But Kommodor Marphissa made an intrigued noise, causing everyone to look at her. “Jump drives,” she said. “Every ship travels at the same velocity in jump space, no matter how fast or slow it’s going in real space. We don’t even question that anymore. It just is. But all we know is every human ship, using human jump drives all designed from the first prototype on Old Earth.”

  Geary stared at her, surprised as he realized the implications. “And maybe jump drives invented by someone else, such as the enigmas, might differ enough to produce a different speed in jump space?”

  Marphissa spread her hands. “Maybe.”

  “We have no way of measuring velocity in jump space,” Desjani said, gazing at Marphissa. “Maybe a fundamental difference in jump drive design would produce a few hours’ difference in travel time.”

  “Couldn’t we just do the math?” Lieutenant Iger asked. “This much distance over this much time should give us velocity.”

  “No,” Desjani said. “We have no idea how big jump space is. Every theory assumes it’s a lot smaller than real space. But we can’t measure distance in there any more than we can velocity, so all we know is time along with two unknowns of velocity and distance.”

  “It didn’t matter,” Lieutenant Velez said abruptly. “They weren’t far enough behind us. They accelerated hard, harder than we could have even if Passguard had been undamaged. All we could do was watch them closing the distance while we charged at the jump point for Midway. The ones behind us got within range while we were still an hour from reaching the jump point and started sniping at us.”

  “Did your rear shields hold?” Geary asked.

  “We had to divert power,” Velez said. “Captain Kapelka told me not to shoot back because they needed the power for the shields.”

  “That went on for an hour?”

  “Yes, Admiral.” Emotions of shame and rage flitted across Lieutenant Velez’s face. “All we could do was take hits. We couldn’t even shoot back. And the ones behind kept getting closer, while the ones ahead just waited. As we closed on the jump point, the enigma warships guarding the jump point came at us. Captain Kapelka said we had to blow through them, get to the jump point. But my hell lances had no charges. Everything was going into the shields. We had no missiles left, just grapeshot.” He fell silent.

  The others waited.

  “It’s hard to remember,” Lieutenant Velez said after a long moment, blinking, his expression a map of awful events still raw in his mind. “We came into contact with the force ahead of us, and . . . I don’t know. So many hits. Everything happening at once. We tried to engage a couple of the enigma ships. We got some grapeshot hits in. A few. Before nearly all my gunners died. Then our shields collapsed. Enigma hell lances came through the bridge. Most of those on the bridge died. I don’t know why I didn’t. I don’t know why the ship survived, held together. I wasn’t even sure where we were, where the enemy was. Almost all of our systems were dead. All weapons gone. But the jump drive lit up. We’d reached the jump point. I activated it, and we went into jump.”

  Lieutenant Velez shuddered, drawing in a deep breath. “Captain Kapelka was dead. A lot of others. But the jump drive hadn’t been knocked out.”

  Velez had to pause again. No one else said anything, their minds on the terrible ordeal the crew of the Passguard had endured.

  “The power core had started an automated shutdown due to damage just as we jumped,” Velez finally continued. “Our surviving engineers said a safe restart would be impossible. We’d lost everything except those backup power sources that hadn’t been destroyed. Almost all of the other officers were dead, all except Ensign Potexi. I . . . I was in command. I prioritized life support, though we had to maintain power to the jump drive, too. Just those two things. I decided we had to abandon parts of the ship that we didn’t need. We had to conserve our survival suits and everything else. I ordered everyone still alive into parts of the ship that we could pressurize. I had to keep them busy. I remembered that. Don’t give them time to think. To be scared.

  “We had to search the ship, look for people who might be trapped elsewhere. It . . .” Velez swallowed, looking ill. “A lot of dead. Everywhere. We found a few still alive, and got them back with the rest of us.” He stopped speaking, frowning. “Nguyen. He was one of the wounded we found. I don’t remember seeing him with the rest of the crew on this ship.”

  Dr. Nasr spoke up, his voice respectful. “Petty Officer Nguyen died, probably half a day before you left jump space.”

