Valiant tlf-4

by Jack Campbell

  “That should get their attention,” Desjani muttered, her eyes on her display again, her hands racing over the controls.

  Geary refocused on his own task, now ensuring he had the remains of Audacious covered as well. The task seemed to take forever, great curves arching across the maneuvering display in an interleaving and intricate dance, even though he knew it was taking only seconds to plan the movements of numerous ships.

  “Got it,” Desjani gasped.

  Tagging a last heavy cruiser and reading the maneuvering solution the system generated, Geary nodded. “Me, too. Double-check our work while I go over it, too, okay? Make sure we’ve got the heavies and the lighter ships coordinated enough to support each other where needed.”

  “Halfway done, sir.”

  He ran his eyes across his and Desjani’s work, seeing the graceful arcs of projected ship courses streaking across space, the whole thing forming a picture of beauty that belied the deadly purpose behind it. The movements of the destroyers and cruisers didn’t match the courses with the heavier ships perfectly, but everything worked and could be cleaned up in the time needed to close to contact with the enemy. He’d wondered if Desjani would just throw ships at the enemy, but she’d coordinated every movement so warships were working together in improvised formations that tried to maximize the combat capability of each ship. Clearly Desjani had not just been watching Geary control this fleet, but also learning from watching. Taken together, their work made the most of the current state of the fleet by dividing the bulk of it into about twelve subformations, each centered on at least one battle cruiser or battleship division. “Looks good. Looks very good.”

  “Same here, sir.”

  “Has that Syndic guard force reacted to us yet?”

  “Not yet. They won’t see us for another … nineteen minutes.”

  It was hard to believe that they had only been in Lakota Star System for eleven minutes. There wasn’t any way to counter a reaction that hadn’t happened yet, and waiting to see what the Syndics did would certainly be a mistake when every minute counted. Geary punched his controls again.

  “All units in the Alliance fleet, this is Captain Geary. Maneuvering plan orders are being transmitted to you now. Execute immediately upon receipt. It is critically important that we gain control of as many Syndic repair ships as possible before they realize we’re out to capture those ships instead of just shooting them up, so all units engaged in taking down enemy repair ships must adhere as closely as possible to the time line. It’s also critical that we not accidentally trigger a core explosion on one of the Syndic repair ships. We assume there are Alliance prisoners of war aboard the wreck of Audacious, so ensure no fire hits the wreck. All other units, try to inflict maximum damage on Syndic units that come within range. We want to leave as little as possible for them to salvage. Use hell lances as much as possible and employ expendable munitions only when absolutely necessary.”

  He switched to another circuit, to the commander of the Marines embarked on his major combatants. “Colonel Carabali, work with the commanders of the warships going after the Syndic repair ships to ensure their boarding parties have Marine backup. Also prepare an assault force to retake the wreck of Audacious and liberate any prisoners. Time is critical. I’ve sent you a copy of the fleet maneuvering plan, so you’ll know which of our ships are going near Audacious. You have authority to use shuttle assets from any of those ships except our own auxiliaries to get your Marines to Audacious and evacuate prisoners. Any questions?”

  “No, sir,” Carabali answered crisply. “I’ll have my plan ready for your approval within half an hour.”

  “Thank you, Colonel. I may well be distracted dealing with Syndic warships and the overall situation. If you don’t hear from me, assume the plan is approved and proceed with executing it.”

  “Command by negation, sir?” the Marine colonel asked in surprise.

  “That’s right. You’re my landing force commander, and you’ve proven you’re good at it. Get to work and let me know if you need more fleet assets dedicated to the task.”

  Carabali nodded, not quite suppressing a grin, then she saluted sharply. “Yes, sir!”

  On to a third circuit, calling the commanding officer of Witch, who was also commander of the Fast Fleet Auxiliaries division comprised of Witch, Goblin, Jinn, and Titan. “Captain Tyrosian, we intend taking control of as many Syndic repair ships as possible. We need to loot their raw-materials bunkers as fast as we can. Is there some kind of conveyor we can run from our ships to the Syndic bunkers?”

