enough to keep us from avoiding contact next time.”
Rione looked unhappy, but Desjani got it and smiled like a cat. “Spreading out formations will mean the Syndics have less firepower at any point.”
“Right. And we’re going through one of those points.” Geary gestured at the display, which the Syndics showed accelerating in pursuit again. “It looks like they’re merging Bravo and Delta. I need an estimate for the flagship’s position.”
“He should be in the center,” Desjani commented.
Geary nodded. The place of honor. The place most likely to catch the brunt of an enemy attack using the head-on tactics that had been common practice. It wasn’t the smartest way of doing business, but just like the Syndics, he was still constrained by the practice, since everyone in this fleet would be horrified if the flagship wasn’t in the center of an attack.
In the wake of the Alliance fleet, the huge combined Syndic formation spread out, thinner in all places but stretching so that the wall now reached far enough above, below, right, and left of the Alliance fleet’s track that no feasible maneuver could evade it. You want to catch us? Fine. Prepare to learn what happens when you try to close your hand on a hornet.
ELEVEN
TIMING was critical again. Geary waited, watching as the Syndics chased after the Alliance fleet, their velocity now up to point one four light, gradually closing the distance. The jump point for Ixion was just over an hour away now, but the Syndics would be within engagement range much sooner. When will they fire missiles and grapeshot? Wait a little longer. We’re entering the outer edges of their missile engagement envelope. They’ll wait a little to give a margin of error in case we try a last-minute burst of speed. Hold it…now. “All units, change formation facing one eight zero degrees, turn up one four degrees, brake speed to point zero five light at time four seven. All ships open fire as the enemy enters engagement range.”
As the Alliance ships swung their bows to point toward the Syndics and cut in their main propulsion systems to kill velocity, the closing speed of the enemy force grew rapidly. The Alliance ships were now moving backward at point zero five light, the Syndics tearing toward them far faster. Instead of overtaking the Alliance ships at a relative velocity of point zero four light, the Syndic speed advantage had increased to close to point one light and the two forces were now rushing together.
The Syndics, caught by surprise again and with only a short time to react, were spitting out missiles and patterns of grapeshot, but only those fired by the ships closest to the point where the Alliance fleet was aiming had good hit probabilities. The leading edges of the Alliance cylinder lit up with flashes as weapons impacted on shields.
Alliance warships fired as well, their weapons aiming for a relatively small point in the huge Syndic wall. Shields flared on Syndic warships in a ragged circle centered on the point where the Alliance cylinder was aimed. Not far from the center of that circle was the Syndic flagship. At a relative closing velocity of just under thirty thousand kilometers per second, one moment it seemed the enemy formation was far away and the next it was behind them as the Alliance cylinder went through the Syndic wall like a bullet through a board.
The moment of contact came and went. Geary let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, feeling Dauntless shuddering from hits the Syndics had scored in that fraction of a second when the forces were within range of all weapons. “Shields down slightly, spot failures, minor hit aft, no system losses,” the watch-standers on Dauntless reported rapidly.
“All units in the Alliance fleet, change formation facing one eight zero degrees, accelerate to point one light at time five nine.”
“We’re going back through them?” Rione asked, sounding shocked.
“That’s the idea. If they brake to match our speed, we’ll be in big trouble, but hopefully they’ll assume we’re going to keep heading away and accelerate toward us again.” Geary’s eyes were on the display, watching the damage readouts for both fleets as sensors tallied the results of the moment of contact.
“Two battleships,” Desjani noted approvingly. “Three battle cruisers knocked out, too. One of those was probably the flagship.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Only ten or twenty more passes just as successful, and they’d have evened the odds in this star system. It wasn’t exactly grounds for getting cocky. “We didn’t take much damage, but it’ll be worse next time.”
The Alliance ships had swung their bows completely around again, facing the jump point for Ixion and toward the Syndic formation. Geary watched the Syndic movements, hoping they’d do the natural thing and reverse course in place to pursue his fleet.
They did, but not quickly enough.
“They’re coming back at us, but we’re going to pass through them at a relative speed of only point zero two light,” Desjani reported.
That would mean a longer time within enemy weapon range and easier targets for the missiles and grapeshot that the enemy still had in far greater abundance than the Alliance fleet.
He didn’t want to look at the state of the fleet’s fuel cells after these maneuvers. It didn’t really matter. He had to burn off fuel cells now or the fleet wouldn’t survive to worry about low fuel states.
The Syndic formation was folding in on itself, trying to thicken where the Alliance fleet would pass through, but fortunately didn’t have much time to accomplish that.
The wall of Syndics came and went, Dauntless’s shields going incandescent from enemy hits.
“Spot failures on bow and flank shields, minor damage from grapeshot impacts, several hell-lance hits amidships, hell-lance batteries 3A and 5B out of commission, estimated time of repair unknown, casualties unknown,” Dauntless’s watch reported.
Geary’s eyes ran over the state of his fleet. Dauntless had come off easy compared to the other battle cruisers. Duellos’s Courageous had been raked badly, Daring had lost half its weapons, Leviathan and Dragon had taken propulsion hits but were grimly keeping up with the formation, Formidable and Incredible were torn up amidships. Even his battleships had taken hits, though none were hurt as badly as the battle cruisers. Scout battleship Exemplar had been hit multiple times but by luck had lost nothing serious. The heavy cruisers Basinet and Sallet were gone, one exploded under a hail of Syndic fire and the other drifting away from the formation, badly hurt and helpless, escape pods leaping from the crippled ship.
Light cruisers Spur, Damascene, and Swept-Guard had been destroyed or wrecked, and destroyers War- Hammer, Prasa, Talwar, and Xiphos shattered despite their protected positions within the cylinder.
Titan had been hit again. The auxiliary seemed to attract Syndic weapons like a magnet attracted iron. But the hit wasn’t critical. Despite his pain at the losses, Geary felt satisfaction as he saw the state of Warrior, Orion, and Majestic. Their degraded shields and new damage told Geary that the three battleships had indeed done their best to protect the auxiliaries.
The Syndics hadn’t come through the latest firing pass unscathed, thanks to the local firepower superiority of the Alliance fleet. Another of their battleships was a drifting wreck, and three more battle cruisers had been blown up or broken. At least a dozen heavy cruisers had been disabled or killed, and the wreckage of numerous light cruisers and HuKs littered space now.
“Another pass?” Desjani asked, her voice subdued as she dealt with the damage to her ship.
“No. We’d have to go through them twice again, and they’d blow us to hell on the fourth pass. We’re less than an hour from the jump point. We head for it.”
The Syndic wall formation, distorted and bent from its maneuvers and the two times the Alliance fleet had passed through it, was reversing its ships’ headings again and accelerating once more in the wake of the Alliance fleet.
Should he try to hit the Syndics again anyway? Try to throw the Syndics off once more? Geary tallied up the status of his ships’ shields, the few specters and small amount of grapeshot remaining, and the damage his ships had already suffered and knew his quick assessment for Desjani had been accurate; another pair of passes through the Syndics would be suicidal. He didn’t have the speed advantage or the distance needed to try to hit a
