“But not their propulsion,” Desjani noted dryly. “Maybe you should drop a hint that while they can protect themselves better now, they still can’t run away.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Captain Desjani.” Instead of being abashed, she just grinned as he continued. “I don’t think Resolution and Incredible will complain much, though.”
“You wouldn’t want to try separating those two ships,” Desjani replied. “They’ve apparently mated for life after bonding at Heradao.”
“Why are you in such a good mood, Captain Desjani?”
“Because the Syndic reserve flotilla has jumped to Varandal, Captain Geary, and will now be trapped between the Alliance forces that fled here and this fleet, as well as facing all of the defenses Varandal has to offer.” Desjani smiled like a wolf. “They’re meat.”
“That may be, but they’re meat with teeth.”
DESPITE the huge virtual size of the conference-room table, Geary couldn’t help noticing that it was smaller than it had been for earlier meetings. There were fewer ships and, therefore, fewer commanding officers left in the fleet. But at least after the events in Padronis. the poison seemed to have finally been drawn from the fleet, and any debate here would be open and genuine. “I’m sure you’re all familiar with the situation. The Syndic reserve flotilla jumped for Varandal before they knew we’d arrived at Atalia. They’re pursuing an Alliance force whose size remains uncertain and will undoubtedly try to reduce the Alliance facilities at Varandal as well as destroy the rest of the Alliance warships there. We have to get to Varandal in time to assist our comrades there on warships and the planets and orbital facilities.”
He gestured toward the display hovering over the table. “The main body of the fleet will proceed to the jump point for Varandal as fast as our fuel-cell situation will allow, taking a course that will allow us to sweep up the damaged Syndic warships remaining in this star system. A formation made up of Illustrious, Incredible, Resolution, Orion, Titan, Jinn, Witch, and the most badly damaged cruisers and destroyers will slow down enough to recover the Alliance escape pods in this star system, then follow the rest of us to Varandal.”
Every eye went to Captain Badaya, doubtless expecting him to explode with disagreement, but Badaya just nodded, his expression set. “Illustrious is honored to be given responsibility for this critical task. Make sure the rest of you leave some Syndics for us at Varandal.”
“Be careful what you ask for,” Commander Parr from Incredible cautioned. “But we’ll be happy to fight alongside the other ships with us.”
Duellos looked as tired as Badaya. “The odds don’t look to be good at Varandal, and I see your projected movement will bring us to Varandal with less than twenty percent fuel-cell reserves.”
“That’s right.” Geary tried to say it casually, as if it were routine to go into battle against superior numbers with fuel-cell reserves so low that the real risk existed of warships running out of power during the engagement at Varandal. “There’s nothing we can do about the fuel-cell situation. The remaining auxiliaries are using their shuttles to distribute the fuel cells they manufactured during the last jump, and after that we’ll have to count on refueling after we deal with the Syndics at Varandal. We’ll have a better idea of the odds we face at Varandal once the Alliance escape pods can provide us with a listing of the warships that were with the Alliance force that came here. So far all we can do is estimate how many Alliance warships were lost here.”
Everybody checked the time. “The nearest pods should have seen us by now,” Captain Armus grumped.
“We’ll have to wait another half hour before any message from them can reach us.”
“Unfortunately, yes. But it’s still over a day before we reach the jump point for Varandal. We have time. Too much time, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”
NOTHING but sit on the bridge of Dauntless, bulleting through space at point one two light speed, waiting to hear what the Alliance personnel in the escape pods could tell the fleet. The first voice coming over the circuit from an escape pod was so distorted by mingled joy, disbelief, and stress that it was a little hard to understand. “This is Lieutenant Reynardin. I believe I’m the senior surviving officer off of the battle cruiser Avenger. You can’t imagine how good it is to see the Alliance fleet here. The Syndics were claiming that you’d been destroyed, but everyone said it couldn’t be true. Not our fleet. Bless our ancestors and the living stars…”
Geary tried to fight down a wave of annoyance as the lieutenant jabbered on. Desjani was drumming her fingers on the arm of her command chair, her own impatience obvious. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what Desjani would be saying to Lieutenant Reynardin right now if he was within shouting distance. Rione must have read the same emotions on Geary and Desjani. “Lieutenant Reynardin has lost his ship and many of his friends and shipmates. He’s surely suffering from shock.”
“He’s a fleet officer,” Desjani replied, biting off each word. “Maybe when he gets the message from Captain Geary asking for information, he’ll actually tell us something useful.”
They could tell when that had happened a few minutes later, because Lieutenant Reynardin suddenly fell silent. When he spoke again, the lieutenant sounded half in tears. “Captain Geary. Sir. An honor… I… your orders. Yes, sir. What happened. We launched a spoiling attack. It was Admiral Tagos’s idea, to keep the Syndics off-balance.”
“Tagos?” Desjani muttered, then shook her head at Geary. “How the hell did she make admiral?”
“Admiral Tagos was on Auspicious,” Reynardin continued. “I didn’t see everything that hit Auspicious, but her power core blew, and I’m certain there weren’t any survivors.”
Geary nodded wearily, imagining from what he’d seen when he took command of the fleet that Tagos had been promoted because of political skills and “fighting spirit,” then demonstrated both by rushing into a hopeless battle.
“Avenger and Auspicious. That accounts for two Alliance battle cruisers,” Desjani noted as Reynardin rattled on in a shock-fueled stream of consciousness. “Maybe somebody else on his escape pod will take over the comm panel.”
“Let’s hope so.” With the nearest escape pods still over two light-hours away, any attempt to try to get Lieutenant Reynardin to focus on the questions he’d been asked would be a very long and tedious process.
“It was pretty terrible,” Reynardin continued. “Just… everything.”
“Somebody please shoot him,” Desjani ground out.
“He’s in shock,” Rione protested again.
The argument was cut off by the communications watch. “Captain, we’ve got another escape pod calling in.”
“Put it on!” Desjani ordered in the tones of someone who’d just been delivered from torment. This officer immediately sounded like a steadier individual. “Ensign Hochin here, sir. Hell-lance battery officer on Peerless. I’m afraid I can only tell you the status of the Alliance forces here up to the point that we evacuated Peerless.”
“That’s something, anyway.” Desjani glanced at Geary. “Peerless was another battleship in the same division as Dreadnaught.”
Which meant Dreadnaught either hadn’t come along, or more likely had been able to escape back to Varandal. Geary felt a wave of comfort at the knowledge that his grandniece’s ship hadn’t been lost here, and guilt at his relief because it meant another ship had suffered that fate.