Dauntless tlf-1

by Jack Campbell

  Dauntless.

  That cruiser could be on a suicide run. Dauntless should be able to take it easily in terms of firepower, but if it decides to ram Dauntless or run in close and self-destruct, I could lose this ship. Even if the cruiser doesn’t want to ram anybody, his ability to see what’s ahead of him in time to do anything about it is severely compromised by his speed. Just trying for an intercept could cause a collision bad enough to annihilate both ships.

  I promised Admiral Bloch I’d get this fleet home with the hypernet key. I can’t risk Dauntless.

  But if I don’t risk Dauntless, I may well lose Titan.

  But Bloch and Desjani both said the hypernet key on Dauntless is more important than anything else in this fleet.

  He had a sudden memory of a very old myth, of a hero trying to make it home from a long war and losing his ships one by one, his followers one by one, until only he was left to come back. In the myth, that had been a triumph of sorts. And he had a vision of Dauntless limping back into Alliance space, alone, the wreckage of scores of other Alliance ships thrown to the wolves behind it, littering the path home.

  And he knew that wouldn’t be a triumph of any kind in his eyes.

  Even if it would, it’s too high a price.

  And how long will these people follow me if I hang back and let them die?

  Geary refocused on the people around him, watching him, and realized only a couple of seconds had elapsed while he’d been debating within himself. “Captain Desjani, I want Dauntless to take out that Syndic cruiser before it gets within range of Titan.”

  Desjani grinned as the other sailors on the bridge uttered whoops of joy. “It’ll be a pleasure.”

  “He’s very fast, and he’s good, Captain Desjani. Don’t take any chances. We have to ensure a kill, and we’re only going to get one shot at it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dauntless jumped forward under Captain Desjani’s commands, arcing over and down at her highest acceleration, Geary feeling a surge of excitement himself as the ship headed for her prey. He watched, not wanting to give orders over Desjani’s head directly to her crew, but fearing Desjani would misjudge the Syndic cruiser’s course. If they shot past the cruiser, the time required to turn and catch up would doom Titan.

  Desjani was playing it smart, though. Geary watched the course she was pushing her ship down and realized Desjani was ignoring the combat system estimates. Instead, she was bringing Dauntless down to an intercept well ahead of the path the cruiser would have to follow to get within weapon’s range of Titan. At the speed the Syndic cruiser was going, it probably wouldn’t be able to see Dauntless’s maneuver until too late to react. Unless that Syndic commander guesses Dauntless will move to an intercept. But what can they do? If they alter course they won’t pass close enough to Titan to engage her. If they slow down to screw up the course projection, my other ships will be able to get close enough to throw enough junk at the general location of that cruiser that something will be bound to hit. And they can’t speed up more because they wouldn’t be able to brake down to engagement speed in time to shoot at Titan and have any reasonable chance of a hit.

  I hope.

  Geary watched on his display as Dauntless curved down toward a point where she’d cross the projected path of the Syndic cruiser and felt a strange pang of fellowship with whoever commanded the enemy ship. They obviously knew how to drive a ship and had a well-trained crew. How long had they been out here, exiled to Corvus System, waiting for the very unlikely chance that any Alliance force would ever arrive here? How easy it would’ve been to let things slide, to assume they’d never see combat, to let the ship and the crew deteriorate. But whoever they were, they hadn’t let things slide, they’d kept their ship and crew in top shape, and the efforts had almost paid off. Might still pay off.

  The Syndic cruiser’s estimated position jerked again. “He’s going to have to start braking soon,” Desjani noted.

  Geary nodded. “Do you think he’s seen us yet?”

  “Unlikely, sir. He’s got old combat systems. They’ll be severely stressed by all the ships out here and trying to compensate for relativistic distortion at the speed he’s going. But even if he sees us, he won’t get past us,” Desjani promised in a soft voice.

  “I know.”

