Leviathan

Twelve

There was none of the mind-dazing shock of transitioning into and out of jump space, no gray haze filling jump space around them, no mysterious lights. Outside the bubble in which the fleet traveled, there was, literally, nothing. In fact, as it had been explained to Geary, the fleet wasn’t really traveling. It had been at one gate, at Varandal, and after a few days all of the human warships would be at the other gate, at Unity Alternate, without technically having traveled between those gates.

As odd as jump space was, the quantum mechanics behind the hypernet were in some ways even odder.

Geary got up, relaxing with the knowledge that for the next few days nothing could get at them, and they could get at nothing. Whatever was going to happen, would happen. “It’s a relief to be on our way,” he commented to Desjani.

She looked over and up at him. “Are you going to get some sleep?”

“Yes, I am. Even if I have to call Dr. Nasr and ask for a patch to knock me out for a while.”

“Good. That means I won’t have to call Dr. Nasr and tell him to knock you out. Hopefully, you won’t dream about dark ships.”

“I imagine I’ll be dreaming about something else entirely,” Geary said, giving her a look.

She shook her head, exasperated. “You’re still on my ship, Admiral. Keep your dreams professional.”

“You’re kidding, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer because he couldn’t be certain and didn’t want to find out otherwise.

Once he got to his stateroom, he lay down in the bunk, gazing at the overhead, hoping that he had made the right decisions. He couldn’t recall how many nights had been spent like this since he had been awakened after his century of survival sleep. There had been too many. And this night was one more.

“So the Dancers did jump all the way from their own region of space to that jump point that exited at Varandal?” Geary shook his head in disbelief. “How?”

“We’ve been having some trouble getting the technical explanation rendered into the form of a haiku,” Lieutenant Iger confessed.

“There was a warning though,” Lieutenant Jamenson added. “The Dancers said ‘you should not attempt that jump.’ They were very insistent.”

“Lieutenant, two weeks in jump space is as much as I ever want to spend there in one stretch,” Geary said. “How are you two doing?”

“Sir?” Lieutenant Iger asked, worried.

“I mean working conditions. I want you both rested and ready when we leave the hypernet.”

“We’ll be ready,” Lieutenant Jamenson said. “Admiral, the Dancers are worried. We put this in our reports, but you may not have had time to review them. They say ‘cold minds,’ the sort of thing they call the dark ships, have more than once proven to be much harder to stop than anyone expected.”

“Believe me,” Geary said, “after Bhavan, I’m not expecting any free rides. If we can knock out the support structure for the dark ships, we’ll be able to stop them.”

“What if we can’t knock out that support structure, Admiral?”

“Then it will be much harder,” Geary said.

Two days later, he sat on the bridge, waiting to leave the hypernet. He wondered what was happening at Unity right now. Had the Senate already moved against the covert structure that had gained too much power in the last several decades? He had no doubt that General Carabali would provide the support that the Senate needed. He wondered whether the dark ships had already launched another attack designed to draw him into battle. Had they gone to Varandal? Back to Bhavan? Or maybe to Unity itself? And he wondered how many dark ships would be awaiting them at Unity Alternate.

At least he would get the answer to one of those questions soon.

“Ten minutes until exit from hyperspace,” Lieutenant Castries said.

“Dauntless is at maximum combat readiness,” Desjani reported.

“The Dancers have done this before,” Geary said, talking to fill the time. “They’ve already dealt with this kind of threat.”

“So have we,” Desjani said. “Remember that place with the rocks?”

“Stonehenge. Yes. Maybe we’ll get the lesson this time.”

“I bet you we won’t. For a little while, maybe,” she said.

“You are probably right once more,” Geary said.

“Two minutes until exit from hyperspace.”

They waited silently as the final minutes counted down.

At zero, the stars suddenly appeared again. Behind them was a hypernet gate, and before them were two stars orbiting in what was known as a close binary.

“I have never seen that before,” Desjani said in an awed voice.

The displays updated rapidly as the fleet’s sensors consolidated, analyzed, and assessed everything that could be seen. Geary saw large installations appearing on his display, their orbits centered on the larger of the two stars, which must sometimes bring them uncomfortably close to the smaller. Six planets, varying in size from a rocky, barren half Earth-standard to what had once been a gas giant but had apparently been losing its atmosphere at intervals to one of the stars. A host of smaller natural objects also orbited within the system, some of them following eccentric orbits that swung them past both stars. “We’re not seeing anything on the planets,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “There are some very large facilities in orbit. Docks. Warehouses.”

