“I’ll see what I can do.” Ahead, the Syndic reserve flotilla was coming on fast. Behind the Syndic box, the Alliance battleship formation was closing the distance to the engagement.
“The Dreadnaught task force is engaging the two isolated Syndic battleships, but they’re trying to rejoin the main Syndic formation.”
The Syndic box still contained ten battleships and eleven battle cruisers, though two of the battle cruisers had taken beatings earlier. Six of the battleships were in the center, around the remaining heavy cruisers, with the other four posted one to a corner along with either two or three battle cruisers. Judging from the movements of the Syndic flotilla, which showed that its commander was angry and frustrated enough to be reckless and impulsive, Geary duplicated his previous dodge down and to the left, but then brought the battle cruisers up and right enough to aim for where a corner of the Syndic box should pass if its commander assumed the Alliance ships were trying the same maneuver. The maneuver worked, the Syndic missiles and grapeshot this time passing over the track of the Alliance battle cruisers as they flashed into contact with a corner of the Syndic box anchored on one battleship and two battle cruisers.
The opposing forces shot past each other in a fraction of a second, automated systems aiming and firing. As they drew apart again, Geary saw that the two Syndic battle cruisers were out of action and the battleship significantly damaged.
It took him a second longer to notice the gap in the Alliance formation. The gap where Furious had been. Back where the forces had engaged, a spreading cloud of fragments marked her remains. Desjani’s voice came out flat. “They must have concentrated their fire on Furious. She suffered a core overload. Nobody could have gotten off. Damn.”
For a moment Geary had visions of Captain Jaylen Cresida as he’d first seen her, in the Syndic home system, unhesitatingly backing him against the opposition and doubts of others, and as he’d last seen her in Atalia, with the design she’d created to save humanity from its own follies in building the hypernet without understanding the risks posed by the gates.
Then he shook it off. Not now. There’d be time to grieve later. “Dragon is seriously damaged, and Implacable took more hits.” Eleven battle cruisers left and half of them with seriously degraded capability owing to damage.
Geary’s eyes went to his battleships, one light-minute distant as the Syndic box came around again. Eighteen of them, with plenty of escorts. His mind worked instinctively to adjust the vector of the battleships given the small time delay remaining between them and Dauntless. “Formation Indigo Two, come right zero zero three degrees, down zero two degrees.”
The Syndic flotilla commander, focused on the Alliance battle cruisers, must have been rudely shocked when he or she realized that the Alliance battleships had reached the engagement. The Syndic box had barely steadied out to pursue the Alliance battle cruisers again when the Alliance battleships went through one side of it, their massive firepower ripping into the two Syndic battleships and six Syndic battle cruisers anchoring the flotilla there.
In the wake of the Alliance battleships, all eight Syndic capital ships were knocked out, some of the battle cruisers literally blown apart in vengeful counterpoint to the fate of Furious. But Geary’s jubilation was cut short by a report from the operations watch. “Rifle has exhausted her fuel cells. Her power core has shut down. Culverin’s power core has begun shutting down. The rest of the Twenty-third Destroyer Squadron has less than five minutes’ power estimated remaining. The ships of the Eighth Light Cruiser Squadron report fuel-cell exhaustion and power-core shutdowns imminent.”
On the display, the two Alliance destroyers were drifting, their primary systems off, helpless. “How long can the emergency backups maintain life support?” Geary asked.
“Twelve hours,” Desjani replied immediately. “I thought we might need to know that. This engagement should be decided before then.”
“Damn right.” He ordered the battleships back around, watching their formation shed increasing numbers of power-deprived destroyers and light cruisers, whose momentum was carrying them along the former track of the Alliance ships.
He felt everyone’s eyes on him, and he didn’t have to view the fleet-status readout to know how close his battle cruisers and battleships were to running out of fuel cells, too. At that point the Alliance’s advantage in numbers would be meaningless as almost all of its ships in Varandal would be sitting ducks. The Syndics were between the Alliance battle cruisers and the Alliance battleships now, the battle cruisers between the Syndics and the jump point for Atalia, but the Syndics weren’t making any major course alterations, just trying to re-form their flotilla’s box after its side had been smashed in.
“They have to know we’re running out of fuel cells,” Desjani muttered.
“They’ve only seen escorts run out. We have to make them think our capital ships still have plenty of reserves.” Geary punched his controls. “Formation Indigo One, immediate execute come left one nine zero degrees, up zero one two degrees, accelerate to point zero six light speed.” Dauntless’s structure groaned as the ship whipped around in as tight a turn as the inertial compensators could handle. All around her, the remaining Alliance battle cruisers followed suit, steadying out aimed at the still-ragged side of the Syndic box. “Concentrate fire on the leading Syndic ships!”
They blew past the edge of the Syndics, Dauntless shuddering again from hits. “Valiant reports heavy damage. Daring has lost all weapons but hell-lance battery three bravo and her null-field generator. Implacable has lost propulsion and maneuvering control.”
Geary kept his eyes on the display, watching the results of the latest firing pass. One of the surviving Syndic battleships had been pounded into scrap, and the single Syndic battle cruiser wearing toward that side of the formation was gone.
The Alliance battleships were coming around, Geary’s display flashing warnings about their low fuel-cell reserves, but to all external appearances still a hammer ready to bludgeon the Syndics again. The Alliance battle cruisers, now on the same side of the Syndics as the battleship formation, kept on toward the Alliance battleships as more light cruisers and destroyers fell away not from damage but from core shutdowns. Dreadnaught, Dependable, and Intemperate were only two light-minutes distant now, but though they had plenty of fuel-cell reserves, all three ships had suffered from their earlier encounters with the enemy.
Another alert pulsed. Geary’s eyes went to the flashing symbol on his display. “Friendly ships at the jump point from Atalia. We just got light showing the arrival of the Illustrious task force.” He looked back at the Syndics, waiting to see their reactions.
They swung a short way right, then accelerated, leaving some crippled ships behind to spit out escape pods. “They’re running.” Desjani was grinning. “They saw the ships with Illustrious but haven’t evaluated how damaged they are. The Syndics just saw more Alliance battleships and battle cruisers arriving, they see us behind them looking ready to kick their butts again and positioned between them and the hypernet gate, and they’re running.”
He couldn’t believe it, watching to see if the Syndics turned again, but they kept going, accelerating as fast as they could. Seven Syndic battleships and two battle cruisers, with their surviving escorts, heading for the jump point for Atalia like bats out of hell.