  Desjani grinned fiercely at Geary’s simple statement of confidence in her, but she kept her eyes on the combat display as she brought Dauntless down on the charging cruiser. Geary frowned. Dauntless had to be able to hit that enemy cruiser, but at the combined speeds of the Dauntless and the Syndic cruiser, they’d flash past each other in an instant without any chance for the targeting systems to engage. Had Desjani spotted that? Or was she so focused on reaching the enemy that she hadn’t realized what would happen? Should he say anything to Desjani? Overrule her, perhaps, in front of her crew?

  The paths of the two ships kept converging, the remaining distance to the Syndic cruiser scrolling down at a fantastic pace. Geary finally cleared his throat. “Captain—”

  But Desjani held up one hand, palm out, her eyes still riveted on the combat display. “I have it, Captain Geary.”

  He wasn’t nearly as certain as she was of that, but Geary kept his silence. It was one of those moments he recognized, when you had to either have confidence in someone or else show everyone that you lacked confidence in that person. And Desjani had seemed very capable to him.

  So Geary tried to look like he trusted her while inside he prayed to his ancestors that Desjani knew what she was doing.

  “He should be braking now.” Captain Desjani rapped out orders, pivoting Dauntless around so her main propulsion system faced forward. “All ahead full.” Dauntless shuddered as her drives started braking her own velocity, the ship’s structure groaning with stress, and Geary feeling the force pressing him hard into his seat. A high-pitched keening noise filled the air as Dauntless’s inertial dampers fought to keep the stresses on ship and crew within bearable limits.

  Dauntless’s projected course was altering quickly, bending down toward the path the Syndic cruiser had to be taking en route Titan.

  Closer. Geary tried to swallow without showing it.

  Desjani’s eyes were fixed on the display. “He should be down below point-two light now if he’s braking to engage Titan.” The image of the Syndic cruiser, only light-seconds away now in the closest thing to real time that naval engagements often saw, seemed to be very close to the course Desjani had predicted. “Set grapeshot to fire in sequence as we cross the cruiser’s estimated path,” Desjani ordered. “Charge null-field and stand-by.”

  Dauntless, still braking hard, swept across the projected path of the Syndic cruiser at an angle, its grapeshot launchers hurling out their ball bearings down that path at millisecond intervals as each crossed it.

  “Fire four specters, two to starboard and two to port.” The missiles swept out, each braking itself farther as its onboard sensors sought out a good fix on the Syndic cruiser undistorted by relativistic effects, then accelerating again toward their target.

  Desjani paused. “Fire null-field.”

  Geary watched on the display as the huge glowing ball that represented the null-field charge shot up and backward from Dauntless, toward the bottom of the Syndic cruiser’s current course.

  And suddenly the Syndic cruiser was there, the range scales scrolling downward incredibly fast as it swept forward, either still unaware of Dauntless’s actions or trusting in speed to get it past Titan’s last defender. Even though he should’ve been expecting it, knowing the cruiser had to be braking, Geary was still surprised when he realized he was looking at the stern of the cruiser as it used its massive propulsion system to slow its progress.

  Lights sparkled as the Syndic cruiser ran tail-on into the barrage of grapeshot, each ball bearing impacting the cruiser’s shields and vaporizing in a flash. The cumulative impacts slowed the cruiser as if it were plowing through a close-set succession of brick walls, even as they seriou
sly weakened its rear-facing shields. Geary watched the display, his jaw tight, thinking about how that extra deceleration was probably overwhelming the ability of the cruiser’s inertial dampers to compensate, and what effect that’d be having on her crew. But there were too many lives in the Alliance fleet riding on stopping the Syndic cruiser. I can’t let the fate of the cruiser’s crew affect my decisions. And, damn, but that was a nicely done intercept. “Very nice job, Captain Desjani.”

  Her face actually flushed with pleasure at the praise, but Desjani kept her voice dispassionate. “He’s not dead yet.”

