“Warships of the Alliance,” the human avatar began speaking, his expression now altering slightly in ways not quite matching the tone of his words. The effect was very subtle, just as Boyens had said, but it was definitely there. “Your fleet does not have this star, does not belong to it. Dealings are to be with those who occupied this star but do not have it. Leave this star, and you will have peace. Destruction will be inflicted on any who remain here. By long-ago agreement, this star is ours to have.”
Geary glanced at Boyens’s image, who shook his head. “Not any agreement the Syndicate Worlds made with them.”
“They could be meaning that it’s theirs by divine mandate or something,” Rione said. “Or that they laid some claim to this area themselves a long time ago, long before they could actually extend control over it.” She looked at the other two senators. “A claim they don’t want to fight matched by threats of what will happen if we don’t do as they say.”
Costa looked angry. “They want the sort of peace that comes when we comply with all of their demands.”
“I agree,” Sakai said. “Though that may be merely a display of aggression to open the discussion.”
“Maybe. Do you think they’re confused by our presence here?” Geary asked.
The three senators considered that, then Rione nodded.
“It may not be confusion, but they seem to be wanting to deal only with the Syndics.”
“Because of the worms in Syndic ship systems, the aliens must have gotten used to being able to track human ships. Maybe they were really surprised to see us here and are trying to bluff us into leaving. It doesn’t hurt us to keep talking and see if they back down when we don’t back down.” Geary thought for a moment, then tapped his controls. “This is Admiral John Geary of the Alliance fleet. The war between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds has ended. We have been asked to assist against any threat to this star system. There was never an agreement to turn this star system over to you. We do not recognize the legitimacy of your ultimatum. We do not seek a fight with you, but we will repel attacks against this star system and any other star system occupied by humanity or within the borders of those regions of space occupied by humanity. Pull back your forces, so we can discuss sending emissaries to negotiate with you and establish terms for peaceful coexistence between our peoples. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary out.”
“Fat chance they’ll withdraw,” Desjani muttered.
“Yeah, but I had to give it a shot.”
Since the alien armada kept on course toward the Alliance fleet at a steady velocity of point one light speed, the answer took less than four hours. This time, though, the first part of the reply took the form of what seemed to be a demonstration of capabilities.
The alien formations abruptly swung upward, then to the side, then back onto their original vectors, every ship moving in perfect synchronization. The speed of the maneuvers and the rapidity of the changes in direction were impressive and frightening. Geary blinked at his display. “Did they really just do that?”
“Yes,” Desjani replied, gazing at her own display, her jaw so tight that Geary could see the muscles standing out.
“Captain,” the engineering watch-stander reported in a hushed voice, “the alien spacecraft appear to have propulsion systems with significantly higher mass-to-thrust ratios than our own. They must also have inertial dampers capable of performance an order of magnitude better than ours.”
The other watch-standers on the bridge were watching their own displays, sudden unease obvious in their postures and expressions.
Desjani relaxed herself with an effort of will that Geary found as remarkable as the alien maneuvering capability, then turned casually to look at the weapons watch-stander. “Can we hit them?”
“Captain?” The watch-stander took a moment to absorb the question, then ran a hasty check of his systems. “Yes, ma’am. Our fire-control systems can handle targets maneuvering the way the aliens just did.”
“How about the specters?” Desjani asked, still relaxed.
“Yes, ma’am. If we fire them within the right envelopes.” As the watch-stander answered her, he was visibly calming, too, as were all of the other personnel on the bridge.
“They can’t outrun specters or hell lances,” Desjani observed.
“No, ma’am,” the combat watch-stander agreed, grinning by then.
“They can dance all they want, then,” she concluded, then surreptitiously winked at Geary as the watch-standers smiled and turned back determinedly to their displays.
He gave her an admiring look in response and leaned close to speak quietly. “You are one hell of an officer, Captain Desjani. Well done. Do you want to broadcast that observation to the fleet?”
Desjani smiled. “I don’t need to. The bridge watch is busy passing it on right now. Sometimes the informal comm channels work to our benefit.”
He settled back, willing himself to match Desjani’s nonchalance, knowing that every eye was on him. He wondered how well the aliens could evaluate such human emotions. Would they see calm and confidence, or arrogance and obliviousness, or nothing they could understand at all?
“Another transmission,” the comm watch reported. “The transmissions are assessed as coming from the leading subformation on the bottom of the alien formation.”
The aliens’ human avatars seemed stiffer this time, their expressions sterner. “Leave. Leave this star. You do not have this star, Admiral Geary. Dealings only are to be with those of the Syndicate Worlds. Your fleet is to leave. Destruction will be certain if you fight. Negotiations will be allowed when what we have has been left by Syndicate Worlds.”
“Admiral?” the communications watch announced. “We have another message from the Syndic CEO in charge of this star system.”
