Jack Campbell - Leviathan

“They’ve got enough superiority now to hammer us in any encounter,” Desjani said.

“If they get within firing range.”

Her anguish changed to surprise. “Now we’re going to avoid closing with them?”

“Yes. It’s not a tactic I’ve used before, so it will take them by surprise,” Geary said. It would surprise the dark ships the first time, and maybe the second time as well. But after that…

The dark battle cruisers whipped past the Alliance formations at a distance of five light-seconds, far too distant to engage even if the relative velocity hadn’t been so high. On Geary’s display, the projected track of the dark battle cruisers showed them braking steadily and hard until past their own battleships. He did not expect them to maneuver in that way, though.

“Dark battle cruiser formation is turning,” Lieutenant Yuon said.

The dark battle cruisers and their accompanying heavy cruisers and destroyers were bending their path through space, their main propulsion still blasting at full power, heading down. The projected path of the dark battle cruisers on Geary’s display bent and bent some more, shifting into a wide, wide turn that would bring the enemy ships back toward Geary’s formation.

He knew that everyone was waiting, nervously, to know what he would do, so Geary touched his comm controls. “First Fleet, the enemy believes that our options have been eliminated and we cannot avoid meeting them at their advantage. My intention is to frustrate their plans and force them into a variety of maneuvers until we can once again hit them at our advantage. I need the best from everyone. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

The tension on the bridge of Dauntless relaxed considerably. He imagined the same thing was happening on every Alliance ship. The men and women of this fleet trusted him, had confidence in him, had seen him beat the odds time and again. They did not doubt he could do it once more.

He had such doubts growing inside him, but he could not admit to them, could not give in to them, could not allow them to distract him from his efforts to somehow turn this fight around.

Another call, this time to only one ship. “Captain Ulrickson, what is the status of your repair efforts?”

Captain Ulrickson looked as if he had aged a few years since their last conversation. “ Fearless will be ready to maneuver with the rest of the fleet,” he said.

“Good,” Geary replied. There wasn’t any sense in warning Ulrickson what would happen if Fearless wasn’t ready and could not keep up with the other warships. Ulrickson already knew the consequences. Neither he nor his crew needed any additional motivation.

Incredible had managed to get her propulsion damage fixed, but Geary’s other damaged warships were still trying to get necessary repairs accomplished in time to make a difference.

The dark ships were closing in, the battleships directly behind and the battle cruisers looping toward Geary’s formations from below.

“I have to maneuver in five minutes,” Geary murmured to Desjani.

“ Fearless knows what has to happen,” she whispered back. “We’ve all been through this many times. Those of us who survived it, that is.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier.”

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” she said. “Be glad you’re not on Fearless .”

“Hold on.” He had three formations. The dark ships considered Dauntless to be their priority target. They wouldn’t be fooled easily again into disregarding other threats, but they had shown a pattern of concentrating against their chosen targets. “There’s something I can try.”

His hands raced across his display, setting up options and trying them out. “I need to make it look to the dark ships like I screwed up and left them an opening.”

Geary issued commands. Tango Three, the Alliance formation containing Fearless , pivoted their bows so they pointed beneath the oncoming enemy and began braking their velocity at a moderate rate. Fearless was able to keep up as Tango Three slid beneath the track of the dark battleships.

The other Alliance battleship formation, Tango Two, pointed their bows above the approaching dark battleships and began both braking slightly and rising above the projected path of the enemy.

At the same time, Tango One, the formation containing Dauntless and the other Alliance battle cruisers, began looping upward in a long turn that would bring them down behind the current track of the dark battleships.

“Admiral—!” Lieutenant Castries began in horrified tones.

Desjani stopped her with a single gesture. “I believe Admiral Geary knows exactly what you’re worried about.”

“That’s right,” he said. “I did it on purpose.”

The situation that had moved a lieutenant to want to tell an admiral he had messed up was not too hard to spot. The movements of Tango Two formation, sliding above its previous track, and Tango One, climbing faster above and beyond Tango Two, were aligning both formations along a single arc.

“I want the dark ships to see my ‘mistake,’” Geary explained to Castries. “It’s going to look like a perfect chance for their battleships to swing upward along an arc that will first let them hit our battleships in Tango Two, then continue on to hit our battle cruisers in Tango One.”

“You gave them bait,” Castries said with dawning realization. “So they wouldn’t go after formation Tango Three containing Fearless .”

“Are we going to try to hit them?” Desjani asked, clearly itching to do just that.

“No,” Geary said. “The odds would be horrible. We’re going to give them a taste of their own medicine. One the dark ships will not anticipate because, contrary to the suspicions of my own flagship captain, Admiral Geary has never tried to completely avoid contact with the enemy on a firing pass.”

“Ouch.” Desjani winced. “I deserved that. But we can’t win by just avoiding them.”

“I know. But we need to wait for them to make a mistake.”

As the dark battleships raced toward Tango Two, Geary factored in the small time delay until his message would reach the Alliance warships, then sent orders. “All units in Tango Two, set main propulsion on full at time one three.”

Captain Jane Geary called back quickly. “Admiral, if we make that maneuver we will certainly miss engaging the dark ships as they pass.”

“That is my intent, Captain. We cannot engage the dark ships under circumstances that almost guarantee suffering far more severe losses than they do. We will be trying to set up future firing passes in which the dark ships will be at a serious disadvantage.”

Jane Geary wasn’t happy, and the Jane Geary who had raised some hell during the mission into enigma space might have done something different than ordered, but she accepted his reasoning.

The dark ships, anticipating another Alliance attempt to hit them a glancing blow, countered with a slight jog in their track to bring them where they expected the Alliance formation to be. Instead, with the ships in Tango Two suddenly braking their velocity at full power, the dark ships overshot their target by a margin wide enough to eliminate any chance of combat.

Geary ordered Tango Two to cut back their propulsion again, then waited as the dark battleships swung up toward an intercept with his battle cruisers. Typical battleships, like those Geary had, would not have been able to pull off such an intercept against more agile battle cruisers. But the dark battleships were nimble enough to have a chance at it.

Assuming Geary had wanted to face twelve battleships with his nine battle cruisers, which he did not.