Shattered Spear

Chapter Fifteen

Leytenant Mack had only been with Midway’s mobile forces since he and his ship had been captured at Ulindi not all that long ago. It had been a pleasant surprise to learn that it was possible to fight for reasons other than avoiding court-martial and execution by your own side. He had genuinely enjoyed his time working with people like Colonel Rogero.

“All good things come to an end,” Mack observed as he looked at his display.

The troop transport HTTU 332, along with Midway’s other troop transport, was accelerating for all they were worth away from the planet where Rogero’s soldiers had been dropped. Mack had taken Rogero’s advice and directed both transports to chase down the vector of Midway’s warships, reasoning that even though they had no chance of catching up with the friendly forces, it was at least movement in the only direction that offered any hope of survival. A few light minutes ahead of them were the Syndicate troop transports which had fled earlier, and much closer were the Syndicate freighters, which were lumbering desperately after the transports they had once accompanied but falling farther behind with every meter covered.

The maneuvers might have worked to keep the transports and the freighters safe. Might have, except for the thirty-three enigma warships that had spat out of a massive hole that had appeared on the surface of the planet. Those warships, once clearing atmosphere, had lined up on direct intercepts with Mack’s transports, and beyond them the Syndicate freighters and transports. And, being considerably more nimble than the big transports, the enigmas were making up the distance fast.

“Should the crew abandon ship?” his senior specialist asked.

Mack sighed and spread his open hands in the age-old gesture of frustration. “You saw when they destroyed the Syndicate flotilla what they do to escape pods. We might as well die in what comfort this old ship offers.” HTTU 332 had only been manufactured a year earlier, but since the life span of troop transports during the war was usually measured in months, that made 332 an old lady by the standards everyone used.

The senior specialist rubbed two fingers of one hand on her new insignia that marked her as a Midway forces specialist rather than a Syndicate worker. “I didn’t really look forward to deciding who got to go in the escape pods,” she admitted.

“The Syndicate told us to just line the people up and have them count off from a random start point,” Mack reminded her. “Evens go, odds stay.” The Syndicate, having calculated that on average a transport ship lost half the crew before being abandoned, only provided enough escape pods for the half of the crew that was assumed to still be alive. “I was an even, once.”

“Me, too. I still remember the ones who were left behind. Didn’t want to see that again.” She checked her own display. “We’ve got less than an hour before they catch us. Those freighters up ahead have less than that. We’re going to be passing them soon.”

An alert sounded, causing the specialist to shift her attention. “The pirate’s forces have changed their vector. Instead of going after our flotilla, they’re now on a direct intercept with us as well.”

Mack shook his head at his display, watching the arcs of the paths of ships through space converging on his own ship’s projected movement. After so many near misses and so many escapes, this situation offered no hope at all. He wondered why he felt numb instead of frightened. “They’ll get here about the same time the enigmas do. We should start a pool on which side kills us.”

“What’s the payoff?” the specialist asked.

“Bonus time off, at a future date to be determined,” Mack said.

That got a tense smile from the specialist. The Syndicate liked to offer awards exactly like that, awards that often never actually got awarded. “I’ll let the crew know.”

He glanced her way, feeling the need to say something. “I’ve always treated the crew as decently as I could.”

“Yes, sir, you have, and the crew appreciates that.” She managed another rigid smile. “You never would have died at the hands of your own workers.”

“That’s something, I guess.” No one knew how many Syndicate supervisors had been killed by their own workers, but the fact that the Syndicate officially denied it ever happened was a clear indicator of how often it did take place. A minor, fixable problem would have resulted in huge crackdowns that caused at least as much trouble as the problem they were designed to fix. But a big problem that couldn’t be fixed by a crackdown had to be wished away, declared not to exist, even if the hatches to supervisors’ staterooms were armored and alarmed and the supervisors always carried hand weapons.

Mack made a show of relaxing back into his seat, trying to fool himself as well as any members of the crew who could see him as he gazed at the display where two strong forces were racing to see which would be first to get close enough to destroy his ship. He hoped whoever managed it would then be destroyed by the other side.

“Fifty-one of them,” Marphissa said, her voice bleak “With the thirty-three that popped out of that planet we now face more enigma warships than we did before that Syndicate flotilla sacrificed itself.”

