The Lost Fleet: Dauntless

by Jack Campbell

  Like maybe if we change the course or speed of those ships without some special input from the Syndic crew. I’ve got twenty flying bombs heading for the most vulnerable and valuable ships in this fleet. Geary thought about the situation. “Okay. Say we use the CRX. That’ll leave us with twenty ships we can’t let get close to our big units and twenty crews of unconscious Syndics.” He knew Desjani was watching him, waiting for his decision and wondering how he’d square that decision with his expressed concern for prisoners. After all, he’d be justified in any action against people who planned a sneak suicide attack. But that doesn’t mean I have to do anything I don’t want to. And what I do want to do is to make life difficult for the people who planned this, who sent those shock troops on a suicide mission while they’re sitting safe and happy back near that inhabited world. “How long do we have to work with?”

  Carabali looked toward Desjani, who tapped rapidly on her controls. On Geary’s display, large spheres appeared surrounding each Syndic merchant ship. “That’s the estimated damage radius if one of those merchants blows its core. You can see the damage radius for each merchant bulged slightly to one side because of the movement vector of that ship. If our ships are farther away than that, their shields should be able to handle any debris that gets to them.”

  Geary judged the distances and the time left until the merchants got too close to the auxiliaries. The time remaining wasn’t much, but hopefully it’d be enough. “Very well, Colonel. Here’s what we’ll do.”

  Twenty minutes later, Geary watched on the remote video feeds as the last of the unconscious Syndic crew members were dumped unceremoniously into the escape pods on their ships. Since none of them were strapped into the seats, they’d get banged up a bit when the pods blasted away. But since they were planning on dying, I don’t think they’ll have any legitimate grounds to complain about bruises and broken bones.

  The pod hatches were left open as a precaution against a booby trap, and the Marines hastened back to their boarding shuttles, being met at the airlocks by the rest of the Marines in the boarding party who’d come from downloading instructions to the autopilots on the bridges of the merchant ships.

  Geary let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as the shuttles pulled away from the merchants. He checked the time, willing the shuttles to move faster, wanting them as far as possible from the merchants and their damage radii before the automated instructions that had been sent to the Marines to download finally kicked in.

  “Thirty seconds,” Desjani advised unnecessarily.

  Geary just nodded, his eyes flicking from the Marine shuttles to the damage radii around the merchant ships to the Alliance fleet auxiliaries that were drawing ever closer to their rendezvous with the merchants.

  “Mark.”

  Geary held his breath again, waiting to see if the instructions given the merchant ships’ automated systems to seal the escape pods would trigger the ships’ destruction. The Marine shuttles should be far enough away now to be safe, if their estimates were right. But “estimate” means it can be wrong.

  “Pods should be launching,” Desjani announced.

  “There.” Geary pointed at his display, where the Dauntless’s systems were tracking the escape pods that had shot out from the merchants. They had another moment to wonder if launching the pods would cause the ships’ power cores to overload. But once again, the merchants continued on, heading for the Alliance fleet in a steady way that was almost unnerving. “Let’s see what happens when we play with the merchants’ courses.”

  Moments later, the instructions the Marines had downloaded ordered the merchants’ maneuvering systems to start kicking them down and around. The big, slow merchant ships, heavily laden with the stores the Alliance fleet had demanded, swung ponderously until their bows were pointed down and away from the Alliance fleet. “One more event left,” Desjani noted.

  The main drives on the Syndic ships lit off, pushing against the mass and momentum of the merchant ships to change their path through space. Geary tried to judge their progress as the merchants continued getting closer to some of the Alliance ships. “Should we maneuver Titan and Jinn to make sure those things don’t get too close?”

  Desjani pursed her lips as she studied the relative movement of the vessels, then shook her head. “We should start seeing distances opening any minute now. Unless something causes those main drives to shut off, those merchants won’t be a threat much longer.”

