help he could get. But tempting as it was to linger and speak for a while to the one audience he felt sure of, his dead ancestors, Geary knew he couldn’t hide in here while the fleet headed for battle.
All of that didn’t kill nearly enough time. Geary confirmed that nothing had changed in the situation, everybody rushing toward their respective intercept points and the Syndics still closing in on the path to the mines, then forced himself to go by the meal areas and pretend to eat. Most of what they had now was Syndic rations looted from places like Kaliban and now Sancere. The best thing about the Syndic food, Geary and the sailors he spoke with agreed, was that it made the usual fleet food seem good by comparison. “If we offered the Syndics decent meals, they’d probably surrender in droves,” one of the sailors suggested as she choked down something that was apparently supposed to be hash, though made up of unidentifiable meat and some very odd looking potatoes with the texture and taste of blocks of cardboard.
Geary returned to the bridge. Rione wasn’t there, and Desjani was asleep in her chair again. A captain who spent that much time on the bridge could drive her crew insane, but Desjani wasn’t a screamer or a micromanager, so her presence didn’t wear on her watch-standers. She woke up as Geary entered and nodded to him. “One more hour until the Syndics reach the first mines. They’re still heading right down the chute.”
“When do you think they’ll start braking?” Geary asked.
“In about half an hour. That’ll leave them a very slight margin for error.” Desjani indicated the projected track on the display. “If they brake too early, they’ll slide off the path to the mines, but we’ll have a much better shot at catching them with this formation. But if they want to hit Formation Gamma, they’ll have to start braking at this point.”
Geary settled in, relaxing as best he could. To kill time, he began rechecking the supplies the fleet had picked up here at Sancere, and how the auxiliaries were doing on manufacturing replacement items. There had been a lot of maneuvering here in Sancere, burning through fuel cells, so Geary tossed off a quick message to Captain Tyrosian on Witch to make sure new fuel cells were a priority. All of the grapeshot, mines, and missiles in the world wouldn’t provide enough help to ships that couldn’t maneuver.
Co-President Rione returned, surveying the bridge of the Dauntless, Captain Desjani, and Captain Geary with her usual unruffled and challenging attitude. Nodding in greeting, Geary realized there was little chance of him ever accidentally calling her Victoria while on the bridge. The Co-President Rione who occupied the observer’s seat on the bridge might look like the Victoria who shared Geary’s bed, but her attitude was so different that she seemed to really be another person, one who retained distance and distrust toward Captain Geary. I did ask her to stay challenging, after all. But I have a feeling she’d be like this whether I’d asked it of her or not.
Desjani also nodded in almost-friendly greeting. Being involved with Geary had clearly made Rione more trustworthy in Desjani’s eyes, though he suspected Rione would react pretty negatively to the idea. He certainly wasn’t going to mention it to her. But then she probably already had realized that, which might be contributing to the frosty way Rione was treating Geary on the bridge. Maybe he should put off mentioning to Rione that the crew seemed to be expecting to see them together. Or maybe she wanted to be seen with him, to make as public a spectacle as possible of their association.
Geary turned back to the much less complicated situation playing out between the Syndic flotilla and his five formations. His display indicated every Alliance ship had come to full battle readiness. He and thousands of other officers and sailors had nothing to do for a while yet but watch the time scroll down to the moments when the Syndics would encounter the first mines.
The Syndics pivoted up and over in place almost exactly when predicted, bringing their propulsion units to face forward so they could brake the Syndic formation’s velocity down to engagement speed. A few minutes later, Geary saw Formation Gamma increase speed a fraction to move the Syndic track to intercept exactly back onto the path through the mines. Surely the Syndics would get suspicious? But, perhaps because they were fixed on their intended targets, the Syndics adjusted their course just as the Alliance needed them to.
Fifteen more minutes crawled by. “Here they come,” Desjani murmured.
