“This stinks,” Geary agreed.

  “Incoming message from the Taon,” the communications watch announced.

  Geary saw a virtual window pop open on his display, showing the image of Lokaa.

  “Lokaa of Taon speaks to human friend! Enemy here! Will friend fight beside Taon?”

  SIXTEEN

  “SO, it was a trap,” Geary said. “But not the one we expected. They want us to get involved on their side in what looks like a war between different factions of their species.”

  Desjani frowned heavily as she made rapid touches on her display. “Admiral, once we get out of this low orbit trap, getting out of this star system won’t be easy if the new Taon try to intercept us before we reach the jump point we arrived at. We are leaving, right?”

  “Damn right we are. But we have to figure out how to get our people on the surface into the shuttles and pick up the shuttles on the way without getting Taon suspicions up.”

  “Tell the Taon if we’re going into a fight we need all of our people with us,” Desjani said. “How can they object to that?”

  “If they do, it wouldn’t say much for their intentions,” Geary said. He touched his comm controls to call the leaders of the group on the surface. He wasn’t going to give the Taon a heads-up that his people were leaving, so he used the code phrase they’d agreed on for an emergency departure. “Liberty party, this is Admiral Geary. Muster a working party on the double. Over.”

  The reply came quickly. “This is Sergeant Barnwell. Understand muster a working party on the double, Admiral. It’s late night where we are on the surface. Hopefully that will minimize any bystanders. Out.”

  “Here’s a suggested vector to pick up the shuttles,” Desjani said. “You do want the whole task force moving as one, right?”

  “Yes. I don’t want any ships separated from the rest.” He studied the plan that Tanya had sent to his display. The entire Alliance task force would slide beneath the Taon ships in higher orbit, skimming just above atmosphere as they moved to intercept the two shuttles that would be rising to meet them. “How about after we pick up the shuttles?”

  “I think we need two options, Admiral. One, if the Taon are just watching and not raising a fuss, and another if the Taon decide to chase us.”

  “That second option will depend on exactly what the Taon do,” Geary said, rubbing his lower face with one hand. “Can you be ready to throw a vector together on the spur of the moment?”

  She actually looked offended. “Is Betelgeuse a variable red supergiant star?”

  “Last I looked,” Geary said. It was past time to get his ships ready. Since Lokaa had called on the humans to aid in their fight, getting prepared for battle shouldn’t raise any concerns among the Taon even though the “enemy” was light hours away. “All units in Task Force Alpha, this is Admiral Geary. Come to Readiness Condition One. I say again, come to Readiness Condition One.”

  As the general quarters alarm sounded aboard Dauntless, the same way the same alarm would be sounding on every one of the one hundred Alliance ships here, Geary turned back to his display. “All right. Let’s see how our Marines are doing.” The images from the collar cams were fuzzy. Were the Taon on the ground trying to jam them?

  His message should have alerted the Trojan horse Marines in the shuttles as well. The more powerful communications from the shuttles and the Marines in them hadn’t been impacted by whatever was hindering images from the collar cams. When he called up views from their battle armor he saw almost all of those Marines were ready to go.

  While linked in that way, he could hear their communications as well. “Corporal Maya!” Gunnery Sergeant Orvis called over bursts of static. “You apes ready?”

  “Ready to roll, Gunny,” Maya responded, her voice tinged with excitement. “You’ve got a lot of noise on your circuit. What’s holding you up?”

  “We had to pop some locks to get everyone out. Expect to be on our way to you in thirty seconds.”

  “Thirty seconds,” Corporal Maya repeated.

  The shuttles had landed in a large open area bordered on three sides by three-story buildings and on the fourth by the lake, with plenty of room for passage between and past the structures. The human visitors had all been placed in the center building, facing the shuttles and beyond them the lake.

  Geary saw the alerts on the corporal’s armor heads-up display at the same time that Maya did. “Gunny, we got movement,” she called. “Looks like some Taon running out into the open from one of the side buildings.”

  “Are they armed?” Orvis demanded.

