Valiant tlf-4

by Jack Campbell

  His gaze came to rest on the display of Lakota Star System. So many Syndic warships. But the Syndics had been hurt during the last engagement, too. It had been impossible to be sure how badly hurt with the final hours a flurry of battles throwing out debris that blocked the views of sensors. He couldn’t even know what losses the Alliance battleships Defiant, Audacious, and Indefatigable had inflicted in their last moments of life as they held off the Syndics long enough for the rest of the fleet to escape.

  How confident had the Syndic commander been that the Alliance fleet was truly beaten this time and would only keep fleeing blindly? How many Syndic warships had pursued the Alliance fleet to Ixion, and how many had been left behind to guard against the unlikely (or insane, depending on the viewpoint) possibility that Alliance warships would quickly return to Lakota? The only way to answer those questions would be to stick the fleet’s head in the lion’s mouth and see what shape the lion’s teeth were in.

  He checked the time again. In four and a half more hours, they’d know.

  Dauntless’s bridge had grown comfortingly familiar since his first time here in the wake of Admiral Bloch’s death. Not the physical layout, which now seemed natural, but the equipment both more advanced than he’d once known and cruder in its outward appearance, the triumph of necessity over form. A century ago, on Geary’s last ship, everything had been smooth, with clean lines and careful attention to outward show. But that ship had been designed and built with the expectation that it would serve for decades, one of comparatively few warships in a fleet not engaged in combat. Dauntless, on the other hand, reflected generations of warships constructed hastily to replace increasingly horrible losses, with an expected life span measured in a couple of years at best. Rough edges, ragged welds, uneven surfaces were good enough for a ship that might be destroyed in its first engagement, to be quickly replaced by another bearing the same name. Geary still hadn’t gotten used to the expendable-ship philosophy born of ugly experience, which those rough edges broadcast.

  Expendable ships and expendable crews. So much knowledge of tactics had been lost in a century of trained personnel dying before they could pass on their learning and experience to new generations of sailors. Battles had degenerated into slugging matches, with head-on charges and hideous losses. It had been far easier to accept the roughness of the edges on the ship than it had to been to accept the kind of combat casualties this fleet had regarded as routine.

  But he’d kept Dauntless and her crew alive all the way from the Syndic home system to here, coming to know them until they were a comfort instead of a jarring reminder of those long dead. The watch-standers he had come to recognize and know by name, the amateurs he’d helped keep alive long enough for them to gain experience. Most of Dauntless’s crew had come from the planet Kosatka, a place Geary had visited once, literally more than a hundred years ago. Alone in this future, he’d come to see them as a family to partly replace what he had lost.

  Captain Desjani smiled at him in greeting as Geary strode onto the bridge and dropped into his fleet command seat, positioned next to Desjani’s own ship’s captain command seat. She’d startled him at first, too, with her bloodthirstiness toward the enemy and willingness to accept tactics that appalled Geary. But he’d come to understand the reasons for her attitudes, and she’d listened to him and adopted beliefs closer to those of her ancestors. Besides which, his ancestors knew what a capable captain she was and how well she could handle her ship in action. Now Desjani’s presence was undeniably the most comforting thing on this bridge. “We’re ready, Captain Geary,” she reported.

  “I never doubted that.” He tried to breathe calmly, look confident, speak with assurance. Even though he dreaded what might be awaiting this fleet when it left the jump point at Lakota, he knew he was always being watched by officers and sailors whose own confidence depended on what they saw in him.

  “Five minutes to exit,” the operations watch-stander announced.

  Captain Desjani not only appeared calm and confident, she actually seemed to feel that way. But then Desjani always seemed to get more serene as combat and the chance to blow away Syndics drew closer. Now she looked at Geary and smiled tightly. “We’ve got some comrades to avenge in this star system.”

