Rione said, but it didn’t sound as if even she believed that.

Desjani had been running some data on her display, one hand moving rapidly to direct the calculations, and she now pointed to the representation of the new alien force. “We’ve got them in front, able to move to block us no matter which jump point we go for. According to our maneuvering system’s best estimate, the bear-cow armada would have required anywhere from half an hour to an hour to get turned and come through the jump point at Pandora after us.”

“Half an hour to an hour?” Geary checked the time. “We’ve been in this star system about twenty minutes now.”

“Should we accelerate to get farther from that jump exit faster?” Desjani pressed.

“That would have us accelerating toward this other group of alien ships,” Geary said. “That might look aggressive.”

“If they want to fight us, they’ll do it no matter what we do or don’t do.”

He shook his head firmly. “I won’t push things toward the worst case because it might happen. The possibility of being caught between those things ahead of us and the bear-cows behind us is bad. Making sure we were caught between them would be worse.”

She paused, decided that Geary wouldn’t budge, and turned back to her display. “I’m going to stand down my crew then. We won’t even see the reaction from those aliens ahead of us for close to another two hours, and if the bear-cows come out chasing us, they’re going to have a long haul while we decide where to let them catch us.”

He nodded this time, not wanting to face the necessity of a major fight with the bear-cows but knowing he would have to. He couldn’t simply lead a force like that back toward human-controlled space, not knowing how long the bear-cows could continue in pursuit. If they were lucky, the bear-cows would have been content with chasing the humans out of the Pandora Star System.

Though he must have made the leader of that armada extremely angry with all of the maneuvers that had set up the human escape. Not to mention how angry that leader might be at the escape itself.

It took another twenty-five minutes, with the fleet about six light-minutes from the jump exit as it continued on at a steady point one light speed, before the answer to what the bear-cows would do became clear. Alerts sounded on the displays as the fleet’s sensors spotted the bear-cow warships arriving at the jump exit six minutes ago, still in pursuit of the human fleet.

“I sure hope those guys ahead of us are friendly,” Desjani said.