The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

by Jack Campbell

  “True.” Duellos looked down, breathing hard as if he had just run a race. “But we got hit hard. Casualty reports are still trickling in, but I lost people. That’s really why I’m unhappy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know that. You’re not one of those bastards who just shrug and say price of victory or something.” Duellos looked at his display. “Now what?”

  Geary looked as well. “If we try chasing those escorts, we could still be chasing them a week from now and be no closer to catching them.”

  “The HuKs will run out of fuel cells, eventually, as will the heavy cruisers, but so will we. I’ll go ahead and recommend what I think you are already leaning toward. As pleasant as it would be to finish off the rest of these scum to avenge Fleche, chasing them is likely to be an exercise in frustration and may be exactly what they want. I believe we should return to the vicinity of the refugee ships to repair damage, protect the convoy, and keep an eye out for other surprises.”

  Geary checked the damage to Inspire again and resisted the urge to shake his head. Some of the repair work would be beyond anything that the crew could do. Inspire wouldn’t be back in full fighting trim again until an auxiliary or a dock was able to work on her.

  The refugee ships and Alliance escorts in Formation Echo had proceeded onward while the battle cruisers had dived off to the side and slightly down to intercept the oncoming battleship. Geary ordered the battle cruisers to head back, the commanders of Formidable and Implacable not hiding their disappointment at being told to break off the chase. But they did as ordered, something the example of Fleche had forcefully reminded him could not be taken for granted even now.

  Inspire could still only limp along as the other two battle cruisers joined her, angling across the star system back toward the rest of the Alliance ships. A bit over a light-hour distant, the light cruisers and HuKs that made up Flotilla One were still heading toward the refugee ships, unaware that the battleship they were counting on was no more.

  But Geary paid more attention for now to the heavy cruisers and HuKs that had been escorting that doomed battleship. Once it had become apparent that the Alliance battle cruisers were no longer in pursuit, the enemy ships had slowed and turned, holding their positions. “They’re disciplined,” he commented to Duellos.

  “Who? That lot?” Duellos frowned at his display. “Well disciplined. What are we going to do about them? Even after destroying that battleship, what’s left to Tiyannak is enough to control this star system once we leave here, and probably at least a few other star systems.”

  “Let’s see how well disciplined they are and what else we can find out about them.” Geary called Commander Pajari, still about fourteen light-minutes away. “I’m bringing Inspire back to you. I want you to detach the destroyers from the Ninth Squadron with orders to intercept some of the escape pods from the enemy battleship. I want to sweep up as many prisoners as possible. I will detach Formidable and Implacable to screen their operations and take aboard prisoners picked up by the destroyers. Geary, out.”

  Duellos looked even grumpier, but he nodded in understanding. “Inspire would just slow them down, the Ninth is the smallest destroyer squadron, and Pajari no longer has to worry about this flotilla threatening the convoy. You want to see if those heavy cruisers will race to the rescue of their friends when we start scooping up escape pods, right?”

  “And, if they do,” Geary said, “it will give our battle cruisers a chance to nail them. I know Captain Savik on Formidable is good, but I haven’t had much chance to see how capable Captain Ekrhi on Implacable is.”

  “I think she’s good, as good as Savik. Either one is capable of commanding the screening force. But James Savik is senior in date of rank.”

  Geary called Savik on Formidable. “I’ll be detaching you and Implacable as Formation Beta. You’ll be in command of the formation. Your job is to stay close enough to the destroyers to screen them against those two heavy cruisers and the HuKs if they try to stop us from taking survivors of the battleship prisoner. If you can lure in those heavy cruisers, so much the better, but I don’t want to lose any destroyers, so don’t get too far from them.”

  Savik nodded, grinning. “Understood, Admiral. How many prisoners do we want? A lot of escape pods got off that battleship before it blew.”

  “I want the prisoner-taking to last long enough for the heavy cruisers to see and long enough for them to react if they’re going to. Use your best judgment. Don’t keep it going past the numbers of prisoners you can easily carry.”

  “Yes, sir. What are we going to do with them? I mean, are they Syndics?”

  “Technically? I don’t think so. Interrogate them to find out what they can tell us about the situation here and at Tiyannak, and how many total warships Tiyannak has.” Geary pointed toward the star. “When we get there, I’ll drop them off on the primary world along with the refugees. I don’t expect Batara to be thrilled about that, but I don’t want to catch hell from fleet staff and the government for bringing home more prisoners of war for them to feed, confine, and otherwise worry about.”

  After detaching the two battle cruisers, Geary pondered his display a moment longer. It was probably a good time, having badly blunted the planned ambush of his forces, to finally give a call to whoever was running Batara. “I need a broadcast message aimed at the primary inhabited world.”

  The comms watch made a few taps on her display. “You’re ready, Admiral.”

