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“Yeah. We will. We’ve obviously found the reserve flotilla.” Geary began working up the intercept, assuming the Syndics would turn back toward this jump point. “How long until the fleet’s sensors give us a picture of what happened here?”

  “It should be pretty quick now.” On the heels of her words, system estimates began popping up. Desjani’s jaw tightened as she viewed her displays, where the fleet’s sensors and evaluation systems were showing their analysis of the latest wreckage. “The most recent debris correlates to two or three Alliance battle cruisers. Somewhere between nine and thirteen destroyers. One or two light cruisers. Four to six heavy cruisers. And two battleships, counting Intractable.” She let out a long breath. “Intractable held off the Syndics so the rest could get away, but there’s no way for the sensors to tell us how much that was.”

  “At least it wasn’t one-sided.” Geary watched new estimates appear. “It looks like they cost the Syndics one or two battle cruisers, a battleship, somewhere between ten and twenty HuKs, six or seven heavy cruisers, and eight to eleven light cruisers. Plus what was too damaged to pursue them through the jump.”

  A badly damaged Syndic battle cruiser, three heavy cruisers, and one light cruiser were spread out along the path of the battle, all of them limping on courses toward the second planet in the star system. Near the jump exit, another battle cruiser mauled by Intractable’s last stand looked like it was turning toward the inner system, too.

  The fleet’s sensors were peering four light-hours across the edge of the star system, looking through the debris of battle to evaluate the size of the Syndic force, and those results finally appeared as well.

  “Sixteen battleships, fourteen battle cruisers, twenty heavy cruisers, forty-five light cruisers, one hundred ten Hunter-Killers.” He’d been hoping that Lieutenant Iger’s estimates were way too high. In fact, they seemed to have been all too accurate. “That’s what’s still operational in the reserve flotilla.”

  “We can take them,” Desjani insisted.

  “We’re going to have to. But I can’t finish plotting an intercept until they turn around and settle on new vectors.”

  He waited impatiently, the Alliance fleet eating up the distance to the jump point but close to two days’ travel away, until Desjani suddenly gasped. “They’re not turning around. They’re re-forming. They’re going to jump after the Alliance ships that escaped.”

  “Jump to Varandal?” The only thing worse than fighting the reserve flotilla here might be having to fight it at Varandal if the Syndics were able to inflict enough damage at that star system before the Alliance fleet could catch up to them.

  “Still almost four light-hours distant.” Desjani slammed a fist against the arm of her seat. “They’re going to jump before they even know we’re here.”

  “Maybe that’ll let us surprise them at Varandal.” His eyes went to the estimates of Alliance losses here. Two battleships. Had the other one been Dreadnaught? Was his grandniece Jane Geary dead, just when Geary had gotten heartbreakingly close to home, or was she in one of the escape pods littering this system?

  More symbols were proliferating on the displays, revealing the escape pods within Atalia Star System. There were a lot of Alliance escape pods from the warships destroyed here. Geary settled back, his eyes going from the Syndic reserve flotilla where it was re-forming in preparation for jumping to Varandal, to the badly damaged Syndic warships limping toward safety and also still unaware of the arrival of the Alliance fleet here, to the flocks of Alliance escape pods, to the status display showing how much fuel-cell reserves remained on the fleet’s warships.

  “I need advice, Tanya.” She focused on him. “We can easily swing our courses past those damaged Syndics and take them out on our way to the jump point. However, the Alliance sailors in those escape pods will be counting on us to pick them up, but that will require slowing the fleet’s ships a lot for the pickup. That’ll cost fuel cells we don’t have to spare, and delay the time until we reach the jump point for Varandal.”

  Desjani drummed her fingers on the arm of her seat for a moment, then turned to her engineering watch.

  “If those escape pods turn onto the same vectors as this fleet and burn all of their remaining fuel, what velocity can they reach?”

  The engineer quickly ran figures. “Captain, working back to how long they’ve probably been in space and how much the pods must have burned during their launches, then they could probably get up to point zero one light if they reactivated the escape-launch burn sequence. But they’d have nothing left afterward.”

