Boundless

by Jack Campbell

“Confirm destination gate shown as Varandal.”

  “Destination gate is Varandal,” Yuon said.

  “Lieutenant Castries,” Desjani said. “Status.”

  “We’re twenty-eight minutes from being close enough to the gate to enter,” Castries said. “On vector, reducing velocity at projected rate to enter gate.”

  “Incoming message from Audacious,” the communications watch reported.

  “Direct it to me and the admiral,” Desjani said, then grumbled in a much lower voice, “Zhao had better not try anything.”

  Geary checked the location of Audacious, seeing that the battleship was hanging in its patrol orbit a few light minutes away from the projected path of Dauntless. “He hasn’t lit off his main propulsion.”

  A moment later, a window opened on his display, showing Captain Zhao on the bridge of Audacious. “Admiral Geary,” Zhao said with a wide smile, “my orders are to ensure that nothing interferes with your expeditious departure from Unity. Please advise if you require any assistance. Audacious wishes you and Dauntless a safe voyage and success in your assigned missions. To the honor of our ancestors. Zhao, out.”

  Desjani, who’d seen and heard the same message, laughed. “Fleet Headquarters can’t wait to get rid of you, can they?”

  “Expeditious,” Geary said, feeling mixed emotions at the eager send-off. “Somebody keeps using that word.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t mean what you think it means,” Tanya said.

  “I think I know exactly what it means,” he said. “I’m being politely run out of town before I cause any more trouble.”

  They were about fifteen minutes away from being able to enter the hypernet gate when alerts sounded.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon called out, “those two ships loitering near the hypernet gate are accelerating all out. They’re exceeding safe acceleration limits.”

  “What the hell?” Desjani muttered, glaring at her display. “Lieutenant, confirm what I’m seeing. Are they both on intercept courses with us?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Yuon said, his voice betraying no hint of the worry he must be feeling. “Not just intercept, though. Maneuvering systems are predicting a seventy percent likelihood they are on collision courses. Update, Captain. Maneuvering systems now estimate seventy-eight percent probability both ships are accelerating onto collision courses with us.”

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Castries said, “the identification being broadcast by both ships has changed. One now reports it is carrying children on an educational trip, and the other claims to be an Alliance military ship.”

  “Time to collision with both ships is six minutes, Captain. Systems now estimate ninety percent collision probability.”

  “Bring the ship to general quarters, full combat readiness, maximum airtight integrity.” Desjani spared a moment to glance at Geary. “Looks like our friends aren’t going to let you go that easily. Request permission to target both ships.”

  Geary brought a fist to his forehead, eyeing his own display where the tracks of both fast ships appeared as shallow curves ending where they intercepted the projected path of Dauntless. “Opening fire at Unity? Against ships broadcasting civilian and friendly identification?”

  “That’s not what they really are,” she insisted.

  “What if they are?” Geary asked, tightening his fist enough that it hurt his hand. “Wouldn’t that be the perfect setup to discredit me and get me relieved of command? What are the chances of disabling them and not destroying both ships?”

  Desjani rubbed her chin, eyeing her display. “Admiral, at the relative velocity we’ll be moving at intercept, there won’t be any chance of ensuring any shots are merely disabling. If we open fire, any hits are likely to be kills.”

  “Three minutes to collision,” Lieutenant Yuon reported as the collision alarm came to life, blaring its warning to everyone aboard the ship.

  SIX

  “THOSE things have impressive thrust-to-mass ratios. Can you dodge them?” Geary asked.

  Tanya raised her eyebrows at him as if surprised at the question. “They’re very maneuverable. It’ll take expert shiphandling.”

  “So you can do it?”

  “If I can’t, no one can. Lieutenant Castries, I’m assuming direct control of maneuvering.”

  “Understood, Captain. Two minutes to collision.”

  “Weapons request permission to power up hell lances and grapeshot projectors,” Lieutenant Yuon said.

  “Permission denied,” Desjani said. “All hands brace for heavy maneuvering.”

  “All hands brace for heavy maneuvering!” Lieutenant Yuon said, his words being broadcast throughout the ship. “The captain has direct maneuvering control.”

  “Are you good with this?” Geary asked.

  “Yes, Admiral,” Captain Desjani said, not moving her eyes from her display.

  Despite an urge to shout orders, to do something, Geary stopped talking, remaining silent.

  “One minute to collision.”

  “Shut off the alarm,” Desjani said, still not lifting her gaze from her display.

  Lieutenant Castries moved her hand hastily to a control and the blare of the collision alarm halted, leaving a strange silence in its wake.

  Geary could see one of Tanya’s hands resting on the maneuvering controls built into her seat. Could see how lightly her fingers were suspended, slightly parted, each one poised above a specific control.

  If those oncoming ships were trying to collide with Dauntless, something the ship’s maneuvering systems now rated a one hundred percent probability, then they’d compensate for any movement Dauntless made to shift her vector. The changes Desjani made would have to be at the last possible moment, but not too late. Which also meant those changes would have to be big enough to ensure the suicidal attackers couldn’t collide with the battle cruiser, but not so big the ship couldn’t make the changes in time.

