flank of the Syndic formation, which was thicker now, not as tall or wide, but still covered space behind the Alliance fleet.
Forty-five minutes out from the jump point, and the Alliance fleet would have to brake its velocity to get around the minefield in front of the jump point.
The Syndics were too close, coming on too fast. It wasn’t going to be enough. Everything he had tried wasn’t going to be enough.
Geary watched the maneuvering systems predict the outcome of current velocity and directions vectors, and he could see the Syndics overtaking the rear of the Alliance fleet. He’d have an ugly choice, then, to either abandon the ships in the rear or else slow the rest of the fleet to join them and doom every ship in the fleet in the process. Lose a third, at least, of his fleet, or the whole thing? Knowing that even if he ran and left so many ships to their fate it still wouldn’t mean safety when the survivors reached Ixion, because the Syndics would be coming after them.
“Captain Geary.” A small window had popped into existence, showing Captain Mosko looking calm in a numb sort of way. “My division is the farthest back in the formation, closest to the Syndics.”
“Yes.” The Seventh Battleship Division had taken the brunt of Syndic missiles and grapeshot on the first pass through the Syndic formation, avoided that on the second pass when warships on the front of the Alliance cylinder led the way through the Syndics, but now they’d catch hell again as the Syndics overtook the Alliance fleet. There wasn’t a damn thing Geary could do about that, though.
“We need to stop the Syndics from overtaking the rest of the fleet before it reaches the jump point,” Mosko continued. “Uh, that is, we, my division. I’d like to commit only Defiant, but she can’t do it alone. With Audacious and Indefatigable alongside, we’ll be able to hold them off.”
He suddenly realized what Mosko was saying. “I can’t order you to do that.”
“Yes, you could,” Mosko replied. “But I know how hard that would be, and it’s not as if you haven’t done the same yourself. We all grew up hearing about Grendel and vowing to do the same if we ever had to. This is one of the things battleships are supposed to do, Captain Geary.” He sounded almost apologetic now. “When needed, we use our firepower and shields and armor to protect other ships. You understand. A forlorn hope. We’re volunteering, my ships and my crews, because that’s one of the missions we’re supposed to carry out. When we have to. You don’t have to order it, sir. We volunteer, in the spirit and example of Black Jack Geary.”
Geary only knew the term forlorn hope because he’d read it being used to describe his own desperate defense at Grendel a century ago. A rear guard, one not expected to survive, one that knows it will be sacrificed to save the rest of the force. And doing it now in the name of his example.
The damnable things were that he had done that once, had made the same decision that Mosko was making now, and he couldn’t tell Mosko not to do it. He needed those three battleships to keep the Syndics from overhauling the rest of the Alliance fleet and destroying it here at Lakota.
Words came to him, old words, ones he’d heard before but rarely. “Captain Mosko, to you and your ships and their crews, may the living stars welcome you and shine on your valor, may your ancestors look upon you and stand ready to embrace you, may the memories of your names and your deeds shine in the minds of all who come after. You are not lost and not forgotten but forever remembered among the ranks of honor and courage.”
Mosko sat straighter as Geary recited the ancient blessing before an apparently hopeless battle. “May our deeds be worthy of our ancestors,” he replied. “Captain Geary, when you’ve beaten the last Syndic, and by the living stars I now believe you will, make sure any survivors of these ships are liberated and taken care of as they deserve. I’ll see you on the other side someday. Any messages?”
“Yes. If you see the spirit of Captain Michael Geary, let him know I’m doing my best.” His grandnephew, almost certainly dead with his ship Repulse back in the Syndic home system.
“Of course. And please let my family know about me when you get the fleet home.” Mosko saluted. “To the honor of our ancestors.”
The window vanished, taking Mosko’s image with it.
“Captain?” Desjani was gazing at him, not knowing what had happened.
