The Lost Fleet - Courageous Part 11

Did she truly want him, or was she willing to do whatever it took to be able to act if the time came, or was she hitching herself firmly to his power, an amoral politician ensuring she'd be the consort of the possible future ruler of the Alliance?

Victoria Rione stood up, her clothing falling down around her feet, then walked across the short distance separating them and molded herself against his body. As her lips met his, Geary realized that at some level he didn't care what the answer was as long as she was in his bed again. As she pushed him down and straddled his body, he realized he didn't care if she had a knife in her free hand at that very moment.

"ALL s.h.i.+ps prepare to jump." The star Daiquon wasn't much more than a bright point of light to the naked eye now. The fleet had been in Formation Kilo One for days now, ready for anything when they arrived at Ixion. Or so he hoped.

Victoria Rione was in the observer's chair on the bridge of Dauntless again, watching the action as if there had never been an interval in which she avoided the bridge. Desjani had greeted Rione politely but with what Geary thought was an undercurrent of worry. For Rione's part, Geary had suspected he caught a gleam of triumph in her eyes as she acknowledged Desjani's welcome. But that was certainly just his imagination, wrought to a fever pitch by worries about what awaited them at Ixion.

"All units in the Alliance fleet, upon arrival at Ixion, immediately execute all preordered maneuvers and engage any enemy wars.h.i.+ps within range. Jump for Ixion now."

SLIGHTLY less than four days in jump s.p.a.ce to Ixion. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but Geary found himself increasingly unhappy with the intervals in jump s.p.a.ce. Given the risks they were running, he wished going to Ixion were bringing them closer to Alliance s.p.a.ce than it was. Instead of offering a chance to rest and think without the pressure of an immediate Syndic threat, the jump s.p.a.ce time felt more and more like wasted periods, the hours and days dragging by while nothing changed outside the s.h.i.+p. Nothing ever had changed outside a s.h.i.+p in jump s.p.a.ce, of course, but now that bothered him. He wanted to do something. Confront the Syndics, beat them once and for all in battle, find out the truth about the alien intelligences he and Rione suspected lurked on the other side of Syndic s.p.a.ce, and end this d.a.m.ned war.

The fact that he had no chance of actually accomplis.h.i.+ng those things even in real s.p.a.ce didn't seem to make a difference to the frustration he felt. And he was coming to recognize that in jump s.p.a.ce he had more dreams about the past, dreams with people he had known who were now long dead. It wasn't pleasant to wake up from a dream holding a conversation with an old friend and realize the old friend would never speak with him again. Not in this life, anyway.

At least he didn't have to spend this interval in jump s.p.a.ce making guilty and sporadic attempts to locate Victoria Rione to learn how she was doing. Rione came to his stateroom every evening and spent every night, her lovemaking seeming to mix pa.s.sion and desperation in equal measure. When not in bed with him, though, she continued to hide her innermost self, revealing neither pa.s.sion nor desperation nor anything else.

Geary distracted himself by running simulations, trying to guess what Ixion would hold, what the fleet would have to do there. But it was all guesswork, and only arrival at Ixion would reveal any answers.

GEARY tried to focus his attention on the display as the time to leave jump s.p.a.ce at Ixion approached. Right now all it showed was what had been in the obsolete Syndic records they had looted a dozen star systems ago. The data, several decades old, showed a relatively prosperous system with a nearly ideal planet holding a very respectable population and a lot of off-planet activity and facilities. The records, intended for use by merchant s.h.i.+ps, contained nothing about defense capabilities except various standard warnings to do exactly as told if contacted by military authorities.

"Is something wrong, sir?" Captain Desjani asked.

"Just wondering what's there," Geary confessed. "And wondering why a star system this well off didn't get a hypernet gate."

Victoria Rione answered from her position in the observer's chair, once again watching and listening to what happened on Dauntless's bridge. "It could have been politics. In the Alliance, many more planets wanted hypernet gates than there were funds to construct them, and past a certain point, the practical differences between worlds were very minor. Then it became a question of whose politicians could outmaneuver the others."

