The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier Steadfast

SIXTEEN




GEARY’S hand came down on his comm control. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, up one five degrees!”

Dauntless jolted upward, along all of the other Alliance warships. Geary fought down a wave of disappointment over the lost opportunity, matched with anger at Tanya for spoiling the attack run. He was only partially aware of the moment in which the dark ship formations rocketed past beneath them, some of the dark ships tossing out shots that scored a few hits on the lowermost ships in Geary’s formations.

Wait a minute. “How could any of them have been in range when we made that big a vector change? Even with their advantage in maneuverability, they shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“Because they did last-minute maneuvers to bracket one of our formations with all of theirs,” Desjani said, pointing viciously at her display. “If you’d executed your firing run as planned Badaya’s subformation would have been torn apart. Replay the last maneuvers on the display if you don’t believe me.”

Geary began to turn his ships farther up, planning on bending them all the way around to reengage the enemy. “How did you know that they’d do that?”

“Because it’s what you would have done. Have you ever run sims based on your previous engagements?”

“You mean replayed the battles we’ve fought? No.” Once of each had been more than enough.

“I have,” Desjani declared. “Because I wanted to learn more about your way of fighting. I’ve played the enemy against you in those sims, and as those dark ships came at us, I suddenly realized that it felt exactly like one of those sims replaying your moves. That’s what was bothering me.”

“They’re copying me?”

“This isn’t just copying! This is you. They’re using automated maneuvering tactics based on what you’ve done, based on how you fight. They’ve got a simulated Black Jack calling their shots.”

Things had just gotten a lot worse. “How do I outsmart myself? Why didn’t we understand this hours ago, so I could review those battles and see what lessons that sim would be using?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “Well, pardon me for not figuring it out sooner!”

“That’s not what I—” He saw his formations reaching just past the vertical as they turned to reengage the dark ships, and he hit his comm controls. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, turn up one two zero degrees.” That would curve his task force away from an intercept, throwing off the dark ships, whose own courses would be based on the assumption that he would reengage as quickly as possible. Because that was what Black Jack did.

But the dark ships were reacting fast, twisting into tighter turns than Geary’s ships could achieve and accelerating at faster rates than his ships could match. “All units, immediate execute, come starboard eight zero degrees.”

All three Alliance subformations swung over at almost a right angle from their previous vector, heading almost straight for the distant star once again.

“I need time to think. Maybe if I split off the other two formations, have them operate independently—” Which was just what something programmed to think like Black Jack would want, he realized, because while Tulev was a good commander, and Badaya wasn’t bad, either one could more easily be caught and overwhelmed if Geary was trying to deal with three formations moving on totally different vectors against an opponent as good as he was.

How could he break contact with a force that was more maneuverable and could accelerate faster?

“We’ve got to try another firing run,” Geary said. “I need to disrupt them enough to gain time to think about this, and only a firing run offers the chance to do that.”

Desjani hesitated, then nodded, a slight sign of worry creasing her brow.

He brought his ships all the way down and around, swinging the course change as tight as he could to try to catch the back end of the three dark ship formations as their V passed overhead.

But the dark ships reacted too quickly, tightening their own turns even more and changing vectors for another head-on encounter.

Geary tried to decide which part of the enemy formation to aim for, which subformation was most vulnerable. The geometry of the situation left him unable to turn tightly enough to go high, and he didn’t want to aim right and low again, so he aimed for the left side.

Did he actually see, in the last moments when it could make a difference, the beginnings of a countermove by the dark ships? A countermove that would catch Badaya’s subformation in a deadly vise? Or did he just sense it?

“All units, immediate execute, down two zero degrees!”

The Alliance warships lurched through the sudden change, sliding dangerously close to the dark ships, which were indeed diving straight toward where Badaya’s ships would have been.

They missed each other by far too close a margin, out of range of most weapons but close enough for the dark ships to volley out missiles.

