Impávido (68 page)

“Conduct emergency heat dumps,” Desjani replied, her voice steady. “We have Captain Geary aboard, ladies and gentlemen. We won’t fail him or the rest of the fleet counting on us.”

Even through his fear Geary felt a rush of gratification at her words and admiration for Desjani’s ability to project control even in the face of what was happening inside the gate.

The strange humming had grown to a moan running through and tearing at everything. Geary felt the sort of strange instability that came with being very drunk and realized his nervous system was being pummeled by whatever was happening inside the gate. He hoped that Dauntless’s electrical systems were better shielded than his own body was at the moment.

“Captain Geary, this is Diamond. Experiencing secondary system failures. Primary systems remain operational on backup circuits. We’ve lost one hell-lance battery to overheating. Holding position.”

“This is Daring. We’re suffering the same. Remaining on station and continuing to fire.”

“Captain Desjani, failures to secondary systems throughout the hull, hell-lance battery two alpha nonoperational due to overheating.”

“Very well,” Desjani replied in the same steady voice. “Hold station. Continue firing.”

Geary had been proud to command this fleet when he wasn’t feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility.

But now he felt such a strong sense of honor in commanding ships and sailors like this that he had to fight back tears. “Damn, you’re all good,” he stated roughly. “May the living stars reward such courage.”

“This is Diamond. My weapons have stopped firing. All combat systems nonoperational. Request further instructions.”

Geary slammed his hand onto the control. “Withdraw, Diamond. Maximum acceleration. Keep your shields facing the gate as strong as possible.”

“Diamond, aye. Unable to comply. Inertial compensators are still working but main maneuvering controls have just failed. Looks like we’re staying at the mouth of hell with you.”

“I couldn’t ask for better company there than you, Daring and Dauntless,” Geary replied. “Captain Duellos, if Dauntless is destroyed, you are to assume command of the fleet by my order.”

It would be a while before Duellos heard that order, assuming the strange static emanating from the gate didn’t mask it completely at a distance. Geary took a deep breath. “How much longer can we hold out, Captain Desjani?”

“No telling, sir,” she stated in a soft but firm voice that left Geary marveling at Desjani’s self-control. “The ship is undergoing a unique set of stresses.”

The pace of firing from the hell-lance batteries had finally slowed, with pauses of varying length occurring before the firing program ordered new shots to blow apart more tethers at locations all around the gate.

The hell mouth inside the gate was fluctuating wildly, one moment swelling as if to burst the bounds of the gate and the next dwindling to a point almost too small to see.

Geary felt his body pulsing in time, wondering how long humans could endure whatever was happening to the structure of reality in this part of space.

The hell mouth shrank into nothingness in the blink of an eye, vanishing from sight. “What—?”

Geary’s question was cut off as a shock wave hit the Dauntless, traveling so fast that there’d been no warning time this close to the gate. He’d seen time-lapse images of the shock wave from a nova, and this seemed like that, though happening in real time the event was so fast his senses didn’t really register it.

Dauntless shuddered under the impact, the inertial compensators whining as they dampened the effects of the force.

“Forward shields being reinforced.” The lights overhead dimmed. “All nonessential power being diverted to forward shields.”

It ended as fast as it had come. Geary blinked at the visual display, which showed nothing but normal space. The remaining gate tethers had been vaporized by the energy release from the gate collapse.

“Diamond! Daring! Report your status!”

“Sir, communications are down. Systems being restored now. You have communications, sir.”

Geary punched the control again. “Diamond and Daring, request your status.”

The delay was agonizing, but a reply finally came. “This is Daring. A lot of equipment is off-line, but we haven’t taken serious damage. Estimate we can restore full capability given time. We’ll have a time guesstimate for repairs for you as soon as possible.”

“This is Diamond. We should be able to get moving again, though it will take a minimum of several hours and possibly much longer. We’ve lost a lot of vital systems. Diamond is in nonoperational status for an indefinite period.”

