“Stonehenge. Yes. Maybe we’ll get the lesson this time.”
“I bet you we won’t. For a little while, maybe,” she said.
“You are probably right once more,” Geary said.
“Two minutes until exit from hyperspace.”
They waited silently as the final minutes counted down.
At zero, the stars suddenly appeared again. Behind them was a hypernet gate, and before them were two stars orbiting in what was known as a close binary.
“I have never seen that before,” Desjani said in an awed voice.
The displays updated rapidly as the fleet’s sensors consolidated, analyzed, and assessed everything that could be seen. Geary saw large installations appearing on his display, their orbits centered on the larger of the two stars, which must sometimes bring them uncomfortably close to the smaller. Six planets, varying in size from a rocky, barren half Earth-standard to what had once been a gas giant but had apparently been losing its atmosphere at intervals to one of the stars. A host of smaller natural objects also orbited within the system, some of them following eccentric orbits that swung them past both stars. “We’re not seeing anything on the planets,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “There are some very large facilities in orbit. Docks. Warehouses.”
“They could maintain a fleet four times the size of ours here,” Geary said, amazed. “For a long time.”
“They were ready to keep the war going if the worst happened,” Desjani said with grudging admiration. “Look at those orbits! This system is a mess. No wonder they didn’t put anything on the planets. Ah, look what else we found, Admiral.”
He didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. The same symbol had appeared on his display. “Invincible. They did bring her here.”
The alien superbattleship, much larger than any human warship, was hanging in its own orbit a few light-minutes from the dockyards. “Even those docks couldn’t hold something the size of that Kick ship,” Desjani commented. “Is this right? The ship is cold?”
“Yes, Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon replied. “Our sensors aren’t picking up any signs of active power aboard Invincible, or any other activity. No heat being radiated. The ship is still completely shut down and apparently has no one aboard.”
“What about those tugs?” Desjani asked. The many heavy-duty tugs that had been fastened about the hull of Invincible to move her from Varandal were still there, forming two rings about the alien battleship’s hull. “They’re cold, too?”
“Just standby power, from what our sensors can see,” Yuon reported. “Aside from that, all systems inactive and life support not running. No indications of crews or caretakers present. The tugs appear to have been put into stand-down.”
“They were supposed to be taking Invincible somewhere to study the Kick technology and try to learn more about the Kicks,” Desjani complained to Geary. “Instead, they just hauled her here and forgot about her!”
“Maybe they had to shut down research efforts when the dark ships started causing problems,” Geary speculated.
“If that’s the case, they didn’t shut down anything in a hurry. Everything about Invincible and those tugs reflects methodical deactivation.”
“That’s so. And they parked Invincible a fair ways from anything else, as if they were afraid of the ship.” Geary felt a wry smile on his face. “Maybe they were afraid of the Kick ghosts.”
“It would be nice to know the Kick ghosts spooked whichever human spooks have been busy at Unity Alternate,” Desjani commented, using the common slang term for undercover operatives. She looked over her display again. “But they’re all we’re picking up. No other shipping.”
“There aren’t any dark ships here at all?” Geary asked, staring at his display with a mingled sense of relief and mild disappointment. It would have been nice to catch a small force of dark ships and wipe it out along with their support facilities.
“We’re not seeing anything,” Yuon confirmed. “We can’t see inside the docks, though. All of them appear to have power active but no life support running.”
“And those are a lot of big docks,” Desjani murmured.
“Let’s take them out.” Geary felt a sense of revulsion as he looked at the dockyards and support facilities, apparently empty of life yet continuing to serve the needs of the dark ships. Automated facilities conducting automated war. They were the unfeeling personification of Captain Tulev’s argument against using AIs to control weapons.
Geary called up the bombardment routine on his display and began designating the orbiting support facilities as targets. One very large structure orbiting at a distance from the support facilities looked like the place intended for the exiled government. He left that off the target list, then asked the system for firing solutions.
A process that should have produced almost instantaneous results instead ground on for several seconds, then a minute, then kept going. “Captain Desjani, we seem to have a problem with part of the combat systems.”
“What?” She leaned in, frowning, then entered commands into her own system. “It’s working. Trying to produce a solution. Why the hell—? Oh.”
“What?” Geary echoed.
“The interacting gravitational fields of the stars and the eccentric orbits. The bombardment routines can’t handle that. They can’t direct a precise shot across those kinds of distances under these conditions. We’ll have to get a lot closer to those facilities to launch rocks at them and be sure of hits.”
“I guess that was another good reason to put Unity Alternate here,” Geary conceded. “How have they ensured that the facilities don’t get sucked into destructive orbits?”
“There are propulsion systems on all of the facilities,” Lieutenant Yuon reported in surprised tones. “Not enough thrust for a lot of travel, but enough to adjust orbits in a big way—” He broke off as he realized the implications of that.
“Oh, hell,” Desjani complained. “If they have automated maneuvering systems that powerful, they could spot an incoming bombardment and adjust orbit enough that our rocks would miss. It’s a good thing we didn’t launch. The rocks would have been wasted even if their trajectories had been accurate.”
“How much did they spend building this stuff?” Lieutenant Castries asked in amazement.
The hypernet gate had been constructed far enough from the two stars to be unaffected by their intertwining gravity fields. In this case, that meant an unusually long journey to the facilities orbiting the twin stars. “Almost seven light-hours,” Desjani observed. “We’ve got a long trip ahead. Do we have a good picture of that big facility that looks like it was intended as the command structure and seat of government?”
“Life support and power are active,” Lieutenant Yuon said, peering at his data. “But only in the upper quarter of the structure. Everything below that is dark and cold. We’re not seeing any confirmation that the facility has anyone aboard it, though.”
“You could keep a lot of people very comfortably in something the size of one-quarter of that facility,” Geary said. “We’re not picking up any comm traffic or other signals?”
“No, sir. There is probably a local net running between the facility and those dockyards and support structures, but it would be using highly directional signals that we’re not in the right position to pick up.”
“All right. Let’s see if anyone will answer us.” He made sure his uniform looked decent, straightened in his seat, then keyed the broadcast comm circuit. “Anyone in this star system, anyone occupying any of the facilities of Unity Alternate, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We are here on orders of the Alliance government to occupy and neutralize these facilities. If anyone is in need of rescue or evacuation, we will assist you. Anyone working on the facilities must accept the authority of the Alliance government and also prepare for evacuation. Contact me and provide your status as soon as possible. The First Fleet of the Alliance is on its way to your orbital location. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”