The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

“Go, Tanya,” Geary said, transmitting similar orders to Duellos, Tulev, and Badaya. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute formation guide shifts to Invincible. Admiral Lagemann, take any necessary action to provide cover for the shuttles as they return.” There shouldn’t be any action necessary, but if Lagemann did have to order any more ships out of the formation, he had well over two hundred heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers to play with.

Desjani whooped as she sent Dauntless, Daring, Victorious, and Intemperate on an angled climb toward an intercept with Syndic Group Cable. Behind her, the other battle cruisers in the Alliance fleet tore away on their own intercept vectors.

“Shuttles lifting!” Lieutenant Yuon cried.

Geary checked to ensure Yuon meant the shuttles at the prison camp. Those headed to pick up the Marines at the trigger site were still weaving downward through a hail of fire from Syndic ground defenses that were being knocked out by Guardian almost as fast as they opened up.

Syndic Group Alpha kept coming, probably still under automated maneuvering control in response to orders from distant superiors, as Guardian and Warspite opened up on the Syndic warships. Captain Armus, lacking enough decent targets in the heavily cratered wasteland around the trigger site, shifted the fire of four of his battleships to engage Alpha as well.

Their shields already weak from fighting through the upper atmosphere, the ships of Alpha ran head-on into the fire of six battleships.

The heavy cruiser and four of the Hunter-Killers simply exploded under the hammerblows, coming apart as specter missiles, hell lances, and grapeshot hit in quick succession. One of the light cruisers was shredded by hits and knocked even farther into the atmosphere. Without shields, traveling at tremendous velocity, the remains of the light cruiser dissolved in a flash of heat and light, a ball of plasma forming a brief, fiery streak across the planet’s sky.

The second light cruiser survived only because it had wrenched onto a new vector seconds before impact, leaping upward and away from the Alliance barrage.

Syndic Group Bravo, bearing down on Armus’s force, saw the fate of Alpha and also whipped into turns, the Syndic ships sliding through wide arcs as they tried to avoid the fate of Alpha’s warships. The heavy cruiser slid too far, coming deep enough inside the battleships’ missile envelopes to catch a dozen specters that broke it into several large fragments that spun away, some heading out into space and some falling to their doom in the planet’s atmosphere.

“Marine recovery shuttles are on the ground,” Jane Geary reported.

“Shuttles lifting from prison camp,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “Half of them are overloaded. They’re requesting the fleet brake to assist their recovery.”

“Admiral Lagemann,” Geary said as he hit his comm controls. “Brake the fleet formation as necessary to help the shuttles catch you.”

He felt a sense of liberation despite the chaos of the battle raging from the surface of the planet up into space above it. I don’t have to call all the shots. I have commanders I trust who can manage the details if I give them the job. All I have to do is make sure I keep a handle on the big picture, so everything is coordinated, and every threat is dealt with.

Syndic Groups Cable and Delta had realized that they were too late to bombard the prison camp, and that the Alliance battle cruisers were going to ensure that none of the Syndic warships made it through to the climbing shuttles. The Syndics bent away, their groups breaking into individual ships as commanders overrode the automated maneuvering controls. One of the inexperienced Syndic commanders overstressed his or her ship’s structure on the turn, the light cruiser shattering into pieces that spun toward the planet below.

As the Syndics tried to flee, Desjani cursed, altering Dauntless’s vector a bit to close on another one of the light cruisers that was the only Syndic warship the Alliance battle cruiser still had a hope of catching. “We’re going to get one shot,” she warned her crew. “Make sure it counts.”

Dauntless tore past the intercept, hell lances stabbing out at the light cruiser, which rocked under the impacts, straining to get away. Before the light cruiser could recover from the hell-lance hits, two specters slammed into its stern, blowing apart the back half of the Syndic warship.

Inspire managed to take out a HuK, as did Dragon. Daring and Victorious battered a heavy cruiser, but the Syndic ship didn’t take any damage to its propulsion and kept going.