The Lost Fleet: Courageous

The stars vanished. The blackness between the stars disappeared. The last gasps of Defiant, Indefatigable, and Audacious were gone. So were the distant, abandoned wreck of Paladin and the equally far-off constellation of debris which was all that remained of Renown. The hypernet gate had vanished, the Syndic flotillas gone with it. Where an instant before desperate battle had raged and the wreckage of battles littered space, now there was only the endless gray nothingness, the silence and the wandering lights of jump space.

He’d never jumped straight out of battle, never imagined fighting literally on a jump point’s doorstep. Geary felt his heart pounding, his breath sounding loud in the sudden hush that filled Dauntless’s bridge as everyone sat stunned by the abrupt transition from combat to stillness. He closed his eyes, trying to deal with the reality of what had happened. Three more battleships gone. Four battleships and one battle cruiser lost all told. Two heavy cruisers. Light cruisers and destroyers. Dozens more warships in the fleet with significant damage. Most of the remaining Syndic fleet in hot pursuit and still far outnumbering the Alliance fleet’s survivors. The Syndics would take a little while to get organized, to finish off Defiant, Indefatigable, and Audacious; then they’d come through that jump point. They couldn’t touch the Alliance fleet in jump space. They couldn’t even see the Alliance ships here, where every group of ships seemed to occupy its own drab reality.

But the Alliance fleet would come out of jump at Ixion, and the Syndics would come out behind them.

Geary stood up, feeling as if he had spent several days straight in the command seat. He looked toward Captain Desjani, who gazed somberly back at him. He should say something. “Thank you, Captain. Dauntless did well. Please see to your ship’s damage and your crew.”

Looking up, Geary saw the watch-standers gazing back at him as if they were about to drown and he were a lifeline. What to say to them? “Well done.”

He started to leave, but a young lieutenant spoke desperately. “What’ll we do, sir? At Ixion?”

Damned if he knew. “I’ll consider my options.” He forced a look of reassurance. “We’re not beaten.” Technically, at least, that was correct.

They nodded and looked comforted as Geary left the bridge, Rione going along silently beside him.

THE grayness of jump space seemed to have invaded his soul. Geary sat in his stateroom, slumped in a seat, his mind running in endless circles while ships died over and over again in his memory.

“It’s been a full day,” Rione said in a hard voice. She was sitting nearby, her face looking like she’d aged a decade or maybe two in that day. “Get over it. We have to prepare for Ixion.”

“Ixion?” Geary didn’t bother laughing scornfully. “Just what am I supposed to do at Ixion?”

“I don’t know. I’m not the commander of this fleet. And if you don’t do something, you won’t be the commander much longer either.”

“If that’s an oblique reference to the fact that this fleet’s destruction at Ixion seems inevitable-”

“No!” Rione made a choking motion with her hands. “It’s not. That’s a major problem and one I can’t help you with, because I don’t know how to command a fleet. But it’s not just the Syndics you have worry about,” Rione stated. “Your fate, your standing, is bound up in the fate and condition of this fleet. Right now this fleet is wounded, and that means you are, too. What happens to a wounded stag, John Geary?”

The vision that brought up wasn’t comfortable, but he recognized the truth of her words. “It becomes an attractive target for wolves, who gather, attack, and pull it down.”

“You know some of the wolves in this fleet but not all of them. They’ve been testing you since you took command, looking for weaknesses, trying to trip you up. But you kept winning, kept guessing right, so they couldn’t attract enough support. Now there’s blood in the water, and at the next opportunity, they’ll go after you.”

“You’re mixing your prey and predator metaphors,” Geary noted sourly.

“The results are the same for the prey regardless of the nature of the predator. The first opportunity your opponents in this fleet get after we arrive in Ixion, they will move against you, and because of what happened at Lakota, you will get little support from the disillusioned and the frightened.”

Geary managed to work up enough feelings to glare at her. “If this little speech of yours is supposed to be inspiring me to get going again, I have to let you know that your motivational skills could use some work.”