  “Yeah,” Geary agreed, wondering whether or not Captain Mosko had survived the death of his battleship Defiant. Not likely. But Mosko was just one among many Alliance sailors who might have survived to be taken prisoner at Lakota. In addition to four battleships and a battle cruiser, the Alliance fleet had lost two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and four destroyers fighting the Syndics at Lakota. Maybe we’ll get a chance to liberate some of them. The Syndics shouldn’t have been in any hurry to move those prisoners anywhere, so maybe some are still where we can reach them.

  The hatch to the bridge opened, and Geary looked back to see Rione taking the observer’s seat in the back. Her eyes met his, she nodded at him with a cool expression, then Rione sat back to gaze at her own display. Desjani, apparently busy with her own work, didn’t turn to greet Rione, and for her part the Alliance politician didn’t seem to take notice.

  “Two minutes to exit.”

  Desjani turned back to Geary. “Do you wish to address the crew, sir?”

  Did he? “Yes.” Geary paused to gather his thoughts. He’d had far too much experience with giving speeches before battles since assuming command of the fleet. Triggering the internal comm circuit, he put every effort into sounding upbeat. “Officers and crew of Dauntless, I am once more honored to be leading this fleet and this ship into combat. We expect to encounter Syndic defenders immediately upon exiting jump. I know we’ll make them sorry they met us, and we won’t leave Lakota without avenging our comrades who were lost here. To the honor of our ancestors.”

  Another announcement came on the heels of his closing sentence. “Thirty seconds to exit.”

  Desjani’s voice rang through the bridge. “All combat systems active. Shields at maximum. Prepare to engage the enemy.”

  “Exit.”

  The gray emptiness of jump space went away in an instant’s time, replaced by the star-filled darkness of normal space. The Syndic minefield was still there, of course, but Dauntless and the other Alliance ships were already turning upward sharply as they exited the jump point, maneuvering to avoid the mines. Geary scanned his display anxiously, praying that the Syndics hadn’t laid more mines outside the jump point.

  The star-system display had been frozen, showing the situation as it had existed in this star system when the fleet jumped out less than two weeks ago, the enemy-ship positions shown all tagged with “last-known-position” markers, which really meant “it could be anywhere except this exact location.” Now the old ship symbols disappeared in a flurry of updates as the fleet’s sensors scanned their surroundings and made identifications.

  Geary squinted, trying to take it all in. There weren’t any defenders right at the jump exit, but there were Syndic ships scattered all over the system it seemed. Lots of them. He had a momentary sinking feeling as he saw the numbers of enemy warships still within Lakota. Had he truly jumped right back into the teeth of superior enemy forces?

  Then he focused on the identifying data and readiness assessments and saw a very different picture. The big cluster of Syndic ships located ten light-minutes from the jump exit consisted in great part of large numbers of repair ships, and the warships in it were all damaged significantly, with many systems evaluated as off-line while they were being fixed. The entire formation, a flattened sphere, was limping in-system at barely point zero two light speed.

  The next largest formation, almost thirty light-minutes from the jump exit, had a mix of fully operational and slightly damaged warships, but only four battleships and two battle cruisers were among them.

  All over the expanse of Lakota Star System between the jump exit and the inhabited world were other Syndic ships. Less badly damaged but still mauled Syndic warships crawling toward the orbital do
cks, freighters hauling supplies, civilian ships crossing between planets. Scores of sitting ducks, with too few guards standing sentry over them to stop the Alliance fleet from bagging every one within reach.

  Desjani let out a gasp of pure pleasure. “Captain Geary, we are going to hurt them.”

  “Looks like it.” His own formation was a jumbled mess, but he couldn’t take time to sort it out now. He had a lead on the main Syndic pursuit force which had followed them to Ixion, but they’d come back through this jump exit sooner or later, and he didn’t want the damaged Syndic warships and all of those helpless repair ships to get away.

  As if reading his mind, Desjani pointed to the depictions of the enemy repair ships. “Preliminary assessments are they’re pretty heavily loaded. They won’t be able to run fast even if they can break away from the ships they’ve been fixing up.”

  “Too bad our own auxiliaries can run faster because they’re not heavily loaded,” Geary remarked, then he and Desjani exchanged a glance as the same idea apparently hit them both. “Is there any chance we can take those Syndic repair ships intact? We can’t use any spares they’ve manufactured, but if they’ve got raw-material stockpiles on board, we can transfer those to our auxiliaries.”

