The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

He wasn’t nearly as certain as she was of that, but Geary kept his silence. It was one of those moments he recognized, when you had to either have confidence in someone or else show everyone that you lacked confidence in that person. And Desjani had seemed very capable to him.

So Geary tried to look like he trusted her while inside he prayed to his ancestors that Desjani knew what she was doing.

“He should be braking now.” Captain Desjani rapped out orders, pivoting Dauntless around so her main propulsion system faced forward. “All ahead full.” Dauntless shuddered as her drives started braking her own velocity, the ship’s structure groaning with stress, and Geary feeling the force pressing him hard into his seat. A high-pitched keening noise filled the air as Dauntless’s inertial dampers fought to keep the stresses on ship and crew within bearable limits.

Dauntless’s projected course was altering quickly, bending down toward the path the Syndic cruiser had to be taking en route Titan.

Closer. Geary tried to swallow without showing it.

Desjani’s eyes were fixed on the display. “He should be down below point-two light now if he’s braking to engage Titan.” The image of the Syndic cruiser, only light-seconds away now in the closest thing to real time that naval engagements often saw, seemed to be very close to the course Desjani had predicted. “Set grapeshot to fire in sequence as we cross the cruiser’s estimated path,” Desjani ordered. “Charge null-field and stand-by.”

Dauntless, still braking hard, swept across the projected path of the Syndic cruiser at an angle, its grapeshot launchers hurling out their ball bearings down that path at millisecond intervals as each crossed it.

“Fire four specters, two to starboard and two to port.” The missiles swept out, each braking itself farther as its onboard sensors sought out a good fix on the Syndic cruiser undistorted by relativistic effects, then accelerating again toward their target.

Desjani paused. “Fire null-field.”

Geary watched on the display as the huge glowing ball that represented the null-field charge shot up and backward from Dauntless, toward the bottom of the Syndic cruiser’s current course.

And suddenly the Syndic cruiser was there, the range scales scrolling downward incredibly fast as it swept forward, either still unaware of Dauntless’s actions or trusting in speed to get it past Titan’s last defender. Even though he should’ve been expecting it, knowing the cruiser had to be braking, Geary was still surprised when he realized he was looking at the stern of the cruiser as it used its massive propulsion system to slow its progress.

Lights sparkled as the Syndic cruiser ran tail-on into the barrage of grapeshot, each ball bearing impacting the cruiser’s shields and vaporizing in a flash. The cumulative impacts slowed the cruiser as if it were plowing through a close-set succession of brick walls, even as they seriously weakened its rear-facing shields. Geary watched the display, his jaw tight, thinking about how that extra deceleration was probably overwhelming the ability of the cruiser’s inertial dampers to compensate, and what effect that’d be having on her crew. But there were too many lives in the Alliance fleet riding on stopping the Syndic cruiser. I can’t let the fate of the cruiser’s crew affect my decisions. And, damn, but that was a nicely done intercept. “Very nice job, Captain Desjani.”

Her face actually flushed with pleasure at the praise, but Desjani kept her voice dispassionate. “He’s not dead yet.”

A moment later the cruiser raced into contact with the null-field. Weakened by the successive impacts of the grapeshot volleys, the shields flared and failed as the weapon dug a swath along one side of the fast-moving ship like a knife slashing through butter. The Syndic light cruiser reeled from its course as the charge tore a trench through a long section of the hull and partway inside. Through the glow of the gas cloud, which had been solid parts of the cruiser moments before, Geary watched with a sort of sick fascination as the crippled Syndic warship shot past above the Dauntless. In that brief moment, Geary thought he could see secondary explosions and escaping atmosphere as compartments once safely inside the cruiser were now suddenly open to space.

He was wondering if the Dauntless would need to catch up to the Syndic cruiser in order to finish it off when the specters fired earlier came angling in from either side, their target now slowed appreciably. Somehow, a defensive system on the cruiser was still working and managed a lucky hit that made one specter flare and disappear. The specter’s companion missile went into a series of evasive maneuvers, but even as it did so the two specters on the other side looped straight into the cruiser’s beam.