The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (42 page)

“A bird?” Geary said, not believing what he was seeing. “They’re arranged that way because it makes a pretty picture?”

“Yes. Those four corvettes and megacruisers on the sides? We couldn’t figure out why they were there because we were evaluating the formation in terms of functionality in battle. But if you look at that formation in terms of show, the two corvettes and single megacruiser on either side form the wings.”

“Ancestors preserve us. They’re getting ready to fight us in a parade formation?”

“That woman from Old Earth,” Desjani pressed, “said there hadn’t been any fighting around here for decades and nothing serious for centuries. Imagine our own fleet headquarters without any actual combat issues or experience or demands to influence their decisions. Decade after decade of that, the emphasis on how good things look rather than how well they work, while weapons and designs are evaluated in bureaucratic terms rather than whether they work or not and officers get awards for how fancy their hair is done up.”

“Mister Medals.” He looked at his display using new eyes. “But there are a lot of them and only one of us. What if they send a pursuit after the Dancers?”

“Those clowns
cannot
catch the Dancer ships unless the Dancers let them,” Desjani said.

“True. We’ll have to assume the Dancers will stay clear of trouble. That leaves Old Earth and the other historical sites throughout this star system. We can’t risk anything’s happening to those places.”

She stared at him. “You don’t think they’d fire on Home?”

“I don’t know.” He let his own gaze settle again on the blue-white orb shown on his display. “You and I look at that and can’t imagine doing it harm. But the craters on the surface show that in the past other humans have dropped rocks on the Home of all of us. What humans have done once, they can do again. That’s why we can’t afford to string this out using the distance to Old Earth’s orbit. The farther we go in-system, the closer we get to places like Home, and Mars and Venus, as well as all of the shipping near those planets. We’ll have to get this done out here, where space is emptier, and we’ll have to keep the attention of the Covies focused on us.”

It had worked at Grendel. Well enough, anyway.

If
Dauntless
dies here, if Tanya stays with her to the end, so will I. What the hell, I had a good run. But I lost everything once. I won’t lose everything that matters to me now.

Ancestors, what if she dies in the battle, and I don’t?

It must not happen. I will keep it from happening.

“Very well, Captain Desjani. We’ll follow your plan. Wait a couple of minutes, then reduce the velocity of
Dauntless
to point zero five light speed.” Geary tapped an internal comm control. “Envoy Charban, are you having any luck?”

Charban shrugged. “I can’t tell.”

“
Dauntless
is going to be slowing considerably, but we want the Dancers to continue on toward Old Earth without us. Can you get across to the Dancers that the other warships are enemies who are likely to attack us, and will attack them if the other warships get within range?”

“Brother enemies,” Charban said. “The Dancers understand that concept. I’ll tell them to keep on keeping on, and we’ll hope they do that.”

Maneuvering thrusters fired on
Dauntless
, pitching her bow up and over so that it faced back along her track, toward where the Covenant formation was coming on steadily. The main propulsion units fired to reduce her velocity, though Geary noticed that Desjani was only using half of the main units for that task. If the Covenant ships evaluated
Dauntless
’s maneuverability based on that, they would seriously underestimate her actual agility.

With the closure rate increasing dramatically, the time to contact began rapidly decreasing. “Forty minutes until the Covenant warships will be able to fire upon us if their missile ranges are equivalent to ours,” Lieutenant Yuon said.

Geary nodded absently, his eyes on the Dancers. They had matched
Dauntless
’s pivot, but were now pivoting back and moving onward without reducing speed.
So far, so good.
“Tanya, when we get into the estimated range envelope of the Covenant missiles, I’m going to leave when and how to maneuver
Dauntless
up to you.”

“Thank you, Admiral.” Desjani looked back at her watch-standers. “Bring
Dauntless
to full combat status, but I do
not
want any sound of that to reach the senators aboard this ship. Keep their compartment silent.”

Geary nodded in an exaggerated manner. “We don’t want to interrupt their discussions. Those are very important.”

