The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

The conference room felt huge again, the table running off into the distance, with Geary wondering how long it would take his dislike of holding meetings here to mutate into hate. The virtual meeting process made it too easy to hold meetings, but Geary was slowly realizing it also made holding meetings too hard because it was so easy for everyone to attend and put their oar in if they desired. The software recognized anyone who wanted to speak, regardless of Geary’s feelings on the matter, and he couldn’t schedule meetings to deliberately make it difficult for his primary adversaries among the fleet captains to attend.

So here we all are again. One big happy family. Geary tried to avoid looking toward Captain Faresa, whom he was certain would be giving him one of her acidic looks. “I wanted to inform you all that my intentions are to remain in Kaliban for a while. We may be able to find useful materiel here, and there’s little to no chance of rapid Syndic pursuit.”

Captain Faresa interrupted, as Geary had expected her to. “If the Syndics show up here, will the Alliance fleet run away again?”

He gave Faresa a bland look, hoping it would discomfort her. “We didn’t run away at Corvus. We declined battle.”

“It’s the same thing! And to a numerically inferior force!”

Geary tried to judge the attitudes around the table, studying the expressions of captain after captain and getting the feeling that entirely too many of them were betraying sympathy for Faresa’s statements. The impression baffled him, but it seemed unmistakable. “If I may remind Captain Faresa, our sole purpose in Corvus was to transit the system in order to reach another jump point. I saw no reason to allow an inferior Syndic force to divert us from our intended plans.”

“They believe we ran from them!”

Geary shook his head and smiled very briefly. “The Syndics believe a lot of ridiculous things.” To his relief, the comment brought forth laughter from many of the captains. He’d thought over how to approach the issue of what had happened in Corvus if someone tried to make an issue of it, and dismissing the significance of the Syndic force had seemed to be the best angle.

Captain Faresa flushed, but before she could speak again, Captain Numos interceded. “The fact remains that the Syndics surely believe we were scared of fighting them.”

Geary raised one eyebrow. “I wasn’t scared of the Syndics.” He let the statement hang a moment, while Numos glared daggers at him. “I don’t believe in letting the enemy dictate our actions. If we’d turned to fight a battle simply because we were…concerned…about what the enemy would think, then we’d be letting them determine our course of action.”

He pointed toward Faresa and Numos in turn. “I will remind you both that the Syndics knew we’d gone to Corvus. That was the only system we could reach from the jump point we’d used in the Syndic home system.” He’d nearly used the word escaped but didn’t want to feed the accusations that the fleet had run away from battles, even though it was one-hundred-percent true. “That force coming after us was surely only a first wave. There would’ve been more right behind them. What would we have done with our damaged ships when that second wave appeared? We had no safe harbor in a Syndic system. Any damaged ships would’ve been doomed along with their crews. How would that serve our cause? How would that serve the people we command? Would you fight a battle to the death of this fleet in an insignificant star system simply out of pride?”

Captain Faresa glared silently back at Geary, but Numos shook his head. “Pride is why this fleet fights. It holds us together. Without pride, we are nothing.” His tone clearly conveyed that Geary should know this, and that Geary’s ignorance of it was inexplicable.

Geary leaned toward the image of Numos, knowing his anger was showing. “This fleet fights for victory, not pride. It is held together by honor and courage, the belief in what we fight for and the belief in each other. Pride is nothing by itself. Nothing but a weapon in our enemy’s hands, a weapon he will gladly use to help bring about our destruction.”