CEO Iceni appeared now, obviously trying to project calm. “Admiral Geary, the enigma race has informed us that they will not deal with you and demanded our immediate surrender of this star system. I have chosen not to reply to them. Given their numbers and their communications, it appears the enigma race is resolved to fight to gain control of this star system. I do not know under what terms you agreed to come assist in the defense of this star system, but by confronting the enigma race, you have satisfied your own honor. We will not ask you to fight a hopeless battle on our behalf. If you choose to withdraw now, none can fault you. We ask only that you do what you can during your withdrawal to keep the enigma ships focused on your fleet so that as many of our evacuation ships as possible can escape.”
Desjani broke the silence following the message. “She thinks we’d run?” Her outrage seemed to match that of the other fleet personnel on the bridge.
But Geary understood. “The aliens must have sent her a message at the same time they sent the first one to us. She has no reason to believe we want to die defending Syndic people in a Syndic star system, but she’s not faulting us for that.”
“Who does she think we are?” Desjani demanded. “This fleet does not withdraw.”
Actually, it had, at least under Geary’s command, run from the initial trap in the Syndic home star system and many times afterward. But he knew what Desjani meant, and it heartened him that her attitude probably would match that of other fleet personnel when they heard that the Syndics had given the fleet an opportunity to withdraw honorably. They might not be thrilled about defending Syndics, but if the alternative was fleeing battle, they would rather fight.
Rione was frowning at Desjani in surprise and calculation, then speaking quietly to the other senators.
Geary gave Desjani a grim smile. “No. We’re not going to run.” It didn’t make any sense, of course. The aliens grossly outnumbered them, and the alien capabilities were unknown but likely to be superior to those of the humans as just demonstrated with their maneuvers. But it was unlikely that a stand anywhere else would face different odds. Instead, the odds would get worse as the aliens seized more and more human star systems, gaining strength as they weakened humanity. Migh
t as well see if we can hurt them bad enough here to make them stop here. How bad will that have to be, though?
He called the Syndic CEO back first. “Your concerns for the welfare of our personnel are noted and welcome, but we have made a commitment to repel aggression against this star system and will not waver from that commitment. We intend to fight if necessary, and we intend to win. I do have some experience with seemingly hopeless situations, and assure you that they are not always so hopeless as they seem. I repeat, the Alliance fleet will fight here if that is required of us. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary out.”
Now the aliens. “The fleet will not leave this star system until your ships have left. You will deal with us, or you will fight us. We will not yield this star system. Your ships will not be allowed to proceed past this fleet. We wish to talk, but we will fight if we must.”
Geary paused then, thinking, before tapping his controls again. “All units in the Alliance fleet, our communications with the ships of the alien race have so far produced no results. All units are to prepare for combat. Whatever these beings are, they’re going to be sorry if they tangle with the Alliance fleet.”
The senators were arguing, speaking in whispers but obviously agitated, as they debated, drawing annoyed glances from Desjani and the bridge watch-standers. “Do you wish to carry out your discussion in another location?” Geary suggested to the politicians.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rione replied with a sour look at the other two senators. “We have no better ideas of how to deal with this than you do.”
“Must we fight?” Sakai asked.
“Senator,” Geary answered, “I don’t want to fight these beings, not facing these odds. But I don’t know what else to do if they keep coming. They have to learn that humanity will fight to prevent further atrocities like that at Kalixa.”
“Having our fleet wiped out here won’t advance the interests of the Alliance,” Sakai said, as Costa nodded in emphatic agreement. “It appears this enigma race won’t be deterred.”
Geary was searching for the right reply when Desjani lowered her brow in thought. “Reserve flotilla.”
He stared at her, trying to figure out Desjani’s meaning, then it hit him. “The aliens didn’t attack, didn’t try to claim this star system, when the Syndics had the reserve flotilla defending this region. The border region was stable for decades while the reserve flotilla was here.”
“And,” Desjani added, “that reserve flotilla was weaker than this fleet.”
Costa and Sakai were glaring at Desjani, but Rione nodded slowly. “They could be deterred, it seems. Why was that if they had this number of ships on hand to attack?”
Alerts sounded, and Geary stared again, this time at his display, as more alien ships suddenly appeared, not at the jump point but with the armada. Three more subformations were abruptly there with the first six, forming another v, this time above and slightly ahead of the first two v’s.
Just like that, the odds against the Alliance fleet changed from two to one, to three to one.
ELEVEN
Geary turned on Boyens’s virtual presence. “Explain how the aliens did that.”
The Syndic CEO avoided Geary’s eyes. “It’s happened. Not in my personnel experience, but I reviewed the records of earlier encounters. I told you, sometimes you can’t see the alien ships at all until they reveal themselves. Syndic ships didn’t even see the alien ships, not even those vague blobs, until they suddenly appeared nearby and opened fire.”
“When were you planning on telling us about that alien tactic?” Geary demanded.
Boyens met his gaze. “The records from our destroyed ships were fragmentary and could have been inaccurate. But I wanted you to come here and fight them. If I’d told you they could do that, would you have come?”
“I need to know such things if I’m going to fight them!” Turning his back on the Syndic, Geary looked to Desjani. “Okay. It’s worse.”
She nodded, outwardly unmoved by the multiplication of the threat. “We can hit those subformations, the ones on the top edges, wear the aliens down.”
