The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

CEO Boyens would be realizing that right about now. Geary found himself smiling at the thought of the Syndic CEO’s becoming very, very unhappy as he spotted, too late, the trap laid for him.

“The Syndic heavy cruisers have launched missiles!” Lieutenant Castries said, as alarms from Dauntless’s combat systems accentuated her report.

“CEO Boyens must have received your message before those ships fired,” Desjani said, the words going into the official record as she spoke them.

“That’s right,” Geary agreed. “We have to assume that he has deliberately attacked an Alliance ship, and we have to make sure the Syndics don’t get away with such an act of aggression.” He tapped his comm controls again, this time pretending only anger. “CEO Boyens! Your forces have fired on a ship after you were informed that ship was operating under the Alliance flag! This is a hostile act, a clear violation of the peace treaty the Syndicate Worlds pledged to observe. Under the terms of that treaty, I am authorized to take all necessary measures to protect Alliance life and property. I will now do so and eliminate any threats to the Alliance within this star system! Geary, out!”

Just to add to CEO Boyens’s headaches, the apparently crippled main propulsion unit on the lone Midway heavy cruiser suddenly came to life at full power, dramatically boosting the acceleration of the warship. “That,” Desjani observed, “will create some serious problems for the missiles the Syndics launched based on their earlier assumptions of the maximum acceleration that heavy cruiser could achieve.”

“But they’ve still got two dozen missiles coming at them,” Geary said.

“They’ll be all right,” Desjani said, her eyes on her display. “If they listen to Captain Bradamont. She’s aboard that heavy cruiser, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” It had not been easy to arrange Bradamont’s transfer to the Syndic ship without her movement being detected, but routine resupply operations could mask a great deal of nonroutine activity. “Her presence on the heavy cruiser establishes clearly and legally that the ship is temporarily Alliance property. The authorities on Midway,” Geary added, “also assigned a Kapitan-Lieutenant Kontos to ride the cruiser while it was under Alliance charter.”

“Kontos?” she asked. “Do we know him?”

“He’s the one who thought up fastening the battleship to the mobile forces facility so it could tow that facility out of the path of the enigma bombardment,” Geary said.

“Oh.” Desjani smiled knowingly. “And now Captain Bradamont can provide us with detailed observations about this Kapitan-Lieutenant who is such a quick and innovative thinker?”

“That’s right,” Geary agreed.

“Well done, Admiral.” She tapped her weapons controls. “We’ll be within range of Boyens in forty-five minutes if you hold us at point two light speed.”

Geary nodded, gazing at his own display again. What will I do if Boyens doesn’t run? If he stands his ground? I’ll have to engage that battleship and take out the heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and HuKs escorting it. It’ll be a massacre, but they could still inflict damage on some of my ships, and when I get home, it’ll be a lot harder to explain annihilating a Syndic flotilla than it will be to explain chasing one away.

Boyens had a limited period of time in which to act. Battleships excelled at firepower and armor, but not at acceleration. If Boyens wanted to avoid the Alliance attack, he would have to head for the hypernet gate soon enough to overcome the Alliance advantage in coming up to speed first.

“The gate’s his only option,” Desjani commented. “If Boyens heads toward the only jump point he could reach before we could catch him, he’ll run right into that Midway flotilla.”

“Isn’t that a lucky coincidence,” Geary said.

“We need to keep after him,” Desjani added in a low voice. “Boyens isn’t going to enter that gate if he has any doubts that we might veer off. We need to stay on a firing run, maintaining our velocity, until his flotilla leaves. If we bobble at all, if we slow down, if we give him any reason to doubt our intent, he’ll veer away from the gate. Then we’ll have to destroy him.”

“You’re right.” He had been trying to estimate when he could order his attack force to break off, but Desjani was correct. “He’ll cut it as fine as he possibly can, to see if we actually open fire.”

“Count on having to open fire,” she said.

“I hope you’re not right about that.”