Jack Campbell - Leviathan

“Damn,” Desjani breathed. “Ten heavy cruisers. Twenty destroyers. Nice round numbers. If they decide to start shooting up Bhavan like they did Atalia…”

“There won’t be much left of Bhavan.” He frowned again as he studied the data. “Look at their movements in the days before that ship jumped for here. It’s like the dark ships were enforcing a blockade.”

“A blockade? Of Bhavan?” Desjani squinted at her own display, where the same data was shown, then nodded. “Yeah. If the ship that jumped here hadn’t been positioned well relative to the jump point for Varandal, they never would have made it. There were a couple of dark destroyers on their tail.”

“Which explains why that ship is racing in-system toward us,” Geary said. His hand moved to the comm controls. “All units in First Fleet, be aware that two dark destroyers may be pursuing the ship that just arrived from Bhavan. First Battle Cruiser Division, you are to move immediately to intercept the incoming ship and protect it if necessary from any pursuers. Geary, out.”

“Captain?” the comm watch-stander said. “That message the ship from Bhavan sent. It was a universal broadcast. Every receiver in this star system will get it.”

It took a moment for the significance of that to strike home. Every receiver. Not just Admiral Timbale’s comm systems on Ambaru Station, or the other military and official comm systems throughout Varandal, but every civil and press receiver as well.

“That cat is out of the bag,” Desjani said. “I hope the government surprises me and has already started trying to do something, though from the looks of what’s happening at Bhavan some more of the dark ships are operating outside their intended orders.”

“Maybe a training scenario that they’re implementing as if it were real,” Geary speculated. “Or malware that activated offensive tactics against what the dark ships should recognize as a friendly star system.”

“Whatever the reason, it’s produced a real threat. What are we going to do?”

“The only thing we can do,” Geary said. “Go to Bhavan and lift that blockade.”

“I’m not looking forward to trying to stop dark battleships,” Desjani said in a low voice.

“Neither am I,” Geary replied. He hesitated, frowning again. “Tanya, the dark ships are at Bhavan, right next to Varandal.”

“In terms of a galactic scale, yes, a few light-years is right next to,” she agreed.

“They’re not hitting Bhavan. They’re blockading it. But one ship got away. To here. To let us know that dark ships were hanging around Bhavan.”

Desjani eyed him. “That’s… interesting.” She looked back at her display. “Lieutenant Castries, run some quick analysis of what that ship from Bhavan sent us. I want to know if those two dark destroyers could have caught it before it jumped.”

“Yes, Captain.” It only took a minute or so before Castries spoke again. “Uncertain, Captain. There is a seventy percent possibility that the dark ships could have intercepted that ship before it jumped, but thirty percent uncertainty due to gaps in the data we were sent.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Captain? Why would they have let that ship escape?”

Geary answered. “So that we would know they were there.”

“With four battleships,” Desjani added. “So when we came to deal with them, we would come with as much force as we could muster. Sir, they want us to come to Bhavan.”

“It sure looks that way,” Geary said.

“So, what are we going to do?” Desjani asked again.

“The only thing we can do,” Geary repeated. “We’re going to Bhavan.”

“You’ve done this kind of thing before,” Captain Badaya pointed out. “You believe that the dark ships are programmed to mimic your tactics, and you have sometimes waited in ambush at a jump point where you expected the enemy to arrive.”

“It’s not a tactic unique to Admiral Geary,” Captain Armus pointed out, his tone gruff. Never a cheerful man, he had been particularly unhappy ever since the dark battle cruisers had so easily slipped through a screen he commanded.

“No,” Badaya admitted. “Hell, the Syndics have done it, too.” He laughed abruptly. “And you think Admiral Bloch commands the dark ships? What was his last battle?”

“Prime,” Tulev said, his tone carrying no trace of humor.

“Right! Prime, where he commanded the fleet, and waltzed us right into a Syndic ambush that hit us as we exited the hypernet gate there.” Badaya looked around the table. “Many of you know Bloch, too. If he still has control of the dark ships, don’t you think he’d try to copy the last successful battle he experienced?”

“Bloch would certainly want to replay such a fight with him on the winning side this time,” Desjani said.

“Does anyone disagree that this situation stinks of an attempt to lure this fleet into ambush at Bhavan?” Captain Duellos asked. He had arrived very recently, dashing home from leave as word spread through the Alliance of something very wrong that had touched Geary’s fleet.

No one spoke up.

Duellos turned to look at Geary. “But you are planning on taking the fleet to Bhavan?”

“Yes,” Geary said. “Because Bhavan has more than one jump point.”

The faces looking back at him, every commanding officer of every ship in the fleet apparently gathered at one immense table thanks to virtual conferencing software, shifted from disbelieving to realization.

“Hypernet to Molnir,” Badaya said with a grin.

“And jump from Molnir to Bhavan,” Duellos added. “It will take some more time than a straight jump to Bhavan, but neither Admiral Bloch nor the dark ships are likely to expect it. They will think that we are charging to the rescue, hoping to cut off and destroy the dark ships seen at Bhavan.”

“Will they wait long enough at Bhavan for us to take the roundabout way?” Armus asked.

Tulev answered. “If the dark ships are there to ambush Admiral Geary and this fleet, they will wait.”

“But what if we’re wrong about that?” Captain Vitali of the battle cruiser Daring asked. “What if they only wait for a certain period determined by whatever probabilities they have calculated, then bombard the hell out of Bhavan before they go home?”

“There isn’t any way to know for certain,” Desjani said. “They’re AIs. They should be a lot more patient than any human commander.”

“Unless Admiral Bloch is there commanding them!”

“Would Bloch bombard Bhavan?” someone asked.

Geary looked around the vast, virtual table again. “Many of you know Admiral Bloch better than I do. Would he take such a step?”

Duellos shook his head. “Mass murder? Not to an Alliance star system. He wants to be seen as the savior of the Alliance, not as someone who did what a Syndic commander would have done.”

“I agree,” Desjani said. “Ambitious as all hell, willing to sacrifice those in his way, happy to smash a Syndic star system that way, yes. But hitting Bhavan like that would be the kind of black mark that would prevent him from ever being accepted as the heir to Black Jack.” She must have noticed the wince that Geary couldn’t suppress. “Sorry, Admiral. But everyone who knows him would agree that Admiral Bloch has a bad case of Geary Syndrome.”

One of the many things that Geary had never expected to have happen was that his name and the legend the government had manufactured around it after his supposed death would be attached to a psychological disorder describing those who believed they were uniquely qualified to save the Alliance. The irony was that he himself, the real Black Jack, had never believed that he was such a person even though it seemed like most of the rest of humanity did. Nor, as far as he could tell, did his grand-niece Jane Geary think so highly of herself. Gearys seemed to be uniquely immune to Geary Syndrome.