Valiant

He watched Rione walk away, without saying anything else that might have just invited another parting shot.

FOUR hours until contact with the Syndics. The Alliance fleet and the Syndic flotilla were less than fifty light- minutes apart, each force moving at point one light speed, their combined rate of closure at the point two light speed maximum for effective targeting. He could now see what the Syndic ships had been doing just less than an hour earlier, just as they could see the status of the Alliance fleet that long ago. It was still too early to set his combat formation, too early to let the Syndic commander know how Geary planned to meet the enemy.

“Captain Geary? There’s something we need to show you.”

He acknowledged the message from Captain Desjani and headed for the compartment she’d called from, trying not to look apprehensive as he passed members of Dauntless’s crew. Despite the need to concentrate on the upcoming battle, Geary had been constantly distracted by worries about what his internal enemies might do. It sounded like they must have tried striking again.

The compartment proved to be one of the primary-systems control stations, apparently confirming his fears. As the hatch sealed behind him, Geary saw Desjani, the lieutenant commander who was Dauntless’s systems-security officer, and the virtual presence of Captain Cresida. “What is it this time?”

Desjani and the lieutenant commander both looked at Cresida, who gestured toward some of the system modules behind her. “I’d been thinking, sir,” Cresida began. “Trying to figure out how the aliens could be tracking us. The business with the worms got me wondering about our systems, about whether anything else could be hidden in them.”

Geary frowned. “The aliens? This isn’t about a new worm generated from somewhere within the fleet?”

“No, sir. We found something that couldn’t have come from internal sources. We had to get Captain Desjani’s systems-security officer involved.”

“It couldn’t have come from the inside?” Geary gave Desjani and her systems- security officer a puzzled look. “But you found something else?”

Cresida nodded. “Yes, sir. What I was wondering was, if something else was there, something that let the aliens track our movements, how could it still be hidden? It would have to be something unlike anything we’ve used or tried to use if our security scans missed it. So I’ve been looking at different things, just off-the-wall stuff, seeing if anything unusual or unexpected showed up anywhere inside our systems.”

Desjani’s systems-security officer tapped a control, and a virtual display popped up beside him, showing a weird image of what looked vaguely like overlapping waves with fluctuating boundaries. “This shows commands being sent through the navigational system, sir,” he explained. “Not the code, but the actual electron signal propagation. It’s a representation, of course, rendered in terms understandable to us. What Captain Cresida found was that the commands had something else piggybacking on them.” He indicated the fluctuating tops and sides.

Cresida pointed to them as well. “I don’t know how they do it, but somehow they’re encoding a worm using self-sustaining probability modulation on a quantum scale. Every particle making up this signal has quantum characteristics, of course. Well, the aliens have imprinted some kind of program on those characteristics. I know it’s not natural because there should be probabilistic variation in how these actions are occurring on the quantum boundaries of the particles making up the signal. There isn’t. It’s following patterns. We can’t tell what those patterns do, or how they do it, but it’s definitely something that shouldn’t be there.”

Desjani nodded toward the display. “We think we’ve found our alien spy, Captain Geary.”

“I’ll be damned. This is in the navigational systems?”

“And the communications systems. We’re still screening the other systems but haven’t found anything like it, yet.”

Geary stared at the display, amazed. “It’s set up to know where we’re going and tell someone else. Can this thing send messages at faster-than-light speeds?”

Cresida made a frustrated gesture. “I don’t know! I don’t know how it works at all, let alone what it can do. I just know it’s not supposed to be there.”

The lieutenant commander spoke up. “Naturally, none of our security programs or firewalls could spot this. It’s, uh, alien to them, if you’ll pardon the term.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it?” Geary demanded. “We just have to leave this thing infesting our systems?”

That drew a fierce smile from Cresida. “No, sir. I may not know how it works, but I know how to kill it.”

“That’s the first time I ever heard you talk like a Marine, Captain Cresida. How do we kill it?”

Cresida indicated the wavery boundaries again. “I’m sure we can generate quantum wave patterns that have opposite characteristics to these waves. In effect, using destructive interference to cancel out the modulated overlays. We don’t have to know what the pattern does or how it’s sustained to create a very short-lived negative image of it. Once the overlays go to a zero probability state, none of them should reappear except in rare random pieces that couldn’t possibly function.”

Geary frowned in puzzlement. “How could even random pieces reappear if they’ve been reduced to zero probability?”

“It’s… a quantum thing, sir. It doesn’t make sense to us, but that’s how things work on that level.”

The systems-security officer nodded. “In effect, sir, Captain Cresida has suggested creating an antiviral program using quantum-probability-pattern detection and cancellation. It’s a totally new concept, but the actual creation of the program is well within our capabilities.”

“Thank you, Captain Cresida. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that all humanity is in your debt. I want Lieutenant Iger in intelligence briefed on this, too. Any ideas how it got into our systems?”

The others exchanged glances, then Desjani answered. “I’ve been thinking about it since Captain Cresida showed me this. You suspect the hypernet gates were the products of aliens’ technology, sir. Dauntless, like every other ship in the fleet, has an Alliance hypernet key on board that carries its own operating system.”

Cresida’s eyes widened. “Which interfaces with the ship’s navigational system. You could be right. We’ll get into the keys and see what we can find.”

The systems-security officer frowned this time. “But if it is coming from the hypernet key, do we dare sanitize the key? It could somehow bear on the proper functioning of the key.”

“Very good point,” Cresida agreed. “We’d have to tread very carefully there. But we can set up an antiviral screen between the key and the rest of the ship’s systems once we get the program working.”

“Do it now,” Geary commanded. “If you need anything, and you’re not getting it, make sure I know.”

“Yes, sir, but I’d like to wait until after the battle to start.”

“The battle?” Geary almost slapped his own forehead. Between concerns about internal enemies and hostile aliens, the actual looming battle had slipped his mind for a moment. “Yes, of course, after the battle. And if anything else about this comes up that doesn’t have to be dealt with until after that, wait to tell me.” I can’t risk being that badly distracted again. A lot of ships in this fleet could die if I’m not focused on the most imminent threat. What Cresida had found wouldn’t have any effect on the outcome of this engagement, but it would make a very big long-term difference in the aliens’ ability to intervene again on the side of the Syndics. We’re figuring out your tricks, you bastards. And when we’ve figured out enough of them, we’re going to discuss this war with you and what humans do to nonhumans who try to manipulate them.

ONE hour to engagement range if both forces continued on their current course and speed vectors. Now Geary could see the Syndic formation as of twelve minutes ago, still in its rectangular box shape, one of the short sides facing the Alliance fleet like a hammerhead rushing to strike. “Ready?” he asked Desjani.

“Now?” Her eyes were already locked on the enemy formation.

“Yeah, I couldn’t do it earlier without acting uncharacteristically, but I need to give the Syndic CEO commanding that flotilla time to see what I’m doing so I’ll have time to see how they react.” Geary tapped his controls. “All units in the Alliance fleet, assume stations in Formation Echo Four at time three zero, formation stations to form relative to flagship Dauntless.”

At time three zero, the big Formation Delta the fleet had been in broke apart, warships weaving everywhere in a complex dance as they proceeded to stations in five subformations. “This is like the formation you used in Lakota