Steadfast

Fifteen

“Lieutenant Iger,” Geary said with slow force, “do you know anything about this? Anything that could explain this? Even in rumors?”

“No, sir. I have no idea what’s going on here.” Iger sounded uncharacteristically angry. “There’s something… odd. We’re intercepting video that’s supposed to be showing the dark ships, and there’s nothing on it. I would think everyone at Indras has gone crazy, but there’s no doubt that destruction has taken place and is ongoing.”

Geary fixed a glare on his display, which continued to report attacks under way but offered no trace of any attackers. “Communications. Set up a conference call for me, Captain Desjani, Captain Badaya on Illustrious, and Captain Tulev on Leviathan.”

A little more than a minute later, Geary appeared to face Captains Badaya and Tulev in their command seats on their own ships, Desjani also linked in next to him. “Does anyone have any idea what’s happening here?”

“They’re definitely under attack,” Badaya said. “I recommend we maintain all of our ships at full combat readiness until we figure out who is attacking them and whether they are also hostile to us.”

“It is like the enigmas,” Tulev said. “But we have rescreened the systems on Leviathan and can find no trace of software of any kind that might be corrupting our systems to hide these attackers from us.”

“What would the enigmas be doing at Indras, anyway?” Badaya demanded. “This is probably some Syndic secret weapon that has turned on them. Or something one of their rebel star systems is using to hit back.”

“The locals are reporting that they can see what they call the dark ships,” Geary said. “Why would the attackers of a Syndic star system blind our sensors and not those of the Syndics? The Syndic government itself has no reason to attack one of their own star systems, and from the amount of damage we can see, the attacking force has to be much larger than anything we believe the Syndics or any rebellious star systems have in this part of space.”

“If it’s a Syndic worm,” Badaya began again.

“We would have found it already!” Desjani insisted. “My code monkeys are good. As good as they come.”

“Could the Dancers have planted something in our systems?” Tulev asked. “Something as different from what we know as the enigma quantum-coded worms were?”

“That’s not impossible,” Geary said. “But why? What possible reason could they have for doing that, and why would the Dancers somehow assist whoever is attacking Indras?”

“I just double-checked,” Desjani said. “We’ve maintained full isolation of the comm gear that talks to the Dancers. The only way they could have infected our systems is if they have worms that can leave the gear, invisibly crawl across the deck to other compartments, and wriggle into the equipment there. And if they can do that, then we’re dealing with tech so much higher and different than ours that the odds of even spotting it seem impossible.”

“Then what about the Kicks?” Badaya asked, instantly shifting focus. “We had that ship of theirs with us for a long time. Something aboard that, which leapfrogged through the Marine and Fleet systems, slowly infecting every ship.”

“A contagion off of Invincible?” Geary considered that, his eyes shifting briefly to his display as another Syndic installation at Indras blew up under the impact of bombardment projectiles that were invisible to the Alliance warships.

“These can’t be Kick ships attacking Indras,” Desjani protested. “How would they have gotten here? And the attackers are using bombardment projectiles, which as far as we know the Kicks don’t even carry. Besides, according to my people, the stuff we found on Invincible was totally different from our own. How could Kick software have migrated to our systems when their systems and software don’t match ours at all?”

A momentary silence fell. “We seem to have run out of possible sources for whatever is blinding our systems,” Tulev finally said. “What other enemies does this fleet face?”

“Do you mean besides our own headquarters and government?” Badaya asked sarcastically.

Geary stared at him without speaking for a few seconds. “Tanya, you say your code monkeys are absolutely certain that there’s nothing in our systems that isn’t supposed to be there?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied forcefully. “Not unless it’s something totally new and unusual, using principles totally different from anything we’ve used or considered or encountered or imagined up to now.”

“Captain Tulev? Captain Badaya? Do the system security people on your ships concur in that?”

Both of them nodded. “I wish we still had Captain Cresida here to address the problem,” Tulev added. “But I do not think even she would have any answers.”

“There goes another HuK,” Desjani said. “He was obviously running from something that caught him. I’ve never been in a fight where I can only see one side. Admiral, what are you driving at?”