  With only seconds left, Geary fixed his own gaze on his display, surprised to see how fast those two other ships were still accelerating. Their crews must be pinned down, suffering . . .

  If they had crews.

  He suddenly recognized something in the way those two ships had come onto their collision courses.

  Tanya’s fingers twitched on the controls.

  Dauntless’s main propulsion cut off, two sets of maneuvering thrusters firing to pitch her slightly down and to the right.

  The two ships raced past, just ahead of the battle cruiser and just above her bow, close enough to cause Geary to flinch even though the ships were moving so fast he didn’t really see the near miss that Dauntless’s sensors reported.

  Captain Desjani’s fingers were moving again, bringing Dauntless back onto the vector to enter the hypernet gate and cutting in main propulsion again to continue braking her velocity. “By the time they manage to come back around . . .” she started to say.

  He knew why she stopped, as both small ships arced into impossibly tight turns to come back for another attempt at ramming Dauntless.

  “They’re AI-controlled ships!” Desjani snarled.

  “Could a human crew have survived those turns?” Geary asked. “That amount of lateral g-forces as they shifted vectors that fast?”

  “No, Admiral,” Lieutenant Castries said, her fingers dancing over the controls before her. “Our maneuvering systems identify that amount of stress as fatal for any human occupants. The ships themselves shouldn’t have been able to handle the stress.”

  As they steadied out to charge at Dauntless again, one of the small ships came apart, its hull shattering.

  “One couldn’t,” Desjani said, her jaw tight.

  “Estimate three minutes until remaining ship collides with us,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “He’s accelerating again.”

  “Give me an analysis of the wreckage of the one that came ap
art,” Geary snapped. “See if it matches that of the wreckage from the dark ships.”

  “Ship’s systems show a match,” Lieutenant Castries said. “No signs of organic life in the wreckage, or of vented atmosphere or water.”

  “Kill the last one, Captain Desjani.”

  “My pleasure, Admiral. Power up hell lances. Report when ready to engage.”

  “Hell lances report they’ll be ready in thirty seconds, Captain. One minute, forty seconds to collision.”

  “Target that ship. Weapons free once it’s within the kill zone.”

  “Aye, Captain. Understand target the oncoming ship, weapons free when it’s inside kill zone.” Lieutenant Castries passed the information to the hell lances.

  “Captain,” the communications watch called, “we’ve received a message from Audacious. They want to know what’s going on and whether we need assistance.”

  “Hold on that reply,” Desjani said. “How are our engagement envelopes, Lieutenant Yuon?”

  “We have three hell lance batteries that can bear on the oncoming ship,” Yuon said.

  “That should be enough.” Desjani relaxed, sitting back, though her eyes stayed locked on her display.

  Another fifteen seconds crawled by, the small ship accelerating all out toward its intercept with Dauntless, the fire control systems on Dauntless tracking the ship. “Whoever set this up was also part of the Defender fleet mess,” Desjani said.

  “Yes,” Geary said. “Apparently they haven’t all been shut down yet.”

  “They’re already down one more ship, and in a moment they’ll be down two.”

  The hell lances fired particle beams, streams of highly charged particles moving at tremendous speed. Shields of sufficient strength could deflect or absorb them, and the armor of battleships could sometimes stop them. Against anything else, they went through whatever was in their path.

  The oncoming ship got close enough to Dauntless for the battle cruiser’s hell lances to have a certainty of punching through the smaller ship’s shields on every hit. Ship’s power to critical systems was always kept as stable as possible, but less vital electronic items like overhead lights dimmed slightly as the hell lance batteries fired and immediately sucked up power in preparation for more shots as quickly as possible.

  More shots weren’t necessary.

  Riddled by hell lance hits, the oncoming ship abruptly exploded as its already stressed power core blew up. A minor nudge to Dauntless’s vector ensured the very-fast-moving cloud of dust that had once been the attacking ship would miss the battle cruiser and continue on harmlessly into the vast space between stars.

  Geary called up the message from Audacious and tapped reply. “No assistance is required. We were attacked by AI-controlled ships which attempted to ram. A full report on the engagement will be sent before we enter the hypernet. Be aware that other ships controlled by artificial intelligences may be in this star system, broadcasting false identities. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary, out.”

  Desjani sighed, stretching. “Stand down from general quarters. Return the ship to normal readiness. Well done to all hands.”

  Geary was already rapidly composing a report of the action. “I need an attachment with the ship’s records of what happened.”

  “Lieutenant Castries.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Castries said. “I’ll have it to you within three minutes, Admiral.”

  “Somebody,” Desjani said, “needs to dig into the construction records for the black ships and find out how many more might be wandering around.”

