Steadfast

Twelve

Looked at one way, the whole thing was pretty simple. He had to get his warships and all of the refugee ships to the primary inhabited world, off-load the refugees, and along the way deal with any threat posed by the warships, which must be from Tiyannak. A mission so simple it could be condensed into a single sentence.

But, as the ancient warrior sage had said, all of the simple things in war end up being really complicated.

Geary looked over at Duellos. “What do you know about Commander Pajari?”

“Not a lot,” Duellos admitted. “I think she took command of Spur less than a year ago.”

In that year, and since Geary had been reawakened, Pajari had apparently done nothing praiseworthy enough or stupid enough to draw Geary’s special attention. That described many of the commanding officers in the fleet, though, since there were nearly two hundred fifty heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers. The captains of the battleships and the battle cruisers tended to speak up at conferences because of their seniority and influence. Usually, the commanders of smaller warships stayed silent except for general expressions of approval or disapproval. One of Geary’s ongoing regrets was that he had never had the time to get to know all of those officers personally.

He checked Pajari’s service record and found that she had been commissioned just four years ago, having served on three ships, two of which had been destroyed in battle, before gaining command of Spur. Like many officers in the fleet, she might be young for her rank and responsibilities, but she had immensely more combat experience than Geary had had at her age and rank.

“I’m going to trust her with command of the escorts for our convoy of refugee ships,” Geary said. “Pajari will have to fend off threats to the freighters, using the light cruisers and all of the destroyers, while I take the battle cruisers to handle that battleship.”

Duellos raised both eyebrows. “You won’t take any destroyers with us?”

“Given the size of our group of freighters, and with potentially three enemy flotillas coming after them from at least three directions, Pajari is going to need all of our escorts.” Geary zoomed in on the image of the battleship heading toward an intercept, accelerating ponderously but steadily, like a massive, armored animal building up unstoppable speed. Despite the intervening millions of kilometers, the image was crystal clear, the enemy warships appearing to be unmoving against the endless space around them despite their large and increasing velocity. The two heavy cruisers and two HuKs accompanying the battleship were not spread out, acting as escorts in a typical formation, but were instead tucked in extremely close to the battleship. “We won’t be able to peel off the escorts with that battleship easily.”

“No. An unconventional formation, and one that will be hard to counter,” Duellos agreed. “Any firing runs aimed at the escorts will bring us within range of the battleship’s weapons for certain. On the other hand, those four escorts with the battleship must have their maneuvering systems slaved to it. They’re so close, that’s the only way to avoid the tiny bobbles or variations in starts and stops of maneuvers that would otherwise cause a very nasty collision.”

Geary nodded. “How can we use that?”

“I’m working on an answer to that question, Admiral.”

To his own surprise, Geary smiled crookedly. “What about suggestions for dealing with the battleship?”

Duellos waved toward the back of the bridge. “My people are running sims to try to find solutions.”

“What have they found so far?”

“So far?” Duellos shrugged helplessly. “They’ve found a number of plans that won’t work.”

“You and I both know what we have to do,” Geary said. “We have to take the battleship out of the threat column. There are ways we could do that using the battle cruisers’ superior acceleration and maneuverability to slowly whittle down the battleship, but that would take far more time than we have to work with. The only way to neutralize the battleship quickly enough to protect the refugee ships is to damage the battleship’s main propulsion. If we can also take out his maneuvering capability, so much the better.”

Duellos grimaced. “I’ve faced something like this situation before, Admiral. Three battle cruisers is the minimum possible force that could do what we need to do. Assuming the Syndic battleship’s rear shields are at full strength, the only way to achieve a quick takedown of its propulsion is for all three battle cruisers to conduct close passes within a very short interval. Ideally, the first battle cruiser weakens the battleship’s rear shields, the second scores enough hits to knock down the weakened shields or render them ready to collapse, and the third goes in with the shields down and actually gets a shot at hitting the main propulsion units. But the battleship isn’t going to just sit still for that. He’s going to be maneuvering, pivoting the ship, trying to ensure that all three firing runs do not hit the rear shields, and trying to hit our battle cruisers hard as each one comes in to attack.”

Geary nodded, thinking through alternatives. “What if our battle cruisers go in close enough to employ the null-field projectors?”

“Against an undamaged battleship? We lose at least one battle cruiser. Maybe two. And with no guarantee those sacrifices will enable us to score disabling hits on the battleship.”

“We won’t do that, then.” Geary shook his head. “Our advantages are our numbers, three battle cruisers to one battleship, and maneuverability.”

“Whereas his only disadvantage is lack of maneuverability,” Duellos said.

“No. He’s also neutralized his own escorts by keeping them tucked in so close. We can’t get at them, but they can’t interfere with our attacks.”

Geary closed his eyes, mentally running through what he would say next, then touched his comm controls once more. “Commander Pajari, I am placing you in charge of Formation Echo. You will have your light cruisers and all three destroyer squadrons. Your mission is to keep the refugee ships together and protect them from any attempts at attack.”

