Jack Campbell: Leviathan

At two and a half hours before the dark ships should reach the hypernet gate, Geary sent more orders, secure in the knowledge that the dark ships would not see his maneuver before they had very probably planned to change their vectors. “All ships in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, turn starboard zero six four degrees, down zero five degrees.” Dauntless swung in response to the command, her maneuvering thrusters pitching her bow toward the star and slightly below it, the other battle cruisers, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers with her matching Dauntless ’s vector change.

Task Force Dancer. So named because it had hastily escorted back toward their home space ships carrying representatives of the alien species that humans had nicknamed Dancers. “What would the Dancers think of all of this?”

“They said they’d be back soon,” Desjani said. “How much do you think the Dancers knew about the dark ships, and how did they discover things we didn’t know?”

“I think the Dancers may have pulled a few strings,” Geary said. “I’d like to know why, but I can’t shake my belief that ugly as they are to our eyes, the Dancers are allies to humanity.”

“I hope you’re right. The living stars know that humanity already has enough enemies, most of them homegrown.”

Geary kept hoping his display would show new information, but Mortar and Serpentine stayed near the hypernet gate. He could easily put himself in the place of the crews of those two ships, imagine them watching the odd movements of Geary’s ships and listening to whatever fragmentary and contradictory messages had reached them. They had brought their shields to maximum strength, had their weapons powered up, and were doubtless scanning space, watching for any threat, unaware that the software in their own communications, sensor, and weapons systems had been secretly directed in hidden subprograms to hide or delete anything related to the dark ships. But even if they had seen the oncoming dark ships, Geary did not know if the two warships of the Alliance would have fled. As he had learned after being awakened, in a century of war with the Syndicate Worlds the Alliance fleet had forgotten how to win but had become uncompromising in its willingness to die trying. The two destroyers did not maneuver in the last minutes before the dark ships reached firing range, and they did not fire as the dark ships closed on them.

The dark ships tore past Mortar and Serpentine , hurling out a barrage of fire at the Alliance destroyers. To the destroyers, the attacks would have seemed to have come out of nowhere, not that they had any time to be shocked by that. Shields collapsed under hammerblows of hell-lance particle beams, after which the weak armor of the destroyers offered little obstacle to the enemy fire. Mortar exploded, vanishing into a ball of dust as her power core overloaded. Serpentine shattered, breaking into several pieces that spun away helplessly, a pitiful few escape pods breaking free from the wreckage to seek safety for the small number of surviving crew.

It had happened nearly three hours ago, only now the light revealing the deaths of the two destroyers reaching Dauntless . Few humans could watch such images and not feel as if they were seeing something as it happened.

“At least everyone will have to believe us now,” Desjani said, her voice low and furious. “Everyone saw that.”

“I wish we hadn’t lost two ships providing that evidence,” Geary said, feeling the same emotions. “Look. We guessed right.”

“You guessed right,” she corrected him.

The dark ships had suddenly changed their vectors, whipping through turns that, while immense by the standards of distances on a planet, were comparatively tight when measured in terms of spacecraft traveling at twenty percent of the speed of light, or about sixty thousand kilometers a second. Without human crews, the dark ships could manage more intense maneuvers than Geary’s ships, but even the dark ships were limited by the amount of stress their hulls could endure.

“Enemy formation is steadying out on a vector toward Ambaru Station,” Lieutenant Castries announced. “Estimated time to intercept of Ambaru’s orbit is twenty hours, ten minutes. Maneuvering system recommends we adjust our vector to bring about an earliest-possible intercept with the dark ships in twenty-one hours, six minutes.”

“Do it,” Geary said. His display showed the dark ships diving toward the star, and toward the thin screen of warships that was slowly assembling in their path. Behind that screen of battleships, light cruisers, and destroyers, sixteen additional heavy cruisers were converging into two box formations on orbits that would bring them close to the path of the oncoming dark ships.

“If I were in command of the dark ships,” Geary commented, “I’d see all of this, realize that my plan had been compromised, and come up with another plan.”

“Never turn aside,” Desjani said. “That’s another Black Jack quote. Did you ever actually say that?”

“No. Why the hell would I have said something that stupid?”

“Well, Black Jack supposedly did,” she reminded him. “Your battles show you maneuvering, but also staying focused on hitting the enemy. It will be interesting to see how the artificial intelligence guiding the dark ships interprets that.”

“Interesting?” he asked.

Her answer was cut short by an incoming message.

“What kind of supernova did you set off?” Admiral Timbale’s image asked. “I’ve read the material you sent aboard Hammer , but when I tried to copy it to my own comm system it kept disappearing. So I downloaded that software patch you sent and ordered my systems people to run it. Before it could complete installing, I got calls from security people I didn’t even know were on Ambaru Station who informed me I was in possession of illegal software and was in violation of Alliance rules and regulations that I also didn’t know existed.”

Timbale had a stubborn look in his eyes and a firm set to his mouth as he spoke. “You say there’s an active threat in this star system, and based on the vid you provided of what happened at Indras and Atalia, it’s an extremely dangerous threat. I’ve sent orders to the destroyers on guard at the hypernet gate to reposition, but—” He paused as if having trouble speaking. “But those orders may not arrive in time based on what information you’ve given me. If the worst happens, it will be the direct result of whatever and whoever messed up our comms and other systems. There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about the enemy inside, and I never cared much for it. But here we are, deliberately blinded as we deal with a threat to life and property.”

He took a deep breath. “I am insisting on confirmation of the authority of those security personnel even though everything they have checks out. I’ve told them I won’t follow any instructions from them unless and until higher authority directs me to comply. And I have informed them that if anything happens to any ship in this star system, I will be sending military police to arrest them on charges of conspiracy and sabotage. Timbale, out.”

A momentary silence after the Admiral’s image vanished was broken by Desjani’s comment. “Somebody pushed him too far.”

“I noticed,” Geary said, thinking of how Timbale would react when the light from the destruction of Mortar and Serpentine reached him.

“Could this push the Alliance too far as well?”

“Not if I can help it.”

She nodded, then stretched with slightly exaggerated motions. “It will be fifteen hours before the dark ships reach weapons range of the first screen. I’m going to get some rest while I can,” she added pointedly.