The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan by Jack Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

heavy cruiser remaining with them.”
    He paused, his thoughts somber, then spoke again. “Even though the AIs controlling the dark ships appear to have been programmed using my tactics, these opponents are otherwise more alien than anything else we have encountered. They will fight without mercy or reason. They must be destroyed before they can inflict on Alliance star systems the kind of damage they did at Atalia. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”
    Desjani, her chin resting on one hand, glanced over at him. “I used to think that about the Syndics.”
    “What?”
    “That they fought without mercy or reason. But you’re right. Compared to the dark ships, the Syndics are models of compassion and rationality. Even Syndics were capable of questioning their orders.”
    He sighed and sat back, knowing that it would be three-quarters ofan hour before he would see any reaction to his message. “Too many of them never did. The dark ships are still holding at point two light speed.”
    “Conserving their fuel cells,” Desjani said. “If their destroyers are going to sprint the last distance, they’ll need everything they’ve probably got left. So, we’ve got about an hour and a half before the fireworks start, assuming we guessed right.”
    “Have we heard anything more from Admiral Timbale?” Geary asked.
    “Not a word. Nothing at all from Ambaru Station even though we sent them a warning as you directed. There’s a good chance those secret squirrel security goons who tried to muscle Admiral Timbale messed with the software patch.”
    “Them or friends of theirs,” Geary agreed. “Following their orders. There was a word for that in a language on Old Earth. What was it . . . kadavergehorsam.”
    “Ka-what?” Desjani demanded.
    “It means ‘corpselike obedience,’” Geary explained. “The idea that subordinates should do exactly what they are told, unthinkingly, and only what they are told. One of the greatest strengths of humans is our ability to think, to adapt, but how many organizations have done their best to mold their people into unthinking drones?”
    “Like the dark ships?” Desjani said. “The ultimate example of trying to create something that will only do what it’s told. But the software is so complicated, and so prone to glitches, and vulnerable to malware, that they’ve ended up acting on their own anyway. Hey, if those people on Ambaru have blocked the software patch because they are unthinkingly following their orders, it could mean they’ll die at the hands of something that is also supposed to be unthinkingly following orders.”
    Geary nodded, his lips twisting at the ugly irony. “I’m sure if we could somehow question the dark ship AIs, they’d tell us they were only following orders.”
    At forty-four minutes after his instructions had been sent, Gearyfinally saw movement among the screening forces. Some of the battleships swung about ponderously and began adjusting their positions in the screen to be closer to the place where the dark ships would penetrate. Most of the Alliance destroyers and light cruisers did the same.
    But four squadrons of destroyers and two squadrons of light cruisers leaped out of the screen, accelerating toward the dark ships.
    “Just what they’d expect,” Desjani murmured with satisfaction.
    The two dark battle cruisers were running side by side. Trailing them was their sole heavy cruiser. Two dark destroyers ranged out slightly to one side, two were on the other side, and the fifth was slightly above. A far lesser tactician than Geary would have sent in escorts to try to shave off the dark ship escorts before contact with the screen. It was a predictable maneuver, and also in accordance with the doctrine Geary had learned a century ago. Doctrine he had reason to believe had also been programmed into the dark ship AIs.
    He had set up this engagement, but could only watch it, still several light-minutes away and thus unable to