“I will carefully consider your arguments,” Geary said, his mind swirling with contradictory possible courses of action.

  “I can’t ask for more than that. Thank you, Admiral.”

  “No, thank you, General.”

  Geary ended the call, staring glumly at his display. “Captain Desjani, what would’ve happened at the planet if the Taon had launched a surprise attack on us before we left orbit?”

  “You mean when they were two light seconds away in higher orbit?” She shook her head, her eyes still on her display. “You know the answer to that. Unless their weapons are far inferior to ours, we would’ve been cut to pieces.”

  “If they want to attack us, why didn’t they do it then?”

  “You’re asking me to explain how these Taon think?” She gave him a sidelong glare. “Isn’t that why we’re here? To figure out how they think? Maybe they didn’t want a lot of debris from destroyed Alliance ships falling on their planet. Maybe they were celebrating a holiday when surprise attacks are prohibited. Maybe their commander lost their nerve. Maybe they sacrificed whatever a Taon goat is and didn’t like the looks of its entrails. I don’t know, sir!”

  Lokaa’s ships continued approaching steadily closer.

  Geary knew he had plenty of justification to open fire. Warning shots, at least.

  Rione had often urged him to look at things from different angles. What would be the different angle here?

  That Lokaa had given him plenty of justification to open fire.

  That by this slow, steady approach, Lokaa was effectively giving Geary every opportunity to open fire.

  “I can’t judge a Taon by human thinking,” Geary said out loud. “But that’s all I’ve got to work with.”

  Desjani glanced at him. “Should we lock our fire control systems on targets?”

  “No.” Geary checked his display. A control there gave him, the fleet commander, control over all of the fleet’s weapons, allowing him to give permission to them to fire, or forbid it.

  He made sure the control was set to red.

  “You’re denying our ships the ability to fire even in self-defense?” Desjani asked, her voice very carefully modulated.

  “Yes.”

  SEVENTEEN

  THERE was a long pause, Captain Desjani’s eyes on her display. “I know you’ve thought this through,” Tanya Desjani finally said in a very low voice. “Let me know what you need from me.”

  “You just gave me what I needed,” Geary said.

  He watched, and waited.

  “Five minutes until Taon ships reach maximum estimated weapons range,” Lieutenant Castries reported, unable to resist a curious and anxious glance at Geary.

  “Very well,” Captain Desjani said, sounding totally unworried.

  Geary nodded to signify that he’d heard.

  “Admiral?” Kommodor Bradamont said.

  He looked behind him, seeing her in the observer seat at the back of the bridge. Colonel Rogero had come up at some point, still looking slightly disheveled after his adventure returning to the ship, and was standing beside her. “Yes?”

  “Sir, what do you think the Taon are doing? This looks aggressive.”

  “It does,” Geary said. “I think, though, that the Taon are trying to figure out just how aggressive we are.”

  Bradamont didn’t argue the point, instead nodding in understanding and speaking to Rogero in a quiet voice.

  “It’s a little scary,” Geary muttered to Desjani, “that people trust me so much.”

  “They trust you for a reason,” she murmured in reply. “You earned it.”

  He really, really hoped he wasn’t making as big a mistake as anyone could make.

  “Taon ships astern are within estimated maximum weapons range,” Lieutenant Castries reported.

  “And still coming on at the same pace,” Desjani said.

  Geary nodded silently again, thinking that Lokaa’s ships had just passed the red line he would’ve established for them, and realizing how right Charban had been. Because if he had faced only those two options right now, he wouldn’t have wanted to take either one of them.

  Lokaa’s ships kept closing the distance, now well within any possible weapons range.

  Captain Badaya called in. “Admiral? What’s our plan here?”

  “You need to talk to them,” Desjani told Geary.