  The drives didn’t shut off, continuing to push with all their capability against their ships. Slowly, the projected courses for the clumsy merchant ships began altering, the changes becoming clear as the actual courses diverged from the original paths, then changing faster as the big ships picked up speed in the new direction as fast as they were able.

  “Where are they going?” Colonel Carabali’s image asked.

  Geary gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Home.”

  Carabali frowned.

  “No, Colonel,” Geary assured her, “we’re giving the Syndics back their ships, but they won’t appreciate the gesture. We had to do something with those twenty ships, and the people who launched the attack on us needed to get paid back. There are two military facilities orbiting the inhabited world. The orders we had your Marines download into the merchant maneuvering systems direct ten of those merchant ships to keep accelerating as fast as they’re able, aimed directly at the point where one of those facilities will be when the merchants get there. The other ten are aimed at the other facility.”

  The Colonel’s frown changed into an open smile. “Ten merchant ships packed full of cargo charging all-out at one target in a fixed orbit? The Syndics might have a little trouble stopping them all.”

  “They won’t be able to stop them all, Colonel,” Geary assured her. He gestured toward the images of the lumbering merchants. “Under normal conditions, the merchants would be too slow to worry about and easily destroyed on approach. But these ships won’t be slowing down as they approach orbit. They’ll keep speeding up as best they can until impact.”

  “And,” Desjani added with her own smile, “any hits on the merchants will have a lot of mass to divert. If they manage to blow the merchants apart, they’ll have to deal with all the cargo and wreckage still heading their way.”

  Geary smiled, too. “After all, we do need to conserve our supply of long-range weaponry. If in the process of breaking their word, the Syndics hand us something that will do the job of punishing them, they’ll just have to live with the consequences.” He glanced at the display. “We’re just over thirty-two light-minutes from the inhabited world. It’ll take a half hour for them to see that their suicide attack didn’t come off as planned. Give them at least another ten minutes to track the merchants and figure out where they’re headed. I’ll wait a half hour to avoid tipping them off and then broadcast a message.”

  “Which will reach them in about an hour. That’s far sooner than the merchant ships can reach their targets. They’ll have time to evacuate their orbital facilities,” Desjani sighed.

  “Can’t be helped,” Geary noted with a shrug. “They’ll have no trouble seeing the merchants coming long before they get there. Besides, any CEOs on those facilities would’ve gotten off first anyway. Not that I think they’ll get off free. They’ll have to explain to their superiors how they lost every Syndic space military asset in this system, and why they caused the destruction of the majority of the large merchant ships in the system as well, all without inflicting any losses on us or impeding our progress.”

  Carabali’s smile grew grim. “Perhaps they’ll be trading their boardrooms for labor camps.”

  “Maybe,” Geary agreed. “And wouldn’t that be a damn shame.”

  At the half-hour mark, Geary sat straight in his chair, making sure his uniform looked good, but not too good. He didn’t want to look like one of the finely tailored bureaucrats who ran things in the Syndicate Worlds. “Begin transmission. People of Corvus Star System,” he s
tated in his best command voice, pitched a little lower and louder than his usual speech, “this is Captain John Geary, commander of the Alliance fleet.” He paused a moment, letting the fact of his identity sink in. He suspected that since the Alliance believed Black Jack Geary to be a savior, the Syndics would see him as a boogeyman or at least a threat with an air of the supernatural about him. It made him uncomfortable, but he wasn’t about to discard something that could possibly help the fleet’s chances of getting home.

  “I wish to inform you of two things. The first is that the merchant ships we arranged to meet us here turned out to be booby-trapped. We negotiated with your leaders in good faith. They broke their word, and as a result those ships are forfeit. Even now, they are being returned with a vengeance to those who sent them. I want it clearly understood that even though we were betrayed by your leaders, we do not seek retribution against you.”

  “The other thing I must tell you is that the crews of the merchant ships were placed unharmed within the escape pods of the ships and ejected en route to your world. We did not sabotage or booby-trap those pods in any way. We did not turn them into weapons. They contain only your crew members.”