“All units pivot and engage missiles,” Geary ordered.

Every battle cruiser, heavy and light cruiser, and destroyer swung completely around, their heaviest armament aimed toward the oncoming wave of missiles while the ships themselves continued moving backwards at the same rate they had been going. Hell lances lashed out, destroying most of the missiles short of their targets, but some ships had to fire point-defense bursts of grapeshot to hit missiles on final approach.

And the dark ships were coming around again.

He could feel what was happening. He was reacting. The dark ships had the initiative and weren’t letting go. This was a path leading to disaster.

Geary looked toward Desjani, who was gazing fixedly at her display, not saying anything, not offering advice as she usually did. Because she knows this isn’t the usual situation. She doesn’t know what advice to give when I’m fighting myself. And I miss having her suggestions because sometimes they have saved my butt and—

Of course. “Tanya, they may have a sim of how I fight battles, but they don’t have you.”

“That’s very flattering,” she said in a tight voice. “But I don’t see the relevance in terms of winning this fight. I wasn’t single-handedly winning the war before you showed up, remember?”

“My point is, we work as a team,” Geary explained with a patience he didn’t really feel. “You see things I don’t, I see things you don’t. Whatever Black-Jack sim the dark ships are using won’t have that. And I feel certain they loaded that sim with century-old tactical procedures that people had increasingly ignored during the war, but I have used because they’re what I knew. I noticed the attack on the courier ship was carried out exactly how those procedures mandated that specific type of operation. That means the sim is programmed to counter my tactics.”

Her eyes lit up with a fierce enthusiasm. “The more I influence your tactics, the more I suggest the ways we did things that don’t match your tactical training, the less that sim will be able to predict them.”


“Exactly. You said you were studying those sims of my past battles to help you learn how to fight more like me. Now we need you to help me fight less like me. But still good enough to kick the butts of the dark ships.”

She grinned. “Then I can tell you exactly what to do on the next firing pass.”

“What?” he demanded, watching the dark ships steady out below and behind the Alliance task force, a couple of light-minutes distant on a stern chase.

“Do the exact same thing that you planned to do last time. Hitting the left and back subformation, right? Do exactly that again.”

“What?” Geary repeated, baffled.

“You never repeat a maneuver right after you’ve used it, Admiral. Never. Those ships will expect you to aim for another attack point. They will act assuming that you are aiming for another attack point because their sim will tell them you never hit the same spot twice in a row in the same way.”

He stared at her. “I love you.”

“Excuse me, Admiral?” Desjani asked, though she also smiled.

“Sorry.” If the rest of the bridge crew had heard his words, they were doing a very good job of pretending not to have.

He brought his task force on down, all three formations completing a vertical loop that found them facing back toward the dark ships. If there had really been an up or down, his ships would probably be upside down compared to their previous alignment, but that didn’t matter in space. What mattered was that the dark ships had adjusted their formation as well, coming down a bit to head for another direct intercept.

“That’s exactly how I would have lined them up if I were commanding those dark ships,” Geary said. “You’re right. You are absolutely right.”

“Have we reached the point where you can just start assuming that?” she asked.

“We already have. I pulled us out of the first attack run, didn’t I?”

The two V formations weren’t aligned in the same plane. Geary’s three subformations were tilted up on one side relative to the subformations of the dark ships. Which was all to the good this time around. “Formation Delta One, come port zero two degrees, down zero one degrees at time four one. Formation Delta Two, come port zero six degrees, down zero three degrees at time four zero point five. Formation Delta Three, come port zero one degrees at time four two. Engage targets in the farthest port enemy subformation.”

This is all wrong. Every bit of training and experience he had told him not to do this, not to aim to hit that left side of the dark ship formation again in an approach as nearly identical as possible to the last one. But if I feel that way, then it’s actually right this time.