“I used to read old detective stories,” Geary said. “Really old stuff. In one of them, the detective said that once you eliminate all other possibilities, whatever is left must be the answer. I never forgot that. And now, it seems we’ve eliminated the possibility of unauthorized software messing up our systems and even wiping out images of these attackers from Syndic videos that we’re intercepting. What’s left?”

“Authorized software?” Tulev asked, a rare amount of surprise inflecting his words.

“Yes. Something that’s supposed to be there that’s causing this and isn’t tripping any security screens because it’s not a worm or a virus or anything else. It’s part of the official system software.”

“Why would fleet headquarters do such a thing?” Tulev said.

Badaya began to answer, but Geary spoke quickly to cut him off. “Maybe they didn’t. Maybe the government didn’t. Maybe certain offices or secret programs did it, and a lot of high-ranking people don’t even know it was done. Maybe part of the government did it, maybe segments of fleet headquarters. If my guess is true, that is. Get your people looking.”

“For what?” Badaya asked, plaintive now.

Tulev answered with dispassionate logic. “We do not know under what name or subsystem the software can be found, but we do know what it must be doing. If we know what it must do, then we can search for software that carries out such functions, no matter where it is located.”

“Exactly,” Geary said. “While we search, I’m going to take the task force toward the jump point for Kalixa, but only at point zero five light speed.”

If he had felt powerless while observing events at Midway, here at Indras Geary felt a sense of bizarre incomprehension watching a literally one-sided battle as the Alliance task force swung along the outer edges of the star system.

“Admiral, we have a call from the Syndics. An emergency comm routing. They must be using some alternate command systems.”

That would hardly be surprising given the amount of damage they could see to the regular command systems at Indras. “Bounce it to me.”

The CEO Geary saw was not Yamada. Neither was she immaculately dressed and displaying a false, calculated expression. She looked, in fact, like someone who had just had her normal routine bombed out from under her. “This is an act of war! The Alliance has blatantly and openly attacked us without any warning, causing immense property damage and loss of life! I demand that you cease all attacks and withdraw from this star system immediately!”

Desjani exhaled in exasperation. “She thinks we’re attacking them? Can’t she tell we’re not firing, and that this attack was well under way before we even got here?”

“I wish I knew who or what was attacking them,” Geary said. He tapped reply. “To the leaders of Indras, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We are not attacking you. None of my ships have fired on you, nor will they unless attacked themselves. We are currently trying to determine the identity of the ships that are attacking Indras, but I swear on my honor that they are not under my command and not subject to my orders. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

Over the next hour, there were signs that the attack was tapering off as fewer targets were destroyed. “Captain,” Lieutenant Castries said, “from the pattern of the attacks, it looks like the attacking ships may be withdrawing toward the jump point for Kalixa.”

“Could they be a threat to Atalia?” Geary wondered. “And will they stop at Atalia or go on to Alliance space?”

Desjani kept her voice very low. “If we can’t see them because of something that official sources in the Alliance did, that implies—”

“I know what it implies. I also know that even if that is true, I can’t assume those ships aren’t a threat to the Alliance as long as I don’t know who they are.”

Hours later, the same female Syndic CEO replied to Geary, her suit slightly neater and her expression much angrier. Whatever emergency bunker she occupied was overcrowded, filled with both people and a sense of shock that Geary could feel even through the medium of the message. “You must think us fools. The attackers are withdrawing toward Alliance space. I have no idea how many people have died today! Your government had better be prepared to answer for this!”

Geary looked down, his jaw tight enough to hurt. “If this was the work of someone in the Alliance, they just bought us a lot more trouble then we had before.”

Desjani sounded more subdued than usual as she replied. “My guys think they’ve found something. They’re seeing what they can do with it.”

Geary’s display rippled. As it did so, two new contacts suddenly appeared for a moment near the jump point for Kalixa. “What was that? Are they gone?”

“They probably jumped,” Desjani confirmed. “We’re lucky we caught a glimpse of them. My code monkeys think that they’ve found the answer. There’s at least one subroutine hidden in part of the sensor-system software that seems to be selectively blocking some detection data. It’s— What the hell happened to the images of those ships we spotted before they jumped?”

