Courageous tlf-3

by Jack Campbell

  “Thanks.” Geary hesitated, not knowing how to phrase the obvious next question.

  “What’s done is done,” Rione stated softly. “What I first told you remains true—my heart will always remain another’s. But nothing has really changed. Even if my husband still lives, he’s just as lost to me, and me to him, as if death had claimed him. My duty will be to the Alliance. I know you need me.”

  That sounded wrong. “Madam Co-President—”

  “Victoria.”

  It had been a while since she was Victoria to him. “Victoria, I need your advice, and I value your companionship. There’s nothing I can ask of you beyond that.”

  “My honor is already compromised, John Geary. I have to do what I think best from this point on. And I have missed you. It’s not entirely a matter of duty.”

  “That’s nice to hear.”

  “I didn’t mean to make it sound so impersonal. Will you have me? I’m not drunk. I … need you.”

  He regarded her in the dimness, barely seeing the shape of her face. She sounded sincere. Yet if Rione’s highest priority was saving the Alliance from Black Jack, then she’d want to have him sleeping next to her again. She knew he’d received the offer that she had predicted he’d get someday. And she knew he felt tempted by that offer. Was it a coincidence that she’d finally unbent toward him again on the night of the same day on which Captain Badaya had offered him a dictatorship with the backing of what was claimed to be a majority of the fleet?

  Did she truly want him, or was she willing to do whatever it took to be able to act if the time came, or was she hitching herself firmly to his power, an amoral politician ensuring she’d be the consort of the possible future ruler of the Alliance?

  Victoria Rione stood up, her clothing falling down around her feet, then walked across the short distance separating them and molded herself against his body. As her lips met his, Geary realized that at some level he didn’t care what the answer was as long as she was in his bed again. As she pushed him down and straddled his body, he realized he didn’t care if she had a knife in her free hand at that very moment.

  “All ships prepare to jump.” The star Daiquon wasn’t much more than a bright point of light to the naked eye now. The fleet had been in Formation Kilo One for days now, ready for anything when they arrived at Ixion. Or so he hoped.

  Victoria Rione was in the observer’s chair on the bridge of Dauntless again, watching the action as if there had never been an interval in which she avoided the bridge. Desjani had greeted Rione politely but with what Geary thought was an undercurrent of worry. For Rione’s part, Geary had suspected he caught a gleam of triumph in her eyes as she acknowledged Desjani’s welcome. But that was certainly just his imagination, wrought to a fever pitch by worries about what awaited them at Ixion.

  “All units in the Alliance fleet, upon arrival at Ixion, immediately execute all preordered maneuvers and engage any enemy warships within range. Jump for Ixion now.”

  Slightly less than four days in jump space to Ixion. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but Geary found himself increasingly unhappy with the intervals in jump space. Given the risks they were running, he wished going to Ixion were bringing them closer to Alliance space than it was. Instead of offering a chance to rest and think without the pressure of an immediate Syndic threat, the jump space time felt more and more like wasted periods, the hours and days dragging by while nothing changed outside the ship. Nothing ever had changed outside a ship in jump space, of course, but now that bothered him. He wanted to do something. Confront the Syndics, beat them once and for all in battle, find out the truth about the alien intelligences he and Rione suspected lurked on the other side of Syndic space, and end this damned war.

  The fact that he had no chance of actually accomplishing those things even in real space didn’t seem to make a difference to the frustration he felt. And he was coming to recognize that in jump space he had more dreams about the past, dreams with people he had known who were now long dead. It wasn’t pleasant to wake up from a dream holding a conversation with an old friend and realize the old friend would never speak with him again. Not in this life, anyway.

  At least he didn’t have to spend this interval in jump space making guilty and sporadic attempts to locate Victoria Rione to learn how she was doing. Rione came to his stateroom every evening and spent every night, her lovemaking seeming to mix passion and desperation in equal measure. When not in bed with him, though, she continued to hide her innermost self, revealing neither passion nor desperation nor anything else.