  “Thank you.” He paused to think, then touched the control. “To the current rulers of Batara, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. My ships have been attacked without warning by hostile warships operating freely in your star system. I require an immediate message from you, establishing your status as an independent star system or one subject to an external government and explaining the status of all non-Alliance warships in this star system. I will take any necessary actions to defend the ships under my control and under the protection of the Alliance. We are escorting back to your primary inhabited world refugee ships full of people from this star system. They will be landed on that planet, as will a regiment of Alliance ground forces to ensure nothing disrupts the return of your people to your world. Any attempts to interfere with our operation will be met with the full force at my disposal. Any attacks on Alliance military personnel or civilians under the protection of the Alliance will be met with the full force at my disposal. I await your reply and your explanations. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

  “Tanya would approve,” Duellos commented.

  “Tanya would already be urging me to bombard the hell out of this star system as well as Tiyannak.”

  “And she would be complaining mightily about that thing crowded into my shuttle dock. Speak of the devil, here is Lieutenant Night.”

  “Night Witch,” Lieutenant Popova corrected, but her smile was serious. “Admiral, I came to the bridge because there aren’t any automated internal links to give you the status of my warbird. It didn’t take any damage. Is there anything I can do?”

  Duellos, who had been looking ill-tempered again as he went over the damage to his ship, gave Popova a wry smile in response to the sincere offer. “Not unless you want to take the FAC out and take Inspire in tow.”

  “You’re already moving pretty fast, sir. My warbird could match you, but she’d burn her fuel out in no time, and then you’d be towing me.”

  “Save it for when we get to that planet,” Geary told the aerospace officer. “Our shuttles and the ground forces are probably going to need all of the deterrence your warbirds can provide, and maybe the fire support as well.”

  “Admiral, the heavy cruisers have come about and are accelerating parallel to our course,” the operations watch reported.

  Geary checked his display. “They’re not paralleling us. They’re headed for the battleship’s escape pods.”

  �
�Not if Formidable and Implacable can help it,” Duellos said. The two battle cruisers were accelerating and adjusting their own courses to meet the heavy cruisers near the cloud of escape pods.

  But the enemy ships veered off again when they saw the Alliance warships approaching. Geary hesitated, one hand poised over his comm controls, waiting to see what Captain Savik would do. But his fears proved unfounded as Savik brought the battle cruisers around to hang in orbit a good light-minute short of the escape pods. The heavy cruisers checked their own velocity, matching orbits, so that Alliance battle cruisers, escape pods, and enemy heavy cruisers all hung in space unmoving relative to each other, the escape pods occupying a perilous no-man’s-land between the two groups of warships.

  “The Ninth Destroyer Squadron is on its way to the escape pods,” the operations watch said. “Admiral, they’re at point one five light speed, so they should reach the pods in an hour and a half.”

  “Very well.” Geary studied the movement of the destroyers, worrying about their fuel status. “If this high-speed maneuvering keeps up, we’ll have to transfer fuel cells from the battle cruisers to the destroyers to keep them from running too low.”

  “What we have won’t go far spread among that many destroyers,” Duellos cautioned. “What’s this?” he asked as another alert sounded.

  Two light cruisers had appeared from behind the super-Earth planet, swinging around one side and heading for the refugee ships. “They jumped out early,” Geary said. “They must have received orders to move up their attack.”

  “Anything sent from the battleship would have reached them at about the right time for us to see them moving now,” Duellos agreed. “Let’s see what they do when they see that the battleship isn’t with them anymore.”

  After an hour spent watching for reactions, the answer was clear. “All enemy ships have seen the destruction of the battleship by now,” the operations watch-stander said, “and none have altered their vectors. Both groups of light cruisers are still on an intercept with the refugee ships.”

  “And the heavy cruisers are still hanging around near the escape pods,” Duellos added. “These may not technically still be Syndics, but they’re still fighting like Syndics.”

  Geary nodded in reply. Despite what propaganda said, few in the Alliance military doubted the courage of the men and women fighting for the Syndics. Alliance fighters were baffled by the willingness of Syndic combatants to die for a system that was so obviously wrong, but they had learned through bitter experience that their enemy was tough and determined. But the Syndics were also subject to rigid discipline. They obeyed orders, to the letter, or else. “How are repairs coming on your main propulsion and maneuvering?”

  “They’re coming. Inspire is almost back to full maneuvering capability, but the two main propulsion units that are still off-line are very badly damaged. My engineers can’t give me an estimated time to repair on them.”

  Inspire wouldn’t be able to rejoin the escorts around the refugee ships before the enemy Flotilla One reached them. It would be up to Commander Pajari to keep those light cruisers and HuKs from reaching any of the helpless freighters.

  Half an hour until that enemy flotilla closed on the refugee ships and their escorts, and half an hour until Destroyer Squadron Nine reached the escape pods and started hauling in prisoners. “It’s time I talked to the people in this star system. Everyone. This time I want a broadcast blanketing all comm frequencies and directed to all points in the star system.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” the comms watch acknowledged. “Wait one, sir. All right. You’ve got it, Admiral.”

