Read Online The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast by Jack Campbell - Free Book Online Page B

needs of friends must not be neglected. Perhaps, at some future date, we shall have needs that you will be pleased to consider addressing.” Another small bow toward Geary, then the old man’s image vanished.
    Tanya Desjani had not wasted another minute. As Geary finished speaking,
Dauntless
’s thrusters were already slewing the battle cruiser about, followed by the surge of the main propulsion units kicking in and hurling the warship out of the mass of space traffic near Old Earth.
    Geary watched the globe that was the Home of all humanity diminish in size as
Dauntless
accelerated away from it toward an intercept with the craft that was itself heading toward the orbit of Jupiter. He had never expected to visit Jupiter, or this star system. He wondered if, once the lieutenants were rescued, he would ever return.
     • • • 
    AT their closest, Earth and Jupiter were only about thirty-five light-minutes apart. A mere six hundred thirty million kilometers or so. But that could only happen when both planets were on the same side of the sun and lined up perfectly in their orbits. Even if the two planets had been that close when
Dauntless
began her hunt, neither of them was going to stay still. Planets had to be intercepted, chased or cut off, as they raced along their orbits. In the case of Jupiter, the gas giant had been moving around the star Sol at better than thirteen kilometers per second since long before the first human raised a wondering gaze to the night sky, and might still be doing so when the last human had gone to whatever fate awaited the species.
    In this case,
Dauntless
faced a long, curving route through space adding up to one and a half light-hours before she would reach Jupiter. She would have to accelerate part of the way, then brake at the end so as not to overshoot her target, reducing her average velocity to about point one six light speed.
    “It will take us just under ten hours to get there,” Desjani told Geary. “Which would be fine, except that the guy we’re chasing has a ten-hour head start on us.”
    “He can’t have gone as fast as we will,” Geary said.
    “No. Even if he could accelerate at the same rate we could, which I seriously doubt, he would have to limit acceleration to keep from compromising his stealth so badly that even the sensors in this star system could spot it. But once we get within a light-hour of that guy,
we
will be able to see him no matter what.”
    Geary settled into his seat on the bridge of
Dauntless
, gazing at the curving tracks on his display. Two showed brightly, that which
Dauntless
would follow, and that which was estimated to be the track of the craft they were hunting. Around those two long curves, a crazy quilt of dim arcs marked the projected movements of numerous other spacecraft and natural objects. Some of those arcs were changing as he watched, moving away from the bright line of
Dauntless
’s vector, marking course changes by spacecraft that had projected
Dauntless
’s path and wanted to stay well clear of the mad people from the stars and their powerful warship. “What are we going to do when we catch them?” he asked Desjani.
    She gave him a puzzled look. “Tell them to turn over our two officers or die.”
    “What if they refuse? They’ve got Castries and Yuon as hostages.”
    Tanya waved one hand in a nonchalant manner. “And I’ve got a platoon of Marines.”
    “You don’t think this might require more . . . subtlety . . . than Marines usually employ?”
    “Fleet Marines are trained in hostage-rescue ops,” Desjani insisted. “And, personally, I think heavily armed Marines in full battle armor is just the kind of subtle approach this calls for.”
    “Tanya,” Geary said carefully, “the people who kidnapped Castries and Yuon will see us coming. We can’t surprise them. We don’t have a stealth-configured shuttle or Marine scout stealth armor.”
    She glared at her display. “What approach does the Admiral