Surprised, Pajari saluted. “I will not disappoint you, Admiral. Do you wish me to continue on a vector toward the primary inhabited world?”

“Yes. You can alter the vector as necessary to deal with threats, but you and I know that the freighters won’t be able to do much. Colonel Kim’s soldiers will keep the freighter crews from panicking and trying to run, but they can’t do anything about the sluggish maneuverability of the freighters. Be advised that there’s a chance further enemy warships are hiding behind this planet.” Geary indicated the super-Earth farther in-system. “Maybe a couple of more light cruisers and HuKs. If the attacks on us are coordinated, within the next few hours we should see the enemy flotilla near the primary inhabited world coming out to intercept you, while anyone hiding near that other planet will pop out once they think we’ve committed our forces to dealing with the other two flotillas. If we can’t stop all of the enemy ships in the battleship flotilla, you may have to help fend them off as well.”

“Yes, sir,” Pajari said, her eyes narrowed as she concentrated on Geary’s words. “You call them enemy, sir. Are we free to engage any other warships in this star system as necessary?”

“You are. I am making the judgment that all other warships in this star system are part of the same forces as those that were at the gas giant. They have proven hostile intent by their destruction of Fleche.” In that way, Fleche’s sacrifice had accomplished something very important. He would no longer have to wait for those other warships to fire the first shot. They already had. “Engage and destroy any threats to your ships or the refugee ships.”

“Yes, sir!” Pajari’s eyes had blazed at the mention of Fleche.

“Commander,” Geary emphasized, “your mission is to protect those refugee ships. Don’t forget that in pursuit of some of those enemy warships.”

“I will not, Admiral.” Pajari smiled slowly. “They think we will rush off in pursuit, that we’ll forget our mission. We won’t. But if they think we will, we can use that.”

“You can use that,” Geary agreed, smiling back. “Have you conducted convoy escort operations before?”

“Yes, Admiral. Not with an ill-disciplined mess like those refugee ships, but the principles are still the same. I know what tactics the Syndics use to try to pull escorts out of position and reach the convoy. I’ll be ready for them.”

“Good. I’ll be dealing with the battleship. Geary, out.” He ended the transmission, feeling much more confident about Pajari, then nodded to Duellos. “Captain, let’s get your battle cruisers going. We’ve got a battleship to knock out.”

Duellos grinned as the watch-standers on the bridge let out cries of approval.

Geary designated the three battle cruisers as Formation Alpha, then paused to look over the situation carefully before calling the maneuvers. The large, unwieldy formation of refugee ships and Alliance escorts was still a bit over three light-hours from the inhabited world, which orbited only seven and a half light-minutes from the star. If Batara had been Sol, the home star of Old Earth, that would have rendered the planet uncomfortably hot for humanity, but Batara’s star burned a bit less fiercely, so the planet was only warm by human standards. Because the planet orbited so much closer to the star, the progress of the Alliance and refugee ships appeared to be aimed just slightly to the left of the star at this point.

What Geary now designated Flotilla One, the two light cruisers and four HuKs near that planet, was also directly ahead of the Alliance ships but light-hours distant.

Only fifteen light-minutes off the starboard bows of the Alliance ships were the battleship and its escorts, which Geary designated Flotilla Two. The battleship flotilla was coming in from the right as seen from Inspire, aiming to intercept the refugee ships as they headed inward. Because the enemy ships were on a direct intercept—even though the paths of the ships formed a huge arc across space—their bearing relative to the refugee ships would not change as the enemy drew closer and closer. To the freighters, the battleship would remain off their bows, but grow steadily and implacably larger as the distance between the ships shrank.

The super-Earth planet ahead of the Alliance formation had already crossed just beneath the Alliance ships’ vector, orbiting oblivious to the tiny actions of humans. By the time the Alliance ships themselves reached the path of that orbit, the planet would be slightly off to their left and moving away at the relatively sedate pace of about twenty kilometers per second as it swung around the star. If there were also enemy warships hiding behind that planet, they would spring out at the right time and come at the refugee ships from the front and left.

Whoever set this up did some clever planning. If we had just barreled in and reacted to each attack as it developed we would have been in a real mess by the time that third attack force appeared. “Inspire, Formidable, and Implacable, this is Admiral Geary. You are now Formation Alpha. Our task is to take out that battleship. At time five zero, come port two seven degrees, down zero two degrees, accelerate to point one five light speed. Geary, out.”

A few minutes later, Geary felt Inspire swing to the right. The command port meant to turn away from the star, whereas starboard or starward meant turning toward the star. Upon arrival in the star system, the Alliance warships had automatically designated one side of the plane in which the planets orbited as up and the other as down. It was all extremely arbitrary, a human system for establishing mutually understood directions of right and left, up and down, in space where such things didn’t exist. If he had told Formidable to turn “right” the other battle cruiser might have swung in a direction one hundred and eighty degrees different from that of Inspire. But with the star just off to the left of the ships’ bows, everyone knew which direction turning away meant.