In the last moments before contact, beginning with Badaya’s formation on the upper left of the task force, the three subformations altered vectors, swinging slightly to concentrate on where Geary expected the farthest-left dark ship formation to be as the dark ships also moved to intercept where they thought Geary would go.

The instant of firing came and went, automated fire-control systems hurling out weapons during the vanishingly small moment of time when the opposing ships were within range of each other.

Geary felt Dauntless shuddering from hits and felt a tightness in his gut, wondering if she had been badly damaged.

Then the displays updated as the sensors on the Alliance warships peered backwards to evaluate the results of the encounter.

It hadn’t been perfect. Not quite. But the dark ships had swung up and to the right, expecting him to target there. The swift, precisely executed maneuver had resulted in most of the dark ships being out of position, but with the Alliance warships nearly surrounding the left-hand dark ship subformation, subjecting it to the concentrated fire of all twelve battle cruisers, eight heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, and twenty-five destroyers.

One of the dark ship battle cruisers was completely gone, a cloud of debris marking where it had been. The other had broken into several pieces, which were slowly flying apart, shedding smaller fragments as they went. The dark ship heavy cruiser had been crippled, spinning off down and to one side with no maneuver controls and almost all weapons out of commission, while of the four dark ship destroyers in that subformation, three had been blown apart, and the fourth was nearly broken into two large pieces which were barely holding together.

Geary took that in, then looked for the damage to his own ships. The enemy, in the seconds before contact in which he could spot what had happened and prioritize targets, had clearly concentrated his fire on the central subformation of Geary’s task force. Despite being badly outnumbered, the extra weapons on the dark ships had allowed them to score some blows. Daring had taken several hits and lost a hell-lance battery as well as two missile launchers. Victorious had also been hit and lost half her missile launchers, but both battle cruisers had not suffered any maneuvering or propulsion damage. Adroit, though, was sliding off to port without any maneuvering control at all.

He could hear the damage reports coming in to Tanya Desjani. Hits amidships. Two hell-lance batteries out of commission. Minor damage to maneuvering systems. Through luck or her position in the subformation, Dauntless had come off relatively lightly.

The heavy cruisers Bartizan and Haidate had taken hits on their bows but not serious damage. Light cruisers Absetzen and Toledo were hurt but still able to keep up, but their sister ship Lancer had been totally knocked out and was tumbling away.

Oddly, only two Alliance destroyers had been hit, Kururi and Sabar. The dark ships had managed a better than usual concentration of fire against major combatants.

Geary was already bringing all three formations around again, curving toward the star and slightly upward to meet the dark ships as they came around also toward the star. He was tempted to break two of the Alliance subformations loose, to maneuver each of the three separately to confuse an enemy already reeling from unexpected losses, but realized that was what Black Jack would do. “What do you think?” he asked Tanya.

“Third time’s a charm.”

“Do it again? But there isn’t any more left-hand subformation.”

“There’s still a subformation to the left of the other one!” she insisted.

Doing a third attack in the exact same manner was, his instincts told him, a recipe for disaster. “It’s really hard to do this,” he muttered. “I feel like I’m going to destroy half my ships.”

The V of the Alliance task-force formations was now almost tilted on edge relative to the plane of the solar system, coming back toward the dark ships, which had closed down smoothly into a single, rectangular box formation with one long side facing forward. If neither opponent adjusted vectors, the three Alliance subformations in their V would slice through the dark ship rectangle at a right angle, like an arrowhead tearing through a bar of butter.

But the dark ship formation was more like a bar of steel. The arrowhead might slice right through the center, carried by velocity and momentum, but it would take tremendous damage in the process.

“The left,” Geary muttered.

“Yes, the left,” Desjani affirmed.

But where would the dark ships go? Would they wait for him to hit the center? No. Black Jack wouldn’t do that.

Geary pivoted his point of view, imagining he was commanding the ships in the rectangle and trying to take down the arrowhead. I’d assume they were going to hit one side of my formation, and I’d go up slightly and swing one wing around to concentrate fire on the top of the arrowhead. And they won’t expect me to go left again. They’ll assume I’ll hit their right. Which means their last-minute maneuvers will be like . . . “Got it.”


