Dreadnaught tlfbtf-1

by Jack Campbell

  Split the force? Send out a strong formation, able to handle those dozen enigma warships and anything that might be expected to pop up while the rest of the fleet stayed near the jump point? “How much would be enough?” Geary wondered out loud.

  Desjani frowned, then understood. “That would depend upon the threat.”

  “And we don’t know the threat, which is why I’m considering splitting the force. Is the right response to an unknown danger to divide my own forces?”

  “Not if you put it that way.” She waved toward her display. “If there were a gate here, sending everyone in-system would just ensure the destruction of the entire fleet. But there isn’t a gate.”

  He could spend a long time wondering about what to do, hoping some new information would come in. But the enigmas were pursuing this fleet, and they had faster-than-light communications. The longer he waited, the more alien warships were likely to show up. “We’ll go as a fleet. My gut feeling is that any threat that appears in the next few days would be a serious challenge to part of this fleet, but together we should be able to handle whatever shows up.”

  She grinned. “Where to, Admiral? The closest inhabited planet?”

  “No.” He highlighted a decent-size installation on a large moon of a gas giant orbiting two light hours from the star. “We head for that. Isolated and not very large, so it won’t have the kind of defenses we might run into on one of the planets. If the enigmas’ anti-surveillance methods can even block our search efforts when we’re close, then we can send uncrewed probes in.”

  “They might be able to destroy the probes.”

  “Then we’ll hammer their defenses before we send the Marines to knock down doors and get some information the hard way.”

  Desjani approved, of course, and when Geary looked back to check on his observers, he saw Rione as impassive as usual these days, while Charban simply appeared resigned to the necessity of using force.

  He put the fleet onto a vector aimed at intercepting the gas giant in its orbit around the star newly christened Limbo but kept the fleet’s velocity at point one light speed.

  The moon they were aiming for had been six light hours distant, making the transit there about two and a half days long. For the first day, nothing happened except that the alien warships came tearing up to a position a light hour away from the Alliance fleet, then maintained their distance, too few to threaten the fleet but a constant source of aggravation. But with the fleet only a day and half out from the alien installation, the aliens finally reacted directly to the human movements.

  “A ship has left the installation,” the maneuvering watch reported. “Not one of their warships, but one of the blocky ones we think are freighters.”

  “Evacuating personnel,” Desjani said.

  Geary looked at the data. “He’s accelerating slowly. Their freighters seem to reflect the same economic realities that human ones do.”

  “Yeah. You can’t make a profit if you spend too much on propulsion and fuel cells.” Her fingers danced over her display. “Lieutenant Casque, run some intercepts on that alien freighter to double-check my work.”

  Casque worked almost as rapidly as Desjani, then nodded. “I come up with the same results, Captain. We can catch it.”

  “Send the results to the Admiral’s display.”

  Geary watched the long curves of the projected intercepts appear. The Alliance fleet was curving into the star system at an angle. The alien freighter was heading toward the star, aiming for one of the populated worlds. Behind the Alliance fleet, the dozen alien warships trailed like a patient pack of wolves. “Our force would have to move fast to get to that freighter before those alien warships. If every enigma left that installation, we’ll be left without any aliens to talk to unless we run down that ship. I’ll split off a fast-moving task force to do the job and keep the rest of the fleet on course so we can still examine the installation.”

  “Dauntless is ready—”

  “Tanya, she’s the flagship. She has to stay with the fleet this time.” He scanned the fleet’s formation quickly, then paused as he was about to send a transmission. Damn. I want Tulev running this, but I need to send the other three battle cruiser divisions, which means Badaya on Illustrious . And Badaya is senior to Tulev.

  All right. Badaya should be able to do it. If he might end up commanding this fleet if something happens to me, I need to see more of how he handles an independent force. “Captain Badaya, you are to assume command of Task Force Alpha and proceed to intercept and capture the alien craft that just left their installation. We want that ship intact and those on it alive.” Now to call the ships that would make up that task force. It would have to be large enough to handle those dozen enigma warships if necessary, and any more that showed up suddenly, and should use ships already positioned not far from each other. “First Battle Cruiser Division. Second Battle Cruiser Division, Sixth Battle Cruiser Division, Second, Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth Light Cruiser Squadrons, and Third, Fourth, Seventh, Tenth, and Fourteenth Destroyer Squadrons, detach from main formation and form Task Force Alpha under command of Captain Badaya effective immediately.”

  Desjani had slumped slightly, glaring at her display. “Every other battle cruiser division gets to go.”

  “The task force needs to be strong enough to handle those alien warships if they fight for the freighter. I’m keeping Adroit with us.”

  “Ha-ha. You owe me one, Admiral.”

  “I’ll add it to the list.”

  Badaya didn’t waste any time. Inspire, Formidable, Brilliant, Implacable , Leviathan, Dragon, Steadfast, Valiant, Illustrious, Incredible, and Invincible tore out of the formation, with the light cruisers and destroyers leaping to surround them.