“Captain, they’re… gone,” Lieutenant Castries said, sounding horrified and mystified. “They vanished from the displays, and I can’t find any traces of them in system records.”

“Looks like there’s more wonky software to find,” Geary said.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Desjani looked as angry as he could recall ever seeing her. “What my guys found is definitely human work and definitely part of one of the regular system software updates. That’s how they found it so fast, by focusing on the updates instead of going through the bajillion lines of code on these ships line by line. They are pretty sure it ties in with integrated subroutines in other system software throughout the ship, which this disappearing imagery just confirmed. They are trying to run those down now.”

Geary stared at his display. “Someone officially inserted subroutines into our ship’s software that prevent us from seeing those dark ships.” He didn’t feel triumphant at his guess having been proven right.

“Yes, sir. We have to assume the software on every Alliance warship has the same subroutines.” Desjani bit her lip, thinking. “What the enigmas did must have given someone in the Alliance an idea. They took that idea from the enigmas and ran with it.”

“Not just the fleet,” Geary said. “Did I tell you that at Yokai there were momentary ghost sightings by an aerospace orbital facility being reactivated? We thought it was a software problem, with training-sim data leaking through into active systems before it was scrubbed out. We were right, it was caused by the software, but not because it was creating false targets. The new software updates were actually having trouble making the systems not see real targets.”

“Aerospace forces, too? Maybe all civilian space tracking as well. Those dark ships might be invisible to everyone in Alliance space.” Desjani turned her head to meet his eyes with hers. “Which means they’re ours. Which means the Alliance did just trash Indras, only this task force is going to get blamed for it because we happened to stumble through the star system as it was going on.”

“What did you see of those ships before the image vanished?”

Desjani made an angry gesture with one hand chopping the air. “Not much. It looked like a battle cruiser and a heavy cruiser. Could have been our designs, could have been Syndic.”

“Why did the Syndics call them dark ships?” Geary asked, trying to remember the brief look he had gained at the unknown craft. “They did look a bit odd that way.”

“Yes. Like something, some hull coating maybe, was blurring visual details.”

“Let Tulev and Badaya know what your security people have learned.” Geary considered his options, then tapped his controls. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, accelerate to point one light speed.”

“Are you going to try to catch those ships?” Desjani asked.

“Maybe.”

“What will you do if you do catch them?”

“I don’t know, yet. Whoever ordered the attack here did so either oblivious to the possibility that this task force would be blamed for involvement with it or intentionally seeking to tie me and the rest of the fleet to the action. I will not accept such behavior, no matter who was behind it.”

Lieutenant Iger, summoned to Geary’s stateroom, shook his head in stubborn denial. “Admiral, I don’t know anything about this. If official software is sabotaging our detection, it’s also affecting my intelligence work by blocking images of those ships.”

Geary was standing before him, far enough away not to seem threatening but close enough to make it clear that he was expecting answers. “Did you get a look at them before we lost that one image?”

“Yes, sir, briefly. I was zooming in on it when the image dropped out of my systems like it had never existed.”

“Did you make out any details?”

“Not many, sir.” Lieutenant Iger spoke with the careful stiffness of someone who knew what he was saying would not be well received. “Admiral, all I can tell you is that from what little time I had to see them, the designs of the two ships we saw were definitely human and share an ancestry with Alliance warship designs. But Syndic warships share much of the same design ancestry.”

“Lieutenant, on our way through Indras last time, you told me that this star system was being used as a hub for covert actions against the Alliance.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now we come through here and find Syndic facilities at Indras being destroyed.”

Iger had been looking straight ahead as protocol required, but now looked directly at Geary. “Admiral, I’m not saying no one in the Alliance might have decided to… to… to send a message to the Syndics. But I know nothing of it.”