  Desjani rubbed the back of her neck with one hand as she thought. “You’d think the Syndics would set the power cores on them to overload when they abandon ship. Lieutenant Nicodeom,” she called to one of the watch-standers. “You’re an engineer. Will they blow up those repair ships when we close to engage?”

  The lieutenant frowned at his own display for a moment. “Blowing up a ship by core overload is done when recovery is judged highly unlikely, Captain. We don’t blow up our own ships, no matter how badly damaged, in a star system we control. As far as I know, the Syndics follow the same policy.”

  “And this is a Syndic star system!” Desjani turned an enthusiastic look on Geary. “They’ll abandon ship when we shoot them up, but leave the ships intact. They know we can’t stay in this system, so they’ll want the ships recoverable once we leave, and they don’t know we want to loot them. We just have to make sure they don’t realize we’re seizing some of the repair ships intact until we’ve got as many as we need.”

  “Okay.” Geary tried to calm himself. It seemed too good to be true, but it still wouldn’t be easy to carry it out. “We can send most of the destroyers and light cruisers after the damaged Syndic warships proceeding independently, and send our battleships and battle cruisers toward the repair ships and the crippled warships with them. Some of those damaged Syndic warships could have substantial firepower available if they manage to get combat systems back online before we intercept. But we also need to hit the operational Syndic flotilla thirty minutes away hard, so they—” Something finally registered on him. “There’s nothing at the hypernet gate. The Syndics pulled their guard flotilla out of there.”

  Desjani’s breath caught. “Can we—? No, we can’t reach the gate before that guard force does. They haven’t seen us yet”—and they wouldn’t until the light from the fleet’s arrival reached them in about twenty-six more minutes—“but when they do, they’ll still have too big a lead.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Geary agreed. Normally, an enemy hypernet gate wouldn’t be an option, impossible to use, but Dauntless carried a Syndic hypernet key provided by the supposed Syndic traitor who had helped lure the Alliance fleet deep into Syndic space and the ambush awaiting it in the Syndic home star system. The Syndics, knowing they couldn’t allow the Alliance fleet to get home with that key, had already proven they would destroy their own hypernet gates before the Alliance fleet could use them.

  Which wasn’t merely disappointing but also very dangerous. “We could still risk it,” Desjani argued. “If we do fail to stop them from destroying that gate, we could deal with it. The energy discharge from the collapsing gate at Sancere wasn’t too much for our shields to handle.”

  Geary shook his head. “Nova, Captain Desjani,” he stated very softly for only her ears. Desjani grimaced and nodded. According to the best estimates they had, the energy output released by a collapsing hypernet gate could vary from effectively nothing to something equaling a nova, an exploding star. No ship could survive that, or outrun it. “No, the gate isn’t a realistic goal.”

  He hadn’t told her yet that the Alliance fleet might have its destination changed once within the Syndic hypernet system, hadn’t told any of his ship captains. That would have to change. Some of his other officers, including Desjani, needed to know that they had other enemies besides the Syndics actively working against them. “We’ve only got a short time to do a lot before the Syndic pursuit force gets here from Ixion. We need to overwhelm that big force of crippled ships and auxiliaries, take out as many other Syndic ships as we can, get our own auxiliaries in to loot the Syndic repair ships, protect our auxiliaries from any desperate Syndic counterstroke, and, uh …”

  “That sounds like enough to start,” Desjani observed.

  His fleet, a disordered mass of ships, was “climbing” up between the Syndic minefield and the jump point behind them, still moving at only point zero five light speed. There wasn’t any actual up or down in space, of course, but humans needed those concepts to orient themselves. By long-standing convention, the direction above the plane of the star system was up, the direction beneath it down, toward the sun was starboard (or starward), and away from the sun was port. Those conventions were the only way he could give an order to all of his ships and have them understand what he meant.

