“Up to a certain point,” Rione explained patiently, though with an amused glance at Desjani’s discomfort. “Anyone below the rank of CEO had better do as they’re told and not make waves. But once someone reaches CEO level, the knives come out. Among Syndic CEOs, it’s constant political jockeying for position and higher-level assignments, culminating in those who manage to scheme, backslap, and backstab their way to the Executive Council.”

“It doesn’t sound all that different from our politicians,” Desjani murmured as if to herself, yet loudly enough that Rione probably heard it.

But Rione just smiled coldly as she kept her eyes on Geary. “The CEO who can take credit for killing you will be on a fast track for that Executive Council. Small wonder the two surviving CEOs with the Syndic flotilla wasted precious time fighting for the post of commander. Contrary to what that Syndic sailor thought, they most likely weren’t arguing with each other but each trying to convince the flotilla’s commanding officers that existing orders and regulations meant that he or she should assume command of the flotilla. Those commanding officers would have been terrified of agreeing to follow the orders of someone without good bureaucratic justification that would allow them to claim they’d had no alternative.”

“Not the same as this fleet at all, then,” Geary observed. The Alliance fleet had looked for a leader after Admiral Bloch died, while the Syndic flotilla had tried to agree on what the regulations said. If the fleet had simply bowed to regulations, his own status as commander never would have been questioned since his seniority as a captain dated from a century ago when he received his “posthumous” promotion, considerably earlier by many decades than any other captain in the fleet could claim. But it was easy to imagine that the other problems ship commanders frightened of breaking the rules would have created would have more than balanced out the scales. “We lucked out, and it bought us at least four hours of delay in the Syndic pursuit, maybe more.”

“We didn’t ‘luck out,’ sir,” Desjani objected. “You aimed our first attack on the Syndic formation at the point where you thought their flagship would be.”

Rione spoke pointedly to Geary. “Don’t forget that whoever is commanding the Syndic ships left here is the CEO who lost that dispute over who’d be in command of the pursuit force. That may influence how they’re reacting to this fleet now.”

“Good point,” Geary agreed. “But how will it influence that CEO?”

“Whatever happens here is the fault of the CEO who assumed overall command and took off with the pursuit force. They wanted the command so they could gain the credit, but now it will position them to receive the blame. When that force gets back to Lakota, their CEO is going to be frantic to deal us a serious enough blow to make up for what you’ve done here.”

At least four hours. The tense muscles in Geary’s back relaxed a bit.

His fleet could do a lot of damage with a four-hour head start.

THREE

THREE more Syndic light cruisers were torn apart, then the major elements of the Alliance fleet converged on the Syndic Casualty Flotilla. A new swarm of escape pods marked many of the remaining crew members on the crippled Syndic warships without any combat capability abandoning their vessels. With the Casualty Flotilla inching away from its Alliance attackers, the engagement speed was a relatively slow point one light speed, or a mere thirty thousand kilometers per second. Fleet engagements often involved ships crossing paths at combined speeds of close to point two light speed, the limit beyond which targeting systems could not effectively adjust for relativistic effects, which warped the outside view of the universe.

As it was, even at point one light speed a firing pass came down to a mere fraction of a second in which weapons were in range, automated systems aiming and firing since human senses couldn’t possibly react quickly enough.

The First and Seventh Battle Cruiser Divisions, totaling only three warships each, roared into range first. The Alliance ships were all approaching from behind and slightly above the big, flattened sphere of the Syndic formation. The sphere was a lousy combat formation but had probably been chosen as the most efficient for repair work. With the remaining Syndic ships in the Casualty Flotilla unable to maneuver, the Alliance warships could safely cut through the Syndic formation to attack any ship within it. Captain Duellos’s Courageous led Formidable and Intrepid in a close pass over the single Syndic battleship in the formation that had been able to charge up some weapons. Normally a battleship could have slugged it out with three battle cruisers for some time, but in this case the damaged battleship had many systems only half-repaired. Its shields were spotty, its armor still had many penetrations unsealed, and most of its weapons were inoperable. The Alliance battle cruisers unleashed a devastating barrage as they tore past, hell lances aimed to knock out anything still working on the battleship.

As Duellos’s battle cruisers raced onward, Opportune, Brilliant, and Inspire targeted one of the Syndic battle cruisers and a nearby heavy cruiser, which had managed to get some weapons working. A flurry of hits left both Syndic warships totally disabled as the Seventh Battle Cruiser Division followed Duellos’s ships toward the crippled battle cruiser that had earlier left the Casualty Flotilla and was trying to join up with the two Syndic battleships charging on their futile mission to protect the damaged ships.

Several minutes later, Captain Tulev’s Leviathan led his battle cruisers to knock out two more heavy cruisers and finish off the surviving weapons on the battleship.

Captain Desjani had slipped into her targeting mode, her eyes locked on her display as Dauntless, Daring, and Victorious closed the distance to the remaining Syndic Casualty Flotilla battle cruiser that still had working weapons. “Dauntless and Daring target weapons, Victorious target other working systems,” she ordered.

The big Syndic formation flashed past too quickly for Geary’s senses to register anything, but the display updated rapidly as the fleet’s sensors evaluated the results of the firing pass. The Syndic battle cruiser was tagged with a mission-kill marker, all systems taken out, as Dauntless’s watch-standers called out the results of the enemy’s weak defensive fire. “One hell-lance hit on forward shields. No damage. Daring reports two hits, no damage. Victorious reports no hits.”

“It’s too easy,” Desjani grumbled.

“You’ll get a decent fight out of those two battleships up ahead,” Geary assured her.

“That’s right.” Desjani brightened up, focusing on her ship’s next targets.

About five minutes later, the Sixth Battle Cruiser Division hit the Syndic Casualty Flotilla. Captain Badaya only had Illustrious and Incredible surviving in his division, but that was more than enough to handle the two injured Syndic heavy cruisers, which were the only warships in the Casualty Flotilla that still had any working weapons. As the last two Alliance battle cruisers smashed the Syndic heavy cruisers, a final burst of escape pods erupted from Syndic warships throughout the Casualty Flotilla, marking the last crew members abandoning their ships now that all hope of resistance was gone.

“They’re not blowing up their ships, either,” Rione observed.

“No,” Geary agreed. “Same logic as with the repair ships. The Syndics own this star system and know we’ll have to leave, so they’re hoping to salvage those ships afterward if we don’t have a chance to destroy them. We’ll have to make sure they can’t do that.”