Jack Campbell - Leviathan

“Jack, we’re going to have a hell of a time getting out of this.”

She almost never called him that when they were on her ship.

“I know. But if nothing else, we’ll get those support facilities. Even if we don’t make it out of this star system, the days of the dark ships are going to be numbered.”

“We who are about to die salute you!” she murmured.

“Tanya—”

“It’s all right. I should have died a dozen years ago, and I should have died a dozen times in the years since then. Lead on. Even if we lose this one, we’ll win in the long run, and it’ll be a fight they’ll be talking about for centuries.”

An hour later, Geary brought the fleet to full battle readiness again. Just about everyone on every ship was already at their battle stations, since they all knew about the oncoming enemy and had watched the dark ships’ approach for the last hour. As a result, every ship reported ready in record time.

He had spent the last hour trying to think rather than worry. He could outsmart the dark ships. He had done that more than once, with Tanya’s help in many cases because the dark ship AIs had been programmed to think like Black Jack and were confused when confronted by the Black Jack/Tanya Desjani team effort.

But the dark ships had known he had to go for their base. Because he had known that it was his only chance to beat them. Maybe someone had tipped the dark ships off with specific information, but in their place, Geary would have tried to lay just such a trap as this.

But he wouldn’t have given his opponent even a chance to get at the support facilities. The dark ships were still weak on logistics, still thinking in terms of tactics, not in terms of long campaigns. That gave him an opening.

He just didn’t know what to do after destroying those docks and warehouses.

“Twenty minutes to contact,” Lieutenant Castries said. “The dark battle cruiser formation is braking their velocity. Given the angle they will encounter us, projected combined velocity at the moment of intercept will be point two one light speed.”

“A little fast, but close enough for our fire-control systems to get good hits. Still holding the vector?” Desjani asked Geary.

“Still holding,” Geary said. “Just in case they do decide to charge us straight on.”

“If they do, Dauntless and Mistral will be their priority targets.”

“And with the screen of battle cruisers and battleships they’ll have to get through, none of them will survive to get a shot at us,” Geary said. He tapped his comm controls. “All units in First Fleet, I expect that this first formation of dark ships will make vector changes to avoid contact. If they do, the Dancers will handle them. If they do not, if they attack our formation, let’s make sure none of them survive the first pass.”

It felt odd, going into an engagement determined not to make any last-moment maneuver. Throwing off the enemy’s fire was always important. But he felt certain that these dark battle cruisers would not throw themselves away on a hopeless attack.

Because he would not have done that.

“Five minutes,” Lieutenant Castries said.

“The Dancers still haven’t moved,” Desjani noted.

“They will,” Geary said. “The dark ships are going to go after them.”

“You think so?” Desjani studied the situation. “Yes. If they come a little up and to port, they’ll go right through the Dancer formation instead of ours.”

“And you can bet the Dancers have seen that, too.” He knew he sounded confident. He hoped he was right.

The last minutes seemed to pass very slowly.

The moment of contact came and went too fast for human senses to register.

“No engagement!” Lieutenant Yuon announced.

Geary realized that he had been holding his breath and let it out slowly.

“Oh, nice!” he heard Desjani say.

Focusing on his display again, Geary saw that the Dancer formation had dissolved in the minute before contact, the forty bright ships sweeping down and over to catch one flank of the dark ship formation as it tore past. While none of the Dancer ships were the size of human battleships or battle cruisers, and none carried as much armament, forty of them could do a fair amount of damage, especially against smaller Alliance warships.

A dark heavy cruiser was reeling out of formation, unable to control its movement. One of the light cruisers was gone, nothing but debris remaining. A second had broken into sections, which were disintegrating as they tumbled through space. And one of the dark destroyers was gone as well.

“They’ll think twice before trying that again!” Desjani said gleefully.

“Damage to some of the Dancer ships, but none are disabled,” Lieutenant Yuon reported.

The dark battle cruisers were whipping around, the Dancers swarming and rising to meet their turn like huge, shining bubbles flying upward, all pretense of a rigid formation vanished in favor of something that resembled the movements of a school of fish.

“It’s too bad the Dancers don’t have more firepower. The dark ships didn’t take into account the maneuverability and skills of the Dancers,” Geary said. “The dark ships won’t make that mistake again, but the Dancers should keep that one group of battle cruisers busy.”

Which left four more groups of dark ships.

The battleships that had come out of the docks had started out an hour behind the dark battle cruisers and accelerated more slowly, so they were now more than two hours from contact. The three groups of dark ships that had come out from behind the two stars were pushing their own velocity up, aiming to reach Geary’s formation at the same time as the first group of battleships.

“We could detach enough ships to help the Dancers finish off that first group of battle cruisers,” Desjani suggested.

“That’s what they want,” Geary said. “To get us focused on fighting those battle cruisers, then the groups here after them, until our option to do anything else disappears. We’re going to hold together, we’re going to blow through any opposition that we can’t avoid, and we’re going to wipe out those docks and warehouses. Then we’ll engage the dark ships. By that time, we’ll also know whether or not the hypernet gate is blocked to us.”

He called up his division and squadron commanders, repeating what he had told Desjani. The news that the gate might be blocked was met with as much anger directed at the dark ships as fear for the consequences. Captain Badaya, though, saw a positive side to the situation. “They can’t get away from us this time!”

“We’ve got them trapped,” Captain Duellos agreed, smiling slightly.

Captain Jane Geary smiled broadly. “Nothing to lose. Let’s hit them just like Black Jack would.”

“We’re going to do just that,” Geary said, accepting the role of Black Jack as needed now. “We’re going to hit them and keep hitting them. If the fleet has to break into small formations centered on the battle cruiser and battleship divisions, I trust you all to operate independently, and I know you will all carry out your duties in a manner that does honor to your ancestors.”

He ended the call, concentrating once more on the situation. The first group of dark battle cruisers, scarred by the Dancer attack but still powerful and fast, was behind and above the Alliance ships, accelerating again. But they were beginning to roll to one side to evade the Dancers’ second pass. That was taking the dark ships off a vector to intercept Geary’s formation again. “General Charban, please inform the Dancers that they are doing all I could ask for, and to please continue keeping those dark battle cruisers occupied.”