Valiant

of its propulsion and was falling back as the Syndic formation began curving to one side for another strike at the Alliance ships.

I bungled that, Geary thought bitterly. The Syndic commander reacted so late I couldn’t concentrate my attack properly.

Desjani seemed cheerful, though. “Look at the damage on them! They won’t be able to survive another run like that.”

Geary didn’t answer, focusing on the movement of the Syndics. They were still coming around in the huge turn necessary when ships were moving at point one light speed, but he felt certain they were aiming to hit Echo Four One again, perhaps hoping to get some shots at the Alliance auxiliaries this time. He snapped out orders to the other four formations, bringing them in to cross the track the Syndics would follow to intercept Echo Four One once more, his tone drawing a wary look from Desjani.

This time he’d guessed right. As the tattered Syndic box came toward Echo Four One from port and slightly below, the other four Alliance subformations ripped past close ahead of it in quick succession, each pass inflicting more damage on the leading Syndic units so that the front of the Syndic box kept getting shredded and replaced by the warships behind it. More enemy heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and HuKs exploded, broke apart, or simply fell away with critical systems destroyed. Two more Syndic battle cruisers reeled out of the formation, followed by a third, while the forwardmost Syndic battleships took more and more hits.

The Syndics could only hit back at each Alliance formation once, and while they scored some hits, they failed to inflict serious damage on any ships.

“Echo Four One,” Geary ordered harshly, “turn port zero eight degrees up one four degrees at time four three.”

The Syndic box kept on course. Either the Syndic commander hadn’t spotted the Alliance maneuver in time or his flagship had been damaged and couldn’t communicate orders quickly enough. The Alliance formation centered on Dauntless swept over the top edge of the frayed front of the Syndic box, this time able to repeatedly hit the Syndic ships there while taking much less fire in return.

Desjani uttered a small whoop of pleasure as a Syndic battleship exploded in the wake of Echo Four One’s firing pass, followed by the core overloads of another battleship and one of the surviving battle cruisers.

But Geary just stared at his display, trying to rebuild his picture of events and how to bring the different pieces of everything together again. The Syndics were coming around to starboard now, angling slightly down. Alliance fleet subformations were swinging outward on four widely different vectors, their distances from the flagship varying. Geary tried to keep it all straight, tried to coordinate the actions of his subformations, and found it slipping away. He’d been rattled by his failure to call the maneuvers right on the first pass, and now the movements and the necessary maneuvers through different levels of time delay had grown too hard to grasp. But he couldn’t just release the fleet for general pursuit. Not yet. All of his ships would swarm toward the Syndic flotilla in a wild melee that would drastically increase the risk of collision and negate a lot of his advantages in numbers and firepower. Nor could he count on handing the movements of the subformations over to the artificial intelligence in the maneuvering system, because that would focus on predictable highest-probability moves and therefore be predictable itself as well as probably in error.

He didn’t realize he was staring wordlessly at his display, trying to get his mind around the complexity of the situation, as precious seconds ticked by. But then Rione was hissing a question in his ear. “What’s wrong? Our losses aren’t that bad.”

“Too complicated,” Geary whispered. “Can’t coordinate…”

“Then trust your subordinates, Captain Geary!” Rione whispered back angrily. “Let the commanders of your subformations maneuver their own forces while you handle this one!”

Damn. She’s right. Why do I think I have to do this myself? I chose subformation commanders I could trust to do a good job, and now I’m not trusting them. “Captain Duellos, Captain Tulev, Captain Badaya, Captain Cresida, maneuver your subformations independently to engage the enemy.”

The complexity overwhelming him shrank to manageable levels as Geary’s problem narrowed down to maneuvering his own piece of the fleet and keeping an eye on what the other subformations were doing. He swallowed, feeling in control of the situation again, then realized he’d regained control of everything by not trying to control everything personally. Remember that. This isn’t a one-person show. You were starting to think you were Black Jack, weren’t you? he chided himself. “Echo Four One, turn port one seven five degrees, down two one degrees at time five seven.”

Absurdly, even though the battle was continuing, everyone on Dauntless’s bridge seemed to relax. It took Geary a moment to realize that his own anger and distress had been throwing off the others. He forced himself to look around with a smile. “Well done so far. Let’s finish the job.”

Captain Desjani completed ordering some priorities for repairing the damage Dauntless had taken in the first encounters with the enemy, then smiled at him like a lioness who was anticipating kills. “They should have run after the first pass. If we can get their formation to break now, their remaining units won’t last long.”

“Maybe we can help that along.” Geary gestured to Desjani. “Can I get a circuit up to contact the Syndic flotilla?”

Desjani raised one eyebrow, then pointed a finger at her communications watch-stander, who tapped rapidly for a moment and nodded in confirmation, holding up four fingers. “You have it, sir. Channel four.”

Letting out a calming breath, Geary activated the circuit, trying to speak with casual confidence. “To all warships in the Syndicate Worlds’ flotilla engaged with the Alliance fleet, this is Captain John Geary, acting commander of the Alliance fleet. You are doubtless expecting reinforcements in the form of the large Syndicate Worlds’ force this fleet encountered at Lakota about two weeks ago. Be advised that we destroyed that force in its entirety. It won’t be showing up here or anywhere else. I urge you to surrender now and avoid further senseless loss of life.”

That brought another smile from Desjani. “You’re probably going to hurt their morale.”

“That’s the idea.”

“I’ll see what more Dauntless can do to hurt them physically. ” Echo Four One had come around again, approaching the frayed Syndic formation at a high angle this time.

Before Echo Four One could reach the Syndics, Echo Four Three and Echo Four Five hit the front of the battered box again, leaving another enemy battleship drifting in their wake.

“Use the rest of the grapeshot,” Desjani ordered her combat-systems officer as Echo Four One and the Syndic formation raced toward each other again.

Another flash of contact, then Geary watched the fleet’s sensors evaluating damage to the Syndics as Echo Four Two and Echo Four Four came in from above and below the Syndic box. The three remaining Syndic battle cruisers had lost all shields and were lashing out frantically at extreme range as the next two Alliance subformations approached. Only six heavy cruisers remained with the box, the rest of their number scattered in various states of destruction along the path the Syndic formation had taken through space. Five light cruisers and a dozen HuKs also had survived. The core of the Syndic formation remained its battleships, five of which were still in good shape.

Geary barely had time to hope that the commanders of Echo Four Two and Echo Four Four didn’t push their luck too far against the five battleships when his subformations made their latest firing runs, tearing past so close to the Syndics that Geary felt a momentary spurt of fear.

In the wake of the latest Alliance assault, one more Syndic battleship staggered away from the box formation and two of the three battle cruisers were gone. But Courageous, Incredible, and Illustrious had taken serious damage, the heavy cruiser Gusoku had blown up, and the destroyers Cestus and Balta were also gone. “This battle is not going well,” Geary muttered to himself.

But Desjani heard. “The Syndics aren’t making mistakes, ” she agreed. “But it won’t save them. One more firing run-”

“They’re breaking!” the operations watch-stander shouted exuberantly.

“Thank you, Mr. Gaciones,” Desjani replied. “I can hear without you yelling.”

As the embarrassed watch-stander turned back to his duties, Geary watched on his display as what was left of