Jack Campbell: The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

There weren’t any cheers this time. The crew’s emotions matched Geary’s, a somber recognition of the need to deal with this mysterious and murderous threat.

The only good part about the next hour was that the concentration of the dark ships on Geary’s force had halted the attacks against other targets in Atalia Star System. A stern resolve had settled among the crew of Dauntless and the other Alliance warships as word spread about what the dark ships had done and about the weapons and maneuvering capabilities they could bring to bear.

He waited until time to contact was forty-five minutes out, only nine light-minutes from the enemy, before ordering the braking maneuver, bringing the warships around to reduce their velocity to point one light speed.

“The enemy is also braking velocity,” Lieutenant Castries announced.

Desjani had a puzzled look. “They started braking seven minutes ago, at almost the same time as you did, before they could have seen you had started doing so.”

“Coincidence,” Geary said. He was eyeing the enemy formations. Tanya had warned him that he tended to favor attacks up and to the right. Instead, he would aim for the dark ship subformation that was on the right and behind the leading dark ship formation. It contained two dark ship battle cruisers along with one of their heavy cruisers and four destroyers. If I can hit them with most of my firepower while avoiding the rest of the dark ship subformations, I can knock out a third of their combat capability.

They were one and a half light-minutes from the enemy, both sides having reduced their velocity to point one light so that the time to contact was still fifteen minutes away, when Geary made some minor adjustments to his formations, readying them for the sudden twist to the right and down that would avoid two-thirds of the dark ships and hit the remaining third as hard as possible.

Tanya was usually completely calm during moments like this, absorbed in the battle. But this time she was frowning at her display as if she were seeing something that bothered her.

“What’s the matter?” Geary asked.

“I don’t know. Something.”

“Let me know the instant you figure out what it is.” He focused back on the enemy force. The dark ships were coming onward without any alterations in vector, aiming straight for the center of the Alliance subformation at the tip of the task force’s V. Aiming for the subformation centered on Dauntless .

It was almost time to make his move. Almost time to make that small, last-moment adjustment in vectors. Geary’s hand hovered over his comm controls, ready to send the command.

“Admiral.” Desjani spoke abruptly but with utter certainty. “Break off the attack. Now. Take every ship wide of a firing run. Any direction.”

He had literally only a second or two in which to decide whether to do as she said and lose what seemed to be a perfectly set up firing run, or to ignore Tanya’s advice and stick with his plan.

Only a second or two.

Damn!

Geary’s hand came down on his comm control. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, up one five degrees!”

Dauntless jolted upward, along all of the other Alliance warships. Geary fought down a wave of disappointment over the lost opportunity, matched with anger at Tanya for spoiling the attack run. He was only partially aware of the moment in which the dark ship formations rocketed past beneath them, some of the dark ships tossing out shots that scored a few hits on the lowermost ships in Geary’s formations.

Wait a minute. “How could any of them have been in range when we made that big a vector change? Even with their advantage in maneuverability, they shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“Because they did last-minute maneuvers to bracket one of our formations with all of theirs,” Desjani said, pointing viciously at her display. “If you’d executed your firing run as planned Badaya’s subformation would have been torn apart. Replay the last maneuvers on the display if you don’t believe me.”

Geary began to turn his ships farther up, planning on bending them all the way around to reengage the enemy. “How did you know that they’d do that?”

“Because it’s what you would have done. Have you ever run sims based on your previous engagements?”

“You mean replayed the battles we’ve fought? No.” Once of each had been more than enough.

“I have,” Desjani declared. “Because I wanted to learn more about your way of fighting. I’ve played the enemy against you in those sims, and as those dark ships came at us, I suddenly realized that it felt exactly like one of those sims replaying your moves. That’s what was bothering me.”

“They’re copying me?”

“This isn’t just copying! This is you . They’re using automated maneuvering tactics based on what you’ve done, based on how you fight. They’ve got a simulated Black Jack calling their shots.”

Things had just gotten a lot worse. “How do I outsmart myself? Why didn’t we understand this hours ago, so I could review those battles and see what lessons that sim would be using?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “Well, pardon me for not figuring it out sooner!”

“That’s not what I—” He saw his formations reaching just past the vertical as they turned to reengage the dark ships, and he hit his comm controls. “All units in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, turn up one two zero degrees.” That would curve his task force away from an intercept, throwing off the dark ships, whose own courses would be based on the assumption that he would reengage as quickly as possible. Because that was what Black Jack did.

But the dark ships were reacting fast, twisting into tighter turns than Geary’s ships could achieve and accelerating at faster rates than his ships could match. “All units, immediate execute, come starboard eight zero degrees.”

All three Alliance subformations swung over at almost a right angle from their previous vector, heading almost straight for the distant star once again.

“I need time to think. Maybe if I split off the other two formations, have them operate independently—” Which was just what something programmed to think like Black Jack would want, he realized, because while Tulev was a good commander, and Badaya wasn’t bad, either one could more easily be caught and overwhelmed if Geary was trying to deal with three formations moving on totally different vectors against an opponent as good as he was.

How could he break contact with a force that was more maneuverable and could accelerate faster?

“We’ve got to try another firing run,” Geary said. “I need to disrupt them enough to gain time to think about this, and only a firing run offers the chance to do that.”

Desjani hesitated, then nodded, a slight sign of worry creasing her brow.

He brought his ships all the way down and around, swinging the course change as tight as he could to try to catch the back end of the three dark ship formations as their V passed overhead.

But the dark ships reacted too quickly, tightening their own turns even more and changing vectors for another head-on encounter.

Geary tried to decide which part of the enemy formation to aim for, which subformation was most vulnerable. The geometry of the situation left him unable to turn tightly enough to go high, and he didn’t want to aim right and low again, so he aimed for the left side.

Did he actually see, in the last moments when it could make a difference, the beginnings of a countermove by the dark ships? A countermove that would catch Badaya’s subformation in a deadly vise? Or did he just sense it?