Incansable (53 page)

“We assumed Kalixa would be more heavily defended,” Geary agreed, “since it has a hypernet gate and is a wealthier star system than Heradao.”

“Yes, and when we get to Padronis, we’ll probably find nothing there because there’s nothing there worth defending. Atalia will be a much harder nut to crack.” Desjani made an annoyed sound, then gestured at her display. “I ran out the course to the jump point for Padronis. The Syndics are in orbits which allow them to intercept us if we head for that jump point.”

Geary frowned, his mind locked on the main enemy force. Against the Alliance fleet’s twenty battleships and sixteen battle cruisers, the Syndics had a flotilla containing twenty-three battleships and twenty-one battle cruisers, plus enough heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers to give them an advantage there as well. The second enemy flotilla was much lighter, consisting of an even dozen heavy cruisers and a score of light cruisers and destroyers. The coming encounter wouldn’t be easy, and could be worse than Lakota and Cavalos if he screwed up. “Why are you bothered by that?” he asked Desjani. “We expected them to block us from reaching the next star system home.”

“Because from where they are, they couldn’t stop us from reaching the jump point for Kalixa,” Desjani pointed out. “If our estimates are anywhere near accurate, then after the losses this fleet has inflicted in the last few months, the flotilla here must have almost all of the Syndics’ surviving major warships. Why aren’t they worried about our going to Kalixa? Its system defenses can’t be
that
good.”

He got it then, his frown matching hers. “Kalixa has a hypernet gate. Maybe they’re planning on blowing it when we arrive.” Geary couldn’t keep from wincing at the idea, imagining another inhabited star system devastated or completely destroyed by a collapsing hypernet gate. It wasn’t unthinkable, though, given the sort of tactics the Syndic leadership had employed in the past.

“Maybe,” Desjani agreed with visible reluctance. “They’re leaving us an open path there, almost as if they want us to go that way. They could follow us to Kalixa with an idea of mopping up whatever survived the hypernet gate collapse. But the Syndics know we survived the collapse of the gate at Lakota without serious damage, so they should realize that they couldn’t be sure that would cripple this fleet. If it didn’t hurt us badly, the flotilla here would be in a stern chase and couldn’t catch us unless we deliberately lingered to wait for them. Why take that chance?”

She was thinking it through, and her questions sounded uncomfortably close to those Geary was coming up with. “What else could be at Kalixa?”

“I don’t know, but if the Syndics
want
us to go there . . .”

“Then we don’t want to go there.” Had the Syndics struck a deal with the aliens? Would they let the Alliance fleet use the hypernet gate at Kalixa with the understanding that the aliens would divert the Alliance warships from their chosen goal to some location deep within Syndic territory? The fleet couldn’t possibly fight its way out of some place far within Syndic-controlled space again. “Whatever the explanation, our questions add up to more reasons for getting past these guys and going to Padronis instead of heading for Kalixa.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Desjani concurred. “Besides, I hate leaving Syndic warships in one piece. Their formation is a little unusual this time around.”

“I’d noticed that.” Even though the Syndic flotilla was formed into an overall box, that box was formed from five distinct subformations, one at each corner and one in the center. “Interesting.”

“I wonder where they learned that,” Desjani said mockingly.

“The question is whether they’re actually going to try maneuvering those five subformations independently, or if they’re just groping toward doing that and will keep the subformations slaved to their places in the box.” If the Syndics did try moving each formation separately, it would probably be a fiasco on their end since such skills were hard-won by training and experience he knew the Syndics couldn’t yet have gained. If they didn’t move them independently, the five subformations were within supporting distance of each other, but barely.

He pulled his focus off the Syndic flotillas so he could evaluate the entire star system. “They’ve got pickets out.” Geary indicated the jump exits for Padronis and Kalixa, where the Alliance fleet’s sensors had identified Syndic Hunter-Killers. It would be several hours before any of those HuKs saw the light waves carrying images of the Alliance fleet, but once they did, some of them would surely jump to carry the news to other Syndic star systems. “No nickel corvettes this close to the border, I guess.”

“I’d never seen one operational before Corvus,” Desjani reminded him.

