The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

He nodded with deliberate care to Desjani. “Fighting spirit is immensely important, Captain. From what I have seen, the Alliance fleet is right to be proud of its spirit.” She grinned with apparent relief at Geary’s words. Glancing around, Geary saw similar expressions on the faces of the rest of the bridge crew. “But we do need to apply that spirit properly, to make sure we do”-What’s the right phrase?-“maximum damage to the enemy. It’s like aiming a weapon to make sure it hits the target dead on.” Geary indicated his display. “Right now, this fleet isn’t as well aimed as it could be.” And aren’t I the master of understatement. “We’ll work on that.”

But even as Geary spoke the last sentence, he saw that the leading ships in the Alliance fleet were accelerating past.1 light speed, abandoning all pretense of maintaining any sort of formation as they raced each other to reach and help destroy the two Syndic corvettes. Amazingly, the now five-minute-old images from around the Syndic base showed that the corvettes still hadn’t tried to run, but were maintaining a blocking position not far from the Syndic base. Geary was still trying to decide if they were brave or foolish or simply paralyzed with fright when the reason finally became apparent-a courier ship sighted launching from the base and accelerating away. The Syndics were trying to get a report off through one of the jump points around Corvus. I wonder what Syndicate Fleet Fight Instruction article mandates sending a report? Geary wondered bitterly. That idiot in charge of them wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t spelled out as a requirement.

The forward elements of the Alliance fleet were still accelerating, past the speed where they could effectively target the enemy ships. That’s it. It’s past time I tried to regain control of this goat rope. Geary mashed the communications control with his thumb. “This is Captain Geary. All units of the Alliance fleet are ordered to return to their places in formation. All units are to reduce speed as necessary to ensure they are not exceeding.1 light.” He hated giving that order going into a battle, where individual ship commanders should’ve had the flexibility to alter speed as they fought, but Geary couldn’t see how else he could slow down all the ships crowding to reach the Syndic corvettes.

Geary bit back another curse. The displayed positions of many of his own ships were increasingly uncertain, and it would take several minutes for the farthest out to receive his last order. “Ships of the Third Frigate Squadron are ordered to engage the Syndic corvettes. Any unit in a position to intercept the Syndic courier vessel is ordered to make every effort to stop it.”

He paused, waiting to see what would happen, knowing there was nothing else he could do at the moment. It’d be a few minutes before he knew whether anyone was listening to him this time.

At least he could tell the battle cruisers were on their way back. They wouldn’t catch up with the trailing elements of the fleet for three hours, but at least they were doing what they were told.

Within the next fifteen minutes, it became apparent that a little more than half of the Alliance ships charging toward the Syndic corvettes had somewhat sheepishly begun following Geary’s last order. Unfortunately, as some of the ships slowed and others kept accelerating, any semblance of order within the Alliance fleet vanished. The leading edge of the wedge had become a twisted blob in which many of Geary’s own ship positions were far from certain.

The display picture of the outer fringes of the Alliance fleet flickered in an almost strobelike way as the time-late images updated and jerked from point to point. It looked like close to a score of Alliance ships had come around and were trying to accelerate toward an intercept with the Syndic courier vessel. Orion, far out of range of any possible intercept, for some unfathomable reason had pumped out several specters aimed at the courier, even though the distance and relative speeds were too great to expect any chance of a hit.

And the Syndic light cruiser’s position had jumped wildly as Dauntless finally saw it accelerating toward the Alliance fleet. What’s he doing? He’s in no position to help screen that courier. The blob that made up the Alliance fleet had now stretched out in three directions, one thin arm reaching “up” and to the side toward the courier’s path, another larger mass of ships still heading for the Syndic corvettes and their base, which were now less than an hour away from contact, and a spreading cloud of ships at the back where Alliance units were finally dropping back toward their assigned positions. The Syndic light cruiser, having come around the fourth planet, seemed to be accelerating under the force of its huge propulsion system as if aiming to skim along the bottom of the Alliance blob.