“Yes,” Charban replied, his expression thoughtful. “It should take the form of saying that we and they belong together in the pattern, I think. Something like that. I’ll put something suitable together.”
“And what have our honored fighting companions said about their undisclosed-until-now ability to activate Kick and Alliance ship systems from very long distances?”
Charban smiled. “I think they may have been embarrassed to be called on that. The answer they gave is that the methods they use are easily overridden by supervisors, whether human or Kick. On the targeted system, if there is someone present to override what looks like a glitch, it is too subtle to be identified as intrusion. But it is also far too weak to work on any system being monitored for glitches. I naturally asked why their methods could not work on the dark ships, and the Dancers replied that the AIs on the dark ships act as supervisors or monitors. The term they used actually translated as ‘over-minds.’ It is, therefore, a potentially valuable capability, but only when dealing with something lacking an operator, human or Kick or artificial.”
Fifteen minutes after the fleet passed the orbiting facility, the light finally reached them from the dark ship attack on Invincible. Despite the millions of kilometers between where the Alliance ships were and the site of the attack, the optical sensors aboard the fleet’s ships could get crystal-clear images through the emptiness of space.
Geary did not want to watch, but he felt a responsibility to do so. He flinched as the dark ships opened fire, dark battle cruisers blowing apart the Alliance fleet tugs propelling the alien warship.
Astoundingly, Invincible got off a few shots at the dark ships from her remaining weapons as the enemy came in close. Geary heard cheers aboard Dauntless and knew her crew was celebrating the heroic resistance of Invincible. It was just the automated weapons systems on the alien superbattleship, but it still felt like a brave ship going down fighting.
But Invincible’s remaining weapons were quickly silenced as the dark battleships came close enough to pour streams of hell-lance fire into the superbattleship.
“They’re smart enough this time to conserve their expendable weapons,” Desjani commented. “No missiles, no grapeshot, not even bombardment projectiles, just hell lances.”
“Yeah. The dark ships learned that lesson as well. Too bad.”
It felt unreal to watch so many hell-lance hits pummeling Invincible, while the superbattleship drifted onward, to all appearances living up to the name that Admiral Lagemann had given her.
But even the Kick superbattleship could not take that kind of punishment forever. Geary saw the dark ships opening their distance to Invincible and guessed what was coming. “One or more of the Kick power cores are going unstable due to damage.”
“They must have been built tough to have stood up to that barrage as long as they did,” she observed.
He glanced at her, saw the unusual intensity with which Desjani was watching events, and realized that she was trying to distract herself. “Are you all right?”
“No. I lost more friends today. I’ll get over it. Or I’ll see the docs for some happy pills. Or we’ll all die soon. Whichever way, it won’t be a problem.”
An explosion ripped a huge hole in Invincible, followed by another that tore another gaping wound in the alien warship. But the superbattleship lurched onward.
The dark battleships closed in again, firing so intensely that they had to pause to prevent their hell-lance batteries from overheating.
Sections began breaking off Invincible, then, as the dark battleships swiftly withdrew once more, three additional massive explosions tore the superbattleship apart.
Geary sighed, thinking of the loss those explosions represented. “There are a lot of large pieces. Maybe there will be something left that we can use or learn from.”
“Maybe,” Desjani said.
Over an hour ago, the dark ships had turned and begun accelerating after the Alliance warships again. “Here we go,” Desjani said.
—
WORD had gotten around that the fleet was unlikely to survive the battle in this star system, as well as why the fleet had to stay and fight even if the opportunity to flee miraculously presented itself.
The officers, sailors, and Marines took the news as the senior captains had. They had long ago resigned themselves to this.
Lines formed outside the worship compartments as men and women took advantage of the time available to make their peace or offer prayers or beg for miracles.
Geary, brooding over their lack of options and half-asleep from fatigue, started back to awareness as Tanya Desjani returned to her seat on the bridge. “Were you saying hello to our ancestors?”
“I’ll probably be able to do that in person soon enough,” she replied. “No. I had some urgent requests to perform marriage services by people who figured they had better get it done fast if they ever wanted it done. I just rushed through six of them, without getting all the proper authorizations and approvals.”
“You could get in trouble for that when fleet headquarters finds out,” Geary commented sarcastically.
“I’ll risk it. I just made sure to ask each couple whether, should we somehow live another day after this, they would regret making this decision. They all said they wouldn’t. We’ll probably never know.” Desjani gave him a sidelong look. “One of the couples were Charban’s lieutenants.”
Geary jerked back to full attention yet again. “Lieutenant Iger and Lieutenant Jamenson?”
“Yeah. Someday there might have been the patter of the feet of little green-haired future intelligence officers.” Tanya gave him another look. “The green-hair thing is dominant, you know. Lieutenant Jamenson’s ancestors made sure of that, and I made sure that Lieutenant Iger was aware of it. It didn’t seem to faze him, though.”
“Thank you for not being from Eire,” Geary said, “not that it looks like you and I are likely to be doing any reproducing.”