  By the time the fleet reached a place where it could accelerate back “down” and toward the enemy, orders had to be in place for them, telling each ship where to go. He had to set everything up on the fly, with every moment critical. If only he didn’t have to do so much himself … Why the hell did he need to do so much himself? Why not trust an officer he knew was good at her business and had been watching him work for months now? “Captain Desjani, would you set up the maneuvering plan for the destroyers and light cruisers while I take care of the heavies? We’ll need to have our boarding parties able to reach as many of the Syndic repair ships as possible at about the same time.”

  Desjani’s face lit up and she nodded without hesitation. “I’m on it, sir. I’ll link our maneuvering displays so we’re coordinating movements as we lay them out.” She leaned forward and studied her display, then her hands began flying across her controls.

  Focusing on his own display, Geary tried to sort out where his heavy cruisers, battleships, and battle cruisers were, where he needed them to go, and when he needed them to be there. His divisions were scrambled, further complicating the situation, and many ships still had limited combat capabilities from damage sustained the last time they were in Lakota. Practically all of them were back at full propulsion capability, but even with his experience with choreographing the movements of ships, he never could have sorted out the mess in the time available if not for the way the maneuvering systems provided simple intercept solutions as fast as he could designate a ship and an objective. While he did that, solutions appeared for light cruisers and destroyers as well, reflecting Desjani’s work, and he found himself adapting to her inputs even as she adapted to his.

  “Audacious is with that big group of Syndic repair ships and damaged warships,” Desjani noted quickly. “What’s left of her, anyway.”

  What was left of Audacious wasn’t much, Geary saw as he focused on the derelict. His fleet’s optic sensors were sensitive enough to track small objects across the length of a star system and could easily provide a sharp image of something only ten light-minutes distant. With all of its command, control, and combat systems dead, and its hull shape distorted by massive damage, the hulk hadn’t registered immediately on the fleet’s sensors as a friendly warship. The Alliance battleship, one of the three that had formed a rear guard as the fleet escaped Lakota, had been pounded badly. Her heavily armored hull had taken so many hits that it looked like sheet metal that had been p
elted by acid rain and left to disintegrate. Either during the battle or afterward, every weapon on Audacious seemed to have been destroyed, and not a single propulsion unit was apparently capable of any thrust. But the Syndics were towing the hulk along with them. “What are they doing? Why have they got Audacious with them?”

  Desjani frowned, then her expression cleared. “Prison barracks. See? There’s heat and atmosphere leaking out, which means the Syndics have patched some compartments and kept life support up. I’d be willing to bet that Audacious is full of Alliance prisoners of war. They’re probably using them for the heavy labor on those Syndic ships that need repair.”

  “Damn.” Adjust the plan. They’d have to take what was left of the broken Alliance battleship, too, before … “Tanya, would they blow the power core on Audacious?”

  She nodded, her face grim. “We’ve done it. They’ve done it. They’re surely already preparing to do it again.”

  Nothing to lose, then. One of his greatest shocks had been seeing Alliance fleet personnel preparing to cold-bloodedly murder prisoners of war by blowing up their captured ship with them still aboard. This fleet, his fleet, would no longer do such a thing, but the Syndics hadn’t had any such change of heart that Geary knew of. He need have no fear of putting a thought into the Syndics’ heads that hadn’t already occurred to them. Geary paused in his work and tapped the communications controls. “All Syndicate Worlds’ personnel in Lakota Star System, this is Captain John Geary, the Alliance fleet commander. Be advised that if the Alliance prisoners of war on the battleship Audacious or on any other ship or location are murdered by core overload or other atrocity, I will ensure that every Syndicate Worlds’ ship, shuttle, and escape pod in this star system is destroyed. Leave our prisoners alive, and I swear on my ancestors’ honor that you’ll be allowed to escape. Kill our prisoners, and I promise just as strongly that you will die as painful a death as I can arrange.” It would take about ten minutes for that message to arrive at the Syndic formation containing Audacious, soon after the Syndics there saw the light announcing the arrival of the Alliance fleet. Hopefully that would be soon enough.