  “We could’ve killed the crews of those ships, who by planning a sneak attack while disguised as civilians placed themselves outside the protections granted by the laws of war. We could’ve retaliated against your world. This fleet had it within its power to wipe all traces of life from this system. We did not do any of those things. The Alliance fleet showed more concern for the lives of the citizens of Corvus System than did your own leaders. Remember that.”

  “To the honor of our ancestors,” Geary recited, using the old formula even as he wondered if a phrase already old-fashioned in his day had become totally outdated by now. “This is Captain John Geary, commanding officer of the Alliance fleet. End transmission.”

  He relaxed, noticing as he did so that Captain Desjani had a small smile on her lips. “That should give the Syndics something to think about until the merchant ships start slamming into their targets. Especially the fact that you used the old, formal ending for your message.”

  “It isn’t used anymore, then?”

  “I’ve never seen it outside of historical documents.” Desjani nodded, her smile not varying. “Yes. It’s the sort of small touch that’ll scare the hell out of the Syndics, because it’ll make it clear that Black Jack Geary has returned.”

  Geary nodded as well, keeping his own thoughts to himself. Yeah. Great. Knowing I’m probably something out of a nightmare to lots of people isn’t something I ever wanted.

  But you use the weapons you’ve got.

  SEVEN

  About nine hours later, Geary made sure he was on Dauntless’s bridge to watch the Syndic merchant ships “come home.”

  “They blew a couple of them to star dust using some really big missiles,” Desjani advised. “Too bad you missed it, but the recording of the events are in the tactical library if you want to catch a late showing.”

  “What kind of missile would do that kind of damage?” Geary wondered.

  “My weapons techs say they must’ve been planetary bombardment weapons. No chance of hitting a warship, but the merchants were coming in on fixed courses and couldn’t evade. Half the things still missed their targets, though.”

  Planetary bombardment weapons? Why would the Syndics have needed those in a backwater system like Corvus? They must’ve been based on one or both of those orbiting facilities since there’s no big warships in the system, so the things were positioned here on purpose. Geary rubbed his chin as he pretended to study the positions of the fleet but actually tried to think through the puzzle. The only thing the Syndics could’ve done with those weapons is employ them against one of the planets in this system. But why would…oh. Wake up, Geary. You know how the Syndic authorities maintain control. By any means necessary. I guess holding planetary bombardment munitions in orbit was just one more way of making sure the local population didn’t get any ideas about not following orders.

  I never liked the Syndic leadership. I’m starting to really dislike them. He stared at the image of the inhabited world. It wasn’t a perfect place for humans. Not enough water, for one thing. Atmosphere’s a little weak. But it’s a good enough planet to sustain a decent population. I’m glad I didn’t retaliate against those people. They’ve had enough to worry about from the threat posed by their own leaders. “Any developments on the escape pods we launched from the merchant ships?”

  “They’re coming in behind the merchants now.” Desjani looked as she’d tasted something foul. “The Syndic orbital defenses have taken out a few.”

  “Damn.”

  “It’s a safe bet that they assumed we’d lied about not turning them into weapons somehow, and they’d rather kill some of their own than risk us tricking them. You know what they’re like.”

  “Yes, I do.” Geary shook his head. “But I had to try.”

  Desjani shrugged. “For what it’s worth, the fact that the Syndic defenses have been forced to concentrate on the merchant ships means that it’s reasonable to expect that maybe half the escape pods will reach the surface intact.”

  “Thanks. Once they get down, the Syndic population of that planet is going to find out we told the truth.”

  “I suppose that might make them feel bad about killing the Syndics in the other pods,” Desjani stated doubtfully.

  “I suppose it will.” Geary hunched forward to study the images projected in front of his seat. “Not long until impact.”

  “No.” Now Desjani sounded gleeful. “Orbital installations are always sitting ducks.”

