Unable to help a grim smile, Geary pointed to his display, where the tracks from the bombardment projectiles fired days ago were finally curving down into the planet’s atmosphere. “We’re about to knock on that wall. I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but I think it’ll make us all feel better. Maybe, maybe, the enigmas will realize how much damage their actions are doing to them.”
“If they are anything like humans, that may be a vain hope. Do you think they evacuated the targeted sites?” Rione asked.
“We have no idea. That blurring is blocking too much detail.”
“Are you certain this isn’t due to more enigma worms?” Charban asked.
Desjani shook her head. “If it is, the worms are using a totally different principle. We have people examining every possibility, especially the ones that seem impossible, but our code monkeys haven’t found anything. Our technicians all believe that this is some form of real interference near the things we’re trying to observe.”
Charban nodded, his eyes downcast. “I’d be surprised if it was worms this time, since the enigmas couldn’t hide their own ships when they attacked us here.” He stood to go.
“Don’t you want to watch the bombardment hit?” Desjani asked.
General Charban shook his head, not looking at her. “I’ve already seen too many towns die, Captain Desjani.”
She closed her eyes as Charban left, then opened them and shook her head at Geary. “We’re back to bombarding towns.”
“They had plenty of time to evacuate,” Geary said.
“I know. This time they had plenty of time. What about next time?”
“I won’t let them drive us to that.”
“May our ancestors forgive us all if we sink to that level again, no matter what these things do to provoke us,” Desjani replied in a low voice.
The mood on the bridge was somber rather than celebratory as they watched the time-late images. When the bombardment arrived there, the alien-controlled planet had been five and half light hours from where the Alliance fleet hovered near the jump point. The light from that event had taken five and half hours to arrive, and they were finally seeing what had happened as the kinetic projectiles dove into atmosphere, plummeting from the heavens to tear apart the . . . what? Homes? Businesses? Factories? Did the enigmas have such things as humans understood them?
Lieutenant Iger reported in, his own tones subdued. “Whatever they use to blur sight of their towns survived the bombardment. We can tell we tore up the targets, but that’s about all.”
“Fine.” Geary made a final check of the status of repairs. Even badly damaged Daring had patched up the last systems and was ready to go. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
TWELVE
LAKA Star System was empty, almost literally so. White dwarf stars didn’t tend to have much in the way of planets, and Laka had only a tiny, tormented rock in a looping, close-in orbit that made it likely the minor planet had sailed in from space and been captured by the star sometime within the last million years or so. No alien presence could be detected, but after Pele, no one was sure if that meant there was actually nothing here. “Not a lot to hide among,” Desjani commented.
Geary took the fleet quickly across the star system to a jump point offering a long jump deeper into alien space. The star they were aiming for this time hadn’t ever officially been given a name by the Syndics, a fact that marked this as the true limits of human expansion in this part of the galaxy. “This is likely to be one of the enigmas’ long-settled star systems,” Geary cautioned the fleet. “They may expect us there. All ships should set weapons to fire upon any threats automatically upon our arrival.” It was a dangerous policy, because even ships’ combat systems could sometimes be rattled by jump exit and mistakenly identify a friendly ship as an enemy, but hopefully the radically different designs of the alien craft would minimize any chances of that.
He sat in his stateroom after the fleet had entered jump space again, feeling moody at how poorly things had gone. Despite everything that had happened with the aliens, despite everything the aliens had done, Geary realized he had still had a hope that the enigmas would come around and be willing to at least coexist with humans even if they couldn’t bring themselves to be friendly.
His hatch alert chimed, then Desjani entered. “How do you feel, Admiral?”
“Lousy. How do you feel, Captain Desjani?”
“Mad.” She sat down, looking at him. “Not depressed. Just mad. Unlike some others, I never expected the aliens to be reasonable. Maybe that’s because of my experience with humans. What are you going to name the star?”
The sudden question threw him off. “What?”
“The star we’re heading for needs a name. We can’t just use its astronomical designation. Normally, there’s probably a whole bureaucracy that decides the name of a star, but if you name one out here, that name will probably stick. So what are you going to name it?”
Geary shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“You could name it after someone.”
“Tanya.”
“What?”
“I can name it Tanya.”
“No,” she said, “you can’t. I don’t want everyone looking at a star named Tanya and saying ‘Oh, isn’t it sweet how much he loves her.’ Gag. Name it after someone who deserves to be memorialized that way.”
“All right,” Geary said. “I’ll name it Cresida.”
“A star system controlled by aliens who are hostile to humanity? You want to name that after Jaylen?”
“Fine. I’ll call it Falco.”
“That man does not deserve to have a star named after him!”
“Tanya,” Geary said, “why don’t you pick a name?”
“Because you have the right to choose the name you want,” she replied.
“So, what name is it that I want?”
“Something appropriate! Maybe not a person. Something unknown and dangerous.” Desjani snapped her fingers. “Limbo. Call it Limbo.”
“There’s no star already named Limbo?” Geary asked.
“Let me make sure.” Desjani’s hand flew over her data unit. “No. There have been some planets, but those were all fictional, in old books. Really old books. Did you know people were writing about interstellar travel long before there was any?”
“It must have seemed like a pretty amazing thing to look forward to. All right. I think I’ll call the star Limbo.”
“I think that’s a good choice,” Desjani said. “Why are you smiling if you feel lousy?”
“Something struck me as funny.” He leaned his head slightly to one side to look at her. “What would become of me without you?”
“You’d get by.” Desjani stood up. “Four days in jump space before we reach Limbo. If we’re meant to succeed in this, we will. You know that.”
“Thanks, Tanya.”
THIS time, when Dauntless dropped out of jump, no weapons fired. Geary’s head cleared enough for him to assure himself that no enemies were nearby, then his eyes went to the display showing the entire star system, where fleet sensors were rapidly evaluating and adding data.
“Jackpot,” Desjani breathed.
Limbo held two planets with substantial alien populations, based on the number of towns and cities visible beneath the blurring effects. Many installations orbited those worlds, and scores of freighters crossed between planets. Only a dozen enigma warships orbited the star. If this were a human-occupied star system, they would evaluate it as well-populated and fairly wealthy.
And there was no hypernet gate.
Geary kept staring at his display, wondering why that felt so wrong. There were plenty of human star systems without hypernet gates.
Captain Duellos called in, his expression bemused. “This doesn’t make any sense, Admiral. It’s a good thing, from our perspective, but why would the aliens have hypernet gates in such marginal star systems as Hina and Alihi, but not have one here?”