“We have the battleship,” Kontos said.

“Damn Imallye. Instead of helping us, she’s helping the enigmas. Does she actually think they’ll be grateful and avoid destroying her afterward?”

“She must know better,” Kontos said. He gave Marphissa a questioning glance. “We think Imallye’s behavior is crazy. Would the enigmas? Given what they have seen of humans?”

“They probably consider it to be typical human behavior,” Marphissa said. She frowned at him. “Are you thinking that maybe Imallye is playing a deeper game than it looks? President Iceni suggested the same to me. No one knows, though, and the Imallye I talked with at Moorea seemed to be absolutely serious. I have no doubt that she would have destroyed Manticore if she had caught us.”

“Several more hours and we’ll find out for sure,” Kontos observed. “If she wipes out our transports on the way to catch us, that will make it clear that she means every word she said. Or she might bypass them and keep us guessing.”

“If she messes with us any more I swear that I will make it hurt when I kill her,” Marphissa grumbled, then refocused on the enigmas up ahead. The enigmas were coming to meet her flotilla straight on, probably intending to wipe out this force just as they had the Syndicate flotilla. It was possible that they would dodge at the last moment, though, intending to lure the two remaining human flotillas into combat with each other so they could finish off whoever survived that fight. Marphissa had no intention of permitting that. She would force a clash with the enigmas long before Imallye could come into contact, dealing with one implacable enemy at a time.

Bradamont’s plans to deal with the small Syndicate force at Midway that was bigger than her own received a rude interruption when another alert sounded.

“We have just detected the arrival of another Syndicate formation, this one at the hypernet gate,” Manticore’s senior watch specialist reported. “One heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and five Hunter-Killers.”

“They’ve now got us outnumbered two to one,” Diaz said. He didn’t sound despairing about that. Instead, he seemed irritated at the enemy’s moves.

“I’ll have to change Kapitan Stein’s orders,” Bradamont said. She had to think before touching the proper comm controls. The Alliance always positioned that particular control here and the Syndicate always put it there. That was aggravating enough with physical controls, but especially maddening with virtual controls that the Syndicate Worlds had programmed in such a way that they couldn’t be customized.

“Kapitan Stein,” Bradamont sent, “cancel your previous orders to join up with us. You are to instead close on and shadow the Syndicate flotilla that arrived at the hypernet gate. If you have the opportunity to hit part of that flotilla without risking your entire force, do so, but avoid a straight-up engagement that might wipe out both that flotilla and your own formation. As long as you are close enough to hit them, that Syndicate force will have to spend its time worrying about what you’ll do rather than pursuing its own mission.”

She paused before ending the call, then decided what to say. “To the honor of our ancestors and for the people of Midway, Bradamont, out.”

That new ending phrase, combining that of the Alliance and of these men and women from Midway, got her approving looks from the crew members on the bridge and a surprised smile from Kapitan Diaz. “You’re becoming one of us, Captain!” he said. Then the smile faded, and Diaz nodded toward his display. “What will we do?”

“Keep them busy, Kapitan,” Bradamont said. “Repeated firing passes. They’ll keep trying to arrange those passes to hit us hard with all of their advantage in numbers, and we’ll keep dodging their attacks and trying to hit portions of their formation with everything that we’ve got. We need to wear them down and keep them busy.”

“I understand and—” Diaz broke off the old Syndic reply to an order and gave her a glance. “Yes, Captain.”

She nodded firmly back at him. Bradamont knew Diaz well enough by this time to know that he realized how hard their task would be. Kapitan Stein could afford to make a few mistakes because the Syndicate flotilla from the hypernet gate roughly equaled her own force. But the Syndicate flotilla that she and Diaz were dealing with had enough superiority in numbers that a single mistake might result in a disastrous encounter.

And there would be far too many opportunities for such a mistake over the next few days as Midway’s forces tried to wear down the Syndicate attackers.

Colonel Rogero watched from a distance as carefully placed explosive charges toppled large rocks into the massive hole that was the exit hatch for enigma warships from their buried base. The rocks, all located near the edge of the hole, tipped over and were gone, plummeting into the dark soup below and vanishing from Rogero’s sensors.

