Jack Campbell - Leviathan

“Once they have destroyed your fleet,” Bloch said, “the Defender warships will proceed to Unity, which their programming now assumes is enemy-occupied, and they will destroy everything at Unity. Then they will move on to other important star systems in the Alliance, destroying as much as they can while their fuel cells and expendable weaponry hold out.”

“Ancestors preserve us,” Geary whispered.

“It gets worse,” Bloch added. It was obvious that he wasn’t enjoying reciting this information. “The largest of the Defender ships, the battle cruisers and the battleships, are equipped with the codes necessary to override the safe-collapse systems that have been installed on the hypernet gates. When they are unable to continue their attacks, those ships will trigger the collapse of the gates in whichever star systems they occupy and devastate those star systems. I did not want that option to exist. I told everyone that it should not be placed on an automated weapons platform. But some people demanded it be installed. I don’t think many others even know it is there. But I found out it had been installed, and now I have told you.”

“And what the hell are you supposed to do about it?” Desjani asked Geary, appalled by what Bloch had revealed.

“You can’t let them get out of this star system,” Bloch pleaded. “They will tear the guts out of the Alliance. I’m not a perfect man, Admiral. But this was not supposed to happen. I never would have agreed to accept this assignment if I knew how many flaws existed in the Defender concept. I can help you beat the Defender ships. I know more than you about their programming. About how to outsmart them. We can work together, and win this battle, and save the Alliance together.”

Desjani growled something in a voice so low that Geary could not make out the words.

“I am senior to you, Admiral Geary,” Bloch continued, trying to firm his voice as he spoke. “But even though I am the senior Alliance fleet officer in this star system, I will not insist upon assuming command of the forces here. Your command, your status, is safe from me. I have one shuttle left, which I can use to try to escape… my flagship. When the opportunity arises, I will use the shuttle to reach your forces or perhaps the government facility. I see you have Marines there. Excellent. Cover me as best you can. Together, we can destroy the Defender fleet.”

Bloch paused, his eyes haunted. “You may hesitate to accept my offer. I understand. You must realize that I know things. I can tell you who approved all of this, what orders I was given, and what understandings existed with which particular people. You want that, I am sure. And, most importantly for you, I know where Captain Michael Geary is.”

Geary wasn’t sure whether or not Tanya had gasped. His own attention was riveted on Bloch’s words.

“I can tell you where they’ve got him,” Bloch continued. “The Syndics. Just help me get off this… off my flagship and I will—”

His image vanished.

“What happened?” Geary demanded.

“The signal cut off clean,” the comm watch-stander said. “It must have been stopped at the source.”

“Admiral Bloch’s flagship figured out that he was plotting against it,” Desjani said. “Once enough word matches and phrases were identified, it pulled the plug on him. What’s the matter, Lieutenant Castries?”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Castries replied, looking ill. “He’s a prisoner on his own flagship? The idea of our ship turning against us, controlling us—”

“Yeah,” Desjani said. “Why would we give it the power to do that? Ask the idiots who keep coming up with the idea.”

“Do we know which ship the transmission came from?” Geary asked.

“Yes, Admiral. This one.”

On his display, one of the dark battle cruisers that had not been at Bhavan glowed brighter.

Geary shook his head, not sure whether to be angry or frustrated. “That confirms that whether or not Bloch came up with that ambush plan, he was not in command at Bhavan. But we can’t get him off that ship he is trapped on. All I can do is keep fighting the dark ships, and if Bloch sees a chance while I’m doing that, he can take it.”

“He wouldn’t have told you where Michael Geary was even if his flagship hadn’t cut Bloch off,” Desjani said. “That’s his biggest lever to get you to act on his behalf. He could always be lying about your grand-nephew being alive and in some Syndic labor camp,” she added. “Just to manipulate you to help him escape.”

“There’s no way of telling, and there is nothing I can do about it anyway. Do you think he was lying about the Armageddon Option?”

Desjani hesitated. “It sounds way too plausible. And it’s not like you needed more motivation to defeat the dark ships. But giving those ships the codes to enable them to use hypernet gates to destroy entire Alliance star systems? Who would do that?”

“Someone determined to pull everything down around them if they were losing,” Geary said. “It’s happened before, strategies designed to ensure that the victor inherited as little as possible, no matter the cost to the people on your own side. There are people I have met who I believe would adopt that idea. If the Syndics are going to own everything, destroy as much as you can to keep it from benefiting them.”

“How many billions of people in Alliance star systems would die?” Desjani demanded.

“If you’re a narcissist, that’s not the important thing,” Geary said, surprised at the viciousness in his voice. “All that matters is that you’ve lost, and you don’t want the winner to enjoy the victory. A few powerful people who didn’t care what would happen to many other people were in the right places to make that happen. We have to assume Bloch did not lie about the Armageddon Option and the gate codes. The dark ships must be destroyed before they can do those things.”

“Yes, sir.” Her smile held no humor, just agreement. “I don’t know how we can survive this, but we can do our best to ensure none of the dark ships survive, either. As long as we manage to take out one of the dark ships for every one of ours that gets destroyed, we’ll get the job done.”

He stared at his display as if concentration on it would somehow change what it portrayed. “Everything I was trained, everything I was taught, was to avoid that kind of fight. No decent commander engaged in that kind of ugly math.”

“What about a decent commander whose back is to the wall?” Desjani asked. “You got taught not to trade ship for ship. Your training has served this fleet well. But what’s our objective, Admiral?”

“Save the Alliance.”

“How do we do that, this time, without paying the necessary price? Doesn’t the decent commander do what is necessary to ensure that the sacrifice of his or her people is not in vain?”

He nodded. “That is true. But if I don’t set my attacks up right, we’ll lose our ships without taking out enough of the dark ships.”

“So do it right, Admiral.”

“Four formations,” Geary said. “Plus the Dancers. We’ll see how the dark ships handle that.”

With Desjani’s help and the simple-to-use features of his maneuvering display, Geary swiftly set up four formations, using all of the ships in his main body plus those which had been in Delta One. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute, assume Formations Gamma One, Two, Three, and Four.”

The two Alliance groupings disintegrated, the hundreds of warships weaving onto new vectors to take their assigned places in the four new subformations. Each was in the shape of a thick coin or section of a cylinder, layers of warships that could engage in all directions and help defend each other.