  Despite his unhappiness at hearing the fate of some of the Syndic “merchant crews,” Geary almost smiled himself at the truth in her statement. The military kept proving that objects in fixed orbits were not just sitting ducks but dead ducks when faced with mobile opponents, and the civil leaderships kept building orbital fortresses anyway. “They make the populations of the planets they’re orbiting feel more secure. At least, that’s what they told us the last time I was in Alliance space. I don’t know if the rationale has changed since then.”

  “It hasn’t. They still haven’t learned. Maybe we should send them video of this,” Desjani suggested with another grin.

  Geary focused back on the visual display, where a highly magnified view of the area near the inhabited world was pocked with tags indicating the identities of various objects. Despite the best efforts of the Syndic defenders, several merchant ships were still rushing toward collisions with each of the military orbital installations. He’d worried a bit about hitting the planet by mistake, but the merchants had come up from the plane of the system to reach the Alliance fleet and had been sent back down. From that angle, the merchant ships were actually splitting to hit targets on either side of the planet. None were coming in at a high angle relative to the planet, so any that wandered into atmosphere ought to bounce off.

  He glanced at the time and the distance, reminding himself that he was watching events that had played out about an hour and a half ago. The images seemed so immediate it was hard to recall that light from the events had been on its way out here for that long.

  “Ten minutes to sighting of first impact,” the weapons watch called out.

  Small flashes of light were blinking into and out of existence near the bright dots that were all Geary could see of the merchant ships. He picked one orbital installation to focus on and increased the magnification of his view until the merchant nearest its target was visible as a ship rather than a point of light. A moment later, the ship started getting bigger, causing Geary to check his controls to make sure he wasn’t still zooming in.

  But he wasn’t. “Lead merchant aiming for Syndic Orbital Installation Alpha has been destroyed,” the weapons watch announced. The ship was getting bigger because its hull had been broken, and everything that had once made up the ship and its cargo was now spilling out into space, momentum still carrying t
he wreckage toward the target even though the engines had been silenced.

  Something like hell-lances was being fired from the Syndic base, flaying the wreckage but unable to divert enough of it, and while the Syndic fire concentrated on the wreck of the lead merchant, the next in line, its engines still pushing it ever faster, came even with the debris of the first. Geary felt his jaws tighten as the Syndic close-in defenses shifted their fire to the still-intact merchant, though to what purpose he couldn’t imagine. The installation was obviously doomed. He hoped the defenses were on automatic and no personnel had been left to die in a futile attempt to save the orbital facility.

  Minutes later, the second merchant slammed into one side of the Syndic installation, shattering a large section into fragments of junk. The remains of the ship itself, also reduced to junk by the collision, bounced off and kept going.

  On its heels, the huge cloud of wreckage from the former lead merchant started impacting. Geary stared, fascinated despite himself, as the Syndic orbital base staggered under repeated impacts, its whole structure warping and breaking as hundreds of tons of matériel rammed into it at very high speed. It looked oddly as if the Syndic base was dissolving under the impacts as the wave of debris tore it apart. The view shifted as the optics on the Dauntless followed the installation’s movement. Under the force of the blows from the wreckage, the remains of the Syndic base were being shoved out of orbit, reeling farther and farther away from the planet it had both protected and menaced for who knew how long. The image became blurry as debris spread out from the impacts, hindering the Alliance fleet’s view of the devastation.

  Geary decreased the magnification so he could see a larger area, watching as the remaining merchant ships shot past where their target had been. As expected, the angle between the ships’ courses and the planet meant none of the merchants plowed into the planet itself. One of the merchants hit the upper atmosphere of the planet at a high angle and glanced off, the friction and impact breaking its hull and spilling its cargo as the wreckage flew off into space. Three others drilled into the upper regions of the atmosphere at high speed, boring incandescent holes through the planet’s sky as the ships’ hulls vaporized into plasma, the slagged remnants of what had been a ship and cargo finally exiting back into space, still glowing brightly from radiated heat.