“We can try.” Left unsaid was that the aliens appeared significantly more maneuverable than human warships, which would immensely complicate that tactic. He called up a simulator window and started working on formations to counter the alien numbers and confuse their reactions to him, settling on five subformations of his own. By maneuvering them against the flanks of the aliens, he might be able to—“Another message from the enigma-race ships.”
More time had obviously passed than he had realized. The human avatars of the aliens seemed smug by then as well as stern. “Warning is final. Leave. Dealings will be only with Syndicate Worlds. Destruction awaits Alliance fleet if it remains. You do not have this star. Leave. Warning is final.”
Senator Sakai threw up his hands. “How can we negotiate if they just keep repeating their demands?”
“They don’t want to negotiate,” Costa snapped. “Admiral Geary, the situation clearly calls for this fleet to … to … reposition. Its destruction defending a Syndic star system would be a betrayal of the Alliance people.”
Geary could sense that everyone else on the bridge had suddenly held their breath, but he felt only a sense of ironic amusement at Costa’s words. “Senator, are you accusing me of treason?”
“I did not say that, but—”
“I have been entrusted by the entire grand council with command of this fleet, and I intend living up to that trust,” Geary continued, his voice hardening. “Now, I have an engagement to plan, and I would appreciate no further interruptions unless they are of a constructive nature.”
Behind Costa, and out of her sight, Rione twisted her mouth in a half smile.
Sakai just kept staring wordlessly at the displays.
Costa reddened but stayed silent, as neither of the other two senators sprang to her defense.
Everyone else started breathing again, and Geary turned to focus back on the approaching armada. They were down to a single light-hour’s distance. “Let’s get our speed up.” He ordered the fleet to accelerate to point one light speed onto a vector aimed at intercepting the alien armada. “About five hours to contact.”
“About that,” Desjani agreed cheerfully. Geary’s put-down of Costa seemed to have put Desjani into particularly high spirits. “There are a lot of them,” she added, as if commenting on the weather.
“Yeah.”
“Why are they bothering warning us off?”
Geary looked at her. “What?”
“Why didn’t they just attack? They outnumber us three to one, if there aren’t more of them hidden, and if the hypernet gates and worms are any indication of their technology, their weapons must be at least as good as ours. They could have kept their numbers hidden until they hit us. But they’re trying to get us to leave instead of fighting.”
Geary frowned at the question. “We’re back to Duellos’s riddle. Feathers or lead? The unsolvable riddle where the answer changes whenever the demon wants it to change. How can we come up with the right answer when we don’t understand the aliens asking the question and don’t even know what the question really means to them?”
She shrugged in reply. “They’re giving us a chance to leave without fighting,” Desjani repeated. “They’re trying to get us to leave without fighting. But they proved they can be totally ruthless when they collapsed the hypernet gate at Kalixa. So why are they being nice now? It looks like their ships can be totally undetectable by us. If I was them, I’d be charging in and making sure the other side learned not to mess with me again. I would have kept my numbers hidden, my arrival hidden, until I was in among the enemy ships, then opened fire without any warning, just like they’ve done in the past to the Syndics.”
He leaned forward, frowning more heavily, letting Desjani’s statements run through his mind. It was odd. Yes, they were dealing with something that didn’t think like humans did, but still seemed to be plenty merciless when
it wanted. They didn’t know the aliens’ motivations, but nothing the aliens had done so far seemed outright irrational to humans even though examples like Kalixa showed that the aliens were definitely not merciful when it came to dealing with humans. The aliens seemed pragmatic, in the most cold-blooded sense of the word. Which didn’t make them demonic, it just made them self-interested, and humanity didn’t have a lot of room to criticize any other intelligent race in that regard. But Desjani had put her finger on the big question and focused Geary’s attention there as well instead of just on the looming threat of the alien armada. Why would a pragmatic race of aliens capable of ruthless acts show mercy to a human fleet they might have to face again someday?
If they were human, and offering the Alliance fleet this kind of escape, he would wonder why. What possible reasons could he consider? “If they want us to leave instead of destroying us, why?”
“I asked first,” Desjani replied. “I think we can assume they don’t have any moral qualms about destroying this fleet.”
“Not after they tricked us into building the hypernet gates, destroyed Kalixa, and tried to destroy the Syndic home star system while we were there, no.”
“And, they didn’t attack when the Syndics had the reserve flotilla here,” Desjani repeated.
True enough. “Meaning that flotilla was probably strong enough to concern them even though an alien fleet of the size we’re looking at could have easily overwhelmed the Syndic reserve flotilla. Which means we’re strong enough to concern them even if it doesn’t look that way to us.”
“Then,” Desjani concluded, “maybe they’re not as strong as they look, maybe they’re more concerned about being able to win than the odds indicate.”
That made sense, but why would the aliens be concerned when they had that many ships? Fear of casualties? But the aliens had fought the Syndics more than once. Maybe it was like the hypernet gate at the Syndic home star system. They were seeing something but not knowing what it meant. Like a Trojan horse of some kind. For some reason Geary didn’t understand, his mind kept fixing on the phrases he and Desjani had been using. It doesn’t look that way … maybe they’re not as strong as they look … “Look.” Why was his mind telling him that word was important?
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