Desjani, her face turned away from Rione but visible to Geary, rolled her eyes in silent commentary on politicians. Geary managed to keep a straight face, nodding in such a way that Rione but hopefully not Desjani would read it as agreement.

"Stand by to exit jump," a watch-stander called. "Fiveafourathreeatwoaoneaexit."

Grayness was replaced by black s.p.a.ce and white stars, quiet by pulsing alarms as Dauntless's sensors picked up enemy wars.h.i.+ps nearby. Simultaneously, Geary felt himself pressed back as the battle cruiser's maneuvering systems executed the preplanned minefield evasion, shoving the bow upward and pus.h.i.+ng so hard with the main drives that the inertial dampers couldn't quite block all of the effects on s.h.i.+p and crew.

Next time, the Syndics might try placing the minefield above the jump exit. But this time Geary stretched his mouth in a fierce grin as he saw his fleet angling upward in as tight a turn as the s.h.i.+ps could manage at the fleet's velocity. Sensors doing full-spectrum scans of the s.p.a.ce around the fleet picked up the small anomalies that marked stealth mines and marked out a minefield along the path the fleet would have taken straight from the exit. Geary did a quick estimate in his head and decided that if the fleet had come through at a higher speed, it couldn't have turned in time to avoid the mines.

Ignoring the rest of the star system, he focused on the area within a few light-minutes of the jump exit. It took a moment to believe what he was seeing: the worst case he'd a.s.sumed wouldn't really happen in this form, even though he'd prepared for it. Just on the far side of the minefield, Syndic wars.h.i.+ps waited. Four battles.h.i.+ps and six battle cruisers, plus an even eight heavy cruisers but only three light cruisers and barely a dozen HuKs, in a concave-disk formation focused on the center of the jump exit. Anything coming through the minefield would have run right into those wars.h.i.+ps while s.h.i.+elds were still weakened, before damage could be completely a.s.sessed, let alone corrected. Buta "They're only a light-minute away and at dead stop relative to the jump exit," Desjani gasped in amazement.

"They've seen Captain Geary breaking the rules," Rione observed dryly.

Desjani shot Rione a look, then nodded. "The Syndic high command has seen new ways of fighting, but doesn't really understand them. Just as we wouldn't have understood what we were seeing if the Syndics had found a commander with knowledge of past fighting methods. Now the Syndics think the way to beat us is by doing similar things but pus.h.i.+ng them past the points they've seen the Alliance fleet using."

"You think that's what's happening?" Geary asked.

"I know it," Desjani stated. "We would have done the same. I'm sure of that. But they're missing the point if they go to extremes. It's one thing to be close to a jump exit so you can charge into and hit an exiting enemy after you've had time to size him up. It's another thing entirely to be too close to have time to react and without any relative speed advantage!"

"Yeah," Geary agreed, pleased that Desjani had not only a.n.a.lyzed the Syndic approach but had also displayed awareness of the weaknesses her own side might have had. "Our fleet has a speed advantage already. Not a lot, but with the two forces this close, no one has time to accelerate much before the opposing wars.h.i.+ps reach engagement range."

The leading boxes of s.h.i.+ps in the Alliance formation were clearing the top of the minefield. Geary saw the Syndics begin to accelerate and rotate their formation so that it would center on the leading units of his fleet, and he called out commands to frustrate the move. "All units in the Alliance fleet, accelerate to point one light speed, alter course up two zero degrees. Immediate execute."

The Alliance formation angled even farther back, moving almost vertical now relative to the plane of the Ixion Star System. The s.h.i.+ps farthest back in the formation, those just entering normal s.p.a.ce and still in their initial turns, wouldn't be able to match the farther turn and would end up slightly out of position, but that wasn't important.

The Syndic disk was flattening out as the big wars.h.i.+ps in the center of their formation accelerated faster than the small vessels around the rim. "They should have had the battles.h.i.+ps and battle cruisers around the rim," Geary remarked, "instead of in the center."