Mention of the first star the fleet had reached during its retreat from the Syndic home star system jerked Geary’s mind back to that time, and his eyes went to the portion of the display showing the Alliance fleet. At Corvus he’d been appalled to see the Alliance fleet falling apart as every ship raced to engage the weak Syndic defenders. But those days were past. The Alliance fleet held its formation now, trusting to Geary’s command to ensure that the Syndic flotilla would be crushed. He wondered how much small gestures like reintroducing saluting to the fleet had helped forge that discipline. Their bravery had never been in question, but now these Alliance warships fought as intelligently as they did courageously.

The field of battle where they’d be engaging the enemy this time mostly involved empty space, of course, and, for the rest, Heradao wasn’t too unusual as habitable star systems went. Four planets orbited in the inner system, the closest to the star only about two light-minutes out from it in a fast orbit, as if the small world were trying to outrun the heat and radiation pummeling it. The other three inner-system planets orbited about four light-minutes, seven light-minutes, and nine and a half light-minutes from the star. Given the intensity of the star Heradao, the world at seven-light minutes out had not perfect but endurable conditions for human life, and humans had taken advantage of that even though at that distance from its star the radiation bombardment was probably high enough to cause extra health problems. Cities and towns dotted the surface of that planet, and even though Heradao had been bypassed by the Syndic hypernet, that third world was apparently attractive or wealthy enough to sustain a decent population. Surprisingly for a star system bypassed by the hypernet, the cold fourth world had more human activity than had once been the case according to the old Syndic records the Alliance fleet had seized at Sancere. “Are there any indications regarding the POW camp on the third planet?”

The operations watch-stander nodded. “Yes, sir. It’s still there, still occupied, and we’re picking up message traffic that indicates it still holds Alliance prisoners.”

“It looks like we will be visiting the third planet after we deal with these Syndic flotillas, then.” The middle ranges of Heradao Star System were empty except for a few asteroids and the Syndic craft. The next planet out was a super gas giant well over three light-hours distant from the star. With all of its moons, the super gas giant resembled its own solar system, and was nearly big enough to have become a brown dwarf star itself. Apparently the giant had sucked up everything else in the outer reaches of the star system. Geary wondered if its larger moons in wide orbits had once been planets themselves before the giant captured them.

A lot of Syndic activity could be seen around the gas giant, currently orbiting on the other side of Heradao’s star from the Alliance fleet, indicating substantial off-planet mining and manufacturing under way. But diverting to that gas giant to loot its mines for raw materials to fill the bunkers of the auxiliaries would take the fleet too far from the path to the jump point for Padronis.

“Do we have to fight?” Rione suddenly asked. “Can’t we just race past the Syndic defenders? You’ve told me that velocities above point two light speed cause so much relativistic distortion that Alliance and Syndic targeting systems can’t compensate well enough to reliably hit other ships. If this fleet heads for the jump point for Padronis at a high enough velocity, the Syndics won’t be able to do damage to us.”

“Or us to them,” Desjani muttered too low for Rione to hear.

Geary thought about it, then shook his head. “It’d be too easy.” Before an incredulous Rione could say anything else, he pointed at the display. “The Syndics know how badly we need to reach that jump point. They know we could try blowing past them, and they’ve had time to prepare for that.”

“What could they have done?” Rione asked, then frowned. “Mines?”

“Yeah. Mines. Look at that small flotilla there between the main Syndic group and the jump point for Padronis. They’re in a perfect position to track our trajectory past the main flotilla and plant mines along our path. If we were going fast enough that the Syndic targeting systems couldn’t hit us, we’d also be going so fast that our own systems wouldn’t have any chance of spotting those mines, or any others already laid along our probable tracks between the jump exit where we arrived and the jump point for Padronis. They could drop the mines right in front of us along our track in as dense a pattern as they could manage.”

Desjani was frowning now. “They shouldn’t have that many mines left, but they could have transferred everything from the other warships onto that small flotilla.”

“If we did strike a minefield, there’s no telling which ships might get hit,” Geary added, “and the higher impact velocity would increase the force of the mines.”

Rione stared past him for a moment, her brow furrowed in annoyance. He didn’t have to say openly that
Dauntless
could be the victim of such a mine strike, and
Dauntless
had to get home. “What’s your plan then?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You knew we were likely to encounter the Syndics here. You must have planned something.”

