“I have to agree,” Duellos said.
“That doesn’t prevent us from striking back,” Desjani said. “Bombard some of those towns. They’ve given us more than adequate grounds to retaliate. We can show them that when they attack us, they can’t just run away and avoid any more hurt.”
Charban hesitated. “They’d see a bombardment launched from here early enough to easily allow evacuation of their populace. It will demonstrate our capabilities in a way impossible for them to ignore but shouldn’t create any motives for vengeance based on civilian deaths.”
Dr. Shwartz and Dr. Setin had been invited to listen in, and now Shwartz spoke reluctantly. “We don’t even know whether they understand the distinction between military and civilian. The enigmas may be as blind to such a concept as the average human male is to the difference between taupe and beige.”
“According to the Syndic records,” Duellos said, “they lost quite a few ships in this region before even realizing that the enigmas existed. Many of those ships were lightly armed or unarmed. If the aliens do recognize the distinction between military and civilian, they seem more than capable of disregarding it.”
Everyone looked at Geary, who bent his head in thought for a moment before nodding. “Yes. We’ll send them another message saying that we want peaceful coexistence, but that if they persist in seeking war, they’ll have to deal with war. I don’t see any other option.”
The moment of silence that followed was broken by the captain of Victorious. “Do we bury our dead here? Send them toward this star?”
“No,” Vitali insisted immediately.
Geary nodded once more. “I agree with Captain Vitali. There’s too great a chance that the journey of our honored dead to the star would be halted by the aliens. There are compartments on the assault transports for storage of casualties. We’ll transfer our dead there and hold them until we reach a star system where their burials can be conducted safely. Captain Smythe, how long until all four damaged battle cruisers are back in battle-ready condition?”
Smythe scratched his neck meditatively. “None of them will be in mint condition, but give me three more days, and all of their weapons will be working again, holes in their hulls patched, and shields back up to strength.”
Desjani was running some calculations. “A bombardment launched from here will take sixty-one hours to reach the planet where the enigma towns are.”
“All right,” Geary said. “We’ll launch the bombardment within the hour, along with our message that this is just a taste of what pissed-off humanity can do. That will give the aliens plenty of time to respond with something other than more attacks, if they so choose, and give us time to see the bombardment hit and evaluate the results before repairs are far enough along, and we jump for Laka.”
Most of the officers left quickly when the conference ended, but Smythe lingered long enough to shake his head at Desjani. “I go to all that trouble to get your ship’s systems upgraded, and you go and get a good lot of the equipment blown apart before the work’s completely done.”
“I’m just trying to keep your engineers gainfully employed,” Desjani replied, managing the first trace of a smile she had shown since losing her crew members.
“I appreciate your efforts, but I wanted the admiral to know that one of the hell-lance batteries on Victorious wasn’t knocked out by enemy action. Not directly, anyway. One of the power junctions feeding it failed.”
“Age?” Geary asked.
“Age and stress,” Smythe confirmed. “I can’t teach our equipment meditation, so I’ll keep working at making it younger.”
Charban sat staring down at the table after Smythe had vanished. “If they’d only talk to us. This is senseless. War always seems senseless, but we don’t even know why they’re hostile. Don’t think I don’t appreciate exactly how your Captain Vitali feels. I lost a lot of troops in my time.”
He stood up and walked out, something in his movements and his bearing making Charban seem older.
Desjani glanced at Rione, who was still seated, and stood up herself. “I’ll get a bombardment plan set up. Admiral.”
“Thanks. Target about half the towns on the planet.”
“Half?” She smiled again, this time in a feral way. “I thought you’d limit me to a quarter.”
After Desjani left, Geary sat waiting for Rione to say something. Finally, she looked directly at him. “I realize that the words ‘it could have been worse’ are cold comfort at such times,” Rione said. “But they are also true. You could have been mourning the loss of several ships, and thousands of dead.”
“I know.” Geary leaned back, trying to dull the pain inside as he thought of their losses. “If we hadn’t reacted as quickly as we did, we could easily have had most of the auxiliaries crippled or destroyed, which could have left this fleet in a very bad position. Was that the idea, Madam Emissary?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. I wish I had some idea of why you would have agreed to play a role in it.”
“You know that I have always been willing to sacrifice myself for the right reasons.” On that, she also stood and left.
FOUR hours later, Geary stood at attention in his best uniform. Beside him stood Captain Desjani, similarly attired, also at attention. Next to them were two ranks of sailors and Marines from Dauntless’s crew, forming two lines just outside a hatch. From the hatch, giving access to the exterior, a pressurized accommodation tube led to Typhoon. Everyone wore armbands showing a wide bar of gold, another of black, then a final gold bar, symbolizing the night that was only an interval between the light.
Geary brought his arm up in a salute that he held as the first of twenty-nine sealed body tubes was carried past by more crew members, moving at a somber pace, each step coming with slow deliberation. More followed, carrying the rest of the tubes. Moving down the corridor formed by the two ranks of sailors and Marines, the crew members carried the remains of their comrades through the hatch and toward Typhoon, where they would be kept in compartments designed for that sad burden.
Normally, cargo was simply floated through the open space between ships. But the fleet didn’t treat its dead that way.
After the last tube passed by on its way to Typhoon and had vanished from view, Geary finally lowered his arm. Desjani did the same, turning to the honor guard. “Thank you. Dismissed.”
Everyone left to change back into a regular uniform, to return to the work whose demands never ceased, but sometimes paused when tradition demanded it.
DAYS of repairing battle damage passed quickly enough. Geary noticed that now when members of the crew spoke of the aliens, they were angry, and that watch-standers viewing alien activity had the aspect of someone aiming weapons at a target they wished killed. Did the enigmas understand how their actions were impacting human feelings about them? Kalixa had been horrible, but the deaths here had been personal ones, men and women who had been friends and comrades, and increasingly the human crews appeared ready to reply to enigma intransigence with firepower rather than futile attempts to communicate.
“We received another message from the enigma race,” Rione told him. “Do you wish to view it?”
“Anything new in it?” Geary asked.
“No. Same avatar, same false bridge, and same dialogue. If we took the words ‘die’ and ‘go’ away from the enigmas, most of their ability to converse would vanish.”
Charban grimaced. “They’re not acknowledging what we said, and they’re not acknowledging events here. It’s like talking to a wall.”