“It won’t be much longer,” Desjani muttered, watching the same images as Geary. “
Intractable
was the only Alliance warship left near the jump point. Everybody else had already gotten away.”
“Is there any chance that she made it to the jump point?”
“Not unless the Syndics decided to stop shooting.”
Rione was leaning forward, her voice urgent. “We have to do something. Distract the Syndics. Something!”
“Madam Co-President,” Geary replied heavily, “the Syndics won’t even see this fleet for almost four hours.
Intractable
was almost certainly destroyed nearly that long ago. We’re just seeing it now.”
“Damn,” Rione whispered.
On the four-hours-old images,
Intractable
seemed to have lost maneuvering control, sliding sideways and over as Syndic hits pushed the Alliance battleship off course. “Her crew’s leaving,” Desjani said, as escape pods began flinging themselves away from the stricken battleship. “There still seem to be a few weapons working, though.”
Four hours ago, a volley of Syndic missiles had been fired, curving in to slam into
Intractable
and shatter the massive warship, by then almost defenseless.
Intractable
’s hull had broken, the forward portion spinning away while the after portion came apart into smaller pieces. Geary closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to see the remnants of the battleship tumbling in different directions, no sign of life remaining on them.
May your ancestors welcome you and the living stars warm your spirits.
“We’ll avenge them,” Desjani almost snarled.
“Yeah. We will. We’ve obviously found the reserve flotilla.” Geary began working up the intercept, assuming the Syndics would turn back toward this jump point. “How long until the fleet’s sensors give us a picture of what happened here?”
“It should be pretty quick now.” On the heels of her words, system estimates began popping up. Desjani’s jaw tightened as she viewed her displays, where the fleet’s sensors and evaluation systems were showing their analysis of the latest wreckage. “The most recent debris correlates to two or three Alliance battle cruisers. Somewhere between nine and thirteen destroyers. One or two light cruisers. Four to six heavy cruisers. And two battleships, counting
Intractable
.” She let out a long breath. “
Intractable
held off the Syndics so the rest could get away, but there’s no way for the sensors to tell us how much that was.”
“At least it wasn’t one-sided.” Geary watched new estimates appear. “It looks like they cost the Syndics one or two battle cruisers, a battleship, somewhere between ten and twenty HuKs, six or seven heavy cruisers, and eight to eleven light cruisers. Plus what was too damaged to pursue them through the jump.” A badly damaged Syndic battle cruiser, three heavy cruisers, and one light cruiser were spread out along the path of the battle, all of them limping on courses toward the second planet in the star system. Near the jump exit, another battle cruiser mauled by
Intractable
’s last stand looked like it was turning toward the inner system, too.
The fleet’s sensors were peering four light-hours across the edge of the star system, looking through the debris of battle to evaluate the size of the Syndic force, and those results finally appeared as well. “Sixteen battleships, fourteen battle cruisers, twenty heavy cruisers, forty-five light cruisers, one hundred ten Hunter-Killers.” He’d been hoping that Lieutenant Iger’s estimates were way too high. In fact, they seemed to have been all too accurate. “That’s what’s still operational in the reserve flotilla.”
“We can take them,” Desjani insisted.
“We’re going to have to. But I can’t finish plotting an intercept until they turn around and settle on new vectors.”
He waited impatiently, the Alliance fleet eating up the distance to the jump point but close to two days’ travel away, until Desjani suddenly gasped. “They’re not turning around. They’re re-forming. They’re going to jump after the Alliance ships that escaped.”
“Jump to Varandal?” The only thing worse than fighting the reserve flotilla here might be having to fight it at Varandal if the Syndics were able to inflict enough damage at that star system before the Alliance fleet could catch up to them.
“Still almost four light-hours distant.” Desjani slammed a fist against the arm of her seat. “They’re going to jump before they even know we’re here.”
“Maybe that’ll let us surprise them at Varandal.” His eyes went to the estimates of Alliance losses here.
Two battleships. Had the other one been
Dreadnaught
?
Was his grandniece Jane Geary dead, just when Geary had gotten heartbreakingly close to home, or was she in one of the escape pods littering this system?