  “That helps some, but not enough. The fleet would still have to brake quite a bit.” Desjani shook her head. “Even if we could afford the fuel-cell consumption, it would still delay us a lot. And most of our ships have as much personnel on board as they can handle as it is. Getting them overcrowded could be ugly if those ships need to be evacuated in the fighting at Varandal, and there aren’t enough escape pods available. What we need is two fleets.” Her eyes went to the display as alerts pulsed. “The Syndic reserve flotilla jumped for Varandal three hours and forty-one minutes ago.”

  “Too bad we didn’t get here over three hours earlier. If they’d seen us before they jumped, they might have hung around and simplified things for us.” Geary ran his eyes across the fleet status display. “Two fleets. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do. Break off some of the ships to pick up the escape pods and follow after the rest.”

  “Who can we spare?”

  “No one. But we have ships that will have trouble keeping up anyway.” The choices seemed simple, but it wasn’t just a matter of physics. He called Illustrious. “Captain Badaya, I have a request to make of you.”

  Six seconds later Badaya’s answer came in. He looked weary, but that was to be expected since Badaya had probably been pushing himself and his crew around the clock to get the damage to Illustrious repaired before the likelihood of battle. There was only so much that Illustrious’s crew could do, though. “What do you need, Captain Geary?”

  “I need those Alliance escape pods recovered, but I can’t afford to slow the entire fleet to do that. On its way to the jump point for Varandal the fleet can eliminate the remaining Syndic warship presence in this star system, but whoever slows down to pick up those escape pods will still need enough firepower to protect them if something unexpected happens.”

  Six seconds later Captain Badaya nodded. “Who were you thinking of, Captain Geary?”

  “The three auxiliaries. Orion. Incredible. Resolution. The most badly damaged escorts. And because those ships will need a reliable and capable commander, Illustrious.”

  Badaya eventually nodded again. “We’ve done a lot to patch up Illustrious, but she’s still going to be at a disadvantage during a fleet engagement. I understand your logic. But it’s a very hard thing to think of missing the fight in Varandal.”

  “I understand.” Badaya had his faults, but he’d earned the right to have his pride and honor given full consideration. “That’s why I’m asking you to accept the assignment. If any Syndics pop out of the jump point for Varandal before you get to it, you’ll have to fight your way through them. I need somebody in command of the force who can be counted upon to do that, and I’m giving you two battleships and two battle cruisers to do it.” He didn’t bother adding what he and Badaya both knew, that all four battered ships didn’t add up to the combat capability of a single, undamaged battleship.

  “Not much chance of Syndics making it back here before we leave,” Badaya observed, “though it’s not impossible. But if you maul the Syndics who’ve jumped to Varandal, some of them may be heading for the jump point back to here when we arrive at Varandal. We’ll be well positioned to block them and wipe them out.”

  “That’s true.”

  “It’s an honorable assignment,” Badaya concluded. “We won’t leave any Alliance sailors behind here, Illustrious won’t slow down any of our fellow battle cruisers, and we’ll be far enough behind the rest of you t
o intercept Syndics trying to flee Varandal. Thank you for your confidence, Captain Geary.”

  “You’ve earned it, Captain Badaya.” Which was true enough. Aside from the dictator thing, he wasn’t a bad commanding officer. Badaya tended to be too reactive rather than coming up with new ideas before the enemy did, but give him orders and he’d execute them or die trying. Moreover, he believed in Geary, believed in him enough to accept an assignment that Badaya probably would have refused if given it six months ago.

  “Thank you, Captain Geary,” Badaya repeated. “That other matter we discussed, about options once the fleet reaches Varandal. Everyone who needs to know is aware of your wishes in the matter and all have promised to abide by them. Even if Illustrious doesn’t make it to Varandal, your flank is covered.”

  “That’s good to know, Captain Badaya.” Geary breathed a prayer of thanks that for once Badaya had phrased something carefully and discreetly. He’d learned several times that supposedly private communications were usually anything but that. “I’ll prepare the orders for the ships accompanying Illustrious. We’ll see you all at Varandal.”

