Victorious tlf-6

by Jack Campbell

  It shouldn’t be. No one was actually looking directly at the aliens. Every observation came through the fleet’s sensors, and those sensors were very good, able to see much, much farther and much, much more clearly than any human eye could. Syndic sensors differed in small ways but were basically the same, and the Syndics had been trying to find out more about the aliens for decades, with no success to show for it.

  Desjani must have been thinking along the same lines. She was frowning heavily at her display as she raised one hand and pointed her finger at it. “It looks like we’re badly outnumbered.”

  “That’s what our sensors are telling us.”

  “But what our sensors are telling us doesn’t make sense given everything else we know, given how the aliens have acted in the past, given how they’re acting now. If this picture is right, then everything else we know has to be wrong.”

  He knew where she was going, toward the same conclusions Geary’s mind had been developing. “The Syndics think they know some things about the aliens, and what they think they know has driven their conclusions about what the aliens can do.” Like Boyens, certain that the aliens couldn’t have been responsible for collapsing the hypernet gate at Kalixa. Like the Syndics at the home star system, who had been unaware that their warships carried alien worms. “But we didn’t start our analysis of the aliens thinking we knew some things about them. Everything we think we know came from new observations, from learning and watching events, and I’d swear on the honor of my ancestors that our conclusions about the aliens and their actions, what we believe we know, isn’t wrong. So if those are all correct …”

  “The picture we’re seeing has to be wrong,” Desjani concluded.

  A Trojan horse. An unseen threat hidden within. And his attention, along with that of every other officer, was focused externally, on the alien armada. “We’ve scrubbed every one of our warships’ systems of those alien worms, right?”

  Desjani nodded. “It’s part of the normal system security routines now.”

  “Have we scrubbed our systems since we arrived here?”

  She gave him a grim smile, then turned. “Lieutenant Castries, find out the last time the ship’s systems were scrubbed for quantum-probability worms.”

  A startled Lieutenant Castries hastily checked. “Two days ago, Captain.”

  “Before we first saw the aliens,” Geary commented.

  Desjani nodded, her lips drawing back to expose her teeth in what wasn’t really a smile anymore. “Lieutenant, order the ship’s security personnel to run another detection routine, in all ship’s systems.”

  “All ship’s systems? Now, Captain?”

  “Half an hour ago, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  As the lieutenant raced to notify the systems-security officer and run the system scrub, Desjani gave Geary a sidelong glance. “They activated new worms.”

  “I’ll lay you odds.”

  “In the sensor systems. And the analysis systems. And the display systems.”

  “Yup.”

  “Because we have no idea how they create those worms. They could be somehow dormant and undetectable until an alien ship arrives and sends an activation signal. And if their ability to track the fleet was any clue, that activation signal moves faster than light, so those worms would have been activated before we even knew the aliens had arrived. All we would have ever seen was what they wanted us to see.”

  Geary nodded. “It’s like you said, why aren’t they attacking when the odds favor them so much?”

  “Because the odds aren’t what we think.” She looked into his eyes, grinning, and he felt it, too, the unparalleled feeling when someone else is totally in sync with you, filling in some parts of a puzzle while you fill in the rest, two minds working perfectly together. Her smile turned rueful. “We’re one hell of a team.”

  “That we are.” He left it at that, and they both waited until a window popped up between them and a startled systems-security officer reported in.

  “Captain, Admiral, we found a bunch of quantum-probability worms in the systems. Combat, sensors, maneuvering, analysis. Just ugly as all hell. I have no idea where they came from or what they’re doing, but we’re getting rid of them.”

  Geary’s display flickered, then updated, wavered again, updated once more, each time large numbers of alien ships simply vanishing, the alien fleet dwindling as fast as the worms were wiped from Dauntless’s systems. The alien ships that had recently appeared from nowhere vanished completely, while the great majority of the alien ships in the lower two v’s also disappeared.

