Valiant tlf-4

by Jack Campbell

  But Brilliant, Inspire, and Opportune were far enough behind the first Alliance battle cruisers to be able to react to the evasive maneuver, and close enough behind that the Syndic couldn’t maneuver again before they got within range.

  Geary tried to pull up mental images of the captains of Brilliant, Inspire, and Opportune and found himself oddly unable. Why hadn’t those battle-cruiser commanders ever impressed themselves on him? The realization bothered him, and he tried to bookmark in his memory the need to look up all three when time permitted.

  The Syndic battle cruiser rolled and pitched slightly under the push of its working maneuvering thrusters. The change in aspect allowed the battle cruiser to bring its surviving hell lances to bear, and the charged-particle streams shot out, targeting Brilliant as she, Inspire, and Opportune altered their own vectors slightly to pass just to starboard and above the Syndic warship. Brilliant’s shields flared from a few hits while she and Inspire hurled volleys of hell lances into the weak shields of the Syndic ship. The Syndic’s shields collapsed under the barrage, then the Alliance hell lances lashed through the enemy battle cruiser, slicing apart hull, bulkheads, equipment, and any crew members unfortunate enough to be in the way.

  By the time Leviathan, Dragon, Steadfast, and Valiant reached the Syndic battle cruiser, the enemy couldn’t maneuver and could only fire back with a single hell lance. Tulev’s battle cruisers battered the Syndic and went onward toward the battleships and lighter units trying to join up, leaving a silent hulk in their wake.

  “His weapons and propulsion units are all dead, but something’s still working on him, and his crew hasn’t abandoned ship,” Desjani remarked, her voice almost pleading for an order to swing Dauntless over and get in the deathblow on the Syndic warship.

  Geary nodded, his eyes on the display. “Daring is in a better position to finish him off. Let’s let her do it.” Desjani nodded, barely hiding her disappointment.

  Daring angled slightly up and over, flashing by the crippled Syndic battle cruiser in another flurry of hell-lance fire. As Daring raced onward, the Syndic ship abruptly exploded as its power core overloaded. “Did any escape pods get away?” Geary wondered, suddenly realizing he hadn’t seen any.

  A watch-stander shook her head. “A couple launched just before the core blew but got caught in the explosion.”

  “Bastard,” Desjani muttered, clearly referring to the commanding officer of the Syndic ship who’d waited too late to allow the crew to abandon ship.

  “You’re unhappy about Syndics dying?” Geary asked, surprised at Desjani’s being concerned about that. Tanya Desjani not only considered it her duty to destroy enemy ships and kill enemy military forces, but had usually seemed to derive a vengeful pleasure from the act.

  Now she frowned at his question. “It’s just as well those crew members won’t be a threat to our people anymore,” Desjani explained, “but their commanding officer still had an obligation to give them a fighting chance. You know what I mean.”

  He did, having given just such orders to most of his own crew to abandon ship a hundred years ago, as his fight at Grendel went from desperate to hopeless. “Yeah. I know.”

  The onrushing Alliance battle cruisers, totally in their element as their speed allowed them to run down lighter enemy combatants, gleefully shattered a succession of Syndic HuKs and light cruisers, almost as an afterthought blowing apart the two remaining operational Syndic heavy cruisers nearby. Watching his battle cruisers charging through space to smash enemy ships while the Alliance battleships were still just short of reaching the Syndic Casualty Flotilla, Geary finally understood why the best officers in the Alliance aspired to command battle cruisers. It was as glorious as a charge by ancient horse cavalry on a planetary surface. But even now he couldn’t help wondering how many times battle cruisers had been ripped open in battle against more heavily armored battleships, and whether the number of engagements in which battle cruisers had been able to charge gloriously across the field of battle came anywhere close to the number times they had suffered from their lack of armor.