He and numerous scouts had extended whip-antenna-like surveillance probes from the shoulders of their uniforms so they could watch the rocks fall. The probes, limited in their capabilities by small dimensions meant to prevent them from being spotted, should have been able to get a decent look down the hole. But something not far inside that hole was blocking every bandwidth the probes could normally see.

“No reaction,” reported the commander of the combat engineer detachment that had toppled the rocks.

“I noticed,” Rogero replied. The enigmas had shown an extremely impressive ability to spot and almost instantly destroy anything from Rogero’s force that could either attack down the hole or provide any information about what might be beyond that murky shroud of concealment. Using the rocks had been an attempt to see if a volley of useless decoys could divert the attention and the fire of the enigmas enough to get something else down the hole, but the aliens had simply ignored the rocks.

He hoped the rocks would at least break something when they hit the bottom, however far down that was.

His soldiers had been pinned down for several hours now, their numbers being slowly whittled down by the unremitting barrages of the enigmas, which alternated unpredictably between periods of minor harassing fire and shorter but far more intense torrents of incoming weapons. The medics, moving despite the risks, were keeping as many alive and capable as possible, but they couldn’t do miracles.

Rogero ran down the status of his soldiers, studying the data that scrolled past on his helmet display. Everyone was running low on active countermeasures, and other critical elements like power and water were being steadily depleted. The enigmas weren’t showing any signs of suffering from limited supplies, though, especially when it came to expendable munitions. Either they had immense stockpiles in place underground, or they had already set up the means to manufacture replacement weapons at a rate that could sustain these continuing barrages.

“Colonel?” the commander of the engineer unit called. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Are you angling for a promotion or a court-martial?” Rogero asked. This was the sort of situation that called for dark humor.

“Not me, sir,” she denied. “Neither one. The aliens must have a way to close this hatch, but they haven’t done it.”

“Which means?”

“Which means they want to leave it open, and its being open is why we’re here around it, sir.”

He got it. “It’s bait. They left open a huge door, ringed with defenses. And like moths drawn to a flame we’ve been sitting here.”

“Yes, sir. You know I’m no coward, sir, but I think they want us to charge down that hole. I don’t think we should.”

“I was coming to the same conclusion.” Rogero studied his display again. Scouts moving cautiously about the area had failed to spot any other openings into the base. There must be other hatches, there must be vents of some kind, but none had been found. Whatever the enigmas had placed beneath the soil was blocking the scout sensors as effectively as it had the sensors on the troop transport. He couldn’t order the engineers to just dig down at random spots. That would generate enough activity that the enigmas would quickly detect it and destroy the diggers.

His soldiers had finally been able to find and destroy a few of the launchers being used to rain death down on them, but only a few. The enigmas had proven as good at hiding launchers as everything else.

They’re better than us at this, Rogero realized. Or so different that we don’t know how to handle it. I can’t even get into their base to attack it.

He glanced upward again. The battle armor sensors had spotted the destruction of some large ships close enough to the planet that they must have been among those that had landed people here. Were all of the transports already gone? Would there be any pickup if Rogero called for evacuation now?

Space battles took time. He knew that. If the Kommodor beat their many enemies in space, she would come get Rogero and his troops afterward. And staying here in the meanwhile was simply wasting the lives of his soldiers.

Rogero traced out some troop orders on his display, then called all of his unit commanders. “Listen up. We’re going to fall back by sections toward the positions that were occupied by the Syndicate ground forces. We don’t know how many are left or if they are still hostile, but we need to get access to whatever supplies they managed to land. The scouts will continue to screen this hole in case any enigma ground forces issue from it to hit us as we reposition. Everyone else will regress toward the Syndicate ground forces site, firing on Syndicate soldiers only if first fired upon. Accept surrender if it is offered. Any questions? Move!”

Large numbers of soldiers began crawling and scuttling back toward the Syndicate site, while others held position and covered their movement.

The enigmas spotted something and launched another heavy barrage.

Rogero huddled between two substantial rocks, gazing grimly outward. It would take a while to get his soldiers moved between barrages, and then he would have to worry about surviving snakes or terrified Syndicate workers continuing the human war while the aliens lashed at both sides.

At least no flying monkeys had shown up yet.

