Geary shook his head. “Nova, Captain Desjani,” he stated very softly for only her ears. Desjani grimaced and nodded. According to the best estimates they had, the energy output released by a collapsing hypernet gate could vary from effectively nothing to something equaling a nova, an exploding star. No ship could survive that, or outrun it. “No, the gate isn’t a realistic goal.”

He hadn’t told her yet that the Alliance fleet might have its destination changed once within the Syndic hypernet system, hadn’t told any of his ship captains. That would have to change. Some of his other officers, including Desjani, needed to know that they had other enemies besides the Syndics actively working against them. “We’ve only got a short time to do a lot before the Syndic pursuit force gets here from Ixion. We need to overwhelm that big force of crippled ships and auxiliaries, take out as many other Syndic ships as we can, get our own auxiliaries in to loot the Syndic repair ships, protect our auxiliaries from any desperate Syndic counterstroke, and, uh…”

“That sounds like enough to start,” Desjani observed.

His fleet, a disordered mass of ships, was “climbing” up between the Syndic minefield and the jump point behind them, still moving at only point zero five light speed. There wasn’t any actual up or down in space, of course, but humans needed those concepts to orient themselves. By long-standing convention, the direction above the plane of the star system was up, the direction beneath it down, toward the sun was starboard (or starward), and away from the sun was port. Those conventions were the only way he could give an order to all of his ships and have them understand what he meant.

By the time the fleet reached a place where it could accelerate back “down” and toward the enemy, orders had to be in place for them, telling each ship where to go. He had to set everything up on the fly, with every moment critical. If only he didn’t have to do so much himself… Why the hell did he need to do so much himself? Why not trust an officer he knew was good at her business and had been watching him work for months now? “Captain Desjani, would you set up the maneuvering plan for the destroyers and light cruisers while I take care of the heavies? We’ll need to have our boarding parties able to reach as many of the Syndic repair ships as possible at about the same time.”

Desjani’s face lit up and she nodded without hesitation. “I’m on it, sir. I’ll link our maneuvering displays so we’re coordinating movements as we lay them out.” She leaned forward and studied her display, then her hands began flying across her controls.

Focusing on his own display, Geary tried to sort out where his heavy cruisers, battleships, and battle cruisers were, where he needed them to go, and when he needed them to be there. His divisions were scrambled, further complicating the situation, and many ships still had limited combat capabilities from damage sustained the last time they were in Lakota. Practically all of them were back at full propulsion capability, but even with his experience with choreographing the movements of ships, he never could have sorted out the mess in the time available if not for the way the maneuvering systems provided simple intercept solutions as fast as he could designate a ship and an objective. While he did that, solutions appeared for light cruisers and destroyers as well, reflecting Desjani’s work, and he found himself adapting to her inputs even as she adapted to his.

“Audacious is with that big group of Syndic repair ships and damaged warships,” Desjani noted quickly. “What’s left of her, anyway.”

What was left of Audacious wasn’t much, Geary saw as he focused on the derelict. His fleet’s optic sensors were sensitive enough to track small objects across the length of a star system and could easily provide a sharp image of something only ten light-minutes distant. With all of its command, control, and combat systems dead, and its hull shape distorted by massive damage, the hulk hadn’t registered immediately on the fleet’s sensors as a friendly warship. The Alliance battleship, one of the three that had formed a rear guard as the fleet escaped Lakota, had been pounded badly. Her heavily armored hull had taken so many hits that it looked like sheet metal that had been pelted by acid rain and left to disintegrate. Either during the battle or afterward, every weapon on Audacious seemed to have been destroyed, and not a single propulsion unit was apparently capable of any thrust. But the Syndics were towing the hulk along with them. “What are they doing? Why have they got Audacious with them?”

Desjani frowned, then her expression cleared. “Prison barracks. See? There’s heat and atmosphere leaking out, which means the Syndics have patched some compartments and kept life support up. I’d be willing to bet that Audacious is full of Alliance prisoners of war. They’re probably using them for the heavy labor on those Syndic ships that need repair.”

“Damn.” Adjust the plan. They’d have to take what was left of the broken Alliance battleship, too, before… “Tanya, would they blow the power core on Audacious?”

She nodded, her face grim. “We’ve done it. They’ve done it. They’re surely already preparing to do it again.”

Nothing to lose, then. One of his greatest shocks had been seeing Alliance fleet personnel preparing to cold-bloodedly murder prisoners of war by blowing up their captured ship with them still aboard. This fleet, his fleet, would no longer do such a thing, but the Syndics hadn’t had any such change of heart that Geary knew of. He need have no fear of putting a thought into the Syndics’ heads that hadn’t already occurred to them. Geary paused in his work and tapped the communications controls. “All Syndicate Worlds’ personnel in Lakota Star System, this is Captain John Geary, the Alliance fleet commander. Be advised that if the Alliance prisoners of war on the battleship Audacious or on any other ship or location are murdered by core overload or other atrocity, I will ensure that every Syndicate Worlds’ ship, shuttle, and escape pod in this star system is destroyed. Leave our prisoners alive, and I swear on my ancestors’ honor that you’ll be allowed to escape. Kill our prisoners, and I promise just as strongly that you will die as painful a death as I can arrange.” It would take about ten minutes for that message to arrive at the Syndic formation containing Audacious, soon after the Syndics there saw the light announcing the arrival of the Alliance fleet. Hopefully that would be soon enough.

“That should get their attention,” Desjani muttered, her eyes on her display again, her hands racing over the controls.

Geary refocused on his own task, now ensuring he had the remains of Audacious covered as well. The task seemed to take forever, great curves arching across the maneuvering display in an interleaving and intricate dance, even though he knew it was taking only seconds to plan the movements of numerous ships.

“Got it,” Desjani gasped.

Tagging a last heavy cruiser and reading the maneuvering solution the system generated, Geary nodded. “Me, too. Double-check our work while I go over it, too, okay? Make sure we’ve got the heavies and the lighter ships coordinated enough to support each other where needed.”

“Halfway done, sir.”

He ran his eyes across his and Desjani’s work, seeing the graceful arcs of projected ship courses streaking across space, the whole thing forming a picture of beauty that belied the deadly purpose behind it. The movements of the destroyers and cruisers didn’t match the courses with the heavier ships perfectly, but everything worked and could be cleaned up in the time needed to close to contact with the enemy. He’d wondered if Desjani would just throw ships at the enemy, but she’d coordinated every movement so warships were working together in improvised formations that tried to maximize the combat capability of each ship. Clearly Desjani had not just been watching Geary control this fleet, but also learning from watching. Taken together, their work made the most of the current state of the fleet by dividing the bulk of it into about twelve subformations, each centered on at least one battle cruiser or battleship division. “Looks good. Looks very good.”