He nodded heavily. Whatever had happened had already taken place hours ago. The families and crew of that heavy cruiser had probably been killed by the Syndic attackers before the light of the cruiser’s arrival at Midway had reached Dauntless.
“We’re seeing the Midway flotilla altering vectors,” the operations watch-stander announced. The little flotilla belonging to Midway, made up of former Syndic warships, had been orbiting only five light-minutes distant from the hypernet gate. It had taken them only those few minutes to spot the events around the gate, and as they saw the new heavy cruiser flee, they had gotten involved as well.
“They can’t get to that cruiser in time,” Desjani said, her voice professionally detached. “And even if they did, the force Boyens sent after that cruiser outnumbers them nearly three to one.”
“Why did they try? Kommodor Marphissa can run the data as well as we can. She must have known it was hopeless.”
“Maybe she wanted to hit some of the Syndic heavy cruisers while they were off by themselves. She probably lost half of her ships if she tried, though.” The emotional separation in Desjani’s voice cracked slightly, letting through a sense of frustration and anger.
Geary watched the projected tracks of the different players altering as the Alliance fleet’s automated systems estimated courses and speeds for the Syndic warships and the Midway flotilla. The lone heavy cruiser had started out at the hypernet gate and was now on a track curving outward toward one of the several jump points that had given the star Midway its name. CEO Boyens’s Syndicate Worlds flotilla had been only a couple of light-minutes from the gate, closer to the star and slightly above the gate, and had kicked out its heavy cruisers and HuKs on flatter, faster curves, which intercepted the path of the fleeing cruiser long before it could reach safety.
And the flotilla consisting of two heavy cruisers, five light cruisers, and several small Hunter-Killer ships belonging to the “free and independent star system of Midway” had surged out of its own orbit five light-minutes down and starboard from the Syndic flotilla.
He understood Tanya’s attempts to separate herself emotionally from what they were watching. They were much too distant to do anything to influence the events near the hypernet gate. Those who were to die were already dead. But it was very hard to pretend not to care about that.
Geary felt a temptation to shut off his display, to avoid watching the inevitable. The best he could hope for was that before it was destroyed, the fleeing cruiser would damage some of Boyens’s ships, and that a portion of the Midway flotilla would survive their own attack on the much more powerful force of Syndic heavy cruisers and HuKs.
But he kept watching because that was his job, watching with a sick sensation in his gut as the unavoidable results played out.
“What the hell?”
He hadn’t realized that he had said that until he heard Desjani laugh in reluctant admiration. “The Midway warships aren’t trying to rescue that single cruiser. Their Kommodor is aiming for the Syndic battleship!”
“That’s…” Geary studied the developing situation as the vector of the Midway force steadied out, aiming for an intercept with the orbit of Boyens’s single battleship and the light cruisers still with it. “What is she doing? The Midway flotilla can’t take on a battleship, even with so many of the battleship’s escorts gone.”
“Check the geometry, Admiral,” Desjani advised. “They couldn’t get to the lone cruiser before Boyens’s own cruisers caught it. But they can get to the battleship before Boyens’s cruisers can nail the lone cruiser and return to protect the battleship.”
“Boyens still doesn’t have much to worry about. He might lose some light cruisers, but the battleship—” A bright red symbol appeared on the Syndic formation. A collision warning, blinking steadily over the Syndic battleship. Geary followed the arcs of two projected, lethal vectors back to the ships that had settled on those courses. Two of the Midway HuKs. “Ancestors save us. Do you think they’ll go through with it?”
Desjani was rubbing her chin, her eyes calculating as she studied her display. “It’s the only way they could cripple or destroy Boyens’s battleship. With the heavy cruisers and HuKs gone from the Syndic formation, and the rest of the Midway ships screening those two HuKs to make sure they can get through the remaining Syndic escorts, it could work. Crazy tactics, though.”
“Kommodor Marphissa is an ex-Syndic,” Geary observed. “Boyens might know something about her.”
“You mean the fact that she mad hates Syndic CEOs?” Desjani asked. “And therefore might actually have two of her ships ram Boyens’s battleship? Yeah. Boyens might know that.”
Geary’s gaze on his display was now horrified. Would he have to watch two ships destroy themselves in the hope of crippling the Syndic force in this star system? “Hold on. There’s something about this that doesn’t fit. Assume the Kommodor really intends to nail that battleship. Why would she set them on collision courses with the battleship that far out?”
“Unless she’s an idiot, and I’m willing to admit she isn’t, if she meant to ram that battleship, she wouldn’t have broadcast her intentions that early.” Desjani laughed again, low and admiring. “It’s a bluff. Boyens can’t afford to risk losing that battleship. But he can’t be certain of stopping those HuKs with the escorts he’s got. What’s he going to do?”
“Hopefully, the only safe option,” Geary said, his eyes back on the Syndic heavy cruisers and HuKs heading to intercept the lone cruiser still fleeing at the maximum acceleration it could achieve.
Because of the time delays involved in communicating across even such a relatively short distance as a few light-minutes, it took about ten minutes before the tracks of the six heavy cruisers and nine HuKs that Boyens had sent out began changing rapidly as the fifteen Syndic warships bent up and back, coming around and accelerating toward the battleship they had left not long before.
“The Syndics have abandoned their attempt to intercept the new cruiser,” Lieutenant Castries reported, as if not believing what she was saying. “The Midway flotilla is continuing en route an intercept with the Syndic battleship.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a bluff,” Desjani said, eyeing her display. “We’ll know in twenty minutes.”
“Captain?” Castries asked.
“If the Midway flotilla acted to ensure that lone cruiser got clear, they’ll maintain their threatening vectors against the battleship until the Syndic cruiser force can’t turn again and overtake the new ship.”
Geary felt confident that Kommodor Marphissa had been bluffing, but he still watched, with increasing tension, as those twenty minutes crawled by. Because Tanya is right. From all that we have learned of her, Marphissa does hate the Syndic CEOs who once controlled her life. Does she hate them enough to let that hatred override her responsibility to conserve her forces and use them wisely? Syndic commanders aren’t taught to worry about casualties in carrying out their missions, and Marphissa learned her trade under the Syndic system.
“It’s been twenty minutes, Captain,” Lieutenant Castries pointed out. “The single cruiser is now safe from intercept by the Syndic force.”
Desjani nodded wordlessly in acknowledgment. If she was worried, she didn’t let it show.
Not that she, or anyone, could change what had already happened two hours ago.
Twenty-one minutes after the Syndic heavy cruisers had turned back, the Midway flotilla pivoted and began a wide, sweeping turn back toward its previous orbit five light-minutes from the Syndicate flotilla.