More symbols were proliferating on the displays, revealing the escape pods within Atalia Star System. There were a lot of Alliance escape pods from the warships destroyed here. Geary settled back, his eyes going from the Syndic reserve flotilla where it was re-forming in preparation for jumping to Varandal, to the badly damaged Syndic warships limping toward safety and also still unaware of the arrival of the Alliance fleet here, to the flocks of Alliance escape pods, to the status display showing how much fuel-cell reserves remained on the fleet’s warships.
“I need advice, Tanya.” She focused on him. “We can easily swing our courses past those damaged Syndics and take them out on our way to the jump point. However, the Alliance sailors in those escape pods will be counting on us to pick them up, but that will require slowing the fleet’s ships a lot for the pickup. That’ll cost fuel cells we don’t have to spare, and delay the time until we reach the jump point for Varandal.”
Desjani drummed her fingers on the arm of her seat for a moment, then turned to her engineering watch. “If those escape pods turn onto the same vectors as this fleet and burn all of their remaining fuel, what velocity can they reach?”
The engineer quickly ran figures. “Captain, working back to how long they’ve probably been in space and how much the pods must have burned during their launches, then they could probably get up to point zero one light if they reactivated the escape-launch burn sequence. But they’d have nothing left afterward.”
“That helps some, but not enough. The fleet would still have to brake quite a bit.” Desjani shook her head. “Even if we could afford the fuel-cell consumption, it would still delay us a lot. And most of our ships have as much personnel on board as they can handle as it is. Getting them overcrowded could be ugly if those ships need to be evacuated in the fighting at Varandal, and there aren’t enough escape pods available. What we need is two fleets.” Her eyes went to the display as alerts pulsed. “The Syndic reserve flotilla jumped for Varandal three hours and forty-one minutes ago.”
“Too bad we didn’t get here over three hours earlier. If they’d seen us before they jumped, they might have hung around and simplified things for us.” Geary ran his eyes across the fleet status display. “Two fleets. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do. Break off some of the ships to pick up the escape pods and follow after the rest.”
“Who can we spare?”
“No one. But we have ships that will have trouble keeping up anyway.” The choices seemed simple, but it wasn’t just a matter of physics. He called
Illustrious
. “Captain Badaya, I have a request to make of you.”
Six seconds later Badaya’s answer came in. He looked weary, but that was to be expected since Badaya had probably been pushing himself and his crew around the clock to get the damage to
Illustrious
repaired before the likelihood of battle. There was only so much that
Illustrious
’s crew could do, though. “What do you need, Captain Geary?”
“I need those Alliance escape pods recovered, but I can’t afford to slow the entire fleet to do that. On its way to the jump point for Varandal the fleet can eliminate the remaining Syndic warship presence in this star system, but whoever slows down to pick up those escape pods will still need enough firepower to protect them if something unexpected happens.”
Six seconds later Captain Badaya nodded. “Who were you thinking of, Captain Geary?”
“The three auxiliaries.
Orion. Incredible. Resolution.
The most badly damaged escorts. And because those ships will need a reliable and capable commander,
Illustrious
.”
Badaya eventually nodded again. “We’ve done a lot to patch up
Illustrious
, but she’s still going to be at a disadvantage during a fleet engagement. I understand your logic. But it’s a very hard thing to think of missing the fight in Varandal.”
“I understand.” Badaya had his faults, but he’d earned the right to have his pride and honor given full consideration. “That’s why I’m asking you to accept the assignment. If any Syndics pop out of the jump point for Varandal before you get to it, you’ll have to fight your way through them. I need somebody in command of the force who can be counted upon to do that, and I’m giving you two battleships and two battle cruisers to do it.” He didn’t bother adding what he and Badaya both knew, that all four battered ships didn’t add up to the combat capability of a single, undamaged battleship.
“Not much chance of Syndics making it back here before we leave,” Badaya observed, “though it’s not impossible. But if you maul the Syndics who’ve jumped to Varandal, some of them may be heading for the jump point back to here when we arrive at Varandal. We’ll be well positioned to block them and wipe them out.”
“That’s true.”
