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  “That’s a safe assumption, Captain Geary,” the Marine colonel agreed.

  “I’m also assuming that your senior enlisted and junior officers are capable of preventing any Marines from pushing buttons at random or accidentally overloading Audacious’s power core.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I’m assuming that if any Marine needs guidance or instructions from fleet personnel on how to deal with anything aboard Audacious they will have both the knowledge and ability to ask for those things.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In short, Colonel, I am assuming that your Marines have the experience, training, and intelligence to carry out their tasks without direct supervision from senior fleet officers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Geary felt himself relaxing, while Carabali watched him as if she were trying to spot an ambush. “I’d appreciate it if you were to help me demonstrate the truth of my assumptions. If your Marines can take Audacious without blowing up anything or venting the ship’s atmosphere into space, I will be able to provide a solid example of their ability to function effectively without fleet officers breathing down their necks.”

  Colonel Carabali nodded. “Of course, sir. There won’t be any screwups.”

  “Hell, Colonel, there are always screwups in any operation. Let’s just keep them within reason.”

  Carabali finally grinned, then saluted. “Yes, sir. I’ll let my people know of your confidence in them and reemphasize that they should ask for guidance if in doubt.”

  “And avoid pushing strange buttons,” Geary couldn’t help adding.

  “Absolutely, sir. Because we’ll be assaulting a ship that likely holds many Alliance prisoners of war, I’ve had my platoon and squad leaders instruct their Marines to exercise the highest level of fire discipline. They won’t shoot at anyone or anything unless they know it’s enemy.”

  “Good idea.”

  “They’re all volunteers as well,” the colonel added. “Since there’s a chance the Syndics might have rigged the ship’s power core to blow once our assault force is aboard.”

  Geary felt his teeth clench at the thought. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate their willingness to participate in the operation despite that chance, Colonel. I’ve warned the Syndics not to try anything like that, and warned what will happen to them if they do. Their escape pods can’t outrun our ships.”

  The Marine colonel bared her teeth. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Colonel. Let me know if anything significant about the plan changes.” Carabali’s image vanished, and Geary leaned back with a sigh.

  “Another crisis averted?” Rione asked.

  “Dealt with, anyway,” Geary responded. “Have you heard anything I should know about now?”

  She gave him an arch look, knowing he was referring to her spies within the fleet. “Nothing that can’t wait.” Rione hesitated, then stood up and walked close enough to speak softly. “Only a few of my agents have been able to get quick reports to me. They all say that those opposed to you were thrown off completely by your decision to return immediately to Lakota. Your opponents are now apparently waiting to see what happens before preparing their next moves.”

  “Thank you. What do you think? How does it all feel to you?”

  “You want my advice?” Rione asked coldly. “Why not ask your flagship’s captain again?”

  Oh, for the love of my ancestors. “I ask her questions about fleet operations. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “Of course not,” Rione replied in tones that implied the opposite, then answered his first question without missing a beat. “Your enemies in the fleet are quiet and waiting. Until the situation in this star system is resolved, they won’t act for fear that they themselves will be stuck trying to handle a dangerous Syndic trap.”

  Geary nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself. If I fail, they have what they need to push for my replacement as fleet commander. Not that there’s likely to be much of the fleet left to command if I fail. And apparently none of them want to try overcoming the Syndic presence in this star system.

  His eyes went to the display, looking again for what ought to be there by now. Still no Syndic pursuit force arriving via the jump point for Ixion. Geary’s fingers drummed restlessly on one arm of his command seat. Why hadn’t the pursuit shown up yet? They’d been in this star system for well over two hours now. Every additional minute was a gift, but he distrusted gifts that came for reasons he didn’t understand. While he had told Rione of his hope for three hours’ grace time and had been praying for that much, he’d actually assumed it would be less than two hours before the leading elements of the Syndic pursuit appeared. Even allowing for time needed to reorganize the Syndic flotillas, then to turn around at Ixion once they discovered the Alliance fleet had jumped back here, a decent pursuit should already have shown up in Lakota again.

