“Me, too, Commander. It could be they’ve already fielded a similar design back home.”
“You’re not sending a ship back immediately with this design, sir? Just in case the Alliance hasn’t developed their own?”
Geary shook his head. “It’s the same problem as the one with our high-ranking liberated prisoners. I’d need to send substantial forces back as escorts, and I don’t want to weaken the fleet that much before we find out what kind of problems we’re going to face inside alien space. Besides, that ship couldn’t get home for weeks, and if the aliens intend collapsing the Alliance hypernet in retaliation, they would do it long before that when we enter their space.”
“Perhaps we should delay entering enigma space until we know the Alliance has the devices installed, Admiral.”
“No,” Geary said. “I considered that, but the travel time alone for voyages back to Alliance space, then returning here would add up to a couple of more months, even if the force we sent was not delayed or blocked. I don’t know that the Syndic central government might not attempt to cut off and destroy a smaller, isolated force whose fate the Syndics could then claim to have no knowledge of. If the design made it home, it would take more time for the Alliance to actually test, manufacture, and install the equipment and receive verification of that from every star system on the hypernet. We can’t afford to wait for how long all of that might require, not even knowing if a reply and confirmation will reach us out here.”
One last transmission. “All units be prepared for combat the instant we leave jump at Pele. All ships jump at time three two.”
THE fleet exited at Pele with every weapon ready, every man and woman in the fleet ready for a desperate fight. Instead, they found . . .
“Nothing.”
Desjani glared at her combat systems watch-stander. “Are our systems being scrubbed for the alien worms?”
“Scrubs are under way and continuous, Captain. There’s nothing here.”
Geary kept checking his display, unable to believe that there was no sign of any alien presence at Pele. Tanya’s suspicion about the alien worms had also been the first thing to occur to him. Those worms, using principles unknown to humanity, had been discovered only thanks to an intuition on the part of Jaylen Cresida before her death. Hidden inside the sensor and targeting systems on human ships, the worms had let the aliens control what humans saw of the outside universe, All too often, that had meant that the alien ships had been effectively invisible.
But there didn’t appear to be any alien worms deceiving their sensors this time, and what the sensors could see wasn’t impressive. Two inner worlds of modest size whirled about the star, but this star system lacked the usual array of gas giants farther out. Instead, a single massive planet orbited, so large it had become a brown dwarf, radiating heat but not strongly enough to classify it as a star in its own right. Between the star Pele and the brown dwarf, the two inner planets received an uncomfortable amount of heat, rendering all of them too warm for human habitation even though one of the worlds had some primitive extreme life-forms living on it.
On one of the inner worlds, a new massive crater could be seen, one that didn’t exist on the Syndic records they had been provided. That same planet had once had a large Syndic facility in orbit. “The aliens deorbited it intact, and it made a big bang when it hit,” Desjani commented. “Run the finest-grain analysis of this star system we can,” she ordered her bridge team. “If there’s an alien molecule here, I want to know where it is.”
“Why wouldn’t they at least have some kind of surveillance satellite?” Geary wondered. “Something to monitor the system and know if anyone else came here? Why don’t they have a picket ship watching to give warning that someone was heading into their territory?”
“Over-confidence?” Desjani suggested. “Maybe they only wanted this star system as a springboard to attack Midway, not as part of their own security buffer.”
“Maybe. As soon as the fleet’s systems confirm the location of the jump point for Hina, we’ll head for it.”
“Hina? Not Hua?”
“Hua is a more direct line toward what we think is alien territory,” Geary agreed. “But the Syndics had placed a colony at Hina. It looks like they intended to use Hina as a source to seed other colonies and base their forces out here. I want to see what’s at Hina.”
Another window popped up. “Admiral,” Dr. Setin said, “there are no aliens in this star system.”
“We’ve noticed that, Doctor. We’ll be proceeding directly to another star system deeper in alien space.”
“Will there be aliens there?”
“I hope so. How are you and the Marines getting along?” Geary asked to change the subject.
“Very well! These Marines have a unique and fascinating way of processing, evaluating, and understanding information. Their intellectual mechanisms are distinct from those I have encountered in the past. In some ways it’s almost as if they were a separate variant of the human race.”
“I’ve heard other people say much the same thing, Doctor. Please give my regards to General Carabali.”
They had only been at Pele for an hour when Geary’s display flickered, then a few moments later flickered again. Desjani’s must have done the same, because the instant after the second flicker, she was spinning in her seat to snap a question at her watch team. “What happened?”
The communications watch answered. “Our systems carried out automatic resets in response to attempts to override controls. Someone put a worm into our systems, but it’s an old design, so the security protocols were able to block it immediately.”
“How did the worm get into Dauntless?” Desjani demanded.
The lieutenant on communications watch shook his head. “It couldn’t have come in remotely, Captain. Our systems would have blocked it there. Someone aboard Dauntless manually inserted it.”
Desjani turned a narrow-eyed look on Geary. “Someone on Dauntless, using an old design. Who do you suppose could have been involved?”
He nodded back to her. “Some of our liberated prisoners. What was that worm trying to make the comm systems do?”
“Broadcast a message to the fleet, Admiral. The worm tried to self-destruct the message when it was blocked, but our systems recovered it.” The lieutenant paused. “Sir, Haboob is reporting a similar attempt to commandeer her comm systems a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, yeah,” Desjani said sarcastically, “it’s going to be very hard to figure out who was behind this.”
“Can you route to me the message the worm tried to broadcast?” Geary asked the lieutenant.
“Yes, sir. The worm has been deactivated, and the message scrubbed for any other worms hidden inside it. It’s clean.”
“Let me see it, then.” He noticed Desjani giving him another look. “And route it to Captain Desjani as well.”
A window popped open before Geary. Several of the former prisoners, all now wearing new uniforms glistening with their rank insignia, decorations, and awards, stood as if addressing their own command. One of them, Admiral Chelak, launched into a speech about honor, fleet traditions, respect for seniority, and the opinions of other officers, the need to resolve command issues—
He cut it off.
“What took you so long?” Desjani asked.
“I wanted to see if they’d say anything that showed they’d been thinking.” He glowered at his display. “But this appeal to the fleet’s officers means the ones behind this still think they can work against my command even after talking to people in the fleet.”
“Sabotage in a war zone—” Desjani began.
“I can’t just start shooting them, Tanya. Especially since the worm wasn’t designed to actually cause damage.”