His focus wavered as the dark ship formation passed close enough to the drifting Adroit to fire another volley of missiles, all of them aimed at the helpless battle cruiser. There was no way that Adroit could survive that attack. “Adroit, abandon ship. I say again, Adroit, abandon ship immediately. Get your crew off as fast as possible.”

Adroit’s crew apparently hadn’t needed any encouragement. He couldn’t blame them for that, though, as escape pods launched from the sole surviving example of what the fleet had jokingly nicknamed “economy-class” battle cruisers. In a few minutes, when the dark missiles arrived, the last surviving one of those ships would be gone.

Reassured that Adroit’s crew was as safe as he could manage at this point, Geary called Captain Tulev. “Delta One took the brunt of the enemy fire on the last pass, so I’m going to adjust final approaches so Delta Two comes in ahead this time.”

Tulev, as unshaken and impassive as ever, nodded. “They are concentrating fire on the battle cruisers, I see.”

“Yes. But the heavy cruisers and light cruisers in Delta One took some hits, too. I’ll have Delta One and Delta Three coming in very close behind you to split the attention of the dark ships a bit.”

The huge curves through space were steadying out as the two formations came around to face each other and raced toward another encounter. “Get those shields at one hundred percent,” Desjani snapped.

“Captain, one of the shield generators was clipped during the last firing pass and we’re still—”

“We’re ten minutes from contact. Get it done.”

Geary, having given his orders, sat next to Desjani, watching the two groups of ships rushing toward contact. “It’s funny,” he said.

“I could use a laugh,” she replied.

“Not that kind of funny. I told you earlier that I thought I needed to work on building and strengthening the right patterns. Well, here we are facing the pattern of my own tactics, and we have to break that pattern.”

“Maybe it’s an antipattern,” Desjani said. “You have to break it because it’s the anti version of your real pattern.”

“Works for me.”

In the last minutes before contact, the dark ship rectangle didn’t just pivot one wing forward and up to concentrate fire on Geary’s expected countermove while the rest of the rectangle swung upward as well. Instead, taking advantage of their superior maneuverability, the entire formation compressed and climbed. If Geary had done as their tactical model had predicted, his formation would have been badly raked.

But his ships weren’t there.

Instead, the Alliance task force had swung down and left again, buzz-sawing through the far left wing of the dark ships’ formation.

Dauntless jerked only twice in the wake of the firing run, Geary watching his display tensely for the results. Damage reports were flowing in, most of them from Tulev’s ships, where the battle cruisers had once again been the target of most of the enemy fire. Leviathan and Dragon had taken the most hits, but were still moving. Behind them, in Badaya’s subformation, Steadfast had also accumulated a series of blows.

But as Geary replayed in slow motion the hyperfast combat encounter, he saw that Steadfast had taken those hits because she had swung close enough to one of the dark battle cruisers to employ her null-field projector. The null field had eaten a huge hole out of the dark ship, leaving it rolling out of formation, most systems dead.

Another dark battle cruiser had been destroyed, along with a dark heavy cruiser. Two more dark heavy cruisers had been hit hard and three destroyers either crippled or completely blown apart.

“Come on, you guys,” Desjani said to the representations of the dark ships on her display. “One more time.”

But as Geary began bringing his ships around again, he saw that the remaining two dark battle cruisers, one heavy cruiser, and five destroyers weren’t continuing their own turns in order to reengage. Instead, they had pivoted and were accelerating all out for the jump point for Varandal.

“Looks like our berserkers have had enough.” He tried to keep triumph from his voice as he sent the next command. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, come port four five degrees, up zero seven degrees, accelerate to point two light speed.”

“We’ll never catch them,” Desjani said.

