Dreadnaught tlfbtf-1

by Jack Campbell

  “If they have cooperated against us before this,” Duellos said, “then sooner or later they would have again, regardless of whether or not we sent this fleet into their territory.”

  Badaya laughed harshly. “How can we exploit differences among them when none of them will talk to us? There’s a way they’re different from humans! If an alien fleet was charging through human space, there’d be people calling them to talk. Individuals and groups. All those politicians out to protect themselves or get some short-term gain. We surrender, don’t hurt us! Can we make a deal? Do you need any supplies, and do you have any money? I hate these other people, so can we ally against them? The aliens wouldn’t know how to handle all the conversations they’d be getting!”

  Captain Shen rarely said much in these conferences, but now he spoke again as he nodded toward the star display. “They’ve probably devoted a lot of effort to trying to understand humans, and their problem in that respect is the opposite of ours. We have too little information about them. But, as they scouted invisibly through human space, they must have collected huge amounts of information. How do they sort it out, filter it, and make sense of it?”

  “One of our first clues to their existence,” Geary commented, “was finding a safe that had been broken into at a star system abandoned by the Syndics. That must have been part of the enigma collection efforts. Maybe, because of the way they think, they thought the truth behind who we are would be kept hidden in safes rather than openly displayed.”

  “If they do find the truth of who we are,” Shen continued, “I hope they share those conclusions with us since I’ve met few humans who seem to have any agreement on that topic. I endorse the suggestion that we return to Alliance space because I see no sense in continuing to go deeper in alien territory. However, I wish to point out an implication of Commander Neeson’s suggestion. If hypernet gates represent defenses, we have encountered three star systems in a row holding those defenses.”

  “This could be another border,” Neeson said.

  “Yes. One the enigma race believes requires particularly strong defenses.”

  An alert sounded, the display over the table changing to show this star system. “Fifty more enigma warships have arrived,” Desjani noted. “With more than a hundred on hand, they may think that’s enough to offer battle.”

  Geary nodded, taking time to form his words carefully. He couldn’t announce that the Alliance forces sought to avoid battle or wanted to retreat from this star system since both ideas were still too difficult for the current culture of the fleet to accept. “If they come at us, we’ll take care of them. But I’m not going to wait around here for them to do that. If this star system does represent a border, it may be a border with another intelligent species, and if they don’t get along with the enigmas, they may be natural allies with us. We’ll proceed on our planned course of action, and if they want to keep tagging along behind, they’re free to do so.”

  Desjani leaned back, eyeing him, then shifted her gaze to Duellos and, as he returned her look, swung one hand to the side in a subtle gesture that wouldn’t be noticed by anyone not focused on her.

  Duellos frowned back at Desjani, then nodded in understanding. “Admiral, if I may suggest, perhaps the fleet should execute a preplanned evasive maneuver as we exit jump. We do have reason to think there may be something new at that star.”

  “Good point. We’ll do that.”

  Admiral Lagemann had attended the conference as well, as a representative of the officers liberated from Dunai and in a goodwill gesture by Geary to those who weren’t making sporadic efforts to complicate his command of the fleet. After almost everyone else had left, Lagemann lingered for a moment. “I won’t deny that I’ll be happy to turn toward home. A lot of us from Dunai can’t wait for that.”

  Duellos hadn’t yet left and turned a questioning look on him. “Why just a lot of you, Admiral Lagemann? Why not all of you?”

  “Because we’ve learned enough about things at home to expect that, with the war over and the military shrinking, we’ll all be retired as soon as we get there.” Lagemann smiled ruefully. “That’s not quite the imagined future we hung on to in that Syndic labor camp. We’d somehow get home or escape, then lead the fleet or the ground forces in great victories, like Black Jack returning from the dead.” He grinned at Geary. “Sorry. Old saying.”

  “I keep running into them,” Geary replied.

  “But,” Lagemann continued, “I think the majority of us will be content with how things have changed. There are plenty who will not be happy, who will want to challenge the state of affairs and how the government is doing things. I have to admit, I don’t understand why the government made it a priority to liberate us. We’re going to create a lot of problems when we get home, but at least by taking us along on this mission, you delayed that happening by several months.”

  Something struck Geary then, a realization that he hoped didn’t show. Why did we have to pick them up before we went on to alien territory? Why did the government want them with us on a mission facing unknown hazards and the real possibility of lost ships? If something went wrong, if we were delayed getting home, if ships were lost, if disaster happened, I wouldn’t be the only inconveniently alive hero the government would no longer have to worry about.

  Navarro wouldn’t have set that up. I don’t think Sakai would have. Who hoped for it, though? Who in the government and who in fleet headquarters, who surely don’t want to deal with lots of resurrected senior officers any more than the government does?

  Rione knew that was part of it. That’s why she looked that way when she realized her own husband had been caught in it. But as far as I know, she’s done nothing to further it happening. She isn’t helping much, but she’s not sabotaging us either.

  The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to form partial pictures, and he didn’t like the image at all.