“A lot of civilian targets got hit, too,” Geary said. “A lot of freighters, and some places on planets or in orbital locations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This wasn’t a surgical strike, Lieutenant. Someone might have thought it would be, but those ships targeted places and things that should not have been targeted unless we’re returning to a policy of indiscriminate bombardment. And in the process, they may have set in motion a resumption of the war with the Syndics. You and I both know how unpopular that outcome would be with the population of the Alliance.”

Iger looked away, obviously uncomfortable now. “Admiral, there are segments that might welcome that. You know that, as do I. Not even near a majority. But this… sir, this was clumsy. Unprovoked attacks by the Syndics would be one justification for renewed war that the majority of the Alliance might accept. But not something like this.”

“If those ships go to Atalia,” Geary said, “and on to Alliance space, I will not remain silent about them and what they did at Indras.”

“I understand, sir. I can offer no reason you should do so since neither of us has been read into any program that covers such activity.”

“Let me know if, once we get back, someone tells you to officially read me into such a program. Will you tell me if you’re given such information and told not to share it with me?”

Iger didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir, I will tell you.”

The short jump to Kalixa offered more time for the security teams aboard Dauntless to identify the special subroutines woven through many portions of the ship’s software. “Somebody really put a lot of effort into this,” Tanya told Geary.

“Have we got it all now?”

“We think so. We’ll find out at Kalixa. We should be able to spot some of those ships before they jump.” She glowered at the nearest bulkhead as if it were guilty of a heinous crime. “The subroutines didn’t just block the information from being seen by us. They deleted it so thoroughly that my best code monkeys can’t find any trace of it. Is this how the government is keeping secret that new fleet that they’re building?”

“We don’t know that they’re Alliance ships. Not yet.”

“The hell we don’t.” Desjani made a fist and hit the offending bulkhead. “But if Admiral Bloch is in charge of that fleet, I’d like to know who is commanding the individual ships. How are they keeping secret the reassignments of personnel to crew those ships? Are they even crewed by military personnel?”

“If we can catch up with them, I intend demanding answers,” Geary said. “Can your people put together a software patch that we can send to every other ship in the task force that will neutralize those stealth subroutines?”

“They’re already working on it, Admiral.”

Kalixa wasn’t empty.

“There they are,” Desjani said, baring her teeth in a grin. “Do you think that’s all of them?”

“Six battle cruisers,” Geary marveled. “Four heavy cruisers. A dozen destroyers. What can we tell about them?”

“They’re not standard Alliance designs, Admiral,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “They’re also not broadcasting any IDs. They have some sort of surface coating that is blurring visual details, but we can see enough to spot a lot more weapon launchers and projectors than on ships like this one. Each of those battle cruisers is about the same size as Dauntless, but our systems estimate each carries up to twice the armament we do. The heavy cruisers and destroyers look like they follow similar designs.”

“How did they fit all that armament on those ships?” Desjani wondered. “Admiral, are we going to send a message to those guys?”

Geary shook his head. “They’ll jump for Atalia before anything I send would reach them. But that means they won’t know we’re following them. We’ll be able to stay on their tails until they show us exactly which star system they came from. Is that software patch ready to distribute?”

“It will be before we leave Kalixa.”

He had expected to find a similar scene at Atalia, the dark ships traveling toward a jump point and almost there, heading back to wherever their base was located.

“Ancestors,” Desjani breathed, stunned at what their displays were revealing.

Atalia hadn’t boasted much in the way of defenses or other facilities, just what had survived the war and wave after wave of Alliance attacks. Its cities resembled those of Batara; small, often pummeled, and often repaired. Since the war ended and Atalia had broken away from the Syndicate Worlds, claiming a tenuous independence that survived more as a result of Syndic weakness than Atalia’s ability to defend itself, the star system had been painfully trying to rebuild infrastructure from the rubble of war.

Those efforts had been reduced to rubble once again.

The dark ships weren’t concentrated together, but were ranging through the star system, almost all of them in the inner star system, where they were methodically smashing target after target.

“They’re attacking Atalia?” Geary said, disbelieving. “Why would they attack Atalia? They’re destroying every ship, every small craft. There goes a freighter that was flagged to an Alliance star system!”

“Admiral,” Desjani said, her voice hardening, “look up there. Toward the jump point for Varandal.”

