On his display, Geary could see the smaller subformations above and below the Alliance fleet’s main body losing their shapes and collapsing toward the main body as that formation rose to meet them, its warships also leaving their positions as they altered course. The Syndic CEO would see all that beginning to happen, a few minutes delayed since the fleets were still that far apart, and either believe that the Alliance fleet was aiming for a firing pass above the Syndic box or trying to vault past the top of the Syndic flotilla. That CEO would have to decide whether to alter course slightly upward as well, and know that there were only minutes to decide.
The one thing he wouldn’t expect was for the Alliance fleet to steady out and aim straight for a head-on intercept against the center of the Syndic flotilla. That was the sort of damn-the-missiles, straight-up-the-middle charge that had become common on both sides as the training and skills needed to carry out more complex maneuvers were lost in increasingly bloody battles. Commanders who knew only one way to fight had followed that way, depending on “fighting spirit” to overcome bad odds and enemy firepower. Courage and honor were the watchwords, making possible horrible slogging matches in which one side or the other eventually prevailed at awful costs in ships and personnel. Geary had never done that. He’d brought with him from a century before the expertise to fight intricate battles across vast reaches of space, coordinating the movements of different formations despite time lags of seconds, minutes, and even hours in communications and information. Despite its initial resistance, the fleet had followed his lead. Most of the fleet, anyway. The closest he’d come to ordering an attack into the teeth of the enemy had taken place at the first battle of Lakota, and it had been only after a series of maneuvers had fooled the Syndics into spreading their formation so wide that their middle was weak and unsupported by flanking units.
No, the Syndics knew that Geary didn’t attack up the middle in the opening of an engagement. They knew that of all the options available, he wouldn’t do that.
So that’s what he was doing.
The Alliance fleet’s main body and the two upper subformations kept dissolving and merging together, every ship breaking from its position relative to Dauntless and swinging onto a wide variety of course and speed vectors as Dauntless herself kept her bow swinging past up, over, and down slightly. The battle cruiser’s main propulsion units slammed into action briefly, slowing her and allowing other Alliance warships to take up position on the side closest to the oncoming enemy. Beneath them, the other two Alliance subformations had also dissolved, their ships rising to meet the main body and moving toward their own new positions.
“Can we really get this done before contact?” Desjani inquired tonelessly.
“I hope so.”
“Why do you think the Syndic flotilla will rise to meet what seemed to be your path?” Rione asked. Geary kept most of his attention on the movements of ships as he answered. “It’s a natural human instinct. If someone tries to rise over us, we try to rise to match or overreach them.” Even humans raised entirely in space showed the same bias even though the designation of up and down in star systems was purely arbitrary, up being above the plane of the star system and down being below it. “If the Syndic CEO follows their instincts in the very short time they’ve got to react, we’ll have them.”
With the rest of the fleet’s ships braking, the massive hulls of the Alliance battleships were passing through them and forming up into a slightly curved wall leading the fleet, around them clustering a swarm of Alliance destroyers and heavy cruisers.
All around Dauntless, other battle cruisers were sliding into place, their commanding officers only now realizing that they were positioned well behind the battleships. Geary had no trouble imagining the outrage that would be blossoming on those battle cruisers, but they wouldn’t have time to do anything about it before contact with the enemy.
Just behind the battle cruisers, the four auxiliaries were surrounded by the shapes of the four most badly damaged Alliance battle cruisers, other battered Alliance warships, and every heavy cruiser.
“Estimated time to contact twenty seconds. We have incoming transmissions for Captain Geary from Daring, Victorious, Implacable, Illustrious, Inspire, Intrepid—”
He’d obviously underestimated the outrage of his battle-cruiser captains and how quickly they’d move to vent that outrage. Desjani was being obvious about not saying, I told you so, as Geary hit his command override on the communications controls, his eyes on the Syndic formation, which had tipped upward slightly, just as he’d expected. The Syndic commander had hoped to bring a lot of firepower to bear on the Alliance fleet as it tried to rush past above the Syndic formation on one of the slashing firing passes Geary had often used, the heaviest Syndic firepower concentrated at the top of the formation. But the latest Alliance maneuvers had brought the concentrated Alliance fleet on a vector aimed straight at the center of the Syndics instead.
And the Syndics had no time to react.
“All units, we are less than twenty seconds from contact with the enemy. All battleships are to concentrate their fire on enemy capital ships. We need their shields down. Battle cruisers are to strike the death blows on those capital ships. If all capital ships within range have been eliminated, engage targets of opportunity as they enter weapon envelopes but conserve specter missiles.” Geary’s eyes flicked toward the time readout. He had to give the next maneuvering order before the fleet passed through the enemy flotilla even though it wouldn’t be executed until afterward. “All units, execute maneuvering package two at time one four.”
“Estimated time to contact ten seconds. Five seconds.”
The Syndics were ahead, then behind, the moment of contact incredibly brief, automated targeting systems aiming and firing as the warships tore past each other at a combined speed of almost sixty thousand kilometers per second. Dauntless’s hull shuddered as enemy hits registered on her shields. Geary tried to remain focused on the big picture as watch-standers called out reports. The Syndics had volleyed missiles and grapeshot at the expected position of the Alliance fleet, the great majority of those shots passing overhead as the Alliance warships went beneath them. By contrast the Alliance grapeshot couldn’t miss, slamming straight into the comparatively weak center of the Syndic flotilla. At short range and with the Alliance formation so compact, the dense barrage of steel ball bearings it had fired annihilated the light cruisers and HuKs in its path, blossoming flashes of light marking the deaths of the escorts. More lights flared as Alliance grapeshot slammed into the shields of the Syndic heavy cruisers, battleships, and battle cruisers in the center of the flotilla. As the opposing warships shot past each other, hell lances tore into targets and from the Alliance battle cruisers and battleships null fields blossomed to engulf parts of the Syndic combatants.
Syndic counterfire had lashed out, pummeling the massive shields and armor of the Alliance battleships. After the battleships had absorbed the first volleys, Syndic fire had flailed at the following Alliance warships, weakened but still deadly.
It had all taken only a fraction of a second, in which humans could only trust to the strength of their defenses, the accuracy of their automated targeting systems, and their luck. Now, as the Alliance formation and the Syndic flotilla raced away from each other, Geary watched as the fleet’s sensors evaluated the results.