“So there isn’t any fighting? There is no need for ships like this?” Diaz waved around to indicate his cruiser.
“There is fighting,” Bradamont said. “As far as I know, the fighting isn’t all that different, and people die just as surely in peace as in war. And there are still fleets of warships and armies of ground forces.”
“Then what is the difference?”
“I don’t really know.” Bradamont gazed off to one side, remembering. “Admiral Geary knows. He used to try to explain it to us. After the Syndicate Worlds finally signed an agreement to end the war, we all waited for everything to change. But none of us can see any difference. None of us know how to be different. Maybe that’s the problem.”
“How can you stop someone from attacking you?” Diaz wondered.
She focused back on him. “Do you want to attack Admiral Geary?”
“Black Jack?” Diaz shook his head, a gesture mimicked by all of the specialists on the bridge. “Why would I? He is for the people.”
“He is an admiral in the Alliance fleet,” she reminded him.
“But… he’s different. He only does what he must. No more. He doesn’t war on those who can’t fight back, or demand more than we can give, or…” Diaz screwed up his face as he thought. “He fights only those who force him to fight. Is that right?”
“That’s right.” Bradamont spread her hands. “So, Admiral Geary has stopped you from wanting to attack him.”
Diaz frowned in thought. “We need more Black Jacks, don’t we?”
“You have President Iceni and General Drakon. That is no small thing.”
Whatever Diaz would have answered was interrupted by an alert. He looked quickly at his display, the frown changing into a scowl. “The Syndicate is back. At the jump point from Lono, just as you predicted, Captain.”
It wasn’t a big Syndicate flotilla, but big enough to be a serious problem. Three heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, and ten Hunter-Killers. “Whatever peace is supposed to be,” Bradamont commented sarcastically, “it still looks like war from here.”
Kommodor Marphissa wasn’t sure whether she was racing her flotilla to intercept the Syndicate flotilla at Iwa, or to intercept and battle with the enigma armada to help the Syndicate flotilla. In any case, her intentions didn’t matter. The distances were too great, the time too short, and the odds against the Syndicate flotilla too dire. Marphissa could only watch as the Syndicate flotilla charged toward the enigmas.
One of the worst parts of space combat was born of the sheer size of space. With light requiring hours or days to cover the distances between formations of ships, it was all too easy to be in a situation where a badly outnumbered flotilla of friendly forces faced certain doom, and to be so far away that there was no means of intervening even though the action could be viewed with perfect clarity. What was being seen was both history, events that had already taken place hours or days before, and immediate, because what was viewed was not a record of past tragedy but the actual moments when ships and crews were dying.
The Syndicate warships had arranged themselves into the standard box formation, with one broad side facing toward the enemy. Leading the formation were the Syndicate light cruiser and fifteen of their Hunter-Killers, arrayed in the rectangle forming the side facing the enigmas. Behind them came the two battle cruisers and two of the heavy cruisers, arranged in a diamond inside the box, and in the rectangle making up the rear side of the box were the other three heavy cruisers and remaining four Hunter-Killers.
Swooping in to meet the Syndicate box head-on were the enigmas, who had arranged their many more warships into a nearly flat box with one narrow side facing the Syndicate. The arrangement of alien warships bore an uncomfortable resemblance to an immense axe head, with the leading edge swinging toward the Syndicate box.
Kapitan Kontos was watching as well, his expression gloomy. “Why can’t their deaths mean something?” he murmured to Marphissa.
“They will mean something,” she replied. “Every enigma warship they destroy will be one less that we have to defeat in order to save the people the Syndicate transports and freighters have been shuttling down to the planet.”
He glanced at the time/distance marker next to the representation of the Syndicate formation on their displays. “One hour and forty light minutes away. We’re seeing them when they were two minutes from contact.”
“The enigmas will take time to finish off the Syndicate warships,” Marphissa said, her voice sounding harsh even to her. “That will give us the time we need to intercept the enigmas before they can reach the Syndicate people on the planet.” It felt ugly, spending human lives like some perverted form of money to buy time, but that sort of trade-off was familiar to them all. She sighed. “Trade lives for time. I used to think that was something only the cold-blooded business minds of the Syndicate would do. Then I saw the Alliance fight and realized that they would make the same choice. There are two kinds of people in war. The kind who are willing to sell their lives to defend their people or their homes or their beliefs, and the kind who aren’t willing to pay that price. The first kind always beat the second kind.”
Kontos gave her a troubled look. “What if both sides are of the first kind?”
“Then they kill each other until one side wins or both sides are bled white and collapse.” She met his gaze. “Unless someone on both sides is smart enough to realize that there need to be limits on what they ask people to die for.”
“We’re still willing to die,” Kontos said. “Not for the Syndicate, though.”
“No.” Marphissa pointed to her display. “They’re not going to die for the Syndicate, either.”
The time to engagement between the Syndicate flotilla and the alien armada scrolled downward. One minute. Thirty seconds. Ten seconds.
They saw what had happened one hour and forty minutes ago.
The Syndicate commander had been brave, but not smart. He held his vector, but the enigmas used their superior maneuverability to tilt their formation upward in the last seconds before contact. Instead of slicing through the center of the Syndicate box, the enigma axe went in near the top at a slight angle.
Marphissa tried not to wince as the sensors aboard her ships reported with emotionless precision the outcome of the first engagement.
The light cruiser and ten of the Hunter-Killers along the upper edge of the Syndicate box had all been blown to pieces. One of the Syndicate battle cruisers had also been hit so hard that nothing was left but fragments. Three of the heavy cruisers were out of action, one blown apart by a massive number of hits, another broken into several large pieces that were tumbling away from the remnants of the Syndicate flotilla, and another still intact, still fighting, but heavily battered.
The enigmas had taken some losses, but not nearly as many as the heavily outgunned Syndicate warships. “Only six,” Kontos murmured. “They only took out six.”
“They damaged some others,” Marphissa said. “They could have done better!” she growled, feeling anger and frustration. “He just ran right at them instead of trying last-minute maneuvers himself!”
The surviving Syndicate warships were bending their courses up and around. They weren’t fleeing, but were maneuvering to make another pass at the aliens.
The enigmas were whipping about as well. At the incredible velocities the human and alien warships were traveling, their “tight” turns swung through many thousands of kilometers, but the enigmas were able to outturn even the human battle cruisers.
Forty minutes later, the two forces clashed again. The enigmas came in under the surviving Syndicate warships, their axe head this time slashing at a high angle upward through the human formation.