  A moment later the cruiser raced into contact with the null-field. Weakened by the successive impacts of the grapeshot volleys, the shields flared and failed as the weapon dug a swath along one side of the fast-moving ship like a knife slashing through butter. The Syndic light cruiser reeled from its course as the charge tore a trench through a long section of the hull and partway inside. Through the glow of the gas cloud, which had been solid parts of the cruiser moments before, Geary watched with a sort of sick fascination as the crippled Syndic warship shot past above the Dauntless. In that brief moment, Geary thought he could see secondary explosions and escaping atmosphere as compartments once safely inside the cruiser were now suddenly open to space.

  He was wondering if the Dauntless would need to catch up to the Syndic cruiser in order to finish it off when the specters fired earlier came angling in from either side, their target now slowed appreciably. Somehow, a defensive system on the cruiser was still working and managed a lucky hit that made one specter flare and disappear. The specter’s companion missile went into a series of evasive maneuvers, but even as it did so the two specters on the other side looped straight into the cruiser’s beam.

  Twin explosions blossomed two-thirds of the way down the cruiser’s hull, and the ship broke apart. Moments later, the smaller aft portion erupted into a larger explosion as the power core blew it into nothingness.

  The forward part of the cruiser, crippled and torn, spun off, then took another blow as the last remaining specter rammed into it and blew a huge chunk away.

  Geary became aware that the bridge of the Dauntless was echoing with cheers. He took a deep breath, watching the remains of the Syndic cruiser tumble off into space, then tore his gaze away and saw Captain Desjani watching him, her mouth stretched in a broad, triumphant grin.

  “Why aren’t you cheering, Captain Geary?” she asked.

  Geary closed his eyes. “I never feel like cheering when brave people die, Captain Desjani. Those Syndics had to be stopped, but they fought well.”

  She shrugged, still smiling. “They’d be cheering if the shoe was on the other foot.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t model myself on the Syndics.” He nodded toward his display, not looking at her. “You did an outstanding job on that intercept, Captain Desjani. There’re no more Syndic combatants active. I’d like your recommendation on the possibility of getting boats over to the wreck.”

  “It’d be hard to intercept, and after what we did to it there’s unlikely to be anything left salvaging.”

  “There might be survivors, Captain Desjani.”

  She remained silent for a moment. “I’ll see what can be done.”

  He heard disagreement in her voice again but didn’t really care.

  FIVE

  Colonel Carabali’s image saluted Geary. “My Marines are prepared to secure the Syndic base, Captain Geary.”

  Geary looked down at the frozen world, less than a light-minute away from Dauntless now. “Make sure your Marines know that we want as little broken as possible when that base is taken. After we’ve salvaged whatever we can use from the base, we’ll destroy anything left with military potential, but I want to make sure we don’t put holes through anything we’re going to want for ourselves.”

  “They’ve been briefed to avoid collateral damage to the maximum extent possible, Captain Geary.”

  Geary started to ask if that meant they’d actually follow those orders scrupulously, then stopped himself. Unless things had changed a lot more than he could imagine, you just didn’t ask whether or not Marines would follow orders. You assumed that they did, and that was all there was to it. “Very well. Get your landing parties on the way. Arrogant, Exemplar, and Braveheart have taken out the anti-space defenses near the base and will maintain positions overhead in case you need their firepower.”

  “Thank you, Captain Geary. My Marines will have that base for you in short order. Intact,” Colonel Carabali added with a brief twist of her lips that might’ve been a smile.

  Geary leaned back, rubbing his forehead and wondering why things seemed to alternate between happening too slow and too fast with no real transition between the two states. He looked back at the display, where the ships of his fleet not involved in capturing the Syndic base had braked themselves down to .05 light. No longer facing any enemy combatants to lure them away, they were finally forming into a semblance of order. Titan and the other fleet auxiliaries had escorts again and were veering slightly above the rest of the fleet to take a direct path to the jump point they’d use to exit Corvus System several days from now.

