tumbling. That alone would’ve been recoverable, but one of the surviving Syndic battle cruisers was too close and traveling on exactly the wrong trajectory. Even the ultrafast computers responsible for maneuvering ships to avoid collisions couldn’t avoid the result. Terrible and the Syndic ship collided as Geary watched in horror.
The collision, at a relative velocity of perhaps.06 light speed, or roughly eighteen thousand kilometers per second, turned both ships into a single titanic ball of heat, light, and scattered fragments that blossomed brilliantly against the dark of space, a human-made nebula that would briefly light the void of Ilion Star System.
A collective gasp of shock and dismay went up on the bridge of Dauntless. Geary heard a voice saying “Damn, damn, damn,” and realized it was his own. “May your ancestors protect you and the living stars welcome you,” he murmured to the dead crew of the Terrible.
Desjani, finally seeming shaken for the first time Geary recalled since they had escaped from the Syndic home system, called out commands to refocus her crew. “Damage report!”
“Minor hits on hull. No systems lost,” one of the watch-standers reported in a stunned voice.
Geary got a grip on himself as well, forcing himself to look away from the grave of the Terrible and evaluate the entire situation. There had been eight Syndic battleships and two battle cruisers in the part of the Syndic formation the Alliance fleet had met. Three of the battleships still survived, but all had taken damage. The Syndic light cruisers and HuKs around them had been wiped out, and only a few heavy cruisers still accompanied the surviving battleships. He took a deep breath, focusing on the front half of the Syndic force, which had turned hard to port and was accelerating away toward the jump point to Tavika. They obviously weren’t planning on fighting if they could possibly get away. “All units, come right one two zero degrees down one zero degrees and accelerate to point one five light at time two nine.” The huge cup pivoted again, turning to face the fleeing Syndics.
“We won’t get them,” Desjani grumbled.
“Yes, we will.” Geary pointed to Task Force Furious, slashing in from above and to the side of the Syndics. The Syndic maneuver, necessary as it was to reach the jump point, had turned their force toward Cresida’s formation and made an intercept of the leading Syndic elements possible.
Desjani didn’t so much grin as bare her teeth as Furious and the ships with her cut across the front of the Syndic formation, concentrating their fire on the lighter warships and stripping the remaining capital ships of their escorts. Diving below the Syndic formation with a speed advantage, Furious led the formation back up to hit the bottom of the Syndics. Another Syndic battleship reeled out of the formation, racked by secondary explosions.
Geary studied the situation, evaluating the geometry of the battle and reaching a decision as he watched the three damaged battleships that had survived the first Alliance pass falling farther and farther behind the rest of the Syndic formation. “Second Battleship Division. You are released from escort duties for the auxiliaries. Intercept and destroy the three Syndic battleships trailing their formation.”
Due to distance, the reply took almost a minute but made up for the delay in enthusiasm. “Second Battleship Division, aye! We’re on our way.”
Geary took another look at the battered Syndic formation still trying to accelerate away as Task Force Furious made repeated passes, curving up and down and side to side to keep hitting the front of the Syndics, whose own speed was falling off as undamaged ships reduced speed to stay with their damaged sisters. But Geary could see that the frequent passes were wearing down the shields of the ships in Task Force Furious. “All units, accelerate to point one eight light.” That might not be enough, though. He paused, hating to give the next order but seeing no alternative. “All units, general pursuit. Get those Syndics before they get away. We need to slow down those battleships.”
Geary had seen it before but was still amazed at how quickly one of his carefully built formations could dissolve when he unleashed his ships. A swarm of destroyers and light cruisers jumped ahead at maximum acceleration. Individually they wouldn’t stand a chance of hurting a battleship, but their sheer numbers would be more than the shields of even battleships could endure. And once the propulsion systems of the Syndic battleships had been damaged, they’d be slowed enough for first the Alliance battle cruisers and then the Alliance battleships to catch them, and that would seal their fates. “Task Force Furious, concentrate on slowing down the surviving capital ships.”
