Geary’s attention was drawn by movement within his formation. The Dancers. Their ships had left the vicinity of Invincible, darting forward through the formation as if eager to reach the jump point before any of the Alliance ships. “Emissary Charban! Tell the Dancers in the strongest possible terms that we suspect danger at that jump point! They must not move ahead of our ships!”
“Yes, Admiral,” Charban replied, concern and resignation warring in his expression. “They don’t always listen. I’ll tell the Dancers and leave out the suspect part. Maybe if we say we know there is danger there, it will make a difference.”
“What do we do,” Desjani asked, “if the Dancers race ahead of us into what we suspect is a minefield?”
“Pray,” Geary replied.
He watched with increasing dread as the Dancers got closer and closer to the leading ships in the Alliance formation. Whatever Charban was telling them wasn’t enough. I should call Charban. Tell him to put the fear of the living stars in the Dancers and do it now. But what if he is doing that and I interrupt him and that causes a critical delay in getting the message across to the Dancers? Damn, damn, damn…
The Dancer ships leaped past the forwardmost Alliance warships, weaving around each other as the Dancers aimed for the Syndic transport lumbering steadily toward the jump point.
An urgent alert sounded, jarring Geary and everyone else on the bridge out of their dismayed viewing of the Dancers’ movements.
“There’s a distress signal,” Lieutenant Castries said.
Geary squinted at his own display, where a new symbol had appeared on top of the freighter. “From the merchant ship ahead of us?”
“Yes, Admiral. They’re reporting fluctuations in their power core.”
“What do our sensors say?” Desjani demanded.
“There are fluctuations being detected, Captain. The fluctuations we’re picking up are consistent with a failure of power-core-control mechanisms.”
Was it the trick they had been expecting? Or a real problem?
And the Dancers were getting very close to the danger radius the fleet’s maneuvering systems had just illuminated around the Syndic freighter.
“For the love of our ancestors, Emissary Charban, tell the Dancers that freighter is about to blow up!”
Charban’s image, his face lined with strain, appeared just long enough to nod in reply. “Professor Shwartz and I are screaming at the Dancers! We’ll add that warning, too!”
“Maybe it won’t blow up,” Desjani suggested helpfully.
She winced at the look he turned on her. “Sorry, Admiral. But… there’s nothing else we can do.”
The Dancers were now well inside the danger radius from the freighter, splitting to swing around it as they continued on toward the jump point.
Geary watched them, glum. “The friendly aliens are causing me as much anxiety as the enemy aliens,” he grumbled.
“Fluctuations in the freighter’s power core are growing worse,” Lieutenant Castries reported, dismay creeping into her own voice.
“Warning shots?” Desjani suggested, sounding despairing herself.
“They’re out of range,” Geary said, “and if they won’t or can’t understand a warning to stay away from a dangerous region, how can we expect them to understand having us fire at them?”
Lieutenant Castries spoke up again. “Admiral, the freighter just broadcast an abandon-ship alert. The crew is heading for their survival pod.”
Geary looked toward Desjani, seeing the stony expression with which she was now watching her display. “Are you thinking what I am?”
“Probably,” Desjani said. “They’ll eject in their pod and request a humanitarian pickup. Then their freighter will explode. Then, when we’re distracted by both of those things and our sensors are hindered by the aftereffects of the freighter’s destruction, we start hitting mines. Assuming we’re not also distracted by watching the Dancer ships hitting mines.”
“Yeah. Another diversion, just as Master Gioninni predicted. There goes their escape pod.”
“And here comes the request for rescue.”
“Freighter crew requests emergency assistance,” Lieutenant Castries said. “They are reporting seriously injured personnel. Power fluctuations on the freighter are exceeding danger levels. We are well outside the danger radius if the freighter’s power core detonates. The Dancers—”
“Are well inside,” Desjani finished, “but they’re about to— Oh, hell!”
Geary felt the same way as he watched the Dancer ships, which had been close to the front edge of the danger zone around the freighter, suddenly alter tracks to come swooping back toward the newly launched escape pod. “They can’t be that stupid!” he erupted. “Even if Charban and Shwartz hadn’t told them anything, the Dancers would still have been able to pick up the power fluctuations on that freighter’s power core. They must know—” He paused as a thought hit him.
“What?” Desjani demanded.
“Are they just messing with us?” Geary wondered. “Are they deliberately going into danger so that they—”
“They’re heading for a minefield at high speed!” Desjani broke in. A sudden realization twisted her own expression. “They’ve got better stealth capability than us. That probably means they have better stealth detection capability than us.”
“They see mines that are still invisible to us? Then why are they—?” Geary hit the arm of his seat hard enough to hurt his hand. “They’re warning us!”
“Or screwing with us!”
The Dancers, displaying a maneuverability human ships could not hope to match, had nearly joined up with the escape pod from the freighter.
“Hold on!” Geary ordered as Desjani started to say something else. Too many things were happening, and his own thoughts were in a whirl. “I need to focus on all of these elements. Get everything straight. The minefield. We have to assume it is there, but beyond the freighter. The freighter. About to blow. We’re well outside the danger radius, though.”
“Of course,” Desjani said. “They don’t want us altering course.”
“Wait, Tanya, please. The Dancers. Outside our own formation, within the danger zone about the freighter but intercepting the escape pod. If they stay with it, they’ll be outside the danger radius when the freighter’s power core overloads.”
He paused, looking for anything he might have missed. “Lieutenant, are there Syndic assets in this star system that can recover that escape pod in time to save the crew?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” Castries replied. “There are at least two Syndic ships that could do a pickup well within the endurance of the life support on that escape pod.”
“So we don’t need to worry about that even though the pod is requesting rescue.”
“Clumsy of them not to forestall that option,” Desjani remarked.
“They had to make things look normal,” Geary said. “No other traffic within a light-hour would have looked very abnormal. So, the freighter and its crew, if there was one, is not a problem. We have to assume the Dancers are picking up the danger signs from the freighter’s power core and will get themselves clear, and that the Dancers can see any mines the Syndics laid near the jump point better than we can see them.”
“Right,” Desjani agreed. “That leaves just our own ships to worry about.”
“But… Captain… they said they have seriously injured personnel,” an increasingly baffled Lieutenant Castries reminded Desjani.
“Lieutenant,” Desjani replied, “odds are there are no seriously injured personnel on that escape pod. I would, in fact, be surprised if there are any personnel aboard it at all. Everything we’re seeing and hearing was very likely preprogrammed and that freighter sent out here without a human crew.”