Inspire’s main propulsion kicked in at full power, the force of the acceleration causing the ship’s inertial dampers to whine in protest. Geary felt himself being pressed back into his seat as some of that force leaked past the dampers. No other warship could accelerate like a battle cruiser, which carried more propulsion than a battleship but also sacrificed much of the armor, shield generators, and weaponry that loaded down the battleships. Battle cruisers were designed to get where they were needed fast with a lot of firepower. They weren’t designed to tangle with battleships.

Geary watched the vector for the battle cruisers lengthen dramatically as they charged toward the battleship.

“One hour and ten minutes to contact with Flotilla Two,” Inspire’s operations watch reported. “Remaining distance twenty nine point seven light-minutes. Closing rate point two seven light.”

“They’re coming on at point one two light,” Duellos commented to Geary. “They won’t slow down to fight us.”

“No. I don’t think they will,” Geary agreed. “They want to get to those refugee ships and force us into desperate attacks to protect those ships. We’ll brake before contact to bring the engagement speed below point two light.” Above that velocity, distortion in the appearance of space caused by relativity got too bad for human-designed systems to compensate, rendering an already very difficult fire-control problem almost impossible.

“How are we going to do this?” Duellos asked after about a minute of silence.

“I’m still working on that.”

“The captain of that battleship is Syndic,” Duellos mused. “By-the-book thinking and behavior.”

“Unless he or she is a rebel, in which case a more creative and unconventional junior officer might have suddenly been propelled into the position of captain,” Geary said. “You remember what some of the former Syndic officers in the rebellious forces at Midway were like.”

“That is something to worry about,” Duellos conceded. “However, those former Syndics at Midway were experienced at ship handling. They hadn’t been in the war zone facing the Alliance, dying in battle almost as fast as they arrived. Any Syndics here are the survivors of the last battles in the war, and any fighting since then. They probably have minimal training and not much experience.”

“All right,” Geary said. “I agree that’s probable.”

“And they’ve got four escorts tucked in very close, which would worry even a skilled, experienced ship driver.”

“They’ll use automated maneuvering as well as having the escorts’ maneuvering systems slaved to their own?” Geary asked.

“I think it’s pretty certain. We need to outthink that automated system, what it will do when it sees us coming toward the stern of that battleship.”

There were circumstances in which an hour and ten minutes could feel like a very long time. But not when racing toward an encounter with an enemy battleship.

Geary tried tactic after tactic, approach after approach, as he ran sims, knowing that Captain Duellos and his crew were doing the same, trying out every option. Since the battle cruisers’ superior ability to accelerate and maneuver compared to the battleship was their primary advantage, he kept pushing the velocity of encounters as high as possible. But each time the velocity of the battle cruisers went up, the complications got bigger as well. Higher velocity meant larger turn radii, which were already huge at the speeds warships traveled. It also made it harder to change vectors in short distances or times, and if they were going to counter the attempts of the battleship to pivot against their attacks, they would have to make significant last-moment changes in their approaches.

Geary sat back, glowering at his display in frustration. He was reaching to try another sim, one that pushed encounter velocity a little higher, when his hand paused in midmotion. Why am I only thinking in terms of going faster? Why am I locked into focusing on that one advantage? Because while intercepting that battleship as quickly as possible is necessary, is making the actual encounter at higher speeds a good thing? The sims keep telling me it isn’t. Instead of beating my head against a wall that just gets harder, why not try the opposite approach and see what happens?

He cut the velocity of the encounter dramatically, enough so that the necessary braking maneuvers required far more time than he was comfortable with. But when the sim ran, he had partial success this time.

He cut the velocity more. He tried some options.

He smiled.

Duellos noticed. “I hope that means you’ve found something.”

“We can’t let the battle cruisers use their acceleration for the fastest possible attacks,” Geary explained.

“We can’t—?” Duellos peered at Geary. “What? That’s why they’re battle cruisers.”

“That’s how we usually employ them. Fast approaches and fast attacks. But what we need here is a slow approach.” Geary pulled up his most successful try. “Look. We come in at a slow relative velocity, aiming for sequential firing runs on the battleship’s stern. He starts pivoting to turn his stern away from us. He has to do that. Once he commits his maneuvering thrusters and momentum to that pivot, we use the battle cruisers’ superior capabilities to alter the order in which they attack. That completely changes how the battleship wants to be oriented to counter each individual firing run.”

Duellos nodded, smiling with satisfaction as well. “He’ll see our vector changes, and start trying to change his pivot. But he’s got so much mass and momentum driving it at that point, and has less ability to alter how he’s moving, so we can readjust faster than he can.” His smile faded. “But at those relative velocities, our ships will make much better targets for him if he can bring enough firepower to bear.”

“If we can keep our approaches directly off his stern, that will limit his available weapons. How precise is our knowledge of Syndic battleship maneuvering capabilities?” Geary asked.

“On that model of ship? Very good. Alliance warships have watched them in action in many engagements and analyzed their movements afterwards. What we have in the sims is not perfect, but it is very accurate.”

