By the time Captain Armus’s Tenth Battleship Division reached engagement range thirty seconds later, all his four battleships could do was tear the remains of the second Syndic battleship into a lot of smaller pieces of wreckage.
Geary sighed with relief, then broadcast commands again. “All Alliance ships with the exception of the Auxiliaries formation are to assume station on flagship Dauntless as indicated.” On his display, the intended formation looked like a ragged ball extending outward in front of and slightly above the Syndic Casualty Flotilla, the subformations built around Alliance battle cruisers and battleships arranged roughly in a sphere. It wasn’t pretty, but it would do.
Desjani gave him a questioning look, knowing that Geary favored neat formations. “Saving fuel cells?”
“That’s part of it. This keeps maneuvering by our ships to a minimum. I was also thinking that if the fleet looks a little sloppy when the Syndic pursuit force arrives, they might think the Alliance fleet is still on the verge of falling apart like it appeared when we left Lakota the first time.”
“Will they believe that after seeing what we’ve already done to the Syndics in this star system?” she asked doubtfully.
“The odds were good enough that even a disorganized force could have mangled the Syndics here. Maybe it won’t fool the Syndics, but there’s no sense in wasting fuel cells right now. Once the pursuit force shows up, we’ll get moving fast and get everything neatened up then.”
All the Alliance warships had pivoted to use their main propulsion units to slow down so they wouldn’t get too far from the critically important Alliance auxiliaries, assuming their positions in the formation that Geary had mentally labeled the Big Ugly Ball. With that situation well in hand, the Syndic pursuit force still not having arrived, and the nearest operational Syndic combatants almost a light-hour distant and hauling ass away from the Alliance fleet, Geary gave in to temptation again and pulled up a view from one of the Marine officers retaking the Audacious.
The shuttles had mated not only with the remains of Audacious ’s external air locks and shuttle dock but also with a few spots where big holes had been blown in the battleship’s armor. Marine detachments had swarmed into the silent ship, ready for anything. Now, Geary’s view from the combat armor of the Marine he’d chosen showed the battleship’s interior rendered strange by tremendous amounts of internal damage and a lack of regular lighting. The Marine lieutenant and his squad reached an internal air lock that had been repaired just enough to function and passed through into areas where temporary patches had been slapped on holes in bulkheads to seal in atmosphere.
The Alliance Marines moved swiftly, their battle-armor sensors scanning for booby traps, their weapons seeking targets as they came around corners and pulled themselves down passageways cluttered with wreckage. No enemies revealed themselves, and no traps materialized, which instead of being reassuring just made everyone more nervous. Another hatch loomed, this one locked. The Marines paused, most on guard, weapons ready, while one of their number applied a mini charge and blew the lock apart. “No stun grenades!” someone barked over the Marine command circuit.
“But, Sarge, there might be—”
“There might be Alliance prisoners of war on the other side of that hatch, and we don’t know how bad off our own people on this hulk might be. Even a stun charge might kill ’em. Aimed shots only, and nobody fire unless you have positive ID on enemy targets. I’ll personally shoot any bitch or son of a bitch who puts a round into an Alliance prisoner of war. Understand?” A chorus of assents sounded.
One Marine grabbed the hatch and tugged it open as his comrades’ weapons leveled to aim into the large compartment beyond.
For a moment Geary feared that the compartment was stuffed full of dead Alliance personnel, but then he saw resigned, rebellious, and frightened expressions on the faces turning to the hatch, each emotion changing to disbelief as the former prisoners recognized Alliance Marine combat armor. “The air in there sucks,” the Marine lieutenant reported to his superior. "CO2 is way too high.”
“Get them out as fast as you can,” the order came back. “Third Platoon is rigging an evac tube from the last working air lock to the shuttles. Get them moving!”