  In a very rare move these days, Rione came to lean close to Geary. “Badaya?” she murmured skeptically.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Geary murmured back. “And he has Tulev and Duellos along with him.”

  “You’re the admiral. I’d recommend that someone else do any communicating with the aliens, though.” Rione returned to the back of the bridge.

  He turned to look at her and Charban. “Excellent idea. The enigmas shouldn’t have any trouble figuring out that our task force is aiming to intercept that freighter, and they already know that we’re heading for the installation. I’d appreciate it if you two broadcast a message to the enigmas telling them that despite their own hostile actions and provocations, we do not intend to harm anyone on the freighter unless we are forced to defend ourselves.”

  “Defend ourselves again,” Desjani muttered, then frowned at her display. “That’s odd.”

  “What’s odd?” Geary asked.

  “The acceleration on that alien freighter. Something didn’t seem right, and now I know what. We know their warships seem to have power core efficiencies an order of magnitude higher than our own. And there’s no reason to think a freighter would have military-grade propulsion. But that freighter’s acceleration rate pretty closely matches that of one of our freighters. If they can build military propulsion an order of magnitude better than on our warships, why can’t they build freighter propulsion an order of magnitude better than on our freighters?”

  He fixed his own gaze on the projected vector of the alien freighter. “That’s a good question. It’s not even significantly better. Maybe we’ll get an answer when we capture it.”

  She snorted derisively. “Don’t count your freighters before you’ve captured them.”

  Charban had finished helping Rione broadcast the message to the aliens and came to stand beside Geary’s seat for a moment. “I’m wondering something, Admiral.”

  “You, too?”

  “The alien warships could have launched a bombardment aimed at that installation once they knew we were headed that way. They haven’t. Why not? They’re obsessed with privacy, but they’re apparently going to let us examine a large installation without hindrance.”

  Desjani gave Charban the first look of
respect she had offered the emissary. “There’s a trap?”

  “I would be very, very cautious about sending in a landing force, Admiral,” Charban said, then nodded to Desjani before he left.

  There wasn’t much to do after that but watch the task force sweeping down on the freighter and wait to see how the dozen alien warships reacted. Several hours passed, with the fleet swinging in toward the installation on the gas giant’s moon, the freighter moving slowly but steadily toward the inner star system, the battle cruiser task force diverging quickly from the rest of the fleet as it kept accelerating toward the freighter, and the alien warships hanging a light hour behind the human fleet. “They’re not doing anything?” Geary finally demanded. He couldn’t help but make a question of it, because it seemed so contrary to alien actions to date.

  “It must be obvious to them that the task force is heading for the freighter,” Desjani confirmed. “And we’d have seen their reaction to that long before now. But they’re just holding the same position relative to us.”

  “Waiting for orders?”

  “Damned if I know. Sir. But with faster-than-light comms, they should have already received orders by now even if their command authority is on one of those inner planets.”

  The task force would intercept the alien freighter in another twenty hours. It would be five hours after that before the fleet reached the alien installation. Geary punched his comm controls. “All ships ensure that your crews get chances to rest and to eat.” It could be enormously hard to stand down at times like this, even though any action wouldn’t occur for close to a full day, and even if the alien warships accelerated to attack, it would take them hours to reach attack range. One of the biggest and easiest mistakes to make was sitting, tense and ready, getting worn-out and hungry as you watched ships slowly move closer to each other, even while the vast distances in space ensured that nothing could happen.

  “I’m going to get something to eat and get some rest,” he told Desjani.

  She nodded. “I’m rotating my crews through normal watch sections. I’ll take a break in a little while, too.”

  Despite his words, Geary once again roamed the passageways for a while to tire himself out a little more, taking the time to talk to crew members he encountered. They seemed happier now that there was a prospect of closing with the enemy, though all of them were disappointed that Dauntless wasn’t leading the task force to intercept the freighter.

  He ate a meal in one of the mess compartments, talking to more of the crew about their homes. Most were from Kosatka, reflecting common fleet policy these days of crewing ships with a majority of men and women from one planet, and Geary found that they now spoke of home as if he shared that world with them. He found himself oddly grateful for that. He had grown up on Glenlyon, but the thought of the hero worship that would surround him there more than anywhere else made that world now feel almost as alien as Limbo to him.

  He also took time for a visit to the worship spaces, praying that somehow they could avoid more senseless loss of life. After that, to his own surprise he got a decent amount of sleep and quite a bit of work done before returning to the bridge.

  Desjani was just settling into her own seat. “Checking on repair work,” she told him. “We’ve almost fixed all of the things that were already fixed before the damned enigmas broke them.”

  “Half an hour to intercept of the freighter by the task force, Captain,” Lieutenant Casque said.

  “Very w—” Desjani broke off, staring at her display.

  Geary did the same, barely suppressing a curse.

  “They blew it up,” Casque reported as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  On Geary’s display, the neat symbol representing the enigma freighter had been replaced by a spreading cloud of dustlike debris. It had happened two hours ago, but the force of the event still felt immediate. “How the hell did a freighter blow up with that intensity?”

