“Our first contact happened some time ago,” Geary pointed out. “When they attacked the Midway Star System. I assume you two will now attempt to speak with the aliens?”
“If they will speak with us,” Rione replied.
A window holding Dr. Setin appeared. “This is astounding, Admiral. Have you looked at the primary planet in this star system?”
“We were just getting to that, Doctor.”
“The towns the Syndics placed on the second planet are completely gone. There’s no trace that the places they occupied ever had anything built there. The enigma race must have gone to great effort to erase any trace of previous human presence.”
That was interesting as well as disturbing. Maybe having these experts along would turn out to be a useful thing.
“Have you examined the images of the alien towns on the visible portions of the planet?” Setin asked. “The images are very blurry, but the towns are not very large given how many years the enigma race has controlled this star system.”
“Why are the images so blurry?” Geary asked the bridge watch-standers.
“It doesn’t seem to be normal atmospherics,” the sensor watch answered. “We’re trying to get clearer images, but it’s as if there’s something fogging the imagery.”
“We’re sure the systems are clear of worms?” Desjani asked.
“Yes, Captain. This looks like something on the planet itself, maybe something positioned over those towns that lets through light but blocks details for anyone looking down at them.”
Geary passed that on to Dr. Setin, who excitedly broke the contact to confer with his colleagues, then Geary called Intelligence. “Lieutenant Iger, what do the comms in this star system look like? Any good video transmissions we can exploit?”
Iger appeared baffled. “There’s no video at all, Admiral. It’s all text, and that’s encoded.”
Desjani blew out an exasperated breath. “No wonder the Syndics called these things the enigma race. They give paranoia a bad name.”
“We can’t judge them by our standards,” Charban cautioned.
“I’m aware of that,” Geary said. “But Captain Desjani has a point. These aren’t countermeasures put into place after our arrival. The light from that planet is five hours old. The messages we’re picking up are at least that old as well. These seem to be normal, routine behaviors for this species. Lieutenant Iger, I want you to look for anything that might indicate humans are still somewhere in this star system.”
“We haven’t seen anything that indicates that yet, Admiral.”
Dr. Setin was back. “Very focused on privacy. Remarkable. Have you observed what can be seen of the towns? They are right on the coastline. As hard as it is to make out details, they seem to build right to the water’s edge. What’s that?” Setin seemed to be listening to someone. “Yes. Admiral, it looks like they may build into the water. What we’re seeing continuing into the water might be piers, but it almost looks like the same construction simply continues from dry land right into the water, and those images going into water become even harder to make out before becoming impossible to interpret, which would be consistent with them continuing into deeper water.”
“What would that mean, Doctor?”
“Well, one obvious possibility is that the enigma race is amphibious. Clearly, they value being close to water and may need that proximity to water. We heard an alien ship was encountered at the jump exit, Admiral. Will we be able to examine it and meet with its crew?”
Geary shook his head. “I’m afraid that ship self-destructed.”
“Oh. Did it evidence antagonistic or disputatious behaviors?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did it . . . attack . . . us?”
“Yes, Doctor. It opened fire the moment it saw us.”
The system techs played with the sensors, trying to get clearer images but having no success. Geary waited with a growing sense of impatience, watching the alien spacecraft reacting to the arrival of the fleet but unable to move his own ships away from the jump point without risking total destruction from the hypernet gate. “Captain?” the combat systems watch said after four futile hours, her voice thoughtful. “I’ve noticed something in the actions of the aliens. I may be wrong, but—”
“If you’ve noticed anything, I’d like to hear it,” Desjani said.
“Yes, ma’am. The thing is, if you look at the reactions of the alien ships, the probable freighters are reacting as the light of our arrival reaches them; but then this alien warship one and a half light hours distant also didn’t react until they could see us. And a few minutes ago, we got light back from this second alien warship, about forty-five light minutes from the first warship, which showed it reacting only a few minutes after the first alien warship would have seen light from our arrival.”
Desjani nodded, studying her own display. “That’s consistent with our belief that they have a faster-than-light communications capability, but it looks like they don’t have any faster-than-light sensors, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Captain. That first warship needed to see our light get to him before he knew we were here. But it tells us something else,” the lieutenant added, “that their merchant ships don’t have the FTL comms. It wasn’t until one warship saw us that the other warship reacted.”
“That’s important to know. Excellent job, Lieutenant Castries.”
Rione and Charban sent out messages, drafted much earlier, regretting past warfare, expressing interest in real dialogue, and offering to negotiate terms for peaceful coexistence.
Five hours after the fleet’s arrival, a message arrived from the aliens, one definitely sent before the aliens heard the communications from the fleet. Geary saw the same sort of human avatars the aliens had used at Midway, false fronts that concealed the true appearance of the enigmas.
A “human” sat in the command seat of a virtual ship’s bridge cobbled together digitally from Syndic transmissions. He frowned and made a gesture that was probably meant to be threatening but was subtly wrong to the real humans watching the message. “Go. Go now. Stay, and you will die. This star is ours. Not yours. Go or you will die. This star is ours. Go or die.”
“Not much room for negotiation,” Desjani commented.
“No,” Geary agreed. “Route that message to the civilian experts for their input and make sure our emissaries see it.” His eyes came to rest on the depiction of alien warships on his display. All of the enigma warships in this star system were headed toward the Alliance fleet, but the closest ones had veered off to hold positions a light hour distant. They either weren’t planning a hopelessly outnumbered attack on the Alliance fleet or were waiting for every one of their own warships in this star system to join up before launching a still-futile attack.
“Admiral?”
He blinked, focusing on Desjani and realizing that he’d been lost in thought. “Sorry.”
“You’re all right?” Desjani asked. “You were out of comms for quite a while.”
“I was just thinking,” Geary assured her.
“Again?”
“Yes, Captain Desjani.” He nodded toward his display. “I was thinking about the fact that the aliens have superior maneuvering capability; but their weapons, the weapons we’ve seen in use, that is, are no better than ours and may be a little inferior. It’s an odd discrepancy.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Desjani said. “Imagine that you’re armed with a knife. Not a great knife, but it does the job. And you’re invisible, so even though your knife isn’t all that great, you have no trouble at all walking up to people and stabbing them before they even know you’re there.” She spread her hands with a questioning look. “Why worry about getting a new knife?”
“Because their real weapons were the worms, which allowed the aliens to be invisible on human sensors.”