The Lost Fleet: Courageous

Should he try to hit the Syndics again anyway? Try to throw the Syndics off once more? Geary tallied up the status of his ships’ shields, the few specters and small amount of grapeshot remaining, and the damage his ships had already suffered and knew his quick assessment for Desjani had been accurate; another pair of passes through the Syndics would be suicidal. He didn’t have the speed advantage or the distance needed to try to hit a flank of the Syndic formation, which was thicker now, not as tall or wide, but still covered space behind the Alliance fleet.

Forty-five minutes out from the jump point, and the Alliance fleet would have to brake its velocity to get around the minefield in front of the jump point.

The Syndics were too close, coming on too fast. It wasn’t going to be enough. Everything he had tried wasn’t going to be enough.

Geary watched the maneuvering systems predict the outcome of current velocity and directions vectors, and he could see the Syndics overtaking the rear of the Alliance fleet. He’d have an ugly choice, then, to either abandon the ships in the rear or else slow the rest of the fleet to join them and doom every ship in the fleet in the process. Lose a third, at least, of his fleet, or the whole thing? Knowing that even if he ran and left so many ships to their fate it still wouldn’t mean safety when the survivors reached Ixion, because the Syndics would be coming after them.

“Captain Geary.” A small window had popped into existence, showing Captain Mosko looking calm in a numb sort of way. “My division is the farthest back in the formation, closest to the Syndics.”

“Yes.” The Seventh Battleship Division had taken the brunt of Syndic missiles and grapeshot on the first pass through the Syndic formation, avoided that on the second pass when warships on the front of the Alliance cylinder led the way through the Syndics, but now they’d catch hell again as the Syndics overtook the Alliance fleet. There wasn’t a damn thing Geary could do about that, though.

“We need to stop the Syndics from overtaking the rest of the fleet before it reaches the jump point,” Mosko continued. “Uh, that is, we, my division. I’d like to commit only Defiant, but she can’t do it alone. With Audacious and Indefatigable alongside, we’ll be able to hold them off.”

He suddenly realized what Mosko was saying. “I can’t order you to do that.”

“Yes, you could,” Mosko replied. “But I know how hard that would be, and it’s not as if you haven’t done the same yourself. We all grew up hearing about Grendel and vowing to do the same if we ever had to. This is one of the things battleships are supposed to do, Captain Geary.” He sounded almost apologetic now. “When needed, we use our firepower and shields and armor to protect other ships. You understand. A forlorn hope. We’re volunteering, my ships and my crews, because that’s one of the missions we’re supposed to carry out. When we have to. You don’t have to order it, sir. We volunteer, in the spirit and example of Black Jack Geary.”

Geary only knew the term forlorn hope because he’d read it being used to describe his own desperate defense at Grendel a century ago. A rear guard, one not expected to survive, one that knows it will be sacrificed to save the rest of the force. And doing it now in the name of his example.

The damnable things were that he had done that once, had made the same decision that Mosko was making now, and he couldn’t tell Mosko not to do it. He needed those three battleships to keep the Syndics from overhauling the rest of the Alliance fleet and destroying it here at Lakota.

Words came to him, old words, ones he’d heard before but rarely. “Captain Mosko, to you and your ships and their crews, may the living stars welcome you and shine on your valor, may your ancestors look upon you and stand ready to embrace you, may the memories of your names and your deeds shine in the minds of all who come after. You are not lost and not forgotten but forever remembered among the ranks of honor and courage.”

Mosko sat straighter as Geary recited the ancient blessing before an apparently hopeless battle. “May our deeds be worthy of our ancestors,” he replied. “Captain Geary, when you’ve beaten the last Syndic, and by the living stars I now believe you will, make sure any survivors of these ships are liberated and taken care of as they deserve. I’ll see you on the other side someday. Any messages?”

“Yes. If you see the spirit of Captain Michael Geary, let him know I’m doing my best.” His grandnephew, almost certainly dead with his ship Repulse back in the Syndic home system.

“Of course. And please let my family know about me when you get the fleet home.” Mosko saluted. “To the honor of our ancestors.”

The window vanished, taking Mosko’s image with it.

“Captain?” Desjani was gazing at him, not knowing what had happened.