The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

But as the minutes went by, Boyens’s flagship remained stubbornly in the same orbit. Geary checked the combat systems readouts, seeing the steady scrolling down to the time when the Syndic battleship would be within range of the weapons on the leading Alliance warships. One number for the specter missiles, another for hell-lance particle beams, a third time for the ball bearings called grapeshot used at close range, and finally a time for the very-close-range null-field generators carried by the Alliance battle cruisers and battleships.

Desjani shook her head as she studied her display. “If he doesn’t start moving in the next five minutes, we’ll catch him before he reaches the gate.”

Rione spoke from where she had come to stand on the other side of Geary. “Why hasn’t CEO Boyens tried to communicate with us?” she wondered. “Accused us of setting him up, tried to apologize, anything at all? Ah, I know.”

“Do you feel like telling me?” Geary asked.

“Certainly, Admiral.” Rione held out her open hand, palm up. “Syndic CEOs hold their positions through fear. Subordinates know they cannot cross their CEOs. But if a CEO is seen to be weak, subordinates will see wounded prey.”

“And an apology, an attempt to deflect our attack, would make Boyens look weak.”

“Extremely weak, as well as foolish.” Rione closed her hand into a fist. “He knows we set him up. To openly admit that he fell into a trap we set might drive the last nail into his coffin.”

“Do you think he’ll stay and fight?”

“That would be suicide.” She made an uncertain gesture. “But the price of failure here for him might be high, and his own anger at being humiliated might drive him to fight a hopeless battle. I don’t know.”

“Two minutes left for him to start running,” Desjani said. “We need to see thrusters firing on those Syndics ships within the next thirty seconds to get them faced on a course for the gate.”

Thirty seconds to wonder if the cunning and twisted plot dreamed up by the rulers of Midway would blow up in everyone’s face. On the main inhabited world light-hours from the hypernet gate, President Iceni and General Drakon would not see what happened until a long time after it took place. Thirty seconds to wonder what they would think as they saw the same limited time rapidly running out. CEO Boyens must be angry, frustrated, knowing he was trapped, knowing that failure would be punished by his superiors in the Syndic hierarchy but knowing also that if he lost that battleship, the punishment would certainly be death. Thirty seconds to wonder if Boyens would choose to risk that rather than fail here.

Ten seconds.

Five.

THREE

“MANEUVERING thrusters firing on all warships in the Syndic flotilla,” Lieutenant Yuon called out. “Vectors changing toward hypernet gate.”

“There you go,” Desjani said approvingly. “He’ll wait until the last possible second to cut in his main propulsion, too,” she predicted.

“What if Boyens miscalculates?” Geary said.

“Then we punch some holes in the hide of that battleship to remind him that he should allow a little larger margin for error in the future.” She smiled at him. “Right?”

“Yeah. Whoever is driving our ‘chartered’ heavy cruiser is doing a good job.”

The lone heavy cruiser had kept accelerating all out away from the pursuing Syndic cruisers and HuKs while twisting slightly to one side and down in order to put the oncoming missiles into the most difficult possible stern chase. Geary’s eyes went to where the Midway flotilla was swooping in from the side, aiming to intercept the heavy cruisers of the Syndic force that had gone after the lone cruiser. “They’re not faking this at all. They’re going to try to take out those Syndic warships.”

Desjani gave him a sidelong glance. “The Midway ships are outnumbered three to six in heavy cruisers. Having a few light cruisers along won’t compensate for that. If their Kommodor goes straight in, the Midway flotilla will get its butt kicked pretty hard.”

“Probably,” Geary agreed. “Let’s hope she’s smarter than that.” Something else caught his attention, the Dancer ships swinging outward from their last orbit and heading this way. “I wonder what the Dancers are thinking while they watch this.”

“If they’ve been secretly watching us as long as we suspect they have, then they’re probably thinking business as usual for those humans.”

Charban spoke in a thoughtful voice. “There must be many things they still don’t know about us. I feel certain that the Dancers are watching all we do very closely.”

By contrast, Rione sounded amused. “It would be interesting to know their interpretation of what they are seeing right now.”

Geary didn’t answer this time, his eyes once more on a time count scrolling downward. If the Syndic flotilla did not light off their main propulsion in another twenty seconds, Geary’s fleet would be certain to get within firing range before the Syndics could use the hypernet gate to escape.