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-”
“Thank you, Captain,” Geary added quickly. “I assure you that the Second Battleship Division will be in the forefront of battle in the future, and thank you for carrying out this vital task now.”
The Syndic battleship that had lost propulsion was still fighting, a few hell-lance batteries continuing to fire as Alliance warships made repeated passes, slowly reducing it to junk. The other Syndic battleship that had been near it hurled out a burst of escape pods, then blew up.
Geary felt himself jerked to one side as Captain Desjani took Dauntless into a tight turn in pursuit of one of the surviving Syndic battleships. Tight being a relative term for a ship traveling at close to point one light speed, of course, but even the wide arc of space that Dauntless swung through still required the inertial compensators to operate at maximum.
Two of the three fleeing HuKs were dead. The third reeled from a direct hit from a specter, then also began issuing escape pods.
Tearing his eyes away from the battleship that Dauntless was bearing down on below and to starboard, Geary tried to figure out which Syndic ships might still be problems. Heavily outnumbered to begin with, the Syndics had lost any hope of either escaping or inflicting significant casualties on the Alliance fleet when their own formation fell apart. Only a single light cruiser still seemed to have a chance at getting away, accelerating at a pace that made Geary look twice to be sure he’d seen right. They’re holding their propulsion units on full emergency thrust. How long can their propulsion systems and their inertial compensators handle that?
Not long. As Dauntless lined up for a firing run on the Syndic battleship, Geary watched the fleeing Syndic light cruiser come apart, disintegrating as its inertial compensators failed and the full stress of its acceleration ripped the ship to pieces. He didn’t want to think about what had happened to the light cruiser’s crew.
Captain Desjani had her attention focused on the Syndic battleship, which had just endured a fast-firing pass from Furious and was now using its surviving weapons to try to hold off repeated blows from destroyers and light cruisers tearing past and getting off one or two hell-lance shots on each pass. “Targeting priority on remaining operational weapons,” Desjani ordered. “Fire when within engagement envelopes.”
Dauntless shot past the Syndic battleship in the blink of an eye, her automated targeting systems slamming hell lances into the battleship’s weapons during the instant in which the two ships were close enough to fire on each other. Only a single Syndic hell lance hit Dauntless’s shields, being absorbed without effect.
But most of Dauntless’s shots had gone home. The Syndic battleship had only a single battery of hell lances still firing. As Dauntless rose past and away from the Syndic ship, Paladin came lumbering up and pumped several salvos into the enemy, silencing the last weapon and leaving it without any maneuvering control. Surrender, Geary willed the commanding officer of the stricken Syndic battleship, but even though escape pods began spitting out of it, the enemy ship didn’t broadcast a surrender.
Despite the fact that the Syndic battleship was out of action, Paladin unleashed its null-field projector as the Alliance ship reached its closest approach to the enemy vessel. The glowing ball dug a hole deep into the now- defenseless battleship.
Behind Paladin, her fellow battleship Conqueror swung in, also firing hell lances into the slowly tumbling wreck as escape pods jetted frantically away from it. Geary watched, feeling his anger rise at the punishment being inflicted on a helpless enemy, and even Desjani seemed to find the overkill distasteful. After firing its own null field, Conqueror launched two specters into the derelict as she pulled away.
That gave Geary the opening he needed. “Conqueror, save your expendable munitions for ships that still constitute a threat,” he snapped.
There weren’t any of those left within weapons range of the fleet. A quick examination of the display confirmed that. Geary pulled out the scale, seeing the entire Ixion Star System again, and felt a stab of anger. “Now we know why those capital ships had so few HuKs with them.”
Desjani took a look. “Nine more, in groups of three, stationed to use the other jump points out of Ixion.”
Geary checked their positions. “The nearest batch of HuKs is three light-hours away. They don’t even know we’re here yet.”
“They won’t enjoy the show when the light from this battle reaches them,” Desjani noted with a grin.
“I’m not sure this qualified as a battle. Okay, no threat within less than three light-hours. Let’s get this fleet back into formation, assuming I can get the Third Battleship Division to stop pummeling dead ships.”
“Give them the duty of sending teams to blow up the wrecks,” Desjani suggested. “It’s tedious work.”
“Why should I punish the crews of those ships?” Geary asked. But somebody had to take care of ensuring the Syndic wrecks couldn’t be salvaged. “Then again, it’ll keep Casia and Midea occupied for a while.” He prepared the order, then paused as he examined the damage reports. Very little to speak of, since the collapse of the Syndic formation had stripped all of the enemy warships of support while exposing them to concentrated fire from superior numbers of Allied warships. But-“Damn. How did Titan get hurt?” Of all ships to suffer damage, why did it have to be Titan?
