The Lost Fleet: Courageous

Geary shook his head, took a deep breath, then pointed at the display, where Audacious, Defiant, and Indefatigable were pivoting around to use their main drives to slow their velocity. “The Seventh Battleship Division will be moving back to serve as a rear guard,” he managed to say. “They volunteered.”

She nodded, her face set. “Of course.” And in that moment Geary knew that were Dauntless required to do such a thing, then Desjani would do it. Not gladly, not embracing death as some key to heroic salvation, but because she knew others would be counting on her. In the end, that was what it was all about. Do what was needed for those counting on you, or let them down. “I expect,” Desjani continued, “that Captain Mosko will have his ships drop back to about three light-minutes behind the rest of the fleet and then maintain position there.”

“Three light-minutes,” Geary repeated.

Rione had come to stand beside him, bending down to speak very quietly. “Must this be?”

“Yes.”

She gazed at him, and for once apparently had no trouble seeing how much he regretted having to make the decision. “Will it make a difference?”

“If anything saves this fleet now, it’ll be their sacrifice.”

Taken alone, a single battleship carried an awesome amount of firepower, matched by heavy shields and heavy armor. Three battleships operating close together were a force to be reckoned with even by the numbers of Syndic warships hurling themselves toward the Alliance fleet.

Captain Mosko brought Indefatigable, Audacious, and Defiant back toward the onrushing Syndics, the three battleships arranged in a vertical triangle with Defiant at the top, close enough to one another to provide mutual protection and combine their firepower. After he’d fallen back far enough, he accelerated again, trying to match the speed of the Syndics so they’d have to go past at a slow relative speed and be much easier targets.

There was no way to avoid the fact that it made the three Alliance battleships much easier targets for the Syndics, too.

The remaining specter missiles and grapeshot blasted out from the three battleships as the leading wave of Syndic light cruisers and HuKs entered their engagement envelopes. A lot of the light enemy ships evaded away, swinging far out to either side or up or down to avoid the fire of the Alliance battleships and thereby losing so much ground that they wouldn’t be able to catch the Alliance fleet now.

About twenty HuKs and a half dozen light cruisers tried to charge past and through the Seventh Battleship Division. As the HuKs entered the engagement envelopes, the battleships’hell-lance batteries filled space with charged particle spears that tore into the light HuKs from multiple angles.

Space lit with impacts as shields flared and failed, then more hits tore holes in ships and their crews. HuKs and light cruisers exploded in balls of fragments and gas, broke into pieces that tumbled wildly through space, or simply went silent as their systems were knocked out, the dead hulks twisting away under the force of impacts.

None of the Syndic light units made it through, but right behind them were heavy cruisers and battle cruisers, none of those ships individually a match for a battleship, but in overwhelming numbers.

Clenching his fists, Geary gazed helplessly at the main body of the Syndic flotilla charging down on Mosko’s battleships.

“Specters,” Desjani stated in a clear voice.

She was right. There was one thing he could do. Combat systems confirmed that the rear guard was within extreme range for the specters remaining in the Alliance fleet. “All ships, fire all remaining specters targeted at the Syndic warships around Audacious, Defiant, and Indefatigable. I repeat, all remaining specters.”

The missiles began launching, flinging into space, choosing targets, then accelerating toward the embattled Alliance battleships and the Syndics flaying them. Not nearly enough specters, just enough to distract the Syndic pursuers somewhat and draw some fire away from the battleships, but something. They scored enough hits on one Syndic heavy cruiser to knock it out and managed some blows against battle cruisers whose screens had been knocked low by the hell-lance fire of Audacious, Indefatigable, and Defiant. But there were so many more Syndic heavy cruisers and battle cruisers, with the Syndic battleships coming into range now as well.

Defiant was catching the worst of it, glowing with the force of repeated enemy hits. Audacious took out another heavy cruiser, then turned its hell lances on a Syndic battle cruiser. Indefatigable reeled under the fire of a full division of enemy battle cruisers but punched back, getting in a solid hit with its null field when one battle cruiser tried to pass by too close.