  Five light-seconds away, Tyrosian seemed dazed, blinking at Geary, then abruptly jerked into speech. “We have loading conveyors, but our systems won’t mate with their systems, sir. Incompatible, by design of course. We’ll have to use the Syndic conveyors to get the materials to a loading point, then transfer them to our conveyors. The transfer will cause a significant delay.”

  Geary gritted his teeth and turned to Desjani again. “The conveyor systems on our auxiliaries won’t mate with the Syndic conveyors accessing their raw-materials bunkers.”

  “Blow the Syndic hulls open and run our conveyors right into the bunkers,” Desjani suggested in a “the-solution-is-obvious” tone of voice.

  “Excellent idea.” Geary repeated it to Tyrosian.

  “That will inflict some structural damage, sir—” Tyrosian began.

  “We only need those Syndic repair ships to hold together until we get what we want off them! After that I don’t care if they break into a million pieces because of the structural damage from the holes we blew through them. Hell, I want them to do that so the Syndics can’t salvage them. Get your engineers ready to go. We need the raw materials onloaded fast. Will you need assistance from the Marines in blowing access holes through the Syndic ships?”

  Tyrosian managed to look offended. “Engineers are better at demolishing things than Marines are,” she declared.

  “I’ll arrange a contest sometime, Captain Tyrosian. Execute your orders and let me know immediately if you run into any trouble.”

  Geary slumped back, breathing heavily, amazed at how quickly they’d been able to put the plan together. He glanced over at Desjani again and saw her also leaning back, grinning at him, her face slightly reddened as if she’d just sprinted to finish a race. “Captain Desjani, has anybody ever told you that you’re a damned fine fleet officer?”

  Desjani’s grin widened. “Thank you, sir.”

  As Geary caught his breath, he marveled at the experience. He and Desjani had worked together many times before, but never this well. Anticipating each other, supporting each other, setting up the movements for the fleet together. The closest thing he could compare it to was having sex without having sex.

  He took another look at Desjani’s flushed, happy face and wondered if that metaphor wasn’t a bit too close for comfort. Her eyes caught his, her smile faded into an anxious expression, and she looked away. Great. Something in his own face had made her uncomfortable.

  Now what? Find something else to focus on. Like the developing battle. “How long left until that Syndic guard force sees us?”

  “Five minutes,” Desjani replied, composed and professional again.

  “The big formation of crippled ships and repair ships should have reacted to us by now.”

  “Some of them are. See this activity? Lines being severed between some of the warships and nearby repair ships. It looks like the Syndic warships in the formation that can fight are getting ready to fight or run.”

  “I hope the repair ships don’t try to run, too.” “Try” being the operative word. Even the so-called Fast Fleet Auxiliaries in the Alliance fleet were faster in name than practice, and they were purportedly designed to keep up with warships. Essentially mobile factories, most auxiliaries or repair ships weren’t supposed to be able to maneuver anything like warships, with propulsion capabilities that accelerated them only sluggishly and couldn’t come close to matching the velocities of combatant
s. Moreover, these Syndic repair ships were heavily loaded with the raw materials needed to manufacture replacement items, spare parts, weapons, and fuel cells, making them even more ponderous.

  The leading elements of the Alliance fleet were clearing the top of the minefield that had prevented a direct run into or out of the jump point. As they did, each ship canted over and down and accelerated straight toward the enemy, the fleet seeming to be bending over the top of the mines like a waterfall in reverse.

  Dauntless cleared the top of the mines, too, pivoting downward, the force of her acceleration obvious even though the inertial dampers were whining as they tried to block out the effects on the ship and crew. When it came to closing on the enemy, Desjani didn’t waste time. “The Syndic guard force must have seen us by now,” Desjani observed. “Since we’re accelerating toward them, we’ll see their reaction in … twenty or twenty-five minutes, depending on what they do in the meantime.”

