He turned to look at Desjani. “We’re not whittling them down fast enough.”
“Not yet. But now it’s time for the big boys and girls to earn their keep,” Desjani remarked, sounding jaunty again.
The fleet, once spread out in subformations, had slowly compressed down with a dense layer comprising the battle cruisers and escorts closest to the enemy and the battleships, transports and auxiliaries strung out slightly ahead of the rest. Now the battleships ponderously swung around to face the enemy bow on, their acceleration halting so that the massive warships were quickly overtaken by the rest of the Alliance warships. Only the transports and auxiliaries remained slightly ahead of the rest of the fleet, with all of the other warships and the alien craft rapidly overtaking them.
The battleships glided into place among the battle cruisers and escorts, then opened up with their immense armament. Geary felt his lips stretch into an involuntary grimace as space filled with so much energy that it began to glow slightly even to human eyes, the leading waves of the surviving alien small craft evaporating under the torrent of fire from the battleships.
“It’s still going to be tight,” Desjani commented as if discussing plans for dinner. “There are too damn many of them, and they keep closing on us. Our forward batteries have cooled down enough to get off several more volleys, but when we pivot again, those aliens will be right on top of us.”
“Understood.” This was as far as the preplanned maneuvers took them. It would be up to him to judge when to move to the final, chaotic stage of the fight. He sat, watching the aliens come ever closer, the fire of the battleships also beginning to slacken. So close now. But I need what’s left of that alien force a little closer so they have less time to react to our next move. How far to the farthest units in my formation? Factor in how long it will take those units to hear the order. Fortunately, the attackers keep aiming for the center of mass of our formation, so a slightly delayed response on our flanks won’t hurt those warships. Almost time now.
“Admiral?” Desjani asked. Her tone held only mild interest, but the fact that she asked the question was a rare betrayal of the tension she was otherwise so effectively masking.
“Not yet.” He held up one hand, moving it slowly several times as if counting beats, then slapped his controls. “All units, effective immediately maneuver independently at maximum capability to avoid alien ships while continuing to engage the enemy with all short-range weapons.”
He felt pressures jerk at his body despite the inertial nullifiers as Desjani yanked Dauntless into as tight a turn as the battle cruiser’s velocity could manage, forming a huge arc through space as the warship also pivoted to immediately engage the enemy. “Fire grapeshot as the launchers bear on targets!” she ordered. “All hell lances fire and keep firing until the last attacker is gone!”
Collision alarms screamed warnings as hundreds of warships pivoted onto new vectors, Geary’s display turning red as impact warning alerts covered it. Fortunately, the initial movements, when the Alliance ships were closest together, were somewhat predictable to the fleet’s maneuvering systems as almost every ship turned to engage the nearest enemy craft. That, or perhaps the divine aid that Geary had prayed for, prevented any immediate disasters.
The alien craft were here, right on top of the Alliance warships, when metal grapeshot fired from well over two hundred warships slammed into the aliens at relative speeds of thousands of kilometers per second. Hundreds of surviving alien ships vanished in a wave of annihilation, then hell lances were lashing out with renewed fury as the bow armaments found targets again.
Geary couldn’t be certain how many alien ships were left amid the bedlam as clouds of debris and energy discharges filled space, and the Alliance warships scattered as if their own formation had exploded into hundreds of individual pieces. Even the auxiliaries and transports were firing now, their meager defenses trying to fend off the remaining attackers, many of whom seemed momentarily confused by the fleet’s dispersal. But other alien craft, probably sticking to targets they had already chosen, bored through the main body aiming for the auxiliaries that were the fleet’s Achilles’ heel and the transports, which were clearly vulnerable targets.
Dauntless, rolling as her course curved slightly downward, rocked as an alien ship twisting on an intercept with the battle cruiser caught several hell-lance hits from multiple angles and exploded nearby. Two Alliance destroyers and a light cruiser tore past heading straight up as Dauntless dove beneath them, then a battleship spun by overhead so close that even Desjani looked stunned for an instant. Recovering just as quickly, Desjani cursed and prioritized two more targets, punching the firing commands to take out one alien craft homing past toward Titan and another near enough to Dauntless that the force of its explosion rattled the warship.
But Dauntless was committed by momentum to her current track, unable to reverse course fast enough to engage alien attackers that had made it past her. Geary could only watch with a sick feeling as more alien craft swung onto final runs aimed at Titan and Tanuki, but then, astoundingly, Orion was there, the battleship climbing from below, knocking out one alien ship short of Titan, then blowing apart the second at point-blank range astern of Tanuki. The resulting explosion knocked even the mass of the battleship a bit to one side.
Another alien was homing in on the transport Mistral, but the heavy cruisers Diamond, Gauntlet, and Buckler had managed to claw close enough to fire a volley of hell lances into the rear of the missile craft and shatter it short of its target.
No other alien craft had survived long enough to get close to the transports and auxiliaries. Bringing his eyes back to the wider battle, Geary tried to sort out alien ship markers from the mass of debris and the confused swirl of Alliance warships not only seeking targets but also trying to dodge each other and the bigger pieces of debris.