“It’s an honorable assignment,” Badaya concluded. “We won’t leave any Alliance sailors behind here,
Illustrious
won’t slow down any of our fellow battle cruisers, and we’ll be far enough behind the rest of you to intercept Syndics trying to flee Varandal. Thank you for your confidence, Captain Geary.”
“You’ve earned it, Captain Badaya.” Which was true enough. Aside from the dictator thing, he wasn’t a bad commanding officer. Badaya tended to be too reactive rather than coming up with new ideas before the enemy did, but give him orders and he’d execute them or die trying. Moreover, he believed in Geary, believed in him enough to accept an assignment that Badaya probably would have refused if given it six months ago.
“Thank you, Captain Geary,” Badaya repeated. “That other matter we discussed, about options once the fleet reaches Varandal. Everyone who needs to know is aware of your wishes in the matter and all have promised to abide by them. Even if
Illustrious
doesn’t make it to Varandal, your flank is covered.”
“That’s good to know, Captain Badaya.” Geary breathed a prayer of thanks that for once Badaya had phrased something carefully and discreetly. He’d learned several times that supposedly private communications were usually anything but that. “I’ll prepare the orders for the ships accompanying
Illustrious
. We’ll see you all at Varandal.”
“
Orion
’s not going to be happy,” Desjani observed as she double-checked Geary’s plans.
“
Orion
doesn’t deserve to be happy. Once we’re back in Alliance space, I’m going to recommend breaking up her crew and getting mostly new personnel on board. Nothing else has worked to rebuild that crew.”
“Maybe watching Numos get shot by a firing squad after his court-martial will help motivate them,” Desjani said cheerfully.
“It might.” His frustration with the slow pace of repairs by
Orion
’s crew had grown great enough that even he spent a moment enjoying the idea. “Then again, ever since they saw
Majestic
blown apart at Lakota,
Orion
’s crew has made creditable progress on fixing up their armor and weapons.”
“But not their propulsion,” Desjani noted dryly. “Maybe you should drop a hint that while they can protect themselves better now, they still can’t run away.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Captain Desjani.” Instead of being abashed, she just grinned as he continued. “I don’t think
Resolution
and
Incredible
will complain much, though.”
“You wouldn’t want to try separating those two ships,” Desjani replied. “They’ve apparently mated for life after bonding at Heradao.”
“Why are you in such a good mood, Captain Desjani?”
“Because the Syndic reserve flotilla has jumped to Varandal, Captain Geary, and will now be trapped between the Alliance forces that fled here and this fleet, as well as facing all of the defenses Varandal has to offer.” Desjani smiled like a wolf. “They’re meat.”
“That may be, but they’re meat with teeth.”
DESPITE the huge virtual size of the conference-room table, Geary couldn’t help noticing that it was smaller than it had been for earlier meetings. There were fewer ships and, therefore, fewer commanding officers left in the fleet. But at least after the events in Padronis. the poison seemed to have finally been drawn from the fleet, and any debate here would be open and genuine. “I’m sure you’re all familiar with the situation. The Syndic reserve flotilla jumped for Varandal before they knew we’d arrived at Atalia. They’re pursuing an Alliance force whose size remains uncertain and will undoubtedly try to reduce the Alliance facilities at Varandal as well as destroy the rest of the Alliance warships there. We have to get to Varandal in time to assist our comrades there on warships and the planets and orbital facilities.”
He gestured toward the display hovering over the table. “The main body of the fleet will proceed to the jump point for Varandal as fast as our fuel-cell situation will allow, taking a course that will allow us to sweep up the damaged Syndic warships remaining in this star system. A formation made up of
Illustrious
,
Incredible
,
Resolution
,
Orion
,
Titan
,
Jinn
,
Witch
, and the most badly damaged cruisers and destroyers will slow down enough to recover the Alliance escape pods in this star system, then follow the rest of us to Varandal.”
Every eye went to Captain Badaya, doubtless expecting him to explode with disagreement, but Badaya just nodded, his expression set. “
Illustrious
is honored to be given responsibility for this critical task. Make sure the rest of you leave some Syndics for us at Varandal.”