Jack Campbell - Invincible

“How long until we know?” Rione asked, peering at her display, her voice, low as it was, still resounding to break the spell of silence on the bridge.

“Another three minutes until we might see something,” Lieutenant Yuon replied.

They were a very, very long three minutes, then several gasps sounded simultaneously as the first actions were seen. “Look at that!” Desjani said, her eyes lit with admiration. “They came in perfectly! Right behind their targets, zero deflection shots, getting the relative velocity as low as possible!”

“But they still only have a short firing window before those rocks pull away.” Geary watched shots going out from the spider-wolf ships, willing them to hit even though he knew hits or misses had happened over ten minutes ago.

“One, two, four, seven,” Lieutenant Yuon called out as the systems reported kinetic projectiles knocked off of their trajectories by hits from the spider-wolf weapons. “Twelve, nineteen, twenty-six, thirty-eight.”

Geary kept his eyes on the firing. Thirty-eight out of seventy-two rocks accounted for.

“Fifty-one,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. The hits were coming faster now, as the spider-wolves perfected their positioning and aim, but the rocks were also pulling steadily farther away and were rapidly going out of effective range. “Sixty, Sixty-four, Sixty-eight, Sixty-nine.”

“Come on!” Geary burst out. “Three more!”

“Seventy… seventy-one.”

The six spider-wolf ships were pumping out shots as fast as they could fire, but it was obvious that their accuracy had fallen off dramatically as the range had increased. The bridge was silent again, every eye locked on the symbol showing the last bombardment projectile still on course for the inhabited planet.

“Damn,” Desjani muttered.

“They’ve still got a chance,” Geary said.

The spider-wolf barrage stopped abruptly and he felt sick inside. So close to complete success. But the spider-wolves had obviously given up—

A single burst of fire erupted from the spider-wolf ships, every weapon letting loose at once, all aimed at the point where the kinetic projectile raced ahead of them.

“Seventy-two,” Lieutenant Yuon said in a shaky voice.

Desjani laughed, looked at Geary like she very badly wanted to kiss him, but settled for making a fist and punching his shoulder. “Thank you ancestors and thank you spider-wolves!”

“Madam Emissary,” Geary said, feeling weak with relief, “and General Charban. Please send the spider-wolves our deepest, most sincere thanks.”

Unlike the others on the bridge, Rione had a worried expression. “What if the enigmas fire more bombardment rounds?”

“The spider-wolves are even better positioned for intercepts now,” Geary said. “They’d have even better shots at the next set of rocks. We still have to worry about what those enigma ships might attack, but no bombardments will get through to that planet as long as the spider-wolves stay between the enigmas and the planet.”

The fleet’s sensors had continued to track the paths of the seventy-two enigma bombardment projectiles, but those tracks no longer bore threat symbols as the rocks tumbled away on paths that would pass clear of the inhabited planet.

“Score one for diplomacy,” Charban said.

Desjani, still elated, smiled at the comment. “General, I’d like to think of it as a great return on the investment of one case of duct tape.”

“Captain, some of those enigma ships are making major vector changes,” Lieutenant Castries warned.

Everyone’s eyes went back to their displays. “Well done keeping an eye on things while your superiors were being complacent,” Desjani told Castries. “Twelve of them.”

“The twelve that fired the bombardment at the planet,” Lieutenant Yuon confirmed.

The twelve enigma warships were diving far below the plane of the star system and turning back toward the welter of Alliance warships that were pursuing them and the other enigma ships. “A suicide run?” Geary speculated. “Are they going to try to get through to the auxiliaries or assault transports again?”

To his surprise, General Charban answered. “Only those twelve are making such a major change, Admiral. We learned while we were going through enigma territory that they are not a united species. This force of theirs must have been made up of contingents from different enigma nations. I suggest that what we’re seeing is what’s left of one of those contingents deciding that they have already gone far beyond the demands of duty to any agreement to attack the humans. They tried to bombard the inhabited planet here, and that failed. They’re going home.”

“That’s possible,” Desjani conceded. “They sure as hell threw off their immediate pursuers with that move.” The Alliance warships chasing those enigmas, surprised by the radical course change of their prey and traveling at exceedingly high velocity, were having trouble bending their own vectors far enough to manage intercepts before the twelve enigmas got past on their way back toward the jump point. “Admiral, if some of the destroyers and heavy cruisers are detached from the main body, they can move to nail those guys.”

Geary watched the twelve enigma warships breaking past their immediate pursuers, the last in line getting caught by Alliance fire and breaking apart. The other eleven continued on, outracing and outmaneuvering the human warships.

His gaze went to the rest of the battlefield, where disabled enigma warships were self-destructing, their surviving crews still on board, in an effort to keep the secrets of the enigma race. Only nineteen other enigma ships were left, five of those aiming for the inoperable battleship and the docks at the gas giant, and the other fourteen for the hypernet gate. He thought of the bear-cows fighting to the death and suiciding to avoid capture. “No.”

“No?” Desjani questioned. “Captain Armus can detach more than enough cruisers and destroyers to get those enigmas and still have plenty of ships available to protect his high-value units if some of them try to ram again.”

“No,” Geary repeated. “There’s been enough. General, send another broadcast of our negotiation offer to those eleven enigma ships. Add in a statement that we’ve shown what will happen if they keep fighting us, then reemphasize that we are willing to agree to leave them alone if they leave us alone.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Charban said.

Desjani sighed, then nodded to Geary. “I guess we’ve killed enough of them. If a few get home to tell the enigmas what happened to the rest, it might make them think twice before trying anything like this again.”

“That’s the idea,” Geary said, but she gave him a look that told him that she knew it was far from his only reason for avoiding more bloodshed.

He watched the movements of ships on his display, feeling immensely tired now, knowing that if nothing changed, it would be hours or even days before anything else happened. But if any of the nineteen enigma warships still heading for targets made radical changes in their vectors, it might be only minutes before action occurred.

And warnings were popping up on his display about the fuel-cell levels on the destroyers in the pursuit force, with here and there a light cruiser also showing low reserves. The light cruisers and destroyers couldn’t catch the enigmas as long as the enemy kept charging away from them, but those ships could run their fuel-cell reserves down to dangerously low levels in their futile chase. “All units in the pursuit force, this is Admiral Geary. Immediate execute reduce velocity to point one five light speed. Continue tracking enigma warships and engage them if the opportunity presents itself.”