Nothing. The only red showing on the display were the scores of collision warnings still proliferating, then vanishing just as quickly as fleet maneuvering systems shook hands among ships and made the millisecond-fast decisions and coordinated vector changes needed to avoid crashes. The last of the alien craft had been destroyed, and now he had to figure out how much damage they had done. All he could tell at the moment was that the damage hadn’t been the massacre it might have been. “All units, resume Formation Delta when safe to maneuver to station. Formation speed is point zero five light speed.” Get everyone slowed down, while continuing to open the distance to that orbiting fortress, and into a simple box, as simple as any formation could be, while he tried to sort out things.
“Wow,” Desjani commented, smiling, her face a little flushed. “It worked. Cool plan, Admiral.”
“You’re crazy,” he replied, his heart still pounding.
“I thought you liked that in a woman. Did you see what Orion did?”
“Yeah,” Geary agreed, slightly giddy with relief even while dreading what damage might have been done to the fleet. “You were right about Captain Shen.”
“I’m always right, Admiral. Lieutenant Yuon, who was that battleship that got way too far inside our personal space?”
“The systems identify her as Dreadnaught, Captain. Closest point of approach was—” Yuon’s voice choked to a halt, then came out at a higher pitch. “That can’t be right.”
Desjani checked the distance herself, then fell silent for a few seconds. “Admiral, you need to have another talk with Dreadnaught’s commanding officer. Captain Jane Geary owes me a drink,” she added. “And I owe my ancestors some thanks.”
“We all do.” Both Jane Geary and his ancestors would have to wait for the moment, though. Geary pulled out the scale on his display again, finally having the luxury of viewing the entire star system in search of more distant threats. The huge orbiting fortress at the jump point wasn’t launching any more ships or missiles or whatever those alien craft had been, but it wasn’t the only such monster fortification here. “I have a nasty suspicion that it’s not going to be hard to f
igure out where the other jump points are in this star system.”
Desjani raised an eyebrow, then checked her own display. “Ancestors preserve us. They’ve got the same kinds of fortresses in two other orbits, both far enough from the star to be guarding jump points as well.”
Fortresses that doubtless also carried hundreds of long-range missiles. Elsewhere in the star system, still light hours distant, numerous warships were still being identified by the fleet sensors. Geary let out a low whistle as he viewed some of that data. “Several of the alien warships are assessed by our sensors as massing three times larger than a Guardian-class battleship.”
“They build big, don’t they?” Desjani asked. “Fortunately, the nearest of those things are three light hours distant, and with that much mass, they can’t be very nimble. Even I’d rather not tangle with them, though.”
“We still have received no communications to us from the inhabitants of this star system,” Rione reported tonelessly. “They have not yet responded to any of our messages.”
Geary slumped back in his seat. “If they were human, they should have answered us by now.” There weren’t any imminent threats left, nothing that wouldn’t take hours or days to get close enough to worry about, but that left plenty to do right away. Evaluate damage and losses to the fleet. Get repairs going. Make sure survivors from any destroyed or badly damaged ships are recovered. Try to talk to whatever this alien species is or at least learn something more about them. Get the fleet on a course to avoid any attempts by them to intercept us again with all of the other warships they’ve got available. His eyes went to the massive fortresses guarding this star system’s jump points. The one they had passed at the nearest jump point might have exhausted its supply of missiles, but something that huge could have many hundreds of reloads ready to fire if the fleet approached again, not to mention other weapons. Getting to a jump point would require passing close to those forts and would be a lot more dangerous than tearing past one during an exit had been.
“Congratulations on discovering another intelligent alien species, Admiral,” Rione said.
“Thanks. I’m glad the government is pleased.” He didn’t bother trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“Not everyone in the government is pleased,” Rione murmured almost too low to hear, her eyes fixed on her display with the look of someone who had finally encountered a long-anticipated fate.
Desjani leaned closer to him. “How are we getting out of this star system, Admiral?”
“Beats the hell out of me.” Actually, knowing how to get out wasn’t too hard with those fortresses pointing the way to jump points. Getting out without having the fleet cut to ribbons was the problem.
But now he had time to think, and he had Tanya beside him, and a lot of good people who were depending upon him but also working with him, and while stung, the fleet was mostly intact. Perhaps even Rione would now offer real assistance again instead of that odd passivity.
Geary settled back in his seat, relaxing tense muscles by force of will so that he seemed imperturbable. “We’ll think of something,” he assured Desjani in a calm voice loud enough to be heard clearly throughout the bridge.
Ace Books by Jack Campbell
THE LOST FLEET: DAUNTLESS
THE LOST FLEET: FEARLESS
THE LOST FLEET: COURAGEOUS
THE LOST FLEET: VALIANT
THE LOST FLEET: RELENTLESS
THE LOST FLEET: VICTORIOUS
THE LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER: DREADNAUGHT
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught Page 37
