“Of course.” Despite his light words, Lagemann sounded worried. “The indications of the boarding party are still scattered and weak. They must all be in stealth armor, which means Syndic special forces. We know they’re on board, but not how many and not exactly where. We’re trying to find out more without revealing the real location of the area we occupy inside Invincible.”
“You and Major Dietz certainly called things right. What about your sentries at the air lock? Did you lose them?”
“No,” Lagemann said with a half smile. “They weren’t there. We pulled them back inside with the rest of us when those suicide attackers came at us. Maybe that was part of the Syndic boarding plan, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just as well. We might have lost a squad of Marines before we knew we were facing a boarding party in stealth gear. As it is, the Marines with me are fully alert and armoring up.”
Geary paused in his reply, glancing at Desjani.
Desjani had uttered an obscene term that he hadn’t realized she knew, and now continued speaking with white-hot rage. “A diversion! Those damned suicide ships were a diversion! While we were dealing with them, stealthed shuttles were able to intercept Invincible and put their assault force aboard!”
“Yes, Orion died because of a diversion.” That should have made Geary’s own anger flare hotter, but instead he had gone bitter cold inside. “The shuttles the Syndic boarding party used must still be near Invincible.” There was a maneuver to deal with that, a preplanned operation he only had to order into action. “Search and Destroy Pattern Sigma.” He hit his comm control. “All light cruisers and destroyers in First Fleet, immediate execute Search and Destroy Pattern Sigma. Reference point for search is Invincible. Search targets are Syndic stealth shuttles. Engage and destroy any detected.”
“Search and Destroy Pattern Sigma?” Desjani checked her database. “I’ve never actually done one of those. How old is that pattern?”
“More than a century,” Geary said. “But it’s in the maneuvering systems of every ship in this fleet. All they have to do is punch it in, and the fleet’s automated maneuvering systems will get the right ships moving to the right places based on how many ships the formation has for the mission.”
“That’s a lot,” Desjani said, smiling unpleasantly as she watched her display.
Every destroyer and every light cruiser in the First Fleet, roughly two hundred warships, was swinging into a tight, overlapping search pattern focused on the region of space near Invincible and the track she had taken through space. Stealthed shuttles, especially if they were not maneuvering at all, could be incredibly hard to spot. But with hundreds of ships searching, all of their sensor readings being combined and compared automatically by fleet combat systems, even the best stealth technology would find it hard to avoid revealing the sort of anomalies that combat systems would pounce on.
If only I’d had time to implement that search pattern as a defensive measure before the Syndics got aboard Invincible, Geary thought bitterly. But that was the whole point of the suicide attack, to keep us too busy and too distracted to even think about other threats.
“They’re at the decoy main engineering control,” Admiral Lagemann announced. “Lamarr sensors on the main hatch report they are being spoofed. And… the Persian Donkey there has ceased emitting.”
One decoy dead. Geary fought down an absurd sense of sorrow at the “death” of the faithful and deceitful little Marine Donkey. “What about the decoy bridge?”
Major Dietz’s image had also appeared near Geary. Dietz was in full combat armor. “The Syndic boarding party should have coordinated to hit both targets at the same time, but probably ran into delays because of the unknown deck plans of this ship. There go the Lamarr sensors at the decoy bridge. Decoy bridge has been hit. That Donkey is dead, too.”
“We’ve got everything running on minimum power in this area,” Lagemann said. “We’re all in our suits, so we shut down life support and everything not necessary to communicate and keep track of the action. The boarders will have a hard time finding us, and if they do, they’ll find Marines here ready for them.”
“Admiral Lagemann,” Geary said, “those Syndic soldiers can’t be given the run of Invincible.”
“They won’t be,” Major Dietz said. “I’m leaving one company to guard this area, reinforced by the sailors.” He managed not to sound sarcastic at the idea of armed sailors being effective reinforcement for Marines. “I’m taking the other company out in squads to go after the decoy compartments the Syndics captured. If they brought nukes on board, it’s a near certainty they would have left those nukes under guard in the two decoy compartments. We can’t hunt people in stealth suits, not with this amount of space to cover and so few Marines, but we can make life difficult for whatever guard force they left in those compartments and hopefully gain possession of the nukes.”
“Have you confirmed the presence of Syndic nukes?” Geary asked.
“No, Admiral. That remains an estimate of what the enemy probably intends. I strongly recommend that we operate upon the assumption that the Syndic boarding party does have at least one nuke with them.”
“Your estimates have proven to be extremely good, Major Dietz. I approve your recommendation. Admiral Lagemann, General Carabali, we will operate on the basis of the Syndics’ having nukes inside Invincible.”
General Carabali’s circuit had come to life and now she nodded in response to Geary’s words. “We’ll operate on that basis, Admiral. Request permission to land reinforcements aboard Invincible.”
“How many are you planning on and how quickly?” Geary asked.
“Everybody on Tsunami,” she replied. “Almost eight hundred Marines. As soon as Tsunami can come close alongside Invincible. I want to bring Typhoon close to Invincible in case the Marines aboard her are needed, too.”
“Permission granted. Get those Marines onto Invincible fast.”
“Understood, Admiral. We’re going in.”
Geary turned back to Major Dietz. “Did you copy that? You have a lot of friends on the way.”
“Yes, sir.” Dietz studied some of the dim displays near him. “Another Lamarr sensor in one of the passageways just went off. They’re looking for us. I’ll take my grunts out and make the finding a little easier for them. Two squads will head for the decoy engineering control and two more for the decoy bridge compartment. As our counterattack goes in, it will also distract the Syndics from realizing we have a lot more Marines boarding this ship.” He began to move away, then halted with a puzzled expression. “Firing? Admiral, we’ve got sensors reporting weapons being fired in an area where there’s nothing of ours.”
“Shooting at shadows?” Admiral Lagemann suggested.
“Shadows? These have to be Syndic special forces. Maybe even those security-force fanatics I fought once. Vipers. They’re very tough and very well trained. They wouldn’t shoot at shadows…” Dietz’s expression changed. “Standard tactics in stealth suits is to operate singly, or in groups of two or three at the most. Even if they’ve got a battalion aboard us, they would only converge into larger groups at an objective. More likely they’re at company strength at the most.”
“So?”
“The ghosts, Admiral! Those Syndics are wandering around in the dark alone or in pairs in areas of this ship we only go into at squad strength! One of them just snapped and started shooting at nothing!”