“It is a friendly alien armada,” Charban pointed out.
“I’ll let you inform the press of that.”
“No, thank you, Admiral. Communicating with the Dancers is so important, I would hate to take time away from them to deal with human reporters,” Charban intoned piously.
Thirty-five hours later, the First Fleet began to move, assembling its hundreds of warships from orbits dispersed around Varandal Star System. Dauntless, the guide on which every other warship took station, held her orbit as the other ships swung close, forming into a lattice in which every ship’s weapons supported other ships, and any target would be engaged by many ships.
Normally, Geary took pride in the precise and effective arrangements of his ships. The current formation was shaped like a single, huge cylinder containing thirteen battle cruisers, twenty-one battleships, twenty-four heavy cruisers, forty-four light cruisers, and ninety-one destroyers. The attack transport Mistral was tucked well inside the cylinder, as protected from attack as possible.
But human formations, no matter how elegant, always looked crude and clumsy next to Dancer arrangements of ships. The forty Dancer ships had also formed into a cylinder, as if advertising their association with Geary’s warships. But the Dancer formation radiated a relaxed perfection that made it appear like a grouping of living things in faultless synchronization with each other. Whenever they maneuvered, the Dancers lived up to their names, their ships gliding smoothly through space, moving in intricate choreographies that appeared natural rather than planned and practiced.
“Show-offs,” Desjani grumbled. A widely acknowledged expert ship driver among humans, her skills paled next to those of the Dancers.
Geary wisely refrained from responding to her comment. They were all in the conference room again, a star display showing the shapes of the human and alien formations floating apparently right before every image of every ship commanding officer in the fleet.
How many times had he held these conferences? How many times had every commanding officer in the fleet looked to him for orders and inspiration and hope?
Why hadn’t it gotten any easier?
“As I told you last time we met, we’ve located the base the dark ships are using,” Geary began. “We’ve learned how to reach that base, and now we’re going to go there, destroy the support facilities for the dark ships and any dark ships that are present. We’re bringing along our last remaining assault transport and enough Marines to occupy a facility that we expect to be there, so we can collect all of the intelligence possible and rescue anyone trapped there by the dark ships.”
“Where is this mysterious base?” Captain Badaya asked. “Why haven’t we been able to find it before now? And why was it so hard to find out a means to reach it? Is it in Syndic territory?”
“Where is it?” Geary shifted the star display to focus on the binary, deriving some satisfaction from the uncomprehending looks most of his commanders gave the image. He must have looked exactly like that when Charban first asked about the two stars. “Right there. A binary star system.”
“We’re going to jump to a binary?” Captain Vitali asked. “There’s a stable jump point there?”
“No, as far as we can tell there are no stable jump points,” Geary said. “This star system has a hypernet gate. That’s how we’ll get there. I know what the next question is. Why did the Alliance build a hypernet gate at a binary? The answer is two words. Unity Alternate.”
The resulting silence around the table was finally broken by Captain Armus. “There is a real Unity Alternate?”
“Yes,” Geary replied. “The code for the gate there was already in our hypernet keys but needed to be unlocked for us to see it. The key aboard Dauntless has already had the necessary unlocking code loaded, and after this conference, I will be transmitting that same code to all of your ships.” He paused, seeing in everyone’s expressions the questions that statement created. “This is a fully authorized software patch. I received it from the government. This is an official tasking. The government wants Unity Alternate neutralized.”
“Neutralized?” Badaya exploded. “What is it we are neutralizing at our own government’s secret alternative command base?”
“The dark ships,” Geary said. “As well as potentially rogue elements of certain organizations.”
“Which organizations?” Captain Vitali asked.
“I don’t know. Neither does the government.”
“You did say rogue elements,” Captain Duellos conceded.
“Wait a moment,” Badaya said heatedly. “You are saying that the government, which has been eyeing us with suspicion that we were a threat to the Alliance, is now depending on us to clean up a real threat to the Alliance?” From Badaya’s injured tone, the idea of acting against the government never would have occurred to him. No one listening would have guessed that Badaya had once been at the forefront of those agitating for a military coup.
“That’s right,” Tanya said, absolutely deadpan.
Badaya frowned. “All right. Then we’ll do that. We’ll show them!”
“The Dancers are accompanying us,” Geary added. “They want to help take down the dark ships.”
“What if our paths cross, Admiral?” someone asked. “What if the dark ships head to attack Varandal while we’re on our way to Unity Alternate?”
“We’re going to get the job done at Unity Alternate and get back here,” Geary said. “No delays. It’s far from ideal, but we can’t sit around Varandal or any other place waiting for the dark ships to attack. We have to hit them where they aren’t and where it will hurt the most.”
“We must succeed,” Captain Tulev said. “We will succeed.”
“Exactly,” Geary said.
As the images of the other officers once again vanished in a flurry, that of Commander Neeson lingered briefly. “I guess you don’t need me to find that gate anymore, Admiral.”
“No,” Geary admitted. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you until now.”
“A gate hidden on our own hypernet keys!” Neeson shook his head. “The hypernet was ‘discovered’ by scientists in the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds almost simultaneously, just in time to keep the war going as both the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds had begun staggering from the effort to continue it. None of us realized that the enigmas had leaked the technology to both sides for just the purpose of keeping the war between humans going. We’ve never known everything about it. I wonder how many other secrets the hypernet holds?”
“Let’s win this fight, then find out,” Geary said.
Neeson smiled and saluted. “That sounds like a plan worthy of Black Jack, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, Admiral.”
“Just this once.” Geary watched Neeson’s image vanish, then walked with Desjani out of the conference room.
He was surprised to find Victoria Rione waiting for him in the passageway outside the compartment. “I want to transfer to Mistral, Admiral.”
Desjani said nothing, but disapproval was obvious in the way she held herself.
“Why?” Geary asked.
“Three reasons,” Rione explained. “One, your Marines are supposed to collect all possible intelligence material stored on the facility there. I have the experience, and a unique set of software tools, to assist in that. Two, if the Marines encounter security or paramilitary forces defending the facilities and want to avoid a pitched battle, I could assist greatly in negotiating a surrender of the defenders. Three, if my husband is indeed being held somewhere on those facilities, I want to be there to get him out.” She looked toward Desjani. “And, fourth out of three, my presence would probably be less disruptive aboard Mistral.”