The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible

by Campbell, Jack

  SIXTEEN

  THE battle cruisers and the rest of the pursuit force had gradually passed the six spider-wolf ships, so that now the alien craft were between the pursuit-force formation and the heavier main-body formation coming on behind. The gap between the two subformations of the human fleet grew steadily larger as the battle cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers accelerated faster than the cumbersome battleships, auxiliaries, and assault transports could manage. Geary watched the status reports from the four battleships towing the former bear-cow superbattleship, seeing the stress readings in their hulls as Relentless, Reprisal, Superb, and Splendid strained to haul the massive Invincible at higher and higher velocities. Given enough time, even a small amount of thrust could do that, but they didn’t have decades to spend on slow acceleration, and so the four battleships were putting all they had into the task.

  Status reports everywhere showed problems. Not anywhere near the scale that had happened at Honor, but as the ships of the pursuit force had pushed their maneuvering and propulsion systems to the maximum, there had been spot failures in a score of ships. Implacable and Intemperate had each lost a main propulsion unit, which they were frantically working to bring back on line, while Valiant had suffered failures in half of her maneuvering thruster systems. All three battle cruisers had lagged behind their places in formation. They were accompanied by several light cruisers as well as ten destroyers that had also lost partial propulsion or maneuvering. Geary started to think that at least no ship had lost all propulsion, then hastily cut off the thought lest it somehow jinx the fleet.

  Dragon and Victorious were keeping place in formation but dealing with fluctuating shield failures, while individual hell-lance batteries were failing here and there on dozens of ships.

  The main-body formation under Captain Armus was suffering from scattered problems as well, but they had the auxiliaries with them as well as more time to fix the sudden system failures.

  As Captain Smythe had predicted, not only Witch but also Jinn and Goblin were out of critical materials and now unable to manufacture new items. Cyclops had an inventory so low that it would probably report the same condition within a few hours. Their engineers were assisting the crews of other ships in repair work, but that was all they could do for now.

  “It could be worse,” Geary said. “We’ve got a few more hours for this formation to fix things before we enter jump, and then the transit time to Midway to do internal repairs.”

  “And the Kicks aren’t still chasing us,” Desjani added.

  He couldn’t help a brief smile, which faded as he reviewed the repair status of fleet ships again. Yes, they had time to work, but having the parts they needed was another matter. “I hope we’re not running low on duct tape, too. I think we’re going to need a lot of it.”

  He had wondered if something else would show up at Pele while the fleet was passing through, perhaps more enigma ships racing to join up with their main force. But once the enigmas had jumped, there was nothing at Pele but the two human subformations and the spider-wolf formation between them. The main-body formation had fallen well behind the pursuit formation by the time the battle cruisers and their escorts pivoted to begin braking down to point one light speed for the jump.

  Geary felt the stress as Dauntless’s main propulsion units roared at maximum force to slow the ship. Tanya had cut the maneuver to the barest safety margins to shave a few more minutes off the time to jump. One of these days he would learn to double-check how many demands she was putting on propulsion units, ships’ structures, and the inertial nullifiers.

  But then she almost never exceeded danger margins. She got the ships real close to those margins but never right up to them. Usually.

  “Almost there,” Desjani noted over the complaints of the inertial nullifiers as they tried to keep ships from disintegrating and their crews from being pulped into jelly by the forces being used. “Spider-wolves are still hanging exactly ten light-minutes behind us.”

  “They want us jumping first into whatever the enigmas will have waiting at Midway,” Geary replied. “Not that I can blame them.”

  He tapped his comm controls. “Captain Armus, we’ll see you at Midway. I have no doubt that we’ll need your firepower there. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.” He ended his message in the ceremonial manner because that felt right this time.

  There wouldn’t be enough time for the message to reach Armus and for Armus to send a reply in the fifteen minutes remaining until jump, so Geary tried to relax despite the force of deceleration. “All units in pursuit force, this is Admiral Geary. Be at full combat readiness when we arrive at Midway. The enigma force that we saw jump for Midway may be awaiting our arrival or may be striking at targets in that star system. Either way, we’re going to teach them once again that attacking human-controlled space is a very bad idea. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

  “Being awfully formal for fleet communications, aren’t you, Admiral?” Desjani said.

  “The next time I talk to them, we may be in the middle of a fight.”

  As the pursuit-force formation had braked, any ships still lagging had taken advantage of that to catch up, Implacable, Intemperate, and Valiant as well as assorted light cruisers and destroyers sliding into their positions relative to Dauntless. Velocity kept slowing as the distance to the jump point shrank.

  Every ship reached point one light speed as the jump point loomed right ahead. “All units jump.”

  Geary forced himself to relax as the outside went gray and formless. “How is Dauntless doing?” he asked Desjani.

  “You don’t believe my status reports?”

  “Of course I do. But I’d like your impressions, too.”

  Tanya shrugged. “Being flagship, we got priority on a lot of systems upgrades. Once the engineers got tied up fixing battle damage and repairing failed systems, the upgrades slowed down, but Dauntless is still in good shape. I can’t promise nothing will drop out on us without warning, but it shouldn’t be anything major.”