Leytenant Mack had watched as the enigma pursuit got closer and closer to his ship at a steadily increasing rate as the alien ships outaccelerated what the troop transports could manage. He had watched, because that was all he could do. His transport lacked all but a few, minor weapons, lacked armor, and had fairly weak shields for a ship of its size.

But he was still better off than the four Syndicate freighters. Mack’s two transports had surged past the freighters twenty minutes ago. The freighters, in a vain attempt to see if the enigmas would chase the transports instead of them, had angled off to the side and down. Mack had tried to think of ways to help the freighter crews, but their maneuver had taken them too far from the track of his transports. About twelve minutes after Mack’s transports had passed them, the enigma formation had swung over and overtaken the freighters one by one, annihilating each in turn. The crews of two of the freighters had tried to flee in the one escape pod available on each freighter, but the enigmas had blown both pods apart with brutal efficiency.

The enigmas, having lost only a little time, eased back onto direct intercepts with Mack’s ships.

In less than ten minutes, Mack’s transports would meet the same fate as the freighters. The Syndicate troop transports would survive perhaps half an hour longer before the enigmas reached them as well.

Even if there had been any chance of evading the alien attack, the pirate flotilla charging toward the transports would have been impossible to escape.

Despite his attempts to avoid thinking about it, Mack found himself wondering if he would get a quick death, or if the pain would last awhile before the end came. He would learn the answer soon enough.

With both the enigmas and Imallye’s formation converging on the two Midway troop transports, the aliens and the pirate’s ships were roughly even with each other, Imallye’s forces slightly higher and farther away from the star than were the enigmas who had launched from the planet. Imallye’s ships had accelerated up to point three light speed, so they had come from behind the enigmas to a position slightly ahead. The enigmas were also accelerating, but since their launch from the planet had only made it up to point two light speed.

So when Imallye’s ships suddenly altered their vectors a bit to starboard and slightly down, they rapidly closed to within range of their weapons, the relative speed between the pirate’s ships and the alien warships slightly less than point one light speed.

Leytenant Mack stared in disbelief as the battle cruisers and heavy cruisers in Imallye’s force unleashed missiles on the leading enigma warships, following quickly with hell lances and grapeshot as the range dwindled. The enigmas were firing back, but Imallye’s pass was too swift and her track too far ahead of the alien formation for most of the enigma ships to engage her warships. A half dozen of the enigma craft at the front of their formation exploded or took damage serious enough to knock them out of the fight, while Imallye’s ships took only a few hits.

In the wake of the attack the enigmas kept accelerating, continuing their pursuit of the transports, en route to a linkup with the rest of the enigma armada.

But instead of swinging out wide, Imallye shifted her ships through a tight vector change to port, using her still-superior velocity and the small differences in the course of the two formations to veer across the front of the enigma formation again.

This time five enigma ships were knocked out.

With a third of their number lost, the enigmas finally broke off, bending downward in a vast curve that was still tighter than any human warship could manage.

“A message from Vengeance,” the senior specialist gasped to Mack.

Feeling dazed, he accepted it, seeing the image of Granaile Imallye before him. Black skin suit, large knife, large hand weapon, glittering insignia, and a small smile on her lips. “I bought you some time, Iceni’s minion. Keep going and hope she can protect you from the other group of enigmas. This group won’t get past my ships.”

Mack had to swallow before he could speak. “Th-thank you, honored… honored…”

Imallye made a cutting motion with one hand. “I’m busy. Contact those Syndicate transports ahead of you and tell them I’d be happy to accept them into my forces after this fight is over. Or they can die, if that’s their preference. Out.”

Her image vanished.

Mack managed to breathe in deeply, then gestured to his senior specialist with one hand that shook as he tried to point with it. “Get me a link to those Syndicate transports.”

The specialist nodded, biting her lip. “You’re going to do what she said?”

“Am I going to do what Imallye said? Hell, yes, I am going to do what Imallye said! Anyone who disapproves is welcome to trade places with me for the last hour!”

Despite the damage that Manticore’s formation had endured so far, Bradamont felt herself smiling. Kapitan Stein on Gryphon had caught the flotilla she was fighting in a perfect firing run, angling in from one side as the Syndicate formation tried to loop upward, that had knocked out one of the light cruisers and two of the Hunter-Killers. Stein had lost one of her HuKs, damaged and out of the fight but hopefully salvageable. But over two hours ago she had hurt the Syndicate flotilla facing Gryphon’s force badly enough that it had turned and run back for the hypernet gate. “Kapitan Stein, excellent work. Continue pursuit until the Syndicate flotilla you are fighting enters the hypernet gate, then come on and join us so we can get rid of this Syndicate flotilla as well.”

