He looked at the display as he continued speaking, focusing on the powerful formation forward and above the main body. “Formation Fox Five One will be commanded by Captain Duellos on the Courageous.” His gaze shifted, looking at the lower jaw of the fleet. “Formation Fox Five Two will be commanded by Captain Numos on the Orion.”
Desjani gave Geary a sympathetic look. “Captain Numos is a senior captain.”
“Yeah. I didn’t have any choice but to give him command of that formation.” No choice since I had no grounds for dishonoring him by bypassing him for that responsibility. But if he screws this up, I’ll have those grounds and damn the consequences.
Geary activated his communications again. “Formation Fox Five Three is under the command of Commander Cresida on the Furious. Formation Fox Five Four is under the command of Commander Landis on the Valiant.” That took care of the light forces in the cheeks of the formation. “Captain Tulev in Leviathan is in command of Formation Fox Five Five.” The auxiliaries had needed someone in command of their escorts that Geary could count on, and he felt sure Tulev was that man. A dashing commander, even one as reliable as Duellos, might be tempted at some point to leave the auxiliaries unguarded in order to hurl the escorts into the battle. Tulev, steady and calm, should stick with the lightly armed auxiliaries to the death.
Geary took another satisfied look at the display, pleased to see the disparate elements of the fleet going exactly where they all should go. Then he noticed some concern on the face of Captain Desjani. “What’s the matter?” Geary asked quietly. She hesitated. “I need to know your thinking, Captain Desjani. Candid and direct.”
“Very well, sir.” Desjani spoke half-apologetically. “I know we’ve done simulations using this formation, but I’m still concerned about the distances between our forces. We seem to be spread out far enough to invite defeat in detail.”
He nodded. “That’s a legitimate concern. Dividing the fleet and remaining passive would allow the enemy to hit each piece in turn and have local superiority when they did so. If we didn’t move, that’d be exactly what would happen. But we’re not going to be sitting still waiting for the Syndics to hit us. Or rather,” Geary corrected, “the other formations won’t be sitting still. The main body is going to offer itself as a target for the Syndic assault.”
Oddly enough, the assurance that her ship would be charging straight into contact with the enemy clearly reassured Desjani. “Dauntless is to hold this course until contact?”
“Right.” Geary smiled again. “We’re going to adjust the course as necessary if the Syndics don’t head right for us, and we’ll modify our speed at the right points. But when the Syndics get to us they’re going to have a lot of other things to worry about, too. Trust me.”
She smiled back. “We do, Captain Geary.”
For some reason, having that said almost rattled Geary again. The trust some of these people had in him was so absolute, it was unnerving. But he focused back on the maneuvers of his ships, seeing the individual discs forming up nicely. On a whim, he pivoted the display in front of him so he could look sideways down the ranks of ships in the main body oval centered on Dauntless. Normally such a formation would have destroyers to the lead, cruisers behind, then the grim, steady mass of battleships and battle cruisers. But since Geary had sent the lighter units off to the other pieces of the Fox Five formation, the main body consisted of just the heavy hitters, battleships and battle cruisers arrayed in an open formation with interlocking fields of fire in front and to the sides. Have the Syndics seen what I’m doing yet? Do they understand?
He checked the Syndic formation. Still about six light-minutes away, the time-late images showed the Syndic force hadn’t altered formation in response to the movements of the Alliance fleet. The Syndic ships were spread into the flat bar that thinned and extended forward toward the edges. In some ways, it resembled a hammerhead bearing down on the Alliance fleet. Geary recognized the general concept behind it. Simple, and effective against an enemy who didn’t take the right countermeasures, the hammer would concentrate the attacking force’s assault against a relatively small but critical area, allowing closeranked successive waves of warships to sweep through the center of the defending force and batter it repeatedly with no chance for the defenders to recover between waves. Very simple, indeed. The Syndic commander wouldn’t have to give any maneuvering orders to his or her fleet until it had swept completely through the Alliance forces, and then they could simply turn the entire formation to come back and repeat the battering if needed. Or release the formation into individual ships with orders to independently run down and overwhelm the scattered survivors of the first attack.
Unfortunately for you guys, I have no intention of letting you get in that kind of blow.
Geary waited until his ships had all reached their assigned stations. “All units assume full combat readiness. At time zero seven, all units accelerate to point zero five light speed and proceed along formation axis defined by Dauntless.” Two minutes later, the entire Alliance fleet accelerated in unison, pushing its speed upward. “Damn, that looks nice.”
“It does.” Desjani grinned as Geary showed his surprise. “Didn’t you realize you’d said that out loud?”
“No.” But he smiled again as he watched the display, showing the vast formation of the Alliance fleet rushing onward in perfect unison, while the Syndic force continued to charge straight toward the center of the main body, and thereby straight into the jaws of the nutcracker. It never hurts to have an arrogant or foolish opponent, does it?
And now the really hard part had come, making sure he ordered the next maneuvers at the right times and in the right ways. Geary watched the data and the displays as the two opponents hurtled toward each other, trying to let his training and instincts feel the right moments to call the next orders. The images of the closest Syndic warships were still five minutes old by the time the Alliance saw them. Five minutes wasn’t a huge amount of time, especially given the momentum of those massive warships, but it was enough time for the Syndics to make some last minute moves to mess up Geary’s carefully coordinated attack. Especially if he moved his formations just a little too early and gave the Syndics the warning they needed.
Minutes passed. At one point, he thought Desjani might’ve asked him something, but he stayed focused on the feel of the fleets rushing together, and she didn’t speak again.
A few more minutes. Just a few more.
Geary’s hand reached out and touched the communications control, his eyes never leaving the display. “Formation Fox Five One. At time four five accelerate to point one light speed and alter course down six zero degrees. Align your formation axis perpendicular to the Syndic formation. Adjust course as necessary to enter the top of the Syndic formation about one-third of the way behind its leading edge.”
He paused, wanting to get the timing right. “Formation Fox Five Two. At time four five point five accelerate to point one light speed and alter course up five zero degrees. Align your formation axis perpendicular to the Syndic formation. Adjust course as necessary to enter the bottom of the Syndic formation about two thirds of the way behind its leading edge.”
Forty seconds later came Captain Duellos’s cheerful acknowledgment of the orders to Formation Fox Five One. One minute after that, Captain Numos in command of Formation Fox Five Two acknowledged his orders with no apparent emotion.