He looked, seeing the Alliance courier ship hanging near the jump point, light-hours distant from where Dauntless was. The crew of that courier ship must be as baffled at seeing the destruction under way in Atalia as Geary’s ships had been while watching the attack on Indras. They were probably debating whether to continue observing in hopes of learning something about the attacks or to head for Varandal and report what little they knew.

Then he spotted the two dark ship destroyers swooping upward toward the courier ship. “Those look like firing runs, not approaches to the jump point.”

“Yes,” Desjani said in tones devoid of all feeling. “And the courier ship can’t see those two coming.”

It was one of the awful moments that had to be endured by those who operated in space. He wanted to send a warning, he wanted to do something, to somehow prevent what he could see about to happen. But there was nothing that could be done because what he was seeing had happened hours ago. It was history, and he was unable to do anything but watch it and futilely wish he could change the past that was about to occur before his eyes.

Geary watched the dark destroyers close on the courier ship, tearing past in a perfect by-the-book firing run that tore apart the unsuspecting courier ship with multiple hits by hell lances and a barrage of grapeshot delivered at point-blank range against the lightly armored and unarmed craft. Geary knew none of the courier’s crew could have survived that attack. “Ancestors preserve us. They just annihilated an Alliance fleet courier ship.” He looked back to where the Alliance-flagged freighter had been destroyed, just in time to see another dark ship riddle the freighter’s single escape pod as it fled for safety, leaving a lifeless ruin in its wake. “Are they insane?”

“Maybe they are. What do we do?” Desjani asked, looking at him. For the first time he could recall, Tanya seemed totally lost for answers or suggestions.

“Lieutenant Iger!” Geary put a lot more force into that call than he usually did.

Whether because of that or because of what he was witnessing happening at Atalia, the intelligence officer had trouble speaking. “Yes, sir,” he finally got out.

“Lieutenant, I want to know if there is any possible justification or rationale for what we’re seeing here. I know what Indras was involved in. I have heard nothing similar about Atalia.”

“Th-there is nothing like that about Atalia, Admiral,” Iger managed to get out. “There are agents here. Their agents, our agents. It’s a… a transit point. The reports I have seen say Atalia has been trying to keep us happy, so we’ll protect them. This… I have no idea, sir. The… the courier ship. Sir… if I knew anything…”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I just wanted to be sure.”

Desjani spoke again, still not betraying her feelings. “From the way they’re hitting space traffic, the dark ships are doubling down on what they did at Indras. That means they’re going to go after more civilian targets next.”

“And they’ve already destroyed Alliance civilian and military shipping.” Geary felt a grim resolve filling him despite the enormity of the decision he had to make. “There’s no possible justification for this. There’s not even any possible reason for it. I don’t care who those ships answer to. They’re not broadcasting their identities, they are of unknown design, and they are attacking the Alliance as well as Atalia. That makes them pirates. We will stop them.”

He reached for his controls and spoke with perfect clarity. “Unknown warships operating in Atalia star system, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. You have attacked Alliance shipping and killed Alliance military personnel, as well as conducting wanton attacks on the people of the neutral star system of Atalia. You are to immediately cease any use of weaponry of any kind, you are to power down and deactivate all weapons, you are to lower shields, and you are to adopt fixed orbits pending the arrival of my ships in your vicinity. Failure to comply with these commands will result in my using the full force available to me to eliminate you as a threat to anyone in Atalia Star System or elsewhere. This demand will not be repeated. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

He touched another comm switch. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, come starboard five three degrees, up zero four degrees, accelerate to point two light speed. All unidentified warships is this star system are to be treated as hostile. You are authorized to engage any that pose any threat to you.”

Tanya waited until Dauntless had swung onto the new vector before she activated the privacy field around their seats and leaned toward him. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“If these are Alliance warships—”

“Then they’ve got a very short time in which to start acting like Alliance warships.”

“Yes, sir.” She sat back, smiling crookedly. “We’re either going to come out of this as heroes, or they’re going to hang us.”