  “Good. I know I can always count on Dauntless.” That was partly for the benefit of any crew members in earshot, who would pass on his statement to their shipmates, but also because he believed it was true. And because when he spoke of Dauntless, he also meant her commanding officer.

  Desjani’s smile showed that she knew that. “Thank you, Admiral.”

  “TEN minutes until we leave jump,” Lieutenant Castries announced.

  Desjani had her chin resting on one hand, the elbow propped on the arm of her seat. “Do you know what would be bizarre?” she asked Geary.

  “I can think of a few things. What exactly are you thinking of?”

  “Once again we’re about to leave jump, and once again we’re all hyped up, ready for action, knowing that there’s either going to be trouble or there very well might be trouble. In this case, we know there will be, of course.”

  “And that’s bizarre?”

  “No,” Desjani said. “That’s our normal. It’s always that way. What would be bizarre is if we were arriving at our destination, readying to leave jump, and we were all calm and relaxed and not worrying at all about what was there.”

  “You know, there’s a lot of truth to that,” Geary said. “I guess when we arrive at Varandal—” The look on her face stopped him in midsentence.

  “You’re not worried about what might be waiting for us when we return to Alliance space?” Desjani asked. “Seriously? Political games? Orders from fleet headquarters? Demands that Black Jack start running things? Demands that Black Jack be arrested before he launches a coup? You’re not worried about any of that?”

  He ran through various possible replies before deciding on one. “Let’s just say that I’ve been in denial and trying not to think about it.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “But consider this, Captain Desjani. If we pull this off, if we get through everything we have to deal with before we reach Varandal aga
in, whoever or whatever awaits us there will see us arrive with six ships full of spider-wolves and a captured Kick superbattleship.”

  She smiled, too. “Surprise! Not only did we make it back, but we brought friends. Yeah, that may well throw some carefully laid plans off track.”

  “Five minutes to arrival,” Lieutenant Castries said.

  Desjani’s smile vanished. “Do you think the Syndics at Midway will be keeping the enigmas busy?”

  “I don’t know,” Geary said, wishing that he could make a decent estimate. “It all depends on what they had in that star system and how smart they use what they’ve got. If they haven’t had reinforcements, they won’t have any chance against an enigma force that large. I’m not even sure whether they’ll still be calling themselves Syndics. I got a strong feeling that the CEOs at Midway, some of them anyway, were less than firm in their loyalty to the Syndicate government.”

  “Loyal? Syndic CEOs? Did you actually use those words in the same sentence?” Desjani asked. “Do you trust that woman you talked to? What was her name?”

  “Iceni. CEO Iceni. I can’t say I trust her. I’m not crazy. But our interests may coincide, as Victoria Rione would say.”

  That earned him a scowl. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t quote that woman when talking to me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “One minute to arrival.” Lieutenant Castries’s voice remained even, professional, but the tension level on the bridge could still be felt to be rising.

  “Time to get your head in the game,” Desjani said to Geary.

  “It’s there.”

  “Shields at maximum,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “All weapons ready.”

  The last seconds counted down, his guts felt the familiar twist and his mind the familiar disorientation, and the gray of jump space was abruptly replaced by black filled with stars as they arrived at Midway.

  The thing they feared most to hear, the blare of combat systems alarms warning of nearby enemies, did not come. The combat systems had been set to immediately begin pumping out shots at enigma ships if those were right on top of the jump point, but that didn’t happen either. As Geary shook the jump-created confusion from his mind, he saw threat markers popping to life on his display, none of them close. The enemy wasn’t waiting for them at the jump point, but the enigmas were indeed still here.

  “What are they doing?” Desjani wondered.

  “I don’t know,” Geary replied.

  He had expected and feared that the enigmas would head straight for the hypernet gate, which was located just shy of six light-hours from this jump point, well around the curve of the star system. If the enigmas had pumped their velocity up to point two light speed or higher, they could have reached that hypernet gate in only thirty hours. Once near the gate, those two hundred and twenty-two enigma warships could collapse it in no time by destroying the “tethers” that suspended an energy matrix between them.

  Or the enigmas could have headed for the primary inhabited world, now orbiting its star only four and a half light-hours away, to conduct a close-in orbital bombardment that would have annihilated the human presence there and rendered the planet uninhabitable.

  Instead, the enigmas were sitting only thirty light-minutes from the jump point where Geary’s fleet had arrived.

  “They’re waiting for us,” Desjani said. “They knew we were coming, and they’re waiting to hit us. Why didn’t they try one of those ambushes like they did at Alihi?”

  The answer came to him immediately. “Because they knew we were coming but didn’t have a precise enough knowledge of when we’d arrive. The enigmas at Hua did send out an alert, a faster-than-light message that we were on our way back toward Midway. That told these enigmas roughly when we would get here but not precisely enough to stage one of those ambushes at the jump point.”

  That left another question, though, and Desjani zeroed in on it. “So if they knew they had some time, why haven’t they run amuck here, destroying stuff or getting close enough to destroy something knowing that we couldn’t get there in time to stop them?”