  After the frantic activity they’d just gone through, those twenty minutes crawled by like a video playing in slow motion. At least the delay gave Geary time to go through the status reports streaming in from his ships, his first chance for a good look at their supply states and repair progress since the fleet had hastily jumped back for Lakota.

  In the last fight at Lakota, Warrior had taken the brunt of fire from four Syndic battleships blundering past the Alliance auxiliaries that Warrior had been ordered to protect. Her crew had worked themselves to exhaustion patching up serious damage sustained at Vidha, so that the battleship could once again face the enemy, but now Warrior was once again barely combat-capable. Geary couldn’t help shaking his head grimly as he viewed the latest status of the stricken battleship. She could keep up with the fleet, but Warrior would be out of the line of battle again for a long time.

  The battleships Orion and Majestic, also badly damaged at Vidha, hadn’t done nearly as inspired a job of fixing themselves up since then and remained barely combat-capable even though they’d taken little more injury the first time the fleet had been at Lakota. Amazon, Indomitable, Vengeance, and Reprisal were the next most badly damaged battleships, but all had made heroic repair efforts in the time allowed by the jumps away from and back to Lakota and were in good enough shape for combat.

  The battle cruisers, which traded greater acceleration and maneuverability for the heavier armor and shields of the battleships, had paid the usual price for the bargain. Most of them had taken significant damage as the fleet had fought its way out of Lakota, but like Dauntless, most had been able to get at least the majority of their hell lances back online and their propulsion units functional. Only Daring and Formidable were still in bad enough shape that they needed to be kept back from any major fighting. Geary hoped he could manage to keep the commanding officers of those ships from nonetheless charging into the biggest fight they could find.

  The rest of the fleet, the heavy and light cruisers and the many destroyers, were much the same though there hadn’t been many badly damaged destroyers or light cruisers when they jumped out of Lakota with the Syndics on their heels. If the smaller combatants took major hits, they didn’t have the size or armor to withstand the resultant damage and were usually blown apart or knocked completely out of action. Only Geary’s attempts to protect his light combatants during the last battle had kept them from being decimated. As it was, four destroyers and three light cruisers hadn’t survived the fleet’s last visit to Lakota.

  The four auxiliaries, vital to the fleet’s survival, had emerged from the last encounter almost untouched, thanks in great part to Warrior’s stout defense. The one hit that Titan had taken had been patched up in the days since the battle.

  As long as he didn’t pay attention to the total lack of specter missiles among his ships, the almost exhausted supplies of grapeshot and the low fuel-cell states, the surviving ships of the fleet actually appeared to be in decent shape.

  “Why haven’t the Syndics done more repairs?” Geary wondered out loud. “They’ve had as long as we have, but their ships are still showing a lot of unfixed damage.”

  Desjani gave him a surprised look. “From what I know, they don’t maintain the same onboard repair capability. It’s more centralized with them. Supposed to be more efficient, I guess, and allows smaller crews on their warships. Odds are very little work was done before those repair ships showed up, and it would have taken them a while to be summoned after the battle even if they were in a nearby star system. They’re close enough to where the last engagements were fought with us that I bet that formation has only been under way for a day or so.”

  “The Syndics were more like us before the war,” Geary noted. “I guess they changed in response to their own losses. But what you’re describing is something designed for peacetime, when there’s the luxury of time and the ability to wait until you get to a repair facility or it comes to you. That may save the Syndics money in the short term, but it can’t be helping their sustained combat capability in the long run.”

  She grinned. “Not today, for sure.” Desjani paused as she noticed something. “We’ve got light from the Syndic guard force’s reaction.”

  He hastily switched displays, seeing the images of two battleships on vectors accelerating toward the Alliance fleet. “Just two battleships? What about the rest?”