Captain Tulev called in with essentially the same question as Desjani’s and seemed equally satisfied with Geary’s reply.

Badaya didn’t question what was happening at all. He probably, Geary thought, was enjoying having his long suspicions of parts of the Alliance government proven true. If that was what was happening.

“At point two light, we’re thirteen hours from intercept with the nearest of the dark ships,” Lieutenant Castries said, “assuming it remains on its current vector.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Geary eyed his display, thinking that it would be another two and a half hours before the dark ships saw Geary’s task force and received his orders to surrender. “All units in Task Force Dancer, stand down from maximum combat readiness. Rest your crews and maximize your equipment readiness over the next twelve hours.”

Surprisingly, the first dark ships to see Geary’s ships and hear his message didn’t react at all, continuing whatever they were doing while Geary watched the destruction with growing anger and frustration. It was almost six hours after the task force’s arrival at Atalia before the dark ships responded to the appearance of the Alliance warships.

And when they did react, it brought more bad news.

He watched the individual dark ships veer about, altering vectors at an impressive rate as they began gathering together. “Tanya, is it just me, or—”

“It’s not just you. They’re extremely maneuverable,” she said, her expression reflecting cold concentration on her tasks. “Significantly more maneuverable than our ships.”

“They may look like human ships, but the maneuvers remind me of enigmas.”

Lieutenant Castries had already been running an analysis, and now reported the results. “Admiral, they’re not a match for the enigmas, but their maneuvering capabilities are closer to enigmas than our ships are. There’s a roughly thirty percent improvement over what we can do based on the limited observations we have so far.”

“The enigmas don’t have battle cruisers,” Lieutenant Yuon protested. “They don’t have anything that big.”

“Maybe the enigmas copied our ships,” Desjani said. “They’ve seen them. They could have copied the external appearance. Maybe this is all really another attempt to get us and the Syndics at all-out war again.”

“If the enigmas were trying to fool us, why wouldn’t they have made exact copies instead of ones that differed from our ships in external appearance and the number of weapons they carry?” Geary began to say more, paused to think, then looked at Yuon. “We’re seeing their weapons fire now. What can you tell me about the signatures on their weapons?”

“It matches Alliance weaponry, Admiral. The signatures on the hell lances are exactly like ours, and one of the dark ships fired a missile that is either a specter or a perfect copy of a specter.”

Several seconds passed in silence while everyone thought.

“Who or what the hell are they?” Desjani finally demanded. “They maneuver more like enigmas, and our software was covertly modified not to see them, which also matches enigma tactics. They attacked a Syndic-controlled star system, but also a neutral star system and Alliance assets here. And now it looks like they’re getting ready to attack us, all of which would imply either enigmas or some other alien race. Like the Kicks, they won’t respond to attempts to communicate. But they have Alliance designs, and Alliance weapons, and the software modifications that left us blind to them came through official channels rather than being some kind of cyberattack. What are they?”

Geary looked at his display, where the tracks of the dark warships were converging with each other. “I don’t think the answer matters any longer. With that sort of advantage in maneuvering capability, and us having come this far from any jump points, I don’t think we can avoid them if they come after us. We’ll have to defeat them, then find answers in the wreckage.”

“They’re gathering into three formations,” Lieutenant Yuon said.

Geary watched his display, frowning. It looked like the dark ships were going to arrange themselves in a smaller, but mirror-image, set of box formations in a V like the task force was still using.

“No answers to your message, no communications of any kind, and they’re adopting combat formations,” Desjani said. “They’re definitely going to fight. This doesn’t make any sense at all. What those ships did at Indras could be explained partly, but what they’re doing here is just pure destruction. And now fighting us instead of outrunning us, which they could do? It’s like they’re berserkers.”

“Berserkers?”

“You know, those mythical warriors who just go nuts in battle and fight like maniacs until they’re cut to pieces.”

“Maybe that is what we’re dealing with,” Geary said. “Here they come.”

“They’re accelerating to an intercept with us,” Lieutenant Castries confirmed.