“No, but we need to be on their tails if they jump for Varandal.” But her words broke his intense focus on the dark ships. Geary leaned back, looking at everything his display showed. A few crippled dark ships were drifting through the star system, as well as a few badly hurt Alliance warships, including the large number of escape pods from Adroit. Steadfast, whose close firing pass had taken out one of the dark battle cruisers, had partially paid for that with some hits on her main propulsion and was already lagging behind the rest of Captain Tulev’s formation. In Atalia as a whole, mercilessly battered by the dark ship attack, there were enough needs for rescue and support to keep a fleet busy.

It all added up to a requirement to leave some ships here, and even if Steadfast hadn’t been unable to keep up, Tulev would have been Geary’s choice for the independent assignment.

“Captain Tulev, I am detaching Formation Delta Two under your command. Your ships are to remain at Atalia and rescue everyone you can, recovering escape pods, assisting repairs to the damaged Alliance ships, and helping anyone you can in any of the damaged orbital facilities or other locations belonging to Atalia. Make sure none of those badly damaged dark ships get going again. I want them permanently neutralized. Get every prisoner you can off those dark ships. I need to know everything that you can learn from the prisoners as well as everything you can learn from examining the wrecks. We’ll bring the prisoners back to stand trial for war crimes. When you feel you have done all you can, return to Varandal.”

Tulev saluted, his expression betraying no reaction to the orders. “I assume that if more dark ships appear, I am to treat them as hostile.”

“Yes. I’m really hoping the surviving crews on those dark ships can explain—” Geary stopped speaking as he realized something. “We haven’t seen any escape pods leaving the dark ships we crippled.”

“No. We shall approach the damaged dark ships with care, remembering the example of the enigmas.”

The enigmas, who had destroyed their damaged ships in order to keep humans from capturing any or learning anything about their crews. But how could the crews of these ships be enigmas?

“We’re going to pursue the surviving dark ships,” Geary told Tulev. “If they try to attack Varandal, the Alliance defenses there will need our system patches in order to see who the attackers are. If the dark ships keep going, we’ll follow them. We need to know where they came from.”

Tulev’s face still revealed nothing of his feelings. “As far as we can tell, the problems in our software came from official sources. What if the answer to where these ships came from is not one we wish to know?”

“I have to know. We have to know. This is the Alliance, not the Syndicate Worlds.”

“I agree. You reminded us of that before. Perhaps there are others who have forgotten.”

The tension, the constant worry of a short time before, had been replaced by a long stern chase with no possibility of catching their prey. The dark ships could always reverse course and charge back to the attack, but Geary did not expect that to happen. No tactical system based on his decisions would come up with that course of action unless the situation was incredibly desperate and left no alternative.


“How’s Dauntless?” Geary asked.

“Ready and willing,” Desjani replied, her expression serious. “I’m going to be honest with you. Those dark ships creep me out. I’m glad that Tulev’s boys and girls are the ones going in to investigate them.”

“He’ll be careful.”

As if mocking Geary’s words, an urgent alarm suddenly pulsed. “Admiral!” Lieutenant Yuon cried. “One of— Two of the— All of the crippled dark ships have self-destructed!”

“No escape pods,” Desjani commented.

Geary slumped back in his seat, wavering in his assessment of who and what these dark ships were. “At least none of Tulev’s ships were close enough to any of them yet. What the hell did they use to self-destruct? Even the broken segments that should have been nowhere near a power core have been blown into dust.”

“Power-core-equivalent explosions in all segments,” Lieutenant Castries confirmed. “Those ships were rigged to be able to leave nothing for anyone to exploit.”

“Would human crews sign on to that?” Desjani asked Geary.

“I . . . Dammit, Tanya, I don’t know. How could they be enigmas this deep in human space? How could they have Alliance weapons? Why would the survivors be fleeing toward Varandal?”

She laughed briefly and derisively. “Fair enough. I asked you a question you couldn’t answer. I deserved some back at me.”

