“The last scout battleship was destroyed in action, but now I’ve got the Adroit and her sister ships to worry about. When is the government going to figure out that saving money by building ships that aren’t big enough and carry too little capability isn’t really smart when it comes to survival and effectiveness?”
“If you become dictator, that’s one of the things you’ll have to put a stop to.” Duellos grinned to show he wasn’t serious. “Kattnig has fought well in the past. I don’t think he’ll do anything stupid.”
“He shouldn’t. Did you get a chance to review his last action?”
Another nod from Duellos. “At Beowulf? Nasty business, but Kattnig distinguished himself.”
“Nasty” was a mild word for a battle in which the two sides had been pretty evenly matched and had slugged it out until the Alliance slowly gained an advantage that eventually produced the sort of victory that was as painful as many defeats in terms of lost ships and personnel. “His ship got beat into scrap metal but kept fighting,” Geary agreed. Afterward, Kattnig had been focused on the welfare of his surviving crew to such an extent that medical sedation had been ordered. Again, nothing to be ashamed of after such a fight, the fleet medical staff had cleared Kattnig for further service, and in Geary’s eyes, being concerned about casualties wasn’t exactly a black mark.
There was an inconsistency between that record and Kattnig’s apparent eagerness for battle that bothered Geary. “Just keep an eye on him. I’m going to cut loose the strike force in less than two hours, when the rest of the fleet heads for the lee of the star. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re all going to have to react to whatever it is. Good luck.”
“If the hypernet gate collapses while my ships are out there, I won’t have much time to worry about deciding what to do,” Duellos pointed out. “Otherwise, I’ll try not to disappoint you.”
“There’s no chance of your disappointing me, Roberto.”
Duellos grinned, stood up, and saluted, then his image disappeared, and Geary returned to the bridge of Dauntless.
The impacts of the bombardment hitting the ice world were a pleasant diversion from waiting for any sign of impending collapse by the hypernet gate. The multiple rocks striking in succession at a single point near the middle of one of the frozen oceans made for the most spectacular sight, the fountain of vaporized water rising higher and higher in the atmosphere as each impact drove deeper, the immense heat generated by each rock falling from space turning ice directly to steam, which vented upward through the kilometer-wide hole being drilled by the bombardment. After the steam dissipated in the dry air of the frigid planet, a multispectrum surveillance satellite the fleet had left near the planet managed to get a look down the hole, but the result disappointed Desjani. “There’s liquid water at the bottom, but most of it probably came from the walls of the hole melting from the residual heat of the impacts. There’s no way of telling if we actually hit water under the ice.”
“Sorry about that.” Geary commiserated. “That’s still one hell of a hole.”
“Can you imagine what it’ll be like when the sides finish refreezing? High angle, smooth, almost frictionless drops kilometers high. But I bet you the Syndics don’t thank us for creating such an excellent site for extreme sports competitions.”
“No, probably not, especially with the ice ocean fractured for hundreds of kilometers around the site.” It seemed silly to be joking about such things, but it beat staring obsessively at the hypernet gate.
One hour to go before the maneuver toward the star’s lee. If the hypernet gate collapsed now or in the next half hour, it would be a cruel irony with safety so close. Despite an irrational worry that stepping off of Dauntless’s bridge would result in something bad happening almost instantly, Geary took a few moments to go to the small rooms near the center of the ship where individuals could worship. At times like that, asking for whatever help and mercy could be granted seemed like a good idea. It certainly didn’t hurt. He tried to reach out to Michael Geary, but neither his brother nor his grandnephew seemed to respond. Finally, he reached to snuff out the ceremonial candle, but paused before doing so. “I got your message, Mike, from your granddaughter Jane. I miss you, too.”
A few minutes later he was back on the bridge, watching the representation of the fleet on the maneuvering display crawl across the vast distances of the star system, the point at which they could dive for safety behind the star still agonizingly distant.
The last five minutes seemed to last an eternity. Dauntless’s bridge was totally silent, with everyone present seeming to muffle even their breathing. Only Desjani seemed unaffected, scrolling through routine paperwork, but when Geary used his fleet-commander viewing authority to take a look at the work Desjani was doing, he saw that she was flipping through pages too fast actually to read them.
The count hit zero, Geary took a very deep breath as he realized that he had not been breathing for at least thirty seconds, then he tapped his comm control as he whispered a quick prayer of thanks. “All units in the Alliance fleet, this is Admiral Geary. At time two five accelerate to point one five light speed, turn down zero four degrees and come port three six degrees. Units designated as part of Strike Force One are to shift to tactical control of Captain Duellos on Inspire at time three zero.”
Then it was a matter of waiting as the signal crawled outward at the speed of light, taking seconds and even minutes to reach the farthest units in the fleet, then waiting some more as every ship acknowledged the order, their symbols flashing to indicate readiness, then waiting for time two five.
Desjani pointed at her maneuvering watch-stander, who punched the execute command for the velocity and course changes. Dauntless yawed slightly over and down, then her main propulsion units kicked in as every other ship in the fleet followed suit.
“In about four hours and twenty-three minutes,” Desjani observed, “the Syndic leaders are going to start getting very unhappy.”
“We’re not in the clear, yet,” Geary reminded her. “If the Syndics already blew the gate, we can still get caught by the blast.”
“It’s not that I have any great respect for their intelligence, but surely even they aren’t stupid enough to blow away that flotilla when it doesn’t look like they need to.” She watched the ships of the strike force turning and accelerating away from the rest of the fleet. “How much longer until you inform this star system of what its noble leaders are planning?”
“Just a little while, yet. I want the Syndic Executive Council to see us heading on our new vector, start trying to figure out what it means, then have my message further confuse and pressure them.”
Desjani glanced at the back of the bridge, where Sakai was sitting quietly, but with his eyes watching everything. “Speaking of confusing things and pressuring people, did the politicians try to mess with your statement?”
“Costa suggested I run the wording past them, Sakai was ambivalent, and Rione was strongly against it, saying that I needed to sound like myself, not like some politician.”
“Damn. I’m agreeing with that woman again.”
“It does take getting used to.” Geary sat silently for a little while, trying to get in the right frame of mind, then checked the time. Good enough. His statement wouldn’t arrive at the ships carrying the Syndic leaders until after they saw most of the Alliance fleet on its way to safety, and would reach most other occupants of the star system well before that. His taunting of CEO Shalin at the Syndic flotilla hadn’t produced any apparent results as of yet. It would be interesting to see what this message did.