  “I’m going to inform the entire task force,” Geary told Badaya, then shifted to talk to every ship. “All units, this is Admiral Geary. Lokaa has not demonstrated hostile intent. I believe they are progressing toward our formation in order to engage the enemy Taon force which is on intercept with us. We will not engage Lokaa’s Taon force, which has had ample opportunity before this to attack us if they so desired. I want every unit focused on dealing with the enemy Taon force if necessary. Geary, out.”

  Badaya came on again. “Admiral, are you certain of this?”

  Hell, no. “Yes.”

  Desjani was speaking to someone else on her display. Finishing, she glanced at Geary. “That was Roberto Duellos. He’s concerned. I told him not to be.”

  “I really hope I don’t make a liar of you,” Geary muttered too low for anyone but her to hear.

  It got harder to look calm and decisive as Lokaa’s ships kept coming.

  The Alliance task force was still in the “nonthreatening” sphere formation, as usual a three-dimensional lattice of ships. The Taon ships coming in behind had been in a lozenge shape, a rectangular box, but as they reached the edge of the Alliance formation, the Taon split into groups of six that proceeded slowly among the Alliance ships.

  “I have never seen anything like this,” Desjani said, staring at her display as the Taon ships slowly edged in all about the inside of the Alliance formation. “This is insane.”

  “What are they doing?” Kommodor Bradamont asked, sounding as aghast as Desjani was.

  Geary knew what she was really asking, what everyone in this task force was probably asking at this moment, was “What are we doing?”

  He clenched his fist, determined not to let his growing unease cause him to release weapons control. For better or worse, he’d committed the Alliance ships to this course of action.

  The Taon ships began finally slowing their acceleration as the last of them slid in among the Alliance formation, slowing until they all exactly matched the vectors of the Alliance ships.

  If a fight started now, with the two forces intermingled and relative velocity and movement at zero, it would be a bloodbath. Even if they managed to return fire and seriously hurt Lokaa’s fleet, the Alliance task force would be massacred.

  A clamor of messages started coming in for him. Ship captains, urgently requesting release of weapons control. Urgently asking to take action before it was too late.

  But Geary kept wondering why the Taon would want their own ships in such a vulnerable position before they started shooting. He breathed in and out a couple of times, calming himself, running differing arguments through his mind.

  Reaching for his controls, he activated the fleet command circuit to respond to everyone at once. “All units in Task Force Alpha, this is Admiral Geary. I am retaining central control of weapons on every ship. No one is authorized to fire. Geary, out.”

  Desjani gave him a despairing look, before nodding and shifting to grim resolve. “Got your back, Admiral.”

  “I know.”

  The last word had barely left his mouth when Lokaa’s Taon ships opened fire.

  * * *

  IT was one of those moments in which time seemed to slow to a crawl, everything happening very slowly even though part of Geary’s mind knew it was an illusion. The strident cries of alarms on Dauntless nearly drowned out the gasps of shock and fear from members of the crew.

  Geary, knowing it was already too late, blaming himself, hating himself for being responsible for the deaths of so many lives entrusted to him, reached for the weapons-free authorization command with what felt like glacial slowness. By the time he could reach it, Dauntless would be riddled by shots.

  Desjani began to snarl in defiance of the death that seemed inevitable, her own hands reaching for her firing controls.

  But Geary stopped his hand’s motion as he realized something was missing.

  Where were the warnings of hits? The announcements of damage? Dauntless hadn’t shaken as her shields took hits. And the Taon had only fired a single salvo, not following up with more shots.

  Tanya Desjani had noticed, too. “How could they have missed?” she demanded. “Zero relative speed. Close enough to hit us with a spitball. And they missed?”

  “I’m not seeing a single damage report from any ship in the task force,” Geary said, scanning his display. “All units, this is Admiral Geary. Any unit that took a hit to its shields or hull report immediately.”

  Silence answered him.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon said, his voice a bit shaky, “the Taon employed directed energy weapons. There weren’t any registered hits, but . . . either their weapons are much weaker than ours, or they were fired on a low-power setting such as we use for hell lance training.”