The uniforms on the prisoners showed insignia from a mix of ships. In the front ranks Geary saw patches from Indefatigable, Audacious herself, the heavy cruiser Bassinet, and the destroyer Talwar. Some of the newly liberated Alliance personnel were grinning as the Marines hauled them out of the fetid compartment, some just seemed stunned as the Marines shoved them in the direction of the air lock. “First Squad! Line the passageways to direct these guys and keep them moving!”
A chief petty officer with a patch from Defiant and one arm in an improvised sling paused as he came out of the compartment. “First time I was ever happy to see a Marine,” he gasped to one. “I could kiss you.”
“I don’t swing that way, Chief,” the Marine replied. “Try my friend over there. But keep moving.”
Another call on the Marine command circuit. “They found another compartment down this way, Lieutenant! Looks like it’s full of space squids, too.”
“Get ’em out here and on the way to the evac tube! Go, go, go!”
Geary broke the connection, wishing he could keep watching but knowing he had other responsibilities. Seeing Desjani watching him, he gave a nod. “The Marines are getting our people off of Audacious. It looks like a lot were on there.”
“Good.” Desjani nodded as well, toward the display before her. “Our auxiliaries are closing on the Syndic repair ships right now.”
The four Alliance auxiliaries had overhauled four big Syndic repair ships, and now were gliding into position directly over the Syndic vessels, conveyor tubes extending outward and down from their undersides as if they were gigantic creatures intent on mating with even more enormous partners. Which, in a way, they were. It took a little playing with his menus, but Geary managed to bring up a diagram showing the activity inside the Syndic ships. Symbols representing Alliance engineers were blowing out bulkhead after bulkhead until clear paths existed into the raw-materials bunkers on the Syndic auxiliaries, then as each path was opened, more Alliance conveyor tubes extended down into the Syndic ships and began draining out their materials.
“Oddly disquieting imagery, isn’t it?” Rione murmured from over his shoulder. She’d gotten up and come to stand just behind him. “Or is that just a woman’s perspective?”
Geary shook his head. “Not once the conveyor tubes started sucking stuff out of those Syndic ships. I guess we’re not used to seeing parasites on that scale.”
“Do they have what we need?”
“Some of it.” Geary scowled at the display. Multiple overlapping windows showed exhaustive detail on fleet requirements and what had been discovered inside the Syndic repair ships. The mass of small type and unfamiliar terms made it impossible for him to figure out what was happening. “Why can’t this just tell me how much we need of each material and how much we’re getting? Captain Desjani, could you ask your engineering watch-stander to pop me up a display showing in simple terms where we stand on refilling our auxiliaries’ bunkers?”
Desjani nodded and passed on the order, then smiled with satisfaction. “We’ve received two heavy resupply shuttles from Titan, sir. Dauntless will be back up to sixty-five percent fuel-cell reserves when the new ones are installed. We’ve also received sixty more canisters of grapeshot and seven new specters as well as some major spare parts we needed but weren’t able to fabricate ourselves.”
“Excellent. Is that all Titan is sending Dauntless?”
“Time permitting, we’ll get a third shuttle, sir.”
Even better. Geary felt himself smiling. “Now if we can only get food.”
The engineering watch-stander had come up and now cleared his throat to attract attention. “Excuse me, sir. If I may . . .” His fingers tapped controls rapidly, then Geary saw a window appear with bar graphs showing tot
al capacity of the bunkers on his auxiliaries, total materials found on the Syndic auxiliaries, and how much had been transferred. “Thanks. What’s this column?”
“Food, sir,” the engineer replied in that self-satisfied way of someone who’d already answered a question his superior hadn’t yet asked him. “The Syndic ships we’ve boarded have all had food stocks on them. From what I’ve overheard, the stocks on the civilian ships are actually really decent food. It’s not nearly enough, but we are acquiring more food here as well.”
“Are samples being screened for contamination?” Rione demanded.
The engineer looked startled. “Yes, Madam Co-President. I’m sure they are, just like the raw materials we’re pulling out of the bunkers. I’ll double-check, though.”
