The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

An alert pulsed, and symbols sprang to life on the display. Geary held his breath as Dauntless picked up Syndic ships exiting the jump point. Modern ones, moving fast. Geary felt adrenaline surge even though he knew he was watching events that had taken place ten minutes ago. And whatever defense his battle cruisers had carried out had also played out ten minutes ago.

Geary barely had time to register the presence of a squadron of Syndic Hunter-Killers formed up around a single heavy cruiser before he watched short-range concentrated fire from Duellos’ and Tulev’s battle cruisers ripping the HuKs to shreds. Moments later, the Alliance attacks swamped the cruiser’s defenses and riddled it before it could get off more than a few shots that were absorbed harmlessly by the battle cruisers’ screens. On the heels of the visual sighting of the battle, reports from the battle cruisers began arriving, confirming what Geary had already seen.

Geary waited, but nothing else came through after the reports of the first ships. They’d been an expendable force, sent through on the off-chance that the Alliance fleet had continued fleeing in panic and hadn’t tried to defend the jump exit.

Expendable. Geary had always thought that was an ugly word and an uglier concept. Apparently, the Syndics didn’t share that feeling.

Around him, cheers had erupted on the bridge of the Dauntless as they watched the small Syndic force get slaughtered. The sound wore at Geary’s nerves, leaving him looking for something to vent his anger on. He tapped the fleet communications circuit again. “All units not yet in standard attack formation Alpha Six are to expedite their movement.”

Desjani gave Geary a surprised glance, but quickly hid her reaction. Not that the Dauntless’s captain had to worry. As flagship, the unit every other ship had to take position relative to, the Dauntless was defined as being in position the moment the order was issued. “Do you think that’s their entire fast-pursuit force?” she asked so quickly that Geary suspected she was just trying to change the subject.

How the hell would I know? Geary wanted to snap back. Instead, he thought about the question for a moment. “I think so. If they were sending through more, why leave an appreciable gap between their arrival times?” He paused. “That wasn’t a big force, though. They should’ve been able to get it through the jump point right on our heels.”

“They were just over an hour behind us.” Desjani appeared to be thinking, then nodded. “They hesitated, then sent through a small force just in case it might find us unprepared.”

Hesitated. Yes. Geary nodded back. “They sent something so they could tell their superiors they’d maintained a hot pursuit. Enough to make it look serious, but nothing big enough that they’d mind losing it.” And too bad for the sailors on the ships their bosses didn’t mind losing.

“Yes. Human life means nothing to them.” Captain Desjani looked straight into Geary’s eyes, her voice flat.

“Point taken.” I’ll have to remember not to misjudge Captain Desjani. She has what she believes are good reasons for everything she does. Geary bit his lip as he studied his display. If that was the entire Syndic fast-pursuit force, he could order the battle cruisers to rejoin the rest of the fleet. But the Syndics could’ve deliberately paused between waves to mislead defenders into thinking they wouldn’t be sending in anything else for a while. But those battle cruisers were already ten light-minutes away from the rest of the fleet. Ten minutes away for receiving messages. Ten minutes away from Geary even knowing if those ships were in trouble. At least an hour away from being able to help them. And they were getting farther away every moment. “Captain Duellos, Captain Tulev, this is Captain Geary. Well done. Please rejoin the fleet as expeditiously as possible. Have your ships assume assigned positions within standard fleet attack formation Alpha Six.”

Ten minutes for Duellos and Tulev to get the message. Then they’d have to get their ships up to speed and start a long stern chase to catch up with the fleet. It’d be quite a few hours before they were in formation.

But at that, it seemed those battle cruisers would be in formation before anyone else achieved that goal. Instead of resolving into the ordered rectangles, the Alliance fleet seemed to be rushing to further fatten the end of the rough wedge facing the Syndic base.

What the hell is going on? Geary pulled back the display, trying to see if he was missing some large picture inside the more detailed view. No. It still didn’t make sense. Only the slower units like Titan seemed to be in their assigned positions. And crippled Titan didn’t have any choice in the matter, slowly crawling across the system in the wake of the faster warships