  “That was a test?” Desjani growled, her face a mask of anger. “They scared the hell out of us because they wanted to see what we’d do?”

  “Apparently,” Geary said, his mind still catching up to the fact that he wasn’t dead. That no one was dead.

  “How incredibly stupid was that? If we’d been poised to shoot, someone’s finger would’ve twitched on the controls and right now we’d be bashing each other to pieces at short range!”

  “I guess they learned that we weren’t poised to shoot,” Geary said, trying to slow his breathing as stress hormones belatedly raced through his body.

  “It’s still stupid!” Desjani got her own breathing under control. “I’m torn between a desire to unload every weapon I’ve got at them for doing that, and admiration for how much guts it took for them to risk that move.”

  Geary saw a message coming in from Lokaa and tapped accept.

  The Taon looked out at Geary with an attitude that somehow no longer conveyed effusive welcome, but rather measured judgment. “Human is human. Human words truth. Lokaa see true human friend. Other Taon enemy. Lokaa fight. Human return to eight-legs.”

  “Why are the other Taon our enemy?” Geary asked, still too rattled to yell at Lokaa for taking such an incredible risk to see if the humans had been honest when saying they did not want a fight.

  “Enemy Taon enemy humans, enemy any not Taon,” Lokaa explained. “Want Taon space only Taon.”

  “Xenophobes,” Desjani said. “A political faction that hates aliens. That’s why they turned to intercept us. That’s why Lokaa knew they’d do that.”

  “We understand,” Geary told Lokaa. “We are leaving. But we remain friends to Taon who seek friends.”

  “Understand. May have fight anyway before jump.” Lokaa’s mouth formed the oval that seemed to correspond to a human smile. “Peace between this Taon and human.”

  “Peace to you,” Geary said. “To the honor of our ancestors.”

  “Wait,” Desjani demanded as Lokaa’s image vanished, “are they the good guys now?”

  “Looks like it,” Geary said. “But we’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “The enemy Taon are ten minutes from intercept,” Desjani said, pointing at her display.

  “The Taon ships among our formation are accelerating again,” Lieutenant Castries called out. “Fast. They’re going to clear our formation within two seconds at their current rate.”

  “They’re moving to intercept the enemy force before it reaches us,” Geary said.

  “The shields of the Taon ships near us are increasing in strength,” Lieutenant Castries added, her voice taking on an element of disbelief. “They are stabilizing at approximately thirty percent higher than our maximums. Across the board, thirty percent higher than our maximum shield strengths.”

  “I wonder how they manage that?” Geary murmured, his mind on what might have happened if he had tried to engage the Taon in combat.

  “They can outaccelerate us and they have better shields,” Desjani said, her expression grim. “I’ve got a bad feeling about how their weapons stack up next to ours.”

  “Can we get out of this without engaging the other Taon?” Geary asked, studying his display.

  “No,” Desjani said, eyes narrowed as she studied options. “Not if the other Taon force can accelerate like Lokaa’s. Not even if Lokaa’s ships engage them. We’ll need to outmaneuver them. Lieutenant Yuon! Have the combat systems mark all of Lokaa’s Taon ships with green markers and all of the xenophobe Taon ships with red.”

  “You’re right, Captain,” Geary said as he studied his own display, watching the movements of Lokaa’s ships, the xenophobe Taon, and the Alliance task force. The xenophobe ships were above and off the port bows of the Alliance ships, staying steady on that relative bearing as they closed on an intercept. “We can’t avoid a serious exchange of fire even if we dodge.”

  “That depends on how we dodge,” she said, her entire focus intent on her display. “We’ve got six minutes left before intercept. What are the enemy Taon going to expect us to do? All they’ve seen us do so far is head for the jump point, so they know that’s where we want to go.”

  “They’ve seen us accelerate away from other Taon,” Geary said. “They know we want to reach that jump point. So . . .”

