“They believe we ran from them!”
Geary shook his head and smiled very briefly. “The Syndics believe a lot of ridiculous things.” To his relief, the comment brought forth laughter from many of the captains. He’d thought over how to approach the issue of what had happened in Corvus if someone tried to make an issue of it, and dismissing the significance of the Syndic force had seemed to be the best angle.
Captain Faresa flushed, but before she could speak again, Captain Numos interceded. “The fact remains that the Syndics surely believe we were scared of fighting them.”
Geary raised one eyebrow. “I wasn’t scared of the Syndics.” He let the statement hang a moment, while Numos glared daggers at him. “I don’t believe in letting the enemy dictate our actions. If we’d turned to fight a battle simply because we were … concerned … about what the enemy would think, then we’d be letting them determine our course of action.”
He pointed toward Faresa and Numos in turn. “I will remind you both that the Syndics knew we’d gone to Corvus. That was the only system we could reach from the jump point we’d used in the Syndic home system.” He’d nearly used the word escaped but didn’t want to feed the accusations that the fleet had run away from battles, even though it was one-hundred-percent true. “That force coming after us was surely only a first wave. There would’ve been more right behind them. What would we have done with our damaged ships when that second wave appeared? We had no safe harbor in a Syndic system. Any damaged ships would’ve been doomed along with their crews. How would that serve our cause? How would that serve the people we command? Would you fight a battle to the death of this fleet in an insignificant star system simply out of pride?”
Captain Faresa glared silently back at Geary, but Numos shook his head. “Pride is why this fleet fights. It holds us together. Without pride, we are nothing.” His tone clearly conveyed that Geary should know this, and that Geary’s ignorance of it was inexplicable.
Geary leaned toward the image of Numos, knowing his anger was showing. “This fleet fights for victory, not pride. It is held together by honor and courage, the belief in what we fight for and the belief in each other. Pride is nothing by itself. Nothing but a weapon in our enemy’s hands, a weapon he will gladly use to help bring about our destruction.”
Silence fell. Numos seemed to have a glint of satisfaction lurking in the back of his eyes, as if he thought he’d scored points against Geary. Geary calmed himself, knowing he couldn’t afford to lose his temper. He looked along the long, long lines of captains whose images appeared to be seated at the table, trying to judge whether he’d harmed his standing, and not knowing what else he could’ve said. “If I may continue, the Syndics don’t know we’ve come to Kaliban. It’ll be another few days before they even realize we didn’t go to Yuon. Only then will they start looking elsewhere for us. We need to use that time to replenish whatever stocks we can. Our auxiliaries,” he nodded toward the place where Captain Tyrosian sat, “are going to see what raw materials they can gather, while they also devote time to manufacturing more of the things this fleet needs and getting it distributed to the ships that need it.”
“Captain Tyrosian’s in charge of the auxiliaries division? What happened to Captain Gundel?” an officer asked. He was looking at Tyrosian with a puzzled, not hostile, expression.
“Captain Gundel has been assigned to assist me with a long-range assessment of this fleet’s needs,” Geary answered. “He’s transferring to Titan.”
“I heard Gundel had been relieved of command,” another officer challenged.
Word travels fast. That hasn’t changed since my time. Geary looked back toward Tyrosian. “Fleet regulations prohibit having an officer serve as a ship’s commanding officer and in a staff assignment. Therefore, I was required to give command of Jinn to Captain Gundel’s executive officer. Captain Gundel,” Geary added, “agreed with all of these changes.”
Tyrosian, unused to being the center of attention at such meetings, simply nodded.
“Will Captain Gundel say that if he’s asked?” the officer continued.
“If you don’t regard my own statements as sufficiently reliable,” Geary stated dryly, “feel free to contact Captain Gundel. But I should advise you that he’s likely to tell you he’s too busy to deal with many interruptions.”
Smiles broke out around the table. As Geary had guessed, many commanding officers had been forced to deal with Captain Gundel while he was in charge of the auxiliaries, and they all knew the point of Geary’s half-disguised barb.
The challenger could see the smiles, too, and obviously realized he wouldn’t have many allies in protesting against Gundel’s transfer. “That’s fine. I just wanted to be sure, that’s all.”
“Good.” Geary looked slowly around the table. From the majority of the expressions, he’d maintained his hold on the fleet for now. But too many seem to be sympathetic to what Numos was saying. Why? They’re not stupid. But too many seem very unhappy that we didn’t fight at Corvus, common sense and simple smarts be damned. All right. If they want to fight, they’ll need to learn how. “We’re going to do something else while we’re here.”
Everyone watched him, some eagerly and some warily. “I’ve had the opportunity to watch the fleet in action.” Now was the time for the most diplomatic language Geary could muster. He wished he’d been able to trust Rione enough on internal fleet politics to have her help him with the wording. “The courage of the personnel and the capabilities of the ships of this fleet are truly impressive. You have much to be proud of.” He threw that last sentence in on the spur of the moment, trying to regain the high ground on that issue from Numos. “Our goal isn’t just victory in battle. It’s inflicting the heaviest possible losses on the enemy while suffering the fewest possible losses ourselves. There are things we can do to maximize our ability to win those kind of victories.”
The wariness was still there on the faces of his ship commanders. Geary called up another display, showing battle formations he’d once practiced, learning how to coordinate groups of ships to bring them together at decisive points. He’d thought a long time about this, about how to tell them they didn’t know how to fight a battle worth a damn. “Coordination, teamwork, and ship formations that allow us to take the best advantages of those qualities. It takes a lot of practice to carry these off right, but the payoff will be that the Syndics won’t be prepared to defend against them.”
“We can put ships in those formations,” someone objected, “but they’re worse than useless without someone who can coordinate action across light-minutes in the face of an enemy who’s acting and reacting. That’s the problem. It always gets too difficult with the time-late information. We’ve got the basic concepts laid down in tactical guides, but nobody actually knows how to work those formations anymore.”
Commander Cresida of the Furious spoke for the first time. “That’s been true, but I believe we now have someone who does know how to do that. Someone who learned it a long time ago.” She looked at Geary with a grim smile.
He could see the realization ripple around the virtual length of the table. Even Numos and Faresa seemed momentarily unable to come up with a rebuttal. Time to seize the moment. “We can do this. It’ll take work. We’re going to run simulations and exercises while we’re in this system. Practice fleet engagements. Yes, there’re some tricks I know that don’t seem to have survived to this point in the war. I can show them to you, and then we can all surprise the Syndics.”