It would take nearly half a day yet, but at some point Midway’s combined flotilla would nearly equal the remaining Syndicate flotilla, and from what she had already seen of the Syndicate commander, she knew she could hold him off indefinitely with that force. Or at least until the rest of Midway’s warships returned.

“Watch him,” she warned Diaz. “The commander of the flotilla we’re facing will have also seen the other flotilla fleeing and know that Gryphon will be coming to join with us. He’ll be trying harder to knock us out fast and may take some unexpected risks. Don’t give him any openings.”

Gwen Iceni rubbed her chin as she saw that another reply had come in from Imallye. Sighing, she accepted the call.

Imallye wasn’t on the bridge of her battle cruiser, but in what was obviously her stateroom, decorated with some small but ostentatious examples of the loot she must have acquired from conquered worlds. Imallye wore a smile this time. Not a friendly smile. More like the smile of a co-conspirator who didn’t trust her cohorts. “I’ll always hate you, Iceni, but I hate the Syndicate more. The Syndicate used you to get my father. They thought they could use me to help get you and other disloyal elements. I don’t know what the enigmas think, but I can see what they did, and my sources within the Syndicate told me that Black Jack suspects the enigmas think they can use humans to get other humans.”

She leaned closer, intent, her eyes searching as if they could see Iceni. “I sent agents to study you. I wanted to know who you were using, so I could use those people against you. But my agents said they couldn’t find anyone. They kept reporting that you were acting so clean that the snakes were getting very suspicious of you. My agents wondered why any Syndicate CEO would fail to use people. They didn’t realize that you might actually be feeling guilty.”

Imallye leaned back again, smiling slightly once more. “Maybe you are. Do you know why I named this ship Vengeance? To always remind myself that only mindless machines let their actions be dictated by anger and attempts at revenge. The snakes didn’t realize that, of course, though they didn’t trust me, either. It took me a long time to find every snake that the Syndicate had planted among my crews and locate every piece of malware they had sown in my ships’ systems. Your Kommodor helped with that when she employed that piece of snake malware against me since it provided me with an up-to-date example of the latest snake tricks. But I had to wait a little longer, until those governing the star systems I had allegedly conquered were ready to set in motion actual overthrows of Syndicate authority.

“I didn’t want to reveal my intentions while the snakes held so many hostages on that planet, but your ground forces commander must have somehow figured out how to make the enigmas kill every snake on the ground for him. Once I had confirmed that, well…” She waved around casually. “A lot of snakes died a short time ago on my ships here. Some sort of epidemic, do you think? And all of their malware was rendered useless before it could cause catastrophic failures. I am free to act as I will. We have two common enemies. I will always hate you for what you caused to happen to my father, but I have admired from afar your repeated frustrating of the Syndicate’s plans. And you have some powerful friends. One very powerful friend named Black Jack among them. I would like him to be my friend, too. Once we have swept the enigmas from this star system, we will talk about what to do with Iwa. My ships will not fire upon yours unless they are fired upon first, or if an attack seems imminent. I trust you will continue to operate with discretion. Now, if you will forgive me, I have some more enemies to dispose of.”

Her lips quirked as if Imallye was fighting down another smile. “For the people, Imallye, out.”

Iceni stared at the place where Imallye’s image had been, then laughed. “You devious bitch! You completely fooled me. And you fooled the Syndicate into giving you the warships and star systems you now control. Brilliant. I do not want someone as dangerous as you as an enemy.” She tapped a comm control. “Kommodor Marphissa, I am pleased to inform you that Imallye’s flotilla will not attack us. She says she will deal with the enigma warships that launched from the planet.”

Marphissa shook her head in denial. “Madam President, we can’t afford to believe—” She looked to one side. “She’s changed the vector on her ships. They’re not heading to intercept our transports.”

Iceni pulled up her own display, and watched as Imallye’s warships in a couple of whipsaw passes took out a third of the enigma force chasing the transports. “I’d say that is pretty powerful proof that Imallye meant what she said.”