  “Sensors are giving me an ambiguous read, Gunny. The Taon hand weapons may not show up right to our scans. I think they are carrying.”

  “Stay in the shuttle until I give you the go-ahead. If they start shooting, don’t wait for orders, just come out hot. Got it?”

  “Got it, Gunny,” Corporal Maya said. “Charge and load, Marines,” she ordered her small force.

  Geary clenched a fist so tightly it hurt. Should he be telling the Marines not to shoot? But Orvis had already ordered his support force not to engage unless the Taon started shooting. I need to let the commander on the scene decide this.

  One of the shuttle display screens lit up as a Marine activated it, showing the outside in enhanced vision, two lines of Taon running out onto the landing field. The Taon moved in a slightly cumbersome manner, but quickly, reminding Geary of images he’d seen of Old Earth rhinos and hippos on the charge. The paths of the Taon made it clear they intended blocking the unarmed Marines who were spilling out of the building where their rooms were. “Gunnery Sergeant Orvis, Sergeant Barnwell, talk to me,” Geary ordered. “Do you have Colonel Rogero and Dr. Nasr?”

  “We’ve got both, Admiral,” Sergeant Barnwell reported, her words coming out quickly as she moved. “They tried to lock us in, Admiral. We had to blow several locks with some concealed gear we had along just in case. I don’t know what tipped the Taon off, but they knew we’d be leaving before we did.”

  “They might have done it as soon as they asked for our help against their enemies,” Geary said. “I’d prefer to get this done without any dead or injured Taon. Don’t open fire unless you absolutely have to. But you’re on scene. You make the call if you have to do that.” He knew Gunnery Sergeant Orvis was steady in a crisis, Sergeant Barnwell’s record showed her having the same reliability, and backing them up was Colonel Rogero.

  “Got it, Admiral,” Orvis said over more bursts of static. “Only if we absolutely have to. I don’t know how well you can see the view from our cams. We’re facing a double line of Taon blocking our way to the shuttles.” He raised his voice to shout to the Taon. “We’ve been recalled to our ships. We have to leave now.”

  “Not safe,” one of the Taon called back. “Not safe to leave. Stay.”

  “We have orders to leave,” Sergeant Barnwell shouted. “We cannot stay. We have to follow orders.”

  “Not safe,” the Taon repeated. “Must stay.”

  Corporal Maya’s voice came on the circuit. “Gunny, I’m picking up energy signatures. I think the Taon are charging weapons.”

  “Damn,” Orvis muttered. “We must leave,” he shouted to the Taon. “Move aside!”

  “Not safe. Must stay.”

  “That’s it. Pop the Trojan horses,” Orvis ordered.

  On his view through Corporal Maya’s armor, Geary saw the big shuttle ramp drop and the five Marines come down it. He knew the same would be happening on the shuttle from Inspire.

  “We must leave,” Sergeant Barnwell shouted. “Move aside.”

  The Taon were shifting about, some looking back at the ten fully armored Marines who’d emerged from the shuttles, and others keeping their eyes and possibly their aim on the unarmed group of Marines to their front.

  “Advance,” Orvis ordered the Marines with him. “Slow step, keep it steady.” With Orvis and Barnwell in the lead keeping the unarmed Marines moving at a slow pace, the liberty party began walking in a rough column toward the lines of Taon.

  “How’s it going down there?” Desjani asked him. “Why haven’t they lifted yet?”

  “The Taon don’t want them to leave,” Geary said.

  “Hostages. Man, I hate it when Badaya is right,” Desjani grumbled.

  “Gunny, we got lots of movement showing off to the west!” Corporal Maya called. “I think they’ve got a butt-load of friends coming!”

  “Advance your team,” Orvis told her. “No weapons. Just use your armors’ bulk. Clear us a path even if you have to shoulder the Taon aside.”

  “Advance, aye,” Maya said. “Stay on me,” she ordered the others. “Nobody shoot.”

  As the Marines in battle armor advanced on their rear, the double lines of Taon wavered. Even if all of them were armed, a fight between unprotected Taon and armored Marines would be one-sided. And while the Taon were physically more imposing than humans, they were not as large and powerful as the humans in battle armor.

