Jack Campbell: The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

“If we could have a few more hours to repair our damaged ships,” someone suggested.

“A few more hours or a few more days wouldn’t help,” another shot back. “The Syndics are repairing their damage, too. And they can count on reinforcements and resupply coming through that gate behind them!”

Duellos nodded to Geary. “I agree. Time is not on our side, even if the Syndic deadline is not enforced.”

Geary nodded back, his eyes once again tracking along the officers ranked around the table. “We can’t hold off an attack. Nor can we attack them and have any expectation of survival.”

Numos spoke again, his face red. “Individual ships might be able to-”

“To what, Captain? Get to that…gate? Then what?” Geary heard a collective intake of breath. “This fleet has a Syndic hypernet key. I know that. But I assume the ships using it must go through together.” A murmur of agreement came. “I repeat, an-every-ship-for-itself plan will not be followed by this fleet, and any commanding officer who tries it will be court-martialed by me if I can catch them, or killed by the Syndics when they reach that gate alone and can’t get through it.” Silence.

Geary sat back and rubbed his chin. “That’s what we can’t do. But it’s not every option. Perhaps one of you can explain this to me.” He hesitated over the display controls, finally finding the right ones. “Here.” Geary pointed to a spot slightly behind and off to the side from the Alliance forces. “Twenty light-minutes away from the Alliance ships nearest to it. Why isn’t this guarded?”

Everyone frowned and craned to look. Finally, Captain Faresa gave Geary one of her looks, one that seemed capable of eating away metal. “Because it’s meaningless.”

“Meaningless.” Geary let the word hang for a moment, wondering as he did so if he could figure out a legitimate way to avoid having to see Faresa’s face again. “That’s the system jump point.” Shrugs met his statement. “Dammit, why can’t we use that to get out of this?”

Duellos spoke slowly. “Captain Geary, there’s likely only one or two stars within jump range of that point.”

“There’s only one,” Geary stated flatly. It hadn’t been hard to look up that piece of information. “Corvus.”

“Then you see the problem, sir. The system jump method is too limited in range. The Corvus System is itself only a few light years away, and still deeply buried within Syndic territory.”

“I know that. But from Corvus we could jump to any of”-he checked his figures-“three other systems.” Geary could see the other officers exchanging looks, but no one spoke. “From one of those systems we could jump to others.”

Captain Faresa shook her head. “You aren’t seriously suggesting getting back to Alliance space by using system jump drives, are you?”

“Why not? It’s still faster-than-light.”

“Not nearly faster-than-light enough! Do you have any idea how deep in Syndic space we are?”

Geary openly glared at her. “Since the shape of the galaxy hasn’t altered appreciably since my last command, yes, I do know how deep we are in Syndic space. So we’ve got a long haul out of here. It’s a chance. Do you prefer dying here?”

“Better that than commit slow suicide! We don’t have the supplies to sustain that kind of journey. It would take many months. Perhaps years, depending on the route. But that’s irrelevant, because the Syndic fleet will simply get there ahead of us and destroy us as we arrive!”

Geary was trying to tamp down his anger enough to formulate an answer, when Captain Desjani began speaking as if to herself. “Corvus System isn’t on the Syndic hypernet. The Syndic fleet couldn’t beat us there.” Desjani looked around. “They’d have to follow us through the same system jump point. That’d take time.”

Captain Duellos nodded eagerly. “Yes! We’d have a free window to transit Corvus to our next jump point. Not a long one, but time enough. Then the Syndics would have to guess what our next destination would be.”

“We don’t have the supplies!” Faresa insisted. Duellos glared at her in a way that made it clear there was no love lost between them. “Who even knows what’s at Corvus?”

“It can’t be that important,” someone suggested. “Not if the system isn’t on the Syndic hypernet.”

“We don’t know what’s there!”

“Captain Faresa.” She turned to glare at Geary as he gestured to the representation of the Syndic fleet. “We know what’s here, don’t we? Can anything in Corvus be worse? We’ll face better odds no matter what, and we’ll have the transit time in jump space to repair internal damage to the ships.”

Heads nodded and smiles started to appear. “But, supplies…” Faresa tried to insist.

“I assume there’s something at Corvus.” Geary craned his head to look at the data. “This says there was a Syndic self-defense base. Do those still stock supplies that Syndic ships passing through could draw on?”

“They used to…”

“They’ll have something. And there’s an inhabited planet in that system. There’ll be some off-planet facilities, in-system traffic. Stuff we can get parts and food and other essentials off of.” Geary studied the display, lost for the moment in calculation and momentarily unaware of the other officers. “It’d be a snatch-and-grab through Corvus. The Syndics will be coming out of that jump point behind us as fast as they can, so it’ll be a race to get our slower and more heavily damaged ships through the system before we can be caught.” He looked around, seeing uncertainty on many faces. “We can do this.”

Captain Tulev spoke again. “Captain Geary, I must warn that getting to the jump point here will not be easy.”

“It’s not guarded.”

“No. But the Syndic fleet is close, and they have some very fast ships. They can leave their slower ships behind to catch up. We can’t.”

Geary nodded. “Very true. Ladies and gentlemen, I will stall the Syndics as long as I can. But as soon as we start moving-”

“Captain.” A short woman, her eyes intense, leaned forward. “We could maneuver the fleet, look like we’re reorganizing to meet an attack, and get those damaged and slow ships closer to the jump point under cover of those movements.”

Geary smiled. Commander Cresida of the Furious. He’d have to remember her, too. “Do you have some ideas?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Let me see them as soon as you can work them out.”

“It’ll be a pleasure, Captain Geary.” Cresida leaned back again, her scornful gaze directed toward the area where Numos and Faresa were sitting.

Geary looked at everyone again. Still shaky. But I’m giving them something to do. Something that might work, even if seems such a long shot they wouldn’t even consider it without me pushing them. Face it, Geary, without you they wouldn’t have even thought of it because they were all fixated on that hypernet gate, doing the enemy’s job for them by closing out their own options. “Then let’s get going.” Instead of responding directly, the other captains all exchanged surprised looks. “What’s wrong? Somebody tell me.”

Captain Desjani spoke with visible reluctance. “It’s customary for proposed courses of actions to be finalized, then debated by the senior officers and ship commanders, with a vote afterward to affirm support.”

“A vote?” He stared at her, then around the table. No wonder Admiral Bloch had sometimes struck him as a politician running for office. “When the hell did this ‘custom’ begin?”

Desjani grimaced. “I’m not personally familiar-”

“Well, I don’t have time for a history lesson right now. And we don’t have time to debate what to do. I may not know what everything is like now, but one thing I do know is that waiting, paralyzed, for a snake to strike is the worst possible course of action. Indecision kills ships and fleets. We have to act and act decisively in the time we have. I will not conduct any votes while I am in command. I am open to suggestions and proposals. I want input from you. But I am in command. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want Black Jack Geary to lead you out of this mess, don’t you? Well, then, by the living stars I will lead you, but I will do so in the best way I know how!”