“So, we can predict when he’ll start trying to change his pivot and how long it will take the battleship to react. This wouldn’t work if the battleship had strong escorts to interfere with our movements and disrupt our attacks, or if there were two battleships that could cover each other’s stern from receiving multiple attacks over a short period. But against one battleship, which has decided to protect its escorts instead of having the escorts protect it, this can work.”

This time Duellos did not reply immediately as he studied every aspect of Geary’s work. “Sir, I do feel obligated to point out that the extra braking time required to get the relative velocity to the battleship low enough for this is considerable. If this does not work, we won’t have much time to come up with alternatives before the battleship gets within range of the freighters.”

“You’re right,” Geary said. “Anything else?”

“Do you want me to set up the braking maneuvers for the three battle cruisers?”

“Yes.” He knew he wasn’t the most talented ship driver in the world, not nearly as good as Tanya Desjani and probably not as good as Roberto Duellos. This would be a good chance to see Duellos at work up close.

“Admiral,” the operations watch said as alerts sounded, “Flotilla One is altering vector. They’re turning outward and accelerating, coming onto an intercept with our Formation Echo.”

“Preplanned maneuver,” Duellos said.

Geary nodded. Flotilla One, light-hours distant near the inhabited world, had started its move hours ago. If the battleship flotilla had not been flushed early, it would have been sighted by Geary’s ships only a brief time ago, followed closely by the sight of Flotilla One also heading for the refugee ships. “It’ll be about an hour and a half yet before they realize their timing got thrown off. If they keep coming, Commander Pajari will handle them.”

There was some superstition in that last statement, too, which was both an assertion of confidence in Pajari and an attempt to wish his hopes into reality with a bold assertion.

He focused back on the battleship, trying to feel the motion of all of the ships and the time delays between them caused by the vast distances that light had to cross, trying to anticipate and be ready for whatever the next moves should be.

He could hear the muffled sounds of the bridge watch-standers doing their jobs and speaking to each other in low voices, hear Duellos passing on the maneuvering orders and handling subsequent what-the-hell-are-we-doing? calls from the commanding officers of Formidable and Implacable.

Inspire pitched over, coming almost completely around. Her main propulsion lit off again. Nearby, Formidable and Implacable matched the maneuvers. The huge velocities built up earlier were now being fought against, the propulsion systems laboring to shed momentum along one vector and build it up again in the same direction the battleship was going.

The track of the battle cruisers through space bent, swinging downward toward the battleship and his escorts. The relative velocity kept slowing as the battle cruisers swept past the oncoming enemy, above and slightly to one side of the battleship, still out of range of all but long missile shots that the enemy chose not to attempt.

A moment came, aft of the enemy flotilla, when their vectors momentarily matched. For that instant, the Alliance battle cruisers and the enemy flotilla were suspended in space, unmoving relative to each other.

Then, their propulsion units straining at maximum, their hulls and inertial dampers protesting audibly at the forces being employed, the battle cruisers began accelerating straight for the battleship.

Duellos still sat in his command seat as if relaxed, but his eyes were on Geary, waiting for the orders that would, hopefully, make the attack runs as successful as they needed to be.

“All weapons ready,” the combat systems watch reported. “Shields at maximum. Damage control at full readiness.”

A blip appeared on Geary’s display as two of the missile launchers on Implacable suddenly went out of commission. “Power junction failure!” Implacable’s captain reported, sounding as if she were ready to bite a hole in her own hull out of frustration. “I’ll have them operational when we get in range if I have to jump-start the damn things by hand!”

She wouldn’t have long to work on the problem. The battle cruisers kept accelerating, closing on the battleship. Inspire was lined up to hit the battleship first, followed by Formidable, then Implacable. There wasn’t any fancy formation this time. Formidable was almost directly behind Inspire, but out slightly to one side, while Implacable was behind Formidable, slightly out on the opposite side. Geary had kept the formation as simple as possible, so as to present solutions as deceptively simple as possible for the automated maneuvering controls on the battleship and to lull the human officers into complacency.

“They’re not cutting the escorts loose,” Geary murmured, relieved. If the battleship commander had told the heavy cruisers to move off and attack the Alliance battle cruisers, it would have seriously complicated Geary’s approach.

“There he goes,” Duellos breathed in a very low voice.

The battleship had begun pivoting, his stern dropping and his bow coming up and over. Geary didn’t have to check his maneuvering display to know that, if everyone kept on the same courses and speeds, the battleship would be pivoting at exactly the right rate to meet with its heaviest armament and armor in its bow each oncoming battle cruiser as it passed.

“Give him five more seconds to build up momentum,” Geary said. Three… two… one. “All units in Formation Alpha. Immediate execute, main propulsion at zero.”

The battle cruisers shut off their main propulsion. They were still closing on the battleship, but as they were no longer accelerating, their rate of closure was no longer increasing.