  He frowned as his eyes rested on the battle cruisers still hastening to rejoin the rest of the fleet. How much time do I have in this system? How long would it have taken the Syndics to reorganize their fleet, to decide how much to send through the jump point after us, and to actually get into jump space? I’ve gone over this a thousand times, and it always comes down to just not having any way to know. But aside from those mines I had Duellos leave at the jump point, I don’t dare leave anything else there on guard.

  Geary studied the remaining Syndic activity in Corvus System. He could tell where the light waves showing his fleet’s arrival could be seen by watching a sphere expand at scale light speed across the depiction of the system. It was odd to think that the arrival of the fleet, and the hourslater destruction of the three Syndic ships, wouldn’t even be known by the inhabited world for some time. War had come to Corvus, but most of the inhabitants of the system would remain blissfully unaware of that for a few hours yet.

  He hadn’t heard from the Syndic commander again. Either the man was pouring over the Syndic Fleet Fighting Instructions for what to do next, or he’d died in the preliminary bombardment of the base. Thinking of the lost crews on the two Syndic ships that had fought to the death to no purpose, Geary couldn’t help hoping for the latter.

  He fiddled with his controls, finally finding one that provided reports on the Syndic base nearby. Some of the images seemed to confirm that the base had indeed been maintaining stockpiles of supplies on hand for any passing ships that needed them. It’d been a safe assumption that the supplies would still be there even if the base had been abandoned, since shipping out the matériel would’ve cost more than they were worth, and keeping those supplies deep-frozen and unaffected by weather was rarely a problem on worlds that were usually far enough from their stars to lack meaningful atmosphere. The stockpiles are supposed to be for Syndic warships, of course, but I’ve no intention of being picky at this point. I hope Syndic fleet food is better than what the Alliance serves, but I doubt it.

  Ancestors. I made a joke to myself. I wonder if I’m starting to really thaw out.

  I wonder if I want to thaw out.

  “Captain Geary.” He glanced back and saw Co-President Rione still in her seat on the bridge, her face revealing no emotions. “Do you believe all Syndic resistance in the Corvus System has been eliminated?”

  “No.” Geary gestured at the display before his chair, wondering how much of it Rione could see. “As you’ve seen, our Marines are in the process of taking the military base on the fourth world. There’s a couple of military bases around the second world, that’s the inhabited one. They don’t even know we’re here yet.”

  “Will they be a threat to the fleet?”

  “No. They’re obsolete and designed to defend the planet, which we have no interest in messin
g with. I don’t intend bothering with them if I can help it.”

  Captain Desjani gave Geary a surprised look. “We should eliminate all Syndic military capability in this system.”

  “Those fortresses aren’t any threat to us and wouldn’t be worth the Syndics moving anywhere else,” Geary replied. “But I’d have to divert some ships to take them out, expend weapons in the process, and worry about damage to civilian targets on the planet from any pieces of the fortresses that enter atmosphere.”

  “I see.” Desjani nodded. “There’s no sense in using up our limited supply of weapons on them, and you don’t want to split up the fleet.”

  “Right.” Geary gave no sign he’d noticed Desjani didn’t acknowledge the point about civilian casualties. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rione watching them both intently.

  The Co-President gestured toward Geary’s display. “You’ve recalled the forces guarding the jump point?”

  “Yes. If anything comes through there now, it’ll almost certainly be too powerful for my battle cruisers to handle, and I’m not prepared to sacrifice them or any other ships just to blunt the nose of a Syndic pursuit force.”

  Rione studied the display again. “You don’t think they could retreat quickly enough to rejoin us?”

  “No, Madam Co-President, I don’t.” Geary moved his finger across the display as he spoke. “You see, anything coming out of the jump point will probably be at pursuit speed. Say point one light, just like we were. While they were on guard, my battle cruisers were matching the movement of the jump point in the system, but that’s a lot slower. The Syndics would have a big speed advantage, too big for my battle cruisers, or any ship in this fleet, to overcome before they got battered into wrecks.”