  “I’m certainly going to emphasize that,” Geary said. “As well as the fact that this attack proves the threat from the black ships remains active, and that those responsible pose a physical danger to anyone trying to hold them accountable.” He paused. “Of course. Now I get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “Why people like Senator Costa and Senator Wilkes haven’t already been arrested,” Geary said. “As long as they and other senators involved in the illegal actions are in the same building as all of the other senators, they won’t order something like blowing up the Senate building or dropping a rock on it from near orbit. They’re hostages for the safety of the other senators, though they probably don’t realize it.”

  “Wow,” Tanya said. “The good politicians actually did something smart.” She paused, looking startled. “I said ‘good politicians.’”

  “There are good people trying their best,” Geary said, smiling despite the lingering tension inside him. “As well as rotten people. But we wouldn’t want fleet officers all judged on the basis of Admiral Bloch, so we shouldn’t judge all politicians on the basis of the worst of them.”

  “Stop being reasonable.” She waved back toward the primary inhabited world. “You might advise those in power to make this public as fast as they can. Lots of people will see what happened when the light from these events reaches them. If they don’t know the truth, the living stars alone know what else they might come up with to explain it.”

  “Good point,” Geary said, rapidly adding that to his report.

  The attachment from Lieutenant Castries popped up on his display just as he was finishing. Adding Audacious to the recipients of the message, Geary tried to speak calmly as he made his report. “How’d I sound?”

  “Every centimeter an admiral,” Desjani said. “An outstanding performance.”

  “Maybe I should redo it. Sound a little more concerned.”

  “With all due respect, Admiral, no. You need to come across as not rattled by this. Besides, we’ll be at the hypernet gate in four minutes.”

  “I guess this is good enough, then.” Geary touched the send command before closing his eyes and massaging his forehead with both hands. He wondered how Admiral Baxter and Admiral Rojo would react to this latest proof of ongoing problems. “Thanks for not saying ‘I told you so’ about the universe-messing-with-us thing.”

  “It never crossed my mind,” Desjani said.

  “The hell it didn’t.”

  She laughed, in a good mood in the wake of the battle. “Request permission to enter the gate when we reach it.”

  “Permission granted.”

  Three minutes later, Dauntless entered the hypernet gate.

  “I just realized something,” Geary said to Desjani as their displays once again showed, literally, nothing outside the ship.

  “What’s that, Admiral?”

  “I once knew some officers who were spending their careers trying to get promoted so they could someday make admiral and be stationed at Unity.” He shook his head, thinking of those men and women, all long dead. “I didn’t understand them then. And, now, having finally been to Unity, I understand them even less.”

  * * *

  BEING surrounded by nothing, being nowhere, meant nothing external could disturb the ship’s routine. Service on a warship was never relaxing, but it was probably least stressful during transits between gates.

  Which meant he could worry about other things than immediate problems.

  The intelligence compartments aboard Dauntless were small in comparison to their importance. Geary tried to avoid going there often because the fuss surrounding his visits always seemed disruptive to the efforts of the intelligence specialists working for Lieutenant Iger. But he had a question that he didn’t want overheard elsewhere.

  Lieutenant Iger met him in the outer area, where the live plant (named Audrey according to ancient space-going tradition) was actually blooming, one of the flowers partially obscuring the “feed me” sign that was also a tradition. Normally reserved and quiet, Iger appeared to be even more so. Because he’d generally been both happier and more outgoing since his marriage to Lieutenant Jamenson, that caught Geary’s attention. “Is there anything wrong, Lieutenant?”

  Iger hesitated. “Nothing important, sir.�
�

  “Why don’t you let me decide if it’s important?”

  Iger paused once more. “We should go into the inner office, sir.”

  The curious eyes of the intelligence analysts pretended not to watch as Geary followed Iger into the inner office.

  “Now that we have privacy,” Geary said as the door closed, “what’s the problem?”

  Iger looked unhappy. “While we were orbiting Unity, I received . . . guidance regarding my intelligence duties.”

  “Oh.” Intelligence was a separate branch, supposedly answering to operational needs but independent enough to set its own priorities. “Are your bosses unhappy with your actions? Because in my reports I spoke very highly of you.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Iger made a face. “Yes, sir. I was told that I shouldn’t be making so many assessments in the field. I was getting out ahead of multisource single-interpretation policy.”

  “Which means what?”

  Iger rubbed his neck as he thought through his response. “Basically, Admiral, it means everything we find and report is supposed to come into the central analysis department on Unity, which is then supposed to produce one result which everyone agrees on.”

  Geary nodded, trying not to let his feelings show. “Your bosses want everyone on the same page, even if that means I have to wait for months to get an interpretation of things we’ve encountered. And even if people many light years from the situation might not have the same grasp of it as those dealing with it.”

  “I did point out the operational urgencies we’ve been facing,” Lieutenant Iger said.

  “And?” Geary prompted.

  “I was told I had to prioritize proper procedures,” Iger said, his shoulders slumping in a helpless manner. “That’s called Three-P management,” he added.

  “Three-P management.” Geary shook his head. “You still work to support me, right? That’s your job assignment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So if I need assessments and interpretations right away, you’ll continue to provide them, right?”