"But they expected us to come at their center," Desjani objected. "Their major combatants would never have accepted roles on the periphery of the formation, leaving the lighter units the honor of being the objects of our a.s.sault."

Okay, so even Desjani was still thinking in current ways about tactics focused on satisfying the honor of individual commanders rather than winning a battle. Thank the living stars the Syndics have become as dumb about combat tactics as the Alliance.

The Syndics, seeing Geary's maneuver, tilted their formation again, swinging it and aiming for where the lower corner of the Alliance formation would be. They were trying to do a glancing blow at the unsupported units just as Captain Cresida had done with Task Force Furious at Sancere, Geary realized, but without the high relative speeds that Cresida had taken advantage of. Just as Desjani had noted with the placing of s.h.i.+ps close to the jump exit, the Syndics were trying to copy what Geary's fleet was doing but failing to grasp the basic concepts. At much slower relative speeds like this, the Syndics were setting themselves up to be hammered.

And he had every intention of doing just that. Geary waited as the trailing units in his formation cleared the upper edge of the minefield. "All units, pivot formation one one zero degrees down at time one seven. Alter course down one one zero degrees, port two zero degrees, time one eight."

The Syndics were still aiming for where the lower corner of the Alliance formation would be, their velocity still less than half that of the Alliance s.h.i.+ps, when time one seven came and the Alliance s.h.i.+ps brought their bows down, aiming the formation at the Syndics' planned track through s.p.a.ce. As the Alliance s.h.i.+ps accelerated onto their new course, the broad side of the box containing the Alliance subformations headed toward a point centered on the expected Syndic position.

The Syndic commander may or may not have been a fool, but the tactical situation left him or her few options now, and none of them were good. "Do you think he'll try maneuvering again?" Desjani asked cheerfully as Dauntless's targeting systems locked onto an oncoming Syndic battle cruiser. With the changes in aspect of the formation, the block of s.h.i.+ps containing Dauntless in the center of the Alliance box was now close to the point where the Syndic formation would pa.s.s through the Alliance formation, and it appeared certain that Dauntless would draw blood.

"If he tries weaving through our formation, he might confuse our aim enough-" Geary broke off. "What the h.e.l.l?"

The Syndic formation began to pivot on its axis again, simultaneously altering course down and to one side, but a heavy cruiser and a battle cruiser missed their movements and had to dodge frantically to avoid each other. In its desperate avoidance maneuvers, the heavy cruiser sent another battle cruiser into a wild twist up and to one side, then stumbled directly across the path of one of the Syndic battles.h.i.+ps.

There should have been time for even the ma.s.sive battles.h.i.+p to avoid collision, but its evasive actions were late and too small. The battles.h.i.+p sideswiped the heavy cruiser at a fairly low relative velocity that still measured in hundreds of kilometers per second, turning the smaller s.h.i.+p into a ball of vapor and fragments, collapsing the battles.h.i.+p's s.h.i.+elds and sending the heavier s.h.i.+p flailing sideways with its port side blown away.

A light cruiser, scrambling to avoid the stricken battles.h.i.+p, slammed into a HuK, annihilating both s.h.i.+ps.

Within the span of a few minutes, the Syndic formation had lost three s.h.i.+ps, seen a fourth crippled, and degenerated into a chaotic mess still accelerating to contact with the Alliance fleet.

"Don't any of them know how to drive a s.h.i.+p?" Geary asked, appalled at seeing even enemy s.h.i.+ps wiped out that way.

"No," Desjani replied, jubilant. "They're barely trained. We've been inflicting so many losses on the Syndics that they've been rus.h.i.+ng new units into action. Congratulations, sir."

Congratulations. It didn't seem the right term for what would have been a one-sided battle but would now be a slaughter. The Syndic wars.h.i.+ps weren't even trying to regain their formation but were instead attempting to scatter. If they'd been far enough away from the Alliance fleet, or if they'd had a good speed advantage, they might have succeeded.