  Desjani’s fierce grin was now definitely a ferocious snarl. “We can see them.”

  The blurring that had kept even the shapes of the alien spacecraft hidden had vanished, revealing that every alien ship, regardless of size, had roughly the same shape, blunter and more rounded than the human warships. If the human ships were sharklike, the alien craft more closely resembled spiny tortoises. “I’ll be damned. No wonder the alien stealth system always fooled the Syndics so well. It wasn’t anything on the alien ships. It was alien worms altering the picture the Syndics’ own sensors were seeing.”

  “Good work, Admiral Geary.”

  “I never would have seen it if you hadn’t pointed me in that direction.” He grinned back at her. “One hell of a team, Captain Desjani.”

  Boyens had noticed the changes and was staring at the displays, his mouth hanging open. “What did you do?”

  “For now, that’s our secret.” He imagined they would have to share with the Syndics how to find and neutralize the alien worms, but at the moment enjoyed leaving the Syndic CEO in the dark. “The bottom line is that far from being badly outnumbered, we actually outnumber them two to one.”

  Desjani was speaking again, still smiling, though now in a somewhat bone-chilling way. “The Syndics said they could hardly ever hit an alien ship, and when they did it had no effect. But if their weapons systems and combat systems and sensor systems all had those worms in them, the worms probably misdirected the Syndic shots to avoid hitting real alien ships, and of course when a shot hit a fake ship, nothing happened. The aliens aren’t invincible, and now we can hit them.”

  “Do we have to?” Rione asked. She had taken in events, figured out what had happened, and by then stood close to Geary. “We can let the aliens know we’ve discovered their worms, that we can clearly see and shoot at their ships. When they know that, surely the aliens will back off and agree to talk.”

  “Will they?” Desjani asked the air. “Or will they spring another trick, one we haven’t figured out how to counter?”

  “That’s a real concern,” Geary agreed. “Madam Co-President, these aliens caused the collapse of the hypernet gate at Kalixa. They’ve got a lot of human blood on their hands.”

  “I’m not disputing that,” Rione replied. “But I don’t see any virtue in leading them to spill more human blood if we can avoid that. If we spill a lot of their blood, it may trigger a feud between our races, one beyond our ability to put a stop to.”

  Desjani stayed silent this time, but the fingers on one of her hands lightly drummed the arm of her seat near her weapons-targeting controls. Her advice didn’t have to be asked.

  But Rione had a good point. Would killing a large number of the aliens deter further aggression or encourage it? They simply knew too little about how the enigma race thought. Or did they? “The aliens didn’t seem too worried about how we’d respond to their actions.” Rione gave him a questioning look. “Betraying the Syndic leaders at the start of the war, if our guess is right. Tricking humanity into placing the hypernet gates in our most important star systems. Diverting the Syndic flotilla to Lakota so this fleet was almost destroyed. Deliberately collapsing the hypernet gates at Kalixa and the Syndic home star system.”

  “What’s your point?” Rione asked.

  “That the aliens haven’t acted as if they feared us retaliating for their actions against us, as if the
y feared giving us grounds for a blood feud. But anyone examining the history of humanity, or the course of the war we just ended, could have easily seen how humans strike back and retaliate for provocations and attacks.”

  Desjani gave him another sidelong glance. “They don’t think in terms of retaliation?”

  “They don’t seem to have expected it from us, or maybe they didn’t fear it.”

  Rione eyed him, her thoughts hard to read. “You’re trying to determine how they think by how they’ve acted.”

  “That’s all we’ve got to go on. What do you think?”

  She took several seconds to answer. “I want to find a reason to reject your argument, and I can’t, unless, as you suggested, they simply don’t fear retaliation from us. Even that would imply a level of arrogance that needed to be countered for our own security. But, if you’re right, will the aliens even understand our own actions?”

  “Maybe if we phrase it differently.” Geary turned to CEO Boyens again. “The Syndics keep saying this is their star system. That they ‘have’ it. Does the enigma race seem to understand the concept of defending its own territory?”

