The Lost Fleet: Courageous

“My objective,” Geary stated, “is to make sure that any Syndics who are ready to die have that particular wish fulfilled.” That brought him some smiles and some relieved looks. He wondered what he was doing, how he was acting, that those relieved officers thought he would sacrifice ships that way. “I’ll run some simulations to check possible outcomes, but for now I don’t want Formation Echo Five Five to drop back more than three light-minutes behind the rest of the fleet. Is that understood?”

“May Paladin join that formation?” Captain Midea demanded. “Two of the ships from my division are already there.”

Geary switched his gaze to Captain Casia. “You’re the commander of the division containing Paladin. How do you feel about that?”

Casia bent a dark look toward Midea. “Certainly. Paladin can join with Orion and Majestic.”

“Captain Mosko?” Geary asked. “You’re in command of Echo Five Five. Do you need Paladin?”

Mosko shrugged. “Need it? No. But Indefatigable, Audacious, and Defiant are always ready to welcome a sister ship alongside us, under my command.” The last three words were emphasized slightly, resulting in Midea narrowing her eyes at Mosko. She didn’t object to them, though.

“What about Conqueror?” Captain Duellos asked innocently. “If she also joined Echo Five Five, then the entire Third Battleship Division would be together again, fighting as one.”

The look Casia gave Duellos would have killed if that were possible. “Conqueror should remain in a position to…to coordinate with the fleet commander.”

Geary eyed the man, trying to decide if putting so many of the bad eggs in the Third Battleship Division into one formation again was just asking for trouble, and if sending Casia there wouldn’t create more problems. But in a way Duellos was right. Sending Paladin to Echo Five Five and keeping Conqueror in Echo Five Four didn’t make sense.

No. If I send Casia back there, too, I’ll have to keep my eye on him constantly. I can’t afford that distraction.

Captain Mosko frowned slightly. “If Captain Casia were also in the formation, it might create some confusion about command arrangements in Five Five.”

Geary nodded judiciously, grateful for another reason to turn down Duellos’s mischievous suggestion. “That’s true. And we can’t let Echo Five Five get too strong, or the Syndics won’t be attracted to it. Paladin will ensure the formation is not too badly outmatched in terms of numbers. Are there any other questions?”

“What about the Syndics we left at Ixion?” said Commander Neeson of Implacable, not asking a leading question but a real one. “Four battleships and four battle cruisers. They haven’t shown up yet, but they will.”

“They’re waiting,” Captain Tulev announced. Everyone looked at him, clearly wondering at his reasons for the statement, so Tulev shrugged and continued his explanation, his face impassive. “Lakota wasn’t the most expected destination for us. Correct? So they think maybe we’re not going there for real but intend jumping there and jumping right back to Ixion to confuse the Syndics.”

Duellos nodded. “So they wait.”

“Yes,” Tulev emphasized. “Jump takes five and a half days here, five and a half days back. They wait, say, twelve days total. We don’t reappear at Ixion, they jump after us then.”

“We could be clear of Lakota by the time they jumped in here,” Captain Cresida objected.

“So? There’s a Syndic flotilla at the hypernet gate. There’s Syndic facilities and the inhabited world. If we just pass through and jump elsewhere, they know, but if we’re here to create long-term trouble, they catch us anyway.”

“They might also have been waiting for reinforcements they expect to meet them at Ixion,” Captain Badaya objected.

Tulev frowned, then nodded. “True. Either way, they come here eventually, but not right behind us.”

“That sounds like a good assessment,” Geary agreed. “We can’t forget about that force, but we don’t know when they’ll get here. We should be a long way from the jump exit from Ixion by the time they do, though. Anything else?”

Captain Tyrosian spoke with visible reluctance, as if not wanting to draw attention to herself and the state of the auxiliaries. “Raw materials stocks on the auxiliaries are getting low, but we have new fuel cells and munitions available for transfer to warships.”

“Can we risk transferring supplies while the Syndics are out there?” Tulev asked.

Geary tapped some controls and rechecked the status of his warships. Not great, but okay. “Go ahead and transfer their share of fuel cells and new munitions to the ships in Echo Five Five,” he told Tyrosian. “That activity will help provide a plausible cover for you falling behind the rest of the fleet and maybe make you look a little more vulnerable. Captain Tyrosian, there are two destroyer squadrons rounding up some Syndic ore carriers not far from the track we’re following. Hopefully we’ll be able to manage an intercept, and you can bring some material off those ships for the bunkers on the auxiliaries.”