Jack Campbell - Invincible

Specter missiles were leaping out to home on bear-cow warships, then in an instant of sequential shooting, hell lances were firing, grapeshot was hurled at the closest enemies, and, in a few cases, the lethal clouds of null fields engulfed portions of their targets.

Dauntless shook with only one near miss, Geary’s eyes on his display as it updated the status of the bear-cow fleet. Six of the lesser bear-cow ships—four about heavy cruiser–sized, one light cruiser–sized, and one equivalent to a human battleship—had been hit hard. Two of the cruisers were gone, blown to pieces, the crippled battleship spun off, and the other stricken warships wobbled to try to keep up with their formation, shields, armor, and weapons badly battered.

Desjani’s shout and the blare of collision warning alarms sounded on top of one another. Startled, Geary saw twenty or thirty spider-wolf warships weave through his formation at tremendous velocity, some missing collisions with human ships by distances that would have scared the hell out of any human ship captain.

Once through the human ships, the spider-wolves pounced on the crippled bear-cow warships, making individual firing runs that rapidly reduced all of those damaged ships to wrecks.

“What. The. Hell? ” Desjani glared at her display. “Those stupid spiders almost nailed us instead of the Kicks!”

“Captain?” Lieutenant Castries said in a voice that mingled awe and terror. “Our systems estimate the spider-wolf ships were on manual maneuvering controls. They weren’t being guided by automated systems when they went through us.”

“That’s impossible. Nobody could—” Desjani shook her head. “Nobody human. Admiral, those things are absolutely insane.”

“At least they’re on our side,” he said, trying to judge the right moment for his next maneuver. Tulev’s force had just gone through a lower edge of the bear-cow force, leaving five mangled Kick escorts in his wake though taking more damage to his own ships than Geary’s force had suffered because the closing velocity had fallen just within bear-cow targeting parameters. Geary saw another flock of spider-wolf ships weaving past any obstacles as they leaped to attack the victims of Tulev’s strike.

Badaya had turned down again at the last moment, his ships raking the bottom of the bear-cow formation and knocking out four escorts while inflicting significant damage on several others. But Illustrious and Incredible had suffered some hard blows as well from two of the superbattleships.

“Immediate execute all units in Gamma One One come up one nine zero degrees,” Geary ordered. “Increase velocity to point one light speed.” He would bring his subformation up and over, back down in more than a half circle to close on the rear of the bear-cows, who had now slowed to point zero nine light speed.

An alert pulsed red. “ Titan has lost that propulsion unit again,” Geary said, adding some curses under his breath.

Badaya’s formation had suddenly become limited in its ability to accelerate, slow, and turn. The bear-cows must have spotted the change in Titan because they began coming around to intercept Badaya’s force. Incredible staggered into position near Titan as one of its own main propulsion units gave way after the damage it had suffered a short time earlier, and almost at the same moment Illustrious suffered shield failures along most of her hull.

Geary snapped out more orders, bringing his subformation in a tighter turn, the moan of the inertial nullifiers becoming audible along with the groaning of Dauntless ’s hull under the strain. The other warships matched Dauntless , but the assault transports swung wider, unable to equal the maneuvers of the combatants.

If he kept this up, he would come into contact with the bear-cow warships with his formation disrupted and the assault transports dangerously exposed.

“Admiral?” Desjani asked.

“It can’t be done,” he muttered. “Not that way.” But he had to do something to relieve the pressure on Badaya, who was unsuccessfully trying to hold his formation together as it turned to evade the head-on rush of the bear-cow armada. Tulev’s subformation had been caught out of position when the Kicks turned toward Badaya, and now had to chase back into contact. Tulev couldn’t make it in time to disrupt the attack on Badaya’s subformation.

Geary had five battle cruisers in this subformation. Dauntless , Daring , Victorious , Intemperate , and Adroit . His hand hit the comm controls. “All units in Gamma One One, immediate execute come up two zero degrees. Shift formation guide to Warspite . Daring , Victorious , Intemperate , and Adroit , match your movements to Dauntless .”

He turned to Desjani. “Captain, take Dauntless through the middle of the enemy formation at the best velocity you can manage.”

She smiled in a baring of the teeth that would have surely unnerved any bear-cows who could have seen it. “Let’s go!” she told her crew, then brought Dauntless screaming around, accelerating through a turn even tighter than that before, the other four battle cruisers following.

Geary watched red-line warnings pop up on his display as Desjani pushed her ship into stress danger zones. Somehow, the other four battle cruisers stayed with her as the tiny formation dove straight for the bear-cow formation.

They went through at blinding speed, main propulsion units still at maximum. One of the superbattleships and a score of lighter yet still powerful Kick warships fired everything they had at the plummeting battle cruisers, but Desjani had gotten the relative velocity up close to point two light speed, throwing off the aim of the enemy. The human warships replied with lightning-fast barrages that pummeled two of the Kick battleships.

Then they were past, Geary reassuming control of Dauntless and bringing the battle cruisers back around to try to rejoin the rest of his formation.

A screen of spider-wolf ships had appeared between Badaya’s force and the oncoming bear-cows, but they could only inflict minor damage before scattering in the face of the superbattleships.

Geary braced himself for serious losses, knowing that Badaya had been cursed with bad luck but had also fumbled this situation, reacting too slowly to the damage and not turning away far enough and fast enough. Nothing could stop the Kick armada now from inflicting major damage on Badaya’s ships, not when those superbattleships were so hard to hurt or turn aside.

Without warning, battleships Dreadnaught and Orion broke away from Badaya’s subformation, closely followed by Dependable and Conqueror . Relentless , Reprisal , Superb , and Splendid went after the other battleships in a rush, every battleship in Badaya’s subformation now coming steadily and ponderously around on vectors aimed straight at the oncoming enemy.

The words of Captain Mosko came back to him. It’s what battleships do.

“They’ll get torn to pieces,” Geary whispered. My grandniece. Going to her death under my command just as her brother did. May our ancestors forgive me.

Desjani wore a look of tragic pride. “Yes. But they might enable the rest of Badaya’s force to get clear of that charge.”

His eyes searched the display, looking for a miracle. Tulev’s subformation still too far off, the spider-wolves only nibbling at the edges of the bear-cow force, his own battle cruisers climbing and turning back to join the rest of his subformation, which was still coming around to meet him and continue on toward the rear of the Kick armada.