IN zero gravity dice never stop tumbling, and for the next day Geary felt like he was watching a pair endlessly rolling and never coming up with a result. Then another day dragging by. Nerves on edge, he snapped at Rione, and she snapped back harder. They spent half an hour arguing so heatedly that Geary wondered why the bulkheads in his stateroom didn't melt. He finally left and wandered the pa.s.sageways of Dauntless, trying to maintain a facade of confidence as sailors and junior officers greeted him with possessive pride. He might be the fleet commander, but this was Black Jack's flagship, and they believed that made this ship and this crew special.

He ended up in the conference room again and morosely ran through possible battles with Syndic Flotilla Bravo at the jump point for Branwyn. But there was too much he didn't know, like what the Syndics would do, to make the simulations meaningful.

Eventually he went back to his stateroom, determined not to be exiled from his own quarters even by Victoria Rione. She was waiting for him and pulled him to the bed without a word.

It helped the time pa.s.s but left him baffled again.

THE third day. Geary sat on the bridge of Dauntless and glared at the display. The Syndics were still acting as if the Alliance fleet weren't even there. "Any guesses for how we can get any Syndics in this system to react to us?" he finally asked Captain Desjani.

She gave him an apologetic look. "No, sir." Desjani gestured toward the habitable planet. "Every Syndic military a.s.set has surely received orders from the senior Syndic leadership in this star system, and Syndics follow orders slavishly." She said it dismissively, and certainly that was a big difference between the current Alliance fleet and the current Syndic fleet. Geary had spent a good deal of his time in command convincing his ship commanders, with varying degrees of success, that following orders could be a good thing. The irony was that by this stage of the war, the rigid control of the Syndics and the rush-to-battle mob approach of the Alliance had produced the same results, both sides adopting b.l.o.o.d.y head-on clashes decided by attrition.

"I'm afraid Co-President Rione was right," Geary replied. "This time they're not going to engage this fleet until they're good and ready."

"Most likely," Desjani agreed, her experience in the fleet generating a look of disdain at such an intellectual approach to battle before she remembered that Geary was teaching the Alliance fleet to act that way. "They're learning, or starting to think, aren't they?"

"Looks like it. Or maybe just losing a dangerous level of self-confidence." Whichever it was, it was bad for the Alliance fleet.

"They'll have to fight us at the jump point for Branwyn."

Time to intercept with what had been labeled Syndic Flotilla Bravo now rested at twelve hours, if n.o.body maneuvered before then. The Syndic flotilla had been in a rectangular box-shaped formation since arriving and showed no signs of wanting to change that. But twelve hours from contact was still too early to start messing with the Alliance fleet's formation.

He reviewed the status of the fleet's supplies again. Ran out the projections for how many more fuel cells the auxiliaries could manufacture using the materials they had on hand. Simulated distributing that among the fleet. Not enough.

Stockpiles of mines were low, specter missile inventories on the warships ranged from low to moderate, but at least grapeshot load-outs were high. No surprise there, since metal ball bearings were pretty easy to manufacture.

Food stocks were okay, but that would be a problem, too, if he didn't find more. The food brought from the Alliance was effectively gone, with the fleet subsisting mostly on Syndic rations looted from mothballed facilities or storage locations in Sancere. The Sancere stuff wasn't too bad, for Syndic food, but when that was gone, all that would be left would be food regarded by the Syndics as not worth bringing with them when they abandoned facilities. He'd had some of that food, and even for someone accustomed to the dubious nature of military rations, it had been hard to stomach. It would keep a person alive, but that was its only virtue.

"Estimate twelve hours to combat. Please ensure your crews get plenty of rest," Geary ordered his ship captains, then went off to pretend to rest himself.

FIVE hours to intercept.

"They're sprinting, sir," Desjani reported unhappily. "To get to the jump point for Branwyn before us. They started accelerating about an hour ago, but we just saw it. We can send some battle cruisers ahead to try to still make the intercept before the Syndics get to the jump point, but the entire fleet can't accelerate fast enough to do it."

Throw unsupported battle cruisers at that Syndic formation? He could add in some light cruisers and destroyers as well, but that would still leave the battle cruisers badly outgunned. "No. We can't risk the battle cruisers that way."

