One
They had left behind the star system known to humanity as Unity Alternate, left behind the wreckage of the battleships Amazon and Revenge, the debris that had once been the battle cruisers Leviathan and Implacable, the remnants of cruisers and destroyers and the massive orbiting facilities secretly constructed to prolong a century-long war if defeat had finally loomed. The fleet brought all of the dead they could recover with them, as well as many wounded in a fight that no one had expected to survive.
Behind they also left the ruin of the entire badly misnamed Defender fleet, warships crewed and commanded only by "reliable" artificial intelligences that had come close enough to self-awareness to go insane and begin attacking the Alliance they were supposed to defend. Stopping them had cost a lot of lives. The Alliance had been saved again, this time from its own folly.
Once, the sailors aboard these Alliance warships had been certain what lay ahead. They'd fought the Syndicate Worlds all their lives, thinking that war would never end. Today they knew only what lay behind them. The Syndics had finally been beaten, and then the Defender fleet foolishly created to deal with future threats to the Alliance had been faced and destroyed when it also became a danger. Now, though, the future seemed both limitless and unknowable.
For Admiral John "Black Jack" Geary, on his flagship, the battle cruiser Dauntless, that meant that he couldn't help wondering if this time he had saved the Alliance only to destroy it.
They'd jumped from the twin stars of Unity Alternate to the star called Drezwin. From there, most of the surviving ships of the fleet had jumped for the base at the star named Varandal to resupply and repair damage. But Dauntless and the attack transport Mistral had jumped in another direction to reach a star system with a hypernet gate that could bring them to the star that held the capital of the Alliance. The capital long ago named Unity in hopes that it would inspire harmony among the many star systems and peoples who made up the Alliance.
Soon, a moment dreaded by countless people (and hoped for by countless others), would finally happen. Geary, the Alliance's greatest hero, back from the dead, would be arriving at the Alliance capital in his flagship. That action alone might trigger the collapse of a government stressed to near the breaking point by the recently ended century-long war with the Syndicate Worlds. Even if the government survived that, the evidence being brought to the capital aboard the attack transport Mistral might well shatter the Alliance.
And yet, in the end, he had no choice. The same sense of duty that had led him to save the Alliance when it trembled on the brink of final defeat now forced him to take the actions that could destroy it anyway.
"Five minutes until arrival at Unity Star System." Lieutenant Castries's announcement carried easily across the bridge of Dauntless.
"You look like you're going to another funeral," Captain Tanya Desjani remarked. Her ship's command seat sat next to Geary's own fleet command seat on the bridge, so she could speak in a low voice.
"We may well be doing just that," Geary said.
"You're doing what has to be done."
"I know." He scowled at the display before him, which showed an image of the outside that revealed nothing. The jump space accessed using the older jump drives that had opened the galaxy to human exploration and settlement (and war), appeared as an endless, formless gray. But when using the newer hypernet gates, ships traveling from gate to gate were literally nowhere, surrounded by nothing. The blank emptiness outside the ship made him think of the dark beyond life, which did nothing good for his mood. "I'm not bothered so much by what might happen to me," Geary added, "as I am thinking about how many men and women have died to protect the Alliance. Am I betraying their sacrifices?"
Tanya didn't answer for a moment, then shook her head. "I knew Kostya Tulev for a long time. And I spent much more time around Victoria Rione than any sane person would want. I have no doubt at all that both would agree with what we're doing." She paused. "Though that woman would've surely expressed her agreement in the most disagreeable way possible."
He knew that last sentence was an attempt to distract him from his thoughts, which dwelled on the dead in body capsules on many of the ships that had gone to Varandal. Those sailors would be given the most honorable burial possible, consigned to space, their bodies launched on trajectories that in time would bring them to the star itself, to be consumed by the light. Some far-distant day, the star would explode, hurling outward atoms and elements forged partly from those bodies, to help form new stars and worlds and all that existed on those worlds. But the spirits that had once animated those bodies were already gone, hopefully having been received into the arms of their ancestors. "I'll never get used to it," Geary said. "We did our duty, but so many paid the price this time."
"A lot more would've paid the price if you hadn't made the right decisions," Desjani said.
"And if Victoria Rione hadn't sacrificed herself to save the rest of us."
"We were all willing to do the same," Desjani pointed out. "I honor her sacrifice, because it saved the rest of us, but we all would've died to protect those depending on us. Don't forget how many lives were saved, Admiral."
"I-" Geary broke off his reply as he heard the brief whistle that alerted him to an urgent incoming message. He called up the message screen before realizing that there shouldn't be any incoming messages while the ship was still inside the hypernet. "Captain Desjani, why did I just get a message supposedly sent from an outside source?"
Tanya frowned at him. Getting up, she leaned close enough to gaze at his message display. "That's impossible."
"The time of receipt says it arrived on the ship one minute ago."
"That's-" She paused before speaking again. "Did you take a look at the originator?"
"No, not yet." Wondering why Tanya was focusing on that, Geary found the line identifying who'd sent the message. He felt a chill run down his back. "Victoria Rione?"
"It's not her ghost," Tanya said, angry. "That woman must've somehow planted the message in Dauntless's comm system in a way that kept it invisible until now. That's also supposed to be impossible."
"Should I read it?"
"Not until we figure out why it's here," she said. "And if it really is from her. If it was hidden that well, it might be from anyone, and might contain anything." Reaching past him, she tapped the quarantine command for the message. "Comms!"
"Yes, Captain?" the communications watch stander responded.
"The comm system says the ship just received an external message."
The lieutenant took a moment to process her words, bafflement appearing on his face. "Captain, we're still in the hypernet. It's impossible to receive external messages."
