Desjani shook her head, looking disgusted. “Any of those small craft that somehow survived this attack could never get home. They don’t have the fuel or life-support endurance. I hope the Syndic commander responsible for this is on one of those merchants.”
“He or she is probably a dozen light-years away,” Geary said. “How stealthy are these FACs?”
“Some capability, but they’re out here in the middle of nowhere, accelerating, and we watched them launched. The combat systems will have no trouble tracking them even after they—And there they went. Stealth systems on the FACs have gone active, and we’ve still got solid tracks on all of them.”
“Okay.” Geary spent a few more seconds watching the horde of FACs heading to intercept the Alliance fleet, then scrolled through some of the formations he had worked out before this and loaded into the maneuvering systems. After checking to confirm the time required for a message to reach the most distant unit in the current Alliance formation, he tapped his comm controls. “All units in the Alliance fleet, this is—” He’d almost said Captain Geary, but caught himself. “Admiral Geary. Execute Formation November at time four seven.”
Desjani glanced at him, pulled up the formation on her own display, then nodded. “It will do. But you should slow the formation a little to ensure as many kills on the FACs as possible.”
“Thanks. Do you think point zero eight light speed will be slow enough?”
After repeating the question to her combat-systems watch-stander and waiting for a swift answer, Desjani nodded again. “Yes, sir.”
Rione spoke with resignation. “If they’re doomed, do we have to destroy them and risk casualties of our own?”
“Yes,” Geary replied. “We can’t swing far enough to one side to evade missiles fired by that mass of FACs, which means the units on that flank would run risks of being hit by missiles on high-deflection run-ins, which are a lot harder to hit with defensive fire than low-deflection runs. I’d be particularly worried about some of the missiles targeting the auxiliaries as we went past the FACs.”
At time four seven, the current Alliance formation dissolved, the squadrons and divisions of warships proceeding to new stations relative to Dauntless. Geary waited until the fleet had formed into five rectangles, the broad sides facing in the directions of the fleet’s movement, the largest rectangle in the center, the four smaller rectangles only a short distance off each corner of the large one. To Geary’s aggravation, two of the new battle cruisers, one of the new battleships, and several smaller combatants ended up pushing far forward of their assigned stations. “Adroit, Assert, Insistent, Dungeon, Pavise, Demicontres, Halda, Tschekan, assume your ordered stations immediately.”
Unlike at Corvus and engagements soon after that, the bulk of the fleet held formation firmly, acting as a powerful example reinforcing Geary’s commands. Leaving only one eye to watch the errant warships, Geary put most of his attention on the movements of the fleet and the oncoming mass of FACs, which seemed to fill space ahead of the fleet. “All units in the Alliance fleet, brake velocity to point zero eight light speed at time zero nine, then brake to point zero four at time one two, then accelerate to point zero six light speed at time one five.”
“None of our ships can actually change velocity that fast,” Desjani noted.
“I know. But this will keep their velocity changing so much just prior to contact that the FACs’ targeting systems will be screwed up trying to estimate the time to fire their hell lances and grapeshot. I wouldn’t try it against other major warships because our formations are going to get disrupted by that many velocity changes on top of each other, but against the FACs, this tactic is supposed to work.” At least, that was what the official guidance against SRACs had said a century ago.
One more command to pass. “All units in the Alliance fleet, turn up zero three five degrees at time two four.” That would bring the fleet through the mob of FACs, then turn it upward to pass well above the merchant shipping.
“We’ll miss the merchants,” Desjani complained, then she gave him a knowing glance. “They’re too attractive. Too easy a target. They’re not trying to run even though they’ve finished launching the small craft.”
“Right. Are they just easy targets, or are they bait?” Geary shook his head. “I don’t trust anything about those merchant ships.”
The fleet began its braking maneuver, thrusters pushing the bows of the warships up and over so that their main propulsion units faced forward, followed by the propulsion units kicking in to slow the ships as fast as momentum, the power of the propulsion units, and the ships’ inertial dampers would allow. After the two braking maneuvers, and just prior to contact with the FACs, the warships would pivot again to reaccelerate, swinging their bows forward once more to meet the Syndic attack with their heaviest armor and firepower.
“Still coming straight at us,” Desjani commented.
Something about her casual, confident tone worried Geary. He tapped his controls again. “All units in the Alliance fleet, these FACs have only one punch, but that can be a powerful punch. Don’t underestimate them until they’ve been killed. All units conduct on-station evasive maneuvers immediately prior to contact with the FACs.” On-station told his ships not to veer too far from their assigned positions but allowed them to make the small changes in vectors that could further throw off attempts by the enemy fire-control systems to predict their future positions well enough to score hits during the fraction-of-a-second-long engagement envelopes.
More alerts sounded as the first FACs began firing missiles. Only one missile per FAC, and only perhaps half of the FACs carrying missiles, but that added up quickly when there were that many small craft coming at the fleet. “All ships, weapons free. Engage the missiles, then the fast attack craft.”
At short range, with the opposing forces closing swiftly, there wasn’t time for the enemy missiles to engage in their own evasive actions. Hell lances blazed from the Alliance warships, filling space with directed high-energy particle beams, which at close range punched through armor as if it were paper. Syndic missiles exploded prematurely or came apart under the hail of fire, then the surviving missiles began running into patterns of grapeshot. The clusters of metal ball bearings tore into oncoming missiles, each metal ball that struck a target vaporizing from the force of the impact. Struck by the shotgun blasts of massed grapeshot batteries, the remainder of the enemy missiles were blown apart as the Alliance fleet rushed into contact with the fast attack craft.
The sheer numbers of the attack craft could have made up for their frail defenses and limited armament, concentrating their individually weak firepower to hit larger ships again and again, but not under these conditions, not when facing a fleet of larger warships in formations in which the already greatly superior firepower of the warships overlapped and reinforced each other. FACs were supposed to engage small numbers of isolated warships, ideally one or two. Given the right conditions, near a planet or other base where the small craft could linger stealthily and silently while awaiting the approach of the enemy, enough FACs could even take down a battleship operating on its own, though probably while suffering serious losses as well.