Desjani stiffened, her affronted pride clear. "Sir, battle cruisers are proud of their role as the fast-moving strike force of the fleet. We can hit the enemy fast and repeatedly while the rest of the fleet catches up."

We, of course. Dauntless being a battle cruiser, too. "I appreciate that, Captain Desjani, but in this case we'd have to divert the Syndic flotilla from their current course in order for it to make sense to separate the battle cruisers from the rest of the fleet. Our battle cruisers simply don't have enough firepower to achieve that against a force the size of the Syndic flotilla." He leaned closer to speak very quietly. "You know I couldn't send Dauntless with such a strike force anyway. She's the fleet flagship, and she carries something critically important." He meant the Syndic hypernet key, something that could have a decisive effect on the war if they could get it home to Alliance s.p.a.ce. Every ship in the fleet was important, but some were more important than others. Because of that hypernet key, Dauntless was by far the most important of the important.

Desjani knew that and couldn't argue with it, so even though she still looked unhappy, she nodded in agreement.

Now Geary had to sit and watch the Syndic flotilla get to the jump point first. They'd timed their move right, leaving the Alliance fleet without enough time to respond. But when the two fleets closed to battle, he'd teach the Syndics a few things about timing maneuvers to discomfort the other side.

At point one light speed, the enemy flotilla covered thirty thousand kilometers per second. On the scale of a planetary surface, the speed was unfathomable. Against the size of even an average solar system like Lakota, where the orbital diameter of the farthest-out officially designated planet spanned about ten light-hours or roughly eleven billion kilometers, ships seemed to crawl against the star-filled darkness. Geary had sometimes wondered how people had been able to stand it in the early days of human s.p.a.ce flight, when ships hadn't been able to achieve velocities of anywhere near a tenth of the speed of light and been forced to take weeks, months, or even years to reach other planets and moons in just a single solar system. But he supposed people living on planets then probably had trouble grasping that once it had taken weeks, months, or years for travelers to cross continental landma.s.ses.

"No matter how fast we go, it's never fast enough," Geary muttered.

To his surprise, Desjani appeared taken aback by the comment. "Sir, if the fleet could do more-"

"Sorry. That wasn't about the fleet. The fleet's doing wonders, as usual. No, I was just thinking about people."

"I see, sir." No, she obviously didn't, but since the honor of her ship and the fleet wasn't at stake and there were enemies to watch, Desjani was willing to let it go.

Geary did, too, watching the Syndics reach for the jump point for Branwyn and hoping they wouldn't do what he fully expected them to do when they got there.

THEY did.

"They're finally turning toward us," Desjani announced. "They braked heavily to cross the jump point, and now they're accelerating toward us."

Geary exhaled, wishing something would start going right, partly relieved that he no longer had to dread what had finally happened and partly tense because it had happened. "I need confirmation as soon as possible. Did they lay mines when they went past the jump point?" That seemed the only possible explanation for the braking maneuver, to slow the ships down so the mines could be laid fairly close together, but it could have been a bluff as well.

"Yes, sir," a watch-stander reported. "Our sensors are still trying to evaluate the minefield's density and limits, but we're picking up many visual anomalies. It looks like they dropped a lot of mines right off the jump point."

Desjani frowned. "That close? Look at it, sir. The mines are so close the presence of the jump point will cause them to drift out of position fairly quickly."

"Fairly quickly meaning what?" Geary asked, feeling a leap of hope.

"A few weeks, maybe," Desjani offered. "The physics of an area that close to a jump point are a little weird, but we can run an a.n.a.lysis for a better estimate."

"Unless that estimate is a lot less than a few weeks, it won't do us much good." He took another look as the fleet's sensors painstakingly searched out the tiny visual anomalies that even the best stealth mines revealed, drawing in a depiction of where the mines were. Right on top of the jump point, just as Desjani had commented.

They would drift out of position in a few weeks, maybe, but until then couldn't be bypa.s.sed unless the Alliance fleet slowed to almost a dead stop to make a very tight turn. And if the Alliance warships did that, they'd be sitting ducks for Syndic Flotilla Bravo making high-speed firing runs. "I liked it better when the Syndics were underestimating us," Geary remarked to Desjani in a low voice.