The automated systems controlling the battleship’s maneuvers would spot that, would take the necessary action to counter it, firing thrusters at maximum as they tried to slow the turn of the massive battleship, still trying to ensure that when Inspire reached weapons range the battleship’s bow would face the battle cruiser.

If the person in charge of the battleship was sharp enough, experienced enough, they had time to spot what Geary was doing, to guess what his plans were. They had barely time enough to override the automated controls and swing the battleship’s bow back. The escorts could have done the same, and faster, but the overwhelmed command staff on the battleship had probably, for these few hectic, precious moments, forgotten that the heavy cruisers and HuKs couldn’t maneuver on their own until released from control.

“Implacable, accelerate at maximum, adjust course as necessary to target main propulsion,” Geary ordered.

Seconds later, “Formidable, accelerate at maximum, adjust course as necessary to target main propulsion.”

And, as everyone on the bridge of Inspire waited anxiously, “Inspire, accelerate at maximum. Get his propulsion!”

The battle cruisers leaped forward again, but their order had suddenly shifted. Now Implacable would be the first in line, then Formidable, and finally Inspire. Along with the order of the attack, the exact times when they would be within range of the battleship had changed. The battleship’s thrusters fired again in another attempt to compensate, trying to counter its own earlier moves. The enemy ship wavered under contending momentum and the push of its maneuvering controls, momentum trying to keep its huge mass turning in one direction while the maneuvering thrusters were working all out to reverse the direction of turn. A sudden shove from its main propulsion might have helped throw off the battle cruisers’ attacks, but that would have been an unconventional move, not something that automated systems or officers trained to do as they were told would think of.

The battleship hung momentarily suspended between competing forces, its bow pointing straight “up.”

The relatively few weapons on the battleship that could bear on a target coming in on its stern opened up for the very brief moment when Implacable was within range as the battle cruiser swept onward at a relative velocity of thousands of kilometers per second. Humans couldn’t aim and fire under such circumstances. Only automated fire-control systems could judge the precise instant when a target flying past at such a velocity could be hit.

Geary saw Implacable’s two broken missile launchers report themselves ready to fire seconds before the battle cruiser tore past under the stern of the battleship, volleying out missiles, hell lances, and even grapeshot set for the smallest possible dispersion patterns at the farthest possible dispersal range. As the battle cruiser shot away from the battleship, Implacable’s hell lances fired repeatedly at missiles the battleship had launched despite the poor intercept angles, destroying most of the missiles before they could score hits.

Formidable came right behind, hammering the same stern area, her missiles, hell lances, and grapeshot flashing against shields already fading under the blows being absorbed. But the battleship was better prepared this time, more weapons coming to bear as it angled a bit off the vertical, slamming blows at Formidable as well as another volley of missiles that pursued the battle cruiser as it opened the range once more.

Geary had his eyes locked on his display, seeing the battleship begin to finally push over, more weapons coming to bear as Inspire made the last, most dangerous, and most important firing run.

Inspire raced past the battleship, hurling out shots toward the battleship’s immense main propulsion in the moments after the rear shields collapsed and before they could rebuild.

Geary felt Inspire shudder, not just from the launching of her own weapons but from multiple hits. Inspire lurched heavily as something big struck aft, perhaps one or more missiles. Alarms went off, and portions of the display flickered as power was automatically rerouted. He could only hope the battle cruiser hadn’t been hit too badly and remain focused on the battleship as the sensors on Inspire and the other battle cruisers looked back and tried to evaluate what damage had been inflicted.

“We’d better hope we took it down,” Duellos said, his voice grim. “I’ve momentarily lost maneuvering control of Inspire and half of my own main propulsion.”

Geary could hear the different watch-standers reporting damage from hits. “Hell-lance batteries 1A and 3B are out of commission. Missile launchers are off-line. Hull has been holed in several areas aft of amidships. Aft shields have collapsed and are rebuilding using emergency power, now at ten percent. Personnel casualty numbers unknown.”

Damage reports were also showing up from Implacable and Formidable. Both had taken far less damage than Inspire, but neither was unscathed.

Debris from the weapons fired interfered with the evaluation of damage to the battleship, but Geary realized that the battleship’s maneuvering thrusters were still pushing it over at maximum. “What’s he doing?”

Duellos tore his attention away from his own ship’s damage for a moment. “He’s hurt.”

The battleship kept spinning bow over stern, coming around faster. “His maneuvering controls have jammed,” Geary said. “Wait. They’re pushing his stern partway toward us.”

The display updated triumphantly and Geary fell back into his seat with a gasp of elation. “Thank you, ancestors. We did get him.”

Inspire’s weapons had inflicted awful damage on the momentarily unshielded main propulsion units of the battleship. The massive, heavily armed and heavily armored ship was helpless to change her vector, spinning end over end through space. The impact of the hits had shoved the battleship slightly off of its earlier path, so that it would now pass slightly above the refugee ships instead of passing right through the middle of their very loose formation.

Taking out the battleship using conventional weapons would still take a long time. But… “He can’t maneuver. Captain Duellos, do you have working planetary bombardment launchers?”