This time her look held warning. “Hey, Admiral, we stay professional on this bridge until the end. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” He sat up. They had gone a light-hour outward, deliberately angling away from the hypernet gate to avoid tempting the dark ships to drop the block on it and leave this star system to implement the Armageddon Option before finishing off Geary’s fleet. The government facility was six hours’ travel time behind them. “The dark ships are two light-hours from us, in a stern chase. I should get some rest while I can.”
“Yes, sir, you should.” She smiled at him. “Sweet dreams.”
He had worried that he would be too tightly wound with fears of the continuation of the battle to be able to sleep and too overwhelmed by the losses the fleet had already suffered. But he must have been even more exhausted than he thought. Geary fell into a deep sleep within moments.
He was jolted awake by the loudest, most urgent call alert that his comm panel could produce. Groggy, Geary hit the accept control. “What?”
“That woman is still on the facility!” Desjani yelled.
He had to gather his thoughts to make sense of the words. “Rione? She’s—she’s on Mistral.”
“She is sending messages from the facility, Admiral!”
“What message?” Geary was still trying to grasp what he was hearing.
“I don’t know. It’s set so only you can open it.”
“Relay it to here and set it to play for you as well,” Geary ordered, a feeling of dread beginning to replace his earlier confusion.
He slapped the virtual command to open the message, waited impatiently for the second needed for the system to verify who he was, then saw Victoria Rione’s image appear before him. She was clearly still on the government facility, standing in the command center that Geary had seen earlier. The command center itself had a feeling of abandonment and hasty departure, except for Rione herself, and in the
background a man lying in a fully reclined seat. The man appeared to be sleeping, his chest slowly rising and falling.
Rione’s face was drawn even tighter, the skin thin over bones, and she was gazing outward with eyes that held fear as well as a terrible resolve. “Admiral Geary, the first thing I must say is that you must not blame your people for my success at remaining here. The same sort of software that can make my presence appear to the fleet’s systems to be fully authorized can also make it appear to those systems that I am somewhere I am not. The systems on the assault transport told everyone on that ship that I was in my stateroom.”
She paused, as if a little short of breath. “I was right. That is the other important thing. I found the necessary codes for the hypernet gate. Not those to unblock it. That remains beyond my ability. But I was able to use official software, which I am not supposed to have, to reprogram the safe-collapse system on that gate. Its function has been reversed, and it will now ensure the maximum outburst of energy when the gate collapses, something on the order of point eight on the Schneider Nova Scale.”
Touching a control, Rione indicated a number that appeared. “I have just sent the collapse command to the gate, at exactly that time. You can calculate when it will reach the gate and when the resulting shock wave from the gate’s collapse will reach every portion of this star system. I remember what you did at Prime when facing such a threat, taking your fleet into the shadow of the star to protect it from the shock wave. You can do the same here. But the dark ships will not know the gate is collapsing until they see the collapse begin. They will not know the safe-collapse device has been subverted until the shock wave hits them.”
Even though this message had been sent hours ago, she seemed to be staring straight into his eyes. “I’ve learned a lot about space battles since meeting you, Admiral. I have learned enough to know that this is a battle you could only win at tremendous cost. You might even lose, with catastrophic results for the Alliance. So I have done the only thing that will make certain the dark ships are destroyed. It will hopefully also save your fleet. I confess to having developed a fondness for the men and women under your command.
“Do not waste your time trying to get me off this facility. I can read a maneuvering display well enough to know there is no chance of that in the time that you have left.
“I am not alone here. As you can see, my husband, Paol Benan, is here with me. He is fully sedated.” She swallowed before being able to speak again. “According to the records I found here, his treatment to reverse the damage caused by the mental block was delayed repeatedly for ‘security reviews,’ delayed until the damage to his mind was declared irreversible. Paol is now a danger to everyone, including himself, including me. He must remain fully sedated, a living death. They took my husband, Admiral. They denied him an honorable death. And the worst part is, I don’t believe they even cared what they were doing.”
Rione paused again, breathing deeply. “Finish the job, Admiral. Get your ships home. Get Mistral home. The information in the files, and what the people we found here can testify to, will bring to account those who through narrow-sightedness, greed, ignorance, fear, or their own desire for power nearly destroyed the Alliance. Others acted out of wishful thinking or willful ignorance, and while they may not deserve the same fate as others, they do need to answer for their decisions. Some have clean hands, as clean as any hands involved in this can be, and those records will ensure they are exonerated despite the attempts of the guilty to shift blame to them. It is past time the people of the Alliance stopped blaming the government for their ills and looked in the mirror to realize that the government is them.
“Save the Alliance, Admiral. As I told you the first time we met, that is what I am willing to die for. Now, that is my last request. You owe me that.”