  “Run an analysis,” Desjani ordered her bridge team. “Ancestors preserve us,” she added to Geary. “They self-destructed their ship full of their own people fleeing that installation. Is there anything they won’t do to keep us from learning anything about them?”

  “I’m starting to wonder.” Somehow, he wasn’t surprised when new alerts sounded on the display. Fixed defenses closest to the installation had launched kinetic projectiles, whose trajectories were clearly aimed not at any Alliance ships but at the installation itself, itself still more than thirty light minutes distant or six hours’ travel time at point one light speed. That volley had barely been detected when the image of the installation itself smeared and burst outward. “They self-destructed the installation, and they launched a bombardment to pulverize whatever is left from that.”

  “Charban was right, though it looks like the aliens didn’t want to risk waiting to blow the place until we had people down there and might have already learned something. What do we do now?” Desjani asked. “Head for one of the inhabited planets?”

  “Please do not,” Rione suddenly said. She and Charban had come back onto the bridge unnoticed until then. “I am very much afraid of what they would do if we tried to approach one of those worlds.”

  “They wouldn’t—” Desjani began, then closed her eyes. “Maybe they would.”

  “What do you think, General Charban?” Geary asked.

  “I agree with my fellow emissary, Admiral.”

  “It’s technically not our fault if they kill themselves,” Desjani grumbled. “And, no, I’m not prepared to argue that point with the living stars when I face them. But what else do we do? They have us checkmated. Either they’ll blow us and themselves to hell with hypernet gates, or they’ll blow themselves to hell if they can’t stop us from learning anything. I prefer the second option if we have a choice, but either way, we learn nothing.”

  Geary exhaled slowly, thinking. “All right. We stay on course for the installation. Maybe something survived the self-destruct and will survive the impact of that bombardment.”

  Some time later, a short message came in from the task force, Captain Badaya looking dissatisfied. “We’ll continue on course to examine the debris field in case there’s anything worthwhile left, then move to rejoin the fleet, Admiral.”

  THE remnants of the installation were too badly torn up to reveal anything beyond the basic composition of what it had been constructed of. Carabali had advised against sending personnel down to the surface of the moon, arguing that more traps might be undetonated and waiting for human presence to further destroy the already-mangled ruins. But uncrewed probes found nothing, even the size and shapes of rooms in the installation hard to determine because of the level of destruction.

  Captain Smythe called in with an engineer’s perspective. “They must build things with an eye to being able to totally self-destruct. You can’t just annihilate a structure this badly by setting off a few charges. You need to have a lot of explosives or other destructive materials, and they need to be placed right. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the structures contain built-in charges.”

  “Isn’t that extremely hazardous?” Geary asked.

  “Says the man who’s riding a ship loaded with weaponry, dangerous circuitry, unstable fuel cells, and a power core that can blow it into tiny pieces? And who’s doing this through space, an environment totally hostile to human life? It’s what we’re used to, Admiral. They may be used to living inside walls packed with explosives.” Smythe brightened. “They might have some extremely stable compounds that require just the right means of detonation. I’d love to have a look at that sort of thing.”

  “If we find any, I’ll let you know. Do you think their cities might be built like that?”

  “It’s possible. Though placing enough nukes at the proper intervals would accomplish the same purpose.”

  The task force had reached the expanding cloud of debris that had been an alien freighter and slowed down to conduct a careful examination of it. When his message
finally reached Geary, Badaya seemed to be in inexplicably high spirits considering the failure of the task force’s mission to capture the freighter, but his first words explained his happiness. “Admiral, for once the aliens failed to totally destroy everything. Dragon found a partial body. At least we finally know what they look like. I have to give Commander Bradamont full credit for realizing that the aliens might well garb themselves in clothing that we’d consider stealth material. She took Dragon around the edges of the debris field from the freighter, looking for cool patches among the debris, and found what seems to be about a one-half-intact body that was somehow partially shielded from the blast that destroyed the freighter.”

  An image appeared next to Badaya. Geary flinched, not in revulsion at the alien itself but at the state of the body. Explosive decompression on top of the damage done by the destruction of the freighter had left gory remnants. Still, he could make out what seemed to be a tough skin, with patches of thin scales in a few places. The crushed skull still had a small snout visible. In life, the enigma must have been lean and long, so skinny that it looked to human eyes as if it had been stretched out by someone pulling on both ends. “Make sure medical staff and our civilian experts see this,” he told the communications watch, then called the fleet’s chief medical officer.

  “I assume you want to look at this in person,” Geary began. “Where should I have Dragon’s shuttle deliver it?”

  “Tsunami, please, Admiral. They have a particularly good surgeon on there who has some autopsy experience. That’s also the ship carrying the, um, experts on intelligent nonhumans. How long until we see it?”

  “They’re forwarding scans to us, but it will take close to a day for the task force to rejoin us so you can physically examine the remains, Doctor.” Another call, this to the much more distant Illustrious. “Captain Badaya, my compliments to you and Commander Bradamont on a job well done. As soon as your task force rejoins the formation I want Dragon to shuttle those remains to Tsunami.”