Normally, a ship could evade large projectiles thrown at it. The distances in space were too large, the ability to simply alter course very slightly to cause the projectile to pass harmlessly by too easy to employ. Even a miss by a single meter was all that was needed to avoid damage.

But the battleship couldn’t even do that. He was locked onto his current path until his crew managed to repair the damage to the maneuvering systems, and Geary knew that Syndic warships did not carry nearly the same damage-control capabilities as Alliance ships. To the Syndic CEOs, that wasn’t “cost-effective.”

The ones who paid the price for that policy weren’t the CEOs, naturally.

“I only have one that can bear on the battleship’s path,” Duellos said.

“Fire when you can,” Geary ordered. “Formidable, Implacable, engage the enemy battleship with bombardment projectiles. Use everything you’ve got. Take it out before they can manage any repairs.”

The battle cruisers began pumping out bombardment projectiles. The simple weapons, just solid metal shaped to pierce through atmosphere as they plunged toward targets on the surface of worlds, streamed toward the path of the battleship, forming an arc of deadly metal as they headed for the place it would be.

Despite the energy that would be unleashed when solid metal objects moving at thousands of kilometers per second slammed into an obstacle, the battleship could have shrugged off a few hits. If it could have jogged even slightly in its path, the battleship could have avoided the majority of the projectiles aimed at it.

The two heavy cruisers and two HuKs that had been following very close to the battleship suddenly broke away, either because they had been ordered to stop slaving their maneuvers to that of the battleship or because they had no wish to die helplessly and finally took matters into their own hands.

“Implacable and Formidable, get those heavy cruisers,” Geary ordered.

“Get our maneuvering back online now!” Duellos roared at his crew, frustrated at being out of the fight.

Escape pods began leaping off the battleship as its crew sought safety, first a few, then a rush as the thousands of crew members scrambled to survive.

The first bombardment projectile hit, then a second, sparking massive flares as the battleship’s shields parried the blows. Another hit, then two more, the last penetrating to slam into armor. A half dozen projectiles hit in a flurry, smashing through the armor, vaporizing sections of the hull, one bashing into the already useless main propulsion units as the battleship continued to twirl helplessly.

Three more hits, and in an instant the battleship vanished as its power core took too much damage and overloaded.

Geary sighed, feeling sudden weariness filling him as the cloud of gas and small debris that had once been a Syndic-built battleship began spreading out to join with the wreckage of countless other warships destroyed at Batara in the last century.

“Captain, we have partial maneuvering control back.”

Duellos made a fist and rapped the arm of his command seat in barely repressed anger. “Those heavy cruisers and HuKs are going to get away,” he said to Geary.

Sizing up the frantic flight of the escorts and the wide turns through space as Implacable and Formidable swung back in pursuit, Geary nodded. “You’re right. Unless they turn to fight, we won’t be able to get them. Cheer up, Roberto. Inspire got in the death blow on that battleship.”

“True.” Duellos looked down, breathing hard as if he had just run a race. “But we got hit hard. Casualty reports are still trickling in, but I lost people. That’s really why I’m unhappy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know that. You’re not one of those bastards who just shrug and say price of victory or something.” Duellos looked at his display. “Now what?”

Geary looked as well. “If we try chasing those escorts, we could still be chasing them a week from now and be no closer to catching them.”

“The HuKs will run out of fuel cells, eventually, as will the heavy cruisers, but so will we. I’ll go ahead and recommend what I think you are already leaning toward. As pleasant as it would be to finish off the rest of these scum to avenge Fleche, chasing them is likely to be an exercise in frustration and may be exactly what they want. I believe we should return to the vicinity of the refugee ships to repair damage, protect the convoy, and keep an eye out for other surprises.”

Geary checked the damage to Inspire again and resisted the urge to shake his head. Some of the repair work would be beyond anything that the crew could do. Inspire wouldn’t be back in full fighting trim again until an auxiliary or a dock was able to work on her.

The refugee ships and Alliance escorts in Formation Echo had proceeded onward while the battle cruisers had dived off to the side and slightly down to intercept the oncoming battleship. Geary ordered the battle cruisers to head back, the commanders of Formidable and Implacable not hiding their disappointment at being told to break off the chase. But they did as ordered, something the example of Fleche had forcefully reminded him could not be taken for granted even now.

Inspire could still only limp along as the other two battle cruisers joined her, angling across the star system back toward the rest of the Alliance ships. A bit over a light-hour distant, the light cruisers and HuKs that made up Flotilla One were still heading toward the refugee ships, unaware that the battleship they were counting on was no more.

But Geary paid more attention for now to the heavy cruisers and HuKs that had been escorting that doomed battleship. Once it had become apparent that the Alliance battle cruisers were no longer in pursuit, the enemy ships had slowed and turned, holding their positions. “They’re disciplined,” he commented to Duellos.

“Who? That lot?” Duellos frowned at his display. “Well disciplined. What are we going to do about them? Even after destroying that battleship, what’s left to Tiyannak is enough to control this star system once we leave here, and probably at least a few other star systems.”