Geary let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Daring, remain with Diamond. Captain Tyrosian, designate one of your auxiliaries to close on Diamond and render assistance.” Geary checked the system display, stunned to realize that the shock wave they’d ridden out was only now hitting the next-closest Alliance ships. “How much was that? Not a nova.”

“We wouldn’t be here if it’d been nova strength,” the sensor watch agreed shakily. “It was sort of a minor fractional nova. Even then we couldn’t have survived that kind of energy bombardment for any length of time, but there was just the one shock wave.”

Geary collapsed into his seat, weak with reaction. There wasn’t any way to get a message to any of the Alliance ships before the shock wave reached them, but they should be already facing the gate with their shields ready, and the energy at any point in the shock wave would be weakening rapidly as it expanded away from the gate. Cresida’s program hadn’t managed to eliminate the energy discharge completely, but it had kept it to a level low enough that everything remaining in the Sancere Star System should be able to ride it out. “Very good job, Captain Desjani. You and your crew. Dauntless is a great ship.”

“Thank you, sir.” Even now Desjani didn’t seem as rattled as everyone else. Apparently she really had believed that having Geary along would keep the worst from happening.

He heard a deep intake of breath behind and looked to see Co-President Rione there. She was looking down at the deck, her fists clenched, but as if aware of Geary’s gaze, Rione slowly raised and turned her head to face him. Rione’s eyes were haunted. Geary thought he knew why. They had just seen the sort of forces that could be deliberately unleashed using the program Geary had given her for safekeeping. Until now, even Geary hadn’t appreciated how terrible a burden that could be. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. “As am I, Captain Geary. We will speak later.”

Rione inhaled slowly, straightening herself and standing erect, regaining her composure by an exercise of pure willpower. Even through his lingering shock from the destruction of the gate Geary found himself impressed by her.

Desjani seemed to have been impressed as well, despite herself. She watched Rione leave, then turned to Geary. “Orders, Captain Geary?”

“Return to the fleet, Captain Desjani.” He studied the fleet display, fighting off a wave of fatigue such as he hadn’t felt since the lingering effects of his long survival sleep had worn off. “All units with the exception of Task Force Furious, this is Captain Geary. After passage of the shock wave assume standard fleet formation Sigma. Task Force Furious, maintain screening position between Syndic Force Alpha and the rest of the fleet. Well done, everyone. Very well done. Sancere is ours.”

The Alliance fleet wouldn’t be flying home on the wings of the Syndic hypernet. Not from Sancere, anyway. But it had survived and was striking a major blow at the Syndics. Not bad for a fleet that had once seemed doomed to destruction.

IT took twelve hours to get the fleet back together in a tight formation after the shock wave from the collapsing hypernet gate passed. The subformations Geary had put together had followed his orders to run for it in what he had to admit was a gratifying fashion. Slowing, turning, and rejoining took a while, especially since Geary didn’t want to get too distant from where Daring was now towing Diamond toward the rest of the fleet.

With the thirty ships under Furious still close to two light-hours distant, much too far away to participate in a conference, the number of ship commanders around the virtual conference table seemed to have shrunk dramatically again. In this case, though, the missing ships would definitely be back. Geary nodded in greeting. “Excellent work, everyone. We have two major tasks remaining in Sancere system. The first is to acquire as much of what we need as we can. The fleet logistics system has matched Syndic stockpiles to our needs where possible. I’ve transmitted another message to the Syndics warning them to comply with any demands we make.”

“They probably won’t get it,” Captain Tulev noted. “That energy wave seems to have fried most of the Syndic systems that we’d left untouched.”

Desjani shrugged. “Then they won’t be able to coordinate any actions against us.”

Geary nodded. “The second task is to destroy those targets we left unstruck in the initial bombardment, after we’ve looted them to our heart’s content. Unfortunately, Syndic Force Alpha is lurking around the outer edge of the system. We can’t just scatter the fleet to maximize the speed and efficiency of our looting while those Syndic warships are around, even though they’re too far off to be an immediate threat. I was thinking of breaking the fleet main body into six subformations again. Task Force Furious will remain on station for a while guarding against Syndic Force Alpha, but we’ll rotate them in-system after a while so they can restock and resupply, too.” His suggestion was greeted by a lot of nods and no objections. “Captain Tyrosian, I need to know whether I should have your auxiliaries broken up into four of the formations or if they should be concentrated.”