  “Oh.” Lieutenant Velez blinked, his mouth twisting. “I thought . . . we’d saved him.”

  “You did save the rest,” Nasr said.

  Velez stared at the table before speaking again abruptly. “We just . . . tried to keep going. Sealing off leaks where we were, trying to keep the remaining life support systems going, conserving survival suit oxygen. There were so many holes in the ship.” He turned eyes once more haunted on Geary. “Admiral. We could look right out at it. Jump space. We could see it directly through the holes in the ship. It’s . . . Don’t. Don’t ever look at it. Not with the naked eye.”

  “How’d you get out of jump when you reached Midway?” Captain Desjani asked, breaking the pained silence. “That requires extra power.”

  “We took the remaining life support off-line, rigged all of our remaining backup power to the jump drive, and hoped that’d be enough,” Lieutenant Velez said. “That . . . was all we could do. We hoped someone would see us, would come help us. But we didn’t know, couldn’t know, until your Marines arrived.” He fell silent, staring at the table.

  “You did an impressive job,” Geary said. “Setting your priorities, maintaining discipline, getting that ship back, and saving the rest of your crew. I’m amazed.”

  “The rest of your crew owe their lives to you,” Captain Desjani added. “You did everything possible, Lieutenant, and you got them here.”

  Lieutenant Velez nodded silently, his eyes still on the table, his expression filled with pain.

  “Do you think there were any survivors from the other ships?” Captain Desjani asked. “The ones lost at Lalotai?”

  “I don’t know,” Velez said, looking miserable. “Maybe a few. Our systems reported some escape pods being launched. I don’t know if they got clear.”

  Kommodor Marphissa shook her head with grim finality. “The enigmas rarely take human prisoners. Usually they just wipe out a defeated force.”

  Velez stared at Marphissa. “We couldn’t . . .”

  “No,” she said. “You couldn’t have saved them. Passguard barely escaped being destroyed there as well. There was nothing more you could’ve done.”

  Lieutenant Velez nodded again without saying anything. Looking at him, Geary knew Velez would spend the rest of his life vainly wishing there had been something more he could’ve done.

  “I need to get my ship home,” Lieutenant Velez suddenly said, looking up and around at the others. “My crew and my ship.”

  Geary exhaled heavily. “Lieutenant, we’ve conducted an extensive survey of the wreck.” He used the word “wreck” deliberately, to emphasize the condition of the Passguard. “Your ship cannot be repaired. It would have to be totally rebuilt. It would require a major shipyard job to even get it into shape to be towed without the ship breaking apart. There is no possible way to get it back to the Rift Federation without extensive work. Do you understand?”

  Lieutenant Velez shook his head in denial. “No. I have to bring my ship home.”

  “That is not possible, Lieutenant,” Geary said, keeping his voice unyielding. “The Alliance will get you and your crew home, because we still honor the contribution of the Rift Federation and its citizens to defeating the Syndicate Worlds. But nothing short of a miracle from the living stars themselves could get Passguard back home again.

  “What we can do,” Geary added as Lieutenant Velez stared at him, “is offer your ship and the dead aboard it an honorable burial in the fires of Midway’s star. We can alter the vector of Passguard to bring it into the star. Midway’s rulers have agreed to allow that.”

  Velez shook his head again, blinking rapidly. “No. I must . . . bring everyone home. Get my ship home.”

  “Admiral,” Dr. Nasr cautioned, frowning at information displayed before him. “Lieutenant Velez is not emotionally or physically stable. He requires rest.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Geary said. “We’ll speak again later.”

  Velez’s image vanished as the doctors aboard Tsunami went to work on him.

  “Well, that didn’t go as well as it could have,” Desjani said. “But no matter how Velez feels about it, his ship is junk. Hallowed ground because of those who died aboard it, but it’s junk.”

  “Lieutenant Iger,” Geary said, “how does what he said match with the records we recovered from Passguard?”