But they were close, and the Alliance fleet was moving twice as fast as they were. "All units, engage targets of opportunity. Open fire as weapons enter engagement envelopes. Conserve expendable munitions."

The Alliance box swept across the scattered tangle of Syndic s.h.i.+ps. A few volleys of specter missiles flashed away from Alliance s.h.i.+ps, homing on Syndic targets. The battle cruiser being targeted by Dauntless tried accelerating straight through the Alliance formation, not even attempting any evasive maneuvers, which made it a perfect target for grapeshot patterns from Dauntless, Daring, and Victorious.

The impact of the grapeshot on the Syndic battle cruiser's bow s.h.i.+elds created a series of incandescent flashes as the metal ball bearings vaporized on impact. The s.h.i.+elds collapsed under the multiple blows, allowing the last part of Victorious's grapeshot volley to hit the bow armor of the Syndic, pitting it with more flares of light, heat, and metal turned to gas. The follow-up volleys of h.e.l.l lances from all three Alliance battle cruisers ripped lengthwise through the Syndic battle cruiser, knocking out every system and probably killing most of the crew.

Geary let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, then cursed as he realized that he'd been focused on the single engagement with the closest battle cruiser instead of watching the wider battle.

Most of the Syndic wars.h.i.+ps had been crippled already. Three surviving HuKs were trying to clear the Alliance box, veering wildly to avoid fire coming from all sides. Two of the battles.h.i.+ps had staggered through most of the Alliance box, their s.h.i.+elds in rags and their armor penetrated by multiple hits. As Geary watched, one of the battles.h.i.+ps took two specter missiles up the stern and lost its remaining propulsion capability.

He couldn't get the rest of the Syndics while holding his fleet together. Geary activated one circuit, broadcasting to the Syndics. "All Syndic units are called upon to surrender now. Drop s.h.i.+elds and deactivate weapons immediately, or you'll be destroyed." He switched to another circuit to call his own s.h.i.+ps. "All units in the Alliance fleet with the exception of Subformation Kilo One Nine and Subformation Kilo One Ten, general pursuit. Break formation and engage the enemy at will."

The damaged s.h.i.+ps with the auxiliaries in Subformation Kilo One Nine and the battles.h.i.+ps of the Second Battles.h.i.+p Division at the core of Subformation Kilo One Ten wouldn't like that, Geary knew, and within moments a call came in from Indomitable. "Sir, why aren't we being allowed to join in the pursuit?"

"Because I need you to ensure that no Syndics try a suicide charge at the damaged s.h.i.+ps in Kilo One Nine. You're positioned to guard those s.h.i.+ps, and they're counting on you." The auxiliaries were also counting on them, but Geary knew the battles.h.i.+ps would be more likely to accept a role of escorting their fellow heavy combatants.

"Orion, Majestic, and Warrior can hold off anything the Syndics have surviving," Indomitable's captain argued.

He really didn't want to debate the issue, especially since the Second Battles.h.i.+p Division was six light-seconds away, making the conversation drawn out by delays in every exchange of messages. He wanted to keep an eye on the battle. How to shut down the complaints? "There is greater honor in protecting an injured comrade than in seeking glory, Captain," Geary stated. "I believe that Indomitable and the other battles.h.i.+ps of the Second Division are worthy of that honor and can be trusted to carry it out with steadfast courage."

Indomitable's captain blinked as if surprised. "I-"

"Thank you, Captain," Geary added quickly. "I a.s.sure you that the Second Battles.h.i.+p Division will be in the forefront of battle in the future, and thank you for carrying out this vital task now."

The Syndic battles.h.i.+p that had lost propulsion was still fighting, a few h.e.l.l-lance batteries continuing to fire as Alliance wars.h.i.+ps made repeated pa.s.ses, slowly reducing it to junk. The other Syndic battles.h.i.+p that had been near it hurled out a burst of escape pods, then blew up.