"Once we've destroyed that Syndic flotilla, we can maneuver around those mines safely. Or maybe wait in this system until the mines move out of the way," Desjani suggested.

"Maybe." Wait a few weeks in Lakota? It didn't sound like a good idea. The longer they stayed here, the worse things seemed to get.

"Syndic Flotilla Bravo is steadying on an intercept course with us," the maneuvering watch announced. "Still accelerating, now back up to point zero five light."

"They'll come back up to point one light for the engagement," Desjani predicted. "That's standard practice for them."

"And for the Alliance," Geary reminded her. "But I won't bring our ships up to point one light for a while yet."

"If the Syndics come up to point one light and hold it there," Desjani noted as she ran some calculations, "and we maintain point zero seven light, then we now have about one and one half hours to contact."

"Okay." Geary thought for a moment, then called all of his ships. "All units in the Alliance fleet, we expect combat in approximately one hour. Maintain your places in formation, and I promise you we'll teach these Syndics the same things we taught the other Syndic flotillas we've encountered."

He didn't expect a reply, but one came from back in the formation. "Advise time we should accelerate to engagement speed of point one light."

Geary checked the identification of the message and confirmed his suspicions. It had sounded like Captain Midea of Paladin, and it was. "We will accelerate prior to contact with the Syndics. I will order that and any formation changes at the appropriate times."

"She's going to ask what the appropriate times are," Desjani murmured.

"This is Paladin," another message came in on the heels of Desjani's prediction. "Clarify appropriate times."

Geary fought down a blistering reply. "The appropriate times will be when I issue the orders, Paladin." He shook his head, addressing Desjani again. "Midea's not that stupid, is she?"

"I don't think so," Desjani temporized.

"Then surely she knows I have to base my actions on what the enemy is doing. I won't know when to do what until we get closer to actual contact and see what formation they're in and how fast they're coming at us and any last-minute maneuvers they try."

"That's true, sir, but I only know that because you've taught me that," Desjani replied. "Our tactics were much simpler before you a.s.sumed command."

That was something of an understatement. With trained and experienced officer ranks repeatedly decimated by battles that increasingly resembled bloodbaths, knowledge of how to maneuver effectively, taking into account distances and time delays, had died along with those officers. After a hundred years, Geary had found tactics consisted of charging straight at the enemy again and again until one side or the other had been bludgeoned into retreat or destruction. "I hope you're not the only one learning that," he commented to Desjani.

"Of course not, sir."

Geary's eyes went back to the display, where Syndic Flotilla Bravo kept accelerating toward the Alliance fleet. Hopefully they hadn't learned too much from watching Geary's own battles.

As time pa.s.sed it became apparent that while the Syndics might have learned a few things, they hadn't learned enough. They were coming at the Alliance fleet in the same rectangular box formation they'd been in since arriving in Lakota, one broad side now facing toward the Alliance as if the box were sliding sideways and down at the opposing fleet.

Geary nodded, then spotted Desjani and the watch-standers within his view smiling as they watched him. That was when he realized he was smiling, too. "We'll hold this formation. No, I'll make one modification."

The Alliance fleet had remained in the five coin-shaped subformations in which it had entered Lakota. Currently, the five coins all faced forward, aimed just as surely for the Syndic formation as the enemy was aimed at them, though Formation Echo Five Five with the damaged ships and auxiliaries was behind the main body in Echo Five Four. Geary played with the maneuvering systems to come up with the right orders, then transmitted them. "All units in Echo Five Five, increase speed to merge with Formation Echo Five Four and take up positions as indicated."

Desjani looked intrigued, checking the orders herself. "You're sort of tacking the old Five Five onto the bottom edge of Five Four."

"Right."

"With the Seventh Battleship Division sticking below the edge of the old Five Four?" She smiled again. "I can't wait to see."

With over an hour remaining until contact, the fleets now about ten light-minutes apart, Geary watched the ships of Echo Five Five slowly overtake their comrades and a.s.sume their new positions. He knew the Syndics would see the maneuver in about ten minutes and probably not worry about it since it still left the main part of the Alliance fleet and the single Syndic box on collision courses.

