Jack Campbell - Leviathan

“And those are a lot of big docks,” Desjani murmured.

“Let’s take them out.” Geary felt a sense of revulsion as he looked at the dockyards and support facilities, apparently empty of life yet continuing to serve the needs of the dark ships. Automated facilities conducting automated war. They were the unfeeling personification of Captain Tulev’s argument against using AIs to control weapons.

Geary called up the bombardment routine on his display and began designating the orbiting support facilities as targets. One very large structure orbiting at a distance from the support facilities looked like the place intended for the exiled government. He left that off the target list, then asked the system for firing solutions.

A process that should have produced almost instantaneous results instead ground on for several seconds, then a minute, then kept going. “Captain Desjani, we seem to have a problem with part of the combat systems.”

“What?” She leaned in, frowning, then entered commands into her own system. “It’s working. Trying to produce a solution. Why the hell—? Oh.”

“What?” Geary echoed.

“The interacting gravitational fields of the stars and the eccentric orbits. The bombardment routines can’t handle that. They can’t direct a precise shot across those kinds of distances under these conditions. We’ll have to get a lot closer to those facilities to launch rocks at them and be sure of hits.”

“I guess that was another good reason to put Unity Alternate here,” Geary conceded. “How have they ensured that the facilities don’t get sucked into destructive orbits?”

“There are propulsion systems on all of the facilities,” Lieutenant Yuon reported in surprised tones. “Not enough thrust for a lot of travel, but enough to adjust orbits in a big way—” He broke off as he realized the implications of that.

“Oh, hell,” Desjani complained. “If they have automated maneuvering systems that powerful, they could spot an incoming bombardment and adjust orbit enough that our rocks would miss. It’s a good thing we didn’t launch. The rocks would have been wasted even if their trajectories had been accurate.”

“How much did they spend building this stuff?” Lieutenant Castries asked in amazement.

The hypernet gate had been constructed far enough from the two stars to be unaffected by their intertwining gravity fields. In this case, that meant an unusually long journey to the facilities orbiting the twin stars. “Almost seven light-hours,” Desjani observed. “We’ve got a long trip ahead. Do we have a good picture of that big facility that looks like it was intended as the command structure and seat of government?”

“Life support and power are active,” Lieutenant Yuon said, peering at his data. “But only in the upper quarter of the structure. Everything below that is dark and cold. We’re not seeing any confirmation that the facility has anyone aboard it, though.”

“You could keep a lot of people very comfortably in something the size of one-quarter of that facility,” Geary said. “We’re not picking up any comm traffic or other signals?”

“No, sir. There is probably a local net running between the facility and those dockyards and support structures, but it would be using highly directional signals that we’re not in the right position to pick up.”

“All right. Let’s see if anyone will answer us.” He made sure his uniform looked decent, straightened in his seat, then keyed the broadcast comm circuit. “Anyone in this star system, anyone occupying any of the facilities of Unity Alternate, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We are here on orders of the Alliance government to occupy and neutralize these facilities. If anyone is in need of rescue or evacuation, we will assist you. Anyone working on the facilities must accept the authority of the Alliance government and also prepare for evacuation. Contact me and provide your status as soon as possible. The First Fleet of the Alliance is on its way to your orbital location. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

It would take at least fourteen hours for any replies to come in, and he had no intention of waiting around the hypernet gate until that happened. “All units in First Fleet, come starboard—” He stopped abruptly. “Wait one.”

“What’s the matter?” Desjani asked.

“Starboard. Port,” Geary said. “Toward the star or away from the star. Which star?”

“Oh. It’s a close binary.” She smiled ruefully. “We haven’t had that problem in systems with one star, have we?”

Geary tapped his fingers impatiently as he thought. “It’s all arbitrary anyway. We say one way is up and the other down.” He activated his comms again. “This is Admiral Geary. The brighter star in this system is designated Alpha and the other star is designated Beta. All maneuvering commands and fleet navigational settings will treat Alpha as the reference star. All units in First Fleet, come starboard zero seven degrees, down one zero degrees at time two five. Accelerate to point two light speed.” He was not going to waste time getting this job done.

The ships of the Alliance formation pivoted around Dauntless , the cylinder shape reorienting along the long-curving path that would bring the fleet near the orbiting facilities.

“Thirty-eight hours until we reach the orbiting facilities,” Lieutenant Castries said.

“We might as well relax.” Geary activated comms again. “All units in First Fleet, stand down from battle alert.”

Desjani glanced at him. “You’re not relaxing, I notice. Is it for the same reason I’m not?”

“What’s your reason?” Geary asked.

“This situation stinks. We have never encountered the entire force of dark ships at once. They have always apparently left some of their ships here at their base. If nothing else, some of the dark ships we damaged at Bhavan should still be here, and even if they were concealed in the docks, we would be able to pick up indications that repair work was being conducted inside some of those docks.”

“Yeah,” Geary agreed. “That’s my reason, too. I thought we would at least encounter a guard force of some kind.”

“If they are still thinking like you, if the AIs haven’t modified their thinking and rationalized things enough to deviate a lot from what Black Jack would do, are there any conditions under which you would leave your base totally undefended like this?”

Geary considered that question, then shook his head. “No. We did take the entire First Fleet here, but Varandal isn’t defenseless. They’ve got some of their own ships. Nothing big, but something, and they have all of the fixed star system defenses. Plus, Varandal isn’t our only base. Losing it would be a tragedy, but it wouldn’t cripple us.”

“So, where are the dark ships?”

“I don’t know. All we can do is what we set out to do,” Geary said. “Then get back to Varandal and find out what the dark ships are doing right now.”

After forcing himself to leave the bridge so he wouldn’t exhaust himself and look nervous to everyone on watch, which would both be bad things, Geary walked through the passageways of Dauntless for a while, talking to crew members and judging their moods. Before the fight at Bhavan, most had been confident, almost cheerful, certain of another victory. Since Bhavan, a grimness had settled on them, a determination to win tempered by knowledge that victory might be dearly bought. As Geary talked to the sailors, though, he saw that for the moment worries about the dark ships had been overridden by fascination with being in a close binary star system. For all the star systems many of these sailors had visited, this was the first time they had seen two stars so close together.