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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE FIRST FLEET OF THE ALLIANCE
ADMIRAL JOHN GEARY, COMMANDING
SECOND BATTLESHIP DIVISION
Gallant
Indomitable
Glorious
Magnificent
THIRD BATTLESHIP DIVISION
Dreadnaught
Orion (lost at Sobek)
Dependable
Conqueror
FOURTH BATTLESHIP DIVISION
Warspite
Vengeance
Revenge
Guardian
FIFTH BATTLESHIP DIVISION
Fearless
Resolution
Redoubtable
SEVENTH BATTLESHIP DIVISION
Colossus
Encroach
Amazon
Spartan
EIGHTH BATTLESHIP DIVISION
Relentless
Reprisal (returned to Callas Republic)
Superb
Splendid
FIRST BATTLE CRUISER DIVISION
Inspire
Formidable
Brilliant (lost at Honor)
Implacable
SECOND BATTLE CRUISER DIVISION
Leviathan
Dragon
Steadfast
Valiant
FOURTH BATTLE CRUISER DIVISION
Dauntless (flagship)
Daring
Victorious
Intemperate
FIFTH BATTLE CRUISER DIVISION
Adroit (lost at Atalia)
SIXTH BATTLE CRUISER DIVISION
Illustrious
Incredible
Invincible (lost at Pandora)
FIFTH ASSAULT TRANSPORT DIVISION
Tsunami
Typhoon
Mistral
Haboob
FIRST AUXILIARIES DIVISION
Titan
Tanuki
Kupua
Domovoi
SECOND AUXILIARIES DIVISION
Witch
Jinn
Alchemist
Cyclops
THIRTY-ONE HEAVY CRUISERS IN SIX DIVISIONS
First Heavy Cruiser Division
Third Heavy Cruiser Division
Fourth Heavy Cruiser Division
Fifth Heavy Cruiser Division
Eighth Heavy Cruiser Division
Tenth Heavy Cruiser Division
Emerald and Hoplon lost at Honor
FIFTY-FIVE LIGHT CRUISERS IN TEN SQUADRONS
First Light Cruiser Squadron
Second Light Cruiser Squadron
Third Light Cruiser Squadron
Fifth Light Cruiser Squadron
Sixth Light Cruiser Squadron
Eighth Light Cruiser Squadron
Ninth Light Cruiser Squadron
Tenth Light Cruiser Squadron
Eleventh Light Cruiser Squadron
Fourteenth Light Cruiser Squadron
Balestra lost at Honor
Lancer lost at Atalia
ONE HUNDRED SIXTY DESTROYERS IN EIGHTEEN SQUADRONS
First Destroyer Squadron
Second Destroyer Squadron
Third Destroyer Squadron
Fourth Destroyer Squadron
Sixth Destroyer Squadron
Seventh Destroyer Squadron
Ninth Destroyer Squadron
Tenth Destroyer Squadron
Twelfth Destroyer Squadron
Fourteenth Destroyer Squadron
Sixteenth Destroyer Squadron
Seventeenth Destroyer Squadron
Twentieth Destroyer Squadron
Twenty-first Destroyer Squadron
Twenty-third Destroyer Squadron
Twenty-seventh Destroyer Squadron
Twenty-eighth Destroyer Squadron
Thirty-second Destroyer Squadron
Zaghnal lost at Pandora
Plumbatae, Bolo, Bangalore, and Morningstar lost at Honor
Musket lost at Midway
Kururi and Sabar lost at Atalia
FIRST FLEET MARINE FORCE
Major General Carabali, commanding
3,000 Marines on assault transports and divided into detachments on battle cruisers and battleships
ONE
“FIVE minutes to exit from jump space,” Captain Tanya Desjani said from her seat next to Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary on the bridge of the Alliance battle cruiser Dauntless. “All systems at maximum combat readiness.”
The warships commanded by Geary had left the blood and fire of Atalia Star System in pursuit of the dark ships that had carried out the destruction there. Geary and the others called them “dark ships” because their hulls were a duskier shade than most warships’, perhaps because of special stealth materials. It hadn’t been the crews of the dark ships that had committed the atrocities at Atalia and at Indras Star System but the dark ships themselves. The dark ships lacked human crews who could have overridden automated systems that had developed deadly glitches or perhaps been deliberately sabotaged by any of a variety of malware. Having finally won the century-long war against the Syndicate Worlds, the Alliance government had decided not to place its faith in the men and women who had paid the price for that victory, instead placing its trust in robotic systems that had already set ablaze two star systems.
