To his surprise, Desjani didn’t instantly whip Dauntless around to go after a target. She saw his reaction and shrugged. “The only thing left worth killing is those battleships. Besides”—she pointed to her ship’s status display—“we’re down to thirty-five percent fuel-cell reserves.”
“Thirty-five percent?” In peacetime he would have been court-martialed for letting fuel-cell reserves get that low on ships under his command.
“Good thing we saved Titan, Witch, and Jinn,” Desjani observed. “We’re going to need every fuel cell they can squeeze out between here and Varandal.”
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.”