Geary shook his head, took a deep breath, then pointed at the display, where Audacious, Defiant, and Indefatigable were pivoting around to use their main drives to slow their velocity. “The Seventh Battleship Division will be moving back to serve as a rear guard,” he managed to say. “They volunteered.”
She nodded, her face set. “Of course.” And in that moment Geary knew that were Dauntless required to do such a thing, then Desjani would do it. Not gladly, not embracing death as some key to heroic salvation, but because she knew others would be counting on her. In the end, that was what it was all about. Do what was needed for those counting on you, or let them down. “I expect,” Desjani continued, “that Captain Mosko will have his ships drop back to about three light-minutes behind the rest of the fleet and then maintain position there.”
“Three light-minutes,” Geary repeated.
Rione had come to stand beside him, bending down to speak very quietly. “Must this be?”
“Yes.”
She gazed at him, and for once apparently had no trouble seeing how much he regretted having to make the decision. “Will it make a difference?”
“If anything saves this fleet now, it’ll be their sacrifice.”
Taken alone, a single battleship carried an awesome amount of firepower, matched by heavy shields and heavy armor. Three battleships operating close together were a force to be reckoned with even by the numbers of Syndic warships hurling themselves toward the Alliance fleet.
Captain Mosko brought Indefatigable, Audacious, and Defiant back toward the onrushing Syndics, the three battleships arranged in a vertical triangle with Defiant at the top, close enough to one another to provide mutual protection and combine their firepower. After he’d fallen back far enough, he accelerated again, trying to match the speed of the Syndics so they’d have to go past at a slow relative speed and be much easier targets.
There was no way to avoid the fact that it made the three Alliance battleships much easier targets for the Syndics, too.
The remaining specter missiles and grapeshot blasted out from the three battleships as the leading wave of Syndic light cruisers and HuKs entered their engagement envelopes. A lot of the light enemy ships evaded away, swinging far out to either side or up or down to avoid the fire of the Alliance battleships and thereby losing so much ground that they wouldn’t be able to catch the Alliance fleet now.
About twenty HuKs and a half dozen light cruisers tried to charge past and through the Seventh Battleship Division. As the HuKs entered the engagement envelopes, the battleships’hell-lance batteries filled space with charged particle spears that tore into the light HuKs from multiple angles.
Space lit with impacts as shields flared and failed, then more hits tore holes in ships and their crews. HuKs and light cruisers exploded in balls of fragments and gas, broke into pieces that tumbled wildly through space, or simply went silent as their systems were knocked out, the dead hulks twisting away under the force of impacts.
None of the Syndic light units made it through, but right behind them were heavy cruisers and battle cruisers, none of those ships individually a match for a battleship, but in overwhelming numbers.
Clenching his fists, Geary gazed helplessly at the main body of the Syndic flotilla charging down on Mosko’s battleships.
“Specters,” Desjani stated in a clear voice.
She was right. There was one thing he could do. Combat systems confirmed that the rear guard was within extreme range for the specters remaining in the Alliance fleet. “All ships, fire all remaining specters targeted at the Syndic warships around Audacious, Defiant, and Indefatigable. I repeat, all remaining specters.”
The missiles began launching, flinging into space, choosing targets, then accelerating toward the embattled Alliance battleships and the Syndics flaying them. Not nearly enough specters, just enough to distract the Syndic pursuers somewhat and draw some fire away from the battleships, but something. They scored enough hits on one Syndic heavy cruiser to knock it out and managed some blows against battle cruisers whose screens had been knocked low by the hell-lance fire of Audacious, Indefatigable, and Defiant. But there were so many more Syndic heavy cruisers and battle cruisers, with the Syndic battleships coming into range now as well.
Defiant was catching the worst of it, glowing with the force of repeated enemy hits. Audacious took out another heavy cruiser, then turned its hell lances on a Syndic battle cruiser. Indefatigable reeled under the fire of a full division of enemy battle cruisers but punched back, getting in a solid hit with its null field when one battle