Geary’s Task Force Dancer had left Varandal with twelve battle cruisers, eight heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, and twenty-five destroyers. The battle cruiser Adroit had been lost in the fighting at Atalia, along with the light cruiser Lancer and the destroyers Kururi and Sabar. Four battle cruisers, Leviathan, Dragon, Steadfast, and Valiant, along with some heavy cruisers and destroyers, had remained at Atalia to assist damaged ships and recover wreckage from destroyed dark ships.
Only seven battle cruisers were left in the pursuit force.
That would be enough. If they could catch the surviving dark ships, which had fled from the destruction they had wrought at Atalia.
—
“ARE automatic software updates disabled for Dauntless’s systems?” Geary asked.
“Yes, sir.” Tanya could be informal at other times, but now she was sharp, precise, and dangerous, a human weapon honed by the last decades of the brutal war with the Syndics. “My people are actively monitoring all systems, and if something tries overriding the block on updates, they have orders to shut down those systems and do a cold reboot from last-day backups.”
“Good,” Geary said. “It’s a hell of a thing not to be able to trust our own software.”
Desjani shook her head. “We could never completely trust our software. It wasn’t just flaws and glitches, it was also all the malware that enemy hackers could come up with to cause our software to misbehave. Humans separate from the machines are the only firewalls proven to be reliable enough. That’s why we always kept humans in the loop, for those times when the software got its artificial little brains twisted.”
“‘Always’ until those dark ships were built,” Geary said, his tones tight with anger.
“Yes.” She leaned closer and spoke more quietly. “If the dark ships went berserk after they arrived at Varandal, like they did at Atalia, stopping them from doing a lot of damage might be impossible for us. They were nearly two hours ahead of us when they jumped for Varandal, and if they accelerated after they left jump space, they will have opened that lead. And none of the defenses at Varandal will be able to see the dark ships at all to counter them.”
“I know,” Geary said, trying not to let his frustration sound too clearly. “Thanks to official software updates designed to keep us blind to the dark ships. Are the software patches that fix the damage caused by those updates ready to send as soon as we arrive at Varandal?”
“Yes, sir. The First Fleet ships still at Varandal will install the patches on your say-so because you’re the fleet commander, but other Alliance forces not directly reporting to you may not,” she reminded him. “They’ll argue that these are unauthorized modifications to official software, so they need approval from their own chain of command to install them.”
“If they’re already getting shot up by warships that are invisible to their sensors, they may be motivated to ignore regulations concerning unauthorized software modifications.”
“One minute to exit from jump space,” Lieutenant Castries called from her watch station at the back of the bridge.
Geary fixed his eyes on his display. A marker to one side confirmed that Dauntless’s weapons systems, like those of the other warships in this pursuit force, were set to open fire immediately if any dark ships were within range when the Alliance warships left jump space. He didn’t think they would be, though. The artificial-intelligence routines governing the dark ships’ tactical decisions were apparently closely based on Geary’s own methods, and under these circumstances, if he had been the commander of the dark ships, he would not have attempted an ambush against a force with as much an advantage in firepower as Task Force Dancer still possessed.
The jolt of transition from the gray nothingness of jump space back to the real universe hit Geary. He was barely aware of the sudden reappearance of the stars in the endless blackness of space, his mind dazed by the transition, but even while fighting off the effects of the exit from jump, Geary noticed that none of Dauntless’s weapons were firing.
His display swam back into focus as Geary concentrated on it.
Desjani was a second faster than he was in getting her mind working right again. “They’re heading for the hypernet gate.”
“To attack it, or to use it to get away?” he wondered aloud. “At least they’re not moving into the star system to attack the ships and facilities.”
Space had no up or down, no east or west to determine directions, so humans had made up their own. Every star system had a plane in which planets orbited. One side of that plane was labeled up, the other down. Any direction toward the star was starboard or starward, while any direction away from the star was port. The conventions were simple, but they worked to give common references for ships that might be pointed in any direction, upside down or at right angles to each other.
The dark ships that had escaped from Atalia, two battle cruisers, one heavy cruiser, and five destroyers, were to port of Geary’s ships and diving down slightly as they moved at a steady point two light speed for the hypernet gate orbiting six light-hours from the jump point where Geary’s ships had just arrived. “They’re three hours’ travel time ahead of us. We won’t have any chance of catching them before they reach the gate,” Desjani said. “We’d better hope they’re running and that their warped artificial brains haven’t decided the gate is also an enemy target.”
