Valiant tlf-4

by Jack Campbell

  Geary paused, then spoke slowly. “I don’t know how many of the humans in this star system will survive this. May the living stars watch over all here, and may their ancestors welcome all who die this day. To the honor of our ancestors, this is Captain John Geary, commander of the Alliance fleet.”

  The silence afterward was broken by Victoria Rione. “They were already anticipating bombardment by us and taking shelter. Maybe that will help.”

  “Maybe. It’s not going to help all of those Syndics in escape pods.” It only took the briefest look at the display to confirm that the Syndic escape pods were all too far distant for any Alliance ships to reach in time. “Unless the energy discharge is almost nothing, they won’t stand a chance.”

  “Thank the living stars we already got all of ours recovered,” Desjani murmured.

  “Two minutes to turn, Captain,” the maneuvering watch advised.

  The initial moves to speed away from the Syndic hypernet gate’s location had taken place ship by ship as Geary’s order reached them, the farthest ships turning last. But the next maneuver was based on the time Geary had sent the first order, and so exactly fifteen minutes after Geary’s message, the Alliance fleet turned as one, ship after ship swinging its bows to face the place where the Syndic hypernet gate still appeared intact but wavering as its tethers were blown away by the Syndic guard force. But the light showing that was over two and a half hours old, an image from the past. For well over two hours that gate had been gone, replaced by a discharge of energy of unknown intensity. The Alliance ships were facing the source of the energy burst with their heaviest shields and armor, and still heading away from it stern-first at close to point one light speed, which would reduce the force of the impact. “Forward shields at maximum strength,” the combat-systems watch reported to Captain Desjani. “All compartments sealed, crew braced for damage, repair capabilities at highest readiness levels.”

  “Very well.” Desjani bent her head for a moment, her eyes closed, her lips moving silently.

  A prayer right now was a good idea, Geary reflected. He also took a moment to say a few words noiselessly, pleading with the living stars to preserve this fleet and its crews, and with his ancestors for whatever aid they could provide.

  “Standing by for earliest assessed possible impact time,” another watch-stander announced. “Three … two … one … mark.”

  The moment passed without any change, the image of the distant hypernet gate still there, still fluctuating as the tethers holding the energy matrix in place were destroyed one by one. It had been absurd to think that Cresida’s earliest estimate would be accurate to the second, but it was human nature to lock on to that time as critical.

  Another minute went by, everyone on the bridge of Dauntless staring at their displays as if they would somehow provide advance warning, when in fact the wave front would hit at the speed of light, providing no notice before it struck.

  Geary stared at the distant image of the hypernet gate, the fluctuations in energy levels inside it obvious to the fleet’s sensors even from this far away. He would never forget how it had felt close to a collapsing gate, as Dauntless, Daring, and Diamond had fought to keep the gate at Sancere from frying the star system it had served. Space itself had been warping inside the gate as the forces within it were unleashed, causing effects echoed within nearby human bodies even through the shields and armor of the warships. Only Captain Cresida’s theoretical firing plan for causing the gate to collapse in a way that minimized the resultant energy discharge had saved the three Alliance warships and who knew how many other ships and inhabitants in the Sancere Star System.

  He wondered how the crews of those Syndic ships destroying the gate in this star system had felt, whether they’d experienced those forces and questioned their orders, whether they’d had time to realize that their obedience to commands was dooming not only them but also a great many other inhabitants of Lakota. He’d never know. Unaware of what they were unleashing, those ships had almost certainly been destroyed more than two hours ago, their crews forever silenced.

  One more minute. Two more. Geary heard others muttering to themselves, the words inaudible but the tones clearly pleading. The words of the prayers change, but they always mean the same thing. Have mercy please, because there’s nothing else that human skill or device can do now.

  The shock wave slammed into Dauntless. Geary fought down a surge of fear as the ship jerked and lights dimmed, his mind knowing that if the energy burst had been great enough to destroy Dauntless, then the battle cruiser would have been shattered before he had time to be afraid.

  “Forward shields down thirty percent, no hull damage, minor energy leak-through affecting ship systems.” The reports rolled in while Geary waited for the display to clear and reveal the state of his fleet, whether his lighter ships had been able to survive the blow.

  “Preliminary estimate places the energy output at the source at point one three on the Yama-Potillion Nova Scale.”

  “Point one three,” Desjani murmured, then she ducked her head again and her lips moved without a sound for a moment.

  Geary did the same, breathing his own quick thanks that the energy output had been so much lower than it could have been.

  The display cleared, symbols updating rapidly. Geary ran his eyes across his ship-status reports, searching for red-lined systems. The hardest hit had been the destroyers since their shields were weakest, but none seemed to have suffered major damage. A lot of subsystems blown and a few cases of hull damage, but otherwise even the fleet’s smallest ships had come through intact.

