Jack Campbell - Leviathan

“What about codes for the hypernet gate?” Geary said. He already knew what the answer must be because no one had led with that information, but still asked in a sort of forlorn hope.

“No, sir. We didn’t find them. Former Senator Rione thought she had a lead, but there wasn’t any more time.”

“Where is Rione?”

Commander Young checked a display on her ship. “In her stateroom, with her husband. He’s in really bad shape, Admiral. I think that hit her real hard. She’s got a comm block on the stateroom, but I can override it if you need to talk to her.”

“No,” Geary said. “If she had found anything, she would have already told me.”

He had considered having Mistral join Gamma One, positioned near Dauntless , but realized that putting two high-value targets right next to each other would be tempting fate, or at least tempting the dark ships. Instead, Geary ordered Mistral to join with Gamma Three, taking up position near Dreadnaught .

“Admiral, we have our answer from the Dancers,” Charban said. “It’s an odd little song to human ears, but it comes down to a statement that they were sent to stop the dark ships, and they will stay and fight to complete that mission.”

“Thank them for me,” Geary said. “Can we tell the Dancers that we are honored to fight alongside them?”

“Yes,” Charban replied, his expression thoughtful. “It should take the form of saying that we and they belong together in the pattern, I think. Something like that. I’ll put something suitable together.”

“And what have our honored fighting companions said about their undisclosed-until-now ability to activate Kick and Alliance ship systems from very long distances?”

Charban smiled. “I think they may have been embarrassed to be called on that. The answer they gave is that the methods they use are easily overridden by supervisors, whether human or Kick. On the targeted system, if there is someone present to override what looks like a glitch, it is too subtle to be identified as intrusion. But it is also far too weak to work on any system being monitored for glitches. I naturally asked why their methods could not work on the dark ships, and the Dancers replied that the AIs on the dark ships act as supervisors or monitors. The term they used actually translated as ‘over-minds.’ It is, therefore, a potentially valuable capability, but only when dealing with something lacking an operator, human or Kick or artificial.”

Fifteen minutes after the fleet passed the orbiting facility, the light finally reached them from the dark ship attack on Invincible . Despite the millions of kilometers between where the Alliance ships were and the site of the attack, the optical sensors aboard the fleet’s ships could get crystal-clear images through the emptiness of space.

Geary did not want to watch, but he felt a responsibility to do so. He flinched as the dark ships opened fire, dark battle cruisers blowing apart the Alliance fleet tugs propelling the alien warship.

Astoundingly, Invincible got off a few shots at the dark ships from her remaining weapons as the enemy came in close. Geary heard cheers aboard Dauntless and knew her crew was celebrating the heroic resistance of Invincible . It was just the automated weapons systems on the alien superbattleship, but it still felt like a brave ship going down fighting.

But Invincible ’s remaining weapons were quickly silenced as the dark battleships came close enough to pour streams of hell-lance fire into the superbattleship.

“They’re smart enough this time to conserve their expendable weapons,” Desjani commented. “No missiles, no grapeshot, not even bombardment projectiles, just hell lances.”

“Yeah. The dark ships learned that lesson as well. Too bad.”

It felt unreal to watch so many hell-lance hits pummeling Invincible , while the superbattleship drifted onward, to all appearances living up to the name that Admiral Lagemann had given her.

But even the Kick superbattleship could not take that kind of punishment forever. Geary saw the dark ships opening their distance to Invincible and guessed what was coming. “One or more of the Kick power cores are going unstable due to damage.”

“They must have been built tough to have stood up to that barrage as long as they did,” she observed.

He glanced at her, saw the unusual intensity with which Desjani was watching events, and realized that she was trying to distract herself. “Are you all right?”

“No. I lost more friends today. I’ll get over it. Or I’ll see the docs for some happy pills. Or we’ll all die soon. Whichever way, it won’t be a problem.”

An explosion ripped a huge hole in Invincible , followed by another that tore another gaping wound in the alien warship. But the superbattleship lurched onward.

The dark battleships closed in again, firing so intensely that they had to pause to prevent their hell-lance batteries from overheating.

Sections began breaking off Invincible , then, as the dark battleships swiftly withdrew once more, three additional massive explosions tore the superbattleship apart.

Geary sighed, thinking of the loss those explosions represented. “There are a lot of large pieces. Maybe there will be something left that we can use or learn from.”

“Maybe,” Desjani said.

Over an hour ago, the dark ships had turned and begun accelerating after the Alliance warships again. “Here we go,” Desjani said.

Word had gotten around that the fleet was unlikely to survive the battle in this star system, as well as why the fleet had to stay and fight even if the opportunity to flee miraculously presented itself.

The officers, sailors, and Marines took the news as the senior captains had. They had long ago resigned themselves to this.

Lines formed outside the worship compartments as men and women took advantage of the time available to make their peace or offer prayers or beg for miracles.

Geary, brooding over their lack of options and half-asleep from fatigue, started back to awareness as Tanya Desjani returned to her seat on the bridge. “Were you saying hello to our ancestors?”

“I’ll probably be able to do that in person soon enough,” she replied. “No. I had some urgent requests to perform marriage services by people who figured they had better get it done fast if they ever wanted it done. I just rushed through six of them, without getting all the proper authorizations and approvals.”

“You could get in trouble for that when fleet headquarters finds out,” Geary commented sarcastically.

“I’ll risk it. I just made sure to ask each couple whether, should we somehow live another day after this, they would regret making this decision. They all said they wouldn’t. We’ll probably never know.” Desjani gave him a sidelong look. “One of the couples were Charban’s lieutenants.”

Geary jerked back to full attention yet again. “Lieutenant Iger and Lieutenant Jamenson?”

“Yeah. Someday there might have been the patter of the feet of little green-haired future intelligence officers.” Tanya gave him another look. “The green-hair thing is dominant, you know. Lieutenant Jamenson’s ancestors made sure of that, and I made sure that Lieutenant Iger was aware of it. It didn’t seem to faze him, though.”

“Thank you for not being from Eire,” Geary said, “not that it looks like you and I are likely to be doing any reproducing.”

This time her look held warning. “Hey, Admiral, we stay professional on this bridge until the end. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” He sat up. They had gone a light-hour outward, deliberately angling away from the hypernet gate to avoid tempting the dark ships to drop the block on it and leave this star system to implement the Armageddon Option before finishing off Geary’s fleet. The government facility was six hours’ travel time behind them. “The dark ships are two light-hours from us, in a stern chase. I should get some rest while I can.”