“Status signals from the gate indicate that the safe-collapse mechanism is operational,” reported Lieutenant Yuon, the weapons systems watch-stander on Dauntless’s bridge.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. At least if the dark ships do attack it, we don’t have to worry about the gate’s setting off a nova-scale explosion when it collapses. They’ll reach the gate in another twenty-seven hours.” She ran some quick calculations. “There are two destroyers at the gate. Maybe . . . damn. The only other units already at Varandal that are positioned to be able to intercept the dark ships are several more destroyers and light cruisers.”
“Those wouldn’t stand a chance even if they could see the dark ships,” Geary said. “We may not be able to catch the dark ships, but we can stay on their tails.” He tapped a comm control. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute accelerate to point two five light speed, come port two five degrees, down zero three degrees.”
“Are we going to chase them through the hypernet gate?” Desjani asked.
“If we have to,” Geary said. “We have to find their base, wherever it is.” He checked the fuel cell status on his ships and let out an angry breath. “I’ll have to leave our destroyers here if we do that. Their fuel supplies are getting too low. Now, let’s get the word out to everyone here,” Geary added, his mood and his voice grim. He could see the many defenses at Varandal, the numerous warships and installations, all at standby readiness because the war with the Syndics had at last ended. “Why aren’t they reporting peacetime readiness instead of standby?” Geary grumbled.
“Because nobody but you remembers what peacetime readiness is,” Desjani reminded him. “And if the attack on Indras by those dark ships causes the Syndics to retaliate, this peace business may already be over with before the rest of us can figure out what it means.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that. At least if the Syndics attack our defenses, we will be able to see them.” Even after experiencing on these ships how secret software modifications had left Alliance sensors unable to see the dark ships, it was still hard to grasp that everything else in this star system would be totally unaware of the dark ships that were passing through. Many of those defenses were too far off to have seen the dark ships yet regardless, of course, let alone the more recent arrival of Geary’s ships. Light only moved at about eighteen million kilometers a minute, so with distances inside a star system measured in hundreds of millions or billions of kilometers, even light took a while to get places.
But other defenses, other ships closer to this edge of the star system, should have seen the dark ships by now. If their own software were not blinding them to the presence of the hostile forces.
“What you are about to do will raise hell,” Desjani commented.
“I know that,” he replied. “Are you advising me not to do it?”
“No.” Her grin was fierce. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Geary couldn’t help a tense, humorless smile in return, then composed himself, touched the transmit command, and began sending the message he had been rehearsing during the long days in jump space since leaving Atalia. “All units in the First Fleet, there are hostile forces in this star system that your software is blocking all sight of. These are not, repeat not, enigma warships. Our best estimate is that these are fully automated combatants that have slipped whatever controls were supposed to limit their actions.”
He paused a moment to let that sink in before continuing. “We have engaged in combat with those forces at Atalia, where they, without provocation or warning, attacked Alliance as well as civilian shipping and caused extensive destruction and loss of life. These hostile warships have already attacked Alliance warships and killed Alliance personnel. My task force is in pursuit of these ships, which are currently en route to Varandal’s hypernet gate. Based on their actions at Indras and Atalia, it must be assumed that any Alliance or civilian ships they encounter will be attacked and destroyed.
“Attached is a set of software patches you are to install on your ships. Disable automatic updates and permit no other updates until I personally authorize it. Your combat, maneuvering, sensor, database, and other systems contain hidden subroutines that mask the presence of the hostile warships. Once you have implemented the software patches we are sending, we will forward identifying information on the hostile warships. If we sent that information now, your own communications systems would strip out all traces of anything related to the hostile warships. These software patches are personally authorized by me as commander of the First Fleet. Geary, out.”
He tapped in another command, this one aimed at the two destroyers on picket duty at the hypernet gate. “
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Description du livre Paperback. Etat : new. Paperback. Admiral John Black Jack Geary embarks on a brand-new missionto defend the Alliance from itselfin New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbells latest action-packed novelTwo Syndicate Worlds star systems have fallen prey to a mysterious fleet of warshipsa fleet controlled entirely by artificial intelligencethat is now targeting Alliance space. The warships are no mystery to Admiral John Black Jack Geary. They were developed by his government to ensure security, but malfunctioned. If the Syndics learn the truth, the war with the Alliance will resume with a vengeance. As the government attempts to conceal the existence of the AI warshipsand its role in their creationGeary pursues them, treading a fine line between mutiny and obedience. But it soon becomes clear that his fleet is no match for the firepower of the machine-piloted armada. With the help of the Dancer species of aliens, Geary has tracked the AI ships to their secret base in the supposedly mythical Unity Alternate star system, where his fleet, the last hope for the Alliances future, will end the conflict at any cost Includes an excerpt from The lost stars: Shattered spear. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. N° de réf. du vendeur 9780425260555
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