Dreadnaught

She would keep him honest no matter how much he wanted to avoid considering some possibilities. “Maybe someone finally ran the numbers,” Geary said, “and realized how much it’s going to cost to keep those four big auxiliaries in commission and figured getting rid of them would save a lot of money. The orders didn’t say that was the intent, but that might have been a deliberate move to avoid letting us know that we’d lose the support of those ships not just temporarily, but permanently.”

“Humph,” Desjani snorted skeptically. “It might save money in one or two places but add a lot of expenses elsewhere. Who would they have to pay to do the jobs that the auxiliaries are doing? Private contractors? Didn’t we hear that the Syndics use that kind of system?”

“Yeah. And their mobile forces hated it.” Geary checked his display. “All ships are reporting readiness for departure. What do you say we get the hell out of here now instead of waiting another half hour?”

“I say that’s an excellent idea, Admiral.”

He sent the orders, watching as nearly three hundred warships, auxiliaries, and assault transports lit off their main drives and began moving into formation for the transit to Atalia. Even though the war with the Syndics had ended, and even though Atalia had declared its independence from the rapidly imploding empire of the Syndicate Worlds, Geary had decided to make jumps in formations suitable for immediate combat just in case unexpected threats materialized.

The growing experience and skill of his crews had led him to choose a formation that involved six subformations. Five of those were built around cores of battleships or battle cruisers, with heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers arrayed around them. The sixth was made up of the eight auxiliaries, divided into two divisions, and a single division of four assault transports. He had a lot more Marines along than before since no one knew what he might need when dealing with the aliens, but the Marine force commanded by General Carabali only required two transports to carry those Marines not dispersed among the major warships. As a result, Tsunami, Typhoon, Mistral, and Haboob were only half–loaded out with Marines and their equipment, as well as the small contingent of civilian experts on nonhuman intelligent species. The extra capacity to carry people in those four transports would be useful when they picked up the POWs at Dunai, and in case they found any humans alive and captive inside alien space.

The subformations were arranged with the largest combatant subformation in the lead, the auxiliaries and transports behind that, and the other four combatant subformations spaced evenly around the support ships, as if the warships formed a huge cup, bottom facing forward, holding the auxiliaries and transports inside. Front and center in the largest subformation was Dauntless, the flagship, literally the moving point around which the rest of the fleet aligned itself.

He felt a sensation of being watched and looked over to see Desjani gazing at him and smiling. “Now what did I do?”

“It’s just so obvious how proud you are of them,” she replied. “When I watched Admiral Bloch, and some other admirals, at times like that I always got the feeling they felt that having lots of ships respond to their orders showed how powerful and special they were. From you, as you watch those ships, I get the feeling that you feel privileged to command them.”

“I am privileged,” he muttered. “Do you know what tomorrow is, Tanya? It will be the one hundred and first anniversary of the day I assumed command of the heavy cruiser Merlon. I found the responsibility of being Merlon’s commanding officer to be very humbling. Now, all of these ships are under my command.”

“They all will be if we can get out of this star system before any more messages come from headquarters.”

At point one light speed, it took almost three days to reach the jump point for Atalia, but the only surprise occurred on the second day, when two civilian ships jumped in from another Alliance star system and began broadcasting messages, which finally reached the fleet’s ships hours later.

“Do not export human aggression!”

“Exploration not conquest!”

“Keep our taxes and our soldiers at home!”

“I don’t disagree with the sentiments,” Geary commented. “Except for the fact that they seem to think we’re the ones picking a fight with the aliens.”

Desjani, uncharacteristically, didn’t reply for a moment, but finally shrugged. “It was a long war. You know how we all felt. Most of us kept fighting because we didn’t see any good alternatives. I lost a lot of friends, so I understand why some people wanted other decent choices. But wanting it didn’t make it so. It still doesn’t.”