  Geary straightened in his seat, made sure his uniform looked as good as it could, then touched the control. “To the people of Batara Star System and all ships in Batara Star System, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We are here for one purpose only, to return to this star system the citizens of Batara who have been stranded in Alliance space. Once we drop them off, we will not remain here. The Alliance has no designs on this star system and no interest in dictating to the people of Batara. However, we have been subjected to unprovoked attacks by warships of unknown allegiance. We have responded to those attacks and will continue to do so, taking all necessary steps to eliminate any threats to us or to the people of Batara. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

  “I’m curious,” Duellos said. “Why didn’t you tell them outright that we were on a humanitarian mission?”

  “Because of something else I learned not long ago from talking to former Syndics. To them, ‘humanitarian’ means ‘scam.’ It means someone is lying about their motives and their objectives, and is simply using the word to describe a scheme for personal profit. If I had said we were on a humanitarian mission, it would have sounded to them like I was admitting that I was actually out to cheat them.”

  Duellos gazed morosely toward his display. “Sometimes I almost feel sorry for them. The Syndics. But then I get angry again, remembering how hard they fought for the same system that screwed them, how many people of ours they killed in the name of that system.”

  “How many did Inspire lose in this fight?” Geary asked.

  “The final casualty count is seventeen dead, thirty-five wounded. All of the wounded are now out of danger though some will take a lot more patching up. We were lucky it wasn’t worse.”

  Implacable had only suffered a couple of wounded, while Formidable had lost one killed and had eight wounded. They had all inflicted far more injury upon the enemy than they had suffered, but somehow that wasn’t very comforting.

  Geary sat watching the movements of the warships and the refugee ships, seeming slow across the huge distances they had to cross, waiting for any replies or reactions to his message. Commander Pajari had positioned most of her available escorts in two box-shaped formations, each facing one of the oncoming enemy flotillas. The destroyers of the Ninth Squadron continued their work hauling in escape pods and hauling out the men and women inside until they had all the prisoners they could carry, then heading over to meet up with either Implacable or Formidable and transfer the prisoners to the much larger battle cruisers.

  He saw the movement before the combat watch reported it. “The heavy cruisers are accelerating toward our destroyers, sir!”

  Moments later, the operations watch called out another warning. “Both light cruiser flotillas are accelerating onto attack runs against the refugee ships, Admiral.”

  THIRTEEN

  “THEY’RE still using closely coordinated actions and still following the orders of some command authority who was not on the battleship.” Inspire, and Geary, were five light-minutes from rejoining the refugee-ship formation, and nearly ten light-minutes from the region of space where the heavy cruisers were moving in to tangle with the Alliance battle cruisers and destroyers. “The heavy cruisers are a distraction.”

  Duellos nodded in agreement. “They won’t press the attack. They just want you looking at them instead of whatever the light cruisers try against the refugee ships. They may think you’re on Formidable or Implacable.”

  “I’m still far enough away from the escorts that I need to count on Commander Pajari to do the right thing.” If he tried giving orders that would take five minutes to reach their intended recipients, based on information already five minutes older, he could seriously mess up the defense of the convoy.

  The light cruisers were coming in from two directions, the original flotilla consisting of two light cruisers and four HuKs, and the second of just two light cruisers. They had pushed their velocity up to point one five light. With the convoy plodding along at point zero five light speed, that would still allow good fire-control solutions for the attackers while making it harder for the Alliance escorts to intercept the enemy. But while still short of the convoy, the light cruisers coming in from the right pulled up to race over the top of the convoy while the light cruisers and HuKs coming from the fron
t dove down and over in a wide, reverse loop.

  “Classic Syndic tricks,” Duellos said. “They want Pajari to disregard the ones in front who appear to be fleeing and chase the two zipping past just out of range overhead.”

  Geary couldn’t suppress a grunt of surprise as the four remaining Alliance light cruisers leaped away from their own formation, all apparently racing in pursuit of the enemy light cruisers passing above them. Had Pajari fallen for the bait despite her words of reassurance?

  But only one of the Alliance light cruisers actually steadied out in pursuit of the two bait ships. The other three kept swinging about and turning, curving along a path aimed toward the front of the refugee convoy. Half of Pajari’s destroyers had also jumped forward, moving out well ahead of the refugee ships.

  The two enemy light cruisers and two HuKs there had, instead of fleeing, gone back into their loop, coming out finally, after having gone through a full circle, and heading for the refugee ships once more. But instead of finding a defense weakened by ships that had left their positions to chase the bait light cruisers, the small enemy flotilla found itself running headfirst into Pajari’s countermove.

  Three Alliance light cruisers and a dozen destroyers tore into the two enemy light cruisers and four HuKs. The slashing firing run wasn’t one-sided. Parrot took two bad hits from the enemy HuKs, and Spur got battered as the enemy light cruisers concentrated their fire on her. But Spur and light cruiser Flanconade scored crippling hits on an enemy light cruiser, while the other enemy light cruiser reeled from fire coming from light cruiser Nukiwaza and a half dozen destroyers. The Alliance destroyer Flagellum got in a lucky hit on one of the HuKs, knocking out its main propulsion and leaving it helpless as well.

  The surviving three HuKs fled as Pajari brought her warships back around for another firing pass. One of the enemy light cruisers fired back as it tried to limp away, but the crew of the second fled in escape pods before the second Alliance attack reached them, as did the crew of the crippled HuK.