Rione paused longer this time, struggling to speak. “Thank you for the services you have done me. Thank you for tolerating my presence, and listening to my advice, and for doing the best you could, and for still believing in the things the rest of us forgot were important. I will not pretend to be facing the certain end with calm resolution. I never claimed to be that sort of person. I am frightened. Once this call is ended, I will take a sedative, lie down with my husband, and when the blow strikes, neither of us will feel it, but we will go through that last door together, where I hope our ancestors will welcome me and forgive me for the things I have felt I must do.”
A flash of her old fire appeared in Rione’s eyes. “Perhaps I will finally earn a little respect from the men and women like those in your fleet who we politicians have for too long sent to their deaths with too little thought or foresight. After all, the people admire dead politicians almost as much as they detest living ones.
“Good-bye, Admiral Geary. Save the Alliance. May you and Captain Desjani survive to live long and happy lives.
“To the honor of our ancestors. Victoria Rione. Out.”
Geary drew in a shaky breath as her image vanished, then his mind shot into action. “Tanya, I’m on my way to the bridge. Start working the maneuvers and see if we can make it to the shadow of one of the stars with the time we have.”
He raced to the bridge and dropped into his command seat. Desjani was working furiously on her maneuvering display, her face rigid with anger. “We can just make it,” she snarled. “Taking into account the limits on propulsion from our most heavily damaged ships, we have a decent chance of getting behind Beta just before the shock wave hits. Damn her! She knew that now I will have to honor her memory!”
Geary quickly checked over Desjani’s work. “We head back in-system, on a vector apparently aimed at returning to the government facility—”
“Then as the dark ships close to intercept, we shift vector to aim for the shadow of Star Beta. But it is going to be close. Depending on how long the gate takes to collapse, we might get caught in the shock wave. We have no time to spare. But if we get there too fast, we’ll be sitting ducks for the dark ships.”
He hit his comm controls. “All units in First Fleet, this is Admiral Geary, immediate execute attached maneuvers. Any unit that believes propulsion damage may limit its ability to carry out these maneuvers contact me at once.”
Dauntless began pivoting, her main propulsion lighting off to push her onto a new vector heading back the way the fleet had come. The battle cruiser’s propulsion didn’t light off at full, instead matching the best effort that some of the most badly damaged ships could manage. “Can we transfer crews—” Geary began.
“It would take too long,” Desjani said. “We would have to limit acceleration even more for the shuttles to transfer crews off the most badly damaged ships so we could leave those ships behind. We’re better off trying to get everyone into the shadow of the star. Damn that woman!”
Geary sat back, trying to sort through his emotions. “She saved us. Maybe.”
“Why did I have to be saved by her?” Desjani shook her head angrily, blinking back tears. “She is braver than I thought. You could see how scared she is. But she went ahead with it.”
“Was she right about it being impossible to get to her?”
“Yes. Any ship we sent would be pulling alongside the government facility when the shock wave got there. Any attempt would be futile and suicidal.”
“Captain?” They looked back to see Lieutenant Castries staring at them. “What has happened?”
Geary sighed, realizing that he must tell everyone about the sudden shift in their fortunes. He tapped his comm controls. “All units in First Fleet, this is Admiral Geary. We have an unexpected chance at victory and survival. Former co-president of the Callas Republic, former Senator of the Alliance, former Emissary Victoria Rione stayed behind on the government facility and was able to break into the hypernet gate controls and order the gate to collapse with the force of point eight nova. We are proceeding at the best rate we can manage to shelter in the shadow of Star Be
ta so that we will avoid the shock wave that should destroy the dark ships in their entirety, but we will have to also avoid being caught and delayed by the dark ships along the way.” He had to take a breath himself before continuing. “Victoria Rione has no chance of survival. She cannot be rescued from the facility before the shock wave hits. She has sacrificed herself to ensure the destruction of the dark ships and the safety of the Alliance. If we live, it will be because of her. Honor her memory. Geary, out.”
He could hear, could feel, the hush that spread through Dauntless after his announcement.
A minute later, a frantic call came in from Mistral.
“Admiral,” Commander Young said, “our systems assured us she was aboard! We tried to get in just now and found the locks on her stateroom are sealed with overrides. I have crew members breaking in, but there were ongoing, confirmed status feeds from that compartment telling us that Senator Rione was there.”
“She told me that she hacked Mistral’s systems to show that,” Geary said. “There is no fault on your part, Commander.” He wondered if he should ever tell Commander Young of the fate that she had been saved from by Rione’s actions. “I suppose all of us ought to start double-checking more on what our systems tell us.”
“Commander Benan may be aboard. We are checking, sir.”
“He’s not aboard Mistral, either. They are together. You did everything that you should have, Commander.” Having reassured Young, Geary stared at his display for a few moments, not really seeing the information it showed, his mind filled with memories.
Desjani was gazing bleakly at her own display. “We get to spend the next several hours hoping we don’t get annihilated by the shock wave or the dark ships or both. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“It beats what we were looking forward to a half hour ago,” Geary said. “Tanya—”
“Admiral, with all due respect, I am not yet prepared at this time to discuss matters concerning her.”
“Understood.”
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