  Another high-priority message, this one from Ocrea, thirty light-seconds distant, which would make for a slow but not intolerable conversation. Geary wondered why the heavy cruiser would be calling him, then remembered that he’d asked that ship to pick up and interrogate some Syndics. “Geary here. Did any of the Syndics talk?”

  Ocrea’s captain nodded. “One did. Most of them just parroted the usual Syndic nonsense about it being a privilege to be a citizen of the Syndicate Worlds. But we got one senior enlisted who’s apparently decided that this fleet can’t be destroyed and that anyone trying is going against the will of the living stars. So he’s spilling his guts about whatever he knows, thinking that’s the only way to atone for helping to attack us.” He paused for Geary’s reaction.

  “I like that attitude,” Geary noted.

  One minute later, Ocrea’s captain nodded. “Me, too, sir. This Syndic sailor doesn’t know much, but he did know that we took out the Syndic flagship during our fight before the jump for Ixion. The senior Syndic CEO didn’t make it off alive, and that left two CEOs of lower-but-equal rank arguing over who would get to command the force pursuing us to Ixion. Our source can’t remember exactly how long, but he said it was at least four hours. Maybe even more than five, while the Syndic flotilla here hung around doing nothing.” The other officer paused for Geary’s reply.

  “At least four hours?” Geary questioned. He’d targeted the center of the Syndic formation hoping for that, but hadn’t known if he’d succeeded. “That sailor is certain?”

  “Yes, sir. Unfortunately, he can’t tell us anything more specific than ‘big’ about the size of the force that pursued us to Ixion. The only other thing he seems to know that’s useful is that some of the badly damaged Syndic ships left behind here were required to transfer some crew members to the ships chasing after us. This guy thought they were to replace battle casualties, but said a lot of ships were under-crewed these days in terms of skilled personnel. The Syndics seem to have lost a larger than usual number of better-trained people lately, more than their training pipeline can replace for a while.” This time Ocrea’s captain smiled in a very satisfied way.

  “That’s great work,” Geary stated with total sincerity. “Do you think any of your prisoners are worth hanging on to for transfer to a ship with more sophisticated interrogation facilities?”

  “I really doubt it, sir. Even the one who gave away everything he could doesn’t really know anything beyond what I told you. In my opinion, they’re not worth keeping.” The commanding officer of Ocrea seemed struck by an unexpected thought. “I guess we could just put them back in their escape pods and relaunch them. We’ve done that with others lately, haven’t we?”

  Geary nodded, trying not to show his relief. Not too long ago Ocrea’s captain, like every other officer in the fleet, might simply have spaced the Syndic prisoners if dealing with them seemed too difficult. That he had on his own suggested a humane way of getting them off the fleet’s hands was a very good sign that the concept of honor was returning to its old meaning. “That sounds like an excellent plan.�
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  The other officer smiled. “Any messages from the living stars that we should give this guy to spread around?”

  Geary almost jumped on that opportunity, then paused. It felt wrong in some indefinable way, as if someone was giving him a warning he couldn’t hear or see but only sense. “That might not be such a good idea. His own ideas he can spread, but I wouldn’t want to offend the living stars by presuming to speak for them.”

  The smile on the face of Ocrea’s captain disappeared. “I wasn’t suggesting sacrilege, sir.”

  “I know that. But what we think is okay might not be in their eyes. Right? Better safe than sorry.”

  “True.” Ocrea’s commanding officer nodded. “We seem to be in their favor right now, and I wouldn’t want that to change. Thank you, sir. We’ll relaunch the Syndic escape pods within the next ten minutes or so.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks again for outstanding work.”

  As the window showing Ocrea’s captain vanished, Geary turned to speak to both Desjani and Rione, filling them in on the news before adding his interpretation. “The surviving Syndic CEOs each wanted to be the one who could claim credit for destroying this fleet at Ixion, so they spent hours arguing over who would be in charge. Co-President Rione, don’t the Syndics have some sort of seniority system like our date of rank?”