Geary felt himself jerked to one side as Captain Desjani took Dauntless into a tight turn in pursuit of one of the surviving Syndic battles.h.i.+ps. Tight being a relative term for a s.h.i.+p traveling at close to point one light speed, of course, but even the wide arc of s.p.a.ce that Dauntless swung through still required the inertial compensators to operate at maximum.

Two of the three fleeing HuKs were dead. The third reeled from a direct hit from a specter, then also began issuing escape pods.

Tearing his eyes away from the battles.h.i.+p that Dauntless was bearing down on below and to starboard, Geary tried to figure out which Syndic s.h.i.+ps might still be problems. Heavily outnumbered to begin with, the Syndics had lost any hope of either escaping or inflicting significant casualties on the Alliance fleet when their own formation fell apart. Only a single light cruiser still seemed to have a chance at getting away, accelerating at a pace that made Geary look twice to be sure he'd seen right. They're holding their propulsion units on full emergency thrust. How long can their propulsion systems and their inertial compensators handle that?

Not long. As Dauntless lined up for a firing run on the Syndic battles.h.i.+p, Geary watched the fleeing Syndic light cruiser come apart, disintegrating as its inertial compensators failed and the full stress of its acceleration ripped the s.h.i.+p to pieces. He didn't want to think about what had happened to the light cruiser's crew.

Captain Desjani had her attention focused on the Syndic battles.h.i.+p, which had just endured a fast-firing pa.s.s from Furious and was now using its surviving weapons to try to hold off repeated blows from destroyers and light cruisers tearing past and getting off one or two h.e.l.l-lance shots on each pa.s.s. "Targeting priority on remaining operational weapons," Desjani ordered. "Fire when within engagement envelopes."

Dauntless shot past the Syndic battles.h.i.+p in the blink of an eye, her automated targeting systems slamming h.e.l.l lances into the battles.h.i.+p's weapons during the instant in which the two s.h.i.+ps were close enough to fire on each other. Only a single Syndic h.e.l.l lance hit Dauntless's s.h.i.+elds, being absorbed without effect.

But most of Dauntless's shots had gone home. The Syndic battles.h.i.+p had only a single battery of h.e.l.l lances still firing. As Dauntless rose past and away from the Syndic s.h.i.+p, Paladin came lumbering up and pumped several salvos into the enemy, silencing the last weapon and leaving it without any maneuvering control. Surrender, Geary willed the commanding officer of the stricken Syndic battles.h.i.+p, but even though escape pods began spitting out of it, the enemy s.h.i.+p didn't broadcast a surrender.

Despite the fact that the Syndic battles.h.i.+p was out of action, Paladin unleashed its null-field projector as the Alliance s.h.i.+p reached its closest approach to the enemy vessel. The glowing ball dug a hole deep into the now-defenseless battles.h.i.+p.

Behind Paladin, her fellow battles.h.i.+p Conqueror swung in, also firing h.e.l.l lances into the slowly tumbling wreck as escape pods jetted frantically away from it. Geary watched, feeling his anger rise at the punishment being inflicted on a helpless enemy, and even Desjani seemed to find the overkill distasteful. After firing its own null field, Conqueror launched two specters into the derelict as she pulled away.

That gave Geary the opening he needed. "Conqueror, save your expendable munitions for s.h.i.+ps that still const.i.tute a threat," he snapped.

There weren't any of those left within weapons range of the fleet. A quick examination of the display confirmed that. Geary pulled out the scale, seeing the entire Ixion Star System again, and felt a stab of anger. "Now we know why those capital s.h.i.+ps had so few HuKs with them."

Desjani took a look. "Nine more, in groups of three, stationed to use the other jump points out of Ixion."

Geary checked their positions. "The nearest batch of HuKs is three light-hours away. They don't even know we're here yet."

"They won't enjoy the show when the light from this battle reaches them," Desjani noted with a grin.

