CEO Boucher ignored the blow, though, the Syndicate formation continuing on its path to come back to finish off Manticore and Harrier. Maybe, Marphissa thought, I shouldn’t have personally taunted Happy Hua the way I did. She sure wants me dead. But then this is Hua Boucher. She would probably want me dead regardless. “All units,” she transmitted. “Continue accelerating to point zero eight light speed, turn port zero two degrees, turn up one four seven degrees at time five zero.”
The Syndicate formation was looping up and over, the formation inverting as it went through the circle formed by its path through space. Marphissa’s ships could turn faster, even though that was a relative term. Planetary observers would doubtless describe the turn radius as huge, but what mattered was that it was less huge than that of the Syndicate formation encumbered by a battleship. This new maneuver would bring the remaining ships in Marphissa’s flotilla back and across to sweep over the top of the Syndicate formation as it neared the summit of its loop.
“Good thing that CEO is inexperienced,” Bradamont muttered. “With us sitting nearly dead in space, if she had simply braked and come back, that Syndicate formation would have gotten back here quicker. But instead, she’s going through that turn.”
“It’s only buying us a few minutes,” Marphissa pointed out. “Getting that battleship stopped and going again in the opposite direction isn’t easy.” She sent a separate transmission to Kraken, the remaining heavy cruiser in her formation. “Kapitan Seney, you are to assume command of the formation as it engages the Syndicate flotilla again. I’ll be too far away to make any necessary last-moment adjustments in the attack. Don’t get too close. We can’t afford to lose Kraken.”
Seney looked back at her, his eyes worried. “I understand and will comply, Kommodor. We can’t afford to lose Manticore, either.”
“Maybe we won’t,” she said, not believing it herself. “There’s nothing you can do to stop the Syndicate flotilla from reaching us, though. If Manticore is destroyed, place yourself and the other warships under the control of Kapitan Kontos. He will be acting Kommodor, by my command, until confirmed by President Iceni.”
“Kontos is young,” Seney said carefully.
“We all are young, Kapitan, for what we must do. Will you comply?”
“Yes, Kommodor. I will acknowledge Kapitan Kontos as acting Kommodor should you be unable to fill the role.” Seney brought his right fist around to tap his left breast in the Syndicate salute they still used. “For the people.”
She straightened and returned the salute. “For the people.”
Another call, to Kontos. “Kapitan, if Manticore is destroyed, you are to assume command of Midway’s warships as acting Kommodor until confirmed by President Iceni. Don’t waste your time worrying about us. There’s nothing you can do to stop the Syndicate flotilla in time. Continue to focus your efforts on knocking out the battleship’s escorts, then wearing down the battleship.”
Pele was far enough away that Kontos’s reply took several seconds. The youthful Kapitan looked stricken but determined. “I understand and will comply, Kommodor. I will not fail you or President Iceni. For the people, Kontos, out.”
As the image of Kapitan Kontos vanished, Marphissa sighed heavily, slumping back as she stared at her display. There was nothing else that she could do right now. “What would Black Jack do, Captain Bradamont?”
“I don’t know,” Bradamont answered, her voice low. “He did abandon ship when the situation at Grendel was hopeless.”
“Grendel? When was that?”
“A century ago.”
“Hah!” It struck her as funny. “A century ago? Did they take prisoners then? I guess people did. Do you think CEO Boucher is going to? What do you think her ships will do to any escape pods they see? Escape pods full of men and women whom they consider to be traitors and rebels?” Marphissa snorted and gestured angrily. “Besides, there are only enough escape pods aboard for sixty percent of the crew.”
“Sixty—?” Bradamont gave her a horrified look. “Why?”
“Because the Syndicate accountants crunched the numbers. On average, a ship too badly damaged to continue to fight, one that must be abandoned, will have lost forty percent of its crew. Therefore, they only need escape pods for the surviving sixty percent.”
“Ancestors preserve us.”
“Well, even dead ancestors probably care more than the corporate accountants trying to save a little money when they build ships,” Marphissa said, her tone acidic. “The CEOs approved because they didn’t want workers abandoning ships that could maybe still fight. Dammit, Honore. If I had managed that firing run right—”
“You handled that run as well as anyone,” Bradamont said. “The Syndicate formation jigged slightly in the same direction you did, probably because its automated controls were trying to center their run on you. The enemy doesn’t always do exactly what you want, and there are always uncertainties. Sometimes, you can do everything right and still get blown to hell. Sometimes, the biggest idiot survives and the smartest professional is in the wrong place when a hell lance comes through. There’s nothing we can do about that firing run now. What can we do?”
Marphissa shook her head. “Go down fighting. That’s all that’s left to do if those specialists can’t figure out in the next few minutes how to do something that they’ve been forbidden from trying in the past.” She turned her head toward the back of the bridge. “Senior watch specialist, ensure all weapons stations remain at full readiness. We’ll see who we can take down with us.”
“Yes, Kommodor.” The senior watch specialist bent his head for a moment, then raised it to look at her. “Kommodor, my name is Pyotor Czilla. I never wanted the CEOs to know my name. It was dangerous for them to know who you were. But I want you to know, because you were a good supervisor. The best.”
The other watch specialists murmured agreement, causing Marphissa to wonder if she was blushing with embarrassment. “We’re not dead yet,” she reminded them all. “You might have to live with me awhile longer.”
“Living awhile longer would not be a bad thing, Kommodor,” Czilla said. His smile was tense. “All weapons report full readiness except for hell-lance battery 2, which sustained a direct hit and was destroyed.”
“Very well. I will designate a single target when the Syndicate flotilla gets close enough,” Marphissa told him. She finally made another call, one she had been dreading, to Harrier. “How does it look, Kapitan-Leytenant Steinhilber?”
Kapitan-Leytenant Steinhilber was in a sealed survival suit, as were the others who could be seen on the bridge of the light cruiser. Harrier must have lost internal atmosphere.
Steinhilber shrugged. “Main propulsion is gone, Kommodor. Shot to pieces. We’ve got the power core still running at thirty percent capacity, but it’s shaky. Half our weapons are out, life support gone, half the crew dead or wounded. We’ll hold for another twenty minutes though, enough time for the Syndicate to get back here, and we’ll go down fighting.”
“Glenn, I—”
He shook his head. “It is. That’s all. It is. I’m sort of surprised I lasted this long. I should be grateful, right? I’m sorry I can’t save the crew, though. They’re a good crew, Kommodor. This is a hero ship. They should be remembered that way.” Steinhilber sounded both earnest and oddly numb, as if his emotions were so tightly controlled that all the edges were being worn off before they could be felt.