Jack Campbell: The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

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.