FOUR

The butcher’s bill after a battle was always the worst part. Geary read through the names. Courageous, Intrepid, Exemplar, Goblin, heavy cruisers Tortoise, Breech, Kurtani, Tarian, and Nodowa. Light cruisers Kissaki, Crest, Trunnion, Inquarto, and Septime. Destroyers Barb, Yatagan, Lunge, Arabas, Kururi, Shail, Chamber, Bayonet, and Tomahawk. At that they were very lucky. If they’d had to flee the star system with the Syndics in pursuit, easily three times that many cruisers and destroyers would have been lost, plus more battle cruisers and battleships. As it was, the Alliance fleet had time to make repairs and get the ships moving again. Resolution, though shot to hell, would be able to keep up with the fleet, but he didn’t yet know if he’d be able to save Incredible. Gallant had enough maneuvering control back to fight once more, though many of her weapons remained out of action.

They’d have to linger here a little while, whether they liked it or not, to get the propulsion on damaged ships repaired, along with other critical systems, to collect escape pods from Alliance ships abandoned during the battle, and to distribute the all-too-few fuel cells manufactured on the auxiliaries since the fleet left Dilawa.

Desjani was grumbling. He followed her gaze to the smaller Syndic flotilla, which had torn off toward the jump point for Padronis after the destruction of the large flotilla. Now the cruisers and HuKs of that flotilla were fanning out, some continuing on toward the jump point and others heading for the jump points for Kalixa and Dilawa. “We’ll never get them now,” Desjani complained. “I was hoping they’d make a stand at the jump point for Padronis so we could trash them.”

“Odds are they’ve laid their mines and are now rushing off to report what happened here,” Geary commented.

“They abandoned their comrades! They didn’t even try to hit us while we were fighting the main Syndic flotilla!”

So that was what was really bothering her. To Desjani those Syndics had let down their comrades, and even if they hadn’t been Syndic scum, they deserved to pay for that. “Tanya, I’d bet you that small flotilla had orders to stand off from the engagement so it could form a last-ditch defense if we ran for the Padronis jump point.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“At least they’re not darting in trying to snap up any of our damaged ships.”

Before Desjani could reply, an image popped up before Geary, showing Captain Cresida grinning. “I thought you’d like to know, sir, that we’ve recovered the escape pods from Courageous, including the one carrying a slightly banged-up but still-operational Captain Roberto Duellos.”

Geary smiled back so broadly his cheeks hurt, then looked over to Desjani. “Duellos is safe on Furious.”

“I told you he was difficult to kill,” Desjani replied serenely, then she smiled, too.

“Here he is, Captain Geary,” Cresida announced.

Her image was replaced by that of Duellos, his uniform torn and scorched in a few places. “Captain Duellos reporting for duty, sir.”

“I…” His words stopped coming, and Geary just looked at Duellos for a moment. “Damn, I’m glad you’re okay. I’m very sorry about Courageous. And Intrepid.”

“Thank you on all counts.” Duellos looked down for a moment. “It’s hard to lose a ship, but then, you know that as well as I do.”

“Yeah. It hurts like hell. Get yourself checked out and get some rest.”

“I need to look after my crew, sir.” Duellos gestured vaguely to one side. “Make sure they’re being taken care of. The crew from Courageous and those off Intrepid on the ships that picked them up.”

Geary started to say that Cresida could be trusted to do that, then stopped himself. He remembered his own sense of helplessness after his cruiser Merlon had been destroyed, the wish that he could do something, especially for the crew that were forever beyond his aid. Of course Duellos wanted to see to that himself. It would give him something to do besides dwell on the loss of Courageous and those crew members who hadn’t made it off the ship. “Certainly, Captain Duellos. Let me know if you or your crews need anything.”

Duellos moved to break the connection, but then hesitated. “You know what I need, Captain Geary, and you know you can’t provide it. But I thank you, because I know you understand.”

As soon as the window showing Duellos closed, Geary checked the fleet’s status again, unwilling to let his mind dwell once more on the loss of Merlon. Unfortunately, Dauntless wasn’t alone in having fuel-cell reserves in the 30 percent range.

Unable to do anything about that at the moment, he called Incredible, getting an image of her captain, Commander Parr. “How’s it going, Commander?”

“Could be worse,” Parr replied, smiling for a moment as he focused on Geary. “You didn’t need to save quite so many Syndics for us, sir.”

“Sorry about that. I’ve seen the updates from Incredible, but I want a personal assessment from you. Can you get her going again soon?”

Parr hesitated. “How long do we have, sir?”

“Maybe a few days. I can’t spare any more than that, and we’ve only got that much because we need to pick up the POWs on Heradao’s third planet.”

Commander Parr looked around, as if his personal appraisal of this small portion of Incredible could give him an answer. “Sir, I’d like to try.”

“Two days, Commander.”

“I think we can do it, sir.” Geary gave him a questioning look. “I know we can do it, sir.”

“Okay, Commander. Let me know if I can assist with anything.”

Titan’s closing on us, sir. She’s going to help Incredible and Resolution.”

Geary smiled encouragingly. “You can’t get better help than that. Commander Lommand on Titan is a good officer. He’ll do everything that can be done. I look forward to seeing Incredible under way in two days.”

He slumped back, rubbing his forehead, after the conversation ended.

Desjani gave him a sympathetic look. “Will Incredible make it?”