  “We don’t have light on their reactions, yet.” Desjani checked something. “The two battleships are only twenty-two light-minutes away now since they’re coming at us. When the rest of the force reacts, we should see it in the next few minutes.”

  It took a couple of minutes longer than expected, leading Desjani to predict that the rest of the guard force was accelerating away from the Alliance fleet. She turned out to be right. “They’ve split up.”

  “Split up?” As Geary watched the display, sensors throughout the fleet observed the time-delayed light showing the actions of the Syndic ships and provided rapid updates and estimates. Two of the battleships, both battle cruisers and the lighter Syndic warships, were accelerating like bats out of hell, on vectors clearly aimed at the hypernet gate. They were still twenty-eight light-minutes away and pushing their velocity up past point one light. Even though some of the lightly damaged warships in the guard flotilla were lagging slightly, it wasn’t by much. He didn’t need to run the figures to know the Alliance fleet couldn’t possibly catch them. “They’re going to defend and if necessary collapse that hypernet gate so we can’t use it. But why split up a force that’s already badly outnumbered? Why send those other two battleships toward us? Is it some sort of diversion?” He ran out the vectors for the two battleships, and the answer became obvious. The two battleships were headed for the large formation of damaged Syndic warships and repair ships.

  “Going to defend their comrades,” Desjani replied matter-of-factly. “It’s a hopeless gesture, but that Syndic commander is making it.”

  Two battleships. Even counting out the badly damaged Alliance battleships like Warrior, he still had at least sixteen battleships to hurl against them, plus over a dozen battle cruisers. “It’s what battleships do,” Geary stated softly, remembering the words of Captain Mosko before he took Defiant, Audacious, and Indefatigable to their deaths holding off the Syndics closing on the rest of the Alliance fleet. “But this is hopeless. The other ships can’t get away no matter what those two battleships do. The battleships can’t even get to us until over four hours after we intercept that formation. They’re being thrown away for no reason.”

  “Maybe the Syndic commander has orders to defend those other ships and the hypernet gate, too, and has to make the gesture.”

  That sounded entirely too likely to be true. A mission too great for the forces assigned, and so some of those forces would be sacrificed to satisfy the unreasonable expectations of the high command. In Geary’s time a century earlier those sorts of things had only happened in exercises, fake losses in fake battles, but even then he’d wondered if things would truly be different in a real conflict as he wa
s assured by his seniors, or if the same patterns would play out even though the costs were far higher. From what he’d learned of the war, and seen of it in person, too often the latter was true. “All right, Captain Desjani, let’s make sure our fleet will be properly arrayed to take out those battleships without losing any of our own ships.”

  “Captain Desjani,” the engineering watch-stander called. “Dauntless just went below fifty percent on fuel cell reserves.”

  Desjani nodded, then glanced at Geary. “The old girl’s never been this low before.”

  The “old girl” had left her commissioning dock less than two years ago, but it was still a chilling thing to hear. If they didn’t manage to loot those Syndic repair ships, the Alliance fleet wouldn’t get much farther home. Warships couldn’t run on prayers.

  Forty minutes since they’d arrived in Lakota again. So far things looked very good. But how much longer would they have before the massive Syndic pursuit force came in behind them, determined to ensure that the Alliance fleet didn’t escape again?

  TWO

  Pouring over the top of the Syndic minefield, the jumbled warships of the Alliance fleet had accelerated onto individual vectors. For a moment, the sight of it had brought to Geary’s mind the chaotic arrival in Corvus right after he’d assumed command, the Alliance fleet breaking into a wild scramble to attack a few weak Syndic warships. But this time was far different. This time the Alliance warships were following orders, tearing off on courses and speeds that would bring coordinated attacks to bear on every Syndic warship the fleet could reach. Even those officers who didn’t like the way Geary fought shouldn’t have any problems here, with so many targets available for the ships of the Alliance fleet.