  The Taon slowly gave way, backing, as the armored Marines moved until they’d forced open a lane in the Taon lines. “Pick it up!” Sergeant Barnwell ordered as she and Orvis broke into a trot. “If anyone lags I’ll let the Taon keep you for a souvenir!” The unarmed Marines dashed between the Taon, splitting into two columns once past and heading for the two shuttles.

  The Taon watched without moving, their weapons still lowered.

  As the Marines ran up the ramps into the shuttles, the armored Marines backed toward them, keeping their eyes and weapons on the Taon as more alerts popped up. “There’s at least a hundred more coming around that building!” a shuttle pilot shouted. “No, two hundred! Let’s get out of here!”

  “Give me a count!” Orvis ordered as the Marines hastily strapped in and the shuttle ramps raised and sealed.

  “We’re one short! Where’s Francis?”

  “Sergeant Barnwell!” Orvis called. “We’re short one. Have you got Private Francis?”

  “Wait. Yeah. He got on the wrong bird.”

  “Francis, you idiot! Have you got a full count of yours, Barb?”

  “I’ve got a full count,” Sergeant Barnwell confirmed.

  Through Maya’s armor, Geary could see Gunnery Sergeant Orvis looking around the shuttle interior. “Colonel Rogero? Got you. Doc? That’s everyone. Let’s lift!”

  “We’ve detected the shuttles leaving the surface,” Desjani reported. “They’re both rising fast.”

  “Let’s go get them,” Geary said. “All units in Task Force Alpha, accelerate to point zero zero five light speed, match movements to Dauntless.” This close to a planet, normal deep space maneuvering commands were too clumsy, and velocities in any appreciable fraction of the speed of light were very dangerous.

  As the Alliance ships accelerated at what, for them, was a very sedate pace, Lieutenant Yuon called out. “Captain! We’ve spotted some probable Taon aerospace craft rising from bases west and south of the shuttles. Performance profiles match those of warbirds.”

  “That’s our guys’ cue to go stealth,” Desjani said. A moment later the two shuttles suddenly vanished from the displays as they activated all of their concealment capabilities.

  Hearing something behind him, Geary turned to see Kommodor Bradamont strapping into the observer seat at the back of the bridge. “Colonel Rogero is aboard our shuttle,” he told her. “No shots have been fired.”

  Bradamont nodded, looking and sounding calm. She had to be worried about Rogero, but she’d been in a lot of dangerous situations before this one. “This is where we find out how effective Alliance stealth technology is against Taon sensors.”

  “Yes,” Geary said, because there really wasn’t anything else to say.

  “Six minutes to rendezvous with the shuttles,” Lieutenant Castries said. “We’ve got movement from the Taon ships in higher orbit. They appear to be maneuvering to keep us blocked in lower orbit.”

  “Captain Desjani,” Geary said, “I need a vector from where we pick up the shuttles to the jump point at maximum fleet acceleration, one that avoids coming close enough to either the Taon ships above us or to the new Taon to risk an engagement with them.”

  He gazed at the message window, trying to decide whether to respond to Lokaa again. Lying about his intentions felt wrong, putting him on the same moral plane as Lokaa’s attempt to force the Alliance into fighting on their side. But he didn’t want to tip Lokaa off that the human fleet definitely wouldn’t be taking part in this battle. Lokaa might have more surprises up their sleeve.

  It wouldn’t hurt to make Lokaa think this was going their way, though.

  Triggering the message function to the Taon, he spoke calmly. “This is Admiral Geary to Lokaa. My ships are moving to pick up our shuttles prior to any fighting in this star system. I request you advise the purpose of your ships’ movements.”

  They were still three minutes from recovering the shuttles when Lokaa’s image appeared on Geary’s display. “Human friend not need recover shuttles. Safe with Taon. Advise your battle plan.”

  Geary decided now was a time to be truthful, because otherwise he’d have to outright lie. “We do not want a battle.”

