She sighed softly, her eyes still on the Hegemony formation. It was immense, bigger even than the fleet at Megara, a quick count told her. That was no surprise. The Confederation had pulled new ships out of the yards, too and redeployed every ship that could be found. There was no reason to expect less of the enemy.

  But what the hell is that thing?

  She watched, silently, waiting to see if the Pegasus remained hidden, if her people survived for a bit longer. Even as she sat, waiting, holding her breath, unable to blast the engines or send out an active scan pulse, she kept her eyes on the display. The enemy fleet was moving toward one of the transit points, one about three hundred million kilometers from Pegasus’s position. That would bring the new contact closer, perhaps enough for the passive scans to gather some new information.

  But not close enough for the kind of data we need.

  She thought for a moment about blasting the engines, about trying to bring her ship close enough to get a good look. But one glance at the approaching escorts nixed that. It wouldn’t do her any good to find out what the Confederation was facing, only to get blasted to atoms before she could get word back.

  The minutes stretched out, seeming like hours, and the hours felt almost like days, even weeks. One of the escorts came within two million kilometers of Pegasus, and for a few moments, Andi held her breath, thinking they were dead. But the ship moved on, showing no signs it had picked up the small free trader.

  Andi’s ship had served her well for years, more a friend than a hunk of steel and circuitry, and she dared to hope the vessel would come through for her again. But even as they all sat, still, waiting to see if Pegasus survived, she watched the Hegemony fleet, and the large contact—clearly some kind of ship from the thrust levels it was able to employ—move through the transit point.

  Andi sat helplessly and calculated all the paths an invader could take from there, all the places the enemy could threaten…and compel Tyler and the fleet to come out and fight a desperate—and likely hopeless--battle.

  She had to find out all she could, and she had to get the information back to the fleet.

  Somehow.

  Chapter Ten

  Monitor Successor

  Icarus Nebula Transit Nexus

  Three Transits Coreward of Hegemonic Border

  Year of Renewal 266 (321 AC)

  “All scans are clear, Master Josias. We will complete download of scanner data from the observation stations in three minutes, twenty seconds.”

  “Very well, Hectoron. Continue with standard protocols.” Josias made very little effort to disguise the boredom in his voice. His motivation, or more accurately, lack thereof, came from several sources. For one, he was one of only three Masters in the expedition, and the other two were ranked several million below him in genetic rating. The command was beneath him, or at least what he considered his due. He was resentful that he’d been assigned to such pointless duty, venturing beyond the borders of the Hegemony, beyond the farthest worlds found with survivors from the Great Death, save only for those who’d come from the deeps a century before, those behind the incursion that had so shaken a young Hegemony.

  The Hegemony was at war on the Rim now, with all the commensurate chances to gain glory and fame, and he was as far as he could be from the front, staring at the Icarus nebula, an old imperial transit nexus, without so much as a star or planet to provide interest. Why the imperials had constructed four points so deep in the depths of empty space, he couldn’t imagine. But the place always made him uneasy.

  He’d been there four times now, and he swore to himself, as he had on the last three trips, that this would be his last. Searching for an enemy last seen a century before was the least relevant duty he could imagine, especially when there was actual fighting going on in the Rim. He knew there were those in the government, many in fact, who believed the old claims that the Others would one day return, but Josias was not one of them. If the Others—and he wasn’t even sure what they actually were—had planned to return to Hegemony space, they would have done it already.

  And, even if they still exist and they do come back, what are we going to do about it? Half the ships built to face them are out on the Rim, almost two thousand lightyears away. Or they’ve been destroyed.

  Josias was prone to exaggeration when it aligned with his opinions, but in this case his thoughts actually understated the gravity of the situation. No less than sixty-two percent of the fleet’s stockpiled strength had been transferred to the Rim front, and nearly forty percent of that had been destroyed or badly damaged. That left just over a third of the strength originally committed to face an attack from the…nothingness was all Josias could call it. But he’d listened for years to alarmists endlessly arguing that even the original force levels would be inadequate when the Others returned.

  Josias realized he was shaking his head, and he stopped it abruptly. One thing he did believe in, with absolute sincerity, was the dignity and solemnity of his genetic ranking as a Master. He had emotions, and fears, just like any human being, but that wasn’t for the lesser ones around him to see.

  “Downloads complete, Master Josias. Ready to commence analysis on your command.”

  Josias almost yawned, but he managed to hold it back. It was absurd to waste someone of his ability on such a pointless mission, flying out to the middle of nowhere to service the scanner buoys stationed there, and to run their pointless—and it was always pointless—data through the ship’s AI. The units had recorded a comet passing nearby once, on his second trip, but since that bit of muted excitement, he’d done little but sit around fighting boredom while Successor’s sophisticated computer system reviewed petabytes of useless scanner readings.