  “Orion’s not going to be happy,” Desjani observed as she double-checked Geary’s plans.

  “Orion doesn’t deserve to be happy. Once we’re back in Alliance space, I’m going to recommend breaking up her crew and getting mostly new personnel on board. Nothing else has worked to rebuild that crew.”

  “Maybe watching Numos get shot by a firing squad after his court-martial will help motivate them,”

  Desjani said cheerfully.

  “It might.” His frustration with the slow pace of repairs by Orion’s crew had grown great enough that even he spent a moment enjoying the idea. “Then again, ever since they saw Majestic blown apart at Lakota, Orion’s crew has made creditable progress on fixing up their armor and weapons.”

  “But not their propulsion,” Desjani noted dryly. “Maybe you should drop a hint that while they can protect themselves better now, they still can’t run away.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Captain Desjani.” Instead of being abashed, she just grinned as he continued. “I don’t think Resolution and Incredible will complain much, though.”

  “You wouldn’t want to try separating those two ships,” Desjani replied. “They’ve apparently mated for life after bonding at Heradao.”

  “Why are you in such a good mood, Captain Desjani?”

  “Because the Syndic reserve flotilla has jumped to Varandal, Captain Geary, and will now be trapped between the Alliance forces that fled here and this fleet, as well as facing all of the defenses Varandal has to offer.” Desjani smiled like a wolf. “They’re meat.”

  “That may be, but they’re meat with teeth.”

  DESPITE the huge virtual size of the conference-room table, Geary couldn’t help noticing that it was smaller than it had been for earlier meetings. There were fewer ships and, therefore, fewer commanding officers left in the fleet. But at least after the events in Padronis. the poison seemed to have finally been drawn from the fleet, and any debate here would be open and genuine. “I’m sure you’re all familiar with the situation. The Syndic reserve flotilla jumped for Varandal before they knew we’d arrived at Atalia. They’re pursuing an Alliance force whose size remains uncertain and will undoubtedly try to reduce the Alliance facilities at Varandal as well as destroy the rest of the Alliance warships there. We have to get to Varandal in time to assist our comrades there on warships and the planets and orbital facilities.”

  He gestured toward the display hovering over the table. “The main body of the fleet will proceed to the jump point for Varandal as fast as our fuel-cell situation will allow, taking a course that will allow us to sweep up the damaged Syndic warships remaining in this star system. A formation made up of Illustrious, Incredible, Resolution, Orion, Titan, Jinn, Witch, and the most badly damaged cruisers and destroyers will slow down enough to recover the Alliance escape pods in this star system, then follow the rest of us to Varandal.”

  Every eye went to Captain Badaya, doubtless expecting him to explode with disagreement, but Badaya just nodded, his expression set. “Illustrious is honored to be given responsibility for this critical task. Make sure the rest of you leave some Syndics for us at Varandal.”

  “Be careful what you ask for,” Commander Parr from Incredible cautioned. “But we’ll be happy to fight alongside the other ships with us.”

  Duellos looked as tired as Badaya. “The odds don’t look to be good at Varandal, and I see your projected movement will bring us to Varandal with less than twenty percent fuel-cell reserves.”

  “That’s right.” Geary tried to say it casually, as if it were routine to go into battle against superior numbers with fuel-cell reserves so low that the real risk existed of warships running out of power during the engagement at Varandal. “There’s nothing we can do about the fuel-cell situation. The remaining auxiliaries are using their shuttles to distribute the fuel cells they manufactured during the last jump, and after that we’ll have to count on refueling after we deal with the Syndics at Varandal. We’ll have a better idea of the odds we face at Varandal once the Alliance escape pods can provide us with a listing of the warships that were with the Alliance force that came here. So far all we can do is estimate how many Alliance warships were lost here.”

  Everybody checked the time. “The nearest pods should have seen us by now,” Captain Armus grumped.

