Between the four auxiliaries and the Syndic pursuit force, the four battleships and Cresida’s two battle cruisers accelerated as well, maintaining their relative positions for now. Around them, the two heavy cruisers, twenty light cruisers, and destroyers also serving as escorts kept their speed down and held their position on the Alliance auxiliaries, too.

Geary felt an odd pang of regret as he watched the Alliance ships leaving the deserted ships of the Casualty Flotilla behind, the wreck of Audacious near the center of the formation seeming to protest this latest abandonment. Don’t worry, lady. We’re not giving you back to the Syndics. They’ll discover that you’ve got one punch left in you.

As the auxiliaries cleared the Syndic ships making up the Casualty Flotilla and altered course, Titan began lagging and Goblin fell back to stay with her. “Titan’s acting as if she’s lost a main propulsion unit,” Desjani reported.

Given Titan’s record for suffering damage, Geary still felt a worry that the loss of a propulsion unit was real and not simulated, even though he already knew what the two auxiliaries were doing. “Nice job. It looks just like a real loss of propulsion capability, and along with Goblin, she’s making sure the Syndic intercept path remains centered through the Casualty Flotilla.”

“Warrior is falling back to stay with Titan and Goblin.” Desjani didn’t point out the obvious, that Conqueror, Majestic, and Orion had kept accelerating along with Witch and Jinn, putting them in a marginally safer position.

Geary thought through a number of comments or orders he could direct at the commanding officers of Conqueror, Majestic, and Orion, rejecting almost all of them as unprofessional even though venting them would have made him feel better. Tapping his controls, he called the battleships on a frequency the entire fleet could hear. “Conqueror, Majestic, and Orion, the fast fleet auxiliaries Titan and Goblin are deliberately putting themselves into greater danger and can use all of the close support available. Close on Warrior and assist her in defending Titan and Goblin.” If that didn’t shame the three battleships into doing their duty, at least he’d finally have unquestionable grounds for relieving their commanding officers. But he had a feeling that even such difficult subordinates as Captain Casia and Commander Yin would be more afraid of the contempt of their fellow officers than they would be of the Syndics, and so would feel forced to fall back to help cover Titan and Goblin.

“Where are those heavy cruisers going?” Rione asked.

Geary knew she had to mean Ichcahuipilli and Rondelle, which were now accelerating away from Cresida’s battle cruisers Implacable and Furious as well as the Syndics. “They’ve been ordered to get clear because they’re packed with as many of the wounded prisoners liberated from Audacious as they can carry,” he told her.

“Getting them to obey that order must have taken some work.”

“Yeah. They didn’t want to avoid the fight, and neither did the wounded aboard them.”

“We’re seeing some vector changes on Conqueror, Orion, and Majestic,” Desjani remarked. “Looks like they are finally dropping back toward Titan and Goblin.”

Rione came close to Geary and spoke again, her voice low. “Can this fleet make it back if we save Witch and Jinn but lose Titan and Goblin?”

“If it comes to that, it’ll have to,” Geary replied with an outward confidence he didn’t feel. All of the tactical success in the galaxy wouldn’t save this fleet if it ran out of fuel cells. At best, he might end up having to decide which warships to abandon in the hope that the remainder could make it through to Alliance space.

Rione gazed back at him as if she had read his thoughts, then nodded and returned to her seat.

After a few moments, Captain Desjani spoke, her eyes on her display. “I wonder what it would be like on one of those auxiliaries, seeing that big Syndic flotilla heading for you, knowing that you had limited propulsion and maneuvering ability, limited defensive capability, and no real means of attack.” She glanced over at Geary. “We look down on the auxiliaries and their crews, those of us in the warships, but it must take a great deal of courage to go to battle in ships like that.” He nodded in agreement. “I’ll take a battle cruiser any day,” Desjani concluded, “but I owe those auxiliaries sailors some drinks when we get back.”

“We can send over some cases paid for by the wardroom on Dauntless, Captain,” Lieutenant Nicodeom suggested. “We’ll all be happy to pitch in.”

“Yes,” Desjani agreed. “Remind me to do that, Lieutenant.”

After the long, apparently slow approach of the Syndic pursuit force, the battle was reaching the point where events would begin happening with stunning speed. Even at point one light speed, the vast distances inside a typical star system took time to cover. But once ships traveling those velocities got close enough to their objectives, the remaining intervals seemed to vanish in the blink of an eye, which in fact they did. Human senses and reactions were made to deal with things moving at tens of kilometers per hour, not intercepts occurring at thousands of kilometers per second.

Geary took long, slow breaths, his own gaze fixed on the display. The Alliance fleet subformations, each built around one or two divisions of battleships or battle cruisers, remained scattered in the Big Ugly Ball formation. Captain Cresida’s escort force, the four battleships, the other escorts, and the auxiliaries were at the back and bottom of the bubble. The flattened sphere of the Syndic Casualty Flotilla hung behind the fleeing auxiliaries, its aspect gradually tilting upward relative to the Alliance ships as they headed slightly downward in relation to it.

The surprise they had rigged in the Casualty Flotilla would hopefully substantially even the odds, but to ensure the success of that it was necessary to keep the Syndic attack focused on a line running through that flotilla. The scattered, irregular formation of the Alliance fleet made it hard for the enemy to identify a main axis of striking power to counter, which would have also offered an alternate target for the enemy attack. The Big Ugly Ball also had the virtue of appearing to show a fleet barely held together and ready to fall apart. To the Syndics, who as far as Geary could tell still judged military effectiveness by how precisely everyone maintained position and kept their ranks and files lined up perfectly, the Alliance fleet would look sloppy and therefore less of a threat than it really was.

As the Syndics drew closer, he’d concentrate his forces toward the auxiliaries, timing the movements of each formation to arrive close together. His battle cruiser subformations were farthest forward on the Big Ugly Ball, and therefore farthest from the enemy, so he’d have to turn them first and aim them to intercept the Syndic pursuit force. Fortunately, the sort of aggressive move being initiated by the battle cruisers was exactly what the Syndics would expect to see.

If the surprise worked, his concentrated forces would be able to hit the Syndics hard and at roughly the same time from multiple angles. If the surprise didn’t work… then his subformations would have to make repeated fast firing runs on the edges of the Syndic box, avoiding offering a single strong formation for the Syndics to focus an attack on and hopefully wearing down the enemy before the Alliance ships took too much damage themselves and exhausted their fuel cells on all of those fast attacks. The chances of that working were slim to none, but it beat any alternatives that Geary had been able to come up with.