  He leaned forward in his chair, and he took a deep breath. Successor was a monitor, one of the largest warships the Hegemony had ever constructed. War had raged on the Rim for six years, but not one of the largest of the Hegemony’s battlewagons had been sent there. Such was the power of ingrained fear, of the way the legend of the Others haunted even the genetically superior masters of the Hegemony. The monitors took too long to build, their cost was too great, to risk the great ships against the enemy’s small attack craft. So, the monitors had remained, stripped of much of their battleship support, and their clouds of small escort ships, standing on the line, staring off into the silent darkness, waiting for an enemy many believed was gone forever.

  Until the discovery of survivors on the Rim, the Hegemony had been vastly more powerful than any worlds or polities it had encountered in its two centuries of existence, save only, once again, for the Others.

  The monitors were vast ships, very heavily armed and armored. They’d been designed for one purpose, and one purpose only…to fight the mysterious invaders. The first encounter with the Others had been brief. Many said, the enemy had conducted little more than an armed reconnaissance of Hegemony space. For decades after, they had been expected to return, in far greater force. But they never had.

  Josias stood up suddenly. He’d been through all of this before and he knew the AI would be hours reviewing the scanning data. He was bored, irritable, resentful of the superiors who’d sent him on such a pointless mission. That was nothing for his people to see. He decided to spent the hours in solitude in his Sanctum. After a period of meditation and reflection—and a cursory review of the AI’s conclusions—he would return to the control center, and issue the orders for Successor to set a course back to Hegemony space, to once again report that all was quiet at the Icarus Nebula.

  “I will be in my…” He saw red indicator lights on the display, and he turned his head and froze. The AI was indicating it had found something.

  “Master Josias, the system is reporting anomalies in the scanner data.”

  “Yes, yes…activate the reporting system.”

  Josias sat down. He was edgy, but still not entirely convinced the AI hadn’t simply found some spatial anomaly and was overreacting.

  “Successor Control reporting. Scanner data dump AL-2304, partition Z11. Activity at entry point two, energy readings 27.64 gigatechons.”

  Josias had been listening without any real interest, but the energy report caught his attention. The figure the AI had given was enormous, far beyond any ship transit he’d ever seen. Or heard of.

  “Confirm those numbers,” he snapped.

  “Energy readings 27.64 gigatechons. Scanner reports indicate fourteen transits, with intervals of seventeen to one hundred eleven seconds. Analysis of entry pattern suggests a ninety-four-point three percent probability of fleet maneuver.”

  Fleet maneuver…

  The words hit Josias like a punch in the gut. He could hear talk of the Others in his mind now, old conversations, speeches, lectures in classrooms. He’d discounted them all, considered himself above such children’s tales.

  And now, his own AI was telling him a fleet—a fleet with enormous power output—had passed through into the very section of space his own force now occupied.

  “Size of transiting ships? Identification?”

  “No data available. Scanner readings are incomplete.”

  Josias didn’t know what the hell that meant, but he knew better than to argue with a computer. “Review balance of scanner data at accelerated rate. When did subject ships transit out, and through which point?” If something had truly come through as the AI said, Josias knew one thing, at least. They hadn’t continued on toward the Hegemony. Josias’s fleet had come that way, and they’d hadn’t detected anything abnormal, not so much as a solar flare from one of the suns they’d passed.

  The area of space around the nebula had been extensively explored fifty years earlier. It was nothing but a vast graveyard, system after system filled with countless dead worlds, planets that had once been home to untold billions. The Great Death had burned hottest there, so near the core of the empire, and it had left little in its wake. No life, none at all, save for insects and mutated scavengers slowly reclaiming the shattered ruins. The obliterated worlds hadn’t even offered much old imperial technology. The people who’d lived in this area of the empire had done a magnificent job of killing each other, and smashing their once exalted civilization into utter nothingness.

  “Accelerated scanner review results available.”

  “Report.” Josias was nervous. The idea of a fleet, any fleet, operating around the nebula was upsetting, but he held his thoughts in check. Perhaps he’d found some rebels or fugitives from the Hegemony. The Council was devoted to maintaining a sense of order and unity throughout the vast polity, and they weren’t above covering up something like a naval task force going rogue.

  “Analysis shows no signs of departure from this location.”

  “What?” That was about the last thing Josias had expected to hear. “What are you saying? They headed off into interstellar space?” Even as he said it, he realized the very idea was ridiculous. The transit tubes were the only way to travel faster than light, and the nearest star system was two lightyears away. Moving too far from the transit tubes would be suicide. Was that what the AI was trying to tell him? Some fleet had transited in and then its crews went crazy and plunged into the trackless void?

  “Negative. Scanner results show no significant thrust emissions or other readings that would support a conventional maneuver.”

  Josias had always found the Hegemony’s advanced AIs to be somewhat annoying, but this time he wanted to smash his fist through the control panel. “So, what are you saying? That they’re still here?” He felt a tightening in his gut as the words left his lips, a touch of panic. He turned toward his chief aide’s station. “Activate fleet scanners on full. Any contacts?”

  The officer turned and worked at his controls. Even as he finished, the results came up on the main display. Nothing. Just Josias’s ships, and vast emptiness all around.