“We’ll stay on those survivors,” Geary said. “Until they either turn and fight, or they lead us to their base. Then we’ll get some answers.”

“How about another question first?” Desjani was looking at her display, her expression somber. “Why did we spot those guys attacking Indras?”

“How could we miss it?” Geary asked. “We couldn’t see them, but we couldn’t avoid seeing the destruction.”

“Because we were transiting through Indras,” she emphasized. “Why were we transiting through Indras?”

“That’s two questions. Because— Because the Dancers insisted on going home immediately.”

“And they knew from previous discussions that our preferred route was through Indras.”

Geary eyed her, troubled. “You think the Dancers might have intended us to go through Indras during a period when we could spot the attack?”

“They told us they needed to go home right away, and then they told us to go home right away,” Desjani emphasized.

“How could the Dancers have known what the black ships were going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that long, spherical route they took from Varandal and back was designed to collect information. I don’t know,” she repeated. “But doesn’t it feel as if we were led there?”

“Maybe.” It could have been a coincidence. But he had a vision of the Dancers weaving a vast web, one spanning a good part of a galaxy, the web leading Geary and his ships to one particular place and one particular time. “If they did, at least they still left the decision on what to do up to us.”

“True,” Tanya agreed. “You can lead a human to something, but figuring out what they’ll do once they get there is a lot harder.”

One more complication. Perhaps a very big complication. Geary felt too tired to think it through. He checked his display. Even accelerating for all they were worth, and that was a lot, the dark ships would take about eight hours to reach the jump point for Varandal. Geary’s ships would take a few hours more.

He should rest. He should relax. But he stayed on the bridge, watching his display where the ships all crawled with what seemed snail-like slowness across the vast, empty reaches of a star system.

“Admiral?”

Geary jerked back to alertness, wondering whether he had been dozing or just zoned out. A virtual window had opened next to his seat, revealing not just Lieutenant Iger but also Lieutenant Jamenson. “Yes?”

“Sir, we have some important information,” Iger said.

Shaking the last traces of fuzz out of his mind, Geary sat up and eyed Jamenson curiously. “We?”

“Yes, sir. You did authorize Lieutenant Jamenson access to the intelligence compartment and to our information and, well, sir, my specialists and I thought it couldn’t hurt to bring in a fresh viewpoint because we hadn’t been able to reach any conclusions.”

“And what has Lieutenant Jamenson concluded?” Geary asked.

Lieutenant Jamenson’s usual ready smile wasn’t in evidence. Even her green hair seemed more a shade of somber Lincoln green than the usual bright Kelly green. Lieutenant Iger appeared equally solemn. “What is it?” Geary asked.

“We don’t know any more about who built and controlled those dark ships,” Iger said, “but we, I mean, Lieutenant Jamenson, has managed to unravel how they were constructed.”

Jamenson brought up a display next to her. “Admiral, I was looking for things that didn’t fit because that’s what I’m good at, and I thought, what’s missing from the wreckage? Or the dust from the wreckage, rather. Something should be there, and it’s not. A lot of somethings. There should be the usual amount of water molecules and organic matter from the supplies on the ships. And from . . . from the remains of the crew. There should be . . . pieces . . . of the crews, unless the ship was totally vaporized. There should be escape pods, and pieces of escape pods.”

“There wasn’t any of that?” Geary asked, appalled by the implications.

“No, sir. They weren’t there. But from the percentages of different kinds of molecules, there were an unusually large number of hull structural members, and there were all those extra weapons on those ships, and there was the way they maneuvered, as if they didn’t have to worry about the impacts on their crews.”

“They didn’t have crews,” Geary said, making it a statement, not a question.

“No, sir. They didn’t. They are all, at least all of the ones we destroyed, completely robotic, controlled by artificial-intelligence routines.”

