Jack Campbell - Invincible

But then she almost never exceeded danger margins. She got the ships real close to those margins but never right up to them. Usually.

“Almost there,” Desjani noted over the complaints of the inertial nullifiers as they tried to keep ships from disintegrating and their crews from being pulped into jelly by the forces being used. “Spider-wolves are still hanging exactly ten light-minutes behind us.”

“They want us jumping first into whatever the enigmas will have waiting at Midway,” Geary replied. “Not that I can blame them.”

He tapped his comm controls. “Captain Armus, we’ll see you at Midway. I have no doubt that we’ll need your firepower there. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.” He ended his message in the ceremonial manner because that felt right this time.

There wouldn’t be enough time for the message to reach Armus and for Armus to send a reply in the fifteen minutes remaining until jump, so Geary tried to relax despite the force of deceleration. “All units in pursuit force, this is Admiral Geary. Be at full combat readiness when we arrive at Midway. The enigma force that we saw jump for Midway may be awaiting our arrival or may be striking at targets in that star system. Either way, we’re going to teach them once again that attacking human-controlled space is a very bad idea. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

“Being awfully formal for fleet communications, aren’t you, Admiral?” Desjani said.

“The next time I talk to them, we may be in the middle of a fight.”

As the pursuit-force formation had braked, any ships still lagging had taken advantage of that to catch up, Implacable , Intemperate , and Valiant as well as assorted light cruisers and destroyers sliding into their positions relative to Dauntless . Velocity kept slowing as the distance to the jump point shrank.

Every ship reached point one light speed as the jump point loomed right ahead. “All units jump.”

Geary forced himself to relax as the outside went gray and formless. “How is Dauntless doing?” he asked Desjani.

“You don’t believe my status reports?”

“Of course I do. But I’d like your impressions, too.”

Tanya shrugged. “Being flagship, we got priority on a lot of systems upgrades. Once the engineers got tied up fixing battle damage and repairing failed systems, the upgrades slowed down, but Dauntless is still in good shape. I can’t promise nothing will drop out on us without warning, but it shouldn’t be anything major.”

“Good. I know I can always count on Dauntless .” That was partly for the benefit of any crew members in earshot, who would pass on his statement to their shipmates, but also because he believed it was true. And because when he spoke of Dauntless , he also meant her commanding officer.

Desjani’s smile showed that she knew that. “Thank you, Admiral.”

“Ten minutes until we leave jump,” Lieutenant Castries announced.

Desjani had her chin resting on one hand, the elbow propped on the arm of her seat. “Do you know what would be bizarre?” she asked Geary.

“I can think of a few things. What exactly are you thinking of?”

“Once again we’re about to leave jump, and once again we’re all hyped up, ready for action, knowing that there’s either going to be trouble or there very well might be trouble. In this case, we know there will be, of course.”

“And that’s bizarre?”

“No,” Desjani said. “That’s our normal. It’s always that way. What would be bizarre is if we were arriving at our destination, readying to leave jump, and we were all calm and relaxed and not worrying at all about what was there.”

“You know, there’s a lot of truth to that,” Geary said. “I guess when we arrive at Varandal—” The look on her face stopped him in midsentence.

“You’re not worried about what might be waiting for us when we return to Alliance space?” Desjani asked. “Seriously? Political games? Orders from fleet headquarters? Demands that Black Jack start running things? Demands that Black Jack be arrested before he launches a coup? You’re not worried about any of that?”

He ran through various possible replies before deciding on one. “Let’s just say that I’ve been in denial and trying not to think about it.”

“Must be nice.”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “But consider this, Captain Desjani. If we pull this off, if we get through everything we have to deal with before we reach Varandal again, whoever or whatever awaits us there will see us arrive with six ships full of spider-wolves and a captured Kick superbattleship.”

She smiled, too. “Surprise! Not only did we make it back, but we brought friends. Yeah, that may well throw some carefully laid plans off track.”

“Five minutes to arrival,” Lieutenant Castries said.

Desjani’s smile vanished. “Do you think the Syndics at Midway will be keeping the enigmas busy?”

“I don’t know,” Geary said, wishing that he could make a decent estimate. “It all depends on what they had in that star system and how smart they use what they’ve got. If they haven’t had reinforcements, they won’t have any chance against an enigma force that large. I’m not even sure whether they’ll still be calling themselves Syndics. I got a strong feeling that the CEOs at Midway, some of them anyway, were less than firm in their loyalty to the Syndicate government.”

“Loyal? Syndic CEOs? Did you actually use those words in the same sentence?” Desjani asked. “Do you trust that woman you talked to? What was her name?”

“Iceni. CEO Iceni. I can’t say I trust her. I’m not crazy. But our interests may coincide, as Victoria Rione would say.”

That earned him a scowl. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t quote that woman when talking to me.”

“Sorry.”

“One minute to arrival.” Lieutenant Castries’s voice remained even, professional, but the tension level on the bridge could still be felt to be rising.

“Time to get your head in the game,” Desjani said to Geary.

“It’s there.”

“Shields at maximum,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “All weapons ready.”

The last seconds counted down, his guts felt the familiar twist and his mind the familiar disorientation, and the gray of jump space was abruptly replaced by black filled with stars as they arrived at Midway.

The thing they feared most to hear, the blare of combat systems alarms warning of nearby enemies, did not come. The combat systems had been set to immediately begin pumping out shots at enigma ships if those were right on top of the jump point, but that didn’t happen either. As Geary shook the jump-created confusion from his mind, he saw threat markers popping to life on his display, none of them close. The enemy wasn’t waiting for them at the jump point, but the enigmas were indeed still here.

“What are they doing?” Desjani wondered.

“I don’t know,” Geary replied.

He had expected and feared that the enigmas would head straight for the hypernet gate, which was located just shy of six light-hours from this jump point, well around the curve of the star system. If the enigmas had pumped their velocity up to point two light speed or higher, they could have reached that hypernet gate in only thirty hours. Once near the gate, those two hundred and twenty-two enigma warships could collapse it in no time by destroying the “tethers” that suspended an energy matrix between them.

Or the enigmas could have headed for the primary inhabited world, now orbiting its star only four and a half light-hours away, to conduct a close-in orbital bombardment that would have annihilated the human presence there and rendered the planet uninhabitable.