“Multiple locations?” Desjani demanded.
“Yes, Captain, I don’t—”
“Invincible has several power cores,” Geary said. “We weren’t sure why the Kicks designed it that way, but the engineers speculated it was because the ship was so huge that running power from any single location would have been harder than running multiple power sources. But those power cores were shut down! Every one of them was cold. Every piece of Kick equipment on that ship was shut down, deactivated, or disabled.”
“Something is reactivating the power cores,” Desjani said. “I assume that we’re ruling out the Kick ghosts?”
“The Dancers explained that to us. There’s no actual presence. Just an impression of a presence.”
“Then what else—?” Desjani began. “Ancestors save us. Did those maniacs fit Invincible out as a dark ship?”
“She doesn’t have any working propulsion,” Geary replied. “We destroyed her main propulsion drives when we captured her, and we can see that they haven’t been repaired or replaced. What good would it do—”
“Combat systems are activating aboard Invincible,” Lieutenant Yuon reported, sounding dazed. “According to what we’re picking up, it’s the Kick combat systems, not anything retrofitted from human sources. The targeting systems inside the ship and the few weapons that were still operational after we took Invincible are all coming online.”
“The tugs are powering up,” Lieutenant Castries said, disbelieving. “The heavy-hauling Alliance tugs mated to Invincible are activating their systems.”
“How far away is Invincible?” Desjani glared at her display. “Twenty light-minutes. How long does it take to power up one of the fleet’s heavy tugs?”
“Our data says fifteen minutes from standby to emergency movement,” Castries replied. “They were in standby.”
“Then Invincible is probably already underway! What the hell is going on? Those tugs were cold and empty,” Desjani insisted. “No crews aboard. Are the dark ships doing this somehow?”
More alerts sounded, more visual alerts highlighted the same area. “Propulsion on the Alliance tugs fastened to Invincible has lit off at full. Invincible is underway,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “No life support is active on the tugs.”
“Admiral!” It was General Charban, his image speaking with rapid precision to ensure his words were clear. “We have a message from the Dancers. I won’t read the poetry, just the gist of it. They’re telling us they have ‘reawakened’ the Kick superbattleship and that it is now ‘our distraction.’”
“Distraction?” Geary asked, then suddenly understood. “Diversion. The Dancers remotely reactivated the Kick systems?”
“I assume that’s what they mean,” Charban replied.
“How the hell did they do that?” Desjani asked.
“I don’t know,” Geary replied. “I don’t know why, if they can do that, they didn’t mess with the Kick systems when we were together fighting the Kicks.”
“And they remotely activated Alliance systems,” Desjani added, pointing to the tugs. “They must have remotely overridden access codes and authorization requirements and safety interfaces on the tugs. And now they’ve remotely lit off the tugs’ propulsion and set a vector for them. The Dancers may be allies of ours, but when did they develop that capability?”
“Admiral,” Lieutenant Yuon announced, now breathless. “All of the dark ship formations are turning away.”
Geary switched his gaze back to the dark ship formations, blinking in surprise at his display where vectors on the dark ships had begun swinging wildly. “They were turning for more intercepts and attacks on our formations. Now they’re coming about as fast as they can onto other vectors.”
“All of those other vectors are in the same general… they’re heading for Invincible,” Desjani said, frowning as she studied her display. “I’m certain that’s how they’ll steady out. They are going after Invincible.”
“To the dark ships, Invincible must look like a huge threat even though she is nearly weaponless,” Geary said. “A literally huge threat. It must take priority over any other target as far as the dark ship AIs are concerned. A diversion. The Dancers gave us a diversion, something to get the dark ships off our backs for a short period.”
“A more-than-short period,” Desjani replied. “The dark ships are also about twenty light-minutes from Invincible, which is moving away from all of us. Just because of the distance involved, it will take the dark ships probably about an hour and a half to catch Invincible and more time to destroy her.”
That sank in. Invincible was not simply a distraction. She would also be a sacrifice. “Ancestors forgive us. The knowledge that ship holds, the things we could have learned from it…”
“One more crime to lay at the feet of the idiots responsible for this,” Desjani said in a low, angry voice. “May the living stars give those criminals the fates they deserve. What will we do with the time that the Dancers and Invincible are giving us?”
“Save some lives, at least for now.” Geary gave orders, diverting scores of warships to collect and recover escape pods from the Alliance battleships, battle cruisers, cruisers, and destroyers that had been put out of action or destroyed. “As soon as we have recovered everyone, we’re going to rejoin Mistral and head for the outer reaches of the star system. Another jump point is going to appear eventually. We can’t use it, because we can’t leave any dark ships active to attack the Alliance. But Mistral can.”
Desjani gazed at him, then nodded somberly. “Mistral has to get back. You may have to order some of the Marines aboard Mistral to hold a gun to Commander Young’s head to get her to leave the rest of us, though.”
He had a momentary image of what the rest of her life would be like for Commander Young, ordered to leave the rest, forced to leave the rest, but doomed to be forever remembered as the only one who had left Unity Alternate, the only one whose ship had survived the desperate battle at Unity Alternate. Geary was appalled as he realized that he would be ordering Young to a living nightmare that many would consider a fate worse than death. He wondered how long she could live with that, how long she would live with that.
But he knew he would have to order her to do it.
Geary called Mistral. “Commander Young, the fleet will be repositioning to the vicinity of the orbital governmental facility. You have one hour and ten minutes from the time of this transmission before we get there. Be ready to leave the dock and accompany the fleet at that time. Do not, repeat do not, leave anyone aboard that facility.”
The formations of the First Fleet, already rendered somewhat ragged by the combat losses they had sustained, had dissolved into a mass of individual ships darting about to collect escape pods and rescue the occupants. He did not have to supervise that. The fleet’s automated systems had no trouble figuring out which ship was best positioned to pick up which escape pod, could track when a ship had recovered as many survivors as that ship could safely carry, and could recommend to each commanding officer what to do next.
“It’s ironic,” Geary said as he watched the process. “Our automated systems are making it possible to recover all of the survivors as quickly and efficiently as we can. A lot of men and women will owe their rescue to that. But other automated systems destroyed their ships in the first place and will kill those men and women later if they can.”