“I see.” Rione smiled with one side of her mouth. “They don’t know where you’ll hit, so they don’t know where to put their heaviest firepower.”
“Exactly.” Geary shook his head as he watched the Syndics. They’d been expecting the Alliance fleet to turn back toward the jump point for Padronis, but instead found themselves lining up with the Alliance battleship formation to one side and above them, while the Alliance battle cruisers were to the other side and beneath. “I don’t think I should punch the battleship formation through the middle of the Syndics again. Not yet, anyway. If the Syndic commander reacted quickly enough and collapsed his flotilla around the center he could hurt our battleships badly.”
Desjani thought about it, then nodded. “I agree. May the Alliance battle cruisers lead the way this time, Captain Geary?”
“Yes, Captain Desjani. Let’s do that, while I bring the battleships around to hit the Syndics from another angle.”
“Captain Geary, sir, Resolution and Incredible request that you leave plenty of Syndics for them.”
Desjani laughed, and even Geary grinned despite his tension. “Tell them that shouldn’t be a problem, Lieutenant.”
Led by Captain Tulev’s Second Battle Cruiser Division, the fifteen remaining operational Alliance battle cruisers and their light cruiser and destroyer escorts angled upward and to the right, while Geary ordered the battleships to come left and accelerate. The battleship formation moved much more sluggishly, both because of the massive battleships and because it included the three remaining auxiliaries in the fleet. Hopefully, he’d compensated properly for that in his orders.
The Syndics were continuing their turn, angling slightly downward. Geary adjusted the track of the battle-cruiser formation to counteract the Syndic maneuvers, increasing the angle of the Alliance attack so it was climbing almost straight up toward the enemy.
The Alliance battle-cruiser formation screamed upward at the rear bottom corner of the Syndic flotilla.
“They’re braking!” the operations watch-stander shouted at the last moment before contact, too late for anyone to react. At the velocities they were all traveling, both sides noticed the changed vectors too late for either group of warships to compensate.
Instead of racing past outside the corner of the Syndic flotilla, the Alliance battle cruisers slammed through that corner. The automated maneuvering systems managed to avoid collisions, which would have instantly vaporized the ships involved, but the Alliance battle cruisers still ended up enduring close passes against enemy battleships.
The four Syndic battleships anchoring that corner threw out a barrage of hell-lance fire that tore apart Steadfast, riddled Intrepid, and hammered Inspire, while Illustrious took more damage on top of that suffered at Cavalos, and Courageous spun out of control as the Alliance warships cleared the Syndic formation.
“Intrepid thinks she can keep up but all of her combat systems are out,” Dauntless’s combat watch reported. “Inspire has full maneuvering but has sustained heavy damage to weapons systems. We can see escape pods leaving what’s left of Steadfast.”
“What about Courageous?” Geary demanded.
“No communications, sir. She’s off the fleet net. Sensors register all systems dead.”
Along with who knew how many of her crew.
“Roberto Duellos is very hard to kill,” Desjani commented.
“Let’s hope so.” Geary shoved his worries for Captain Duellos to the side and grimly focused on the Syndic flotilla. The Alliance battle cruisers had been hurt, but had also been able to hit the corner of the flotilla with a lot of firepower. The two Syndic battle cruisers there were both too badly damaged to keep fighting, and one of the enemy battleships had taken enough hits that it was falling out of formation, while another seemed as badly off as Intrepid, able to maneuver but otherwise badly hurt. Most of the Syndic light cruisers and HuKs in that corner of the flotilla had been knocked out or destroyed, but there were more Alliance escorts also missing now or helplessly falling behind.
Fortunately, the Syndic maneuvers that had put the Alliance battle cruisers badly out of position had also positioned the Alliance battleship formation to hit another corner of the Syndic flotilla head-on. This time the four Syndic battleships there were not only badly outnumbered locally but facing warships as heavily shielded and armored as they were. Gallant and Indomitable were the focus of the enemy fire, and both suffered damage as their shields failed in spots and Syndic grapeshot or hell lances made it through to their hulls. But as the Alliance formation opened the distance again, they left three of the four Syndic battleships out of action and three Syndic battle cruisers in pieces.
“That more than evens the odds,” Desjani remarked.
The rest of the Syndic flotilla swept toward Goblin, which vanished into a ball of fragments a moment later as its power core overloaded. Beyond where Goblin had been, Resolution and Incredible threw out everything they had left at the approaching Syndics.
Geary involuntarily closed his eyes as a corner of the Syndic flotilla tore past Resolution and Incredible. When he opened them, he was astonished to see that both Alliance ships were still there. “They survived? That’s…”
“Incredible?” Desjani murmured. “Resolution shielded Incredible as much as she could. She got shot to hell, and Incredible took more damage, but the Syndic intercept must have been far enough off to save both ships.”
Luck had saved Resolution and Incredible, but a moment later the gods of war favored the Syndics.
“Damn,” Desjani commented. “There goes Intrepid.” Missiles had leaped out from the Syndic formation during the last firing pass, aiming at the projected course for the Alliance battle cruisers. Because of the last-minute vector changes, most of those missiles had been too far off the Alliance track to get hits and had curved through space, chasing the Alliance ships. Many of the missiles were destroyed as their slow relative speeds in a stern chase made them easier targets for the Alliance escorts, but one made it through to the already heavily damaged Intrepid. The stricken battle cruiser seemed to buck as the missile hit her dead astern, smashing her propulsion units. Intrepid spun off to the side, her weakened structure visibly buckling under the stress of the impact and the sudden changes in course and speed. “She’s not going to be recoverable, sir.”
Desjani didn’t seem shaken by the losses of Intrepid and Courageous, but then Geary knew that she’d seen far worse. “Let’s avenge her.” He tried to relax, watching the tracks and projected paths through space, attempting to factor in the seconds of time delay in the images he was seeing. “Formation Indigo One, come right two five degrees, down one six zero degrees at time five three.” The Alliance battle cruisers came up and over, swinging down and to the side for another pass at the Syndics. The Syndic commander was trying to concentrate what was left of his flotilla, bringing the ships together until the group of enemy warships once again almost resembled a square box, though a much smaller one than the Syndics had started with. At the same time, he tried a tight maneuver, rolling the entire formation up and around to the left to face the Alliance battle-cruiser formation.