  Where the image of the Syndic hypernet gate and the nearby Syndic warships had been, there was now nothing. It took the fleet’s sensors a few moments to find what was left of the Syndic guard force. Whatever remained of the smaller warships was in pieces too small for the system to find immediately. Large pieces of debris tumbling away from the former site of the hypernet gate were assessed as the remains of the two Syndic battle cruisers. One of the two battleships had also been shattered into several large fragments, while the other had broken into two segments that seemed very badly torn up. As Geary watched, one of the big segments blew up. Or rather, he finally saw the light from two and a half hours ago showing the segment explode back then. “They never knew what hit them. That close to the energy discharge, even reinforced shields wouldn’t have been enough.”

  Desjani nodded. “That’s what would’ve happened to us at Sancere if Captain Cresida’s calculations hadn’t worked, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I owe that woman a drink when we get home.”

  Geary couldn’t help a short laugh born of relief. “I think we owe her more than that. A bottle of the finest booze we can find. I’ll go halves with you on it.”

  Desjani’s mouth widened in a brief, tight smile. “Deal.” The smile vanished. “Where now?”

  “Let’s head toward the jump point for Branwyn. What should our course be if we hold this speed?” He could have worked it out himself easily but didn’t trust his thinking at the moment.

  Desjani glanced toward her maneuvering watch, who hastily worked out the solution.

  Geary paused a moment longer to ensure that his voice would be steady, then punched his command circuit again. “All units in the Alliance fleet, return to positions in Fleet Formation Delta Two. At time three five all units turn together starboard one zero six degrees, up zero four degrees.”

  Now that they were behind the shock wave, they could watch it sweep over those parts of the star system that hadn’t yet been hit. It was like watching a terrible before-and-after presentation. Ahead of the shock wave, before it struck each region, Lakota brimmed with life and activity. As the shock wave expanded across the star system and swept over human habitations and ships, it left behind a field of broken debris and death.

  The Syndic escape pods had been simply annihilated by the shock wave, wiped out like a swarm of gnats in the path of a heavy, fast-mo
ving vehicle, the sailors inside them dying instantly. A couple of freighters, too far from anywhere to reach safety, had been torn apart. One colony on the moon of a gas giant had been sheltered by the gas giant itself, though the giant had shed a fair amount of upper atmosphere as the shock wave passed by. That colony was an exception though. Two other colonies, on the fifth planet, were badly damaged, and a third on another moon was possibly wiped out.

  Hardest to watch had been the impact of the energy discharge on the habitable world. On the side of the planet facing the shock wave when it hit, huge amounts of atmosphere had been scattered and blown off, the surfaces of oceans, seas, rivers, and lakes flashing to vapor. Forests and fields burst into momentary flame, the heat so intense that they were almost instantly reduced to charred remnants. Cities became melted, flattened fields of wreckage. Towns were so badly crushed by the wave of energy that many to all intents and purposes vanished.

  Half a world died in the space of seconds.

  “It’s possible that people in deep enough shelter on the exposed side might have survived the shock wave’s hitting,” a watch-stander reported.

  “What about the aftermath?” Rione demanded.

  The watch-stander grimaced. “A lot of them will be trapped. Food supplies are gone, the atmosphere appreciably thinned worldwide, all that water vapor and ash blown into the air. There are going to be some horrendous storms. I don’t know, Madam Co-President. The people on the sheltered side might stand a chance even though life will get awfully rough. The ones who got hit … Well, I wouldn’t want to have been there when it hit, and I wouldn’t want to be there trying to survive.”

  Geary nodded. “And that was only a point one three nova-scale output of energy. Way toward the low end of the possible output.”

  Desjani had her eyes on the display, her face rigid, but she said nothing as she gazed at the image of a ruined world.

  “Seeing this,” Rione observed in a quiet voice, “it’s hard to see them as enemies. They just look like people who need help.”

  Geary nodded again, silently.

  “Can we render any assistance?” Rione asked.

  This time he shook his head. “Unfortunately, I have experience with this. When I was a junior officer, the star in the Cirinci system spat out a big flare that fried most of the facing parts of the primary inhabited planet in that star system.” No one on Dauntless’s bridge seemed to recognize the event, a more-than-a-century-old tragedy lost to popularly remembered history in the wake of the many disasters that had followed as war raged for decade after decade.

  Fighting off the old feeling of being lost among strangers, his own life vanished in time, Geary used one hand to indicate the display. “Cirinci wasn’t this bad, from what I can see, but we had to run out the disaster-relief requirements to see what the fleet could do, and the answer kept coming up not very damn much. The Alliance government had to requisition lots of civilian freighters to carry the relief-and-rebuilding supplies, and even then it all took too long. I think the only military assets that ended up being used were some of the big troop transports to bring in relief workers and haul out evacuees. Even if this fleet was fully stocked, and it’s far from that, everything we could do would be a drop in the bucket compared to what the surviving people in this star system need. And we couldn’t expect much in the way of gratitude from the Syndic leaders. They’d still do their level best to destroy us if we lingered here.”

  Rione sighed. “There’s nothing that can be done?”

  “We’ll tell every Syndic system we pass through that they need help here.” Geary pointed to his display. “Some Syndic merchant ships survived the shock wave. They sheltered behind available worlds, either by luck or because they got our warning in time. Those ships can go for help.”

  “Yes. They’ll tell everyone what happened here.” Rione’s eyes met his, and Geary nodded once more.