  “Explain,” he snapped back at the AI.

  “inadequate data. No explanation available.”

  Josias almost slammed his fist down on the armrest, but he caught himself. “Theories? Suggestions?”

  “Insufficient data to speculate with any degree of accuracy. All information indicates the enemy ships that transited into the nexus twelve days ago remain within one million cubic kilometers of our position.”

  “And there are no scanner contacts, none at all?”

  “No contacts at this time.”

  Josias exhaled hard, and he stared at the display. It was dark, blank, nothing at all.

  Wait…

  He saw something, a speck of light, small, off to the side, suddenly appearing. Then another, and another.

  He watched for a second, maybe two, as five more appeared.

  Then the klaxons sounded.

  “Multiple contacts detected, vector 203.111.034.”

  “Identify,” Josias snapped back at the AI.

  “Incoming scanner data jumbled, inconsistent. No meaningful analysis possible.”

  “You mean you know something’s there, but you have no idea what?”

  “Affirmative.” Josias had intended his words to be sarcastic, but the AI had taken them literally.

  “All ships, reactors at full power. All weapons arrays online. All engines, prepare for immediate maximum thrust.” Josias didn’t know what to do. For all his rank and stature, he’d never been in combat, not really. Sending a ground force of Kriegeri in assault shuttles to put down rioting Defekts didn’t really count.

  His mind raced, desperate thoughts flying around, trying to formulate a plan, to decide what to do. Run? From something he couldn’t identify, from a threat he wasn’t sure existed? If he pulled out now, he’d get back with no meaningful information to report. His duty was clear. He had to get some idea of what he was facing. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe he’d made contact with the Others, but he couldn’t come up with any other options. His mind pounded away at the problem, and he decided it had to be some rebel or outlaw element, something that had been hidden, kept secret, by the Council.

  But how did they elude detection? How are they still interfering with our scanners?

  “Master Josias…I was transmitting orders to the other ships when…”

  When what?” Josias snapped.

  “I lost contact.”

  “With one of the other ships?”

  “With all of them, sir.”

  “We’re being jammed?”

  The officer was slow to respond, and when he did, the fear was evident in his voice. “Yes, sir…and no. Not conventional jamming. It seems like some kind of field…it’s just absorbing the comm signals, sucking them in and nullifying them.”

  Josias wasn’t sure the officer’s words really made sense to him, but he knew it didn’t matter. The Hectoron clearly had no idea what was happening, no more than Josias did, nor Successor’s AI.

  Josias sat in his chair, frozen. He felt the urge to issue orders, but he was cut off from the other ships. Whatever was out there, it was likely hostile…hostile enough to provoke a decisive response. “All gunnery stations are to lock scanners onto the nearest contact and open fire at once.” Maybe, just maybe, the other ships would emulate the flagship’s actions. Successor and the three other monitors in his force were massively armed, their quad mounted railguns backed up by over one hundred energy weapon emplacements. Whatever was out there, he had to believe he had the firepower to hurt it.

  If he could find it.

  Josias was scared and confused, but once his force opened up, whoever out there had started this whole thing was going to be sorry.

  “Sir!”

  Josias’s eyes whipped around, focusing back on the display. One of the contacts was closer now, and through the jamming—or whatever that field was—Successor was receiving a crystal-clear image…almost as though whoever was out there wanted his people to see.

  It was a ship, sort of, but it seemed to be moving all around, its shape changing gradually, even as it stood motionless overall. It was dark, looking almost like the black of space one instant, and then morphing into more of a murky gray. It was sinister looking, and Josias found every fear inside him rising up, his worry about the current situation mixing with childhood memories of terror and despair.

  He glanced around and saw his crew was virtually paralyzed, staring at the display, looks of utter horror on their faces. He fought the gloom, the oppressive hopelessness he could feel closing in on him. He was a Hegemony Master, not some savage to be manipulated and controlled by fear. He dragged himself back, and as he did, he roared out a command to his bridge crew, a vicious growl that mustered every feeling of arrogance and superiority he possessed. “Back to your stations, now! Or I will shoot you myself!” He stood up and pulled out his sidearm.

  The officers on the bridge were startled, their gazes moving back and forth between the display and their seemingly deranged commander. Finally, the spell seemed to break. Successor’s command staff returned to their posts.

  All save one.

  The communications officer, a Hectoron named Baris, turned toward Josias, pulling out his own pistol as he did. The Master was stunned, utterly shocked at the mutinous and treasonous action. He brought his own weapon to bear. He had the edge, his pistol already in his hand.

  In the end, it wasn’t even close. Josias fired three times, and the officer flew back against his workstation before he slid to the deck, clearly dead.

  Josias was stunned, struggling to maintain control. But his fear focused him as well as unnerving him. He didn’t know what was happening, but it was life and death, there didn’t seem to be any doubt about that.

  “All batteries, open fire…”

  But it was too late. Even as he spoke, he saw the massive energy spike on the display, and a great beam, almost blindingly bright, lance across space…right for his ship.