Geary felt a familiar headache starting, while, unseen by Rione, Desjani rolled her eyes. “Madam Co-President, I knew I’d probably find the Syndics here, but I didn’t know in what strength or how they’d be positioned. Unless we found them waiting at the jump exit and had to fight right off the bat, I knew I’d have to develop a plan once I saw the situation.”

“How long will that take?” Rione pressed.

“Madam Co-President, has anyone ever told you that sometimes you can be extremely demanding?”

She smiled with mock sweetness. “Thank you for the compliment. But we were talking about your plan, not me.”

“I’ll let you know. We’ve got time to think, and I won’t waste that.” Geary stood up and nodded to Desjani. “We’ll stay on course for the jump point for Padronis. I’m going to walk around and think a bit. If you get any ideas, or the Syndics react to our presence, give me a hail.”

“Yes, sir.”

He gave Desjani a suspicious look, but this once “yes, sir” appeared to mean nothing but that.

Geary walked the passageways of
Dauntless
, returning salutes and greetings from the crew almost absentmindedly as he thought. The basic problem was that the Syndics had been learning and adapting to his tactics. He couldn’t count on any more brainless charges straight for the center of the Alliance formation that would allow the Alliance fleet to bring to bear all of its firepower just where Geary wanted it.

There were ways around that, ways to confuse and out-maneuver the Syndics, but all of those ways required more use of fuel cells. A fleet wasn’t supposed to find itself in a situation where fuel-cell reserves were so low. But like many other things that weren’t supposed to happen, he had to deal with that reality.

His steps took him through many passageways, across the width of the ship more than once, past living areas and hell-lance batteries, and no inspiration struck. Neither did Desjani call with some concept that might work. He thought that in some ways she still had too much confidence in him, too much certainty that the great Black Jack Geary would manage with the help of the living stars to pull yet another rabbit out of his hat just when that rabbit was desperately needed.

Finally, Geary paused, took his bearings, and headed for the one place where he might receive wisdom beyond that of anyone in the fleet.

Down here, as deep within
Dauntless
as any compartment could be, as well protected as any part of the ship, were the small rooms where comfort and guidance could be sought. Geary didn’t know for certain why he’d come here now. It never hurt for the crew to see their fleet commander displaying proper piety, but anything that might smack of public displays of worship had always bothered him. It could also backfire if the fleet concluded that he was not so much pious as desperate for advice. Especially since there was some truth to that.

Geary closed the door and sat in one of the tiny, private rooms on the traditional wooden bench, his eyes fixed on the flickering flame of the candle he had lit to help warm the spirits of his ancestors. “As far as I know,” he finally said out loud, “none of you were legendary military commanders. I’m still not sure how I got stuck with the title. The odds are against us here, the fleet’s fuel supplies are so low that I can’t afford fancy tricks to sucker the Syndics, and the enemy has clearly been studying what I’ve been doing in battles and are trying to counter that. I fear that the best outcome here would be a bloody engagement in which this fleet would be victorious but decimated. The worst outcome . . .”

He shrugged. “I need something new. Something unexpected. The only thing I can think of that the logistics situation would allow is surprising the enemy with an attack in the style this fleet had grown accustomed to, straight into the teeth of the Syndic flotilla. But even if that worked, the cost could be huge. My battle cruisers can’t take that kind of engagement on top of the damage they’re already carrying, and I don’t have enough battleships to form a shield for the battle cruisers.”

Geary sat for a while, watching the candle grow shorter. “Too bad I can’t just throw the battleships at the Syndics, but even they need support against that much Syndic firepower. The battle cruisers would have to be right beside them even though it doesn’t make sense for them to charge into that kind of hornet’s nest. But I’ve already seen that my battle-cruiser captains will still do that even against orders because they think their honor requires it. I need the battle cruisers to avoid direct charges at the enemy, I need to hit the Syndics with my battleships, and I need to keep the Syndics guessing. But how do I do all of that, especially without complicating the battle beyond my ability to control it? I lost the bubble at Cavalos, let myself get overwhelmed by the complexity of the battle and couldn’t make any decisions for far too long. If that happens here, the results could be a lot worse. I need some different approach.”