Jack Campbell - Invincible

Off to port of the human fleet, the now all-too-close bear-cow armada would be seeing the latest human maneuver, turning away but not enough to avoid contact this time. They would also be seeing the human fleet finally altering velocity, speeding up to confuse targeting and make the intercept harder. And now they would be seeing the outer edges of the human formation dissolving as the human warships shifted positions at the same time as they kept turning and accelerating.

Hundreds of human warships dipped and climbed past each other, following individual paths that were coordinated and woven into a single fabric. The battleships not already at the top of the human formation climbed, joining the rest of the battleships in the top layer to form a wall of strength. The battle cruisers formed clusters at the front and back of the formation, ready to defend those areas or reinforce the battleships. Heavy cruisers swung downward to form a shell about the auxiliaries and assault transports, while light cruisers and destroyers scattered to mix with the battleships and battle cruisers.

But the mass of the human formation stayed relatively compact as it steadied out, heading straight at the alien fortress, but aimed to pass beneath it.

Dauntless ’s bridge was silent, everyone watching their displays, waiting to see how the alien armada would act, and when the fortress would launch its huge force of missile ships.

“Point of no return,” Desjani murmured. They were too far committed to this course now, unable to turn away from the fortress and the alien armada quickly enough to avoid a clash.

“Here they come,” Geary said.

The alien armada had come around and was braking velocity, its huge and cumbersome superbattleships straining to match the maneuver. The curve marking the armada’s projected course drifted to the side, steadying directly under the alien fortress. But the massive bear-cow ships couldn’t slow themselves fast enough. “Combined engagement velocity estimated at point one nine light speed,” Desjani said, as unnaturally calm as usual in the face of battle.

“All units,” Geary ordered, “engage any targets that enter your weapons envelopes.”

It had been days, then hours, then minutes, and now only seconds remained as the three elements of the battle rushed together. Would the alien fortress launch its missile ships on time for a perfect intercept of the human fleet tearing past, or… ?

“Here they come,” Desjani said. “Get anything that comes close,” she ordered her bridge crew.

The missile ships had begun launching, leaping upward from the surface of the fortress, but the launches faltered, staggering to a halt as the bear-cow armada in blind pursuit of the human fleet came blundering between the fleet and the fortress, fouling the path of the missile ships as the forces came together at a combined velocity of about fifty-seven thousand kilometers per second. Geary had planned it like an ancient bullfight, getting the bull enraged, getting it where and when he wanted it to be, until the final pass and away while the bull staggered past the place where it had thought to gore its opponent.

The actual shooting lasted for only milliseconds, too fast for human senses to register, automated combat systems selecting targets and firing at enemies who were there and gone in an instant. Particle beams seared deadly paths between ships, specter missiles launched to slam into targets too close to maneuver to avoid them, and sometimes even grapeshot was fired at targets close enough, the metal ball bearings striking with immense force against shields and armor. Dauntless rocked in the wake of explosions already far behind, Geary calling out new orders before he had time to assess damage to the fleet. “All units, brake at maximum to point one light speed.”

The human warships slewed around in place, their main propulsion units struggling to get their velocity low enough to use the jump point looming just beyond.

“A lot of misses,” Desjani commented, breathing slowly and deeply. “Looks like most of the bear-cow shots went wild.”

Geary spared a quick glance at the fleet status readouts. The human warships had focused their fire on the missile ships that had managed to launch, annihilating the partial wave short of their targets though taking some damage from near misses. The bear-cows, hampered by fire control systems that couldn’t match human capabilities at a combined engagement speed of point one nine light, hadn’t scored many hits despite the tremendous amount of firepower hurled out by the superbattleships.

He looked back at the maneuvering display, seeing velocities of his ships crawling downward, closer to point one light speed, the jump point approaching very, very quickly ahead.

“We’ll make it,” Desjani said.

“Not by much.” But it would be enough. “All units, jump now.”

“They’re going to come after us,” Desjani said. Outside of Dauntless , nothing was visible now except the dull gray emptiness of jump space. “Those civilian experts are right.”

“Yeah.” He had the same feeling. Geary watched one of the mysterious lights of jump space flare off to one side of the ship, then vanish. “The star we’re heading for is a white dwarf. The odds of a habitable world are very small. Unless the bear-cows have heavily fortified a distant outpost, we’ll be in a better position to take them out.”

“We hit some of those superbattleships hard as we went past,” Desjani pointed out. “But we didn’t inflict much damage. They’re going to be very hard to kill. And did you notice this?” She sent a record to Geary’s display. “Watch the top layer of ships in our formation as they pass closest to the fortress.”

He watched the replay, spotting what she had seen. During the moments when the human ships had been nearest to the fortress, passing beneath it though still thousands of kilometers distant, something had pushed them down and farther away from the fortress. “The bear-cow planetary defense. Whatever that is. At least those unexpected vector changes messed up some of the bear-cow fire aimed at those ships.”

“And made some of the shots from those ships miss, too,” Desjani said. “I think we’ve got a real good picture of the maximum range of that defense mechanism now.”

“Good call.” Tension was still draining from him. How long had he been up on the bridge, for how many hours had he been engaged in the bullfight with the alien armada? “We’ve got eight days in jump space. A really long leap.”

“Are you finally going to get enough sleep?”

“That’s my intent.” He didn’t have to tell Desjani to order maximum crew rest for the next couple of days. He knew that she would do that. Captains sometimes had to demand intense efforts from their crews for extended periods. All captains understood that. Good captains also knew the need to compensate for that extra effort when opportunity permitted, to let their crews know the additional exertion wasn’t taken for granted. “First, I’m going to go down and give my thanks to my ancestors, though. We’re going to need their help when we meet up with the bear-cows again.”

It hadn’t exactly been a victory, but it hadn’t been a defeat. The fleet was clear of Pandora, and it was heading back toward home, even if that path back would be a somewhat crooked one of necessity as the fleet jumped from star to star. Once they reached Syndicate Worlds’ space, they would be able to use the Syndic hypernet to get back to Alliance space quickly, but that option did not exist out here far beyond human-occupied space.

No one could claim that he personally and this fleet as an arm of the Alliance government had not followed their orders. Geary had done exactly what his orders called for, to learn more about the strength and numbers of the enigma race and to learn how far regions controlled by the enigmas extended beyond human-occupied space. Now it was time to take that information home.