  THIS jump required tweaking the jump drives a bit to get some extra range out of them. The fleet jumped while the two groups of enigma warships were still joining up a light hour distant.

  “May I speak with you, Admiral?” General Charban sat down in the offered seat in Geary’s stateroom, looking around with a wry smile before speaking. “Not much, but it’s home, eh? Strange how we can attach ourselves to even a utilitarian stateroom or headquarters complex, isn’t it? Humans find home wherever they are. I have an idea, Admiral Geary,” he added, switching the subject abruptly. “A possible means for finally getting some agreement with the enigma race on the basis of mutual self-interest.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it,” Geary replied.

  “I was considering a few things, including what Dr. Shwartz said at our last fleet conference about the inconsistency between what the enigmas said at Midway and their actions since then. It may be that we made a fundamental mistake in assuming those words represented the actual motivations of the enigmas.”

  Geary rested his chin on one hand, regarding Charban. “Why would they have lied to us about what they wanted, about what was motivating them?”

  Charban smiled slightly. “When you speak to men and women serving in the fleet, do you talk about cost-benefit ratios and the need to enhance stockholder benefits and reduce costs to the government? Or do you talk about what you believe matters to them?”

  He followed where that question led. “You think the enigmas at Midway were giving us an explanation for their actions they thought we would understand or accept.”

  “Yes. Any exterior agent watching the war would have focused on our struggles for control of star systems. For control of territory. And property does matter to us even though it is not the most important thing for most humans. What I think the enigmas were doing at Midway, and have done since, was giving us the justifications they thought we would find plausible. Instead of giving their real reasons, they gave us reasons they expected us to expect.”

  Charban hunched forward, speaking more intensely. “Consider how private they are, how th
ey give away nothing about themselves. Why would they offer their true reasons at Midway? Why would they tell us what they really wanted?”

  “Good question.”

  “I was led to this while thinking about the humans held prisoner by the enigma race,” Charban continued. “From a human perspective, there wasn’t anything surprising about the aliens wishing to know more about us. But was that really the alien motivation? Were they researching how humans acted because they were curious, or simply because they saw us as a threat?”

  Geary nodded as he thought about that. “For humans, it would be both. Even if they weren’t a threat, we’d want to know more about another intelligent species.”

  “Because we’re curious!” Charban leaned forward a little further. “There was discussion some time ago about the human obsession with sex, and that is indeed a major aspect of us. And, of course, we fight wars over property as well as other causes. But there’s another characteristic that defines us, perhaps even more so. We are curious. We want to know things. What’s at the next star? How does this thing work? Why does the universe act the way it does? No matter what we learn, there’s always more we want to know. We confront anything from the perspective of wanting to know more about it. Now, what is the primary characteristic of the enigma race as far as we have been able to determine?”

  “An obsession with staying private, hidden.” Geary took a sudden deep breath. “We want to know more, and they don’t want anyone knowing anything. Matter and antimatter. We’re the neighbors from hell as far as they’re concerned. Is that why they attacked us?”

  “It may be. I’ve reviewed the records the Syndics provided us,” Charban continued. “As far as I can tell, the Syndics never approached the enigma race on the basis of ‘we’ll leave you alone.’ They did the natural thing for humans, sending out exploration missions into enigma space, though the Syndics didn’t then know it was enigma territory. And they planted bases and colonies, pushing farther into enigma space. Once the Syndics discovered the aliens, they tried to learn more about them, talk to them, and probably tested their defenses. And we’ve done pretty much the same kind of thing. We tell them we want to talk, to get to know each other, and that is exactly what they most fear and dislike about us. Look what we’ve done here. A mission of exploration, to learn things about them. That’s a normal desire for us, but to the enigma race it must look like the ultimate act of aggression.”

  “We promise to leave them alone?” Geary asked. “Ignore them completely, never try to penetrate their territory again, never try to learn any more, never try any contact?”

  “It’s worth a try. But there are two other things. First, we need to imply that our curiosity will never be satisfied if we think they are still holding any human prisoners. We will keep looking. If they want us to start pretending that the universe ends where their territory begins, the enigmas will have to cough up any other humans they still hold.”

  “Excellent idea,” Geary approved.

  “Thank you, though my fellow emissary helped me come up with that.” Charban paused, looking as if he were tasting something unpleasant. “The other thing. The enigmas have chosen to use military options against us. I think it possible that they will continue to attempt military solutions until we’ve demonstrated they can’t win that way.”

  “That doesn’t always work with humans. Beat them up, and they just come back for more.”

  “Yes. That’s one of our particularly irrational forms of dealing with reality. But these are the enigmas. Their overriding goal doesn’t seem to be survival or victory. It’s keeping their secrets. Demonstrate that military force cannot succeed in that, and it may make a difference.”

  Geary looked at the display over the table in his stateroom, bringing up an image of the previous star system as they had last seen it, with one hundred and ten enigma warships pursuing the Alliance force. “We may have to fight again and destroy as many of those enigma warships as possible.”

  “Yes.” Charban nodded to Geary. “You see that as a sad necessity, as do I. Victoria said you would.”

