Dietz and Lagemann exchanged intrigued looks this time. “That’s possible, too,” Lagemann said. “But since it makes sense to us, it might not be the real reason.”
“I understand,” Geary said, thinking of what he had seen of Kick technology. Much of their equipment used methods totally foreign to the conventions of human thought and equipment. “Where should I see next?”
Lagemann pointed toward the temporary air lock. “Out there.”
“You’re kidding. I believe you about the ghosts. Or, at least, about something unnerving out there.”
“It’s not to show you that. It’s something the Marines came up with in their spare time.”
Another half dozen Marines had joined them, all in full combat armor. Geary’s lingering suspicions that his leg was being pulled by Lagemann and Dietz dwindled away as he noticed the wary manner in which the Marines eased out into the unoccupied portions of Invincible.
Warnings flashed on the face display of Geary’s survival suit as he pulled himself down the passageway with the others. Poisonous atmosphere. Toxic trace elements. Temperature barely within human-survivability range. Those factors alone would have discouraged explorers among the human prize crew.
But he could feel something else, something that didn’t register on his suit’s sensors. A feeling of something just behind him, ready to leap. Of other things moving just out of the range of his side vision. Shadows, brought to life by the lights on the human suits, that jumped around in ways those shadows should not.
And, with every meter farther away from the area occupied by humans, the sensation of being surrounded by something hostile grew.
Admiral Lagemann began speaking with forced casualness, his voice across the comm circuit between suits too obviously trying to sound relaxed. “We’ve had time to think, Major Dietz and I, and here’s what we’ve been thinking. We’re behind an awesome amount of armor, and we’re linked to four battleships, which are towing us. Beyond that, you’ve got an impressive even if damaged fleet. That’s good. But Invincible, as the first nonhuman artifact controlled by the human race, and an incredibly big artifact at that, packed with nonhuman technology, is the most valuable object in human history. Anyone who sees it, or knows about it, is going to want to get it for themselves or at the least destroy it to keep us from learning whatever we can from the ship.”
“I can’t argue with any of your points,” Geary said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the odds of encountering on our way home a force of warships capable of destroying the rest of the fleet and capturing Invincible are basically zero.”
“Again, that’s true. The Syndic shipyards have probably kept going to the best of their ability, so they might surprise us, but even if they do, we’re certain to have vastly superior numbers.”
“So,” Lagemann continued, “how would someone try to attack and capture Invincible?”
As Geary paused to think, Major Dietz provided the answer. “Boarding party.”
“Boarding party?” Geary repeated. “How?”
“With enough stealth suits, they could get a force aboard this ship,” Dietz explained. “Hit us while we’re transiting a star system.”
“They know where we have to go,” Lagemann pointed out. “They can plant stealth shuttles along the route from a hypernet gate to a jump point and just latch on as we pass.”
“There wouldn’t be much opportunity for that along the route from here to Varandal,” Geary began, then stopped as a memory came to him. “CEO Boyens strongly implied that obstacles would be established to keep us from getting back easily.”
“Any idea what or how?”
“No. What could a boarding party do?”
Major Dietz answered again. “Standard practice when boarding a ship is to head for the three vital control centers. The bridge, main engineering control, which also controls the power core on the ship, and weapons control.”
“There isn’t any main engineering control on this ship,” Geary said, reaching for another grip and pulling himself farther along the passageway, “unless you found one and didn’t tell me.”
He could hear Lagemann’s grin. “Nope. There are eight power cores, and eight control stations. Why? Our engineers say it’s not efficient. Two big cores would have worked better. But that’s what the Kicks did. All of the cores are fully shut down and none of the control stations are operational. At least, not by humans. Who knows what a Kick could do? And all main propulsion systems were blown to hell during the battle at Honor, so even with power, Invincible can’t do any serious movement under her own propulsion.”
“There are two operational weapons left,” Major Dietz offered. “Particle beam projectors similar to our hell lances. But both lack power. They’re useless even if someone could find the right control station for them.”
“And the bridge is also useless,” Geary said. “Right?”
“Right, sir. We still don’t understand that stadium seating in the back of it, but none of the controls are powered and working. It’s all dead.” Dietz made an annoyed sound, as if unhappy that he had used that term while it felt like Kick ghosts were hovering around.
“Then what’s the threat? I’m not discounting the impact on you if an attack force boards, but how can they take Invincible? All you have to do is hold out until we put reinforcements aboard.”
Admiral Lagemann waved one hand around them. “The threat is to the most valuable thing in human history. What can you do to keep someone else from using it, from learning from it, from putting aboard new forces to contest your control of it?”
The ghosts felt like they were crowding closer as the answer came to Geary. “Threaten to destroy it?”
“Give that man a prize. If they bring nuclear weapons aboard and set them off inside, they could turn this invaluable alien artifact into a giant stubby tube of armor containing radioactive slag. What would we do to keep them from doing that?”
He hated to think of the compromises that situation might require. Perhaps even surrendering Invincible to keep her interior intact in the hopes that she could be recaptured. “You think this will happen?”
“We think,” Major Dietz said, “that it’s the only possible way to threaten our control of this ship. But they’d have to eliminate my Marines to prevent us from stopping them from carrying out that kind of threat.”
Geary shrugged irritably, trying to ward off the ghosts his senses claimed were bunching around him as he moved. “Do you want reinforcements now?”
“We can’t use them, Admiral,” Dietz explained. “The safe area on Invincible can’t support many more humans. We’re better off with a smaller force that knows the ship fairly well and can hit attackers where they least expect it.”
“And where would they least expect it?” Geary asked.
“If they come, they’ll be Syndics. Or people who were trained as Syndics. That means they’ll follow standard procedures in their planning.”
Geary shook his head. “Surely they realize that the deck plan for this ship doesn’t match anything built by them or the Alliance.”
“Yes, sir,” Major Dietz said, then continued in very diplomatic tones for a Marine. “These plans will be very important. They’ll be drafted by the Syndic high command. Not by any field forces. By the highest-ranking CEOs in the Syndic military hierarchy.”
“Which means,” Admiral Lagemann added, “that any relationship between reality and those plans will be purely coincidental.”