The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (28 page)

“Loading first wave of shuttles. No problems reported with crowd control,” Lieutenant Castries called. “Prisoners report no Syndics in the camp or nearby for the last twenty-four hours.”

The fleet had crossed over the nighttime southern portion of the globe and was now climbing back over the sunward side. The shuttles, when loaded, would lift to meet the fleet as it crested the top of the globe and headed back down, on a path aimed to go straight over the prison camp in low orbit.

The Syndics plotting this attack must be watching the fleet’s movements like gamblers following each turn of a card.
Just keep on going. Finish the orbit. Get into position. And then . . .

“Admiral!” Lieutenant Iger couldn’t suppress his excitement. “Look.”

Geary peered at the image of one of the Syndic sentry posts near the trigger.

The sentry wasn’t there.

“The sentry must have spotted something,” Iger explained, “and the Marines took them out before they could sound an alarm.”

“Why aren’t the sentry alerts sounding? Aren’t those set to go off automatically if anything happens to the sentry?”

“Yes, sir. They can be spoofed—”

The feed from the drone blanked for a moment.

“—but not for long,” Iger continued, as the drone feed came to life again. “The Syndics just lit off jammers, and our drone had to work around them.”

Extra security lights had flared to life near the trigger installation, and nozzles were pumping out a fine mist designed to reveal anyone in a stealth suit. Geary couldn’t hear alarms sounding but knew they must be. Syndic ground forces personnel and security guards were running about, weapons at the ready. “Where are the Marines?”

“We don’t see any being engaged by the Syndics, sir. That’s a good sign. It means they’re inside.”

Inside an installation of unknown design, with unknown security features, and an unknown number of armed defenders.

Geary’s eyes went back to his display. How long until the Syndic warships reacted? The Syndics would be rushing additional ground forces to the trigger site, trying to figure out what had happened, whether there was a real threat, how serious the threat was—

“Shuttles docking,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “The prisoners are being dumped into quarantined loading docks until full medical and security screening can be conducted. Screening on the way up didn’t find any threats in or on the prisoners. Estimated time to shuttles heading back down is two minutes.”

“Why bother sabotaging the prisoners when the Syndics expected them to be blown to atoms?” Desjani commented.

Geary didn’t reply, looking at the globe scrolling by below, the location of the prison camp directly ahead of the tight fleet formation.

For the first time, it occurred to him that they didn’t know if the particle beams were rigged to fire straight up, or at a slight angle to catch an orbiting formation just before it reached a point over the camp.

It’s time.
“Captain Armus, your force is detached to proceed on previously assigned duties. Captain Geary, your force is detached to proceed on previously assigned duties. All units in the First Fleet, immediate execute, come starboard five degrees.” Enough to get the fleet out of line with those particle beams but close enough for the shuttles to be able to make the second drop and recovery.

Eighteen battleships swung away from the fleet formation, ponderous and majestic. Armus kept his eight battleships close together in a roughly circular arrangement. Once positioned over the trigger site, they would all be able to fire the majority of their weapons downward. Jane Geary sent two battleships to hover just above Armus’s grouping, the other eight arranged in pairs around the ground-support battleships.

“Shuttles launching,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “Second wave on its way.”

Alarms chirped as a hell-lance battery lost power on
Revenge
, partial shield failure afflicted
Colossus
, and the forward part of
Fearless
suffered spot power interruptions in a score of places. Geary glowered at his display, knowing the systems had failed as aging components on ships which had exceeded their planned hull lives were brought to full power for the action.
I guess I should be glad there weren’t more failures.
“All ships in First Fleet, bring your systems up to full power now.” If there were going to be more failures, better to have it happen right away, so there would be time to try to fix or jury-rig the problems.

Something caught Geary’s eye. He swung his gaze to see explosions erupting on the drone image of the trigger site.

“Our people are inside and holding the entrance,” General Carabali said as her image appeared. “The situation farther inside is uncertain. I don’t know if we have control of the trigger. Request all available fleet ground support as close to the trigger building as possible.”

