Geary’s ship status display showed that both Majestic and Orion had regained most of their maneuvering capability, so he guessed that Cresida was actually expressing doubt about what they’d do when confronted by the mass of Syndic battleships. He wasn’t sure of that himself. “I understand. Conqueror shouldn’t give you any trouble.” Captain Casia was technically senior to Cresida, but Geary had painstakingly crafted orders which so limited Casia’s role to close defense of the auxiliaries that he shouldn’t be able to interfere with the actions of the much-more-capable Cresida.
“I hope Conqueror manages to give the enemy some trouble,” Cresida observed.
“Me, too. We’re going to disrupt the attack before it reaches you. Hopefully that’ll do enough damage to make the plan work.”
Cresida smiled, startling Geary. “If it doesn’t, there’s worse fates. I’ve got someone waiting for me.”
It took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t talking about someone waiting at home, but rather about what would happen if Furious was destroyed in the engagement. “We need you, Captain Cresida. Do your duty, but the Alliance already has too many dead heroes.”
“Yes, it does.” Cresida nodded again.
Geary ended the transmission and stared at his display, where the mighty Syndic pursuit force was still accelerating into its attack. He wondered how many more dead heroes the Alliance would have before this day ended.
FOUR
“You’re not going to change the formation?” Captain Desjani asked again.
“No, I’m not going to change the formation!” Geary gave her an annoyed glance. How many times had she asked the question over the last hour? “We need to look like an easy, disorganized target.”
“Sir, with all due respect, we are an easy, disorganized target in this formation.” Desjani saw Geary’s scowl deepen but kept speaking. “Our firepower is spread throughout a wide region. The Syndics will be able to overwhelm each of those subformations one after another, just like we overcame each weak Syndic formation we encountered.”
She was stubborn, but she was smart, and under other circumstances she’d probably be right. Geary forced down his temper. “We can’t engage them as a fleet. They have too great an advantage in firepower when you take into account that they probably have much bigger stocks of missiles and grapeshot on hand than we do.”
“If we concentrate on one part of the formation like you did last time we were in Lakota—”
“Tanya, look.” He gestured at the display. “Last time the Syndics let themselves get suckered into spreading out to catch us, which allowed us to concentrate and punch through. The CEO in command now was smart enough to learn from that. The Syndic formation is already concentrated into a fairly tight box.”
“Then we can maneuver around it.”
“Not with our fuel cell reserves in the state they are and not with the auxiliaries to worry about! They’ve taken on a lot of materials, and they’re sluggish as hell again with all of that extra mass.” Desjani glared at the display, clearly wanting to argue some more. Geary kept his voice reasonable with some effort. “The disadvantage of the Syndic formation is that it’s so deep and dense that their CEO can’t maneuver it easily. If our trap fails, we’ll have to take what advantage we can of that by hitting it again and again on the edges.”
“It would take forever to wear down that force that way,” Desjani pointed out. “We don’t have enough fuel cells to do that, either.”
He took a moment to reply, looking at the display again, where the Syndic pursuit force was eight light-minutes distant. It had reached point one light speed and was still coming right for them, its box formation looking like a huge brick aimed at the Alliance fleet’s bubble. Desjani was right, of course. He knew that. Sure, a head-on clash of concentrated formations would almost certainly result in the Alliance fleet being shattered against the much stronger Syndic force. But at least the end would happen quickly. What would be the purpose of drawing it out, losing ships one by one over a much longer period, with the same defeat awaiting them in the end?
The alternative would be to run, now, as fast as the fleet could go, jump to another star system ahead of the Syndics, knowing they’d be right behind this time, the Alliance fleet unable to stop to replenish the auxiliaries again. Sooner or later he’d have to turn and fight, and probably under worse conditions than this. He’d been forced to linger here to restock his auxiliaries, but the fleet would eventually run out of fuel cells if he couldn’t replenish those stocks again, and he didn’t know how that would be possible without first engaging the Syndic pursuit force.
“How do we want to die?” he finally whispered.
Desjani stared at him. “We’re talking about how to win, sir.”
“Then we fight here and try to minimize the Syndic advantages. If our plan works, our chances will get a lot better. If it doesn’t work, we have to try to make the Syndics pay as much as possible for their victory. A head-on clash will too likely destroy us before we can wear them down at all.”
She watched him, then nodded slowly. “Hit them again and again, knowing our time is limited, holding nothing back, because there’ll be no reason to hold anything back. This will be as far as we get toward home.”
“It might come to that, yeah.” He took a long, slow breath, grateful that he’d been able to share that thought with someone.
Desjani flicked her eyes toward the back of the bridge for the barest moment. “Are you going to tell her?”
Her? Rione. “She’s brave enough, but I think she’d have a little trouble understanding.”
“I think you’re right. Captain Geary, if we don’t win, we’re going to make sure this Syndic victory is one they wish they’d never achieved because it’s going to cost them more than they ever imagined possible.”
He felt a smile on his lips and nodded to Desjani. “Damn right we will.”
“Estimated time to engagement range with Syndic Pursuit Flotilla one and one half hours,” the operations watch-stander announced.
It all came down to timing again. His now-long-dead teachers, officers experienced in decades of fleet maneuvers, had drilled into Geary that the worst temptation a commander faced was to act too soon. Watching the enemy approach for hours or days, it was far too easy to jump the gun, make changes too early that should occur at the last moment before the enemy could see them and react. Make the changes too early, and the enemy would react, then you’d have to change things again, and they’d react again. He’d seen it happen in fleet exercises, as commanders drove ships and crews to exhaustion before the first shots could be exchanged.
Simulate indecision, simulate panic, while all the time real indecision and panic lurked ready to pounce. His fleet was waiting for orders. They trusted him, even though variations on his debate with Desjani were surely happening on a lot of ships. But they’d seen him snatch victory from the jaws of defeat before this, so they waited.
Most of them waited. Captain Casia wasn’t happy. “The Syndic attack is less than fifty minutes away from contact! Why are my ships still at point zero two light speed and accompanying these Syndic wrecks?”
“Your ships are accompanying the Alliance auxiliaries,” Geary pointed out.
“We are the closest to the enemy, and the nearest supporting formation is at least half an hour travel time distant! ”
“That’s correct, Captain Casia.”
Casia’s face reddened. “I will contact the other officers in this fleet and demand an immediate conference to decide on your competence to command. We need a fleet commander who will act, not one who lets this fleet sit idly while an overwhelming Syndic force approaches!”