“Uh . . . right. Get the word out, people.”

Passageways and compartments that the day before had been filled with laughter and celebration would now be filled with officers and sailors racing to their combat stations. Real weapons would be powered up, real targets would be selected, and neither Jove’s trident nor Callisto’s bow would decide the result.

“All departments, report full combat readiness,” Lieutenant Castries said.

The image of Master Chief Gioninni appeared near Desjani. “Captain, as senior enlisted officer aboard the ship, I wish to suggest that you explain what’s going on. There are a lot of rumors flying, and with this being Sol, people are worried about different things than usual.”

“That’s a good suggestion, Master Chief,” Desjani approved. “Admiral Geary will address the crew.”

I will?

“Thank you, Captain.” Gioninni’s image vanished.

“Whenever you are ready, Admiral,” Desjani said, smiling at him.

“Thank you, Captain,” Geary said, deliberately echoing Gioninni. “Do you have a copy of what I was going to say? Because I seem to be having trouble recalling what it was.”

“No, but I remember the gist of it,” Desjani replied confidently, giving no hint that she was making it up as she went along. “Something about defending Sol and Old Earth against aggressors who have already targeted us.”

“Was that what it was?” Geary took a few moments to compose his thoughts. “The odds against us are awful, Tanya. How do I give the crew hope when they must be aware of that?”

“We don’t need hope,” she replied. “None of us hoped to survive the war with the Syndics, and none of us hoped to see the end of that war. We could hope to win each battle, but we’d fight like hell whether we thought we had a chance or not. Hope is for people who expect to see a better future. We stopped believing in that a long time ago and learned how to fight without that belief. Until you came. Haven’t you figured that out?”

He took a few seconds to reply. “I guess not.”

“Just tell everyone we didn’t choose this fight, but we’re going to win it.”

“All right.” Geary gestured to the comm watch-stander to have his voice broadcast everywhere on the ship except in the compartment where the senators were debating with each other and Rione. “This is Admiral Geary. As you may have heard, upon our arrival in Sol Star System, we discovered that one of the minor powers located in nearby star systems had violated the sanctity of Sol by stationing a flotilla of warships here. Those warships have threatened the people of Sol, and they have demanded that we surrender to them.

“The people of Sol have told us that they cannot defend themselves. We are being attacked, and those attacking us are also threatening Sol Star System and Old Earth. We did not seek a fight. We did not choose a fight. But because the aggressor warships here are blocking our route to the hypernet gate, threatening the Dancers, threatening Old Earth itself, and moving to intercept us, we have no choice but to fight. The odds do not favor us, but since we have to fight, we’re going to win.”

He could only hope that the bold shouts and cheers within
Dauntless
could not be heard by the senators, and if so, that the senators would think they were somehow related to the crossing-the-line celebration of the day before. “I guess that was good,” he told Tanya.

“It would have been better if you just said what I told you to say.”

“What I said was close to that.”

“You are
not
my editor, Admiral.” She tapped the arm of her chair lightly. “Half an hour to contact. The senators are probably going to notice when we start combat maneuvers.”

“Probably.” He left it at that.

“Another message from the other warships,” the comm watch-stander said.

Mister Medals appeared to be annoyed and a bit baffled, in the manner of someone who was so unused to being crossed that he didn’t quite know how to handle it. “You are quickly running out of time to comply with your instructions. I am not in the habit of repeating my directions. You are to drop your shields now and reduce your velocity now, or I will take any measures required to preserve the security and safety of Sol.”

Geary tapped his reply command. “I am not in the habit of accepting orders from a minor commander of minor forces representing a minor collection of star systems. You are to cease all offensive activity in this star system and you are to immediately change vectors to remove your ships from this star system by whichever means you choose. Sol cannot defend itself, but we can and will defend Sol as well as ourselves. Geary, out.”

Desjani gave him a grin. “I don’t think the senators would approve of that language.”

