The Lost Fleet: Fearless

She nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. “As am I, Captain Geary. We will speak later.” Rione inhaled slowly, straightening herself and standing erect, regaining her composure by an exercise of pure willpower. Even through his lingering shock from the destruction of the gate Geary found himself impressed by her.

Desjani seemed to have been impressed as well, despite herself. She watched Rione leave, then turned to Geary. “Orders, Captain Geary?”

“Return to the fleet, Captain Desjani.” He studied the fleet display, fighting off a wave of fatigue such as he hadn’t felt since the lingering effects of his long survival sleep had worn off. “All units with the exception of Task Force Furious, this is Captain Geary. After passage of the shock wave assume standard fleet formation Sigma. Task Force Furious, maintain screening position between Syndic Force Alpha and the rest of the fleet. Well done, everyone. Very well done. Sancere is ours.”

The Alliance fleet wouldn’t be flying home on the wings of the Syndic hypernet. Not from Sancere, anyway. But it had survived and was striking a major blow at the Syndics. Not bad for a fleet that had once seemed doomed to destruction.

IT took twelve hours to get the fleet back together in a tight formation after the shock wave from the collapsing hypernet gate passed. The subformations Geary had put together had followed his orders to run for it in what he had to admit was a gratifying fashion. Slowing, turning, and rejoining took a while, especially since Geary didn’t want to get too distant from where Daring was now towing Diamond toward the rest of the fleet.

With the thirty ships under Furious still close to two light-hours distant, much too far away to participate in a conference, the number of ship commanders around the virtual conference table seemed to have shrunk dramatically again. In this case, though, the missing ships would definitely be back. Geary nodded in greeting. “Excellent work, everyone. We have two major tasks remaining in Sancere system. The first is to acquire as much of what we need as we can. The fleet logistics system has matched Syndic stockpiles to our needs where possible. I’ve transmitted another message to the Syndics warning them to comply with any demands we make.”

“They probably won’t get it,” Captain Tulev noted. “That energy wave seems to have fried most of the Syndic systems that we’d left untouched.”

Desjani shrugged. “Then they won’t be able to coordinate any actions against us.”

Geary nodded. “The second task is to destroy those targets we left unstruck in the initial bombardment, after we’ve looted them to our heart’s content. Unfortunately, Syndic Force Alpha is lurking around the outer edge of the system. We can’t just scatter the fleet to maximize the speed and efficiency of our looting while those Syndic warships are around, even though they’re too far off to be an immediate threat. I was thinking of breaking the fleet main body into six subformations again. Task Force Furious will remain on station for a while guarding against Syndic Force Alpha, but we’ll rotate them in-system after a while so they can restock and resupply, too.” His suggestion was greeted by a lot of nods and no objections. “Captain Tyrosian, I need to know whether I should have your auxiliaries broken up into four of the formations or if they should be concentrated.”

“Pairs would be best, Captain Geary,” Tyrosian replied as soon as possible given the five-light-second delay between her ship’s position and the Dauntless. “Titan and Jinn, and Goblin and Witch.”

“Good. You tell me where in Sancere they need to go to pick up what we need. After I have that, we’ll work up a schedule for other ships to swing near them to pick up new weapons and fuel cells.”

“We’re manufacturing as fast as we can,” Tyrosian assured Geary. “The primary need is materials for fabricating new fuel cells, but the Syndics have what we want.”

“Colonel Carabali,” Geary ordered. “Your troops will provide escort for exploitation teams from the auxiliaries and other warships.”

Carabali nodded, looking concerned. “Sir, even limiting the number of subformations to six will still leave my Marines with a lot of responsibilities for their numbers. We have to assume any Alliance personnel who leave their ships or shuttles are subject to attack by regular or irregular Syndic ground forces.”

“Would it help if we armed some of the sailors?”

The Marine colonel hesitated. “Sir, with all due respect, I’m not sure handing weapons to sailors will enhance the security situation.” Carabali relaxed as Geary and the other fleet officers smiled. “No offense intended, but dealing with these situations requires a lot of specialized training and experience.”

“I understand,” Geary assured her. “That’ll slow us up some more, then. We need to make sure we only land on as many sites as we can guarantee security for. I don’t want the Syndics grabbing hostages.”