“No, sir. The highest-ranking officer on one of the pods is a Lieutenant Rana, who is badly wounded.”

He felt curiously detached as he saw the symbols of the escape pods racing away from Warrior, his mind numb after all of the other losses this day. Escape pods were designed to boost rapidly away from their ship on the assumption that distance would be critical, and in this case that was certainly true. “How much longer until the escape pods are outside the estimated danger zone for Warrior’s power-core blast radius? ”

“Five minutes, sir. That’s the estimate based on the known state of Warrior’s power core and the readings we’re picking up on it.”

Seven minutes later, with the destroyers of the Twentieth Squadron still sixteen minutes away, Geary watched the image of Warrior blossom into an irregular sphere of light and debris. He confirmed that the escape pods were far enough outside the blast area to be able to ride out the shock wave, then closed his eyes, took a long, slow breath, and called Gavelock. “Lieutenant Commander Pastak, please alter your mission to recovery of the escape pods from Warrior. They were close enough to the core overload that many probably received some damage. Thank you, thank all of your ships, for your efforts.”

Pastak’s somber acknowledgment came a few minutes later, then Geary leaned back and closed his eyes again. “Sir?” Desjani whispered. He shook his head, denying any conversation. After a moment, her hand closed over his wrist and squeezed tightly for a second in wordless comfort before being withdrawn. She knew how he felt, and somehow that made it a little easier to bear.

FIVE

GEARY sighed as the tensions of worrying about the upcoming battle were replaced by the pains of dealing with the aftermath of that engagement. He felt incredibly weary, as though he had been on the bridge of Dauntless for most of a week instead of most of a day.

“The Syndic guard force is still about thirty light-minutes from the hypernet gate,” Desjani reported, her own voice tired. “If they keep up their speed, they’ll reach it in about four and a half hours.”

“Fine.” Geary rubbed his eyes, then looked back at his display. That Syndic guard force was now almost two light-hours away from the Alliance fleet. If it had been a lot, lot closer, he might have had to worry about a suicide charge against Dauntless or the auxiliaries, but at this distance the Syndics would take almost a day to get here after they started such a charge. “I guess we can decide what to do about them later.”

There didn’t seem to be much to worry about for the moment. The guard force was clearly going to stick close to the hypernet gate, just as it had last time the Alliance fleet was here, and that gate lay about two and a half light-hours off to port of the Alliance fleet. The habitable world that Lakota boasted was orbiting on the opposite side of its star from the Alliance fleet, almost two and a quarter light-hours to starboard. The Syndic military assets there wouldn’t be any threat unless the Alliance fleet came close to that world, and Geary had no intention of doing that.

Otherwise, the Syndic presence here seemed rapidly to be going to ground as the light from the latest engagement reached different parts of Lakota Star System. Merchant ships were fleeing for whatever sanctuary they could find, and colonies and mining operations on outer planets were shutting down equipment as they sent their populace to whatever shelters existed. Accustomed to having Alliance forces bombard Syndic worlds, the people in the system expected the worst from the victorious fleet. It wasn’t going to happen, but Geary didn’t feel like explaining that to them at the moment.

All around Dauntless, the now-widely dispersed ships of the Alliance fleet were making emergency battle repairs and running down Syndic warships knocked out but not destroyed in the battle, to ensure that their power cores were overloaded. Nothing was to be left for the Syndics to salvage. Shuttles flew between Alliance ships, carrying critically needed replacement parts for those warships requiring them. Destroyers and light cruisers darted around, finding and picking up every Alliance escape pod ejected by ships lost during the battle. Geary had already heard of one such pod, containing sailors who had abandoned the battleship Indefatigable during the first engagement in Lakota Star System weeks ago, been captured by the Syndics and taken to the wreck of Audacious, been liberated by Alliance Marines earlier today and taken to the heavy cruiser Fascine, then had to abandon Fascine when the heavy cruiser was shot up, and finally been rescued again by the light cruiser Tsuba. He wondered if those sailors regarded themselves as lucky or unlucky, and whether or not they were worried by the fact that they’d kept ending up on progressively smaller warships.

Rione stood up with her own heavy sigh. “I need to check on a few things. Let me know if you need me,” she told Geary.

Needing her could mean a number of different things. The ambiguity of the phrase made him wonder if Rione had decided it was time for them to share a physical relationship again. Then Geary spotted Desjani’s teeth clenching for a moment, her eyes rigidly fixed on her display before she relaxed herself. Apparently Desjani had interpreted the phrase the same way and hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t noticed that kind of reaction from her before and wondered if Desjani was more worried about Rione’s influence on him than he had realized.

He could scarcely discuss that now, though, so Geary turned toward Rione and shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Get some rest.”

“That’s not too likely, but I’ll try.”

Desjani visibly relaxed after Rione had left. “You should get some rest, too, sir.”

“There’s a lot of after-battle mess to clean up,” Geary replied.

“We can handle that. You’ve already ordered our ships to return to their places in Fleet Formation Delta Two once they finish their postbattle operations. They can do that without you watching them. Even Orion and Conqueror can carry out tasks reliably if they’re not being shot at.”

“Yeah, I guess they can.” Geary stood, surprised by how unsteady on his feet he felt. “Are you going to get any rest?”

Desjani shrugged apologetically. “I’m the captain of Dauntless, sir.”

“And captains of warships never get to rest.” He hesitated, then asked the question he had wanted to avoid. “How many did Dauntless lose?”

She took a deep breath, then answered in a steady voice. “Twelve. We were lucky. Another nineteen wounded, two critically.”

“I’m sorry.” Geary rubbed his forehead, meaningless phrases about honoring their sacrifices rolling through his brain. Twelve more sailors who would never again see Alliance space, never again see their homes, families, and loved ones. Twelve more just on this lightly damaged ship. Multiply that across the fleet, and the great victory suddenly felt even less worthy of celebration.

Maybe Desjani felt the same. As if reading his mind, she shook her head. “I guess we’re all a little shell-shocked, sir. Tomorrow I’ll be able to appreciate what we did here. Right now I’m just trying to keep going.”

“You and me both.” He frowned down at the deck. “What was I doing?”

“Rest, sir,” Desjani prodded.

“If you can remember that, you’re in better shape than I am. I’ll be back up here in a little while.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me in an hour or so.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I mean it, Captain Desjani.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left the bridge, somehow certain that Desjani had decided that she wouldn’t actually call him unless another emergency erupted but too tired to debate the issue any longer.