“Let’s see how well disciplined they are and what else we can find out about them.” Geary called Commander Pajari, still about fourteen light-minutes away. “I’m bringing Inspire back to you. I want you to detach the destroyers from the Ninth Squadron with orders to intercept some of the escape pods from the enemy battleship. I want to sweep up as many prisoners as possible. I will detach Formidable and Implacable to screen their operations and take aboard prisoners picked up by the destroyers. Geary, out.”

Duellos looked even grumpier, but he nodded in understanding. “Inspire would just slow them down, the Ninth is the smallest destroyer squadron, and Pajari no longer has to worry about this flotilla threatening the convoy. You want to see if those heavy cruisers will race to the rescue of their friends when we start scooping up escape pods, right?”

“And, if they do,” Geary said, “it will give our battle cruisers a chance to nail them. I know Captain Savik on Formidable is good, but I haven’t had much chance to see how capable Captain Ekrhi on Implacable is.”

“I think she’s good, as good as Savik. Either one is capable of commanding the screening force. But James Savik is senior in date of rank.”

Geary called Savik on Formidable. “I’ll be detaching you and Implacable as Formation Beta. You’ll be in command of the formation. Your job is to stay close enough to the destroyers to screen them against those two heavy cruisers and the HuKs if they try to stop us from taking survivors of the battleship prisoner. If you can lure in those heavy cruisers, so much the better, but I don’t want to lose any destroyers, so don’t get too far from them.”

Savik nodded, grinning. “Understood, Admiral. How many prisoners do we want? A lot of escape pods got off that battleship before it blew.”

“I want the prisoner-taking to last long enough for the heavy cruisers to see and long enough for them to react if they’re going to. Use your best judgment. Don’t keep it going past the numbers of prisoners you can easily carry.”

“Yes, sir. What are we going to do with them? I mean, are they Syndics?”

“Technically? I don’t think so. Interrogate them to find out what they can tell us about the situation here and at Tiyannak, and how many total warships Tiyannak has.” Geary pointed toward the star. “When we get there, I’ll drop them off on the primary world along with the refugees. I don’t expect Batara to be thrilled about that, but I don’t want to catch hell from fleet staff and the government for bringing home more prisoners of war for them to feed, confine, and otherwise worry about.”

After detaching the two battle cruisers, Geary pondered his display a moment longer. It was probably a good time, having badly blunted the planned ambush of his forces, to finally give a call to whoever was running Batara. “I need a broadcast message aimed at the primary inhabited world.”

The comms watch made a few taps on her display. “You’re ready, Admiral.”

“Thank you.” He paused to think, then touched the control. “To the current rulers of Batara, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. My ships have been attacked without warning by hostile warships operating freely in your star system. I require an immediate message from you, establishing your status as an independent star system or one subject to an external government and explaining the status of all non-Alliance warships in this star system. I will take any necessary actions to defend the ships under my control and under the protection of the Alliance. We are escorting back to your primary inhabited world refugee ships full of people from this star system. They will be landed on that planet, as will a regiment of Alliance ground forces to ensure nothing disrupts the return of your people to your world. Any attempts to interfere with our operation will be met with the full force at my disposal. Any attacks on Alliance military personnel or civilians under the protection of the Alliance will be met with the full force at my disposal. I await your reply and your explanations. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

“Tanya would approve,” Duellos commented.

“Tanya would already be urging me to bombard the hell out of this star system as well as Tiyannak.”

“And she would be complaining mightily about that thing crowded into my shuttle dock. Speak of the devil, here is Lieutenant Night.”

“Night Witch,” Lieutenant Popova corrected, but her smile was serious. “Admiral, I came to the bridge because there aren’t any automated internal links to give you the status of my warbird. It didn’t take any damage. Is there anything I can do?”

Duellos, who had been looking ill-tempered again as he went over the damage to his ship, gave Popova a wry smile in response to the sincere offer. “Not unless you want to take the FAC out and take Inspire in tow.”

“You’re already moving pretty fast, sir. My warbird could match you, but she’d burn her fuel out in no time, and then you’d be towing me.”

“Save it for when we get to that planet,” Geary told the aerospace officer. “Our shuttles and the ground forces are probably going to need all of the deterrence your warbirds can provide, and maybe the fire support as well.”

“Admiral, the heavy cruisers have come about and are accelerating parallel to our course,” the operations watch reported.

Geary checked his display. “They’re not paralleling us. They’re headed for the battleship’s escape pods.”

“Not if Formidable and Implacable can help it,” Duellos said. The two battle cruisers were accelerating and adjusting their own courses to meet the heavy cruisers near the cloud of escape pods.

But the enemy ships veered off again when they saw the Alliance warships approaching. Geary hesitated, one hand poised over his comm controls, waiting to see what Captain Savik would do. But his fears proved unfounded as Savik brought the battle cruisers around to hang in orbit a good light-minute short of the escape pods. The heavy cruisers checked their own velocity, matching orbits, so that Alliance battle cruisers, escape pods, and enemy heavy cruisers all hung in space unmoving relative to each other, the escape pods occupying a perilous no-man’s-land between the two groups of warships.

