Jack Campbell - Leviathan

He did not feel any answer. His thoughts refused to coalesce around any image or memory that might help. It’s up to me, then? Again? Am I ever going to get a break? How about these men and women that I command? Haven’t they already given enough? How much more will be asked of them?

Still nothing. After several minutes, Geary sighed and moved to snuff out the candle.

But the flame seemed to dance aside. He grumbled and tried again, once more missing it. It took a third, determined try to put out the candle.

He was halfway back to the bridge before he wondered whether that had been some sort of message.

Two hours later, light arrived from the region of the jump point from Varandal with the news they had been expecting. “Twelve battle cruisers,” Lieutenant Castries reported. “Accompanied by fourteen heavy cruisers and twenty-five destroyers.”

“Can we see any signs that any of those dark ships engaged in combat at Varandal?” Geary asked, tensing as he waited for the answer.

Castries bit her lip as she studied her display, then shook her head. “All dark ships are undamaged as far as we can tell, Admiral. It’s possible some of them have damage on portions that we cannot see, but the odds of none of that being visible would be pretty small.”

“Roberto Duellos would have hurt them,” Desjani said forcefully.

“There are two dark battle cruisers unaccounted for,” Geary pointed out, unwilling to feel completely relieved as of yet.

“Two major combatants completely destroyed and not a mark on any of the other dark ships? That doesn’t seem plausible. Admiral, it looks to me like those dark ships raced straight through Varandal from the hypernet gate to the jump point for Bhavan. Captain Duellos could not have managed an intercept under those conditions unless he was perfectly positioned.”

It was what he wanted to believe, which made it too easy to believe, but Geary couldn’t argue with Desjani’s logic. “I hope you’re right, Tanya.”

“The new dark ship formation came starboard after arriving and steadied out on an intercept with our track, Admiral,” Lieutenant Yuon said.

“We have a target-rich environment,” Desjani commented in cheerful tones that drew looks of disbelief, then grins, from her bridge crew. “For once,” she continued, “I will not insist that Dauntless achieve the majority of the kills. There are plenty of enemy warships to go around.”

“The dark battle cruisers are coming up to point two light speed,” Geary said. “They’ll take a long time to intercept us even at that rate, but I expect the dark battleships will finally turn once they also see the light of their battle cruisers’ arrival.”

Geary’s warships were only eight light-minutes from the dark battleships. Less than twenty minutes after sighting the dark battle cruisers, the enemy battleships maneuvered, not turning their formations but simply pivoting around to face toward a fast intercept with Geary’s force. Lighting off their main propulsion on full, the dark ships labored to first stop their movement toward the primary inhabited planet, then accelerate outward in a nearly opposite direction toward Geary’s warships. That maneuver used a lot of fuel cells since it first killed momentum completely in one direction, then built it in another. Swinging through a turn instead would have altered the direction of momentum, which also involved a lot of propulsion, but made some use of the existing movement and so was not nearly as expensive in terms of fuel.

As they maneuvered, it became clear that the dark battleships were all accelerating toward an intercept with one Alliance subformation, the one that contained the battle cruisers, including Dauntless .

“They don’t just want the battle cruisers,” Desjani said with dawning understanding. “They want you.”

“I was starting to suspect that,” Geary said, trying to sound casual about knowing he was being personally targeted by such a massive force. “Tactically, it makes a lot of sense. The enemy has a skilled commander, so it is a good idea to aim to take out that skilled commander.”

“But we suspect that dark ship fleet was built at least in part to counter any threat you might pose to the Alliance government,” she pointed out. “That’s not about tactics. Are they programmed to go after Black Jack?”

“It’s entirely possible that they were, under certain conditions, and they may have decided that those conditions have been met, maybe when we beat them at Atalia, maybe just when I challenged them at Atalia.”

Desjani glanced sidelong at him. “We can use that.”

“Yes, we can.” It seemed very unlikely that would be enough to compensate for the superior numbers and capabilities of the dark ships, but at the moment he would take anything he could get.

Geary’s three diamond formations were heading in toward the star. Ahead of them, and slightly to starboard, were the three dark battleship formations. The main body of the dark ships in its rectangular box shape was accelerating fast onto a curving path through space that aimed for a direct intercept on Geary’s battle cruiser formation, the two smaller side formations closing in on the main body so that the three dark ship formations had almost merged into one long rectangle.

Nearly a light-hour behind Geary’s ships and a bit off to port were the twelve dark battle cruisers and their escort ships. The dark battle cruisers and the heavy cruisers and destroyers with them were accelerating for all they were worth and also steering on a vector that would eventually catch up to Geary’s formation.

“They don’t mind burning fuel cells like nobody’s business, do they?” Lieutenant Castries commented, then cast a hurried look at Captain Desjani as she realized she had spoken aloud. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

“It’s true,” Desjani replied. “Why do you think the dark ships are maneuvering in that fashion, Lieutenant?”

Castries hesitated as she thought through possible explanations. “There are a variety of profiles that our automated maneuvering systems are designed to adopt based on the situation,” she finally said. “Battle Priority profile places emphasis on completing maneuvers quickly and deemphasizes fuel cell usage levels because it focuses on achieving a quick, decisive victory. It appears that the dark ships are using Battle Priority as a default, perhaps because they see their ability to accelerate and maneuver better than our ships as a decisive advantage.”

“Not bad, Lieutenant,” Desjani said. “You are very likely correct. Where we modify our instructions to the maneuvering systems and sometimes override the automated preferences, the dark ships are forced to use purely automated controls that they may not question.” She looked back at Geary. “What are we going to do? Try to lure them into a lunge for Dauntless as we swing by again? It will be hard to set that up so we can get a decent number of hits, but we can try once more.”

“It’s too hard,” Geary said. “Time and numbers are not on our side. We can’t risk inconclusive firing passes, but if we cut a pass too close and get chewed up, we could lose this fight very quickly.”

“Maybe—”

“Hold on.”

Desjani ceased speaking instantly, turning a warning glare on the bridge watch-standers to ensure they also remained silent. Geary rarely cut her off, especially so abruptly. When he did, she knew it meant he was chasing an idea, something that was hanging on the edge of his consciousness but staying just out of sight.

The candle had offered a clue. Dodge aside from the enemy attacks. But battleships could not dodge battle cruisers. In order to set up conditions that would give him a chance to avoid getting hit too hard, Geary knew he would have to first inflict a major blow on the dark ships. But he couldn’t dodge and hit the dark ships hard. If only he could tear straight through the dark ship formation. But they would target Dauntless , they would aim every weapon at this battle cruiser, and—