"I'm not sure this qualified as a battle. Okay, no threat within less than three light-hours. Let's get this fleet back into formation, a.s.suming I can get the Third Battles.h.i.+p Division to stop pummeling dead s.h.i.+ps."

"Give them the duty of sending teams to blow up the wrecks," Desjani suggested. "It's tedious work."

"Why should I punish the crews of those s.h.i.+ps?" Geary asked. But somebody had to take care of ensuring the Syndic wrecks couldn't be salvaged. "Then again, it'll keep Casia and Midea occupied for a while." He prepared the order, then paused as he examined the damage reports. Very little to speak of, since the collapse of the Syndic formation had stripped all of the enemy wars.h.i.+ps of support while exposing them to concentrated fire from superior numbers of Allied wars.h.i.+ps. But-"d.a.m.n. How did t.i.tan get hurt?" Of all s.h.i.+ps to suffer damage, why did it have to be t.i.tan?

"Mine strike," Desjani observed. "She couldn't turn tight enough to completely avoid the minefield."

"Captain Tyrosian warned me that t.i.tan maneuvered like a pig when her bunkers were loaded with raw materials." Geary sighed. He braced himself and read the details of the damage. "Not too bad, but we need to keep the fleet's speed down so t.i.tan has time to fix that damage." It was past time to return a semblance of order to the fleet. "All units, cease fire unless fired upon and a.s.sume Formation Delta Two, forming on fleet flags.h.i.+p Dauntless."

GEARY sat on the bridge of Dauntless watching his fleet re-form, trying to figure out exactly what was bothering him. It wasn't the remaining Syndic presence at Ixion. Annoying as the nine surviving HuKs were, there wasn't anything that could be done about them. Since their mission was clearly to track the Alliance fleet, they'd surely run if pursued rather than seek hopeless combat. Two of the groups of HuKs were so far off they hadn't even seen the arrival of the Alliance fleet in the star system yet. Nor was there any other s.h.i.+pping to worry about. The a.s.sorted merchant traffic in the system offered no threat, and as the light from the Alliance fleet's arrival spread through the system, that civilian traffic was fleeing for the nearest possible place of refuge.

The fleet had arrived in Ixion six light-hours from the star itself. Aside from a scattering of mining and manufacturing facilities farther out in the system, the Syndic presence was concentrated around the sole habitable world a mere nine light-minutes from its star. As expected, Ixion had suffered from not being on the Syndic hypernet, though not as badly as some of the places that Geary had seen. It still seemed moderately prosperous and from a.n.a.lysis of the planet's atmosphere and surface retained a large population and plenty of industry.

There was an orbital facility about the habitable world that had been tagged by the fleet's sensors as probably military, but it posed no danger at all to the Alliance fleet. He'd already sent off a brief message to all the Syndics in the Ixion Star System warning them not to attempt to interfere with the Alliance fleet's pa.s.sage and letting them know about the survivors awaiting rescue at Daiquon.

So what was the problem? The main Syndic combat presence in the star system had been crushed with ease. Too much ease. That was it. "The crews of those Syndic s.h.i.+ps were totally green and unprepared for combat."

Captain Desjani looked over at him and nodded. "That's clear."

"And yet they were positioned as if the Syndics clearly expected this fleet to arrive in Ixion."

"Yes, sir." Now Desjani frowned. "That's inconsistent, isn't it? If they believed you'd bring the fleet here, why did they have their least experienced units guarding the jump exit?"

"Good question. And not just a couple of sacrificial lambs, but battles.h.i.+ps and battle cruisers. Why did the Syndics throw away those s.h.i.+ps by leaving them to confront us?" Geary looked toward the back of the bridge. "Madam Co-President? What do you think?"

"I think there's something I need explained," Rione replied. "You know those Syndic crews were inexperienced because of their behavior. I remember something like that at Sancere. Some Syndicate Worlds wars.h.i.+ps barely avoiding collision. But this was much worse."