  Geary distracted himself by running simulations, trying to guess what Ixion would hold, what the fleet would have to do there. But it was all guesswork, and only arrival at Ixion would reveal any answers.

  Geary tried to focus his attention on the display as the time to leave jump space at Ixion approached. Right now all it showed was what had been in the obsolete Syndic records they had looted a dozen star systems ago. The data, several decades old, showed a relatively prosperous system with a nearly ideal planet holding a very respectable population and a lot of off-planet activity and facilities. The records, intended for use by merchant ships, contained nothing about defense capabilities except various standard warnings to do exactly as told if contacted by military authorities.

  “Is something wrong, sir?” Captain Desjani asked.

  “Just wondering what’s there,” Geary confessed. “And wondering why a star system this well off didn’t get a hypernet gate.”

  Victoria Rione answered from her position in the observer’s chair, once again watching and listening to what happened on Dauntless’s bridge. “It could have been politics. In the Alliance, many more planets wanted hypernet gates than there were funds to construct them, and past a certain point, the practical differences between worlds were very minor. Then it became a question of whose politicians could outmaneuver the others.”

  Desjani, her face turned away from Rione but visible to Geary, rolled her eyes in silent commentary on politicians. Geary managed to keep a straight face, nodding in such a way that Rione but hopefully not Desjani would read it as agreement.

  “Stand by to exit jump,” a watch-stander called. “Five … four … three … two … one … exit.”

  Grayness was replaced by black space and white stars, quiet by pulsing alarms as Dauntless’s sensors picked up enemy warships nearby. Simultaneously, Geary felt himself pressed back as the battle cruiser’s maneuvering systems executed the preplanned minefield evasion, shoving the bow upward and pushing so hard with the main drives that the inertial dampers couldn’t quite block all of the effects on ship and crew.

  Next time, the Syndics might try placing the minefield above the jump exit. But this time Geary stretched his mouth in a fierce grin as he saw his fleet angling upward in as tight a turn as the ships could manage at the fleet’s velocity. Sensors doing full-spectrum scans of the space around the fleet picked up the small anomalies that marked stealth mines and marked out a minefield along the path the fleet would have taken straight from the exit. Geary did a quick estimate in his head and decided that if the fleet had come through at a higher speed, it couldn’t have turned in time to avoid the mines.

  Ignoring the rest of the star system, he focused on the area within a few light-minutes of the jump exit. It took a moment to believe what he was seeing: the worst case he’d assumed wouldn’t really happen in this form, even though he’d prepared for it. Just on the far side of the minefield, Syndic warships waited. Four battleships and six battle cruisers, plus an even eight heavy cruisers but only three light cruisers and barely a dozen HuKs, in a concave-disk formation focused on the center of the jump exit. Anything coming through the minefield would have run right into those warships while shields were still weakened, before damage could be completely assessed, let alone corrected. But…“They’re only a light-minute away and at dead stop relative to the jump exit,” Desjani gasped in amazement.

  “They’ve seen Captain Geary b
reaking the rules,” Rione observed dryly.

  Desjani shot Rione a look, then nodded. “The Syndic high command has seen new ways of fighting, but doesn’t really understand them. Just as we wouldn’t have understood what we were seeing if the Syndics had found a commander with knowledge of past fighting methods. Now the Syndics think the way to beat us is by doing similar things but pushing them past the points they’ve seen the Alliance fleet using.”

  “You think that’s what’s happening?” Geary asked.

  “I know it,” Desjani stated. “We would have done the same. I’m sure of that. But they’re missing the point if they go to extremes. It’s one thing to be close to a jump exit so you can charge into and hit an exiting enemy after you’ve had time to size him up. It’s another thing entirely to be too close to have time to react and without any relative speed advantage!”

