“A cluster?” Desjani asked in disbelief. “Jump-space lights never appear in groups. Do they?”
“Not that I ever heard,” Geary said.
“There have been more of them this time,” Lieutenant Castries said hesitantly. “More than usual. That’s what the old hands say.”
Did the presence of the Dancers with the human ships have any relationship to the unusual behavior of the lights in jump space? Geary almost spoke the question out loud, then saw that there were only a few seconds left before jump exit.
Desjani saw that, too. “Everyone focus on your jobs!”
The moment came, Geary striving to fight off the disorientation that entering and exiting jump always caused. He had been doing it enough lately that his recovery periods were getting shorter and now spanned only a few seconds.
He heard combat systems alarms blaring before his eyes could focus.
But as he struggled to see his display, one other fact penetrated.
None of Dauntless’s weapons were firing. Whatever the alarms warned of, it was not close enough to engage, meaning the threat also was not close enough to fire upon Dauntless or hopefully any of the rest of his fleet.
Not yet, anyway.
Geary finally managed to get a clear look at his display, then had to study it for a few seconds to grasp what he was seeing. “Freighters?”
“Junk freighters,” Desjani growled. “And obsolete warships.”
Directly in the path of the fleet were several ships ranged close to the jump exit. None of them were going anywhere. “They’re almost on top of the jump exit,” Lieutenant Castries reported. “They must be using their own maneuvering systems to stay on station. We’re getting power core readings from them. They’re all live ships.”
“They may be live,” Desjani said sharply, “but they’re limping. They look like they were hauled out of a breaking yard. Six light-seconds distant. If we’d come out of jump doing point one light—”
“We’d already be in the middle of them,” Geary finished. “At point one light, we couldn’t have turned fast enough to avoid them even if the maneuver had been preprogrammed.” He hadn’t absorbed all of the information on his display, but he had picked up that there was nothing directly above the Alliance ships. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute, turn up zero nine zero degrees.”
Dauntless pitched upward, thrusters firing to alter her trajectory into a climb straight above the plane of this star system. Geary watched the paths of his other ships doing the same. Not all could alter vectors as quickly as Dauntless, so his neat formation was smearing across a wide expanse of space, but thanks to the very low velocity at which they had exited the jump point, none of his ships would come within the danger zones surrounding the old freighters and warships positioned directly outside the exit.
That maneuver would get the fleet clear of the potential threats directly in front of the jump exit, but bring it closer to some of the other threats being highlighted on the displays.
Four groups of ships, none of them particularly large, all three light-minutes from the hypernet gate, evenly spaced as if they occupied the corners of a vast, imaginary square centered on the gate.
Three of the small groupings held a single heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and five Hunter-Killers. The fourth had two heavy cruisers and six HuKs.
“Our systems are assessing those warships as being brand-new,” Lieutenant Castries reported. “Minimal signs of wear, and they’re all the latest Syndic models of each kind of warship. But… Captain, they’re broadcasting identity codes that are not Syndic.”
“Another star system that revolted?” Geary wondered. “Maybe this reception committee is here in case a Syndic force aimed at suppressing their rebellion came from Sobek after using the hypernet gate to get there.”
“I don’t like it,” Desjani replied. “Where would a star system that revolted get all of those new-construction Syndic warships? They didn’t build them here. And there’s no sign of combat damage on any of those ships. Did you read the reports Captain Bradamont sent about the fights at Midway when they revolted?”
“Yes,” Geary said. “Some very bitter fighting and some ugly events. You’re right. The condition of those warships doesn’t match what we should see if Midway was in any way representative of what revolt is like for Syndic-controlled star systems.”
An alert beeped, and next to Geary a virtual window appeared in which Lieutenant Iger could be seen. “Admiral, everything coming from the old ships directly in front of the jump exit is totally routine, as if they were conducting normal transits or operations. All of that has to be faked given the poor condition of those ships.”
“What about the new ones?” Geary asked, eyeing the two groups closest to the upward-bending path of the fleet.
“Their identity codes claim that they are all units of the Strike Combat Attack Forces of the Simur Star System.”
Desjani’s snort of derision was loud enough for Iger to hear. He nodded in agreement. “There is a lot of interesting message traffic flying around this star system, Admiral,” Iger continued. “But nothing that would indicate a revolt against Syndic authority. What we are picking up was transmitted prior to our arrival and consists of speculation about what the Syndic warships were doing here. Those warships showed up a couple of weeks ago and have apparently refused to communicate with anyone in this star system.”
“They haven’t communicated with anyone?” Geary asked. “Not even the senior Syndic CEO in Simur?”
Iger smiled despite his best efforts to suppress a grin. “Since the Syndic warships were hanging out near this jump point, messages sent to them came right where we could pick them up, too. We’ve got one of them. It’s coded, of course, but we could break enough of it to indicate that the senior CEO here is demanding to know what their mission is. There’s a fragment of the message that may indicate that the senior CEO received some sort of instructions from the Syndic warships and is disputing those instructions.”
“There’s no doubt in your mind,” Geary said, “that those ships are still Syndic despite claiming to belong to this star system?”
“Don’t answer that, Lieutenant,” someone interrupted before Iger could speak.
Desjani clenched her teeth but stayed silent as Geary turned to see that Rione was on the bridge. “Why shouldn’t Lieutenant Iger answer that question?” Geary demanded.
“Because, Admiral,” Rione said, looking and sounding as if she were explaining the obvious, “the Alliance has a peace agreement with the Syndicate Worlds which limits our possible actions against any ships or star systems of the Syndicate Worlds. The Alliance has no peace treaty with the Simur Star System. If those warships claiming to belong to Simur and not to the Syndicate Worlds act in a hostile or just a threatening manner, you can act in whatever way you wish without concerning yourself about the legalities of the peace agreement with the Syndicate Worlds.”
That could be useful. Geary kept one eye on the nearest groups of Syndic warships as he spoke again. “Why would the Syndics give us that opportunity?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps they simply didn’t think of that possibility. There is a great deal that we don’t know. All we can be certain of is that the Syndics very likely are trying to lure you into doing something that you don’t want to do.”
Another alert, this time from the displays, as Lieutenant Castries echoed the information. “Ship groups Alpha and Bravo are accelerating on intercept tracks.”
The fleet’s automated systems had designated the four groups of new warships as Alpha, Bravo, Cable, and Delta. Alpha and Bravo were the two groups at the top of the imaginary square, and the two groups closest to the Alliance fleet as it climbed away from the threat posed by the suspicious old ships in front of the jump exit.