  Iger made a vague motion. “Most of what we recovered were housekeeping files and routine records. None of Captain Kapelka’s files seem to have survived, or anything else operational.”

  “That’s sort of odd, isn’t it?” Desjani asked.

  “Yes, Captain,” Iger said. “It is odd. There were places where backups should’ve survived. But nothing remained intact.” He hesitated, glancing at Kommodor Marphissa.

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Geary said. Marphissa had noticed, and it wouldn’t do for her to think important information was being kept from Midway’s rulers.

  “Admiral,” Iger said, speaking slowly, “we can’t be certain, but it appears likely that at least some of those files were destroyed subsequent to the fights with the enigmas.”

  “Lieutenant Velez and the other survivors deliberately wiped any surviving operational files?” Geary asked.

  “I think they did,” Lieutenant Iger said. “They may have had orders to do that. It’s hard to believe that Captain Kapelka didn’t issue any orders for what they should do if she didn’t survive the attempt to jump for Midway.”

  “So, Lieutenant Velez is holding back on us?” Desjani said.

  Dr. Nasr was the one who nodded, however. “Captain, I believe the physical reactions I was seeing reflected just that. Much of his stress was consistent with trying not to reveal information.”

  “All right.” Geary sat back, trying not to let anger color his decisions. “He’s still doing his best to follow orders. We can respect that, and we have to consider Lieutenant Velez’s wishes, but we are not legally bound to follow them. Passguard is a wreck, a navigational hazard. As such, Midway can decide what to do with it, or defer to us on that decision.”

  “President Iceni has already agreed to let you decide that,” Kommodor Marphissa said. “Unless you wish to change your plans.”

  “No,” Geary said. “We will conduct a formal funeral service, to which the survivors from Passguard will be invited. Then two of Captain Ochs’s heavy cruisers will nudge the wreck onto a new vector, assisted by portable maneuvering units we’ll attach to the wreck. Captain Ochs has run the maneuvers through his systems and says it’ll take three days of gentle nudging to get the wreck on the right vector for the portable units to handle the rest of it. As soon as the funeral service is complete, the battle cruisers will escort Tsunami back to the rest of the fleet. The heavy cruisers will rejoin us when their task is done. I’ll inform Ambassador Rycerz of my intentions in case she has any concerns. Any questions?”

  Before anyone could respond, both Kommodor Marphissa and Captain Desjani checked their personal comm pads in response to alerts unheard by the others.

  “A ship has arrived at the hypernet gate,” Marphissa said.

  “She’s broadcasting her identity as the Alliance assault transport Chinook,” Desjani added. “Fleet systems have confirmed the ship is Chinook.”

  “That’s the test ship, Kommodor,” Geary told Marphissa. “It traveled here directly from Alliance space. That confirms Midway now has a link straight to the Alliance.”

  Marphissa nodded, smiling. “That will please President Iceni. You understand, Admiral, if it had not been you behind this move, we would never have agreed to give the Alliance a nonstop path to our doorstep. But our new ability to send merchant ships to deal directly with markets in the Alliance will greatly increase the value and revenues from our hypernet gate, and boost trade throughout this entire region of space. The Syndicate will not be happy. I should inform my leaders immediately of the significance of this ship’s arrival.”

  As soon as Kommodor Marphissa’s virtual self had vanished, Lieutenant Iger held up his hand. “Admiral, there’s something else.”

  Geary halted his move to stand up, dropping back into his seat. “Now what?”

  “Sir, the diplomatic delegation aboard the Passguard was not wiped out.”

  THREE

  “WHAT?” Geary looked at the others, seeing the same surprise with the notable exception of Dr. Nasr. “You’re saying one of the Rift Federation’s diplomats who were aboard Passguard is still alive?”

  “Yes, sir. One of the supposed crew members rescued from the wreck did not match the data in the fleet’s files from when Passguard was assigned to the Alliance fleet,” Iger explained. “I conferred with Dr. Nasr and he did his own checking. The person identified as Petty Officer Second Class Masurin is not Masurin.”