“Captain Armus,” Geary ordered, “you are cleared to engage any target and lay down a suppression barrage. Don’t hit the trigger building. General Carabali is linking to your coordination circuit.”

“Understood,” Captain Armus said as laconically as if Geary had just ordered the fleet to stand down for the night. “Opening fire.”

The image from the drone wavered as dozens of hell-lance particle beams stabbed down from high above, hitting targets with pinpoint precision. Armored vehicles and bunkers shuddered as the hell lances tore large holes completely through them.

Alerts were popping up all over the fleet as minor and major systems on a few dozen warships suffered failures or partial failures. Not nearly as many as at Honor, and nothing that would render any ship unable to fight at all, but still a concern. Ironically, but understandably, many of the ships suffering system failures now had avoided major damage during earlier fights. Without immediate need to repair and replace battle damage, their older systems had remained in place and were now showing their age.

Geary’s attention jerked back to the scene from Iger’s drone. The view was momentarily obscured completely as small bombardment projectiles launched from the battleships plummeted to contact with the ground. Nothing but rocket-shaped chunks of solid metal, the bombardment rounds gained their destructive power from the immense energy built up as they dropped from orbit.

Geary shifted his view to an overhead look from Armus’s battleships. Dust and debris now filled the air around the trigger site, but multispectrum sensors could partially penetrate the murk to spot moving objects. More hell lances stabbed down, aimed at targets ranging from individual Syndics to more vehicles screeching to halts at the edge of the bombardment area. More rocks headed down from the battleships, aimed not only at Syndics trying to reach the trigger site but also at forcing anyone near the building to keep their heads down. Rubble from collapsed buildings in the area around the trigger site bounced, producing false moving-target alerts on the fleet’s sensors, as another bombardment plunged home.

The trigger building itself remained untouched except for scars on its sides where shrapnel from nearby bombardment impacts had exposed the heavy armor beneath the unassuming facade.

Geary yanked his attention away from that scene, checking on the Syndic warships again. How long until they got orders to intervene? The Syndic leaders would be shocked, trying to grasp what was going on, disoriented by the sudden unraveling of their plan, which had seemed to be going perfectly before the Alliance abruptly altered the game.

The fleet was well clear of the prison-camp region by now, but the shuttles were dropping back down toward it as fast as they could without coming apart, and three thousand prisoners of war still waited for rescue.

If the Syndics still controlled the trigger, an apocalypse centered on that prison camp would very soon erupt, taking with it the shuttles, the Marines on them, and the waiting prisoners.

Alerts sounded as the four Syndic warship groups finally surged into motion, whipping around and accelerating at maximum. Two were coming around toward Armus’s battleships, and the other two were angling toward either the fleet or the shuttles that would be rising back to meet it.

“They screwed up,” Desjani said with a fierce grin. “They split their effort, and the only way they can make a difference is by coming within range of us.”

“Yes, they did,” Geary agreed. “Work up an intercept for Group Cable. I’ll tell Duellos to go for it as well, and send Tulev and Badaya after Delta.”

They would have this, they would totally frustrate the Syndic plans and hit the Syndics hard, if only the Syndic weapon didn’t go off . . .

“I have comms from the force recon on the surface,” General Carabali announced. “They’re requesting pickup.”

“What about the trigger?”

“Commander Hopper says the trigger is Bravo Delta. That’s a slang term, Admiral. It stands for—”

“I know what it stands for. The trigger is out of commission. That term has been around a lot longer than I have. Captain Geary! The Marines need a ride.”

“On the way,” Jane Geary replied.

More alerts on the display. Ground forces on the planet had launched atmospheric combat aircraft, old models that were easy to spot from low orbit.
Guardian
, almost skimming the stratosphere, took out the aircraft with a series of hell-lance shots, then launched four shuttles that spiraled downward, protected by a wall of fire from
Guardian
and the other battleships.