“They could maintain a fleet four times the size of ours here,” Geary said, amazed. “For a long time.”

“They were ready to keep the war going if the worst happened,” Desjani said with grudging admiration. “Look at those orbits! This system is a mess. No wonder they didn’t put anything on the planets. Ah, look what else we found, Admiral.”

He didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. The same symbol had appeared on his display. “Invincible. They did bring her here.”

The alien superbattleship, much larger than any human warship, was hanging in its own orbit a few light-minutes from the dockyards. “Even those docks couldn’t hold something the size of that Kick ship,” Desjani commented. “Is this right? The ship is cold?”

“Yes, Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon replied. “Our sensors aren’t picking up any signs of active power aboard Invincible, or any other activity. No heat being radiated. The ship is still completely shut down and apparently has no one aboard.”

“What about those tugs?” Desjani asked. The many heavy-duty tugs that had been fastened about the hull of Invincible to move her from Varandal were still there, forming two rings about the alien battleship’s hull. “They’re cold, too?”

“Just standby power, from what our sensors can see,” Yuon reported. “Aside from that, all systems inactive and life support not running. No indications of crews or caretakers present. The tugs appear to have been put into stand-down.”

“They were supposed to be taking Invincible somewhere to study the Kick technology and try to learn more about the Kicks,” Desjani complained to Geary. “Instead, they just hauled her here and forgot about her!”

“Maybe they had to shut down research efforts when the dark ships started causing problems,” Geary speculated.

“If that’s the case, they didn’t shut down anything in a hurry. Everything about Invincible and those tugs reflects methodical deactivation.”

“That’s so. And they parked Invincible a fair ways from anything else, as if they were afraid of the ship.” Geary felt a wry smile on his face. “Maybe they were afraid of the Kick ghosts.”

“It would be nice to know the Kick ghosts spooked whichever human spooks have been busy at Unity Alternate,” Desjani commented, using the common slang term for undercover operatives. She looked over her display again. “But they’re all we’re picking up. No other shipping.”

“There aren’t any dark ships here at all?” Geary asked, staring at his display with a mingled sense of relief and mild disappointment. It would have been nice to catch a small force of dark ships and wipe it out along with their support facilities.

“We’re not seeing anything,” Yuon confirmed. “We can’t see inside the docks, though. All of them appear to have power active but no life support running.”

“And those are a lot of big docks,” Desjani murmured.

“Let’s take them out.” Geary felt a sense of revulsion as he looked at the dockyards and support facilities, apparently empty of life yet continuing to serve the needs of the dark ships. Automated facilities conducting automated war. They were the unfeeling personification of Captain Tulev’s argument against using AIs to control weapons.

Geary called up the bombardment routine on his display and began designating the orbiting support facilities as targets. One very large structure orbiting at a distance from the support facilities looked like the place intended for the exiled government. He left that off the target list, then asked the system for firing solutions.

A process that should have produced almost instantaneous results instead ground on for several seconds, then a minute, then kept going. “Captain Desjani, we seem to have a problem with part of the combat systems.”

“What?” She leaned in, frowning, then entered commands into her own system. “It’s working. Trying to produce a solution. Why the hell—? Oh.”

“What?” Geary echoed.

“The interacting gravitational fields of the stars and the eccentric orbits. The bombardment routines can’t handle that. They can’t direct a precise shot across those kinds of distances under these conditions. We’ll have to get a lot closer to those facilities to launch rocks at them and be sure of hits.”

“I guess that was another good reason to put Unity Alternate here,” Geary conceded. “How have they ensured that the facilities don’t get sucked into destructive orbits?”

“There are propulsion systems on all of the facilities,” Lieutenant Yuon reported in surprised tones. “Not enough thrust for a lot of travel, but enough to adjust orbits in a big way—” He broke off as he realized the implications of that.

“Oh, hell,” Desjani complained. “If they have automated maneuvering systems that powerful, they could spot an incoming bombardment and adjust orbit enough that our rocks would miss. It’s a good thing we didn’t launch. The rocks would have been wasted even if their trajectories had been accurate.”

“How much did they spend building this stuff?” Lieutenant Castries asked in amazement.

The hypernet gate had been constructed far enough from the two stars to be unaffected by their intertwining gravity fields. In this case, that meant an unusually long journey to the facilities orbiting the twin stars. “Almost seven light-hours,” Desjani observed. “We’ve got a long trip ahead. Do we have a good picture of that big facility that looks like it was intended as the command structure and seat of government?”