The Syndic formation technically still existed but had stretched out as it was hammered by Alliance hits. The sole surviving battle cruiser had pulled ahead of the rest, but that meant it was too far away for the battleships to support it when Task Force Furious swung past, unleashing a rain of hell-lances on its stern and knocking out most of its main propulsion systems.
As the battle cruiser began drifting back, the Alliance escorts drove into range of the trailing Syndic battleships and began slamming every available weapon at their sterns. Within ten minutes those battleships had lost enough propulsion to begin losing ground as well, their own hell lances flashing out impotently at the mass of light Alliance forces sweeping past.
The pursuing Alliance ships swept implacably up the rear of the Syndics, some of the destroyers and light cruisers reeling away with damage but the rest pounding at ship after ship in turn. Falcata got too close or got unlucky and took a series of hits that smashed her into wreckage.
“Heavy cruisers, avoid the battleships and get me that battle cruiser,” Geary ordered. He didn’t want to lose any heavy cruisers in an outmatched slugging contest with still-dangerous battleships. With an obedience that Geary would never have expected a few months ago, the heavy cruisers sidestepped the Syndic battleships, aiming to intercept the battle cruiser, which was still dangerous enough to keep Alliance destroyers and light cruisers at a distance.
Fearless, Resolution, Redoubtable, and Warspite dove at a slight angle toward the farthest-back Syndic battleship. The battleship unleashed a barrage of missiles, grapeshot, and hell lances at Fearless, but all four Alliance battleships kept coming, holding their fire until close enough for their own hell lances to pound the Syndic shields. The aft shields, heavily reinforced, held until Fearless got close enough to hit the side shields as well.
Its shields collapsed, the Syndic battleship was riddled by close-range hell-lance fire, most of its weapons falling silent and the majority of its systems registering as dead on Geary’s display. Fearless fired a null-field charge that bored a large hole right through the battleship, gutting a portion of it. Escape pods began bursting from the battleship, first in a scattering of twos and threes, then in a mass. By the time Dauntless and her sisters roared past, only an occasional escape pod was coming out of the stricken ship. “Finish him,” Desjani ordered calmly.
Dauntless’s own hell lances rained down on the length of the Syndic battleship, punching holes and destroying any remaining functional systems. By the time Daring made its own pass, the Syndic ship was definitely dead.
Captain Duellos’s Courageous, along with Formidable, Intrepid, and Renown, bore down on another damaged battleship and raked it so badly that the after section broke off, leaving the two pieces tumbling along their last trajectories.
The last Syndic battle cruiser, its remaining propulsion systems knocked out, started spitting out escape pods even though many of its weapons still seemed functional. Geary guessed they had been set to fire on automatic, which worked well enough for attackers to respect but didn’t select targets or concentrate fire as well as human- directed weaponry. Under fire from more and more heavy cruisers, the battle cruiser’s shields failed, and it took hit after hit, until the last weapons fell silent long after the final escape pod had left.
Geary took a moment to check on where the Second Battleship Division was closing on the three damaged Syndic battleships. To his surprise, one of those Syndic battleships had already begun throwing out escape pods as well.
“So much for fighting to the death,” Desjani commented.
“What would be the point?” Rione demanded. “They know they’re doomed.”
“You still fight,” Desjani insisted, her eyes on the next Syndic battleship Dauntless was overhauling.
“Why?” Rione asked.
Desjani threw a despairing glance at Geary, who understood what she meant. How to explain the strange logic? That sometimes you had to fight a hopeless battle for reasons that might seem to make no sense, for reasons that had nothing to do with any hope of winning? “You just have to,” he told Rione quietly. “If you don’t understand why, there’s no way to explain it.”
“I understand fighting when there’s a chance, but when it’s hopeless…”
“Sometimes you win even when it seems hopeless. Sometimes you lose there but cause something that helps elsewhere, like hurting the enemy bad enough while they kill you, or keeping them busy for a critical period of time. I told you, I can’t explain. You just do it.”