  Behind Dauntless and the other battle cruisers, the Alliance battleships had altered courses slightly, aiming farther above the Syndic Casualty Flotilla and at an intercept with the two Syndic battleships still several light-minutes away. All around them, destroyers and light cruisers that had finished wiping out nearby Syndic ships were joining up with the battleships. In the very rear of what could loosely be called the Alliance fleet formation came the four fast fleet auxiliaries with their escorts of four battleships, Captain Cresida’s two battle cruisers, and about twenty light cruisers and destroyers. Unlike the other Alliance ships, the auxiliaries had kept their courses aimed straight for an intercept with the Syndic repair ships in the center of the flattened bubble making up the Casualty Flotilla.

  “Our leading battle cruisers are two light-minutes short of those two Syndic battleships,” Desjani remarked. “They’ve been designated Syndic Flotilla Bravo. I wonder why the system didn’t just call them the Syndic Suicide Flotilla.”

  She had a point, but Geary gestured to indicate the Alliance auxiliaries. “If they can somehow bull their way through to our auxiliaries, they could hurt us in a critical way.”

  Desjani shook her head. “If they manage to get past everything we’ve got headed for them, they’ll be so weakened that Cresida’s ships can handle them.”

  “I’m not happy with battle cruisers dueling with battleships,” Geary noted, worried that his aggressive commanders might get carried away in the thrill of the battle so far. But he couldn’t give orders telling them not to be too aggressive. None of them would listen. He tapped his communications controls again. “All Alliance battle-cruiser formations, upon completion of firing passes against Syndic Flotilla Bravo, brake your velocity to match that of the Syndic Casualty Flotilla and await orders. All Alliance battleship formations are also to brake velocity to match the Casualty Flotilla’s speed as soon as Syndic Flotilla Bravo has been destroyed.”

  As he was speaking, shuttles sprang away from the Alliance ships bearing down on the Casualty Flotilla, each shuttle bending its course toward specific targets. Most were aimed at the wreck of Audacious, but others headed for Syndic repair ships and nearby warships to ensure they were truly abandoned and safe for the Alliance ships to approach.

  The shuttles were still headed for their objectives when Duellos’s battle cruisers and Syndic Flotilla Bravo tore past each other at a combined velocity just in excess of point two light speed. At that velocity, relativistic effects distorted the view of other objects enough to make targeting difficult, and the firing window when weapons were in range of the enemy was the tiniest fraction of a second.

  As the two formations of ships separated again, Geary could see that the shields on the Syndic battleships had been weakened, but no hits had been scored. The Syndics, though, had concentrated their massive firepower against Formidable, doubtless having seen the damage that Alliance battle cruiser still carried from her last encounter with the enemy. Formidable had taken a flurry of hits, losing much of her combat capability, but had avoided taking any more damage to her propulsion units and kept up with her sister ships.

  Brilliant, Opportune, and Inspire hit the Syndic battleships next, weakening the enemy shields a little more, Opportune taking several nasty hits in the process.

  Tulev’s four battle cruisers concentrated their fire on the Syndic battleship closest to them as they shot past just to port of the enemy, managing to cause some spot failures of the battleship’s shields but taking a few hits to Dragon.

  Desjani brought her battle cruisers in while Geary hoped she wouldn’t push her firing pass in too close to the still- extremely dangerous Syndic battleships. The Syndics tried to concentrate their fire on already-damaged Daring, but Desjani had arranged the intercept so that Daring was farthest from the enemy, helping Daring to avoid the damage that Formidable had suffered. Dauntless and Victorious slammed shots at the Syndic battl
eship that still had the strongest shields, weakening the enemy’s protection further while managing to avoid taking more damage themselves.

  That left Illustrious and Incredible to hammer the first Syndic battleship again. As the last two Alliance battle cruisers finished their firing passes, the enemy battleships kept onward, their shields seriously weakened but their armor and all weapons and other systems intact, still headed on a curving intercept course aimed at the Alliance auxiliaries.

  But bearing down on the Syndic battleships were the Alliance battleships of the Second, Fifth, and Eighth Divisions. Twelve to two would have been awful odds under any circumstances, but the Alliance battleships also had shields at full strength while the Syndics’ shields were slowly recovering.

