The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible

by Campbell, Jack

  An hour could seem like a long time. When a strong force of alien warships was charging right down your throat, quite possibly with intent to take out your biggest ships using the surest and ugliest method available, it felt like far too short a period in which to think of an effective countertactic. After Geary had spent several frustrating minutes coming up with nothing, Desjani turned to look at him.

  “Are you going to share with me your brilliant plan for handling this situation?”

  “I will as soon as I come up with one,” Geary muttered.

  Her next words surprised him.

  “You know, Admiral, we don’t have to hit them hard on this pass. We don’t have to hit them at all.”

  Geary swiveled his head to stare at her. “Are you feeling all right, Tanya?”

  “I’m fine. Maybe a bit too much exposure to thinking when it comes to tactics, but otherwise fine.” Desjani pointed to her display. “We dropped into this star system thinking we would have to hit the enigmas as hard as we could as fast as we could because we thought the enigmas would be destroying everything. The enigmas aren’t doing that, though, because they want that stuff intact to keep us here so we have to fight. But I realized that we’re still thinking we have to hit hard and fast even though the situation is much different than we expected. They’re coming to us. We’re a long ways from anything in this star system that the enigmas might target. At the rates we’re both going, the main-body formation coming in behind us will arrive shortly before the enigmas pass through us, but the enigmas won’t see that arrival until they’ve already gone past us, putting them between our two formations. Then we can go after them hard.”

  Geary felt like hitting himself. “That’s right. I’ve still been thinking that time was critical, but right now time is on our side. We don’t have to risk a high-threat firing pass this time. Captain Desjani, have I told you how very valuable you are to me?”

  “Not often enough.”

  “I’ll try to correct that.” He looked at the situation with new eyes. “How do you see the enigmas trying to pull off ramming even though this fleet has a history of last-moment maneuvers to concentrate our force against one portion of the enemy formation? How are they going to know where to direct the ramming ships?”

  “It’s pretty simple,” she said, sounding a trifle smug. “Look.” Her display lit up with representations of Geary’s force and the enigmas rushing toward each other. “They’ve seen us fight. They know you’ll likely alter course at the last moment to hit just part of their formation with everything we’ve got. In order to do that, we’d need to be within a certain range of them, no matter which direction we dodge.” She entered more data and a flattened cone spread out from the future location of Geary’s force, surrounding the enemy formation. “We’d have to be somewhere on that cone. If I was running the show for the enigmas, I’d be watching for the first twitch of movement onto a new vector by us, and the instant I saw the direction of that vector, I would know where on this cone we were aiming to be.

  “For example.” Desjani entered one number, and the cone was replaced by a single vector. “See? Easy. If you’re maneuverable enough to change your own vector fast enough to manage a new intercept at that point. Human ships aren’t that maneuverable. Enigma ships are.”

  “And if I don’t dodge, it just makes their solution simpler,” Geary said. “I’m glad you’re not running the show for the enigmas.”

  “Damn straight. So, what are you going to do?”

  “Use your cone. How much farther do we have to deviate from course to hit whichever enigmas try to hit us, and still be safe from an intercept aimed at somewhere on that cone?”

  “That depends which way you go.” She raised one eyebrow at him. “You usually choose up and to the right.”

  “So you told me.” He paused to think. “Let’s seem to make it easy for them. We’ll go up and to the right. Farther up, though.”

  “It might mean a clean miss on that firing run,” Desjani cautioned.

  “As a certain battle cruiser commander pointed out, we can afford that,” Geary replied.

  Rione was back. “Admiral, the spider-wolves have arrived in this star system.”

  “Good.”

  “How will we keep the enigmas from destroying them?”

  That complicated things.

  Desjani spoke as if saying thoughts out loud to Geary. “At least we don’t have to worry about the spider-wolves. They’re not quite as fast as the enigmas, but they seem to be slightly more maneuverable. Unless they want to fight the enigmas, they should be able to avoid any attempt to engage them.”

  Geary nodded and looked at Rione. “What she said.”

  “Thank you . . . Admiral.” She looked forward at his display. “I understand that there have been some political changes here.”

  “It looks like it though we don’t know the extent yet. Feel free to talk to Lieutenant Iger about it. His people are trying to sort out the changes.”

  Rione recognized a dismissal when she heard one. “I’ll let you go back to focusing on your battle, Admiral.”

  “Half an hour to contact,” Lieutenant Castries reported.

  “Let’s slow it down as if we intend a regular firing pass,” Geary said. “All units in pursuit formation, reduce velocity to point one light speed at time one five.”

  A few minutes later, Dauntless and the other ships surrounding her pivoted around so their main propulsion units faced forward and began braking their velocity down to the speed Geary had ordered.

  By the time that had been done, and the warships had brought their bows forward again to face the oncoming enigmas, only five minutes remained until contact.