"The formation at Sancere was made up of new s.h.i.+ps with barely trained crews," Desjani pointed out. "Like the one we encountered here, but I'd guess a little better trained."

"So?" Rione pressed. "Why should that matter? How do the crews influence what the s.h.i.+ps do when maneuvering orders are given? Aren't the motions of wars.h.i.+ps controlled by automated systems?"

Geary nodded, realizing that was a perfectly reasonable question. "Right. At the velocities wars.h.i.+ps move, it's almost always crazy to try maneuvering manually."

"Then why would their amount of training and experience make a difference?"

Desjani spoke like an instructor, apparently oblivious to Rione's obvious annoyance with her tone. "There are three stages of training and experience with maneuvering wars.h.i.+ps. The least experienced simply don't trust the automated maneuvering systems, since we all know any automated system can suffer errors. What creates the most problems is that as relativistic distortion effects come into play, human instincts are thrown off. We think the maneuvering systems are doing the wrong thing because our senses and our experiences in a much slower environment don't match what we seem to be seeing and feeling when moving at tenths of light speed.

"Crews at that most inexperienced stage are the most likely to panic, decide that the maneuvering systems are in serious error, and try to manage the maneuvers themselves." Desjani waved one hand toward the display. "You saw what happens then. It takes a good amount of time to learn enough to accept that the maneuvering systems know what they're doing and to understand what will happen if you override them. That's the second stage of experience. Those who last long enough come to realize that even automated maneuvering systems can suffer miscalculations and failures sometimes, and that they really do need to be overridden on rare occasions. Then you have to know when to override and what to do, which is the third stage of experience."

Desjani smiled at Geary. "Correct, sir?"

"That's how it was in my time, too. It takes a lot of time moving at point one and up to point two light to develop the instincts needed to correctly second-guess the automated systems." He gestured from Rione to the display. "I say instincts, because it has to happen below the level of conscious thought. There's not enough time for our brains to process it. And even then, only a fool would try to override the autos in a combat situation when two formations are pa.s.sing through each other. By the time you realized you were going to hit something, you'd already be part of a ball of plasma from the collision."

"Thank you," Rione answered in a flat voice. "Then the answer to your question seems obvious. They thought you might bring this fleet here, but didn't consider it the mostly likely place. It may have been the least likely in their judgment. They left something in place just in case, but didn't really expect that force to end up confronting this fleet."

Geary glanced at Desjani, who nodded. "That seems plausible. But why a.s.sume this was the least likely destination for the fleet?"

Rione swung her arm in a grand gesture and spoke with broad exaggeration. "Because the great Black Jack Geary has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn't make straight runs for Alliance s.p.a.ce. He moves carefully, trying to avoid the obvious destinations in favor of ones that the Syndics are liable to judge unlikely."

That made sense. "They're trying to second-guess me based on my patterns of movements so far, but in this case I did something uncharacteristic."

"Uncharacteristic is one word for it," Rione agreed sarcastically.

"It worked," Desjani noted in a sharp voice, instantly reacting in defense of Geary.

"But we can't count on it working again," Rione replied in a tone just as blunt. "You can see, the first of the Syndic Hunter-Killers is already heading for a jump point. It will carry news of where the Alliance fleet is, and then the Syndics will see a new pattern in the movements of this fleet."

"Yes," Geary broke in quickly to keep the argument from escalating. "You're both right." That didn't seem to make anyone happy, though. "I need to think about our next destination. Thanks for your insights, Captain Desjani and Madam Co-President." He stood up, stiff from sitting since the fleet's arrival at Ixion.

Rione stood as well, accompanying Geary off the bridge. She waited until they were temporarily alone in a pa.s.sageway before speaking once more. "It won't work again."

"I told you I need to think about it," Geary answered, a little harsher than he had intended.

"It shouldn't take that much thought. I know the next star on the straightest possible line to Alliance s.p.a.ce is T'negu. If we go there, this fleet will find a trap far dead-lier than those poor fools we encountered here."