The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

A few days later, Geary sat once again in the fleet command seat on the bridge of Dauntless, waiting for the moment when the fleet would exit the jump point at the white dwarf star. If this was another bear-cow-occupied star, they would face a tough fight if more fortresses guarded the jump points. If it was an enigma-controlled star, they might face a fight with the enigma forces that had gathered to pursue the human fleet the length of enigma territory. And coming on behind them would very probably be that bear-cow armada they had outmaneuvered at Pandora. “Maybe there’s no one there,” he said out loud.

“That would be a nice option,” Desjani agreed.

At the back of the bridge, both Rione and Charban waited. Around the bridge, the different watch-standers stood ready. On Geary’s display, which in jump space could only show the status of Dauntless herself, the battle cruiser glowed in combat-ready status, shields at maximum and all weapons ready.

“Ten seconds to exit,” Lieutenant Castries announced. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

The universe lurched, and Geary felt the disorientation that accompanied leaving jump. He struggled to recover, focusing on the display, where the gray nothingness of jump space had been replaced by the star-filled darkness of normal space.

Alerts were sounding from the combat systems as the ships of the fleet went into the automatic evasion maneuver that Geary had ordered programmed in before the fleet jumped for here. Dauntless’s frame protested as the battle cruiser slewed down and to the starboard, evading any possible defenses at the jump point before the humans on the ships could clear their minds.

Desjani recovered before Geary, and he heard her words as his eyes finally focused on his display. “Ah, hell.”

Geary blinked at the display, his mind realizing two things at almost the same moment.

The enigmas weren’t waiting at the new star. Neither were the bear-cows.

Something else was.

“What are they?” Charban asked in a hushed voice.

“What they are,” Desjani replied, “is far enough away that we don’t have to worry about an immediate fight.” She paused as the fleet’s sensors provided more data from the analysis they had begun the moment the fleet entered this star system. “About one light-hour distant from us. They’re not enigmas?”

“No, Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed. “The combat systems are marking them as unknown. The characteristics don’t match the enigma ships we saw. Nor are they like any human ships or anything we saw in the Pandora Star System.”

“Another alien race,” Geary said, past surprise by now.

“Another one?” Desjani echoed, then turned an accusing look on Geary.

He didn’t answer, staring at the depiction of the force awaiting them here. About one light-hour from the jump exit, a grand array of ships hung in a complex formation that looked like multiple formations interwoven into a single grand scheme. It looked less like a formation than a work of art. “Damn,” Lieutenant Castries blurted out admiringly.

“It is beautiful,” Desjani agreed. “Now tell me what kind of ships make up that lovely little arrangement.”

Geary waited as sensors studied the distant ships, combining readings taken from every ship in the fleet to produce composite images, which finally flashed before him on his display. “What?” If the presence of these aliens hadn’t shocked him, the shapes of their ships did.

Desjani had a bewildered expression. “That’s what I thought. What the hell?”

The ships varied in size from something half the mass of an Alliance destroyer to much larger ones about the dimensions of the late and unlamented scout battleships that the Alliance had tried as an unsuccessful experiment. But that was the only aspect of them that seemed familiar.

“Perfectly smooth ovoids,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed. “No protruding sensors, weapons hard points, launchers, shield generators, thrusters . . . nothing. Just smooth shells.”

“What about propulsion?” Desjani demanded. “They’ve got to have visible propulsion systems.”

“None we can spot from this angle, Captain. If those ships are all bow on toward this jump point, their main propulsion systems might all be facing away from us.”

Desjani spread her hands in bafflement. “What’s the point of having a ship that can’t do anything?”

“They must have something we haven’t spotted yet,” Geary replied, grateful that these ships were a light-hour away. It would take an hour for that force to see the light from the arrival of the human fleet, and longer to react. That gave him a crucial margin of time in which to try to learn more about whatever crewed those ships. “What kind of creatures created such beautiful ships?”

Desjani shook her head. “They’re not bear-cows, that’s for sure. Admiral, would you please stop finding new, intelligent alien species?”

“I’m not trying to find new ones, Captain Desjani.”