  “Has Victoria Rione said anything else?”

  Charban frowned. “No. She just told me to talk to you. Admiral, I’m fully aware that I am far from the most qualified person to have been given this assignment. I have sometimes wondered why I was given it, whether—”

  “We were being set up to fail?”

  “I haven’t gone that far in my suspicions, Admiral. Some of the people I have worked with would not have done such a thing.”

  “But others might?” He thought of Rione’s vague warning. Many minds trying to direct a single, clumsy hand.

  “Do you trust my fellow emissary, Admiral?” Charban asked.

  “Yes.” But I’ve made mistakes before. Hopefully not this time. “I’m glad that you told me about this idea, General. We can’t consult with the civilian experts until we leave jump, but please talk with them once we arrive at the next star system and work up a way of presenting that proposal to the enigmas.”

  Maybe there was yet hope.

  THE last thing that anyone wanted to hear when a ship exited from jump space was the frantic blare of alarms as combat and maneuvering systems screamed warnings before humans could focus their senses. Geary braced himself as Dauntless rolled upward and to the side in the preplanned evasive movement, trying to overcome the stresses of the motion and the confusion that came with the exit from the jump space.

  “Son of a bitch!” Desjani gasped, having centered her attention a fraction of a second earlier than Geary had managed.

  He still took another moment to grasp what he was seeing. “What the hell is that?”

  Across the path the fleet would have taken straight out the jump point and only one light minute distant, a massive object orbited. The fleet’s combat systems had already covered what seemed like every square meter of the object’s surface with threat symbols, which continued to multiply as new threats were identified. Geary blinked, rereading the assessment of shield strength on the orbiting leviathan in disbelief.

  One of the watch-standers answered Geary’s question, her own voice filled with incredulity. “It’s the size and mass of a minor planet, Admiral, and its orbit is slaved to the jump point. Either they completely turned a minor planet into a fortress and moved it here, or they built something that huge.”

  Desjani shook her head. “If we hadn’t executed that preplanned evasion the fleet would have gotten far too close to that thing before we could turn it. Good thing—”

  She stopped speaking as more alarms shrieked from the combat systems.

  Geary stared as part of the surface of the planet-fort seemed to leap into space, then saw that it was actually a dense swarm of small ships so numerous they momentarily blocked a clean view of the fortress. “How many of those things are there?”

  No answer came, and Desjani spun in her seat to glare at her combat systems watch-stander. Lieutenant Castries shook her head helplessly. “System is still evaluating. Estimate greater than two hundred. Greater than four hundred. Greater than eight hundred.” Castries took a sudden breath. “Working estimate stabilizing at nine hundred, plus or minus ten percent.”

  Desjani also inhaled slowly, then looked at Geary. “Nine hundred,” she repeated in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “Plus or minus ten percent,” he added, wondering that he could make a joke of such a thing. “Any idea what they are?”

  “If they’re missiles, they’re very big missiles.” Desjani tapped her display. “They have very good acceleration. I wonder if they’re crewed or automated.”

  “They’re about twice as large in mass and dimensions than standard human fast attack craft,” the combat systems watch reported. “That’s plenty big enough for crews”

  “Or really big warheads.” Desjani pointed at her display again. “They could be mostly warhead and propulsion. If they maintain that acceleration—”

  “We won’t be able to outrun them,” G
eary agreed, running another estimate on the maneuvering systems. The same answer came up, though. “Not when they’re this close and coming on that fast.”

  The rest of the fleet had cleared the jump point by then, and all of the ships were bending onto the new course upward and to the side. “All units, this is Admiral Geary. At time four one, come port zero eight zero degrees and accelerate at maximum.” That would at least line up the fleet’s subformations in a column leading away from the alien force and give him as much time as possible to think of a solution to this mess that didn’t involve massive losses to his fleet. His eyes came to rest on a detailed image of one of the alien craft that the fleet’s sensors had compiled and his display had helpfully parked to one side. Unlike the tortoise-shaped ships they had encountered so far, these alien craft were simply cylinders with rounded bows, some kind of propulsion unit making up the entire back end, and a few low, small spines that must hold sensors sticking out from the sides. And that orbiting fort . . . “This is ugly,” he said to Desjani. “But none of this looks anything like the enigmas.”

  “No, it doesn’t. At least there’s no hypernet gate here.”

  “One small blessing.” They could race away from the jump exit without worrying about the threat of a gate. But if these weren’t the enigmas . . . “Could we have found a star system colonized by humans ? Some group who found themselves in enigma space and had to keep running until they found a star system on the other side of the enigmas?”

  Desjani glanced back to her engineering watch. “What do you think, Master Chief?”

  Gioninni shook his head. “No, Captain. None of the stuff we’ve seen resembles human designs. And the industrial base needed to build and maintain something like that fortress would be huge. Not something that could be thrown up overnight or in a few decades. They would have had to have been isolated out here for several centuries at least. How could they have gotten this far out that long ago? Maybe these aren’t those enigmas, but I’m not seeing anything that makes me think human.”