The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

Captain Desjani nodded. “We’ll know soon. Initial optical and full spectrum scans show installations with heat signatures, so something’s still active there, but we need more data. There’s definitely not a major naval force nearby, though. We’d be seeing some signs of that by now even if the information was time-late.”

Thank the ancestors for not-so-small blessings, Geary thought irreverently. In fact, space traffic in the system seemed light. Geary, unconsciously anticipating the sort of system jump traffic he’d been used to, instead saw no interstellar shipping passing through en route to the various jump locations. What in-system traffic had been spotted, running between the inhabited planet and what must be various off-planet mining and manufacturing sites, was confined to the plane of the system and clustered among the inner planets. Where the hell is everybody? Geary couldn’t help wondering, even though he knew that thanks to the hypernet “everybody” didn’t have to go through Corvus or systems like it anymore.

Geary tapped a communications circuit, having painstakingly learned how to use his controls during the jump to Corvus. “This is Captain Geary for Captain Duellos and Captain Tulev. You are to take the Second and Fourth Battle Cruiser Squadrons and assume positions covering the jump exit. If any Syndic forces come through there in immediate pursuit, they must be destroyed before they can get past you.”

Geary could almost hear the anticipation of one-sided slaughter in Duellos’ and Tulev’s voices as they rogered up for the order. On his scan, Geary watched the heavy combatants of the two squadrons swinging around and moving back toward the jump point. The battle cruisers were able to accelerate quickly for their size but were comparatively lightly defended since their acceleration had been purchased by adding more propulsion power at the expense of defensive-screen capability. He’d have to hold them there long enough to nail any Syndics coming through on the heels of the Alliance fleet, but not leave them isolated as the rest of the fleet moved away. Just a simple matter of timing, with seven big warships and the lives of their crews riding on Geary’s ability to get it right.

Mines. How could I have forgotten that until now? I don’t care how much Syndic shipping gets disrupted. “Captain Duellos. Have your ships lay a minefield around the jump exit, slaved to the local star so it maintains position.”

Duellos acknowledged the newest order, sounding definitely gleeful this time. The Alliance fleet had taken some heavy loses in the Syndic home system from mines laid as part of the ambush, so Geary didn’t begrudge any desire by Alliance sailors for retaliation on that count.

Another tap on a circuit to communicate with the entire fleet. “All units, with the exception of the Second and Fourth Battle Cruiser Squadrons, are to assume standard fleet-attack formation Alpha Six immediately upon receipt of this message.” The units of the fleet, jumbled by the battle in the Syndic home system and the pell-mell retreat through the jump point, hadn’t been able to reform while in jump space and now needed to resume the semblance of an orderly formation again. Geary watched on his display as the ships and squadrons slowly acknowledged an order that took a few light-minutes to reach the farthest ships, trying not to shake his head at how scattered the fleet was.

“The fleet is still proceeding in-system at point one light speed,” Desjani reminded him. “It’s going to take some of those ships quite a while to reach their assigned positions.”

“Yeah.” Geary studied the display, still essentially empty of real-time threat information. “If we slow the fleet, individual ships will have an easier time taking station. But I don’t want to risk slowing the fleet until we’ve learned more about whatever Syndic force we’re hopefully surprising here.”

“Holding back never won a battle,” Desjani stated approvingly, in the manner of someone quoting a lesson.

Geary was still mentally shaking his head at Desjani’s statement when a chime sounded to call attention to the display. He watched as the time-late data from the inhabited world scrolled by. Analysis of imagery and things like chemical by-products in the atmosphere indicated the world was still running an industrialized economy, but with signs of inactive facilities and apparently not as heavily populated as expected given the length of time humans had been settled there. That matched what he’d heard about those systems that had been bypassed by the hypernet system slowly dying on the vine. A score of objects orbited the world, seven tagged as cold and probably mothballed and two labeled as likely military installations. No military shipping was visible in the more than eight-hour-old picture.

“The installation on the fourth world is active and assessed military,” the reconnaissance watch reported. “Two minor combatants are active near the base as of forty-one minutes time-late.”