The intricate maneuvers that had set up the trap had sent ships or formations across the space the Syndic flotilla was now braking through. The result hadn’t been so much a minefield as a lattice made up of multiple rows and strings of mines spread across light-seconds of distance along the track. The Syndic warships were now rushing stern first into the area holding those mines. Any hits would fall on their main propulsion units aft, which was exactly where the Alliance wanted those hits to strike.
The Syndic formation braked through the first two lines of mines without encountering any. Frustrating, but the odds didn’t favor a lot of hits. The third line lay right across their path.
A Syndic HuK took a direct hit on the stern. The mine collapsed the rear shields and blew the HuK’s propulsion units, leaving it unable to maneuver. One of the battle cruisers took two hits, losing a single propulsion unit. There was a pause as the Syndics swept onward, until they hit where the fourth and fifth lines crossed. This time several hits sparked on the Syndic ships, sending a heavy cruiser stumbling out of formation and taking out a couple of propulsion units on another battle cruiser.
By this time the Syndics had figured out they were running into something. The most effective counter would be to pivot their ships so they were facing forward and would take any further hits on their bows. But pivoting would mean the warships couldn’t use their main propulsion systems to brake anymore, which would prevent them from slowing enough to intercept Formation Gamma. Geary had guessed that the Syndic leader would chose to continue taking occasional hits rather than give up the chance to strike the Alliance ships in Gamma. If the Syndics had hit all the mines at once and sustained the damage in a single burst, it probably would’ve caused the leader to call off the attack, but instead the hits kept coming in ones and twos, adding up in a way that the Syndic commander might well miss until too late while focus remained on the Alliance warships in Gamma.
More hits occurred as the Syndics encountered successive lines of mines, each one doing a little more damage, weakening even the shields on the battleships. By this time the Syndic commander had to be worried. The damaged ships were already losing their places in formation and might have to be left behind when the Syndic flotilla accelerated away after hitting Gamma.
“Captain Tulev has fired specters,” Desjani observed. “It looks like he’s firing every specter he’s got. They’ll intercept the Syndic formation just as it’s clearing the last string of mines.”
“Good move,” Geary agreed.
A final flurry of three mine strikes marked the last string of mines, then the Syndic ships were sweeping down on Formation Gamma with no more obstacles between them. Moments later the specters from Gamma flashed into contact. The high relative speed caused some to miss, but others hammered at ships that in many cases had already seen their shields drained by mine hits and hadn’t recovered yet. Another battle cruiser took hits to its propulsion systems, another HuK vanished into a ball of debris, and two of the remaining heavy cruisers were badly battered. Even better, two of the battleships lost a couple of propulsion units.
“Adjust course as necessary to intercept the Syndics,” Geary ordered Desjani, passing the same command to Captain Duellos in Formation Bravo. The rest of the ships in the formation would conform to Dauntless’s moves as Desjani made minor adjustments to course and speed to manage the best intercept.
“We’ll have to start braking ourselves, soon,” she advised.
Geary checked his display and nodded. “All units in Formation Delta, adjust ships’ headings one hundred eighty degrees now.” That would bring the Alliance ships around so their main propulsion units faced aft. “Begin braking down to point one light at time three one.”
Tulev had formed his battle cruisers facing the Syndics and close around Goblin, making as close to a physical shield for Goblin as it was possible to construct. The Syndic formation, though increasingly spread out as damaged ships fell out of position, was still aiming for intercept and still had more than twice the firepower available to Tulev’s forces.
Geary blinked, trying to understand what he had just seen.
Desjani was grinning broadly. “Brilliant!”
Tulev had pivoted his ships and accelerated at maximum when it was too late for the Syndics to react but just in time to throw off the Syndic intercept. The maneuver had required perfect timing, and Tulev had carried it off. He’d also thrown a barrage of grapeshot at the leading Syndic ships, which were firing on the place Tulev’s ships should have been if they hadn’t changed speed, only belatedly shifting aim to target the actual positions of the Alliance warships. The two leading battleships seemed to flare incandescent as the Alliance grapeshot hit their shields in a concentrated volley. “He got them!” Desjani exulted as Dauntless’s sensors provided damage reports that both battleships had been badly hurt.