If these had been typical warships, the situation wouldn’t have been too serious since Geary’s forces outnumbered the dark ships by better than two to one in escorts and two to one in battle cruisers. But if the estimates produced by the sensor systems were correct, each of the dark ships had the same punch as two of Geary’s ships, and they had a significant advantage in their ability to maneuver as well. “We’ll have to hit each of his subformations hard in turn.”

He decided to make one last check, to see if any other paths might exist. “Lieutenant Iger? Have you heard anything from the dark ships? Anything in any form?”

Iger had recovered his equilibrium and now looked as bleak as Geary felt. “We’ve seen no comms from the dark ships, Admiral. Atalia has sent them messages, attempting to surrender, but they haven’t responded at all.”

There simply wasn’t any alternative to fighting. Geary started planning out the moves in his head. The dark ships were also accelerating to point two light speed as they charged toward the Alliance task force. If the two groups met at a combined velocity of point four light speed the odds of anyone getting a hit were very near zero. They would be tearing past each other at one hundred twenty thousand kilometers a second, which didn’t offer much of a window for hitting a target even if views of the universe weren’t pretty significantly distorted at that velocity.

With the dark ships coming toward an intercept so quickly, the curve of their vector sweeping toward a meeting with the long arc formed by the path of the Alliance task force, the time to meeting had shrunk dramatically. “Two hours to contact on current vectors,” Lieutenant Castries reported.

Geary blinked his eyes, ran one hand through his hair, and straightened in his seat before touching his comm controls. “All units in Task Force Dancer, this is Admiral Geary. We have encountered ships of unknown type and allegiance, which have attacked and destroyed Alliance military and civilian shipping. They are now targeting us. We will destroy them, then determine their origin and motives. All ships are to come to full combat readiness in one hour. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

There weren’t any cheers this time. The crew’s emotions matched Geary’s, a somber recognition of the need to deal with this mysterious and murderous threat.

The only good part about the next hour was that the concentration of the dark ships on Geary’s force had halted the attacks against other targets in Atalia Star System. A stern resolve had settled among the crew of Dauntless and the other Alliance warships as word spread about what the dark ships had done and about the weapons and maneuvering capabilities they could bring to bear.

He waited until time to contact was forty-five minutes out, only nine light-minutes from the enemy, before ordering the braking maneuver, bringing the warships around to reduce their velocity to point one light speed.

“The enemy is also braking velocity,” Lieutenant Castries announced.

Desjani had a puzzled look. “They started braking seven minutes ago, at almost the same time as you did, before they could have seen you had started doing so.”

“Coincidence,” Geary said. He was eyeing the enemy formations. Tanya had warned him that he tended to favor attacks up and to the right. Instead, he would aim for the dark ship subformation that was on the right and behind the leading dark ship formation. It contained two dark ship battle cruisers along with one of their heavy cruisers and four destroyers. If I can hit them with most of my firepower while avoiding the rest of the dark ship subformations, I can knock out a third of their combat capability.

They were one and a half light-minutes from the enemy, both sides having reduced their velocity to point one light so that the time to contact was still fifteen minutes away, when Geary made some minor adjustments to his formations, readying them for the sudden twist to the right and down that would avoid two-thirds of the dark ships and hit the remaining third as hard as possible.

Tanya was usually completely calm during moments like this, absorbed in the battle. But this time she was frowning at her display as if she were seeing something that bothered her.

“What’s the matter?” Geary asked.

“I don’t know. Something.”

“Let me know the instant you figure out what it is.” He focused back on the enemy force. The dark ships were coming onward without any alterations in vector, aiming straight for the center of the Alliance subformation at the tip of the task force’s V. Aiming for the subformation centered on Dauntless.

It was almost time to make his move. Almost time to make that small, last-moment adjustment in vectors. Geary’s hand hovered over his comm controls, ready to send the command.

“Admiral.” Desjani spoke abruptly but with utter certainty. “Break off the attack. Now. Take every ship wide of a firing run. Any direction.”

He had literally only a second or two in which to decide whether to do as she said and lose what seemed to be a perfectly set up firing run, or to ignore Tanya’s advice and stick with his plan.

Only a second or two.

Damn!