  Boyens laughed harshly. “You might say that. Look what they’re doing now. They’re not saying, ‘Give us this star system because we want it.’ No. They’re saying, ‘This star system is ours so you must leave.’ They’re justifying their actions by saying this star system is theirs, and we’re not allowed on their property.”

  “That’s consistent with their past behaviors and statements?” Rione asked.

  Boyens paused to think before replying. “As best I can recall, yes. This is ours, you have to leave. This is ours, stay out. That sort of thing.”

  “They’re territorial.”

  “Yes. Extremely territorial. We, the Syndicate Worlds, that is, have tended to view their actions as focused on security, on keeping us from learning anything, but the same actions could just as easily have been manifestations of an extreme no-trespassing attitude.”

  “Thank you.” Rione faced Geary, her expression uncharacteristically openly discontented. “It all matches. I wish it didn’t. The aliens leading this armada don’t seem to be able to grasp why we’re here, in a Syndic star system, and why we haven’t simply left when told to do so. The aliens don’t understand our motivation, because this isn’t our star system. To them, we should have no reason to defend something we don’t own. On the other hand, they believe that they can simply assert ownership and force humans to leave star systems we’ve occupied for some time. In light of your assessment, Admiral, and that of CEO Boyens, it appears the best course of action is to carry out a vigorous defense of this star system, to establish in the minds of the aliens that we consider any human-occupied star system to be our own territory.”

  Desjani shot a surprised glance at Rione before recovering and appearing to concentrate on her display again.

  The other two senators stepped forward and began arguing with Rione again, but she led them toward the back of the bridge, away from Geary.

  “All right, then,” he said to Desjani. “Let’s give those enigmas a bloody nose so they know we can be just as territorial as they can.”

  “Do we claim this star system, too?”

  “Not in so many words. Sorry.”

  “We could use it,” Desjani pointed out. “Nice, convenient access to the border with the aliens. It’s not like the Syndics won’t owe us if we kick alien butt back to Pele.”

  “Are you serious or just high on the idea that we’re heading into battle with these creatures?”

  She seemed to ponder the question before answering. “Half and half. It’s a nice star system from a military perspective, Admiral. Very nice.”

  “Maybe we can work out an agreement with the Syndics here, assuming they’re still Syndics once the Syndicate Worlds finishes falling apart.” He bent back to his display, thinking. “We have to go in carefully, approaching in such a way that it seems we’re still being tricked by the alien worms, then shift at the last moment and hit some of their real ships.”

  Desjani nodded. “Lieutenant Yuon, can you superimpose the fleet sensor picture over the picture from Dauntless’s own sensor analysis?”

  “Show both at once, Captain?”

  “Yes, but keep them isolated from each other.”

  “The net isn’t set up to do that, just the opposite in fact in terms of integrating data from all sources, but it can be done, ma’am. It’ll take a little work, though.”

  “How long?”

  “Five minutes, Captain.”

  “Do it.” Desjani smiled at Geary. “The rest of the fleet’s ships have systems clouded by the alien worms. We can use them to get a picture of what the aliens think we’re seeing.”

  He nodded. “Yes, but we can’t leave most of our ships with those worms active. The worms will mess up the targeting systems, too. We’ll need to have the majority of the fleet’s ships sanitize their systems and leave just a few to provide the distorted view.”

  “The auxiliaries? They don’t have much armament, anyway.”

  “That seems like a nasty trick to play on the engineers, but that’s a good idea. None of the alien ships should get close to the auxiliaries, so they’ll be safe even with the worms clouding their sensors. Let’s set it up.”

  The tactical problem had changed. Instead of avoiding the mass of alien ships, he had to aim to hit them hard on the first pass, before the aliens realized that their worms were no longer distorting the sensor and combat systems on the Alliance warships.

  “We finally got some information from the Syndics,” Desjani informed Geary. “There’s not much there.”

