Jack Campbell: Leviathan

“That’s true,” Geary said.

“Although,” Badaya added, “part of me wouldn’t mind leading these human-made monsters to Unity so they could carry out their Armageddon on those who created them.”

“A lot of innocent people would die as well,” Jane Geary said. “Otherwise, I’d agree with you.”

“All right,” Geary said. “We are going to undertake one detour.” He explained about his intentions with Mistral . “If the Marines have found the means to unblock the hypernet gate, we can send Mistral to safety using that, but I’m going to assume we’ll have to try to avoid action until a jump point appears that Mistral can use.”

“There are going to be a lot of unhappy people on Mistral ,” Armus observed dourly.

“They have to do their duty, just as we are doing ours,” Desjani said.

“I’m not arguing that. I’m just glad I’m not the commanding officer of Mistral .”

“Thank you,” Geary said. “I am honored to have served with you, and with every man and woman in this fleet. Captain Geary, there is one more issue we should discuss alone.” The images of the other captains vanished, leaving Jane Geary watching him expectantly. She made no comment about Tanya also still being present, for which Geary was grateful. “When Admiral Bloch communicated with us, he claimed to know that your brother Michael was still alive and where he was. He offered to trade that knowledge for our rescuing him from his flagship.”

Jane Geary inhaled sharply, then laughed. “Admiral Bloch would say anything to try to save his life. He’s lying.”

“That’s what I thought,” Geary said. “In any event, it is impossible to get him off the dark battle cruiser that is his flagship. The best that Bloch can hope for is that we knock out but not destroy that dark ship, leaving him a chance to get off it. But we can’t limit our attacks, or risk the lives of our people, to try to save him.”

“I agree. Michael would not want such a deal made in his name.” She looked over at Tanya. “He would be happy to know that the family included a worthy new sister when we fought our last fight.”

“Thank you,” Tanya said.

Jane Geary saluted them both, then her image vanished as well.

Geary took a moment to compose himself, then called General Charban. “You’ll need to tell the Dancers what we’re going to do.” He explained the fleet’s plans, then gestured in the direction of the Dancers, who were once again tagging along close to the Alliance warships. “The Dancers are under no obligation to stay here and fight to the death with us, though we will be immensely grateful for their assistance. Let me know what they are planning on doing.”

“Yes, Admiral. What are our chances, do you think?”

“I think our fleet will achieve its objectives, General. I don’t expect to survive that. I don’t think many of us will. Maybe none.”

“That’s what I thought.” Charban shrugged. “At least I can stop worrying about why I survived earlier battles when others did not. This will simplify my life though, of course, I will no longer be alive to benefit from that. We’ll see how the Dancers feel about this kind of fight.”

That done, Geary looked over at Tanya. “Regrets?”

“I’m doing what I love, Admiral.” She looked at him, then smiled. “And in good company.”

“Me, too.”

“I need more time, Admiral,” Rione’s image insisted with a fierce intensity unlike her usual cool outward demeanor. “I think I can find what we need. But I require more time than you are allowing. I must have that time.”

They were still a couple of light-minutes from the government facility. The four-minute delays between each statement and the reply being received made the conversation awkward but not intolerable. “I can’t give you more time,” Geary said. “If you haven’t found anything yet, odds are there is nothing to find. Maybe Admiral Bloch has the codes and hasn’t coughed them up. You can try to convince him to do that. The dark ship battle cruiser he is on has survived so far, and despite his talk about risking a shuttle journey to join our fleet, Bloch didn’t make any moves to do that during any of our engagements so far.

“It would be good to have access to that gate so we could get Mistral out of here fast, but it’s not critical that we use the hypernet gate. It is critical that Mistral take advantage of the opportunity to get back within the protection of our warships while the dark ships are preoccupied with destroying Invincible . The bottom line is that Mistral needs to pull out when I ordered so that we have a chance to get her out of this star system. And you and your husband need to be on Mistral .”

Rione did not reply. He imagined she was angry, but he had no emotional stress left unused to devote to worrying about that.

About an hour later, the Alliance formations swung by the government facility. The dark ships had surely reached Invincible by now, but the light from their attack had not yet traveled all the way from that location to where Geary’s fleet could see it. The Alliance sensors could only see images nearly an hour old of the dark ships closing in on the alien superbattleship. Odds were that the dark ships had actually finished their attacks on Invincible and were already on their way back to deal with Geary’s forces again.

Mistral shot out of the dock, accelerating as rapidly as she could to rejoin the other warships. “Mission completed as ordered,” Commander Young’s image told Geary.

Next to her, Colonel Rico nodded. He looked like someone who had been wearing battle armor for hours and was, in fact, still in it, just his face shield opened. “We have multiple copies of everything in every record file in every storage source aboard that facility, Admiral. There were also papers.”

“Papers?” Geary asked. “What kind of papers?”

“Papers with records on them, and orders, and information,” Rico clarified.

“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

“My hack and cracks think the paper records were used instead of digital files to limit any chance of the information being copied or leaked,” Rico explained. “We discovered something else about their security precautions when we looked outside the facility using the sensors on it. They showed us a star system with only one star, Alpha. Beta was completely screened out, gravitational effects and everything. I bet it was the same way on any ships bringing in people and taking them back. Probably only a few people out of everyone sent here ever knew it was a binary.”

“Clever,” Geary said.

“Yes, sir,” Commander Young agreed. “Some people have gotten entirely too comfortable with the idea of making everyone else see only what is wanted.”

“We brought the private security guards out,” Rico added, “including the body of the one we had to shoot. The guards are prisoners, but they’re not giving us any trouble. They figure we saved them. We’ve also locked up the people who were prisoners aboard the facility. We don’t know why they had been locked up, so we’re not taking chances.”

“That can be sorted out later. What about the suits?” Geary asked.

“Locked in the highest-security cells on Mistral ,” Commander Young answered. “The Marines, my masters-at-arms, and our medical personnel gave all of the suits a good going-over before we locked them up to ensure no one had suicide capability on them or in them. I don’t know if all of them are a threat, either. Some of the suits are acting like people who were asking themselves questions even before we showed up.”