  It was no longer a matter of trying to keep secret the destructive potential of collapsing hypernet gates, but rather a matter of dealing with the results of the knowledge of that spreading as fast as humans could pass on reports of disaster.

  Desjani finally spoke again. “The Syndic leaders.” She turned a hard gaze on Geary. “After Sancere, some of them surely suspected what destroying this gate could do to this star system. But they ordered it here anyway, and apparently told no one what to expect. If the energy burst had been strong enough, everyone in this star system would have died and no one could have reported what really happened.” Her eyes returned to the display of the devastated world. “This isn’t war. It’s an atrocity, committed on these people by their own leaders in an attempt to destroy this fleet.”

  There wasn’t much he could say to that except to nod once more in silent agreement.

  Desjani spoke again, her tone abrupt. “There could be Alliance prisoners of war on that world. Some of them could’ve been brought there after our battles here nearly two weeks ago.”

  Geary’s eyes went back to the image of the ruined world. He forced out an answer. “If they were on the side of the planet that got hit, they’re beyond finding and beyond help.”

  “What if they’re on the other side?” Desjani swung on her watch-standers, barking out orders. “I want a fine-grain analysis of that world prior to the shock wave hitting for any signs of a prisoner-of-war encampment or indications of Alliance personnel being held anywhere. Optics, communications, everything!”

  “Captain, analysis of the planet prior to the shock wave’s hitting it didn’t reveal any such indications—”

  “Do it again! If there’s an Alliance flea alive on that world, I want to know it!”

  Desjani’s voice echoed on the suddenly silent bridge, then her watch-standers hastily acknowledged the orders and jumped to their tasks. As Desjani slumped in her captain’s chair, glaring at her display, Rione eyed her somberly, then left the bridge without another word. Geary hesitated, reading Desjani’s mood of frustration and outrage at what had happened in this star system, then left silently as well. Sometimes even the closest friends needed distance.

  Geary wandered through the passageways of Dauntless for a while, feeling depressed and restless. He’d just been coming out of his postvictory low caused by the inevitable cost of any victory when the sight of the destruction wreaked by the hypernet gate’s collapse had made him dejected again.

  The crew members he met were subdued as well, but also giddy with the relief of survival and victory. In days to come, the extent of the victory would sink in and elation would follow, but for now everyone was mostly just glad to be alive and still have a chance of getting home. They seemed to regard Geary with even more awe than he’d encountered on any previous occasion. Not able to stand much of that, Geary retreated to the only sure shelter available.

  When he finally reached his stateroom, craving some time alone, Rione was already there and staring at the star display, her attitude distant. “My condolences on the losses to the fleet,” she stated in a low voice.

  “Thanks.” Geary sat down, keeping his own eyes fixed on the display, not wanting to be around anyone else at the moment or to talk about his fleet’s latest losses. Not when memories of the destruction caused by the hypernet gate’s collapse were still fresh in his mind as well.

  “As far as I can tell,” Rione continued, “Captain Faresa died on Majestic.”

  “Nobody got off that ship,” Geary responded shortly.

  “And Captain Kerestes died on Warrior along with Commander Suram.”

  That stung. Kerestes had been aggressively passive, something Geary had once thought impossible, so afraid of making a mistake that he took every effort to avoid doing anything. By contrast, in his short time as captain of Warrior, Commander Suram had motivated her dispirited crew and fought well. “I intend doing everything I can to ensure that Commander Suram receives the credit he deserves as commanding officer of that ship. Captain Kerestes had no role in the matter.” Geary wondered briefly if Kerestes had eve
n survived long enough to be among those trying to abandon ship. It was just as likely that he’d died in his stateroom as Syndic hell lances ravaged Warrior, a career dedicated to avoiding any action that might look bad ending at the hands of enemy warships that didn’t care whether or not Captain Kerestes had a service record unblemished by any obvious blunders.

  “And Captain Falco?” Rione asked.

  Geary almost winced, thinking of the insane Captain Falco, confined to his quarters as Warrior fought her final battle. He hadn’t yet discovered what Falco’s last moments had been like, or even if anyone knew. “I hated what that man did, but that’s no way for anyone to die.”

  “Most likely he was safely wrapped in his delusions,” Rione suggested. “Believing he was commanding the battle, going down to heroic defeat, fighting to the last. Not realizing how little he really controlled his fate.”

  Geary didn’t look at her. “Are you mocking him?”

  “No. I sometimes wonder how different Falco’s delusions would be from what you and I are doing.” She paused. “Faresa, Kerestes, and Falco have died in battle. At least that spares you the worry of three court-martials if we make it back to Alliance space.”

  His temper boiled over. “Dammit, Victoria, if you’re trying to find a silver lining in this, you’re not doing a very good job! I didn’t want two ships to die so those three could find some measure of justice! I don’t even know what the hell justice would be for Falco!”

  She stayed silent for a moment after his outburst. “I know you looked at records from Falco’s past, before he was captured by the Syndics. You saw his speeches. Triumphantly celebrating so-called victories in which dozens of major Alliance warships were destroyed in exchange for at best equal numbers of Syndics. Do you think he would spend a single moment worrying about the loss of a few battleships?”