  Startled, Geary again looked to Dr. Nasr.

  The doctor spread his hands, looking unhappy. “The physical description is not too far off, but the DNA absolutely does not match. It does not match anyone known to have been among the crew of Passguard.”

  “Couldn’t it be a different Masurin?” Geary asked. “A new crew member with the same name?”

  “During intake processing Masurin claimed to have been among the crew for years,” Lieutenant Iger said. “Combine that with the destruction of operational files, and it seems even as the survivors of Passguard’s crew were doing their best to live, they were also taking time to conceal as much of their mission as possible from whoever rescued them. That’s understandable if they thought they’d be rescued by the people who run Midway. But why they’d continue the deception with us is puzzling.”

  “Do they know about it?” Geary asked, feeling foolish for bringing up a possibility that seemed more like space opera than reality. “What if this Masurin was an enigma agent? And the enigmas . . .”

  “Somehow manipulated the rest of the crew into not seeing the switch?” Dr. Nasr finished, having apparently seen the same sort of shows that Geary had.

  Lieutenant Iger hesitated longer than usual before replying as he clearly tried to frame his reply in respectful terms. “Sir, that . . . um . . . uh . . . the one posing as Masurin definitely has one hundred percent human DNA.”

  “Could he be a human captured by enigmas and brainwashed?” Desjani asked.

  Geary wasn’t sure if she was serious until she winked one eye at him. Trust Desjani to have fun with this.

  Iger paused again, finally shaking his head. “That’s . . . not impossible, Captain, but there’d still be the matter of changing the memories of the survivors from Passguard to accept this person in place of Masurin. If the enigmas could do that, I don’t know why they wouldn’t have already taken over human space and wiped us out as a species.”

  “This is true,” Dr. Nasr said, apparently a bit disappointed in the alien spy scenario having to be ruled out.

  “Which means Masurin must have been one of the Rift Federation diplomats,” Geary said. “There’s no other source on Passguard for Masurin to have come from.”

  “We could call them on it,” Captain Desjani said. “Bring this Masurin in for a talk with Lieutenant Iger.”

  The idea was tempting, but Geary shook his head. “No. I’ll bounce this one up to the ambassador. Whatever game the Rift Federation is playing doesn’t pose a threat to our ships. Keep an eye on Masurin, Lieutenant Iger, but don’t be obvious about it.”

  This time everyone else did leave the conference room, until only Geary and Desjani were left. She cocked an inquisitive eye his way. “You don’t seem terribly worked up about that Rift diplomat hiding among Passguard’s survivors. Aren’t you worried about whatever the Rift is trying so hard to keep us from finding out?”

  “Of course I am,” Geary said with a shrug. “But it’s not my problem. I get to punt it to the ambassador, so she can deal with it.”

  “And if Ambassador Rycerz screws it up?” Desjani sighed. “I admit, anything the Rift Federation is planning shouldn’t pose any threat to us. But I’d like to know what they were going to offer the Dancers that they thought was so important that they threw away seven warships and the lives of nearly everyone aboard them.”

  He only nodded in reply, thinking that she was right, that it would be nice to know what the Rift Federation’s leaders had been planning. But the odds of that information being critically important to the fleet’s mission seemed too small to worry about compared to the threat posed by the enigmas.

  * * *

  THE burial ceremony was held aboard Dauntless, with virtual links to all of the other ships. Dauntless had closed to within a few hundred meters of Passguard, one bulkhead of the shuttle hangar projecting a view into space centered on the wreck. In addition to Alliance sailors and Marines standing in ranks to honor the dead, those survivors of Passguard’s crew who were able to handle the physical strain also stood in their own formation.

  Geary read the service, not wanting to risk missing a word even though he already knew it almost by heart after so many other services, wondering how many more such burials he might have to preside over. Like the other Alliance personnel, he wore the burial armband that consisted of a gold stripe, a black stripe, and another gold stripe.

  “The dark is only an interval,” Tanya said, as she always did. “They’ll come back to the light.”