  “They’ll expect us to either accelerate or try to blow past them at this velocity,” Desjani finished. She glanced at him. “Sounds like we need to either swing wide or brake.”

  “Or both.”

  Lokaa’s ships were leaping forward, clearing the human formation and angling to hit the oncoming xenophobe Taon before they could reach the human ships. As they closed to intercept, the xenophobe Taon formation also disintegrated into six-ship groups. Geary gazed at his display in disbelief at the swarm of small formations interweaving, totally different from the large formations that humans used. “This isn’t our kind of fight.”

  “Maneuvering recommendation on the way,” Desjani said.

  Geary gave it a quick once-over before forwarding it to every ship in the fleet. “All units in Task Force Alpha, this is Admiral Geary. Immediate execute come starboard one five zero degrees, up zero two zero degrees, brake velocity to point one light at maximum sustainable rate.”

  It was long past time to drop the inefficient sphere formation as well. “All units in Task Force Alpha, immediate execute, assume Formation Tango. I say again, assume Formation Tango.”

  Worked out beforehand, Formation Tango had the outer human ships collapsing in toward the center of the formation to form a bulging ovoid with one wide side facing the oncoming attackers, the Alliance battle cruisers forming three centers of firepower in the center and out toward either side, the light cruisers and destroyers lined up around them.

  More alerts were sounding on the human ships as the swarm of six-ship xenophobe Taon formations blew through Lokaa’s swarm only to find the human ships swinging out, up, and braking hard. Aiming for where the human ships would have been if they’d kept on the same vector, the fifty-five surviving xenophobe ships found themselves too far ahead and below the vector the Alliance task force was bending onto.

  Too far away for short-range weapons, the xenophobe Taon unleashed a volley of missiles aimed at the Alliance warships.

  “Damn those things are fast,” Desjani gasped as the Taon missiles leaped toward the human ships.

  “We can’t dodge or outmaneuver them,” Geary said. “All units, continue braking and pivot bows to engage oncoming missiles.”

  With the main drives pointed in another direction, the human ships began curving at a shallower angle from their former vector, still slowing as the Taon missiles rapidly closed the gap.

  “Release weapons control,” Desjani said as if to herself.

  Cursing his absentmindedness, Geary punched the control to let all of his ships fire on local control. “I’m an idiot sometimes.”

  “You read Lokaa right,” she said. “Those missiles are coming in very fast and aiming for where we’ll be at our current rate of deceleration.”

  “Got it.” Geary watched the Taon missiles, knowing he had to call this maneuver right. “All units in Task Force Alpha, immediate execute, cease braking velocity.”

  Without their main drives slowing them, the human ships kept moving faster than the missiles had aimed for. The flock of missiles, moving too fast to adjust vector in time, swept across the back of the human task force. Every human ship, their bows pointed aft, unleashed hell lance particle beams as the missiles swung about to make another approach on the human ships.

  Only about a dozen missiles survived the hell lance barrage, getting close enough for the nearest Alliance warships to unleash grapeshot at them, the shotgun blasts of metal ball bearings impossible for the last missiles to evade.

  “Those xenophobe guys shot first,” Desjani said.

  “I noticed,” he said.

  “I just wanted to be sure.”

  Geary was already watching the xenophobe Taon force coming around on a variety of vectors to engage the human ships. They were spread across space along the same vector the Alliance ships would need to reach the jump point, and accelerating toward the Alliance ships at the same impressive rate that Lokaa’s ships could achieve. “All units in Task Force Alpha, immediate execute, come port zero four zero, come down zero one zero, accelerate to point one five light speed.”

  The Alliance ships swung their bows to point toward the jump point again, their main propulsion kicking in to hurl them toward the oncoming xenophobe Taon.

  “The battle cruisers are going to accelerate faster than the rest of our ships,” Desjani said. “Are we leading the charge?”