  She shook her head. “CEO positions straddle both civilian and military commands. A CEO’s standing is partially set by his level, but also by political influence.”

  “You’re saying their command structure resembles …” He gave Desjani an apologetic glance. “Resembles what this fleet was like? I would have expected the Syndics to have a rigid command structure. Everything I’ve seen reflects that.”

  “Up to a certain point,” Rione explained patiently, though with an amused glance at Desjani’s discomfort. “Anyone below the rank of CEO had better do as they’re told and not make waves. But once someone reaches CEO level, the knives come out. Among Syndic CEOs, it’s constant political jockeying for position and higher-level assignments, culminating in those who manage to scheme, backslap, and backstab their way to the Executive Council.”

  “It doesn’t sound all that different from our politicians,” Desjani murmured as if to herself, yet loudly enough that Rione probably heard it.

  But Rione just smiled coldly as she kept her eyes on Geary. “The CEO who can take credit for killing you will be on a fast track for that Executive Council. Small wonder the two surviving CEOs with the Syndic flotilla wasted precious time fighting for the post of commander. Contrary to what that Syndic sailor thought, they most likely weren’t arguing with each other but each trying to convince the flotilla’s commanding officers that existing orders and regulations meant that he or she should assume command of the flotilla. Those commanding officers would have been terrified of agreeing to follow the orders of someone without good bureaucratic justification that would allow them to claim they’d had no alternative.”

  “Not the same as this fleet at all, then,” Geary observed. The Alliance fleet had looked for a leader after Admiral Bloch died, while the Syndic flotilla had tried to agree on what the regulations said. If the fleet had simply bowed to regulations, his own status as commander never would have been questioned since his seniority as a captain dated from a century ago when he received his “posthumous” promotion, considerably earlier by many decades than any other captain in the fleet could claim. But it was easy to imagine that the other problems ship commanders frightened of breaking the rules would have created would have more than balanced out the scales. “We lucked out, and it bought us at least four hours of delay in the Syndic pursuit, maybe more.”

  “We didn’t ‘luck out,’ sir,” Desjani objected. “You aimed our first attack on the Syndic formation at the point where you thought their flagship would be.”

  Rione spoke pointedly to Geary. “Don’t forget that whoever is commanding the Syndic ships left here is the CEO who lost that dispute over who’d be in command of the pursuit force. That may influence how they’re reacting to this fleet now.”

  “Good point,” Geary agreed. “But how will it influence that CEO?”

  “Whatever happens here is the fault of the CEO who assumed overall command and took off with the pursuit force. They wanted the command so they could gain the credit, but now it will position them to receive the blame. When that force gets back to Lakota, their CEO is going to be frantic to deal us a serious enough blow to make up for what you’ve done here.”

  At least four hours. The tense muscles in Geary’s back relaxed a bit.

  His fleet could do a lot of damage with a four-hour head start.

  THREE

  Three more Syndic light cruisers were torn apart, then the major elements of the Alliance fleet converged on the Syndic Casualty Flotilla. A new swarm of escape pods marked many of the remaining crew members on the crippled Syndic warships without any combat capability abandoning their vessels. With the Casualty Flotilla inching away from its Alliance attackers, the engagement speed was a relatively slow point one light speed, or a mere thirty thousand kilometers per second. Fleet engagements often involved ships crossing paths at combined speeds of close to point two light speed, the limit beyond which targeting systems could not effectively adjust for relativistic effects, which warped the outside view of the universe.

  As it was, even at point one light speed a firing pass came down to a mere fraction of a second in which weapons were in range, automated systems aiming and firing since human senses couldn’t possibly react quickly enough.