  “Yeah,” Geary agreed, pleased that Desjani had not only analyzed the Syndic approach but had also displayed awareness of the weaknesses her own side might have had. “Our fleet has a speed advantage already. Not a lot, but with the two forces this close, no one has time to accelerate much before the opposing warships reach engagement range.”

  The leading boxes of ships in the Alliance formation were clearing the top of the minefield. Geary saw the Syndics begin to accelerate and rotate their formation so that it would center on the leading units of his fleet, and he called out commands to frustrate the move. “All units in the Alliance fleet, accelerate to point one light speed, alter course up two zero degrees. Immediate execute.”

  The Alliance formation angled even farther back, moving almost vertical now relative to the plane of the Ixion Star System. The ships farthest back in the formation, those just entering normal space and still in their initial turns, wouldn’t be able to match the farther turn and would end up slightly out of position, but that wasn’t important.

  The Syndic disk was flattening out as the big warships in the center of their formation accelerated faster than the small vessels around the rim. “They should have had the battleships and battle cruisers around the rim,” Geary remarked, “instead of in the center.”

  “But they expected us to come at their center,” Desjani objected. “Their major combatants would never have accepted roles on the periphery of the formation, leaving the lighter units the honor of being the objects of our assault.”

  Okay, so even Desjani was still thinking in current ways about tactics focused on satisfying the honor of individual commanders rather than winning a battle. Thank the living stars the Syndics have become as dumb about combat tactics as the Alliance.

  The Syndics, seeing Geary’s maneuver, tilted their formation again, swinging it and aiming for where the lower corner of the Alliance formation would be. They were trying to do a glancing blow at the unsupported units just as Captain Cresida had done with Task Force Furious at Sancere, Geary realized, but without the high relative speeds that Cresida had taken advantage of. Just as Desjani had noted with the placing of ships close to the jump exit, the Syndics were trying to copy what Geary’s fleet was doing but failing to grasp the basic concepts. At much slower relative speeds like this, the Syndics were setting themselves up to be hammered.

  And he had every intention of doing just that. Geary waited as the trailing units in his formation cleared the upper edge of the minefield. “All units, pivot formation one one zero degrees down at time one seven. Alter course down one one zero degrees, port two zero degrees, time one eight.”

  The Syndics were still aiming for where the lower corner of the Alliance formation would be, their velocity still less than half that of the Alliance ships, when time one seven came and the Alliance ships brought their bows down, aiming the formation at the Syndics’ planned track through space. As the Alliance ships accelerated onto their new course, the broad side of the box containing the Alliance subformations headed toward a point centered on the expected Syndic position.

  The Syndic commander may or may not have been a fool, but the tactical situation left him or her few options now, and none of them were good. “Do you think he’ll try maneuvering again?” Desjani asked cheerfully as Dauntless’s targeting systems locked onto an oncoming Syndic battle cruiser. With the changes in aspect of the formation, the block of ships containing Dauntless in the center of the Alliance box was now close to the point where the Syndic formation would pass through the Alliance formation, and it appeared certain that Dauntless would draw blood.

  “If he tries weaving through our formation, he might confuse our aim enough—” Geary broke off. “What the hell?”

  The Syndic formation began to pivot on its axis again, simultaneously altering course down and to one side, but a heavy cruiser and a battle cruiser missed their movements and had to dodge frantically to avoid each other. In its desperate avoidance maneuvers, the heavy cruiser sent another battle cruiser into a wild twist up and to one side, then stumbled directly across the path of one of the Syndic battleships.

  There should have been time for even the massive battleship to avoid collision, but its evasive actions were late and too small. The battleship sideswiped the heavy cruiser at a fairly low relative velocity that still measured in hundreds of kilometers per second, turning the smaller ship into a ball of vapor and fragments, collapsing the battleship’s shields and sending the heavier ship flailing sideways with its port side blown away.

  A light cruiser, scrambling to avoid the stricken battleship, slammed into a HuK, annihilating both ships.

