The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

“You mean the fact that she mad hates Syndic CEOs?” Desjani asked. “And therefore might actually have two of her ships ram Boyens’s battleship? Yeah. Boyens might know that.”

Geary’s gaze on his display was now horrified. Would he have to watch two ships destroy themselves in the hope of crippling the Syndic force in this star system? “Hold on. There’s something about this that doesn’t fit. Assume the Kommodor really intends to nail that battleship. Why would she set them on collision courses with the battleship that far out?”

“Unless she’s an idiot, and I’m willing to admit she isn’t, if she meant to ram that battleship, she wouldn’t have broadcast her intentions that early.” Desjani laughed again, low and admiring. “It’s a bluff. Boyens can’t afford to risk losing that battleship. But he can’t be certain of stopping those HuKs with the escorts he’s got. What’s he going to do?”

“Hopefully, the only safe option,” Geary said, his eyes back on the Syndic heavy cruisers and HuKs heading to intercept the lone cruiser still fleeing at the maximum acceleration it could achieve.

Because of the time delays involved in communicating across even such a relatively short distance as a few light-minutes, it took about ten minutes before the tracks of the six heavy cruisers and nine HuKs that Boyens had sent out began changing rapidly as the fifteen Syndic warships bent up and back, coming around and accelerating toward the battleship they had left not long before.

“The Syndics have abandoned their attempt to intercept the new cruiser,” Lieutenant Castries reported, as if not believing what she was saying. “The Midway flotilla is continuing en route an intercept with the Syndic battleship.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a bluff,” Desjani said, eyeing her display. “We’ll know in twenty minutes.”

“Captain?” Castries asked.

“If the Midway flotilla acted to ensure that lone cruiser got clear, they’ll maintain their threatening vectors against the battleship until the Syndic cruiser force can’t turn again and overtake the new ship.”

Geary felt confident that Kommodor Marphissa had been bluffing, but he still watched, with increasing tension, as those twenty minutes crawled by. Because Tanya is right. From all that we have learned of her, Marphissa does hate the Syndic CEOs who once controlled her life. Does she hate them enough to let that hatred override her responsibility to conserve her forces and use them wisely? Syndic commanders aren’t taught to worry about casualties in carrying out their missions, and Marphissa learned her trade under the Syndic system.

“It’s been twenty minutes, Captain,” Lieutenant Castries pointed out. “The single cruiser is now safe from intercept by the Syndic force.”

Desjani nodded wordlessly in acknowledgment. If she was worried, she didn’t let it show.

Not that she, or anyone, could change what had already happened two hours ago.

Twenty-one minutes after the Syndic heavy cruisers had turned back, the Midway flotilla pivoted and began a wide, sweeping turn back toward its previous orbit five light-minutes from the Syndicate flotilla.

Geary let out a breath he had been holding for a good portion of that last minute. “She kept her course longer just to mess with Boyens.”

“Probably,” Desjani agreed, smiling. “It’s too bad that Kommodor is a Syndic.”

“Ex-Syndic.”

“Yeah. All right. She might make a decent ship driver someday.”

It was Geary’s turn to reply with just a nod. Coming from Desjani, that statement was a huge concession and considerable praise. But she wouldn’t want anyone pointing that out. “After having Boyens taunt us with our inability to get him to leave, it was nice seeing him get shown up in such a public way. The whole star system will see what happened, how he got out-thought and outmaneuvered.”

“That’s good, sure, but it doesn’t solve anything,” Desjani grumbled.

“No.” He knew what she meant. The presence of Geary’s fleet here was the only thing preventing Boyens from using his flotilla to reconquer the Midway Star System for the Syndicate Worlds. Technically, Midway Star System was under the control of a so-called president and a so-called general who had formerly been Syndicate CEOs. In reality, the amount of firepower present in Geary’s Alliance fleet made him the effective ruler here. But for all the power in his fleet, Geary’s hands were tied when it came to dealing with the Syndics.