With half an hour until contact, Geary called out orders again. "Formations Echo Five Two and Echo Five Three"-the two coins to either side of the main body-"pivot formations on vertical axis at nine zero degrees at time five zero. Simultaneously roll formations on horizontal axis four five degrees so leading edges of your formations slant toward Echo Five Four." He couldn't have given those orders if human beings had been required to execute them. It would have simply been too complex to have that many ships swinging to new positions in both vertical and horizontal axes at the same time, even though the maneuvering systems were providing an exact picture of what Geary intended to every ship.

"Formations Echo Five One and Echo Five Four," Geary continued, "pivot formations nine zero degrees forward on horizontal axis at time five zero."

The maneuvers unfolded like an insanely complicated dance number in three dimensions, the coins of the Alliance formation shifting so that the leading thin edges of the vanguard and the main body were now pointing at the oncoming Syndics, while the two flanking formations hung off to either side, their thin edges also forward but sloping away from the main body. There was a weird beauty to watching hundreds of ships engage in such an intricate ballet.

The maneuvers were completed at fifteen minutes to contact. "The Syndics will be seeing us changing formation," Desjani noted.

"Right." Geary sat watching the display, gauging the right moment for the next move. The Syndics would see whatever he did at increasingly smaller delays, so he had to time his moves to make the Syndics react at the right times and in the wrong ways. They'd watch his first movements and not see any need to alter their course or formation, but that was about to change.

The Syndics were now only two light-minutes away, a little over twelve minutes to contact at a combined closing speed of point one seven light speed. "All units, increase speed to point one light at time one five. All formations, alter base course up zero five degrees at time one five."

The Alliance fleet accelerated and pivoted, the coins angling upward. Desjani grinned fiercely. "I get it! But their commander will see it in time to react."

"I'm counting on that." Geary paused, counting the seconds, depending on instinct for the timing of the next maneuver, watching the position of the Syndics relative to his own ships. "All formations, alter base course up one zero degrees, starboard zero one degrees at time one nine."

A minute later, Geary saw the Syndics reacting to his earlier maneuvers, pivoting their box upward so it would meet the Alliance main body head-on again, the two groups of ships pa.s.sing through each other at a slight angle and a combined closing speed now just under point two light. Any faster, and relativistic distortion would seriously complicate the task of seeing where the enemy ships actually were, but below point two light, the combat systems should be able to compensate for velocities that literally changed the way the outside universe looked.

Unfortunately for the Syndics, Geary's second turn upward changed the angle of the engagement again, this time so close to the time of contact that the Syndic commander didn't have time to see it and react. "All units, engage by squadrons and divisions with grapeshot and h.e.l.l lances as targets enter engagement envelopes. Open fire when in range." The order would ensure each squadron or division of Alliance ships targeted a single enemy ship, increasing the chances of getting enough hits during the instant in which the fleets would be close enough to fire on each other.

"Enemy missiles and grapeshot pa.s.sing beneath us," the combat system watch reported gleefully as the Syndic barrage went where the Alliance fleet had been expected to be.

Then the moment of contact came and pa.s.sed. If human eyes and nervous systems were able to react quickly enough to perceive it, they would have seen the flat surfaces of the Alliance vanguard and main body coins sliding across the upper leading edge of the Syndic box, concentrating their fire repeatedly on the relatively few enemy ships in and near the edge, while the Syndics could only fire back with those same few ships at Alliance warships flashing past one after another. The coins of the flanking Alliance formations slid past the upper corners of the Syndic box, their fire even more concentrated.

Geary blinked, wondering if he'd actually seen the flashes of weapons fire and hits during the fraction of a second in which the automated combat systems aimed and fired far faster than humans could have managed. As the Syndics and Alliance warships diverged now, watch-standers were calling out damage a.s.sessments on the enemy and damage reports from Alliance ships.

"We hurt them," Desjani noted.

On the display, the remnants of two Syndic battle cruisers were falling away from the rest of the Syndic fleet, joined by the tumbling wrecks of a battleship, five heavy cruisers, and numerous broken light cruisers and HuKs. The escort forces on the upper edge of the Syndic formation had been virtually wiped out. Hits had been scored on other Syndic ships, but none critical.

On the Alliance side, shields had been stressed and a few lighter units had taken hits. Thankfully, all of them could still keep up with the fleet.

