The Lost Fleet: Fearless

“Yes. I want to avoid giving the Syndics the concentrated target they want. I also want to be able to employ our firepower against them, which I can’t if we’re in formations so much larger than our targets that a lot of our units are out of contact.” Geary hesitated, then mashed the control sending the orders to the fleet. “All units in the Alliance fleet, this is Captain Geary. New formation assignments are en route to your units. Formation execution will be at time two zero. I intend having each formation conducting passes against Syndic Force Bravo until it either flees the area of the hypernet gate or is destroyed.”

Desjani studied the information on her own display, eyes narrowed in thought. “Six formations. Each swinging past the Syndics in turn before arching out and coming around again. Like a huge wheel. We’ll simply pound them to pieces if they don’t move.”

“That’s the idea,” Geary agreed.

“You’ve put Dauntless back in Formation Delta,” Desjani observed.

“Yes.” He could tell Desjani was a bit miffed about that, about being fourth in line. “I think the Syndics are going to hold out for the first three passes. By the time the fourth formation approaches, which will be Delta, I believe they’ll do something. I want to have Dauntless there when they do.” Desjani smiled, as did the watch-standers on the bridge. Geary felt slightly guilty, knowing he’d also held Dauntless back because of the likelihood that the Syndics wouldn’t survive the first three formation passes and he was duty-bound to get Dauntless and the Syndic hypernet key safely home to Alliance space. Odds were that Dauntless would only be sweeping up the remnants of the Syndics.

Unless things went very badly and the Syndics started taking down that hypernet gate. In which case, key on board or not, Geary knew he had to be close to the scene.

“Kinetic rounds inbound,” the weapons watch announced in an almost bored voice. They’d already easily dodged a half-dozen attempts to target them, seeing the rounds approaching from such a long distance that the tiniest course correction or change in speed guaranteed a miss. “Origin from hypernet gate defenses.”

“We’ll give them something to worry about soon enough,” Desjani observed gleefully.

Geary briefly wondered what Captain Desjani would do for fun if the war somehow ended, and smashing Syndics was no longer an acceptable way to pass the time.

Dauntless’s maneuvering systems kicked in at time two zero, shoving her mass down and over to the place where she’d wait for the rest of Formation Delta to form around her. All around Dauntless the other ships of the fleet broke from the positions they’d held, as if an incredibly huge machine had just disassembled itself into component parts. The parts swung through space, weaving intricate patterns as they headed for new positions, the massive machine reassembling itself into six new machines, each a smaller version of the big machine they’d all once made up.

It took time for all of those ships to move across those distances, forming up so that the last formation in line was several light-minutes behind the first. The reassembly hadn’t quite finished when the weapons watch called out again. “Weapons system recommends launching kinetic rounds at Syndic Force Bravo in one minute.”

Geary nodded. “Do it.”

Geary’s rearrangement of the ships in the fleet had required the weapons system to rethink which ship should launch projectiles at what, but that required much less than a second of calculations. At exactly the optimum time, ships began automatically firing the barrage at the Syndic defenders of the hypernet gate.

Only three light-minutes still separated the leading Alliance ships from the Syndic defenders of the hypernet gate. At a velocity of.1 light, that meant thirty minutes, perhaps the longest half hour Geary thought he would ever experience. Talk about relativistic distortion. Time itself seemed to have slowed to a crawl.

“Syndic defenders conducting evasive maneuvers to dodge incoming kinetic rounds,” the weapons watch reported. “Systems report four of the Syndic battleships are changing their positions along predicted tracks.”

“They’re doing it,” Desjani murmured. “Just like you thought, Captain Geary.”

“Let’s see if they’ve got enough control of their ships to dodge,” he cautioned, feeling his guts tightening.

“Formation Alpha commencing firing pass on Syndic defenders. Syndic forces are firing.”