  “We’ll have to wait another half hour before any message from them can reach us.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But it’s still over a day before we reach the jump point for Varandal. We have time. Too much time, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”

  NOTHING but sit on the bridge of Dauntless, bulleting through space at point one two light speed, waiting to hear what the Alliance personnel in the escape pods could tell the fleet. The first voice coming over the circuit from an escape pod was so distorted by mingled joy, disbelief, and stress that it was a little hard to understand. “This is Lieutenant Reynardin. I believe I’m the senior surviving officer off of the battle cruiser Avenger. You can’t imagine how good it is to see the Alliance fleet here. The Syndics were claiming that you’d been destroyed, but everyone said it couldn’t be true. Not our fleet. Bless our ancestors and the living stars…”

  Geary tried to fight down a wave of annoyance as the lieutenant jabbered on. Desjani was drumming her fingers on the arm of her command chair, her own impatience obvious. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what Desjani would be saying to Lieutenant Reynardin right now if he was within shouting distance. Rione must have read the same emotions on Geary and Desjani. “Lieutenant Reynardin has lost his ship and many of his friends and shipmates. He’s surely suffering from shock.”

  “He’s a fleet officer,” Desjani replied, biting off each word. “Maybe when he gets the message from Captain Geary asking for information, he’ll actually tell us something useful.”

  They could tell when that had happened a few minutes later, because Lieutenant Reynardin suddenly fell silent. When he spoke again, the lieutenant sounded half in tears. “Captain Geary. Sir. An honor… I… your orders. Yes, sir. What happened. We launched a spoiling attack. It was Admiral Tagos’s idea, to keep the Syndics off-balance.”

  “Tagos?” Desjani muttered, then shook her head at Geary. “How the hell did she make admiral?”

  “Admiral Tagos was on Auspicious,” Reynardin continued. “I didn’t see everything that hit Auspicious, but her power core blew, and I’m certain there weren’t any survivors.”

  Geary nodded wearily, imagining from what he’d seen when he took command of the fleet that Tagos had been promoted because of political skills and “fighting spirit,” then demonstrated both by rushing into a hopeless battle.

  “Avenger and Auspicious. That accounts for two Alliance battle cruisers,” Desjani noted as Reynardin rattled on in a shock-fueled stream of consciousness. “Maybe somebody else on his escape pod will take ov
er the comm panel.”

  “Let’s hope so.” With the nearest escape pods still over two light-hours away, any attempt to try to get Lieutenant Reynardin to focus on the questions he’d been asked would be a very long and tedious process.

  “It was pretty terrible,” Reynardin continued. “Just… everything.”

  “Somebody please shoot him,” Desjani ground out.

  “He’s in shock,” Rione protested again.

  The argument was cut off by the communications watch. “Captain, we’ve got another escape pod calling in.”

  “Put it on!” Desjani ordered in the tones of someone who’d just been delivered from torment. This officer immediately sounded like a steadier individual. “Ensign Hochin here, sir. Hell-lance battery officer on Peerless. I’m afraid I can only tell you the status of the Alliance forces here up to the point that we evacuated Peerless.”

  “That’s something, anyway.” Desjani glanced at Geary. “Peerless was another battleship in the same division as Dreadnaught.”

  Which meant Dreadnaught either hadn’t come along, or more likely had been able to escape back to Varandal. Geary felt a wave of comfort at the knowledge that his grandniece’s ship hadn’t been lost here, and guilt at his relief because it meant another ship had suffered that fate.

  “We had five battle cruisers,” Ensign Hochin was saying. “I know we lost Avenger. Six battleships. As far as I know only Peerless was destroyed.”

  “Oh, damn,” Desjani cursed. “I should have realized. The closest escape pods to us are from the Alliance ships destroyed earliest. The sensors on the pods are rudimentary, so they won’t have much idea of what happened after their ships were lost. To get a decent picture of how many Alliance ships made it back to the jump exit, we’ll have to wait until we hear from the escape pods off Intractable.”

  “Another hour?” Geary guessed.

  “At least.”

  But Hochin was still talking. “I expect you’ll plan on wiping out the Syndics left here, but some pods off Mantle passed on word to us that one of the Syndic heavy cruisers picked up some of our personnel in escape pods from Peerless. They think it was between forty and sixty of our people, but it could have been less.”