  Geary grinned as he saw that the three Alliance subformations had stuck to the maneuvering plan that coordinated their movements. Gallant, Indomitable, Glorious, and Magnificent slashed by just above the Syndic battleships, followed milliseconds later by Relentless, Reprisal, Superb, and Splendid making a firing pass just beneath the Syndics, a few seconds after that Fearless, Resolution, Redoubtable, and Warspite pounding them from the starboard side. That much firepower hitting that quickly left the beleaguered Syndics without a chance. The Syndics fired back, scoring a couple of hits on Glorious and Fearless, but as the twelve Alliance battleships pulled away, they left behind them an expanding ball of debris that marked the destruction of one Syndic battleship and a tumbling mass of wreckage that had once been the second enemy battleship. A few escape pods spat from the ruin of the second battleship as it tumbled silently off to one side of its original vector.

  By the time Captain Armus’s Tenth Battleship Division reached engagement range thirty seconds later, all his four battleships could do was tear the remains of the second Syndic battleship into a lot of smaller pieces of wreckage.

  Geary sighed with relief, then broadcast commands again. “All Alliance ships with the exception of the Auxiliaries formation are to assume station on flagship Dauntless as indicated.” On his display, the intended formation looked like a ragged ball extending outward in front of and slightly above the Syndic Casualty Flotilla, the subformations built around Alliance battle cruisers and battleships arranged roughly in a sphere. It wasn’t pretty, but it would do.

  Desjani gave him a questioning look, knowing that Geary favored neat formations. “Saving fuel cells?”

  “That’s part of it. This keeps maneuvering by our ships to a minimum. I was also thinking that if the fleet looks a little sloppy when the Syndic pursuit force arrives, they might think the Alliance fleet is still on the verge of falling apart like it appeared when we left Lakota the first time.”

  “Will they believe that after seeing what we’ve already done to the Syndics in this star system?” she asked doubtfully.

  “The odds were good enough that even a disorganized force could have mangled the Syndics here. Maybe it won’t fool the Syndics, but there’s no sense in wasting fuel cells right now. Once the pursuit force shows up, we’ll get moving fast and get everything neatened up then.”

  All the Alliance warships had pivoted to use their main propulsion units to slow down so they wouldn’t get too far from the critically important Alliance auxiliaries, assuming their positions in the formation that Geary had mentally labeled the Big Ugly Ball. With that situation well in hand, the Syndic pursuit force still not having arrived, and the nearest operational Syndic combatants almost a light-hour distant and hauling ass away from the Alliance fleet, Geary gave in to temptation again and pulled up a view from one of the Marine officers retaking the Audacious.

  The shuttles had mated not only with the remains of Audacious’s external air locks and shuttle dock but also with a few spots where big holes had been blown in the battleship’s armor. Marine detachments had swarmed into the silent ship, ready for anything. Now, Geary’s view from the combat armor of the Marine he’d chosen showed the battleship’s interior rendered strange by tremendous amounts of internal damage and a lack of regular lighting. The Marine lieutenant and his squad reached an internal air lock that had been repaired just enough to function and passed through into areas where temporary patches had been slapped on holes in bulkheads to seal in atmosphere.

  The Alliance Marines moved swiftly, their battle-armor sensors scanning for booby traps, their weapons seeking targets as they came around corners and pulled themselves down passageways cluttered with wreckage. No enemies revealed themselves, and no traps materialized, which instead of being reassuring just made everyone more nervous. Another hatch loomed, this one locked. The Marines paused, most on guard, weapons ready, while one of their number applied a mini charge and blew the lock apart. “No stun grenades!” someone barked over the Marine command circuit.

  “But, Sarge, there might be—”

  “There might be Alliance prisoners of war on the other side of that hatch, and we don’t know how bad off our own people on this hulk might be. Even a stun charge might kill ’em. Aimed shots only, and nobody fire unless you have positive ID on enemy targets. I’ll personally shoot any bitch or son of a bitch who puts a round into an Alliance prisoner of war. Understand?” A chorus of assents sounded.

  One Marine grabbed the hatch and tugged it open as his comrades’ weapons leveled to aim into the large compartment beyond.

  For a moment Geary feared that the compartment was stuffed full of dead Alliance personnel, but then he saw resigned, rebellious, and frightened expressions on the faces turning to the hatch, each emotion changing to disbelief as the former prisoners recognized Alliance Marine combat armor. “The air in there sucks,” the Marine lieutenant reported to his superior. "CO2 is way too high.”