“Life support and power are active,” Lieutenant Yuon said, peering at his data. “But only in the upper quarter of the structure. Everything below that is dark and cold. We’re not seeing any confirmation that the facility has anyone aboard it, though.”

“You could keep a lot of people very comfortably in something the size of one-quarter of that facility,” Geary said. “We’re not picking up any comm traffic or other signals?”

“No, sir. There is probably a local net running between the facility and those dockyards and support structures, but it would be using highly directional signals that we’re not in the right position to pick up.”

“All right. Let’s see if anyone will answer us.” He made sure his uniform looked decent, straightened in his seat, then keyed the broadcast comm circuit. “Anyone in this star system, anyone occupying any of the facilities of Unity Alternate, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We are here on orders of the Alliance government to occupy and neutralize these facilities. If anyone is in need of rescue or evacuation, we will assist you. Anyone working on the facilities must accept the authority of the Alliance government and also prepare for evacuation. Contact me and provide your status as soon as possible. The First Fleet of the Alliance is on its way to your orbital location. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

It would take at least fourteen hours for any replies to come in, and he had no intention of waiting around the hypernet gate until that happened. “All units in First Fleet, come starboard—” He stopped abruptly. “Wait one.”

“What’s the matter?” Desjani asked.

“Starboard. Port,” Geary said. “Toward the star or away from the star. Which star?”

“Oh. It’s a close binary.” She smiled ruefully. “We haven’t had that problem in systems with one star, have we?”

Geary tapped his fingers impatiently as he thought. “It’s all arbitrary anyway. We say one way is up and the other down.” He activated his comms again. “This is Admiral Geary. The brighter star in this system is designated Alpha and the other star is designated Beta. All maneuvering commands and fleet navigational settings will treat Alpha as the reference star. All units in First Fleet, come starboard zero seven degrees, down one zero degrees at time two five. Accelerate to point two light speed.” He was not going to waste time getting this job done.

The ships of the Alliance formation pivoted around Dauntless, the cylinder shape reorienting along the long-curving path that would bring the fleet near the orbiting facilities.

“Thirty-eight hours until we reach the orbiting facilities,” Lieutenant Castries said.

“We might as well relax.” Geary activated comms again. “All units in First Fleet, stand down from battle alert.”

Desjani glanced at him. “You’re not relaxing, I notice. Is it for the same reason I’m not?”

“What’s your reason?” Geary asked.

“This situation stinks. We have never encountered the entire force of dark ships at once. They have always apparently left some of their ships here at their base. If nothing else, some of the dark ships we damaged at Bhavan should still be here, and even if they were concealed in the docks, we would be able to pick up indications that repair work was being conducted inside some of those docks.”

“Yeah,” Geary agreed. “That’s my reason, too. I thought we would at least encounter a guard force of some kind.”

“If they are still thinking like you, if the AIs haven’t modified their thinking and rationalized things enough to deviate a lot from what Black Jack would do, are there any conditions under which you would leave your base totally undefended like this?”

Geary considered that question, then shook his head. “No. We did take the entire First Fleet here, but Varandal isn’t defenseless. They’ve got some of their own ships. Nothing big, but something, and they have all of the fixed star system defenses. Plus, Varandal isn’t our only base. Losing it would be a tragedy, but it wouldn’t cripple us.”

“So, where are the dark ships?”

“I don’t know. All we can do is what we set out to do,” Geary said. “Then get back to Varandal and find out what the dark ships are doing right now.”

After forcing himself to leave the bridge so he wouldn’t exhaust himself and look nervous to everyone on watch, which would both be bad things, Geary walked through the passageways of Dauntless for a while, talking to crew members and judging their moods. Before the fight at Bhavan, most had been confident, almost cheerful, certain of another victory. Since Bhavan, a grimness had settled on them, a determination to win tempered by knowledge that victory might be dearly bought. As Geary talked to the sailors, though, he saw that for the moment worries about the dark ships had been overridden by fascination with being in a close binary star system. For all the star systems many of these sailors had visited, this was the first time they had seen two stars so close together.

The exercise had the desired effect of wearing him out, and Geary was able to sleep for a few hours until rudely awakened by a call from Tanya. “There is something you should take a look at,” she said. “Not urgent, but serious.”

“Show me.” The star display in Geary’s stateroom came to life. He got off his bunk and walked over to gaze at the images of this star system.

