She seemed to ponder the question before answering. “Half and half. It’s a nice star system from a military perspective, Admiral. Very nice.”
“Maybe we can work out an agreement with the Syndics here, assuming they’re still Syndics once the Syndicate Worlds finishes falling apart.” He bent back to his display, thinking. “We have to go in carefully, approaching in such a way that it seems we’re still being tricked by the alien worms, then shift at the last moment and hit some of their real ships.”
Desjani nodded. “Lieutenant Yuon, can you superimpose the fleet sensor picture over the picture from Dauntless’s own sensor analysis?”
“Show both at once, Captain?”
“Yes, but keep them isolated from each other.”
“The net isn’t set up to do that, just the opposite in fact in terms of integrating data from all sources, but it can be done, ma’am. It’ll take a little work, though.”
“How long?”
“Five minutes, Captain.”
“Do it.” Desjani smiled at Geary. “The rest of the fleet’s ships have systems clouded by the alien worms. We can use them to get a picture of what the aliens think we’re seeing.”
He nodded. “Yes, but we can’t leave most of our ships with those worms active. The worms will mess up the targeting systems, too. We’ll need to have the majority of the fleet’s ships sanitize their systems and leave just a few to provide the distorted view.”
“The auxiliaries? They don’t have much armament, anyway.”
“That seems like a nasty trick to play on the engineers, but that’s a good idea. None of the alien ships should get close to the auxiliaries, so they’ll be safe even with the worms clouding their sensors. Let’s set it up.”
The tactical problem had changed. Instead of avoiding the mass of alien ships, he had to aim to hit them hard on the first pass, before the aliens realized that their worms were no longer distorting the sensor and combat systems on the Alliance warships.
“We finally got some information from the Syndics,” Desjani informed Geary. “There’s not much there.”
He checked the transmission, finding that Boyens’s use of the word “fragmentary” to describe the surviving records from destroyed Syndic ships was, if anything, optimistic. The aliens had apparently taken pains to pound such ships into scrap. But Geary studied what was there. “Tanya, while I’m working on the engagement plan, I want you to analyze these yourself and run them past the combat-systems people. My impression from the records is that the alien weapons are not as superior to ours as their propulsion systems seem to be. I’d like to know whether you agree.”
“We’re on it, Admiral.”
He focused back on planning, surfacing only long enough to hear Desjani report that she and everyone she’d consulted had the same impression of the alien weapons.
“Maybe more range, maybe more power, maybe not. Basically particle beams, lasers, and kinetic projectiles.”
Alien they might be in thought and form, but the enigma race was bound by the same fundamental rules of how the universe worked. Certain weapons made sense given certain levels of technology. Maybe the aliens also had null-field weapons, but that didn’t seem likely since null fields could have been used to totally destroy all traces of knocked-out Syndic ships.
Finally happy with his plans for the engagement, Geary sat back with a heavy exhale of air. “How far off are they?”
“Seventeen light-minutes,” Desjani answered.
“That close?”
“I would have interrupted you to tell you when they reached fifteen light-minutes.”
“Thanks. I want the aliens to think they know what we’re going to do, so we’re going into our combat formations early. Take a look at my plan before I send it.”
She spent several minutes doing that, then nodded. “You’re pretending to be aiming at the actually nonexistent top formations of alien ships. How do you know the second layer of alien formations will turn up like this?”
“If their weapons aren’t too much superior to ours, they’ll have to. They’ll be assuming we’re going to strike at the fake ships in the top layer, so they’ll want those fake ships to stay within range of our weapons so we waste our shots. But they also want their second-layer ships to be close enough to us to hit us as we pass. That should require them to maneuver like I’m estimating.”
“That’s a lot of assumptions,” Desjani cautioned.
“I know, but I’m basing them on what we know.”
She grinned. “They certainly won’t expect us to maneuver the way you’re planning on. It would be pure suicide if all of those alien ships were real. They’re going to be making a lot of assumptions, too. I think it’s good. It looks like a plausible approach if every alien ship were real. And they don’t have experience with you, so they won’t know how atypical it is for you to set up your combat formation this early.”
“Good.” He hesitated just a moment, knowing how much was riding on his assumptions. There was no way to fight this battle without facing risks, though. “All units in the Alliance fleet, this is Admiral Geary. Maneuvering orders are being sent to you now. Execute Formation Merit at time four zero. Geary out.”
At time four zero the Alliance fleet split, forming into four flattened discs with the thin edges facing the oncoming aliens. Three of the discs were even with each other, side by side in a line facing the enemy, and each of those held about one-third of the Alliance fleet, eight battleships and seven battle cruisers in the subformations to either side of the main body, while the main body contained nine battleships and six battle cruisers. That had required splitting up the three Adroit-class battle cruisers in the Fifth Division, but Geary had decided that it made more sense to pair the Adroits with formations of bigger, more capable battle cruisers rather than keep them in their own division. The heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers were distributed roughly equally among the three subformations, their own positions bolstering the protection of the more badly damaged but combat-capable Alliance warships in the fighting formations.
Above the three fighting formations and hopefully out of direct danger, a much smaller disc held the five auxiliaries, the battle cruiser Agile, and the other warships too badly damaged to be in the front line of battle.
Geary waited until the subformations had settled out, then adjusted the fleet’s course slightly to aim the three fighting subformations directly at the three imaginary alien formations on top of their armada. As Desjani had said, it looked plausible, since each Alliance subformation roughly matched the size of the alien subformation it was aimed at, as if the Alliance fleet were trying to engage only a portion of the aliens at a time to negate the apparent huge alien advantage.
He could tell that Costa was burning to ask what he was doing, but Sakai remained impassive, offering no support for that, and Rione had a look of calm confidence that implied that she knew what was happening.
“The enemy is five light-minutes distant. Estimated time to contact is approximately twenty-five minutes.”
Sakai shook his head. “The Alliance’s first encounter with an intelligent, nonhuman race, and we must refer to them as the enemy.”
“It’s not by our choice,” Rione reminded him. “But if Admiral Geary chooses to offer the aliens one last chance to veer off and avoid battle …”
Desjani flicked a sour look back at the politicians, but Geary shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt to say it again.” He tapped the broadcast control again. “To the armada of nonhuman ships proceeding through this star system. You will not be allowed to pass this fleet without a fight, you will not be allowed to attack humans or human property within this star system, you will not be allowed to seize control of this star system. Veer off now and return to the vicinity of the jump point from which you arrived if you wish to avoid senseless loss of life. To the honor of our ancestors. Geary out.”