Dreadnaught

An alien ship, matching the turtle-like outlines of the ships seen at Midway, was right on top of the jump exit and immediately opened fire on the Alliance ships, particle beams and solid projectiles lashing at Relentless. That battleship and every other warship within range of the alien returned fire within less than a second, reducing the alien craft to a ruin. Before Geary could open his mouth to order probes sent over to the wreck, it exploded into tiny fragments.

“Core overload,” one of the watch-standers reported. “Very powerful for a ship that size. Impossible to determine if it was accidental or deliberate.”

An urgent tone drew Geary’s attention to information popping up on one side of the display. Relentless hadn’t taken any damage in the brief engagement, but the core overload of the alien ship had occurred while it was surrounded by Alliance warships. A light cruiser and a destroyer had suffered minor damage, and another destroyer had been badly damaged. “Captain Smythe, get repair assistance to Sabar. I want that destroyer patched up as fast as you can do it.”

“That alien ship was very close to the jump point,” Desjani said. “As if it was preparing to jump out, and this jump point only leads to Pele.”

Geary considered that. “A picket ship that was supposed to be on station but was delayed?”

“Or else the aliens did have a surveillance satellite at Pele, one so low-power and carefully disguised as a natural asteroid that we couldn’t spot it. One of their faster-than-light alerts to here, and that ship could have been on its way to finding out what humans were doing at Pele.”

“I think you’re right. There’s not much else here, is there?” His display was changing, reflecting what was in this star system now instead of what the Syndics had once had here. “Three ships that seem to be freighters or some other kind of merchant ship, one other warship, and what’s on the planets and moons.”

“And that,” Desjani added, pointing to the hypernet gate suspended on the opposite side of the star system, a good eleven light hours distant. “That’s not a Syndic gate.”

“It doesn’t have a safe-fail system on it that we can recognize,” one of her officers reported. “But there are other modifications to it that don’t match the gates we or the Syndics have built.”

“Nothing like arriving in a new star system and finding a great big bomb pointed at you,” Desjani said.

“Yeah,” Geary agreed. The alien species had been willing to kill all of the wounded on its wrecked ships at Midway rather than let humans learn anything about them. They might not hesitate at all to destroy this star system if it meant also wiping out a human fleet. “We’ll have to stay close to the jump exit while we look over this star system.”

Rione and Charban had both come to the bridge, and Charban shook his head. “A pity our first contact with these beings had to involve our destruction of their ship.”

“Our first contact happened some time ago,” Geary pointed out. “When they attacked the Midway Star System. I assume you two will now attempt to speak with the aliens?”

“If they will speak with us,” Rione replied.

A window holding Dr. Setin appeared. “This is astounding, Admiral. Have you looked at the primary planet in this star system?”

“We were just getting to that, Doctor.”

“The towns the Syndics placed on the second planet are completely gone. There’s no trace that the places they occupied ever had anything built there. The enigma race must have gone to great effort to erase any trace of previous human presence.”

That was interesting as well as disturbing. Maybe having these experts along would turn out to be a useful thing.

“Have you examined the images of the alien towns on the visible portions of the planet?” Setin asked. “The images are very blurry, but the towns are not very large given how many years the enigma race has controlled this star system.”

“Why are the images so blurry?” Geary asked the bridge watch-standers.

“It doesn’t seem to be normal atmospherics,” the sensor watch answered. “We’re trying to get clearer images, but it’s as if there’s something fogging the imagery.”

“We’re sure the systems are clear of worms?” Desjani asked.

“Yes, Captain. This looks like something on the planet itself, maybe something positioned over those towns that lets through light but blocks details for anyone looking down at them.”

Geary passed that on to Dr. Setin, who excitedly broke the contact to confer with his colleagues, then Geary called Intelligence. “Lieutenant Iger, what do the comms in this star system look like? Any good video transmissions we can exploit?”

Iger appeared baffled. “There’s no video at all, Admiral. It’s all text, and that’s encoded.”

Desjani blew out an exasperated breath. “No wonder the Syndics called these things the enigma race. They give paranoia a bad name.”

“We can’t judge them by our standards,” Charban cautioned.