“Beats the hell out of me. She deserves a chance, though. When is Intrepid going to be scuttled?” As they’d feared, that battle cruiser had suffered so much structural damage in addition to other injuries that there was no way to get her fixed up enough to accompany the fleet from this star system. Instead, her power core would be overloaded, blowing the ship into pieces too small for the Syndics to exploit. Desjani bounced the question to her engineering watch-stander, who answered quickly. “Tomorrow, Captain. Late. They’re sure they’ll have everything salvageable off her by then. The two biggest pieces of Courageous are scheduled to be blown up tonight.”

“Should we tell Duellos?” Desjani asked Geary.

He thought about that. “Have you ever lost a ship?”

“A destroyer at Xaqui, a battle cruiser at Vasil, another destroyer at Gotha, a heavy cruiser at Fingal—”

“You were commanding officer of all those?”

“Just the second destroyer and the heavy cruiser after the one at Fingal.”

Geary stared at Desjani. She’d discussed some of her combat experience, but had never dwelt on her own actions or provided details of what had happened to the ships she’d been on. “I’m sorry. You don’t talk about them very much.”

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t. We both know why. And that answers my question about Duellos and Courageous, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Courageous was his ship. He can decide if he wants to see her final moments.”

“I’ll pass the word to Cresida, then.”

“Thanks. If you ever do want to talk…” Geary offered.

“I know. Same here.”

“I’ll remember that.” He pulled out the scale on the display to view the entire star system. Syndic merchant shipping was still fleeing for any relatively safe place. There didn’t seem to be any fixed-orbit defenses in Heradao to worry about, though he suspected they’d find a number of those on the third planet. As Desjani had pointed out, the smaller Syndic flotilla had broken up, its component ships heading in different directions, none of those vectors anywhere near the Alliance warships. There were still the Syndic HuKs standing picket duty at the jump points, of course, but they weren’t a threat and couldn’t be caught anyway. Geary leaned back, willing himself to relax now that the hard part was over. Maybe it was over not just in the sense of Heradao, either. What could the Syndics have left to contest the fleet’s return to Alliance space? No, the hardest part would be trying to block out more memories of exploding warships.

The only remaining contact with the enemy that the fleet had to handle would be whatever was needed to pick up the Alliance prisoners of war held in the labor camp on the third planet. The fleet’s sensors had confirmed that the camp was still there and apparently still occupied by a couple of thousand Alliance prisoners of war. Getting them liberated would require some negotiations, and doubtless some threats, but they’d been down this road before. “Madam Co-President,” he asked Rione, “could you get in contact with the Syndics and see how difficult it’s going to be to get our POWs off the third planet? Use any necessary threats, and you’re free to promise them that we won’t bombard the planet if they play nice.”

Rione gestured to the communications watch. “Please set up a link to the Syndic command net. When the link is ready, I’ll send them a preliminary message.” She then settled back herself to await the establishment of the link to the Syndic authorities in this star system. And waited.

Desjani finally intervened. She might not personally like Rione, but failing to provide proper support to a member of the Alliance government would reflect badly on her ship. “What’s the difficulty? Why haven’t you established a link for the co-president’s transmission?”

“Captain, the Syndic net we’ve observed since entering this star system doesn’t seem to be working right.” The communications watch-stander seemed baffled. “It’s still there, but we’re seeing very strange activity.”

“Strange activity?” Desjani pressed.

“Yes, Captain, it’s ongoing, so it’s hard to assess. It’s almost as if…” The watch-stander’s apparent bafflement increased. “We just received a transmission addressed to us. Someone calling themselves the Heradao governing council has sent us a message from the third planet. They insist on speaking with Captain Geary.”

Geary covered his eyes with one hand, unwilling to bandy words with Syndic CEOs right now. “Tell them that Captain Geary isn’t particularly interested in talking at the moment.” The third planet was a little over two and a half light-hours away at the moment. Conversations in which an exchange of information required five hours had never been his favorite pastime.

“But… sir, they say they’ve established a new government here, and they want to negotiate the status of the star system with you.”

His hand came down and Geary swiveled to stare at the watch-stander, but Rione spoke before he could. “These people didn’t identify themselves as the Syndic commanders in the star system?” she asked.

“No, Madam Co-President. The Heradao governing council. That’s how the message ID shows up.”

“Are there still transmissions coming from the Syndic authorities in Heradao?”

“Uh… yes, ma’am.” The watch-stander shook his head in puzzlement. “The system just identified another new transmission ID, this time from the Free Planet of Heradao Four, whoever that is. Captain Desjani, the Syndic command and control net in this star system seems to be shredding. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s as if—”

Rione had moved to stand by the watch, peering at the readouts and patterns on the communications display. “As if people are grabbing whichever pieces of it they can get their hands on and trying to break those pieces out from the command net.” She turned to look at Geary. “I’ve seen something like this. This star system is dissolving into civil war.”

“Where could you have seen something like that?” Desjani demanded, shocked into speaking directly to Rione.

“At Geradin. In Alliance space,” Rione added calmly. “I wasn’t there, but the records were provided to the Alliance Senate. I studied them.”

“Geradin?” Geary questioned. “Where’s that?”

“A backwater system, low population and fairly isolated, especially since the hypernet was established, which nonetheless kept sending its best to the Alliance military.” Rione made a gesture of distaste.

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