“Full screening. Macro, micro, nano, organic, and inorganic, ” Rione added.
“Yes, Madam Co-President. I’ll ensure they understand, uh . . .” The engineer paused, clearly wondering if Rione was able to give orders to him and the four Alliance auxiliary ships.
“Make sure it’s done,” Geary said.
Relieved to have gotten an order from someone he knew could issue one, the engineer saluted and hastened back to his watch station to pass on the orders.
“My apologies for confusing your engineer,” Rione stated. “I should have asked you to tell him to do that.”
“No harm done, and I’m glad you brought it up. With everything else going on, somebody might have neglected to make every possible check of whether those Syndic food stocks were poisoned before their ships were abandoned.”
“Sometimes it’s good to have a devious politician around, isn’t it?” Rione turned to go back to her seat, then paused as another message came in for Geary.
Colonel Carabali looked contented in a Marine sort of way. “We believe we’ve found all of the prisoner compartments on the remains of Audacious,” she reported. “It’s a wonder there weren’t a lot of dead because of the crowded conditions and inadequate life support, but apparently the senior personnel in each compartment kept the prisoners rotating so none of them were overwhelmed. My scouts estimated that within another day or so the prisoners would’ve started dying from the conditions. They all need food, and most have barely treated injuries. Minor injuries were left untreated by the Syndics.”
“How many?” Geary asked, thinking of the sizes of the crews on the Alliance warships that had been lost in this star system.
“We’re still getting a count. Roughly nine hundred fleet personnel and eighteen Marines. Captain Cresida insisted on most of them going to Furious, Implacable, and the heavy cruisers with the formation even though the battleships wanted some. Captain Casia did intercept a few shuttle loads for Conqueror.” Carabali’s tone made it clear that she didn’t consider it the Marines’ job to straighten out disputes among fleet officers. “Apparently other Alliance prisoners were taken to other Syndic ships while we were gone from Lakota, so there are more somewhere in this star system. Merchant ships pressed into service as prisoner haulers, according to the ones we liberated. Any chance we can get them?”
“Not much, and getting less by the second.” The Syndic pursuit force could appear at any moment, and the more time that passed, the more likely it would show up very soon. “We only overran two Syndic merchant ships near us, and both were full of supplies. There are a couple dozen more merchant ships visible in this star system, but they’re out of our reach, and we can’t tell what they’re carrying. Since we haven’t spotted any labor camps in this star system with Alliance personnel in them, our personnel taken prisoner might have been on other ships that quickly left this star system.”
“I understand, sir. We’re preparing to pull out of Audacious ,” Colonel Carabali reported. “What do we do with what’s left of the ship?”
Geary grimaced. As much as he wanted to save that ship, what remained of Audacious couldn’t possibly defend itself, couldn’t possibly keep up with the fleet, couldn’t be towed without hazarding the rest of the fleet, and probably couldn’t be repaired at all even in the best shipyard imaginable. A brave warship now faced only one possible fate, the scrap-yard. And there wasn’t any sense in letting the Syndics have that metal. “Can we blow her power core?”
“Yes, sir. It’s plenty strong enough to do the job.”
“Then set it for overload in six hours and get out of there.”
Six hours should be plenty of time. He couldn’t imagine any circumstances under which the Alliance fleet would have more time than that to hang around the Casualty Flotilla.
“Wait!” That was Rione, leaning in to speak to Geary, her face intent. “Hold off on deciding to destroy Audacious that way.”
Geary sighed and spoke to the Marine again. “Belay that. Don’t set her for overload yet. Hold on a moment.” Then he turned to face Rione. “Why not blow up Audacious? Why let the Syndics have her back?”
“I’m not suggesting giving that ship back to the Syndics,” Rione replied coldly. “There are a great many Syndic warships in pursuit of us, and we could use any available weapon to balance the odds. Rig the ship so it will explode not at a set time but when the Syndics reoccupy it.”