  The First and Seventh Battle Cruiser Divisions, totaling only three warships each, roared into range first. The Alliance ships were all approaching from behind and slightly above the big, flattened sphere of the Syndic formation. The sphere was a lousy combat formation but had probably been chosen as the most efficient for repair work. With the remaining Syndic ships in the Casualty Flotilla unable to maneuver, the Alliance warships could safely cut through the Syndic formation to attack any ship within it. Captain Duellos’s Courageous led Formidable and Intrepid in a close pass over the single Syndic battleship in the formation that had been able to charge up some weapons. Normally a battleship could have slugged it out with three battle cruisers for some time, but in this case the damaged battleship had many systems only half-repaired. Its shields were spotty, its armor still had many penetrations unsealed, and most of its weapons were inoperable. The Alliance battle cruisers unleashed a devastating barrage as they tore past, hell lances aimed to knock out anything still working on the battleship.

  As Duellos’s battle cruisers raced onward, Opportune, Brilliant, and Inspire targeted one of the Syndic battle cruisers and a nearby heavy cruiser, which had managed to get some weapons working. A flurry of hits left both Syndic warships totally disabled as the Seventh Battle Cruiser Division followed Duellos’s ships toward the crippled battle cruiser that had earlier left the Casualty Flotilla and was trying to join up with the two Syndic battleships charging on their futile mission to protect the damaged ships.

  Several minutes later, Captain Tulev’s Leviathan led his battle cruisers to knock out two more heavy cruisers and finish off the surviving weapons on the battleship.

  Captain Desjani had slipped into her targeting mode, her eyes locked on her display as Dauntless, Daring, and Victorious closed the distance to the remaining Syndic Casualty Flotilla battle cruiser that still had working weapons. “Dauntless and Daring target weapons, Victorious target other working systems,” she ordered.

  The big Syndic formation flashed past too quickly for Geary’s senses to register anything, but the display updated rapidly as the fleet’s sensors evaluated the results of the firing pass. The Syndic battle cruiser was tagged with a mission-kill marker, all systems taken out, as Dauntless’s watch-standers called out the results of the enemy’s weak defensive fire. “One hell-lance hit on forward shields. No damage. Daring reports two hits, no damage. Victorious reports no hits.”


  “It’s too easy,” Desjani grumbled.

  “You’ll get a decent fight out of those two battleships up ahead,” Geary assured her.

  “That’s right.” Desjani brightened up, focusing on her ship’s next targets.

  About five minutes later, the Sixth Battle Cruiser Division hit the Syndic Casualty Flotilla. Captain Badaya only had Illustrious and Incredible surviving in his division, but that was more than enough to handle the two injured Syndic heavy cruisers, which were the only warships in the Casualty Flotilla that still had any working weapons. As the last two Alliance battle cruisers smashed the Syndic heavy cruisers, a final burst of escape pods erupted from Syndic warships throughout the Casualty Flotilla, marking the last crew members abandoning their ships now that all hope of resistance was gone.

  “They’re not blowing up their ships, either,” Rione observed.

  “No,” Geary agreed. “Same logic as with the repair ships. The Syndics own this star system and know we’ll have to leave, so they’re hoping to salvage those ships afterward if we don’t have a chance to destroy them. We’ll have to make sure they can’t do that.”

  Duellos’s battle cruisers overtook another Syndic heavy cruiser trying to join up with the surviving Syndic battle cruiser, lashing it with a barrage that tore the heavy cruiser apart. Not much farther onward lay the crippled Syndic battle cruiser limping frantically toward the oncoming but far-distant pair of Syndic battleships. Right behind Duellos’s warships came the battle cruisers of the Seventh Division, which slapped the remains of the heavy cruiser with a few more hell-lance hits as they tore past.

  The Syndic battle cruiser seemed in a hopeless position, but as Duellos brought Courageous, Formidable, and Intrepid in for a killing shot, the Syndic pivoted at just the right moment and accelerated downward and to port. Duellos’s battle cruisers were moving so much faster than the Syndic that they couldn’t react in time and could only hurl a few long-range hell lances at the enemy ship.