“The Ninth Destroyer Squadron is on its way to the escape pods,” the operations watch said. “Admiral, they’re at point one five light speed, so they should reach the pods in an hour and a half.”

“Very well.” Geary studied the movement of the destroyers, worrying about their fuel status. “If this high-speed maneuvering keeps up, we’ll have to transfer fuel cells from the battle cruisers to the destroyers to keep them from running too low.”

“What we have won’t go far spread among that many destroyers,” Duellos cautioned. “What’s this?” he asked as another alert sounded.

Two light cruisers had appeared from behind the super-Earth planet, swinging around one side and heading for the refugee ships. “They jumped out early,” Geary said. “They must have received orders to move up their attack.”

“Anything sent from the battleship would have reached them at about the right time for us to see them moving now,” Duellos agreed. “Let’s see what they do when they see that the battleship isn’t with them anymore.”

After an hour spent watching for reactions, the answer was clear. “All enemy ships have seen the destruction of the battleship by now,” the operations watch-stander said, “and none have altered their vectors. Both groups of light cruisers are still on an intercept with the refugee ships.”

“And the heavy cruisers are still hanging around near the escape pods,” Duellos added. “These may not technically still be Syndics, but they’re still fighting like Syndics.”

Geary nodded in reply. Despite what propaganda said, few in the Alliance military doubted the courage of the men and women fighting for the Syndics. Alliance fighters were baffled by the willingness of Syndic combatants to die for a system that was so obviously wrong, but they had learned through bitter experience that their enemy was tough and determined. But the Syndics were also subject to rigid discipline. They obeyed orders, to the letter, or else. “How are repairs coming on your main propulsion and maneuvering?”

“They’re coming. Inspire is almost back to full maneuvering capability, but the two main propulsion units that are still off-line are very badly damaged. My engineers can’t give me an estimated time to repair on them.”

Inspire wouldn’t be able to rejoin the escorts around the refugee ships before the enemy Flotilla One reached them. It would be up to Commander Pajari to keep those light cruisers and HuKs from reaching any of the helpless freighters.

Half an hour until that enemy flotilla closed on the refugee ships and their escorts, and half an hour until Destroyer Squadron Nine reached the escape pods and started hauling in prisoners. “It’s time I talked to the people in this star system. Everyone. This time I want a broadcast blanketing all comm frequencies and directed to all points in the star system.”

“Yes, Admiral,” the comms watch acknowledged. “Wait one, sir. All right. You’ve got it, Admiral.”

Geary straightened in his seat, made sure his uniform looked as good as it could, then touched the control. “To the people of Batara Star System and all ships in Batara Star System, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We are here for one purpose only, to return to this star system the citizens of Batara who have been stranded in Alliance space. Once we drop them off, we will not remain here. The Alliance has no designs on this star system and no interest in dictating to the people of Batara. However, we have been subjected to unprovoked attacks by warships of unknown allegiance. We have responded to those attacks and will continue to do so, taking all necessary steps to eliminate any threats to us or to the people of Batara. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

“I’m curious,” Duellos said. “Why didn’t you tell them outright that we were on a humanitarian mission?”

“Because of something else I learned not long ago from talking to former Syndics. To them, ‘humanitarian’ means ‘scam.’ It means someone is lying about their motives and their objectives, and is simply using the word to describe a scheme for personal profit. If I had said we were on a humanitarian mission, it would have sounded to them like I was admitting that I was actually out to cheat them.”

Duellos gazed morosely toward his display. “Sometimes I almost feel sorry for them. The Syndics. But then I get angry again, remembering how hard they fought for the same system that screwed them, how many people of ours they killed in the name of that system.”

“How many did Inspire lose in this fight?” Geary asked.

“The final casualty count is seventeen dead, thirty-five wounded. All of the wounded are now out of danger though some will take a lot more patching up. We were lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Implacable had only suffered a couple of wounded, while Formidable had lost one killed and had eight wounded. They had all inflicted far more injury upon the enemy than they had suffered, but somehow that wasn’t very comforting.

Geary sat watching the movements of the warships and the refugee ships, seeming slow across the huge distances they had to cross, waiting for any replies or reactions to his message. Commander Pajari had positioned most of her available escorts in two box-shaped formations, each facing one of the oncoming enemy flotillas. The destroyers of the Ninth Squadron continued their work hauling in escape pods and hauling out the men and women inside until they had all the prisoners they could carry, then heading over to meet up with either Implacable or Formidable and transfer the prisoners to the much larger battle cruisers.

He saw the movement before the combat watch reported it. “The heavy cruisers are accelerating toward our destroyers, sir!”

Moments later, the operations watch called out another warning. “Both light cruiser flotillas are accelerating onto attack runs against the refugee ships, Admiral.”