He couldn’t avoid a grimace at the thought. Still, as distasteful as booby traps were, they were acceptable weapons in cases like this. Then another thought came on the heels of that. “Maybe we should rig all of the ships to explode their power cores when the Syndics reoccupy them.”
Desjani, overhearing, twisted her mouth in an annoyed expression. “Too bad that won’t hurt them until our battle in this system is over.”
“Well, yeah,” Geary agreed, “but it’s not like we can . . .” His voice trailed off, and he gave Desjani a startled look.
Her eyes widened. “All of those abandoned Syndic warships with functioning power cores. If we can rig the Syndic ships to explode when we want them to—”
“Like mines?”
“Exactly like mines! Huge mines set for proximity detonations! We’d just have to lure the Syndic pursuit force close enough to the Casualty Flotilla.”
“That’d be one hell of a minefield. Can we make it work?” he asked Desjani.
She spun to face her engineering watch-stander. “Lieutenant Nicodeom, give me an assessment of whether or not we can rig an abandoned Syndic warship to function like a mine, exploding its power core when a target enters an engagement envelope.”
The engineering lieutenant looked surprised, then thoughtful. “The easiest way to do it would probably be to use a mine fuse rigged to the power-core control systems. It’d take some work, Captain, because they’d have to adjust the smart fuse’s programming to reflect the estimated kill radius of the power core, factor in the time delay for bringing each ship’s core to overload, run some control cables, and work out the interfaces with Syndic core control systems. ”
“Where are the resources in the fleet to do that?” Desjani demanded.
“The best weapons engineers in the fleet are on the auxiliaries, Captain. That’s also where we’d get the mine fuses. You’d have to get the auxiliaries to the Syndic ship you wanted rigged with the fuse or else use shuttles to ferry personnel and gear from the auxiliaries to the Syndic ship.”
Desjani’s smile grew so broad it threatened to split her face. “Did you hear all of that, sir?”
Geary nodded, knowing that he was smiling, too. All four auxiliaries were with the Syndic warships of the Casualty Flotilla, right where they needed to be. “I think it’s time to call Captain Tyrosian. Hopefully her engineers won’t need specs for this rush job.”
Lieutenant Nicodeom spoke up again. “Captain Geary, sir, it’s a challenge. If they have to configure those fuses to individual Syndic ships and get them all rigged in a real short time, that’s the sort of challenge any good weapons engineer would do just for the love of it. Making something really big blow up in a new way? It doesn’t get any better than that.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” Geary punched the circuit to cal
l Captain Tyrosian, then quickly explained what was needed. “Can you and your people do it, Captain Tyrosian?” he asked at the end. “I know this is a very difficult engineering challenge with a very short time line, and I’m told it’s the sort of thing only the best weapons engineers can handle.” He could scarcely be more blatant, but it didn’t seem to be a good time for subtlety. Besides, he was dealing with an engineer, so subtlety might well be wasted anyway.
Captain Tyrosian’s eyes, which sometimes seemed to glaze over when faced with operational matters, lit with enthusiasm. “Weaponize the abandoned Syndic ships? Proximity fuses? Do you want them linked and timed to create a mass detonation?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
“Consider it done, sir,” Tyrosian announced confidently. “When does it need to be in place?”
“About two hours.”
The engineer jerked visibly at that, then nodded. “They’ll be ready, sir.”
As the image of Tyrosian vanished, Geary glanced over at Rione. “Thanks for the idea.”
Rione raised both eyebrows. “Your idea seems to have considerably outstripped my modest proposal.”
“We wouldn’t have thought of it without your suggestion, ” Geary noted.
Desjani looked toward Rione and inclined her head slightly in silent agreement. Rione smiled stiffly back at her.
Pretending he hadn’t noticed the byplay, Geary studied his star-system display, rubbing his chin with one hand. “The problem will be getting the Syndics to enter the danger area when it counts. We’ll have to fool them without their knowing they’re being led that way. It won’t be easy.”