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

“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.”