Geary nodded, giving orders he'd already prepared. "All formations, alter base course up one two zero degrees at time two four." Less than a minute later, the Alliance formations rose up and over, bending into a partial C curve and inverting from their previous orientation.

As Geary had expected, the Syndics, making their own attempt to swing back into contact, had also come up and over in a mirror image of the Alliance maneuver. Since the two fleets were turning together, the result was to once again bring the Alliance formations across a single edge of the Syndic box, this time the bottom leading edge. Unfortunately for the Syndic warships that had been in the upper leading edge of their box formation and taken the brunt of the first Alliance firing pa.s.s, they were now on the bottom leading edge as the Syndic formation also inverted when it came around.

Once again the Alliance formations tore across the single edge and its corners of the Syndic formation, and once again the local superiority of firepower that created hurt the Syndics far more than they could hit back at the Alliance ships.

"Two more Syndic battleships!" Desjani exulted. "And another of their battle cruisers dead!"

"We took more hits that time, too." Two destroyers, a.s.segai and Rapier, had lost their weapons but remained able to maneuver. Several light cruisers and a heavy cruiser had been battered, and a few shots had gotten through to some of the Alliance battle cruisers. Even as Geary gave his next orders, his eyes were watching one of those battle cruisers. "All formations turn down nine zero degrees at time three five." The Alliance fleet began bending into a full S curve as the Syndics turned into them again as well.

But one of the Alliance battle cruisers didn't follow the maneuver, sliding out of the formation on a slowly twisting path that would take it across the path of the Syndic formation. "What happened to Renown?" Geary demanded.

A watch-stander rapidly called up a re-creation of the last firing pa.s.s, playing it back slowly enough for human senses to observe. The Syndics had known the Alliance fleet's path accurately this time and placed their grapeshot barrage in the right places. Renown, closest to the enemy on her side of one of the flanking formations, had caught several volleys, which had collapsed her forward shields. As combat systems automatically shifted power from the stern and beam shields, Syndic missiles had veered in on intercepts that came up Renown's stern. The first three missiles had broken Renown's weakened stern shields, then three more had totally taken out her main propulsion systems.

Under the impacts of the Syndic hits, Renown fell back and off to the side as she lost the ability to stay with the Alliance formation.

A single battle cruiser, no longer able to use the speed that was supposed to compensate for her weaker shields and armor, no longer surrounded by the protection of her comrades.

"Renown reports estimated time to regain limited main propulsion is three zero minutes," the combat watch reported.

No one needed the maneuvering systems estimates to know that Renown wouldn't have thirty minutes. The Syndic formation would sweep over her in only about ten more minutes.

Geary breathed a prayer. Get the fleet around, get his ships turned so he could get back to the battle cruiser before the Syndics. He couldn't possibly do it. Physics wouldn't allow it.

"What's Paladin doing?" Desjani wondered aloud.

Geary's eyes jerked that way. At the very rear of the main body now, Paladin had seen Renown take hits to her propulsion system and had time to react. Now the battleship was arcing around in a turn so tight the inertial dampers on her must be screaming in protest.

He couldn't take the entire fleet in that tight a turn. The units at the edges of his formations had a lot farther to travel to make the turns than those near the center as the turns pivoted the ships around the formations' central axes. The only way to try to match what Paladin was doing was to let his formations dissolve, which would be a prescription for disaster when the Syndics were still holding their formation.

"Paladin," Geary ordered in a harsh voice, "return to your position in the formation immediately." He had to adjust his own fleet's course as it curved down to match a slight slide to one side by the Syndics. "All formations, come right zero two degrees, time four one."

"What can we do?" Rione asked from the rear of the bridge, her voice not demanding but pleading.

Geary didn't have to ask to know the question was about Renown. "Nothing," he replied in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "If I let this formation fall apart, we still probably won't get enough ships there in time to save her, and we'd definitely end up losing a lot more ships than Renown."

"Renown reports she has ordered all nonessential personnel to escape pods," Dauntless's combat watch reported.

Geary nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He'd given the same order, a hundred years ago, a few months ago to him, at Grendel.

Desjani gave him an anguished look but said nothing.

Paladin kept coming around in a turn clearly aimed now at Renown as the rest of the Alliance fleet bent into its own down and over maneuver, turning as one to reverse the course of all of its ships except Renown and Paladin.