Jack Campbell - Imperfect Sword

Star systems like this one.

“Five minutes to maneuver time,” the senior watch specialist announced.

Marphissa shook herself out of her reverie. “Execute maneuver on time using automated controls. Link all ships in this formation.” The precision with which the maneuver would be executed would make it clear to outside observers that they were using the systems to control the ships. That should further lull CEO Boucher into complacency.

“Link all ships and execute maneuver using automated controls,” the watch specialist repeated to ensure that he had heard the order properly. “I understand and will comply.”

At the mark, every ship in Marphissa’s formation swung up and to the side, coming around under the push of thrusters and main propulsion units. The turn-together maneuver meant that every ship remained in the same spot relative to the other ships in the formation. They changed their facing and accelerated toward a meeting with Pele , but the box formation had not altered.

“You know,” Captain Bradamont commented, “if Admiral Geary had required his ships to maneuver on automated controls, he would have had to fend off scores of complaints from his ship captains.”

Kapitan Diaz gave her a skeptical look. “They only would have complained once, though. Right? Then he would have replaced them.”

“No. It took him a while to assert authority over his ships, and even now his decisions get questioned at times.”

Marphissa shot Bradamont an irritated glance. “Seriously? Before Black Jack came back, we saw the Alliance ships attack us in swarms rather than rigid formations, but we thought that was doctrine.”

“In a way, it was.” Bradamont sounded angry herself. “We’d forgotten that courage needs to be paired with discipline, individual initiative with support to your comrades. Admiral Geary reminded us that fighting as a team is much better than a bunch of ships battling individually. You’ve loosened a lot of the controls the Syndic government put on you, Asima. Be careful you don’t let too much freedom into your military forces.”

“But this is better,” Diaz argued.

“It is. Just remember the need for balance, for tying everything into the goal of creating an effective military team that makes as much use as possible of the individual skills of your people.”

“You always make things complicated,” Marphissa grumbled. Her ships had steadied out on their new vectors, but were still accelerating, aiming to match the velocity of the oncoming Syndicate flotilla. “I was thinking, you said Pele should operate separately from my own formation, and I still agree that is a good idea. But if I timed Pele ’s attacks to match my own, we would present CEO Boucher with a complication, but still she would be dealing with one set of attacks at once, then have time to recover while we repositioned for our next attack.”

“That’s true,” Bradamont agreed.

“But if I just cut Kontos loose, tell him to hit the escorts and keep hitting them, and conduct my own attacks independent of him, then CEO Boucher will face more frequent attacks, from different angles. It will be harder for her to keep track of things and decide which recommendation to accept from her automated combat systems. And Kontos,” Marphissa added with a sly smile, “is likely to do something unexpected, something that the combat systems on the Syndicate ship do not anticipate.”

“Kontos still doesn’t have a lot of experience himself,” Bradamont reminded her. “He’s good. Hell, he’s brilliant at times. But he’s young, and he hasn’t been doing this long. A miscalculation on his part, a risk whose magnitude he doesn’t fully appreciate because of a lack of experience, could be disastrous when we’re facing a battleship.”

“True.” Marphissa pondered the matter as her ships finally matched the velocity of the Syndicate flotilla. The two formations were now tearing through space, separated by four light-minutes, heading toward a much faster intercept with Pele . “I believe that Kontos can do this, Honore. President Iceni moved him to command of Pele because she has confidence in him. President Iceni is a good judge of character. You know as well as I do that we need something extra. Something big extra. We might be able to destroy every escort that Syndicate battleship has got, but stopping the battleship itself with what we’ve got is going to take a miracle.”

“It’s your call, Kommodor,” Bradamont said. “You are right about how hard it will be to hurt that thing without losing all of our own ships in the effort.”

Marphissa tapped her comm controls. “Kapitan Kontos, I want you to use your three ships to conduct attacks on the enemy independently of my formation. We want to eliminate the battleship’s escorts, confuse and frustrate the Syndicate commander, and ultimately wear down the battleship’s defenses. Keep me informed as necessary of your intentions and planned actions. For the people, Marphissa, out.”

“Syndicate flotilla is accelerating,” the combat watch specialist reported.

“Match their acceleration using automated controls,” Marphissa ordered the maneuvering watch specialist. “Maintain four light-minutes’ distance between us.”

“You could let CEO Boucher get closer,” Bradamont murmured to Marphissa. “Let her think she’s slowly gaining on you.”

“I’m not trying to lead her anywhere,” Marphissa said. “I want to taunt her and frustrate her, like a cat on a fence, just out of reach of the dog trying to get it.”

“Kommodor,” the senior watch specialist said, “our systems assess that the battleship is exceeding safe limits on main propulsion. If they continue to push their acceleration at the current rate, the chances of catastrophic component failure will rise rapidly.”

“How long?” Marphissa demanded. “Do we have an estimate of how much longer they can accelerate at current rates?”

“There are some uncertainties, Kommodor. But they cannot sustain their current effort for more than another sixteen minutes at the most.”

Marphissa stared intently at her display, imagining the scene on the bridge of the battleship. She had been in such situations before, the workers or junior executives warning of danger, a clueless CEO insisting that the current effort be continued, the sub-CEOs and most of the senior executives seeking foremost to avoid confronting the CEO and thus refusing to back up their juniors as danger readings crept closer toward disaster. More often than not, automatic safety routines had finally activated while senior ranks still denied or debated.

It was one area where automated systems had saved a lot of Syndicate ships.

Sure enough, the entire Syndicate flotilla kept accelerating at a rate that was unsustainable for the battleship. Kept accelerating for another twelve minutes, at which point the main propulsion on the battleship abruptly cut back.

“Syndicate battleship is now accelerating at eighty percent of capacity,” the senior watch specialist said. “That is the standard recovery rate for overstressed systems.”

“Reduce our acceleration to match,” Marphissa ordered.

“Kommodor, the Syndicate flotilla has ceased accelerating and is changing course slightly.”

On her display, Marphissa watched the long curve of the Syndicate flotilla’s projected path shift. Four minutes ago, the enemy had bent their path a few degrees to port. “CEO Boucher is trying to position herself between us and Pele .”

“She wants to prevent Pele from joining our formation?” Kapitan Diaz asked.

“Syndicate doctrine,” Marphissa replied. “Concentrate forces. We still look Syndicate because we use Syndicate equipment, so Boucher is assuming we’ll still fight like the Syndicate. She will soon learn otherwise.”