Desjani’s voice was somber. “Here. I’m highlighting it.”

He sat down as an area of the display brightened to emphasize details there. “Debris?”

“Yes. It took a while to spot it and analyze it because of how much junk is drifting around between those two stars. The interacting gravity fields must keep causing collisions between rocks jarred out of what would otherwise be stable orbits.”

Geary tapped the debris symbol and studied the information that popped up. “It wasn’t a warship?”

“No. Based on the composition of the debris, it wasn’t a freighter, either. There’s no sign of cargo or the remains of cargo.”

That left only one chilling possibility. “A passenger ship.”

“Yes.” Desjani made a face. “Maybe a regular shift change by the people who worked here. Maybe an attempt to get out of here when the dark ships slipped their leashes. From the dispersion of the debris, it happened about a month ago.”

“Is this the only debris field we’ve detected?”

“So far,” she said. “It’s still a few hours before we could expect any answer from anyone on the facilities and find out whether there is anyone left, and whether they’re scared to death, or whether they are so fixated on following orders that they are still prepared to fight to the death.”

“At the moment, I’m unhappy enough to let the Marines accommodate anyone here who wants to fight to the death,” Geary said. “Is there anything else new?”

“Not really new. I’ve been noticing something odd about the Dancers,” Desjani said.

“You mean something odd that we haven’t seen already?” Geary asked.

“All right, yes, something new that’s odd.” She indicated her display. “Normally, we get into a star system, and the Dancers start flying around, going wherever they want and flying rings around each other and any other ships. But ever since we arrived here, the Dancers have stayed in that formation and stayed close to us.”

“That is odd.” Geary looked at the Dancer ships on his display. They were still in their smaller cylindrical formation, and they were indeed maintaining the same position relative to the Alliance formation. He called down to the compartment holding the special comm equipment, patching in Desjani to the call. “Hello, General. We’ve got another question for you.”

“Thank you,” Charban said, sounding almost sincere.

“The Dancers have been staying close to us since arriving at Unity Alternate instead of running off and, well, dancing around the star system. Can you find out if they are nervous or something?”

“That’s interesting. The Dancers haven’t volunteered any such feelings, but that is unusual behavior for them,” Charban agreed. “I’ll ask. They did just offer something that I think refers to Invincible. The lieutenants and I were discussing it before sending it on.”

“They aren’t staking a claim to Invincible, are they?” Geary asked. “When we captured it, the Dancers agreed that the Kick warship would be our property.”

“No, it’s not a claim. Here’s what they sent—

“Herd creatures build big,

“Make ship the herd always there,

“To be not alone,” Charban recited.

“The herd always there?” Geary asked. “Are they saying there are still Kicks aboard that ship? How could that be possible? We went over every cubic centimeter inside that hull.”

“I don’t think it’s a reference to Kicks still being on Invincible,” Charban said. “Lieutenant Iger noted the use of present tense, but also the clear reference to herd, which would mean a lot of Kicks. Unless they are physically buried in the structure of the hull, I don’t see how that could be.”

“Wait a minute.” Geary looked toward the depiction of Invincible, remembering his visit aboard her. “People do feel Kicks aboard that ship. I felt them. Like a herd of ghosts everywhere you went. It was incredibly unnerving. If you weren’t part of a large group of people, the sensation could become too much to endure. Even those Syndic special forces that tried to capture or destroy Invincible couldn’t handle it.”

Charban looked suddenly surprised. “To be not alone,” he quoted. “Admiral, it’s that simple. The ghosts are a deliberate design feature. However the Kicks manage to create that sensation, it ensures that no matter where any Kick was on that ship, even if they were the only Kick in that area, they would still feel as if they were surrounded by the herd.”

“You’re kidding.” But the more Geary thought about it, the more sense it made. “It’s not a defense against invaders. It’s a defense against isolation or loneliness for creatures that have to feel surrounded by their comrades at all times.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Charban said. “Humans alone in a place can become worried about ghosts, can become frightened because they are alone, because we are also social creatures. Imagine how a Kick would feel, a creature raised to always be surrounded by its herd, if it were truly alone somewhere? We can understand that. It’s the first thing about the Kicks that we can both understand and empathize with.”

“It probably won’t be adequate grounds for peaceful coexistence,” Desjani pointed out.

“No,” Charban agreed. “It is hard to empathize too much with creatures who regard genocide of any potentially competing species as the natural order of things.”