  Geary checked everything else on his display, wanting to make sure he didn’t focus solely on the enigmas and miss important developments elsewhere in the star system. The spider-wolves had accelerated upward, apparently seeking an orbit out of the direct path of the combatants. The main body of Geary’s fleet should have arrived at the jump point a few minutes ago, but the light from that event had not reached them yet. The Syndics here, as well as the rebels who used to be Syndics, would within the next hour begin seeing Geary’s pursuit force, but so far none of those three flotillas had spotted the arrival of the Alliance warships or altered their previous vectors.

  “The enigmas haven’t reduced their velocity,” Desjani said.

  “Captain?” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “Our combined engagement speed with the enigmas will be point two six light speed. Combat systems accuracy will be significantly impacted. Recommend reducing speed.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. Not this time.”

  Geary nodded and then, confident of what to do and when to do it, activated his comms. “All units, at time four four come starboard seven degrees, up six degrees. Engage any enigma units that come within your weapons envelopes.” He had already called up the battle cruiser captains, telling them to beware of ramming tactics, so now it was just a matter of letting physics call the shots.

  At forty-four minutes past the hour, the pursuit-force formation rolled up and toward the star, drastically increasing the distance at which it would pass the enigma force if that did not also change course. Geary watched the enigmas, in the last seconds before contact, seeing them leap toward the path of the Alliance fleet. He felt a moment of fear even though his instincts told him that the enigma course change would fall short.

  A moment too fast to really register on human senses, and they were past the enigmas. “All units, immediate execute, come up one eight five degrees, port zero eight degrees.” As soon as the order was out of his mouth, Geary checked the fleet status display. “No hits.”

  “Not on us and not on them,” Desjani agreed. “About what we expected. See these guys?” She pointed on her display to the tracks of more than a score of enigma warships that had veered wildly up toward the human formation before tearing past and angling down toward their own formation again. “Those were the rammers.
They would have gone right through us if we’d been positioned for a normal firing run. You called it right, Admiral.”

  “We called it right,” Geary corrected. His display lit up with symbols marking the arrival of the main body at the jump point as the light from that finally reached them. At first glance, before looking at the damage afflicting many of the battleships, the main body looked extremely dangerous, especially with the mass of Invincible bulking in the center of that formation. Humans had never built a warship that big, and now the Alliance had one.

  The pursuit force was curving upward and over in a huge arc, heading back toward the jump point as the enigmas continued in that direction. But even though the enigmas had finally seen the main body as well, they now climbed up at a steep angle. “They’re going for the—the spider-wolves,” Lieutenant Castries said.

  “They are indeed,” Desjani agreed. “Watch this, ladies and gentlemen. I think the spider-wolves are going to put on a real how-to lesson in evasive maneuvers for us.”

  Geary halted the turn of his formation early, as it was reaching the crest of its arc up and over, steadying out so that the pursuit force was aiming for an intercept with the enigmas climbing toward the spider-wolves. He could not, for the moment, see how to bring the slower and still-distant main body into the action. “Captain Armus, proceed in-system and maneuver independently as you see fit.”

  “Whoa,” Lieutenant Yuon gasped as the spider-wolf formation broke into six separate ships that began weaving around each other in a dance that spiraled ever higher above the plane of the star system. “What are they doing, Captain?”

  “Distracting the bad guys,” Desjani replied with a grin.

  Geary nodded, feeling the same sense of satisfaction. The spider-wolves might not be willing to participate in fighting the enigmas, but they apparently had no reluctance to help lead the enigmas into a trap. “All units, engage at will.”

  The enigmas must have heard their own combat alerts sounding, frantic warnings that, while they had centered attention on the swirling flight of the spider-wolf ships, the human pursuit formation had come charging in from slightly above and behind. Enigma ships started to scatter, but too late, as the pursuit force buzz-sawed through the lower quarter of the enigma formation.

  Geary felt Dauntless rocking slightly from a couple of hits as his force tore away from the enigmas again. He had to take a moment to see what the enigmas were doing this time and saw that the enigma commander had dropped his chase after the spider-wolves and swung the enemy formation around and to starboard, only to check that turn and weave back far to port. In the wake of the enigma fleet, disabled and destroyed ships tumbled out in all directions.

  “Where the hell is he going?” Desjani asked.

  “He’s heading for the main body,” Geary said. “They spotted Invincible.”

  “The thing really is a threat magnet.”

  “A magnet with some very nasty stings protecting it,” Geary replied. He brought his fleet over to port as well, aiming to hit the front of the enigma formation this time as it tried to run past him toward the main body.

  That left a moment to check on results of that last pass. Geary scanned enigma losses first, seeing that thirty-one ships had been knocked out of the battle. His own ships had taken some hits, too, but the big local firepower advantage they had enjoyed had meant he had only lost two light cruisers disabled and four destroyers out of the fight, one of them, Musket, being a total loss.

  Even though his ships had taken relatively few hits, system failure reports rippled across Geary’s display. Hell-lance batteries on some ships, fire control on others, here and there shields losing coverage. Another light cruiser was scrambling to get back to the formation, having apparently missed his last command, and wasn’t reporting current status, so Strike had probably suffered a comm failure.

  “If they aim to ram Invincible . . .” Desjani cautioned.