“Pairs would be best, Captain Geary,” Tyrosian replied as soon as possible given the five-light-second delay between her ship’s position and the Dauntless. “Titan and Jinn, and Goblin and Witch.”

“Good. You tell me where in Sancere they need to go to pick up what we need. After I have that, we’ll work up a schedule for other ships to swing near them to pick up new weapons and fuel cells.”

“We’re manufacturing as fast as we can,” Tyrosian assured Geary. “The primary need is materials for fabricating new fuel cells, but the Syndics have what we want.”

“Colonel Carabali,” Geary ordered. “Your troops will provide escort for exploitation teams from the auxiliaries and other warships.”

Carabali nodded, looking concerned. “Sir, even limiting the number of subformations to six will still leave my Marines with a lot of responsibilities for their numbers. We have to assume any Alliance personnel who leave their ships or shuttles are subject to attack by regular or irregular Syndic ground forces.”

“Would it help if we armed some of the sailors?”

The Marine colonel hesitated. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m not sure handing weapons to sailors will enhance the security situation.” Carabali relaxed as Geary and the other fleet officers smiled. “No offense intended, but dealing with these situations requires a lot of specialized training and experience.”

“I understand,” Geary assured her. “That’ll slow us up some more, then. We need to make sure we only land on as many sites as we can guarantee security for. I don’t want the Syndics grabbing hostages.”

“We’ve got a lot more hostages than they do,” the captain of the Terrible laughed. “About a billion.”

“True. But even if we exacted vengeance on every one of those Syndics, it wouldn’t necessarily get our own people back alive.” Everyone nodded again. They agreed with that logic, at least. “Any questions?”

A long pause followed while Geary let the officers think about that. He wanted anything else brought out now if possible.

The captain of the Vambrace spoke with visible reluctance. “Captain Geary, I would like you to address a terrible rumor I have already heard being passed around the fleet. Anonymously, of course, since those passing it don’t have the courage to show themselves.” A ripple ran around the table as the other commanders reacted to that. “There are those saying that the hypernet gate here was deliberately destroyed.”

Geary stared, trying to understand the question. “Of course the gate was deliberately destroyed. All of your ships should’ve seen the Syndics open fire on it.”

“No, sir. The rumor is that the gate was still functional, but was destroyed by you.” The captain of the Vambrace grimaced. “You should know people are saying this.”

“Why would I have wanted to destroy the gate if it was still functional?” Geary wondered, too amazed to yet be angry.

“According to the rumor, sir, because you want to retain command and fear it would be taken from you upon our return to Alliance space.”

Torn between incredulous laughter and anger, Geary slapped his palm upon the table. “Unbelievable. Let me assure you, and everyone else, that no one here desires the safe return to Alliance space as quickly as possible more than I do.”

On the heels of his words another officer spoke, his voice harsh with emotion. “Who the hell could believe that?”

Geary, shocked, looked over and saw the commander of the Diamond, then realized that since Diamond was still twenty light-seconds away that the comment wasn’t addressed to Geary’s last statement, but rather to the one before.

“That rumor is beneath contempt!” Diamond’s captain continued. “My ship was there, and anyone who wants to look at Diamond’s logs is welcome to it. That gate was collapsing when we reached it.” He looked toward Geary. “I’ll admit something. I’d been among those worried about Captain Geary, about what he was doing and how he was doing it. A lot of you know that. I was worried whether he was aggressive enough. But we charged that gate! We charged it hell-bent for leather, and we took down those Syndics as fast as we could, but they’d done too much damage. Check Diamond’s logs if you don’t believe me. And while you’re at it, look at the readings from inside the gate while it was collapsing.

Unbelievable, that’s all I can say. Captain Geary did all that could be done. I’ve stood at the doorway to hell with him, and I will stand there again if need be.”