“Especially since the Kicks appear to believe that just about every other species is competition,” Geary said. “You know, maybe the Dancers know something about Kick technology. They certainly know more about the Kicks than we do. Once we deal with the dark ships, maybe the Dancers can help us figure out how the gear works on Invincible.”

Charban made a face. “Rendering a technical manual into poetry is a challenge probably beyond our skill level, Admiral. At least, it has been so far. I don’t think we can successfully tackle something like The Ballad of the Resonating Quark or The Tuning of the Bipolar Oscillator. Perhaps a check of the fleet will find one of your engineers is an accomplished and talented songwriter. That’s who we will need for that job.”

“An engineer who is also a songwriter?” Desjani asked sarcastically. “That ought to be easy to find.”

“Not so hard as you might think, Captain,” Charban said. “There is an intimate connection between engineering and music. Think of designing or building a musical instrument. It is an exercise in engineering, in stresses and forces, in structures and materials, vibrations and resonances.”

“I never thought of it that way,” she confessed. “For now, I think you should focus on the Admiral’s question about whether the Dancers are nervous. Unity Alternate has me nervous. It’s too quiet here.”

“I agree,” Charban said. “I’m ground force, not space, but even I feel that this is going too easy.”

Sixteen hours after they had arrived at Unity Alternate, and with twenty-two hours to go before they reached the region where the orbiting facilities were located, a message arrived.

Geary watched a trim man in a nondescript suit speak with calm precision. “Your presence here is not authorized. You are directed to leave this star system immediately. Your act of trespass on official government property has already been recorded and will be forwarded to appropriate authorities for action. You are directed to say nothing about this star system until you are contacted by a duly authorized representative of the government. If you continue to approach these Alliance government facilities, which are off-limits to all unauthorized travelers, we will be forced to take any necessary actions, up to and including use of deadly force.”

“Is he for real?” Desjani asked.

“Actually, I’m wondering exactly that,” Geary said. “Is he real? Or are we looking at some recorded warn-off message that was triggered by our own attempts to communicate?”

“Automated comms?” Desjani gestured to her watch-standers. “Check with our experts on whether we can tell if that message was live or not.”

The eventual answer was “no.” “It’s digital,” the comm officer lamented. “We can tell when it was sent, but there’s no attached signature to let us know when it was prepared. Without that time stamp embedded in the message, we can’t tell whether it was put together a few hours ago or six months ago.” The officer paused. “But, presenting merely my opinion, I don’t think this was a live transmission. The wording was very generic, just the sort of thing we get told to put into messages intended for long-term use.”

Geary nodded. “But even if the message was prerecorded, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t sent by someone as opposed to being an automated response.”

“That’s true, Admiral. It doesn’t tell us anything except that whoever occupied those facilities did not have a welcome mat out for visitors.”

Six hours after that, urgent alerts sounded. Geary was already on his way to the bridge again and rushed the final distance, almost leaping into his command seat next to Tanya Desjani’s. “What is it?”

“We’ve probably found some of them,” she said briefly.

It took Geary a moment of studying his display to figure out exactly what he was seeing.

Some of the space docks were opening, their vast doors peeling back. Due to the angle at which the Alliance fleet was looking at the docks, they could not see inside yet, but there was only one plausible reason for those docks to be preparing to launch something. “Whatever is in those docks that are opening up should be easy for us to handle. They can’t hold too large a force.”

He had no sooner ceased speaking than another dock began cracking its doors.

“Will you stop doing that kind of thing?” Desjani growled at him.

But no other docks opened. Those which had begun opening finished the process, their doors fully retracted. And then, nothing happened.

“It’s been half an hour,” Desjani complained. “What are they waiting for?”

“Maybe there isn’t anything inside them,” Geary speculated. “Do you think they may have opened up because they saw us coming? Some automated maintenance function preparing to work on our ships?”

“No equipment in any of those docks is going to land one automated finger on my ship!” She glared at her display as if that would produce more information. “Maybe you’re right, though.”

More alerts sounded. “Or maybe I’m not,” Geary said.

The rounded, sharklike bows that began coming into view as they exited some of the docks were unmistakable in their menace. “Battle cruisers,” Desjani said, sounding eager. “Four of them.”

More, smaller warships began appearing at the dock openings. “Six heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, twenty-one destroyers,” Lieutenant Yuon summarized.

“We can take these down easy,” Desjani exulted.

“If that’s all we’re facing,” Geary said, frowning at his display.

