“Damn,” Geary repeated under his breath. The change in the Syndic course hadn’t been very big, but it had been enough. The Alliance subformations had avoided getting hit by the Syndics, but were also out of hell-lance range as the Syndics cleared the missile barrage. At least he hadn’t wasted any of his fleet’s limited supply of grapeshot.
The same wouldn’t be true as the Syndic box encountered the big trailing Alliance formation. The Alliance auxiliaries, which had been at the back of the formation, had pivoted to the top as the Alliance wall rotated flat and angled upward, protecting them from the fire of the Syndic warships that would pass just under the Alliance ships. “You called this one dead-on,” Desjani murmured, her eyes still fixed on her display.
“Maybe too close,” Geary replied, hastily triggering his command circuit. “Alliance ships in formation Echo Four One, employ all weapons, including grapeshot.”
Dauntless and the other Alliance warships with her hurled out their missiles, followed by tightly packed fields of ball bearings. The Syndic box actually had more warships in it than the Alliance formation with Dauntless, but almost every Alliance ship in the flat-coin formation could engage the Syndics, whereas only the upper layers of the Syndic box could fire on the enemy.
The warships in the upper part of the Syndic box staggered as they hit wave after wave of Alliance missiles, followed by wave after wave of grapeshot as the length of the enemy formation shot past under the length of the Alliance almost horizontal plane, the formations almost touching as the rear of the Alliance warships passed the enemy. The Syndics hadn’t had time to reload the missile launchers they’d used against the first Alliance subformation, but pumped out their own barrage of grapeshot.
In the tiny fraction of a second in which this was happening, hell lances also flashed out, hitting shields weakened by earlier hits and warships whose shields had suffered failures under the blows.
Geary knew he couldn’t take time to evaluate the results of the clash, so even as Dauntless was still shuddering from hits and her watch-standers were calling out damage reports, he sent out more orders. “Formation Echo Four Two, turn starboard one one zero degrees up zero two degrees at time two four. Formation Echo Four Three turn port one one eight degrees up one six degrees at time two four. Formation Echo Four Four turn starboard zero five degrees down one three one degrees at time two five. Formation Echo Four Five turn starboard zero eight degrees up one five two degrees at time two five.” He gasped a breath and kept going. “Formation Echo Four One, turn starboard zero three degrees up one six zero degrees at time two five.”
The combined maneuvers should all bring the five pieces of the Alliance fleet up, down, over, and around and back toward the Syndic box. As he saw what the Syndics were doing, he’d have to adjust his orders, but for now it was enough to order his ships onto the right general headings.
Finally, with a moment to check the results of the encounter, Geary steadied himself as he checked the ship status reports. Most of the Syndic missiles that had chased Formation Echo Four Five had been destroyed by Alliance defenses as they tried to catch up with their targets, but a number had made it through. The heavy cruiser Gusset had lost propulsion, the light cruisers Kote and Caltrop had been knocked out, the destroyer Flail blown apart by several hits, and the battle cruisers Intrepid and Courageous had suffered damage but were staying with the formation.
The brutal exchange of fire between Echo Four One and the Syndic box had cost the Syndics more than it had the Alliance, but the destroyers Ndziga and Tabar had been destroyed, the light cruiser Cercle riddled into wreckage, and the heavy cruisers Armet and Schischak both put out of commission. The scout battleship Braveheart had lost all of its propulsion and weapons and fallen away from the formation as well. Many other Alliance ships had taken damage, though the battleships had naturally suffered the least.
The front edges of the Syndic formation had taken the brunt of missile volleys, then the top had fought the close engagement with Echo Four One. The Alliance advantage in numbers had told, particularly against the most heavily outnumbered Syndic light cruisers and HuKs. Of the twenty-five light cruisers the Syndic force had entered the battle with, twelve were destroyed or too badly damaged to fight, while the Syndic’s forty-two HuKs had lost almost twenty of their number. Five Syndic heavy cruisers were out of the battle. Best of all, four Syndic battle cruisers were out of action, one destroyed and three badly torn up. In addition, one Syndic battleship had lost most of its propulsion and was falling back as the Syndic formation began curving to one side for another strike at the Alliance ships.
I bungled that, Geary thought bitterly. The Syndic commander reacted so late I couldn’t concentrate my attack properly.
Desjani seemed cheerful, though. “Look at the damage on them! They won’t be able to survive another run like that.”
Geary didn’t answer, focusing on the movement of the Syndics. They were still coming around in the huge turn necessary when ships were moving at point one light speed, but he felt certain they were aiming to hit Echo Four One again, perhaps hoping to get some shots at the Alliance auxiliaries this time. He snapped out orders to the other four formations, bringing them in to cross the track the Syndics would follow to intercept Echo Four One once more, his tone drawing a wary look from Desjani.
This time he’d guessed right. As the tattered Syndic box came toward Echo Four One from port and slightly below, the other four Alliance subformations ripped past close ahead of it in quick succession, each pass inflicting more damage on the leading Syndic units so that the front of the Syndic box kept getting shredded and replaced by the warships behind it. More enemy heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and HuKs exploded, broke apart, or simply fell away with critical systems destroyed. Two more Syndic battle cruisers reeled out of the formation, followed by a third, while the forwardmost Syndic battleships took more and more hits.
The Syndics could only hit back at each Alliance formation once, and while they scored some hits, they failed to inflict serious damage on any ships.
“Echo Four One,” Geary ordered harshly, “turn port zero eight degrees up one four degrees at time four three.”
The Syndic box kept on course. Either the Syndic commander hadn’t spotted the Alliance maneuver in time or his flagship had been damaged and couldn’t communicate orders quickly enough. The Alliance formation centered on Dauntless swept over the top edge of the frayed front of the Syndic box, this time able to repeatedly hit the Syndic ships there while taking much less fire in return.
Desjani uttered a small whoop of pleasure as a Syndic battleship exploded in the wake of Echo Four One’s firing pass, followed by the core overloads of another battleship and one of the surviving battle cruisers.
But Geary just stared at his display, trying to rebuild his picture of events and how to bring the different pieces of everything together again. The Syndics were coming around to starboard now, angling slightly down. Alliance fleet subformations were swinging outward on four widely different vectors, their distances from the flagship varying. Geary tried to keep it all straight, tried to coordinate the actions of his subformations, and found it slipping away. He’d been rattled by his failure to call the maneuvers right on the first pass, and now the movements and the necessary maneuvers through different levels of time delay had grown too hard to grasp. But he couldn’t just release the fleet for general pursuit. Not yet. All of his ships would swarm toward the Syndic flotilla in a wild melee that would drastically increase the risk of collision and negate a lot of his advantages in numbers and firepower. Nor could he count on handing the movements of the subformations over to the artificial intelligence in the maneuvering system, because that would focus on predictable highest-probability moves and therefore be predictable itself as well as probably in error.