“She could still stab us in the back,” Marphissa argued.

“I agree. We will not give her the opportunity to do so. Focus your full attention on destroying the first enigma force, which is probably about to realize that their ambush has blown up in their faces, and I will maintain a watch on Imallye to see if she maneuvers at any point to be able to hit us by surprise.”

“Thirty minutes to contact with enigma armada one,” the senior watch specialist announced.

Marphissa eyed the oncoming enemy, who had long ago steadied out on vectors aiming straight for where the center of her formation would be when the two forces made contact. She had already pivoted her warships so the sterns, and the main propulsion units, were facing the enemy. It would be necessary to brake soon to ensure the meeting with the enigmas was slow enough to allow some hits on the enemy.

The enigmas would brake their velocity as well, she knew. The aliens wanted to destroy her flotilla as thoroughly as they had the Syndicate flotilla.

And she wouldn’t make the mistake of assuming they would go straight through her formation and risk going head-to-head with the battleship. No, the enigmas would maneuver, and it wasn’t hard to guess what their target would be.

What would the enigmas expect her to do?

After so many encounters with different foes, Marphissa was surprised at the answer that came to her. Yet it felt right.

“All units in Midway flotilla, immediate execute, reduce velocity to point one light speed.” Having given that order, Marphissa swiftly tagged two people on her comm panel, then gestured Kontos to join the discussion.

“You don’t need my approval,” President Iceni began.

“I am not asking for approval,” Marphissa explained. “I want your opinion. And those of Kapitans Mercia and Kontos as well. I was trying to anticipate what the enigmas would expect me to do, what final maneuver they would think I would conduct just before contact, and I realized they would not expect me to maneuver at all. They will expect me to hold course, straight through them.”

She waited while the others reacted to her statement, then as they thought about it.

“Just as the CEO of the Syndicate flotilla did?” Kontos asked. “But we just saw his flotilla being destroyed.”

Iceni was nodding, though. “How many flotillas were destroyed in a similar way during the war with the Alliance? We kept doing it. Both sides kept doing it. It was all we knew. And sometimes it worked.”

“They know we have changed,” Mercia said.

“Do they?” Marphissa asked. “We have not fought the enigmas before. The Syndicate has, and the Syndicate continues to usually employ the same tactics it always has.”

Iceni nodded again, her eyes thoughtful. “The enigmas know that Black Jack’s fleet fights differently, but they also know that we are not Black Jack. What they know of warships like ours is that they fight like that CEO led them to fight.”

“And that we do not let failure cause us to change our tactics,” Marphissa said. “The enigmas will expect us to do the same as always. They have not fought us before. They have not seen us fight that we know of. We will surprise them if we maneuver on the final approach.”

“Maneuver how?” Mercia asked.

“The enigmas will target Pele and our heavy cruisers. They can take out all three of those ships in their first pass if they can concentrate their fire on them. Agreed?” Everyone nodded. “So I will jog the formation upward, changing who the mass of enigma ships encounter.”

“Midway,” Kapitan Mercia said.

“Yes,” Marphissa said. “Not a battle cruiser with limited armament and armor and shields, but a battleship.”

Iceni looked down and off to the side, thinking. “Even a battleship will take some damage from an assault like that.”

“Agreed,” said Mercia. “But it is what battleships do. It’s what Midway is made for.”

“Is there a risk we’ll lose Midway?” Iceni asked.

“Based on our analysis of what we’ve seen of the firepower of the enigma warships, there is only a small chance,” Marphissa said. “Mostly due to the possibility of a suicide ramming such as the enigmas attempted against some of Black Jack’s ships.”

“They attempted the suicide ramming when that seemed their only remaining option,” Kontos pointed out. “And if they are not expecting Midway to be where they encounter her, they will not have a ship in position to ram in any case.”

“Hopefully,” Marphissa agreed. “We could hurt them badly during the first engagement. We must hurt them badly then, because they will know to avoid the battleship after that, and a battleship cannot bring the battle to warships as agile as the enigma craft against their will.”

There was a moment’s silence as everyone waited for Iceni to render her opinion. Finally, Iceni nodded. “I think your reasoning is sound, Kommodor. I look forward to seeing it employed.”

