Valiant

didn’t answer. “I’m sorry, but I’m the wrong hero for that. I can’t do what you’re suggesting.”

“There’s still time-”

“I didn’t say it couldn’t be done, I said I can’t do it. I won’t abandon these other ships to their fates. I won’t allow the big picture to justify betraying the trust of the men and women who’ve placed their fates in my hands.”

Rione sounded both pleading and angry. “They all took an oath to sacrifice for the Alliance.”

“Yes, they did. So did I.” He finally looked at her again. “But I can’t do that, even if it costs the Alliance the war. The price would be too great.”

Her anger grew. “We can pay any price that is necessary, Captain Geary. For our homes. For our families.”

“I’m supposed to tell their families that? ‘People of the Alliance, I sacrificed your parents, your partners, your children, for you.’ How many people would really make that kind of bargain? Would anyone willing to make that bargain deserve to win?”

“We all make it, every day! You know that! Every civilian makes that bargain when they send their military off to war! We know they’re risking their lives for us!”

She was right about that, too. But not entirely. “They trust us not to waste those lives,” Geary stated heavily. “I will not trade the lives of the people of this fleet for a Syndic hypernet key. I will lead them and fight like hell to get that key home to Alliance space, but I will not write off the lives of my people as a necessary price for that. The moment I decide that any price is justified is the moment I betray my trust and what I see as my duty. We’ll win or we’ll die together, with honor.”

Rione gazed back at him for a while, then shook her head. “Part of me is very angry with you, and part of me is very grateful that I couldn’t convince you. I’m not a monster, John Geary.”

“I didn’t say you were.” He jerked his head toward his display, where the movements of the warships in this star system were clearly shown. “But a lot of people are going to die today because of my decisions now and in the past. Sometimes I wonder what that makes me.”

“Look in the eyes of your comrades, Captain Geary,” Rione replied in a quiet voice. “The ones you wouldn’t leave. Reflected in those eyes you’ll see what you are.”

Rione returned to her seat. Geary took a few deep breaths, noticing that Captain Desjani was acting totally absorbed in her own work. He wondered what she might have guessed about his and Rione’s conversation.

As much to distract himself as because he needed to, Geary called Captain Cresida. “I’m going to order the auxiliaries to break away from the Syndic Casualty Flotilla in two hours. Until then they’re going to keep putting on a public display of frantically pulling everything they can off the Syndic ships.”

Cresida nodded, only the rapidity of the gesture revealing her prebattle nerves. Those thirty-one Syndic battleships and thirteen battle cruisers were aimed straight at her force, and for protection of the auxiliaries she had only two battle cruisers, four battleships, of which three were in various states of disrepair, and a gaggle of escorts with varying degrees of damage. “We’ll cover the auxiliaries, but we’re going to need backup.”

“It’ll be coming,” Geary promised. “Don’t let Furious and Implacable get into a slugging match with those Syndic battleships. Try to disrupt their attacks instead of meeting them head-on.” He was reciting advice from peacetime tactical workshops a century ago to someone who’d fought dozens of battles.

But Cresida nodded again as if Geary had imparted some piece of hidden wisdom. “Warrior can’t maneuver well enough to dodge. She’ll have to meet the attack. I don’t know about Majestic and Orion.”

Geary’s ship status display showed that both Majestic and Orion had regained most of their maneuvering capability, so he guessed that Cresida was actually expressing doubt about what they’d do when confronted by the mass of Syndic battleships. He wasn’t sure of that himself. “I understand. Conqueror shouldn’t give you any trouble.” Captain Casia was technically senior to Cresida, but Geary had painstakingly crafted orders which so limited Casia’s role to close defense of the auxiliaries that he shouldn’t be able to interfere with the actions of the much-more-capable Cresida.

“I hope Conqueror manages to give the enemy some trouble, ” Cresida observed.

“Me, too. We’re going to disrupt the attack before it reaches you. Hopefully that’ll do enough damage to make the plan work.”

Cresida smiled, startling Geary. “If it doesn’t, there’s worse fates. I’ve got someone waiting for me.”

It took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t talking about someone waiting at home, but rather about what would happen if Furious was destroyed in the engagement. “We need you, Captain Cresida. Do your duty, but the Alliance already has too many dead heroes.”

“Yes, it does.” Cresida nodded again.

Geary ended the transmission and stared at his display, where the mighty Syndic pursuit force was still accelerating into its attack. He wondered how many more dead heroes the Alliance would have before this day ended.

FOUR

“YOU’RE not going to change the formation?” Captain Desjani asked again.

“No, I’m not going to change the formation!” Geary gave her an annoyed glance. How many times had she asked the question over the last hour? “We need to look like an easy, disorganized target.”

“Sir, with all due respect, we are an easy, disorganized target in this formation.” Desjani saw Geary’s scowl deepen but kept speaking. “Our firepower is spread throughout a wide region. The Syndics will be able to overwhelm each of those subformations one after another, just like we overcame each weak Syndic formation we encountered.”

She was stubborn, but she was smart, and under other circumstances she’d probably be right. Geary forced down his temper. “We can’t engage them as a fleet. They have too great an advantage in firepower when you take into account that they probably have much bigger stocks of missiles and grapeshot on hand than we do.”

“If we concentrate on one part of the formation like you did last time we were in Lakota-”

“Tanya, look.” He gestured at the display. “Last time the Syndics let themselves get suckered into spreading out to catch us, which allowed us to concentrate and punch through. The CEO in command now was smart enough to learn from that. The Syndic formation is already concentrated into a fairly tight box.”

“Then we can maneuver around it.”

“Not with our fuel cell reserves in the state they are and not with the auxiliaries to worry about! They’ve taken on a lot of materials, and they’re sluggish as hell again with all of that extra mass.” Desjani glared at the display, clearly wanting to argue some more. Geary kept his voice reasonable with some effort. “The disadvantage of the Syndic formation is that it’s so deep and dense that their CEO can’t maneuver it easily. If our trap fails, we’ll have to take what advantage we can of that by hitting it again and again on the edges.”

“It would take forever to wear down that force that way,” Desjani pointed out. “We don’t have enough fuel cells to do that, either.”

He took a moment to reply, looking at the display again, where the Syndic pursuit force was eight light- minutes distant. It had reached point one light speed and was still coming right for them, its box formation looking like a huge brick aimed at the Alliance fleet’s bubble. Desjani was right, of course. He knew that. Sure, a head-on clash of concentrated formations would almost certainly result in the Alliance fleet being shattered against the much stronger Syndic force. But at least the end would happen quickly. What would be the purpose of drawing it out, losing ships one by one over a much longer period, with the same defeat awaiting them in the end?

The alternative would be to run, now, as fast as the fleet could go, jump to another star system ahead of the Syndics, knowing they’d be right behind this time, the Alliance fleet unable to stop to replenish the auxiliaries again. Sooner or later he’d have to turn and fight, and probably under worse conditions than this. He’d been forced to linger here to restock his auxiliaries, but the fleet would eventually run out of fuel cells if he couldn’t replenish