Iger nodded, his eyes downcast. “That may explain what happened here at Atalia, sir. The AIs may have suffered a malfunction, a problem with threat identification, a misinterpretation of their attack orders, any number of things that afflict automated systems at random, unpredictable times, and that human crews intervene to stop when they occur on a normal ship.”

“That may explain a great deal,” Geary agreed, feeling numb inside. “Thank you. That’s a critically important thing to know. Well done.”

He ended the call and looked at Desjani, who was staring back at him with a horrified expression.

“You heard?”

“I heard,” she said. “Fully robotic ships controlled by AIs? Sent out to operate totally independently with no human oversight? No one could be stupid enough to do that.”

“They thought they were being smart.” The answers had come clearly to him, as plain as if they were spelled out in large letters in the air before his face. “That’s why they built the secret fleet and gave command to Bloch. Someone convinced them that this time the AI software was infallible, this time the software wouldn’t ever fail or have glitches or perform oddly or in unexpected ways.”

“They all use computers,” Desjani said, anger replacing her earlier shock. “They must know that’s impossible. Things go wrong. They’re not magic. They’re electronics and other pieces of equipment and software, and they break or malfunction or screw up because they’re not magic. And the more complicated they are, the more things can go wrong. I’m just a damned battle cruiser captain, and I know that! How could they not know it?”


“Because it seemed like a perfect solution,” Geary said. “Bloch in command, because he was the one fleet officer of sufficient seniority who seemed capable enough to lead the robot fleet and could be certain to follow orders against me. And, with a tactical AI built on a simulation of me, Bloch would be able to beat me if anyone could. But the AI would have safeguards built in to keep Bloch from using the robotic fleet against the Alliance government. The most powerful fleet out there, as close to zero personnel costs as possible, guaranteed loyal, and able to counter the ambitions of me, Bloch, or anyone else, as well as ultimately take over defense of the Alliance. That’s why enough of the Grand Council voted for the program. It seemed to have every answer they needed. It seemed foolproof.”

Desjani’s hand clenched as if seeking a weapon. “Only fools would think that was foolproof. AIs that will never malfunction? Did they also get promised visits by the Tooth Fairy?

“Don’t those idiots know what they’ve done?” she demanded. “In the name of protecting the Alliance, they’ve created the means to destroy it! What happens if those dark ships slip their leashes again and shoot up some Alliance star systems the way they did Atalia? The Alliance will collapse like a house of cards on the surface of a neutron star, and no one will ever be able to rebuild it. They’ve—” Desjani struggled for words. “How could they think creating the means for the Alliance to commit suicide would preserve the Alliance?”

“I don’t know, Tanya. All I know is that their plan is blowing up in their faces and our faces and in the faces of a lot of innocent people.” He remembered the words of the woman on Old Earth, as she looked toward the crumbling remains of the ancient, autonomous, robotic ground war machines. “They chose to entrust our safety to something incapable of loyalty, morality, or wisdom. The same folly as the ancients pursued. How has humanity survived when we fail to learn from even our greatest mistakes?”

“We’ve survived because people like you and me pick up the pieces. When we can.” She lowered her voice, speaking with almost violent intensity. “We’re going to try to follow those dark ships home? Find out where they are based?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you tell me the construction program for this secret fleet called for twenty battleships, twenty battle cruisers, and an appropriate number of escorts for that many capital ships?”

“Yes.”

“Based on our experience here, all of them more heavily armed than our comparable warships, and all of them able to maneuver and accelerate better than our ships can?”

“Yes,” Geary said again.

“With a tactical AI that is designed to match you. It can’t, but it’s tough as all hell. If it has a good learning curve, it’s going to get tougher. You know I’m not afraid to go into battle,” Desjani said. “You know I will follow you into the mouth of hell if you tell me to. So will the rest of this fleet. But how in the name of all ancestors can we beat that secret fleet?”

“I don’t know, yet. But we have to find its base, and we may have to beat it if the government can’t shut down the monster it created. If we don’t destroy it, the Alliance won’t survive.”