Valiant

stars. So he’s spilling his guts about whatever he knows, thinking that’s the only way to atone for helping to attack us.” He paused for Geary’s reaction.

“I like that attitude,” Geary noted.

One minute later, Ocrea’s captain nodded. “Me, too, sir. This Syndic sailor doesn’t know much, but he did know that we took out the Syndic flagship during our fight before the jump for Ixion. The senior Syndic CEO didn’t make it off alive, and that left two CEOs of lower-but-equal rank arguing over who would get to command the force pursuing us to Ixion. Our source can’t remember exactly how long, but he said it was at least four hours. Maybe even more than five, while the Syndic flotilla here hung around doing nothing.” The other officer paused for Geary’s reply.

“At least four hours?” Geary questioned. He’d targeted the center of the Syndic formation hoping for that, but hadn’t known if he’d succeeded. “That sailor is certain?”

“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, he can’t tell us anything more specific than ‘big’ about the size of the force that pursued us to Ixion. The only other thing he seems to know that’s useful is that some of the badly damaged Syndic ships left behind here were required to transfer some crew members to the ships chasing after us. This guy thought they were to replace battle casualties, but said a lot of ships were under-crewed these days in terms of skilled personnel. The Syndics seem to have lost a larger than usual number of better-trained people lately, more than their training pipeline can replace for a while.” This time Ocrea’s captain smiled in a very satisfied way.

“That’s great work,” Geary stated with total sincerity. “Do you think any of your prisoners are worth hanging on to for transfer to a ship with more sophisticated interrogation facilities?”

“I really doubt it, sir. Even the one who gave away everything he could doesn’t really know anything beyond what I told you. In my opinion, they’re not worth keeping.” The commanding officer of Ocrea seemed struck by an unexpected thought. “I guess we could just put them back in their escape pods and relaunch them. We’ve done that with others lately, haven’t we?”

Geary nodded, trying not to show his relief. Not too long ago Ocrea’s captain, like every other officer in the fleet, might simply have spaced the Syndic prisoners if dealing with them seemed too difficult. That he had on his own suggested a humane way of getting them off the fleet’s hands was a very good sign that the concept of honor was returning to its old meaning. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”

The other officer smiled. “Any messages from the living stars that we should give this guy to spread around?”

Geary almost jumped on that opportunity, then paused. It felt wrong in some indefinable way, as if someone was giving him a warning he couldn’t hear or see but only sense. “That might not be such a good idea. His own ideas he can spread, but I wouldn’t want to offend the living stars by presuming to speak for them.”

The smile on the face of Ocrea’s captain disappeared. “I wasn’t suggesting sacrilege, sir.”

“I know that. But what we think is okay might not be in their eyes. Right? Better safe than sorry.”

“True.” Ocrea’s commanding officer nodded. “We seem to be in their favor right now, and I wouldn’t want that to change. Thank you, sir. We’ll relaunch the Syndic escape pods within the next ten minutes or so.”

“Sounds good. Thanks again for outstanding work.”

As the window showing Ocrea’s captain vanished, Geary turned to speak to both Desjani and Rione, filling them in on the news before adding his interpretation. “The surviving Syndic CEOs each wanted to be the one who could claim credit for destroying this fleet at Ixion, so they spent hours arguing over who would be in charge. Co-President Rione, don’t the Syndics have some sort of seniority system like our date of rank?”

She shook her head. “CEO positions straddle both civilian and military commands. A CEO’s standing is partially set by his level, but also by political influence.”

“You’re saying their command structure resembles…” He gave Desjani an apologetic glance. “Resembles what this fleet was like? I would have expected the Syndics to have a rigid command structure. Everything I’ve seen reflects that.”

“Up to a certain point,” Rione explained patiently, though with an amused glance at Desjani’s discomfort. “Anyone below the rank of CEO had better do as they’re told and not make waves. But once someone reaches CEO level, the knives come out. Among Syndic CEOs, it’s constant political jockeying for position and higher-level assignments, culminating in those who manage to scheme, backslap, and backstab their way to the Executive Council.”

“It doesn’t sound all that different from our politicians,” Desjani murmured as if to herself, yet loudly enough that Rione probably heard it.

But Rione just smiled coldly as she kept her eyes on Geary. “The CEO who can take credit for killing you will be on a fast track for that Executive Council. Small wonder the two surviving CEOs with the Syndic flotilla wasted precious time fighting for the post of commander. Contrary to what that Syndic sailor thought, they most likely weren’t arguing with each other but each trying to convince the flotilla’s commanding officers that existing orders and regulations meant that he or she should assume command of the flotilla. Those commanding officers would have been terrified of agreeing to follow the orders of someone without good bureaucratic justification that would allow them to claim they’d had no alternative.”

“Not the same as this fleet at all, then,” Geary observed. The Alliance fleet had looked for a leader after Admiral Bloch died, while the Syndic flotilla had tried to agree on what the regulations said. If the fleet had simply bowed to regulations, his own status as commander never would have been questioned since his seniority as a captain dated from a century ago when he received his “posthumous” promotion, considerably earlier by many decades than any other captain in the fleet could claim. But it was easy to imagine that the other problems ship commanders frightened of breaking the rules would have created would have more than balanced out the scales. “We lucked out, and it bought us at least four hours of delay in the Syndic pursuit, maybe more.”

“We didn’t ‘luck out,’ sir,” Desjani objected. “You aimed our first attack on the Syndic formation at the point where you thought their flagship would be.”

Rione spoke pointedly to Geary. “Don’t forget that whoever is commanding the Syndic ships left here is the CEO who lost that dispute over who’d be in command of the pursuit force. That may influence how they’re reacting to this fleet now.”

“Good point,” Geary agreed. “But how will it influence that CEO?”

“Whatever happens here is the fault of the CEO who assumed overall command and took off with the pursuit force. They wanted the command so they could gain the credit, but now it will position them to receive the blame. When that force gets back to Lakota, their CEO is going to be frantic to deal us a serious enough blow to make up for what you’ve done here.”

At least four hours. The tense muscles in Geary’s back relaxed a bit.

His fleet could do a lot of damage with a four-hour head start.

THREE

THREE more Syndic light cruisers were torn apart, then the major elements of the Alliance fleet converged on the Syndic Casualty Flotilla. A new swarm of escape pods marked many of the remaining crew members on the crippled Syndic warships without any combat capability abandoning their vessels. With the Casualty Flotilla inching away from its Alliance attackers, the engagement speed was a relatively slow point one light speed, or a mere thirty thousand kilometers per second. Fleet engagements often involved ships crossing paths at combined speeds of close to point two light speed, the limit beyond which targeting systems could not effectively adjust for relativistic effects, which warped the outside view of the universe.

As it was, even at point one light speed a firing pass came down to a mere fraction of a second in which weapons were in range, automated systems aiming and firing since human senses couldn’t possibly react quickly enough.

The First and Seventh Battle Cruiser Divisions, totaling only three warships each, roared into range first. The