  Within the span of a few minutes, the Syndic formation had lost three ships, seen a fourth crippled, and degenerated into a chaotic mess still accelerating to contact with the Alliance fleet.

  “Don’t any of them know how to drive a ship?” Geary asked, appalled at seeing even enemy ships wiped out that way.

  “No,” Desjani replied, jubilant. “They’re barely trained. We’ve been inflicting so many losses on the Syndics that they’ve been rushing new units into action. Congratulations, sir.”

  Congratulations. It didn’t seem the right term for what would have been a one-sided battle but would now be a slaughter. The Syndic warships weren’t even trying to regain their formation but were instead attempting to scatter. If they’d been far enough away from the Alliance fleet, or if they’d had a good speed advantage, they might have succeeded.

  But they were close, and the Alliance fleet was moving twice as fast as they were. “All units, engage targets of opportunity. Open fire as weapons enter engagement envelopes. Conserve expendable munitions.”

  The Alliance box swept across the scattered tangle of Syndic ships. A few volleys of specter missiles flashed away from Alliance ships, homing on Syndic targets. The battle cruiser being targeted by Dauntless tried accelerating straight through the Alliance formation, not even attempting any evasive maneuvers, which made it a perfect target for grapeshot patterns from Dauntless, Daring, and Victorious.

  The impact of the grapeshot on the Syndic battle cruiser’s bow shields created a series of incandescent flashes as the metal ball bearings vaporized on impact. The shields collapsed under the multiple blows, allowing the last part of Victorious’s grapeshot volley to hit the bow armor of the Syndic, pitting it with more flares of light, heat, and metal turned to gas. The follow-up volleys of hell lances from all three Alliance battle cruisers ripped lengthwise through the Syndic battle cruiser, knocking out every system and probably killing most of the crew.

  Geary let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, then cursed as he realized that he’d been focused on the single engagement with the closest battle cruiser instead of watching the wider battle.

  Most of the Syndic warships had been crippled already. Three surviving HuKs were trying to clear the Alliance box, veering wildly to avoid fire coming from all sides. Two of the battleships had staggered through most of the Alliance box, their shields in rags and their armor penetrated by multiple hits. As Geary watched, one of the battleships took two specter missiles up the stern
and lost its remaining propulsion capability.

  He couldn’t get the rest of the Syndics while holding his fleet together. Geary activated one circuit, broadcasting to the Syndics. “All Syndic units are called upon to surrender now. Drop shields and deactivate weapons immediately, or you’ll be destroyed.” He switched to another circuit to call his own ships. “All units in the Alliance fleet with the exception of Subformation Kilo One Nine and Subformation Kilo One Ten, general pursuit. Break formation and engage the enemy at will.”

  The damaged ships with the auxiliaries in Subformation Kilo One Nine and the battleships of the Second Battleship Division at the core of Subformation Kilo One Ten wouldn’t like that, Geary knew, and within moments a call came in from Indomitable. “Sir, why aren’t we being allowed to join in the pursuit?”

  “Because I need you to ensure that no Syndics try a suicide charge at the damaged ships in Kilo One Nine. You’re positioned to guard those ships, and they’re counting on you.” The auxiliaries were also counting on them, but Geary knew the battleships would be more likely to accept a role of escorting their fellow heavy combatants.

  “Orion, Majestic, and Warrior can hold off anything the Syndics have surviving,” Indomitable’s captain argued.

  He really didn’t want to debate the issue, especially since the Second Battleship Division was six light-seconds away, making the conversation drawn out by delays in every exchange of messages. He wanted to keep an eye on the battle. How to shut down the complaints? “There is greater honor in protecting an injured comrade than in seeking glory, Captain,” Geary stated. “I believe that Indomitable and the other battleships of the Second Division are worthy of that honor and can be trusted to carry it out with steadfast courage.”

  Indomitable’s captain blinked as if surprised. “I—”