“Thank you, Madam President. Do you wish to transfer—?”

“No. I will remain aboard this ship.”

Mercia nodded to Marphissa. “Let’s show them what a real battleship can do.”

“Stand by for maneuvering orders,” Marphissa said, then ended the call.

“I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Kontos confessed. “The battleships are so slow, I think I stopped thinking about them as anything but defensive assets.”

She shook her head at him. “The trick is getting the enemy to bash his head against your strongest point, right? These enigmas think they know us, but what they know is the Syndicate.”

The enigmas had begun braking as well. Both forces were sweeping together for a first clash that might well decide who would triumph.

“You’re in command?” Rogero asked as he knelt in the ruins of a portable command shelter littered with the remains of those who had been in the shelter when the initial enigma attack hit. Most of his soldiers had fallen back to this area, only some scouts remaining to watch the enigma hole for signs of new trouble.

The Syndicate soldier facing him nodded, the gesture wobbling with weariness. “Senior Worker Hams. All of our supervisors are dead, either in the first attack or soon afterward. Are you who I talked to before you landed? You sound like him.”

Rogero nodded. “Yes. What about snakes?”

Hams managed a snort of laughter. “All dead. Some were just wounded in the first strike, but they, uh, didn’t survive their wounds. We made sure of that. What the hell are we fighting?”

“They’re called enigmas. We know very little about them. But we’ve now learned they are very tough in ground combat situations.”

“Yeah.” Hams lowered his head, then raised it again with some difficulty. “We’re about one-third strength, I think. Lost a lot of people.”

“How are the citizens?” Rogero asked.

“Most of them are all right. They were separated from the ground forces and wearing nothing but survival suits, so the enemy weapons haven’t targeted them.”

A warning sounded on Rogero’s armor. He and Worker Hams lay flat as another major barrage by the enigmas swept over the area.

“How long can they keep this up?” Hams asked despairingly as the assault waned again. “We’ve got nobody to shoot at. Just distance weapons tearing us up.”

“Can your people pull back?” Rogero asked. “We’re still sitting over what may be part of their base.”

“We are? Damned CEOs! Why did they drop—”

“Answer,” Rogero snapped, knowing the Syndicate-standard command would shock Hams out of his fatigue-induced rage.

“I understand and will comply.” Hams gestured to his right. “If your unit helps, we can move. Cover us, help us get the wounded moved. We can do it. But the citizens… the aliens haven’t targeted them yet. If they start moving, though…”

That was a problem. Rogero wished he could rub his forehead through his helmet visor, but the atmosphere of this wreck of a planet was even more toxic than usual thanks to all of the enigma weapons that had detonated in this area. “How many of your supplies are left? My people need active countermeasure reloads and replacement power packs.”

Hams lowered his head again, shaking it slowly from side to side. “Nothing. All blown to pieces. The shuttles just dropped it all over the place, and the enemy weapons have been tearing it up ever since they opened fire. Sir, we’re gone. It’s over. Right? Nobody’s coming for us.”

“Wrong,” Rogero said, as calmly and forcefully as he could. “My side has a flotilla up there, including a battleship.”

“A battleship?” The hope in the question was easy to hear. “But we’re just workers—”

“Listen. One of our heavy cruisers risked itself to pull three workers off this planet who had survived the attack that destroyed the Syndicate base here. You understand? They weren’t our people. They weren’t supervisors. They were just workers who needed help. And our mobile forces came for them. They’ll come for us, too, and they’ll pull you off with us.” Rogero made that sound as if it were a certainty. And it would be, if the Midway flotilla survived the fights with the enigmas and the pirate.

Hams stayed silent, looking at Rogero. “Sir, that’s… hard to believe.”

“Two of them came back with my unit. They volunteered to come back. You can talk to them. But first, I need you to tell everyone in your unit that all humans down here are on the same side.”

“Sir, you could have wiped us out if you wanted. I surrender the unit.”

“I don’t want you to surrender, I need you to keep fighting alongside my soldiers! Can you do that?”

Hams nodded. “I understand and will comply.” He sounded a lot steadier now. “Let me get the word out.”

“Go.” Rogero settled back against a broken section of portable wall, breathing deeply and trying to believe that they still had a chance.