“IT must be the main Syndic fleet,” Desjani observed, her body tense. “Their primary strike force. The Syndics in this system couldn’t have sent for reinforcements and had them show up this quickly, so they must have been headed here for some other reason.”
“Lucky us,” Geary muttered. The hypernet gate was almost five light-hours away now, so that Syndic flotilla they were just now seeing had arrived five hours ago. But the Syndics in that new strike force had seen the Alliance fleet the moment they arrived, and had already had five hours to size up the situation and make plans. “We need to wipe out this flotilla we’re engaged with. Then we can-”
“Syndic ships are turning away,” a watch-stander called in a disappointed voice.
“Son of a bitch.” There wasn’t any doubt. Instead of curving back in for another firing pass, the Syndics they’d been fighting were continuing outward, accelerating past point one light to open the distance from the Alliance fleet even faster. Instead of closing on the Alliance fleet, the Syndics were now heading in another direction. “They’re breaking contact.”
Along with light from the hypernet gate had come orders for the Syndic ships they were engaged with. Geary was certain of it as he watched the Syndic flotilla accelerating away.
“Cowards,” Desjani ground out, then shook her head. “No. They’ve been ordered to wait until that other big force gets close enough to engage us.”
“Right.” Geary took a look at the geometry of the Alliance and the Syndic forces, then at his fleet’s fuel status. “We don’t have enough fuel cells to catch them without going to critically low levels.”
“Jump to Branwyn!” Rione suddenly cried, as if unable to understand why someone else hadn’t already said that. “Proceed onward to the jump point and jump to Branwyn! We’ve inflicted more losses on the Syndics than they have on us, so there’s no dishonor in leaving the battlefield now!”
Desjani just shook her head again.
Geary looked back at Rione. “We can’t. That Syndic force that is breaking contact with us is going to stay close enough to come charging in if we head for that jump point. We have to slow down a lot to get past the minefield they laid and to the jump point. They’ll wait until we’re nearly at a dead stop to get around those mines, and then they’ll hit us.”
“We’d be easy targets,” Desjani added in a tight voice.
“We can’t outmaneuver them?” Rione demanded.
This time Geary shook his head. “They don’t have auxiliaries with them slowing them down, and they can leave their damaged ships behind when they come at us, knowing that we can’t go after them. Even if we didn’t have the auxiliaries to worry about, we’d still have to keep our damaged ships with us.” He pointed at the display. “The Syndics we were fighting will keep us from using the jump point for Branwyn or hurt us very badly if we try to use it. Meanwhile, the big new Syndic flotilla will head for us, knowing we can’t escape through the nearest jump point without taking serious losses. When the newest force gets close enough, it and the one we were just fighting will hit us together.”
Desjani nodded, her face grim.
“And you’re just going to wait around for this?” Rione asked, incredulous.
“Not if I can help it.” He sat down, trying to think. One thing was obvious, and that was he had to settle the fleet on a new course. “All ships, steady course up two zero degrees, starboard one zero degrees time four three.”
Now what? Badly outnumbered, and things wouldn’t be getting better. Maybe, maybe if he pulled off something absolutely brilliant, he could win here. But there was no way of doing so without losing the vast majority of his own ships. Any Alliance ships surviving after that would have absolutely no chance of reaching Alliance space and would be lost as well. A victory here would be purchased only with the sacrifice of his own fleet and wouldn’t accomplish anything but stalemating the war again. The Syndics and the Alliance would be forced to hold off attacking each other for a while as they rebuilt their fleets; then they’d both go at it once more, continuing the apparently endless war. Perhaps until both the Syndicate Worlds government and the Alliance government collapsed and human-occupied space descended into heavily armed anarchy.
Even if I managed a total victory-and what are the odds of that when the enemy outnumbers us this badly?- against odds like that, my best efforts might just delay the inevitable and see the Syndics destroy this fleet while retaining enough strength themselves to finally go against the weak forces defending Alliance home space.
Desjani was chewing her lower lip, her expression determined. She’d do whatever Geary ordered, certain that whatever it was would produce a victory. Geary glanced around the bridge of Dauntless and saw variations of the same fear on every watch-stander, along with the same courage that would allow those officers and sailors to charge into battle despite that fear. These sailors would die if Geary ordered it, no doubt of that, fighting their hardest to achieve victory despite the odds.
But he’d already seen what that kind of attitude could produce. Paladin had possessed the same willingness to fight and die, and the end result had been death. He couldn’t ask these sailors to die just because they were willing to follow his orders to do that. There had to be a reasonable hope that those deaths would accomplish something.
Okay. Options. Take out this Syndic formation before the newest one got here, then escape to Branwyn. Couldn’t work unless the commander of the Syndic force they’d been fighting was an absolute idiot, and he or she didn’t seem to be one. Besides, they’d clearly been ordered not to engage Geary unless the Alliance fleet tried to escape before the newest force got here.
Take out the newest Syndic force? Charge it and hope clever tactics could compensate for enemy superiority? That was a slim reed to cling to, especially since the Syndic force they’d already fought would charge right after them, and as he’d told Rione, could out-accelerate the Alliance fleet. He’d still end up facing both Syndic forces at once, and with them operating in two big formations like that, they’d probably be able to wipe out his auxiliaries, even if Geary managed to avoid the destruction of the rest of the fleet.
Just run like hell? Where? Aside from the fact that many of his captains would balk at fleeing from an enemy even under these circumstances, there were also the problems that he couldn’t out-accelerate the Syndic flotillas, and the jump point for T’negu would just take this fleet into a maze of mines, with the Syndic forces here coming right behind. Running toward open space might keep the Syndics from catching them but would be slow suicide as the ships all ran out of fuel cells far from any star.
There was always the jump point back to Ixion, but the Syndic force they’d left there would surely be coming out of that at any time and-
Okay. There’s an option. Maybe not the sort of option that Black Jack would choose, but I’m not Black Jack.
So, a plan to run for the only possible safe way out of this star system, without making it obvious that he was running. Fortunately, for once the expected arrival of more enemy reinforcements offered him a way to do that and conceal his intentions for as long as possible from not only the enemy but also his own fleet.
“We need time, and we need to confront these Syndic forces individually,” Geary announced, suddenly aware of how silent it was on the bridge of Dauntless as everyone waited to hear him speak. “The only way to do that with the ones we were fighting is to trick them into going after us. We can do that and engage the next wave of Syndic reinforcements into this system.”
He pointed at the display. “We’re going back to-toward the jump point for Ixion. At any time we expect the Syndic force we left at Ixion to come into this star system using that jump point. If we’re close enough when they do, we can overwhelm them.” Only four battleships and four battle cruisers had been in that force. “This Syndic flotilla we’ve been fighting will have to come to the rescue of that force, which will give us a chance to bloody it again.”
“That still leaves the biggest Syndic flotilla,” Rione objected.
“Yes, it does. We’ll have to see how it reacts and hit it however we can.” Don’t lie to them. Lay the groundwork for escaping this star system. “We can’t fight all of these Syndic formations at once. We need to hit them individually.”
Captain Desjani studied the display herself for a moment, then smiled. “We’re not retreating.”
“No, Captain,” Geary replied with all of the confidence he could fake. “We’re changing the direction of our attack.”