  Did Lokaa’s expression indicate surprise or some other emotion? “Human not want war? Human in ship for war. Human have lots of ships for war.”

  “To defend our people,” Geary said. “We had to cross the space of a species we call the enigmas to reach the space controlled by those you call the eight-legs. We do not want a battle.”

  “So human say,” Lokaa commented. A moment later their image disappeared.

  “That translator of theirs is getting better at a pretty quick rate,” Geary commented. “I wish we had any idea at all what types of weapons the Taon have, how good they are, and how well their ships can maneuver at maximum.”

  “Maybe we’ll find out soon,” Desjani muttered as she worked the maneuvering problem. “I’m having to use assumptions about their acceleration and maneuvering capabilities on this vector workup. But you also need to think about how this is going to look like we’re running away.”

  Which was a problem in a fleet that still subscribed to a mantra developed during the long and bloody war with the Syndics that the fleet never retreated. Geary touched his fleet command comm circuit. “All units in Task Force Alpha. We’ve been set up by the Taon, who want us to get involved in their war by forcing us to engage these newly arrived warships. I have no intention of losing human lives in a war being fought between two factions we know nothing about. We fight on our terms for causes we choose. After recovering the shuttles which were on the planet’s surface I intend repositioning the task force to return to the jump point that will bring us back to Dancer space. We will attempt to avoid engaging any of the Taon ships in order to prevent any claim that we did intervene in the battle that’s about to take place in this star system. Stand by for high-stress maneuvering orders. Geary, out.”

  “The shuttles should be thirty seconds out from recovery,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “We have twenty Taon probable warbirds conducting search patterns in the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere.”

  Geary studied the movements of the alien warbirds. “They’re in the right general area. Either that’s based on estimating the vectors of the shuttles, or they’re picking up some indications of the shuttles but can’t localize them.” He touched the command circuit. “Lieutenant Commander Cady, maneuver the Sixth Destroyer Squadron to block any of those Taon warbirds from trying to continue their search for our shuttles past the atmosphere.”

  “The Sixth is on it, Admiral!”

  Like the Taon on the ground, the warbirds dropped away as the Alliance destroyers roared into lower orbits that challenged the Taon to respond.

  A couple of seconds before reaching Dauntless and Inspire, the two shuttles deactivated their stealth, abruptly appearing on sensors just as they approached the shuttle docks on both battle cruisers. The shuttle pilots came in with more finesse and a little less speed than nonstealth pilots used, but still had their birds grounded safely very quickly. The shuttle dock crew on Dauntless jumped into action, securing the bird without waiting for anyone to disembark.

  “Dock reports shuttle secure,” Lieutenant Castries said.

  “Inspire reports her shuttle is secure,” the comm watch added.

  “Here’s my best guess,” Desjani said as Geary’s display lit up with the arc of the proposed vector.

  His gaze went from the arc to the Taon ships in higher orbit. “They’re already moving to block that vector.”

  “It’s too obvious,” Desjani said.

  “Then let’s do something not obvious. We’re stuck in lower orbit at the moment, so . . .” He grinned, though the smile felt too tight with tension. “Let’s stay there. Let’s whip the fleet around this planet far enough we can slingshot off the other side on a new vector.”

  “What, like some ancient spaceship?” Desjani smiled as well. “No, that’s not obvious. Let’s see how well the Taon can keep up with this.”

  “All units,” Geary sent, “match movements of Dauntless. We’re going to loop closely around the planet before accelerating away. Sixth Destroyer Squadron, return to your places in the formation.” Ending the message, he nodded to Desjani. “Take us around, Captain.”

  “With pleasure, Admiral.” Her hands moved over the maneuvering controls while Desjani gazed intently on her display where the planet, their altitude above its surface, and the levels of atmospheric density were portrayed. Despite their apparently streamlined shapes done for engineering and defensive reasons, the Alliance ships weren’t designed for use in dense atmosphere. If they accelerated all out in such an environment their shields would fail almost instantly and the resistance the air created would incinerate the ships.