“No, they wouldn’t.” Could Rione keep them occupied until
Dauntless
was committed to the fight? The odds against them would get even worse if someone interfered with the plan they had come up with. “I just realized something.”

“Good or bad?”

“Good. With Rione having a vote, that means four votes. Left to themselves, those three senators might have settled on a two-to-one result after a little infighting. But with four votes, Rione can shift every time a majority starts to develop and keep everything stymied at two to two. Senator Navarro must have known she would be able to do that if he gave her his proxy.”
Navarro, weary as he is of the ugly politics afflicting the Alliance, was canny enough to figure out how to frustrate any attempted interference with me. But if he anticipated the need for that, did he think I might face this situation? Did he know someone might try to set up this ambush at Sol? Or did Navarro just plan for the worst in case it was needed?

“Ten minutes to entering estimated threat envelope,” Lieutenant Yuon said.

“Are you going to keep your bow pointed at them?” Geary asked.
Dauntless
had been going backwards at very high speed ever since pivoting around to slow her velocity.

“Until I guess their missiles are launching,” Desjani confirmed. “I want my strongest weaponry and shields facing them.”

The remaining minutes passed with the usual slowness they acquired when waiting for a critical event. When
Dauntless
entered the missile threat envelope, there would be only a few seconds to react, but Geary sat back with every sign of calm confidence as he waited for Desjani to make her decision.

For her part, Desjani no longer seemed aware of him, her focus locked on the display before her.

“Entering—”

Lieutenant Yuon broke off as
Dauntless
pitched downward and accelerated at the maximum capability of her main propulsion units, then rolled into a skidding turn tens of thousands of kilometers wide as the thrusters on her port bow fired at full power.

Geary braced himself against momentum forces strong enough to leak past the inertial dampers. A low groan of straining metal and composites rose around him as
Dauntless
herself protested the stresses on her hull. On his display, red danger symbols marked a volley of missiles bending around in pursuit of
Dauntless
.

“They fired first,” Desjani said. “Request permission to return fire.”

Not only had the Covenant ships fired first, but they had unleashed a volley of missiles instead of a single warning shot. Any question about whether they sought
Dauntless
’s destruction had now been answered. “Permission granted. Take all necessary actions to defend
Dauntless
and the Dancer ships.”

Geary’s comm alert pulsed urgently. The senators had noticed the last maneuver, probably when it pitched them from their seats. “Yes?”

Senator Costa glared at him from a virtual window. “What is happening?”

“We have been fired upon by the warships of the Covenant flotilla, Senator. They opened fire without provocation, using sufficient force to have destroyed
Dauntless
if we had not maneuvered to evade their attack.”
Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask.

Geary’s silent plea was answered. Costa didn’t ask what
Dauntless
was doing now, her image vanishing without another word. She doubtless assumed that the battle cruiser was simply avoiding the attack and getting clear of danger.

On Geary’s display, the Covenant missiles were still closing on
Dauntless
, whipping through tighter turns than the battle cruiser could manage, the long arcs of their intercept vectors curving toward the place where
Dauntless
would be if she maintained her current course and speed.

But under Desjani’s command
Dauntless
bent her path upward and to starboard. The missiles had to react, swinging through wider arcs, burning their propulsion furiously as they sought to compensate for the battle cruiser’s latest maneuver.

“Admiral?” Lieutenant Iger’s image had appeared beside Geary. “Sir, the numbers of missiles in that volley match the number of missile launch points we had previously identified on the Covenant ships.”

“Good, that’s— What?” Geary moved his hand against the strain of Desjani’s latest maneuver, calling up data. “That’s all? On that many ships? That means the big ones only have two launchers apiece?”

“And the small ones have none,” Iger confirmed.

Geary stared at the statistics. “These ships have armament roughly comparable to our own auxiliaries. They’re a little better armed, but not much. Why the hell would anyone build a warship that big, that expensive, and that elaborate and put so few weapons on it?”