  “Even her armor won’t save her. I know.” Geary tapped a combination of ships to talk to. “Captain Armus, and commanding officers of Dreadnaught, Orion, Dependable, Conqueror, Relentless, Reprisal, Superb, and Splendid. We assess that the enigmas intend to ram our capital ships, and that Invincible will be a focus for their attack on your formation. Watch for enigma ships on collision courses with yourselves and Invincible, and ensure neither they nor any large pieces of them get through. Captain Armus, you are to take necessary action to deal with enigma ramming tactics to the best of your ability and ensure that every ship in your formation is on guard for enemy ships aiming for collisions with battle-ships, auxiliaries, and assault transports.”

  The enigmas were accelerating again, trying to pull past the point where the path of Geary’s pursuit force would swing through their formation. He watched the point of contact slide farther and farther back, wondering if the enigmas would manage to slip past completely. “All units, hit them in the rear as we make contact. Watch for mines dropped in the wake of the enigma ships.” Using mines that way would be a tactic of desperation but might still cripple some of Geary’s ships if the enigmas got lucky.

  The pursuit formation whipped up and across the back of the enigma formation, Alliance missiles and hell-lance fire slamming into the sterns of the enigma warships still accelerating toward the main body of the Alliance fleet. Geary, who had tried to hit the front of the enigma formation, realized that the relative motion, which had instead brought the formations together like this, had spared his own ships a lot of damage. The enigma ships were all stern-on to their attackers, unable to employ most of their weapons. The main propulsion of the enigma warships were also exposed to the Alliance fire, taking damage that might otherwise have been met by hull armor.

  “All units immediate execute come starboard five zero degrees, down one zero degrees, accelerate to point one five light speed.” As the pursuit swung back and down again, Geary realized that he couldn’t catch the enigmas once more until after they had reached the main body. The enemy had used their superior acceleration to speed out of reach for now.

  But in the wake of the enigma formation, another twenty-three enemy ships drifted, or had spun off out of control or had blown up into clouds of debris, and so far Alliance losses had been minimal.

  Desjani shook her head. “Admiral, you’re asking a lot of Captain Armus.”

  “I’m aware that Captain Armus is not distinguished by flexibility or quickness,” Geary said, hearing the harshness in his voice. “But he is steady.”

  The spider-wolf ships had kept rising a little higher above the plane of the star system and the combatants, then leveled out heading toward the star and the inner planets. Their position would give them a box seat for the rest of the battle, taking them out of any risk of further contact with the enigmas.

  The main body of the Alliance forces was almost directly ahead of Geary’s pursuit force, between them the enigma formation, which was rapidly closing on the main body and slowly pulling away from Geary’s ships.

  “Contact between main body and enigma formation in twenty-five—” Lieutenant Castries’s voice broke off. “Recalculating. Main body is braking.”

  “Braking?” Desjani asked in disbelieving tones. “They have so much trouble getting up to speed, and he’s braking?”

  Geary watched his display, understanding dawning. “You’re thinking like a battle cruiser commander. Armus is a battleship captain. He wants the best opportunity to make the firepower of his battleships count, and that means getting the meeting velocity down to less than point two light speed.”

  “But when you’re dealing an enemy who wants to ram you—”

  “Tanya, he can’t dodge them. Not with those battleships and Invincible. And look what he’s doing with the auxiliaries and the assault transports.” Those ships had swung back, taking position behind a wall of combatants, which had compressed down, leaving relatively little space between them. “He knows he needs to blow away anything coming at him.”

  “This is way too much
like the tactics you told us not to use. Head-to-head, firepower-versus-firepower, no finesse, no fancy maneuvering.”

  “There’s a time and a place for everything, Tanya.”

  She started to say something else, then an expression of astonishment mixed with awe came over her. “You knew. You knew that you would need Armus now in just this way. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t know. It was a guess. A lucky guess.”

  “Sure.” Desjani made a religious gesture of thanks. “You didn’t feel any hints or inspiration. Sure.”

  He shook his head, not answering, knowing that the legend of Black Jack left little room for luck, instead attributing success to the favor of powers far beyond human.

  Well, maybe that was another word for luck.

  “Ten minutes to enigma contact with main body,” Lieutenant Castries said.

  The ships of the main body had stopped braking, turning to face the oncoming enemy bow on, where armor, shields, and weapons were thickest. Geary wanted to call the shots, literally call them, but the main body was too far away for that. He had to depend on Captain Armus’s choosing the right moments to fire.

  With the naked eye, he might have been able to see at best a curiously regular lattice of bright objects ahead, where the main body of the fleet came onward. On his display, Geary could see every ship plainly identified. Directly before Invincible, in a small diamond formation, Dreadnaught, Orion, Dependable, and Conqueror served as a shield for the captured Kick ship and the four battleships mated to it for towing. Watching them, Geary knew with a grim certainty that this time Jane Geary would hold her position just as doggedly as any bear-cow could.

  The enigma formation had re-formed into a flat wedge, the broad side facing the center of Armus’s force, as if aiming to slice the human formation in half.

  Desjani’s lips were moving in silent prayer, but her expression held confidence.