  He checked the transmission, finding that Boyens’s use of the word “fragmentary” to describe the surviving records from destroyed Syndic ships was, if anything, optimistic. The aliens had apparently taken pains to pound such ships into scrap. But Geary studied what was there. “Tanya, while I’m working on the engagement plan, I want you to analyze these yourself and run them past the combat-systems people. My impression from the records is that the alien weapons are not as superior to ours as their propulsion systems seem to be. I’d like to know whether you agree.”

  “We’re on it, Admiral.”

  He focused back on planning, surfacing only long enough to hear Desjani report that she and everyone she’d consulted had the same impression of the alien weapons.

  “Maybe more range, maybe more power, maybe not. Basically particle beams, lasers, and kinetic projectiles.”

  Alien they might be in thought and form, but the enigma race was bound by the same fundamental rules of how the universe worked. Certain weapons made sense given certain levels of technology. Maybe the aliens also had null-field weapons, but that didn’t seem likely since null fields could have been used to totally destroy all traces of knocked-out Syndic ships.

  Finally happy with his plans for the engagement, Geary sat back with a heavy exhale of air. “How far off are they?”

  “Seventeen light-minutes,” Desjani answered.

  “That close?”

  “I would have interrupted you to tell you when they reached fifteen light-minutes.”

  “Thanks. I want the aliens to think they know what we’re going to do, so we’re going into our combat formations early. Take a look at my plan before I send it.”

  She spent several minutes doing that, then nodded. “You’re pretending to be aiming at the actually nonexistent top formations of alien ships. How do you know the second layer of alien formations will turn up like this?”

  “If their weapons aren’t too much superior to ours, they’ll have to. They’ll be assuming we’re going to strike at the fake ships in the top layer, so they’ll want those fake ships to stay within range of our weapons so we waste our shots. But they also want their second-layer ships to be close enough to us to hit us as we pass. That should require them to maneuver like I’m estimating.”

  “That’s a lot of assumptions,” Desjani ca
utioned.

  “I know, but I’m basing them on what we know.”

  She grinned. “They certainly won’t expect us to maneuver the way you’re planning on. It would be pure suicide if all of those alien ships were real. They’re going to be making a lot of assumptions, too. I think it’s good. It looks like a plausible approach if every alien ship were real. And they don’t have experience with you, so they won’t know how atypical it is for you to set up your combat formation this early.”

  “Good.” He hesitated just a moment, knowing how much was riding on his assumptions. There was no way to fight this battle without facing risks, though. “All units in the Alliance fleet, this is Admiral Geary. Maneuvering orders are being sent to you now. Execute Formation Merit at time four zero. Geary out.”

  At time four zero the Alliance fleet split, forming into four flattened discs with the thin edges facing the oncoming aliens. Three of the discs were even with each other, side by side in a line facing the enemy, and each of those held about one-third of the Alliance fleet, eight battleships and seven battle cruisers in the subformations to either side of the main body, while the main body contained nine battleships and six battle cruisers. That had required splitting up the three Adroit-class battle cruisers in the Fifth Division, but Geary had decided that it made more sense to pair the Adroits with formations of bigger, more capable battle cruisers rather than keep them in their own division. The heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers were distributed roughly equally among the three subformations, their own positions bolstering the protection of the more badly damaged but combat-capable Alliance warships in the fighting formations.

  Above the three fighting formations and hopefully out of direct danger, a much smaller disc held the five auxiliaries, the battle cruiser Agile, and the other warships too badly damaged to be in the front line of battle.

  Geary waited until the subformations had settled out, then adjusted the fleet’s course slightly to aim the three fighting subformations directly at the three imaginary alien formations on top of their armada. As Desjani had said, it looked plausible, since each Alliance subformation roughly matched the size of the alien subformation it was aimed at, as if the Alliance fleet were trying to engage only a portion of the aliens at a time to negate the apparent huge alien advantage.