The dark ships had cleared their docks by now, and were gathering into a small, thin, rectangular formation. “Hull feature analysis identifies two of the dark battle cruisers as having been at Bhavan,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “The other two have not been encountered before.”

“The two that missed Bhavan,” Geary said. “I wonder why?”

“Stuff breaks,” Desjani said. “They probably needed something big fixed.”

The dark ship formation was coming around now and accelerating onto an intercept with Geary’s force. “Four hours to contact on current vectors,” Lieutenant Castries said.

Desjani’s satisfaction had faded into suspicion. “They’re making this too easy.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking that,” Geary said. “If those dark ships charge straight into us, we’ll be able to wipe them out on the first pass. Let’s see if they hold on that vector.”

He hadn’t slept nearly enough since arriving at Unity Alternate and found himself dozing off for brief periods in his command seat. An hour later, more alerts jerked him rudely back to alertness.

“More docks opening,” Desjani said. The same sequence followed, the docks opening, then a long pause, then the bows of warships beginning to appear. But this time the first, massive bows that came into view were blunter than those of the battle cruisers. “Battleships.”

“Four battleships,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “Four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, eighteen destroyers.”

Like the dark battle cruisers before them, the battleships formed into a thin, rectangular formation, moving more slowly than the battle cruisers but with a terrible, ponderous assurance. The battleships also came around and accelerated onto vectors aimed at an intercept of Geary’s fleet.

“Tougher, but still nothing we can’t handle,” Desjani said. “They can’t have much more hidden in those docks.”

“I wonder why they didn’t bring them all out together,” Geary said. “Why send out two smaller forces instead of one bigger force?”

“It’s not what you would do,” she agreed. “Their battle cruisers’ vector is still aimed straight at the middle of our formation, which Black Jack definitely would not do under these conditions.”

“What would I be doing?” Geary murmured, trying to put himself in the place of a dark ship commander. “If those dark ships were all I had to defend their installations, I’d try to divert and distract the attacking force, but that would just buy some time even if it worked.” He reached one hand to point to his display. “We’ve got two assets we have to defend. Mistral, and the Dancers.”

“I think the Dancers can take care of themselves,” Desjani objected. “Their ships can outmaneuver even the dark battle cruisers. And if those four dark battle cruisers try to get to Mistral, we’ll blow them apart before they get within range.”

He nodded, thinking. “So why would I be setting up this situation if I was commanding those dark ships? We must be missing some part of the puzzle.”

“There can’t be much more inside the docks,” she repeated. “It’s possible they’ve got something hidden behind one of the stars if they knew we were coming and had time to get into position.”

“Senator Unruh warned me that the dark ships might still be getting information about what we were doing,” Geary said. “And we couldn’t hide our preparations to leave Varandal.”

“But how would the dark ships have known we were coming here?”

“Maybe a leak in Senator Unruh’s camp. Maybe just through thinking what I would do. I realized I had to hit their base. Since they are programmed to think like me, they would realize that I had to hit their base.”

Desjani looked troubled. “Admiral, that makes enough sense that it worries me. They know from Bhavan that they can’t easily force us into an engagement. They would want to choose a new battlefield where they could more easily trap us.”

Like a battlefield without any jump points. One where the only way out was through the hypernet gate—“Oh, no.”

“What?”

“The Alliance was studying how the Syndics were able to block access to their hypernet gates. They were trying to figure out how the Syndics did that so we could counter it. But if some of the Alliance’s researchers figured out what the Syndics were doing—”

“And the people supporting the dark ships found out?” Desjani stared at the depiction of the hypernet gate. “The people who think Black Jack is what stands between them and taking over? Admiral, you are making way too much sense.”

More alerts. “Warships coming out from behind Star Alpha,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “It’s a big force. Ten battle cruisers and a lot of escorts. Our systems are still identifying numbers—” He broke off as the alerts redoubled. “Warships detected near Star Beta. Two formations, each holding six battleships and numerous escort vessels.”

“That’s all of the dark ships,” Desjani said, calmer and composed now that the trap had sprung on them. “Every battle cruiser and battleship that they’ve got left. It’s us or them this time. No other options.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure it is them, not us.” Brave words. Geary looked at the dark ship formations converging on the path of his own force, added up their firepower and their maneuverability superior to those of his own ships, and gazed at the depiction of the hypernet gate that very likely offered no means of escape. He could not help wondering if he had finally made the final, critical error that he had been fearing since being thrust into command of the Alliance fleet at Prime.