Syndic Group Alpha, already rocketing toward the trigger site, altered vector slightly to skim atmosphere, their hulls glowing with heat as the friction wore down their shields, aiming for
Guardian
’s shuttles.

Syndic Group Bravo, higher up, aimed a hopeless firing run at Armus’s group of battleships. Jane Geary was vectoring
Conqueror
,
Dependable
,
Vengeance
, and
Revenge
to box in Bravo if that group continued its strike.

The main shuttle force was grounding at the prison-camp site again.

Syndic warship groups Cable and Delta were swinging wide around the Alliance fleet formation, their goal obviously the shuttles when they lifted back toward the fleet loaded with freed prisoners.

“Go, Tanya,” Geary said, transmitting similar orders to Duellos, Tulev, and Badaya. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute formation guide shifts to
Invincible
. Admiral Lagemann, take any necessary action to provide cover for the shuttles as they return.” There shouldn’t be any action necessary, but if Lagemann did have to order any more ships out of the formation, he had well over two hundred heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers to play with.

Desjani whooped as she sent
Dauntless
,
Daring
,
Victorious
, and
Intemperate
on an angled climb toward an intercept with Syndic Group Cable. Behind her, the other battle cruisers in the Alliance fleet tore away on their own intercept vectors.

“Shuttles lifting!” Lieutenant Yuon cried.

Geary checked to ensure Yuon meant the shuttles at the prison camp. Those headed to pick up the Marines at the trigger site were still weaving downward through a hail of fire from Syndic ground defenses that were being knocked out by
Guardian
almost as fast as they opened up.

Syndic Group Alpha kept coming, probably still under automated maneuvering control in response to orders from distant superiors, as
Guardian
and
Warspite
opened up on the Syndic warships. Captain Armus, lacking enough decent targets in the heavily cratered wasteland around the trigger site, shifted the fire of four of his battleships to engage Alpha as well.

Their shields already weak from fighting through the upper atmosphere, the ships of Alpha ran head-on into the fire of six battleships.

The heavy cruiser and four of the Hunter-Killers simply exploded under the hammerblows, coming apart as specter missiles, hell lances, and grapeshot hit in quick succession. One of the light cruisers was shredded by hits and knocked even farther into the atmosphere. Without shields, traveling at tremendous velocity, the remains of the light cruiser dissolved in a flash of heat and light, a ball of plasma forming a brief, fiery streak across the planet’s sky.

The second light cruiser survived only because it had wrenched onto a new vector seconds before impact, leaping upward and away from the Alliance barrage.

Syndic Group Bravo, bearing down on Armus’s force, saw the fate of Alpha and also whipped into turns, the Syndic ships sliding through wide arcs as they tried to avoid the fate of Alpha’s warships. The heavy cruiser slid too far, coming deep enough inside the battleships’ missile envelopes to catch a dozen specters that broke it into several large fragments that spun away, some heading out into space and some falling to their doom in the planet’s atmosphere.

“Marine recovery shuttles are on the ground,” Jane Geary reported.

“Shuttles lifting from prison camp,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “Half of them are overloaded. They’re requesting the fleet brake to assist their recovery.”

“Admiral Lagemann,” Geary said as he hit his comm controls. “Brake the fleet formation as necessary to help the shuttles catch you.”

He felt a sense of liberation despite the chaos of the battle raging from the surface of the planet up into space above it.
I don’t have to call all the shots. I have commanders I trust who can manage the details if I give them the job. All I have to do is make sure I keep a handle on the big picture, so everything is coordinated, and every threat is dealt with.

Syndic Groups Cable and Delta had realized that they were too late to bombard the prison camp, and that the Alliance battle cruisers were going to ensure that none of the Syndic warships made it through to the climbing shuttles. The Syndics bent away, their groups breaking into individual ships as commanders overrode the automated maneuvering controls. One of the inexperienced Syndic commanders overstressed his or her ship’s structure on the turn, the light cruiser shattering into pieces that spun toward the planet below.