"I know that. You know that. The comm system apparently doesn't know that. I've quarantined the message. I want to know where it's been hiding in the system, who put it there, and whether it contains any malware or other hazard."
"Yes, Captain!"
Two minutes until arrival at Unity.
Geary looked over at Tanya as she settled back into her ship's command seat. "I've noticed something about you and this ship."
"What's that, Admiral?"
"You never have to say 'do this now' or 'get this done fast.' Your crew can tell when something needs done quickly just by the way you give the order. They can tell what you want, so they get it done without confusion or delay."
She glanced from the display before her to look at him. "I'm the ship's captain. That's how it's supposed to work. Why is that finally getting a smile from you?"
"Because from anyone else that'd be a boast, but from you it's just a statement of what you think is expected of you."
"Standing by for arrival at Unity," Lieutenant Castries called.
No one could miss the impact of leaving jump space, a jolt that would momentarily rattle the strongest mind. But in that way, too, the gates were different. Dauntless exited the hypernet gate on the edge of Unity's star system without any physical effect humans could sense. What they could feel was the sense of relief as the nothingness beyond the ship was replaced by an infinity of stars.
The virtual display screen before Geary came to life, space traffic and other information multiplying as fast as the sensors aboard Dauntless could spot the information, process what they saw, and display it in forms easily grasped. Less than a light second away, Mistral had also arrived and was broadcasting normal status. The nearest other ship was a ponderous Alliance battleship orbiting a light minute from the hypernet gate, apparently on guard. No alarms sounded or appeared on the display to indicate potentially dangerous situations.
"Do we head for the primary world?" Desjani asked.
Geary nodded. "Unless and until we receive orders otherwise."
"Lieutenant Yuon," Desjani ordered. "Give us an intercept to the primary world. Use point two light speed."
"Yes, Captain." Yuon's hands flicked over his own display. "Ready, Captain."
The projected course appeared on Geary's display as well. Intercepting something in a fixed orbit, such as a planet, was child's play for the navigation systems. A long arc curved through the star system, heading in toward the star and the planet orbiting about ten light minutes from it. Given that Varandal was a bit larger and a bit hotter than Sol (the star that still warmed humanity's ancestral home world, Earth) the surface of the primary world was mostly comfortable for humans. But it also meant that the intercept was about five light hours away from where Dauntless and Mistral were at the edge of the star system. Even at two-tenths the speed of light, or sixty thousand kilometers per second, which was the sort of velocity warships could achieve in a reasonable time, that distance would require more than twenty-five hours to cover. "I'm good with it," he said. "Make sure Mistral has it, then execute."
"Yes, sir," Desjani said. "Lieutenant Yuon, send to Mistral and get their receipt for the signal."
"Yes, Captain. Mistral acknowledges and reports ready for the maneuver."
Geary tabbed his comm controls, comforted by the routine. "Dauntless, Mistral, this is Admiral Geary. Immediate execute, turn starboard zero one five degrees, down zero two zero degrees, velocity point two light. Over." Space didn't have an up or down, an east or a west, so humans made up standard directions based on the star. "Starboard" meant toward it, "port" meant away, while the plane in which the star's planets orbited defined "up" as above it and "down" as below it.
"Mistral, aye," the reply came back.
"Dauntless, aye."
Desjani moved her fingers lightly across her controls. Thrusters fired along the hull of the battle cruiser, pitching the vessel's bow toward the star and down relative to the plane in which the star's planets orbited. Moments later, as the bow lined up on the right vector, the main propulsion units aft kicked in, hurling the ship toward the star, Mistral matching Dauntless's movement.
Geary kept his eyes on the image of the world they were headed for. To the naked eye, it was a barely visible point of light, billions of kilometers distant. He was seeing where it had been five hours ago. At the speed of light, it would be five hours before the people on that world saw that Dauntless and Mistral had arrived. Against the size of space, even light seemed to move slowly.
But he knew how people might react when they saw that Dauntless had arrived here. So he called up the status report he had carefully crafted during the trip from Unity Alternate, fully aware that the fate of the Alliance might rest on whether he used one word or another in any part of the report. The report had a huge attachment, containing what seemed to be the most important evidence collected at Unity Alternate.
He tapped the send command, feeling as if he'd just pulled the trigger on a weapon.
"Captain," Lieutenant Castries said, "we're receiving a challenge from Audacious."
Geary tried not to grimace as the name of the nearby battleship was announced. Since awakening a century after his supposed last battle, he hadn't gotten used to the frequent reuse of the names of destroyed ships, which had become routine in a fleet that suffered appalling losses all too often. The last time he'd seen a battleship named Audacious it had been a badly battered hulk at a star named Lakota, where his fleet had fought the Syndics twice. The memories the name brought up weren't happy ones. "Inform Audacious that I'm aboard and we're heading to the primary world to deliver important individuals and documents to the government."
"Audacious is guarding the capital of the Alliance," Tanya Desjani observed to him. "What orders do you think they might have in case you turned up?"
"Hopefully nothing extreme. Can he intercept our track from where he is?"
She frowned at her display, her fingers rapidly testing maneuvers. "Maybe. Mistral is a bit slower at acceleration than we are. I doubt you want to leave her behind."
"No," Geary said. "Recommendation?"
"Stall him. For . . . ten minutes. Then we'll be far enough along that any intercept by him will be a stern chase. Even Mistral can outrun a battleship under those conditions."
"Fleet Headquarters should have known that," Geary said. "Why put a single battleship in orbit here knowing my flagship could outrun it?"
"Because it's a battleship," Tanya replied. "The biggest, most powerful type of ship the Alliance has. They put Audacious here because it looks like they're using the strongest defense available."
"Does anyone at Fleet Headquarters ever do the right thing? Instead of doing what looks right to outside observers?"
"Maybe by accident," she said.
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