  He looked from hypernet gate to inhabited world, from the inhabited world to the space-dock facility orbiting a gas giant one light-hour out from the star, from that facility to the Syndic flotillas elsewhere in the star system . . . Where do I go? I have to try to save—“Hell.”

  “Does that mean you figured out the answer to that question?” Desjani asked.

  “Yes.” He stabbed a finger at the display. “They want us, too. If they destroyed the hypernet gate, if they wiped out the human presence on the inhabited world and the orbital space dock, what reason would we have to stay and fight?”

  “And they want us to stay and fight.” She nodded, grim now. “So they left everything intact that we want to try to save. That means they won’t just run, either. They mean to make sure not only that the front door is closed but also that we’re disposed of so we can’t go charging back into their territory. But the odds don’t favor them that much. They must intend doing something to ensure we get wiped out. And then . . .” She frowned at her display. “Three Syndic flotillas. Do we have to worry about those Syndics? Are they going to help us? Are any of them going to fight us? Or will they just sit back and watch us and the enigmas fight, laughing as their enemies kill each other?”

  “The one thing I don’t think we need to worry about is the Syndics fighting us.” The need for haste weighed on him now, but he also knew that it would take his fleet five hours to reach the enigma force at its current velocity. Far wiser to figure out the situation in this star system, then act.

  Desjani shook her head. “That CEO in charge of their ships when we came through here last. What was her name? Kolani. She was tough and mean. She’d love to fight us, even if that only meant finishing off our wounded after the enigmas had crippled us.”

  Three Syndic flotillas—though all three were tiny compared to the Alliance and enigma forces. One battleship and two heavy cruisers at the orbital dock near the gas giant; another battleship along with six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and ten Hunter-Killers hovering near the hypernet gate; and two heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, and twelve HuKs on their way toward the gas giant on a vector that indicated they had come from near the inhabited planet.

  “If the Syndics can gather all of their forces together, combine those three little flotillas—” Geary began.

  “They’d have one little flotilla,” Desjani said. “If you add up the forces coming from the planet and the ones at the gas giant, not counting that battleship, you’d have about what the Syndics had here last time we came through. It looks like it’s been quiet here. Those guys near the hypernet gate must be reinforcements from the Syndic central government at Prime.”

  “It’s not much,” Geary conceded, “but two battleships can’t be discounted.” He had barely finished speaking when one of the threat markers on his display altered, changing its message. “Assessed nonoperational? The battleship at the gas giant isn’t in fighting condition?”

  “That’s what the fleet sensors say, Admiral,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed. “From analysis of the outer hull, it looks to be brand-new, but from everything the sensors can pick up in terms of activity and equipment, it’s estimated to still be under construction.”

  “That would explain why it’s at Midway’s orbiting shipyard dock,” Desjani said. “The two heavy cruisers must be with it as protection, then.”

  Lieutenant Iger’s face appeared near Geary. “Admiral, we’ve intercepted a message that was sent to the orbital dock near the gas giant from the Syndicate Worlds’ flotilla near the hypernet gate. We were close enough to the path of the transmission to grab it. The message identifies the commander of the flotilla near the gate as CEO Boyens.”

  “I guess they didn’t shoot him,” Desjani said, sounding slightly disappointed.

  “More importantly,” Iger continued, “is what the message said. We couldn’t break it completely, but we can sa
y with confidence that it was a demand to surrender.”

  It took Geary a moment to answer that. “Surrender? Was it aimed at the cruisers and battleship or the dock facility?”

  “All of them, Admiral. We’re certain of that.”

  “Who would be crazy enough to rebel with a battleship that wasn’t operational?” Desjani wondered. “So that force heading toward them from the planet is on their way to deal with the rebels there, too.”

  “Perhaps not.” Lieutenant Iger spoke quickly. “Fleet sensors have spotted some indications of damage in several of the cities on the primary world. There’s repair work under way already, but the damage was extensive enough to still be apparent.”

  “Bombardment by the enigmas?” Geary asked. “No. There hasn’t been enough time for a bombardment by that force to reach the inhabited world, hit, and repair work to begin.”

  “That’s correct, sir. And there are no bombardment craters visible. It looks like the sort of damage that would be caused by serious ground fighting.”

  Ground fighting. Who had been fighting whom? “Is there a civil war under way here?”

  “No, sir. We’d have seen signs of that kind of fighting right away. Whatever happened is past.”

  “Somebody won and somebody lost,” Desjani observed. “If the ships at the gas giant and the orbital dock are rebels, maybe they won there and lost on the planet.”

  Iger was listening to someone with him and reading rapidly. “Admiral, there’s a lot of very unusual signal traffic in this star system, messages that predate our arrival and the arrival of the enigmas. That message from the flotilla led by CEO Boyens is in regular Syndic format, but the locals haven’t been using standard Syndic codes recently, though they still seem to be sticking to Syndic protocols. The news-media transmissions we’re picking up talk about ‘President’ Iceni and ‘General’ Drakon as if those two are in charge here. From the videos, those are the same people we knew as CEO Iceni and CEO Drakon.”