The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

The huge flare was still fading when brighter and bigger lights started flaring like flashbulbs. Geary kept his expression dispassionate, knowing he was looking at the deaths of Syndic minor combatants whose shields had been overwhelmed, leaving the ships exposed to more grapeshot slamming them at high relative speeds.

Right behind the grapeshot came the wave of specters, hammering weakened shields and in many cases breaking through to hit the Syndic ships.

Within moments, the van of the Syndic force had been wiped out.

Geary swallowed, trying not to think of how many lives had just been ended in those flashes of light. He glanced over at Desjani, who was studying the display intently, her hands clenching and unclenching.

Holding their courses, though momentum left them little choice, follow-on waves of Syndic ships battered their way through the wreckage of the ships that had once made up their van. Instead of hitting an already softened-up Alliance main body with fresh attackers, the follow-on Syndics had themselves been hit by the two Alliance buzz saws even before they’d been further depleted by encountering the debris field. On the Alliance side, Geary’s ships were still almost untouched, their shields still at maximum.

Then the Syndic charge came within range of the hell-lances of the Alliance fleet, and space was filled with blazing shafts of energy converging toward the paths the Syndic ships were taking. Almost immediately thereafter, Geary saw null-fields being hurled out to also meet the onrushing Syndics.

He could never be sure how much he’d actually seen and how much he’d imagined in snapshot fashion as the two fleets swept through each other at a combined speed of well over.1 light, the moments of actual closest approach flashing by too fast for humans to register. But by that time, the damage had been done.

As the Alliance ships absorbed a heavy barrage against their bow shields, the outgunned Syndics had already run into the much heavier fire of Geary’s ships. Previously weakened and without time to rebuild, Syndic shields failed or let through damaging shots. Null-fields carved sudden gaps in ships while hell-lances flayed the oncoming Syndic warships.

Dauntless’s instruments, detecting and calculating damage at superhuman speed, told her crew that most of the Syndic ships racing past Geary had taken damage. Many appeared to be little more than wrecks, still carried along with their living comrades by the force of momentum. As the Alliance main body swept through the space once occupied by the Syndic force, Geary realized many of the impacts registering on Alliance shields were actually pieces of shattered Syndic warships.

Forcing himself to ignore the human cost of what had just happened, Geary scanned his display for summaries of the estimated damage to the Syndic force even as he gave new orders. “Main body, reverse course at time one five, turning up through zero nine zero.” That would bring the ships of his main body bending their courses upward in unison, up and over until they were going back in the other direction, chasing after the Syndic force that had passed through them, but slightly above them because of the turning radius required at the speeds they were traveling. They’d also be upside down relative to their former positions, of course, but in space that didn’t matter in the slightest.

It was tempting, very tempting, to break the formation and let the fastest ships charge ahead, but until he knew the Syndic force had been broken, he couldn’t take that risk. He also had to make sure the rest of his fleet was still acting in coordination. And despite the damage already done to the Syndics, the enemy force was still heading toward the auxiliaries formation. “Formation Fox Five Five. Take evasive course minimum down angle two zero at time one…seven.” That would bring the auxiliaries toward the formation led by Captain Duellos, which had altered course after diving through the Syndic formation and was now swinging back up toward the bottom and rear of the Syndics. “Formation Fox Five One, close on Formation Fox Five Five and lend support.”

Geary turned his attention to the smaller discs of cruisers and destroyers that had made up the cheeks of the nutcracker. As the Syndics had charged forward, the Alliance light units had sliced off the escort units making up the edges of the Syndic formation. “Formations Fox Five Three and Fox Five Four. Maneuver independently and close on the enemy. Ensure any stragglers or detached units are destroyed. Do not, repeat do not, break formation until given orders to do so.”