  “Get them out as fast as you can,” the order came back. “Third Platoon is rigging an evac tube from the last working air lock to the shuttles. Get them moving!”

  The uniforms on the prisoners showed insignia from a mix of ships. In the front ranks Geary saw patches from Indefatigable, Audacious herself, the heavy cruiser Bassinet, and the destroyer Talwar. Some of the newly liberated Alliance personnel were grinning as the Marines hauled them out of the fetid compartment, some just seemed stunned as the Marines shoved them in the direction of the air lock. “First Squad! Line the passageways to direct these guys and keep them moving!”

  A chief petty officer with a patch from Defiant and one arm in an improvised sling paused as he came out of the compartment. “First time I was ever happy to see a Marine,” he gasped to one. “I could kiss you.”

  “I don’t swing that way, Chief,” the Marine replied. “Try my friend over there. But keep moving.”

  Another call on the Marine command circuit. “They found another compartment down this way, Lieutenant! Looks like it’s full of space squids, too.”

  “Get ’em out here and on the way to the evac tube! Go, go, go!”

  Geary broke the connection, wishing he could keep watching but knowing he had other responsibilities. Seeing Desjani watching him, he gave a nod. “The Marines are getting our people off of Audacious. It looks like a lot were on there.”

  “Good.” Desjani nodded as well, toward the display before her. “Our auxiliaries are closing on the Syndic repair ships right now.”

  The four Alliance auxiliaries had overhauled four big Syndic repair ships, and now were gliding into position directly over the Syndic vessels, conveyor tubes extending outward and down from their undersides as if they were gigantic creatures intent on mating with even more enormous partners. Which, in a way, they were. It took a little playing with his menus, but Geary managed to bring up a diagram showing the activity inside the Syndic ships. Symbols representing Alliance engineers were blowing out bulkhead after bulkhead until clear paths existed into the raw-materials bunkers on the Syndic auxiliaries, then as each path was opened, more Alliance conveyor tubes extended down into the Syndic ships and began draining out their materials.

  “Oddly disquieting imagery, isn’t it?” Rione murmured from over his
shoulder. She’d gotten up and come to stand just behind him. “Or is that just a woman’s perspective?”

  Geary shook his head. “Not once the conveyor tubes started sucking stuff out of those Syndic ships. I guess we’re not used to seeing parasites on that scale.”

  “Do they have what we need?”

  “Some of it.” Geary scowled at the display. Multiple overlapping windows showed exhaustive detail on fleet requirements and what had been discovered inside the Syndic repair ships. The mass of small type and unfamiliar terms made it impossible for him to figure out what was happening. “Why can’t this just tell me how much we need of each material and how much we’re getting? Captain Desjani, could you ask your engineering watch-stander to pop me up a display showing in simple terms where we stand on refilling our auxiliaries’ bunkers?”

  Desjani nodded and passed on the order, then smiled with satisfaction. “We’ve received two heavy resupply shuttles from Titan, sir. Dauntless will be back up to sixty-five percent fuel-cell reserves when the new ones are installed. We’ve also received sixty more canisters of grapeshot and seven new specters as well as some major spare parts we needed but weren’t able to fabricate ourselves.”

  “Excellent. Is that all Titan is sending Dauntless?”

  “Time permitting, we’ll get a third shuttle, sir.”

  Even better. Geary felt himself smiling. “Now if we can only get food.”

  The engineering watch-stander had come up and now cleared his throat to attract attention. “Excuse me, sir. If I may …” His fingers tapped controls rapidly, then Geary saw a window appear with bar graphs showing total capacity of the bunkers on his auxiliaries, total materials found on the Syndic auxiliaries, and how much had been transferred. “Thanks. What’s this column?”

  “Food, sir,” the engineer replied in that self-satisfied way of someone who’d already answered a question his superior hadn’t yet asked him. “The Syndic ships we’ve boarded have all had food stocks on them. From what I’ve overheard, the stocks on the civilian ships are actually really decent food. It’s not nearly enough, but we are acquiring more food here as well.”